Homeschool Reading Corner

I posted a few days ago (OK, I admit, more like a few weeks ago) about some reorganising going on here. Well, it's still going on, and most of it is too messy to post pictures yet, but some bits are finally emerging in working order. The main reorganisation is in the living room, but it's spilling over into DD's play/school room as well. Given that we're starting the new school year here, I figured an overhaul was in order. We did a big clean up/organise a few months ago, but in typical me fashion, I've decided to change it all around to break the room up into 'corners' (those who've been in a preschool room will probably recognise the tactic), each with a different purpose. This is the new 'Reading Corner', complete with books, and some comfy cushions to rest on while reading.

There will be more cushions, but it's time consuming to make them since I can't do anything in a simple fashion. I could have just sewn two squares of material together, and all four would be done, but no, I had to get fancy. I do think they look rather nice though, and DD loves them. She carries them around the house wherever she goes. Lucky I'm making more...

Still around...

Yes, I've been quiet. DH has had a week off, and we've been busy doing some reorganising around here. It's not quite ready to display to the world yet, but expect some reorganising posts in a few days...

New Routines

Well, after feeling inspired by my own post last night, we got out this morning and tackled about half the mowing (with FIL's help), planted out those three trees that desperately needed it (another Valencia orange, navel orange, and pink lady apple to add to my collection), and cleaned out the chook run. Unfortunately the mites are back again, just when we thought we had them beat. Have to be more vigilant this time. I also bought a few kg's of apricots at the markets this morning for $3.50 a kilo, and they're drying in the dehydrator as we speak.

While all these things are good to get done, we're also busy working on making sure our lives are more organised to achieve things on a regular basis, not just in fits and starts like so often happens. I've been a fan of Flylady's methods since I first discovered her website several years ago, and have gone through stages of 'Flying' with her on and off. I don't have time right now for the e-mail lists, but I do think that her methods can, and have, worked well for our family. So yesterday I wrote up a new morning and evening routine. I've had routines for quite a while, but unfortunately they grew so much that I was too daunted to start them! And routines can't really help you if you don't do them! So DH and I wrote up some new ones together, limiting ourselves to three things in the morning, and three things in the evening. We could, of course, have put down many more things, but really wanted to stick to the essentials, and not overwhelm ourselves.

Morning Routine:

• Unload Dishwasher
• Make Beds
• 5 minute hotspot* rescue

*hotspots are those places where clutter builds up, in our case the computer table, the kitchen bench, around the TV etc.

Evening Routine:

• Load Dishwasher
• Take out Compost
• 5 minute room rescue on Lounge room

I'm pleased to report that even after only doing these routines for 2 days, we can see the difference. You might think that doing three such small things would be a drop in the ocean, but it's surprising how much of a difference it makes. No doubt in time we'll add to these routines, but for now we're just going to practice these until they're automatic.

Gearing up for November

Things could be fairly quite around here for the next month, as most of my writing energy goes towards making my 50,000 word goal as part of NaNoWriMo.



I've made this goal for the last two years, but at that time I wasn't trying to garden or make all these things at the same time. But I will give it a go again regardless.

DH and I have also set ourselves a challenge for this month, we're not going to buy anything other than food and medications for the month. Any money saved will go towards our credit card debt (which was run up with building expenses).

This is more than just a money saving challenge though. Over the last 18 or so months, since we first packed up our unit ready to move, we've lived out of boxes, many of which are still not unpacked, meaning much of the stuff we have either DD has grown out of, or we just plain don't need. We are all feeling a little overwhelmed by the sheer volume of STUFF in our house (not to mention still in the garage!), and until it is under control, we don't want to bring anything more into the house. So this isn't just about money and spending, it's about not bringing anything new into the house full stop. Not from any source.

And as if that wasn't enough for one month, we're going to try to get rid of existing clutter. I'm hoping we can get at least 100 items OUT OF THE HOUSE (or shed). That's a little over 3 items a day. Think we can do it? I reckon we can.

So expect a lot of posts about how we've resisted bringing new things into the house (and hopefully found some creative and innovative solutions to anything that we are lacking), and updates on how many items we've gotten rid of. And, of course, some updates on my word count.

Rainy Day Fun

After watching the skies for any sign of moisture for the last few weeks (and seeing lots of grey, overcast days, but no rain), we woke up this morning to showers, which have settled into a nice steady rain throughout the day, which is doing a good job of filling our tanks, as you can see. Just in time too, because our automatic water switch pump switched us to mains water just yesterday. Of course, I went straight out and changed the level of the sensor so that we were still running on tank water. There were still 3 rungs of water left, which on our tank is around 2500L. That would have lasted us a few more weeks probably, although thankfully now we won't have to test that theory.

