Faction Athletics Carnival

I was genuinely pleased with my kids' great attitudes for sports day this year. There were no tears or grumpy comments about doing events that weren't their favourite. They exhibited patience between events and good sportsmanship during and after events. Success!

Samuel doing triple jump:

Abigail doing long jump:

Abigail was Champion of the Junior Girls.

Joshua doing high jump:

Anna's first for the 100m race:

Anna was the Runner-Up in the Intermediate Girls, and broke a school record for long jump.

Dress Up Days

Our school had two dress up days in the last week. The first was a Crazy Hair and Pyjamas day. With the cold weather we've been having lately, this necessitated track pants under the pjs and dressing gowns over them:

The second dress up day was space-themed to celebrate the end of Book Week. Anna was the only one who deliberately chose to dress up as a book character, perhaps because she's the only one who has yet read any science fiction. In the last month she has read Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (equal tie for my all time favourite SciFi book with Anne McCaffrey's Killashandra) and the Ender's Shadow series that follow after. She made her own costume and went as Ender Wiggin in his flash suit, with a Dragon Army logo on her shoulder and his transfer orders in her pocket. Abigail went as a "green headed alien", which Anna and I reinterpreted as a Formic/Bugger from Ender's Game. Samuel went as Darth Vader, along with approximately one fifth of the primary school population.

Anna's First Day at (Away) School

(Monday, 9 November 2009. Abigail's First Day being Big Girl in Homeschool will be reported on Friday-ish in a Weekly Report.)
Before:
During:
"You can go home now, Daddy. I don't need you any more." ~ around 10am
(Glad I didn't go to help her through her first day, or she might have said that to me!)

After:
The bad stuff:
Very tired and grumpy afterwards.

The good stuff:
Very happy and excited and full of news about how she
sang songs
and listened to stories
and painted a picture
and was given a picture letter from another child
and played with toys
and learnt about China
and played outside
and ate mango for morning tea
and found friends to play with even when the two girls she already knew didn't want to play with her.

The best stuff:
Cuddles with my daughter afterwards
and knowing she wants to go back for another day.

Deuteronomy 33:26
There is no one like the God of the upright one,
Who rides on the heavens to help you [Anna]
and on the clouds in His Majesty.

I have an asseveration to make:

(If you don't understand what that title meant, you could read the first bit of my last post. If you care. Otherwise feel free to just read on...)

Tomorrow is Anna's first day of Pre-Primary at "Away-School".

Tomorrow is Abigail's first day of being the Big Girl of our Home School, Equip Academy.

Deep breath. Deep, deep breath.

I'm not going with Anna, Jeff is. We decided it was important that I be here as the home school teacher making Abigail's first day of Big Girl status go well and impressively (for her), whereas it won't make much difference to Anna whether it is Jeff's or my presence in the background as she settles in to classroom learning. But I know it will be hard to wait to find out how her day goes.

Mixed in with this, we also need to somehow fit in:
(1) Purchasing Anna's school hat from the uniform shop 20 min drive away ("no hat, no outside play" is a school rule) since I have somehow forgot to do that before now.
(2) Dropping Jeff's dad off at the airport and saying goodbye to him as he flies off to visit his newest grandchild, our nephew Jonathan and his parents, Jeff's brother Andrew and his wife Kim.
(3) Meeting with B, who is leading our Women's Gathering this week for the first time, learning to step in so that I will have a trained substitute leader when I need one.
(4) Collecting Joshua and Anna from school and chatting with Anna about her First Day.
(5) Getting Anna ready for Girls' Brigades and taking Joshua to Boys' Brigades, where I will go for a much-needed exercise walk with another Brigades mum.
and...
(6) Relaxing with my dear darling husband.

Feel free to pray for us and our day!

O LORD, You are my Father in Heaven, who sees all that I plan to do, promise to do, and also the few of those things that I do actually do. Please be with me tomorrow, holding me in the palm of your hand. Protect me from fear and worry. Keep me sane! Remind me that I do all things for your glory, not my own. May your will be done tomorrow, not mine. Amen.

