It's June and this is the weekend edition.

I changed my calendar over today and thought I'd share. Here is L featuring as Mr. June 2012!

I personalised calendars for the first time last Christmas, using Albumworks, and was more than thrilled with how they turned out. I'll definitely be making more in the future.  Cute, huh?

And this is what I've been reading, watching  & listening to this weekend...

:: Beauty that Moves is one of my favourite blogs. Dreamy beautiful and thoughtful. I particularly love her ideas regarding the art of conversation. I look forward to being there.

"Our homeschool these days is very much about conversation. As we fully enter the scholar years for Emily, I am concerned less and less with test scores and textbooks (I was never too concerned with them, but we do use some curriculum that calls for both of these things). What I really care about is, "Can she talk about this subject?  Is she well enough versed in this particular author or political act or scientific discovery to be able to have a conversation about it, could she teach it back to me?" 

Isn't that what the pursuit of knowledge is all about?"

:: FIMBY celebrating the arrival of 13. And considering the dance that is in their imminent future. 

We are still a long way off 13 around here but the inevitable discussions about our boy's high-school education often lead me to considering it. And Renee's take is food for thought...

"In our home, we're calling these the young adult years. So, you won't see me referring to my kids as teenagers. A semantic quibble? Maybe. But I believe that what you name things matters."

::  Spending hours reading through the adventures of Penelope Trunk. Always entertaining! 

::  Tracey asks "Do you need to get out more?" over at MFP.

It's always a challenge balancing the family energy isn't it. We do loads of outside activities here. Sometimes it feels overwhelming but I do believe that it's really important for the children. And, ummm, essential for me ;) Currently I have the boys in separate Scout troops, a drama and performance class, swimming lessons, a fortnightly art class and weekly Soccer (one training-afternoon and match-day). That's activities 6 days a week. And it means we aren't doing music which I really want to squeeze in somewhere! We also had a french tutor coming last term but I'm yet to work out where she fits into our current schedule. What activities are your kids signed up to?

:: Taking this Myer-Briggs personality test. Weirdly spot on.

:: Listening to the very beautiful music of Ethiopian pianist Samuel Yirga and Maori singer/songwriter Maisy Rika - two brilliant new music suggestions from friends.

:: Watching this because my son thought it was hilarious :) Jack-Jack Attack.

:: And finally, did you know that you can now stream talks from the Ted app? Very cool.

L has booby-trapped the house. And himself. Lol.

H in Lego world. 

Leaving you with a few scenes from this lazy Sunday... What are you up to? 

Mama Maintenance Mornings

We celebrated our 22nd (dating) anniversary last night :)

We saw a film ("The Way", directed by Emilio Estevez, I really enjoyed it) and ate out together sans les enfants. Our boys spent the night with their grandparents and this morning T slipped off nice and early to collect them... for dad-school! 

So, I love my kids, right. I purposefully choose to spend almost everyday with them. But, don't imagine for a minute that I no-likey Mama Time!

I ate breakfast in.front.of.morning.tv. (not a regular part of life here!) in the robe that my own sweet mama gave me yesterday and then jumped in the shower and washed my hair (cheap-thrills-for mama's ;) before realising that this morning was my opportunity to do some Mama Maintenance !! 

So my shower turned to bath while I scoured the cupboard for razor, brown sugar scrub, face mask and hairtreatment. Ooo! 

I am a girly-girl. I like pretty. 

It's funny that I ended up with a family of boys because I reckon I would have been awesome at accessorising party dresses, lavishing polka dots, seizing sparkles and, yes, painting ickle toenails. But I don't have any takers here... So I did my own. Fairy-floss pink.

T doesn't *cough* know our new plan yet. Lol. 

But I think dad-school / Mama Maintenance Morning needs to be a regular thing around here. He would love to (and has self-designated sport & writing as his core subjects) but he is pretty focused on work - as is necessary in a 1-income family. Hmmm... but, maybe, once a month? 

Which makes me wonder - how do you find time for yourself? And what is your favourite type of Mama Maintenance? 

A. x

Homeschooling In Isolation... The Need for Community

Hello World.
I have been missing you.

It is so ironic that now that we officially homeschool I feel like I have lost my connections with many of the inspirations that led me to this path.