While it was filling our tanks, it was also backing up around the lower part of the house at the back. This is the view from the back door. Even the stepping stones were under water! Seems like we might have to do something about this area sooner rather than later.

It wasn't just our area that was flooded though, this was the roadside drain out our front gate. And it wasn't even raining that heavily! I think the problem is that when they dug under the road to connect our mains water, they didn't go deeply enough through this area, and it creates a bit of a blockage in the drain. It goes down just as quickly as it comes up though, and has never so far actually gone across our driveway.

DD didn't seem to mind though and was asking me all day "Can I go out and play in the rain?" I finally let her right before bath time, and she had a ball.

Luckily we had plenty to keep us occupied other than splashing in puddles all day. Last night we made the pilgrimage down to Ikea. I say pilgrimage because it is about 90 minutes each way, although we did break it up with a visit to my sister to ohh and ahh over her baby again. What was I talking about again? Oh yes, Ikea. Long trip. But well worth it. The very cobbled together picture above is DD's playroom. Lots of space, but very little storage space, so usually everything ends up all over the floor in very short order. We planned to do something about it. So after spending about $300 at Ikea, we piled our purchases into the car (I love having a hatchback!), and came home.

DD and I spent the morning putting together her new shelves and table. And of course, a fair bit of cleaning and sorting, with a little bit of shoving into boxes to sort tomorrow thrown in. Looks much better doesn't it? In fact, it almost looks like a room in someone else's house!

This is the area near the window, with a little table (that was actually a coffee table, but is exactly the size I wanted for her) for drawing and eventually schoolwork. The curtains are recycled from an old doona cover that I bought at a garage sale.

And, inspired by Playschool, DD drew these giant dinosaurs on the leftover Ikea packaging. The one on the left is an apatosaurus, and the one on the right is a tyrannosaurus. But he's a friendly tyrannosaurus, that's why he has a smile. It's hard to see unless you click on the picture to get the larger pic, but he actually has little hands complete with claws.

And as if that wasn't enough to do for one day, I got inspired to try dyeing some wool with food colouring. I had about 10 balls of cream wool that I posted about here. Cream is not my favourite colour, not to mention not being practical with a 4yo in the house, and it was really cheap, so I figured I'd give it a go. After searching around the web, I found some instructions here, and got to it. It was pretty simple really. Soak the wool in half vinegar half water for half an hour, dip it in diluted food colouring, then steam for 45 minutes.

Inspired by DD's beautiful rainbow puzzles, I did some in rainbow colours, and am really impressed with how the colours turned out. I think I'm going to use these to crochet a throw for DD's playroom.

Then I got a little creative, and tried some variegated colours. Very citrusy colours, I'm really enjoying these colours lately. Not sure what I'll use these for yet, but I'm sure I'll come up with something.

So that was my day. (And I'm really tired, which is why this last bit of the post is so dull and why I'm waffling so much.) Much better than a rainy day was in the shed, where we all felt wet and closed in. It's amazing how much more room there is in the house, and how much lighter everything feels, even when it's all wet outside.

Homeschooling Resources - Puzzles

Since the early days of planning to homeschool, I've put a lot of effort into collecting resources that will enhance DD's experience and learning. We started with puzzles very early on, somewhere between 6 and 12 months (my memory is a little fuzzy at this point), and DD was soon whizzing around doing the simple wooden peg puzzles with ease. These have now been packed away for my niece who is due to arrive within the next month.

Finding more complex puzzles was a bit of a challenge though. They jumped from simple single piece puzzles to ones that were far too complex for a toddler. But persistence paid off, and here and there we found some real gems. My mum found this bear dressing puzzle, with lots of different costumes for the bear family.

These shape puzzles I found for a couple of dollars each at a bargain store. They are surprisingly complicated, and offer a lot of opportunities for developing an understanding of fractions.

These shaped multi piece puzzles we bought at Judius, an educational store that supplies many schools and educational resources (along with some great musical supplies, which I'll detail in another post when I find the box they're all packed in). She loves these dinosaurs. The bird and dolphin aren't quite as popular, but still get done on occasion.

However, my all time favourite are these ones that I bought at Dragonfly Toys last week. To start with, they are simply beautiful to look at. I could stare at them all day, couldn't you?