First Day at the New School

Joshua had a "very good" first day at his new school. He asked Jeff to drop him off, which was handy as it was also the first day back at BSF for me and the other three children. I went to collect him at the end of the day.

I spoke to his teacher for a little while after the end of the day and was pleased to hear that he had a good day and settled in well. She had time to chat with me about a few organisational details as well. I was pleased that she wasn't too busy to make time for a brief chat with a parent - without an appointment for an interview!

I dropped into the school office to find out when the second hand uniform store would be open. While I was there I saw one of the women from my monthly mother's group, and found out that she has children at the school also. Not only that, but she helps with Joshua's Japanese lessons. Apparently his class had been learning to count to 10 in Japanese today... and Joshua already knew how to do it because he remembered the sequence from his Karate lessons last year! This made a positive beginning to something that might otherwise have been daunting.

As I walked back to the car park with all of the kids, I found myself welcomed into a conversation with two other mothers. It was brilliant to find out that other parents from this school are friendly and welcoming as well, and this really cemented my confidence that we have made the right decision in moving Joshua to this school that is nearer to where we live.

Thank you God for going ahead of us in the matter of Joshua's schooling. Help us to continue to make good choices about our children's education, and not to be burdened with fear of the unknown. Help us to trust in You!

Changing Schools

Today Jeff and I had an interview with the principal of a different Christian school and a tour of the facilities at their primary school. Then this afternoon I took Joshua there when I picked him up from his old school. I dropped off his enrolment form for him to begin there in term 2 (after Easter) and we met the lady who will be his teacher, and were able to have a look around his new classroom.

When we told Joshua that we were going to move him to another school, he was quite upset at the prospect of losing his friends from the old school. But I was able to remind him of how he had felt when leaving our old church, and how God had given him lots of friends at our new church. I told him the same thing would happen at the new school. We prayed about it as well, that God would help him not to be too sad. Meeting his new teacher and seeing the classroom made a huge difference in his attitude! He was very sad and downcast when we arrived at the school, but cheerful and upbeat when we left. I am so thankful that Josh was able to meet the principal and his new teacher, so that his fears were somewhat alleviated.

This school is a lot closer to our home than the school Joshua is in at the moment. Presently, we spend at least 2 hours each day between us dropping Josh off and picking him up. That's a lot of drive time! Although the new school isn't in our home suburb, it is a lot closer and also the route to it is along some less busy roads. We will save at least half an hour, probably three quarters of an hour, on travelling just by changing to this new school. Hooray! (Also, this school starts and finishes a bit earlier, so Josh will have a little more time with us in the afternoon, which is very handy.)

The school is just a primary school, not primary and secondary, and is a lot smaller than his present school. This makes me feel a bit better from my own personal preferences, and especially with a view to Anna fitting in easily and with confidence when she attends next year. So that is another advantage, although not the reason for the decision.

I am really pleased with this change, and getting more pleased the more I think about it. The only sad thing is that Joshua will only keep up his friendship with one of the boys from his present school, not all of them! He will see L each Monday at Boys' Brigade still, which is a great thing as our families have been friends since shortly after we moved here to Perth.

Perspectives on his First Day at (Away) School

At the beginning of Joshua's first day in grade 1, he was confident and pleased to be going out to school.Sitting at his desk waiting for me to leave, he was still pleased and eager.At the end of Joshua's first day of school, he was equally pleased and eager to see me come to take him home!
In Joshua's words:

"It went weller than I thought it would... We didn't even have to do any reading or writing... I did lots of colouring. And listening... School went great, Mum... [At lunchtime] I didn't play with L [a friend in another class], I played with N [the boy he sits next to]. We didn't play, we just told jokes and stuff. I didn't get to play. I spent most of the lunch time walking around, trying to find the adult to ask if I could put my lunchbox away in my bag. I just got back to the gate and the bell went... Mrs C is very kind... I like school. What you do is mostly not learning, it's mostly crafts and fun. Today was my best day ever!"

In my words:

It has been hard to give up my dream of homeschooling Joshua. Dropping him off at school wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be. But picking him up was terrible. I didn't cry, but I got really grumpy by the time he'd finished telling me about his day. And I went and bought and ate a Sn*ckers bar, which is probably evidence that if I couldn't have my way with one thing, I darn well was going to with another.

