God is My Lighthouse {Virtual Fridge}

This Week

God is my Lighthouse

God is my Lighthouse with blacklight

In May this year we had the wonderful opportunity to use and review a marvelous product by See The Light called Shipwrecked.  Sir N really enjoyed drawing and painting this.

Featured This Week

This weeks feature is from The Deliberate Mom Paul Klee Inspired "Rainbow Squares". 

Your Turn

I invite you to take some photo's of your children's artistic pursuits put them in a post and link up with me I would love to come over and see the wonderful art your children have enjoyed doing.

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Blessings
Chareen

The Virtual Fridge a weekly art meme where we can hang our children's art on a virtual fridge. This meme was started by Jennifer over at A Glimpse of our Life who kindly invited three other bloggers to co-host this weekly meme.

Your hosts are

From School to Homeschool

This weeks topic is: Your Top 3 Suggestions for Someone who Pulled Child out of School Mid Year.  Earlier this year I worked with two students (aged eight and ten) who came home to home educated for a couple of months.  This was an interesting experience.  In New Zealand our home school support group leader often would counsel mom's to simply leave the academics on the shelf for the first few months and settle into being at home full time.  I now know why. It was a lot more tricky than I anticipated.  School method was the norm and made sitting and learning together a challenge. Doing written work was done with the attitude to tick the box get it right and move on rather than learn. From this I learned the value of taking time to Detox from School

When bringing a student home from public school to the home school environment it is a time of transition.  They are accustomed to doing things in a classroom setting and learning in order to pass a test.  Home Education does not function in this manner and as such can be a challenge and or a frustration for a public school child to adjust too.  There are so many factors that change in their world. There are many things that they will be learning and the first of these things are new relationships and learning to acquire knowledge.

Benefits of time off

• Take time to Detox from School
• Build new routines. Take time to work together on running the home and learning to slow down from the hurry from here to there. Learn to live outside of the 'school run' rhythm. Your children need to find a healthy pace and you need to discover what the best is for them.
• Get to know your student.  While you think you know them and they think they know you, you will only begin to know each other after the honeymoon period ends. Spend time cooking, cleaning and playing educational games together.  Find what clicks for your child.  Through simple acts of shopping (adding up what's in the trolley) paying for groceries etc you will quickly learn where your student is performing mathematically. Going to a few museums will soon enlighten you on what they do or do not know. Read a few books and gain a feel for where their personal learning curve is.
• Character Counts.  While at school our children are not always in the presence of someone in authority who has the same values that you do in your home.  It will take a while to reestablish good healthy habits and strong positive character.  Only by spending time with your child will you find out what they need help with.  Is it being kind ? Obedient ? Gentle ? Generous ? 
• Have fun together :)

 Things to do before coming home

• Find out about the laws in your country and fill out the correct paper work (Read Here for Australian requirements)
• Find a mentor who will support and encourage you
• Get a few books and educate yourself (here are my top 5)
• Don't buy the first curriculum you find! Take some time to become acquainted with some of the methods and curriculum out there.  Remember Curriculum is your SERVANT not your master.

 On the Web

• Homeschooling Tips: Transitioning from Public School to Homeschool 
• Quick Start Guide to Homeschooling 
•  Ten Tips from Homeschooling Moms of Four or More
• Tips on Transitioning into Homeschooling
• Surviving the First Year of Homeschooling after Leaving Public School

I have never had a student in the public system and only helped home educate two young friends for a limited time.  Please take some time to read what my friends have to share

Blessings
Chareen
This post is part of the Homeschool Help series brought to you by a group of home school Mom's from around the globe.  Do not forget to visit and read their inspirational insight.

This week

• Bernadette   Switching Mid-Stream
• Julie  Finding Resources
• Savannah shares ....
• Lucinda  3 Things You Must Do if You’ve Just Pulled Your Child Out of School 
• Nicole  Transitioning to Homeschooling

 ---ooOoo--

Compost in a Bottle {Science Experiment}

With Fall  on it's way for my friends in the northern hemisphere and spring down here I thought I would share this easy experiment any one can do any time of the year. Earlier this year Sir N and I spent a delightful day out at Barwon Waste Management Education Centre where we helped in an experiment called Compost in a Bottle.  This is a wonderful experiment you can do at home and watch over the year to see what happens.

You will Need

1. Strips of news paper
2. Blood & Bone (garden fertilizer)
3. Bread
4. Grated Carrot
5. Grated Potato
6. Soil
7. Two or Three 2.25 Lt cold drink bottles (we used Coke bottles)

Method

• Clean the plastic bottles well. Cut the bottle around the top leaving a small part to act as a hinge.

• You will need fruit, vegetables, soil, paper and fertilizer.  In order to make all the bottles identical I chose to grate carrots and vegetables and use a cup measure when placing into the bottles.
• Follow the recipe (a picture recipe)
• Layer soil, vegetables, fertilizer (only a tablespoon per layer) and paper. Each bottle needs to be identical.
• Spray each layer with a little bit of water.  Do NOT soak.  Only a fine mist spray.
• The original experiment required two identical bottles. We made a third bottle without fertilizer because we wanted to know how well compost worms work in comparison to fertilizer in a compost bin.
• When the bottles are full tape them shut.
• Mark the side of the bottle with a permanent pen showing the different layers.
• Place one bottle on the windowsill, and one in a dark cupboard.  We placed the one with the worms in the dark cupboard as well.

Seven Months Later ...

Left - Windowsill bottle
Middle - Dark Cupboard with worms
Right - Dark Cupboard.

What experiments have you done with your families recently ?
Blessings
Chareen

This post is part of the Schoolhouse Review Crew Fall into Nature Blog Cruise. (Goes up on Tuesday 22 October)