But more than that, these puzzles offer real opportunities for developing creativity. Unlike other puzzles, there is no right way to put these together. Yes, they come in an original configuration, but the possibilities of these puzzles are limited only by your imagination. They each come with pictures showing some possible combinations, and DD quickly tried out some of these, following the pictures surprisingly easily.

She then quickly moved on to coming up with her own patterns. There is so much to learn in what appears to be a simple rainbow puzzle. The colours of the spectrum, size differences, visual discrimination, manipulation skills, and probably half a dozen other things that I'm not even aware of.

Even I was inspired to try my hand at some different patterns. I think that's the sign of a really great toy, that it's simple enough to inspire children, and even the adults want to have a turn playing with it. We played with these puzzles for nearly an hour when they arrived in the post. The other two puzzles are a little more complicated, and while DD has enjoyed pulling them apart and putting the pieces back in random colours, she probably still has a little way to go before she's ready to start experimenting with colours and patterns. No doubt we'll have a lot of fun with them over the next year though.

With so many puzzles, it's a challenge to keep them organised. Our order to Judius included this puzzle rack, which works really well for the flat A4 sized puzzles, which we still have plenty of. In this stack are some letter and number puzzles, a map of Australia, and some other multi-piece puzzles.

That still left a lot of puzzles with lots of pieces, but no boards. Originally we stored these in plastic cliplock bags, but aside from my dislike of plastic, these would quickly get crumpled and dirty. I wanted some sort of reusable storage for these puzzles. My first thought was drawstring bags, but the fact that you couldn't see what was inside was a definite drawback to that idea. So I decided to make them out of netting. DD loves these, and loves putting the puzzle pieces into them (very helpful when it comes to the tidying up part of the day), and it's very easy to see what is inside of each one. Unfortunately, the netting doesn't appear to be very strong, and a few of the bags have ripped already. I plan to line them with a second piece of (hopefully) stronger material from our mosquito nets, which should remedy this. I'll probably make a few extra bags too, since I think there are a few more puzzles that could benefit from ending up in bags.

Bargains!

As usual for a Sunday morning, we headed off to the markets this morning as soon as we were awake. Didn't get much in the way of fruit and veg, as we still had plenty from last week, but in our wanderings, I spotted this wool at the back of a table. 10 balls of 100% wool, for $1 a ball! It's rather rough, so I doubt I will use it for clothes, probably it will become a lap rug or a floor mat.

The real bargain however was hidden half under the wool. A little plastic bag with these patterns in. I only saw the top one, and asked how much they were, and she said $1 for the lot! When I snapped them up, she said apologetically that they were very old! I wasn't game to tell her that these go for $5+ each on eBay!

I love looking through these. The kids clothes are so cute! A testament to the days when children were dressed like children, rather than miniature adults. Nonetheless, if you update the materials used, many of these wouldn't be out of place on today's child. Other's, of course, would certainly stand out! The patterns are simple, all drawn out from measurements rather than provided full size, and look easy to follow. I'm definitely looking forward to trying some of these for DD.

I love these adult women's clothes too! I just wish they were still in fashion! Sometimes, I think I was born in the wrong era. There are still plenty of these that could be modernised though, especially some of the teen fashions.

I'm still inspired to be crafty, but unfortunately the energy to do so isn't there. Still working hard on getting the house and garage organised. Bought down half the remaining food in the kitchen cupboard in the shed today, as well as washing two loads of materials (that the mice decided to make a bed in!), and bringing the washing machine down. That was quite a challenge with the bumpy ground, with it sliding off the trolley half way there! It still works fine though.

So instead of actually making anything, I've comforted myself with beginning to arrange my sewing room. I'm lucky enough to have an entire room for my sewing now (I'm sure my mum won't mind sleeping surrounded by crafty stuff when she comes to visit!), but even so I suspect that there isn't going to be room. We moved these two bookshelves into the built in wardrobe yesterday, and I've folded the first lot of material today. There are about two to three more loads like this, then several more boxes of material that has been sitting in the garden shed waiting for this time. I see these cupboards easily being filled with material, probably with some left over.

This leaves plenty of other items with no home so far. I've decided to dedicate this set of wire draws to the wool and knitting/crochet supplies. Again I suspect it will easily be filled. I did discover that this kitchen cutlery organiser makes a great storage for my knitting needles and crochet hooks though. Except that it could do with being an inch or two longer...

Still to find a home for my ribbons, laces and other bits and pieces, but no doubt I will find somewhere. Oh I can't wait till it is all set up, and my brain has room to actually begin on all the projects in my head (and saved on my computer).