OUR PRAYER SCHEDULE

I am thinking of revising our prayer schedule:
At the moment we pray a family rosary at night, the little boys pray their guardian angel prayer with me before they go to bed, we pray grace before meals and we get to week-day Mass as often as we can.
This is what I would like to aim for:
Weekday Mass every day.
Angelus and spiritual communion at noon
Divine Mercy chaplet at 3pm andConsecration to immaculate and sacret hearts
Tea-time grace before meal + read about saint
Evening Rosary with prayers of intercession on index cards for us to pick 4 to pray for + a prayer for our Pope and priests(lent and advent change to Stations of the cross)
Little boys prior to sleep examination of con/guardian angel prayer+ ask intercess. of immac hearts + sacredheart

This term we will add: the angelus at noon + extend the prayers for T+L. I think if I keep this intended schedule in my mind and constantly review where we are at present we should hopefully make progress. Small steps. Make haste slowly. These are the things I need to remember.

Protein at breakfast

Thinking to try high protein breakfasts for the "youngsters" this term. Some ideas:
scrambled eggs, boiled eggs, omlettes, fryed eggs...eggs!!
yogurt plain or topped with muesli
peanut butter on my bread
mini meatloaves(cook in muffin tins)

its supposed to help attentiveness and minimize crankiness(sounds good!)

SCRAPBOOKING

I like this idea I read aqbout recently.You make this two page spread per month. On the left-hand side you calendar family activities,

trips, even day to day things

like weather, interesting conversations, saints we are reading about etc and the right-hand side is for photos.Maybe with captions. All these good ideas, trouble is I want to do all of them!!

More on Noticeboards

Ds,5 in May is learning to read. He is using the Peter and Jane series and loving them(note of importance: Peter and Jane are real people mum aren't they!)I like them too, the stories are relevant to him(they like water, playing with balls, climb trees and have a dog and a rabbit!!)

but how to reinforce sight vocab in a fun way. Enter noticeboard no.2!

 I am focusing on a theme per month. This month it is the beach. As I'm not much of an artist I copied/enlarged or minimized pictures from colouring pages. I painted a sea background and attached yellow paper as sand.

Once I had some pictures coloured and glued in place I made some sentences and attached these. Some examples for this board are:
"Thank you for the sweets,mum" said Jane.
The children are in the water.
The girl has the big red ball.
See me jump into the water.

We will read a sentence or two each day. Next I will give him a copy of one of the sentences and have him find it on the board.I will have him spot specific words in different places on the board. I will have him dictate additional sentences for the board and draw and colour additional pictures to add to it.Because he will be reading Ponder and William on Holiday, and because it is summer here I thought the beach theme a good starting point.I see this board as one that can develop with him and reinforce the skills he needs practicing with at different stages

I like noticeboards. we have a few in our house! Above the dining table is our "liturgy board". At the top of this one is our liturgical wheel; a large contacted affair made by dd14 as part of her studies in faith last year. Beneath the wheel the posts are changed monthly. In keeping with the season each post is backed with that seasons colour. So for the next few weeks they will be backed with green. the post in the middle beneath the wheel lists the devotional focus for that particular month eg February is the month of the Holy Family with a suitable art print attached. Then I choose 4-5 saints for us to focus/learn about that month. I like to find a few more obscure ones as well as the more well known. For February we will read about St Brigid, St Gilbert of Sempingham, St Paul Miki, St Modomnoc, and St Bernadette. Also we will not necessarily be reading on each saints specific feast day.I used to try and do this and get thoroughly stressed out and feel we had forever missed an opportunity if as often happened other things came up. around the post of the month are pictures of each saint with a thought or prayer from some of them but otherwise just their name century they lived in and feast day.Below the saints is a card with a prayer we are learning that month and beside this a little information on the liturgical season and its focus.

By way of introduction

Have you ever noticed how often words spoken become a reality? So in our annual family newsletter i casually mentioned that there was a possibility for the man of the family to work at
Groote Eylandt.Just a little geography lesson really for all our distant friends who like me until I came to live on this little continent(large island) know little more thanSydney/Melbourne/Wallabies(not the marsupial variety)! Anyway its official and he departs to the distant side of the island(the top!) in a few short days.Helpful for the weather to warm up just before he leaves thus negating the need for climatic accomodations on his arrival.

Well from the title of this blog I promised myself a journal of our homeschooling and here it begins:
we are finally ready for the beginning of school next week.Today I enrolled ds(16) in Open Access(school of the air) for 2 year 12 subjects.Unfortunately enrolement can't just be done over the phone so ds and I will toddle down to the office Monday morning to see a school councilor.Really struggle with wasting time like that in the middle of our first day of school. Guarantee the trip will result in deep depression from ds after anticipated conversation with councilor which will go something like this:

"so D what subjects do you want to take this year"
(D"s thoughts I don't want to take any of your subjects but mum says I need to take some science to get a tertiary entrance rank and as she won't teach them to me!)"Physics and Maths"
"and have you looked at our prospectus to see what topics we are offering and how they will fit in with your career objectives"
(scowl on D's face and thinks:I know what he's going to ask next)
"and by the way what are your future plans?"
(frown lines deepen)I don't know
"(embarrased silence with possibility of cough)

So why should a 16yo have to know what he wants to do with his life? I mean from a moral and ethical perspective ds could answer "well sir I have evaluated the value systems of humanism,atheism,amongst a long list of other isms and find Catholicism to be the best ideolgy to live my life by.So i intend to make my life copy that of Jesus Christ following the teachings of His church" But of course that's not the answer the councilor wants!