Aah, self-pity is a terrible thing. I'm so disappointed in myself that I couldn't enjoy this day as much as Joshua was, for his sake if not mine.

At least I didn't cry.

(And Anna and I did have a great day of homeschool.)

Uniform

I took Joshua and Anna to the college uniform shop today and spent $229.60 on Joshua's summer uniform and his school bag. When I got home Jeff took Joshua along with Abigail and Anna to buy school shoes and spent $179.97 on three pairs: sneakers, lace-ups and sandals (and that was apparently at 25% off). That's a grand total of $409.57. And we haven't bought his complete winter uniform yet. Or the second half of his stationery requirements.

Aaargh!

We are going to have to spend a lot less on casual clothes for each of the kids once they begin school. I guess he won't wear his casual clothes out nearly as fast, though, since he won't be wearing them all day long. And he'll wear his shoes to places other than school, of course. But it's still a shock to spend over four hundred dollars on clothes for a kid who I'm not sure can even count that high.

But he does look cute in his grey shorts and white short-sleeved shirt and way over-sized school backpack. Anna wasn't impressed with the thought that he would be going to school without her, though.

Holidays and School Days

We have just returned home from a week in Albany at the farm. Well, the kids spent a week at the farm with Granny and Gramps.

Jeff and I spent three nights there and three nights in a cozy hillside cottage with views down to the sea in the hills above Denmark. It was lovely to have so much time alone with my husband! We read books, watched the fourth series of The Office on DVD and visited a few wineries. I cooked dinner without hearing any whinging voices asking when food would be ready. And we enjoyed the luxury of a two person spa bath!

It was a great way to spend some of the last days before Jeff begins work as the Pastor of BCChurch and Joshua begins as a grade 1 student at KCCollege ("away-school"). Both of them have their introductory day on Tuesday in just less than two weeks time.

Our last night in Albany I didn't sleep very well, however. I had my first school-parent dream! Back when I was a teacher, I used to have back-to-school dreams (can't find the classroom, can't find the students, etc) and now, as a soon-to-be school parent, I am having back-to-school dreams again. This time it was about bundling Joshua into his uniform and getting him there on time. Probably stimulated by the snippet of back to school advice I saw on the morning news/chat TV program, which had actually given me a handy heads up for some things to remember (like the camera!).

I am torn between feeling relief at the thought of only having three kids to look after for most of the day and excitement for Joshua, and hatred at the school for what, in a burst of emotional irrationality, I think of as their tearing my son away from me. Hmm. I need to get a grip on my emotions before that first day. Otherwise I'll be crying more than he is! (If he does at all.)

Sibling Love and Tears

Last night, as I lay talking to Joshua before he went to sleep, I warned him that today would be his last day at BSF. Next year he will be too old for the pre-school children's program and he will be going to away-school during the days. His first response was to focus on the issue of being at school and the impact this would have on his ability to watch Play School:

"Perhaps I can talk to my teacher and tell her all about Play School and then she'll let us watch it when it's on."

"It's not very likely", I told him. "You'll be too busy doing lessons to watch TV."

Then I went to cuddle Anna and told her the same news. Tomorrow (ie, today) would be the last day of BSF classes for the year, and next year Joshua would be too old to go, but Samuel would finally be old enough, so he would be coming to BSF with us for the first time. Anna burst into tears!

"But I will miss him!" she told me through her sobs.

"But you will have your other Bible Study friends with you." I explained.

"But he comforts me and helps me to be happy," she told me.

How could I argue with that?

Then she asked, "How will I play with him, if he is at school all day?"

I explained that he would be home in time to play with her in the afternoons.

But I have to admit that I, too, am worried that he will not have enough time with us when he is busy at school all day. I hope there is adequate time for him to play with her (and Abi and Sam), as well as talk to me (and Jeff) when he is going to away-school. I guess one of the benefits of the school year beginning at the end of summer is we will still have a few weeks of Daylight Saving left to enjoy together while he gets used to the long days away from home. He will hopefully be less tired at the end of each day before winter comes and with it the shorter days.

