A String of Simple Things

I love being a home school mum and I'll happily admit that home schooling is turning out much different to how I imagined.

I had pictures in my mind of sitting around the dining table, having a conversation about mountains over a large map of the world, or journaling about some plants we'd seen on our nature walk along one of the Darling Downs' many gorgeous walks and parks.

Much to my disappointment, distance education (with it's advantages, which I'll get to in a moment) has turned out to be much different to my dreams and visions of home education! We spend a lot of time doing book work in a 'tick the box' sort of way. The advantage of this is that I have no planning and very little preparation to do in regards to school work - and for this I am truly grateful. I can get started in the mornings without having to worry about 'the big picture' of planning - we can just get into it! We have had some amazing adventures and lots of fun despite the drawbacks of the prescriptive nature of distance education.

However, the dreams persist.

So, in the midst of this wild journey, I've carved out time to do at least one sweet, authentic homeschool mama thing:


We have a string above our dining table and I decorate it four times a year for each season. Recently, we took down our autumn display. This is my favourite display because I use natural materials for it instead of paper.

 There are beautiful little stars along the string that stay hanging there permanently, no matter the season - they suit the entire year-round theme, anyway! They're made in South Africa and were brought back by my in-laws, who travelled there last year. The purchase of each star is used to support a local child in South Africa out of poverty, so there is a special meaning behind each star, too!

Last month it was time to change our beautiful autumn leaves into snowflakes for winter......

We sat around and made a massive mess with the cut-outs from our snowflakes after watching a quick YouTube clip to inspire my little cut-out artists!


The delight on their faces as they unfolded a surprise snowflake was precious!


Some were more delighted than others......





 I'm very thankful for this simple string of beautiful, created things that hangs across our dining table - a reminder that in the chaos and busyness and whirlwind on this journey, we can have a little pocket of beauty, peace and creativity.

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