April 5th Wrap Up - visiting and chores

Hello!  I hope you've all had a good week, especially with a long weekend added in.

We've enjoyed being away to visit at my Mother-in-law's, down at Loch Sport in Victoria's Lakes district.  The weather was perfect, although a bit too windy to get out in a boat.  Best of all, we didn't have any mozzies to battle every evening!  Oh, yes, we did have a bit of a drizzly afternoon on Tuesday, but that was remedied with a movie afternoon.

I'd love to share some photos with you all, but alas my camera has gone kaput!  A topple off the bench and now the shutter doesn't automate properly, resulting in overexposed pictures.  So, as soon as I get a new one, we're without photos, I'm sorry.  :(


We got home from Loch Sport on Wednesday afternoon, so Papa (my husband) enjoyed a VERY short week back to work.

The children and I have been focussing on home duties.  They're very keen to earn as much pocket money as possible, so we're assisting them by posting up jobs to be done around the home.  I write up a post-it note with the required task, breaking the job down into steps to make sure all aspects are understood, and a price we're willing to pay for it's completion.  The children negotiate who wants to do what (needing to share big ticket jobs, like washing the car, equally).  Upon completion, I check the job has been done satisfactorily and then pop the post-it note into my diary, signing it when payment has been made.

The whole idea of posting up jobs for the children to choose from originated in a book I've been reading called Cleaning House by Kay Wills Wyma. She tells of how she expects her children to apply their life skills and actively be part of the working family (or as she puts it, getting rid of 'Youth Entitlement').  Every chapter is a new step she works to employ each month, telling how each child takes to the suggestions and what she learns along the way.  I really am enjoying reading this, with her good sense of humour (and who doesn't need a good sense of humour when parenting?!)  I'd recently read the chapter on paying for work around the home, and decided we'd start doing this with our children.

So far I'm very happy with the system.  Mariposa decided to take on the car washing and helped do some light pruning along the driveway.  Maestro moved a huge pile of bricks, cut back a shrub we're going to be removing, then swept up any remaining debris.


And speaking of jobs done outside .... we finished putting up a greenhouse the previous week!  I'd bought it a while back with our tax return money, but it was a huge task to put this kit together alone.  I needed Papa's muscle power.  But it's up and only needs the staging shelves made up so I can start my next lot of seedlings.

I'm making up lists of outside jobs I need to complete and get my autumn sowings underway.  We really need to get more salad greens going as the last lot I put into pots are almost exhausted.


I know this post isn't much fun without many pictures.  I'll remedy that as soon as the camera upgrade has happened.  :)

Until next time!
Catherine


Read what other homeschoolers have been up to at this week's linkup HERE.