Anna cried for ages, and would not be comforted. She was truly distraught by the idea that Joshua might not be with her at BSF and even worse, that he might not be with her to play with each and every day. In the end, it took cuddles and jokes with Dad to take her mind off things enough for her to calm down. Even then she couldn't settle and had to be put down to sleep in our bed. All of the kids fall asleep better in there, even without our presence, for some reason. And later, after we had put her into her bed, she woke up and cried again and needed more cuddles and reassurance before she finally slept deeply and could be transferred back to her own room for the last time.

I did not have any idea I would be opening this can of worms when I told Anna about the end of BSF classes for the year. It came as a surprise to Jeff as well. Neither of us realised fully, until this conversation, just how attached Anna is to Joshua. He is her best friend!

They do play together very well each afternoon. I thought a large part of it was that Joshua had already been in the habit of playing quietly during afternoon "Quiet Time" and when Anna dropped her nap, she simply took the lead from him. However, it is now obvious that it is more than that. The afternoon Quiet Time, when they have up to an hour to play quietly in the lounge together while Abigail and Samuel nap and I have "Mummy Time" (reading a book, on the computer or sometimes napping myself) has allowed them to bond into a very close friendship, closer than either of them have with their other siblings. The time they have lessons together has probably helped them to become closer as well. Hmmm.

I already knew Anna would miss Joshua when he goes to school, though. Because I will be missing him too!

In the boy's bedroom, when he heard Anna's tears, Joshua became upset as well. All of a sudden he realised that he would not be seeing his BSF friends again (without my organising a play date) and this upset him a lot. However, he was able to be comforted by taking up my suggestion to pray about it.

"God, I am very sad about not seeing my Bible Study friends again. Please look after them and help me to be able to play with them at other times. Help me to make new friends at school. Thank you. You are a great Almighty God and You do miracles. You fed and looked after the Israelites in the desert. You can look after my friends, too. Amen." And after this short prayer, he was calm.

I am glad we have taught Joshua to turn to God when he is upset, as well as talk to Him when he is happy. I am glad that when we read Bible stories to him, we talk about what we can learn from them and apply to our own lives. I am glad that we use big words like "sovereign" and "almighty" with him, and tell him what they mean, so he understands a little of the nature of God. And I am enormously grateful that my son evidently has the Holy Spirit within his heart, prompting him to rely upon his Father in heaven, who is indeed sovereign and able to look after each and every one of us.

SugarFish on home vs away schooling

Ruth from SugarFish has written this great article reflecting upon her family's reasons for choosing away-schooling over homeschooling at this time in their lives.

Ruth's kids went to the school which Joshua will be attending next year, when their family lived in Perth. Now they're all in Albany, and after a stint of homeschooling, they have their kids in a small, local Christian school at the moment.

Dreaming within my means

A few days ago I was driving through Wanneroo to visit a friend and saw this property for sale. If I had a million dollars handy, I'd love to buy it. It has a lovely back yard for the kids to play in!

But I have to be realistic. We sold our first house to finance three years of theological studies for Jeff and I cannot see us ever being able to buy another. Which is terribly sad, but by no means the end of the world.

There are other things in life about which we have to be realistic as well. Jeff and I have been reassessing our priorities and resources over the past week and we've just made a very sad (for me) decision. Next year, Joshua will be going to a local Christian private school for Year 1 instead of homeschooling.

Unless Joshua experiences a lot of difficulty fitting in socially because he hasn't been to an "away-school" before, we will still homeschool the others for the pre-compulsory years. This means I'll essentially be doing Year 1 with Anna at home next year because although she is too young physically and emotionally for five full days a week of institutional school, she's ready intellectually for the academics. She's done fine with the K5 maths along with Joshua and she'll be as good (if not better) at reading and writing as he is by the end of the year as well, I think.