I guess I've been busy!
I didn't expect to actually have both boys home this year. H joining us was a surprise blessing, but one that left me scrambling for quite a while. Lol.

So I took my eyes off the world of blogs and shiny homeschooling fascinations. I focused in on school, our family, our friends. It was nice and it felt necessary.

But then...
I started to feel alone.
I started to feel isolated.

I started to wonder WHY on earth I was doing this crazy thing called Homeschool. WHY was I making my life a million times more complicated than it needed to be?? WHY had I chosen something that needs to be explained to every person I meet? ... and what if... I feel like I don't have the answers, if I feel like I can't actually justify this choice anymore. Oh No!

I had lost my direction. My focus.
I had isolated myself from the very community that had been my muse.
I felt lost.

Now,  I didn't actually recognise these things for myself. It was my husband who could see what was missing. And he was right.

There are a million ways to live. A squillion ways to educate your children. It's a smorgasbord and I am definitely eclectic in my choices. But now I can see that even though I get to make all of these particular choices for my family I can't do it all alone. I need to talk, to read, to laugh & to share. I need connection to people. People who are passionate about education & life; teachers, inventors, makers, doers. Mothers, fathers and kids. It's not just about homeschoolers, it's about people who share the juice of inspiration. 

So, here I am! Back in the World Of Blog! 

I need to be here. I need to connect. I need you :) 

I hope you are happy to have me back. Please say hello and send me to your blogs. I want to get to know you all over again!

Amber. x

* I need to add a small postscript, because I haven't mentioned my fab IRL homeschool family friends over at Mansted Family Project who are my constant support and inspiration and fun-sharers. I wouldn't be able do this crazy without them :) 

Adventures of a Rainbow Mama now has a Facebook page

We have our very own FB page up and running now! Please click {LIKE} if u wanna join our daily adventures over there! xx

Geometric solids : Montessori and more

We love our Life of Fred books around here. Credit (once again :) has to go to Tracey for all of her wisdom! To supplement, & ensure we are covering the full state syllabus for Maths, L is using the Targeting Maths workbooks. And then, when appropriate, my original love - Montessori - will also come into play.

The pages he completed from the TM book today were about 3D Shapes or as we know them in the world of Montessori - Geometric Solids.

Oooooh! We have some of them *insert excited Montessori Mama face*

So I pulled out my homemade Geometric Solids - I made them with clay & painted them to match the traditional Montessori ones - and set L to work; first matching the solids to their name cards & then collecting items from around the house to match them. He has done this work before but it's been a while.

I had to smile, at lunchtime, when he told his dad that he had been learning about Triangular Prisms :)

* On a side note, I'm pleased with the difference 2 months can make - I've been having much more success with going over the directions and then asking him to complete a page of a workbook independently than I did last year. Yay! Dishes done. Floor swept ;)

Day One

Day one was... brilliant! Awwwww - I love learning alongside of my boy.

*happy mama*

It was strange waving Hug off at the bus-stop once again but he seemed happy to be back in his routine. The house was peaceful. Very peaceful! Which was a nice contrast to the mayhem of holidays and L and I seemed to instantly flow back into the rhythm we had last year.

There is a new influence in our eclectic educational mix this year - Charlotte Mason - and I'm rather excited about my curriculum plans :) I will blog about them properly soon.

L's first official narration. It's something that has always happened naturally around here, of course, but Narration is a big element of the CM philosophy and it's going to take me a while to get used to "requiring"  it from each reading. Here L is narrating through drawing; after we read "The stories of Albion and Brutus" from Our Island Story.

You can also see T's kindle in shot! He's kindly agreed to let us use it for some of our readings.

Lovely lurves board games & Trouble is his current fave. We played lots of Trouble today :)

Collections and sketches from our nature walk. Keeping a Nature Journal  - another new part of our plans for this year.

There were spontaneous Zombie dances (totally coincidental Tracey - weird),  a return to The Life of Fred: Butterflies (We've missed you Fred) and water-play in the backyard - I'll warn you now - you had better watch out when mama gets hold of the hose!

Fun. But now it's late. I must sleep. There's a whole wide world out there to explore tomorrow. x