There are a lot of factors in this decision, some good, some bad, some surprising. In part, I think this decision could have been avoided if I had been better organised (or rather, more disciplined in carrying out all the things I had organised to do). A big problem for Jeff is that I haven't been giving the littler kids enough attention and loving care because I have been so focused on the bigger kids' education. There are only 24 hours in a day and homeschooling has been taking more than two of them. I've been doing much of the homeschooling in the morning when the kids' brains were fresh, but this has really cut into my time with Abi and Sam. I didn't realise how much I had been relegating them to a far second place until I spoke to Jeff about it at length. As of this week, all sit down academics has been done in the afternoon after Abigail and Samuel go down for their naps, and it has helped free us up to do family things in the morning.

However, looking forward to the future, Jeff doesn't think homeschooling will be sustainable with (not too far in the future) our four kids all learning together. Part of the problem is that we have chosen to have our children so close together in age. (Not that I regret that at all, but that's another post entirely.) This means that if we were to continue homeschooling for the junior primary years, there would be a lot of individual tutoring needed, while I taught the kids to read and write well enough to do more of their work independently. There are things that all kids would do together (history read alouds, for example), but not everything could be done in this manner. The kids would always need some or all of their maths and literacy done separately, and much of it would need to be heavily supervised. I do wonder how early primary school teachers do it. I mean, they have not just four but 24 or maybe more kids who cannot read. Of course, they don't have to keep up with the laundry and cooking and cleaning and ... (fill in the blank) at the same time as they're teaching.

Another thing that Jeff and I have come to realise over the past week or so is that, because I have been able to do what I wanted with the homeschooling, I haven't been trusting God enough with regards to the spiritual welfare of our children. I have begun to forget that He loves them much more than I do and that He will equip them for the good works He has planned in advance for them to do - regardless of just how much input I have to their schooling. So when we talked about sending them to school, we talked about the possible challenges to their fledgeling faith of sending them to the public primary down the road. We talked about the friendships we oversee them making, and those they seem to be making without any help from us. We talked about me being available to "hang around in the background" while they play with their friends. We talked about raising them to be confident in their faith, so they could fit in with a crowd when it suited them, but shine like lamps on the hill when they needed to. And, after I checked out a few Christian schools online, I thought and prayed a lot about being a good steward of the things God has provided for my use: my money, time, talents and the access He has provided to educational facilities that are not solely within our family and home. While the school we have now applied for a place in is not "at home" nor "classical", it is "Christian", and this last description is far more important to me in the scheme of things. I know I can trust God with the education of my children, as indeed with all things, but unfortunately homeschooling allows me to convince myself it is I who is in charge. And I'm not. It's such a pity I had to learn this the hard way!

It's strange - the only things I thought might be reasons to send our kids off to school were academic struggles or "the socialisation issue" and these haven't been a problem for us at all. Our kids are learning to read well, they can write neatly, they love listening to good books, they know what an "Ursus maritimus" is, they get on well with homeschooling and church friends as well as the kids in our street. But I haven't had time to sit down and play with my baby enough, Jeff is getting sick of having to cook dinner and I am forgetting to rely on my Lord and Saviour for all things.

So this decision is terribly sad for me. We've been planning to homeschool for at least half a dozen years, and I've been doing very well with it (at least from an academic perspective) so far. But, as with never being home-owners, it's not the end of the world.

I am very thankful that we can enrol our children in an away-school where the teachers are all committed Christians and their fellow students will all come from families with at least one committed Christian parent. I am very thankful that I don't have to put Anna into full-time away-school when she's not yet physically or emotionally ready. I am thankful that Joshua will be able to learn art from a teacher rather than a text, since I can see he enjoys artistic activities immensely and is actually quite good at drawing. I remember how relieved I felt at finding a place for Sam on Wednesdays in childcare, and I am very grateful to be able to look forward to a time when, with my children all being educated outside our home, I will be free to help my husband in ministering to our congregation. Perhaps I might lead a Bible study for ladies during the day, teach a Sunday school class, do some more talks for women's and mothers' groups or just sit and chat with the neighbour who's recently divorced and hurting. I might even be able to go to classes at Trinity and learn Biblical Greek from a lecturer rather than out of a book!

Looking on the bright side does help. But ultimately, Jeff has decided this needs to happen and I need to submit to his headship in this matter. So that's how it's going to be.