Learning to mix Natural Learning with Healthy Structure in an Autism Family Tapestry

Once again I have a gazillion blog posts swimming around my head! Before I move on to more Fiji shares, I just wanted to post about something that I've been wanting to document as part of our autism journey.

OUR FAMILY

As I mentioned before, we have 2 children officially diagnosed with Autism and other family members with various special needs.
 I find it hard to actually put into words all the feelings and emotions that swim around in my head in regards to this.
Some days we feel like a very 'normal' family and other days we feel completely dysfunctional. I go between being totally ok with the level of special needs that I have to take into consideration on a day to day basis and other days I feel so sad and weep for what I feel was a dream that will never happen.

Yes, I ABSOLUTELY do know that Yah has given us these amazing children and I am INCREDIBLY thankful for that. But that does not diminish just how tough it is some days having to deal with the level of special needs that we do along with dealing with criticism and opinions of others'.

Some may read this and think, "But your kids seem fine to me! What are you whinging about?"
To this I have two things to respectfully share:

1. You have never walked a day in my shoes so please do not presume or cast judgement about the challenges in my life.

2: My kids may 'seem' like that because of the amount of work we've have been doing with them over a number of years. And while they are able to function well most days, it takes ALOT of effort, prayer and encouragement to keep it that way.

I post these things here as a record of OUR family's journey; not as a formula for success for every family who has to deal with similar issues.
I post these things so I remember what we tried and what didn't work for us. I post these things that maybe some other mama out there may be encouraged in helping to connect with their child.
We, by that I mean OUR family, are a work in progress. Broken. Healed. Restored. Changing. Growing. We do what works for us until it no longer works for us or until Yah shows us that we can do something different.

A QUESTION

Recently on a homeschooling forum I am apart of, a question was asked of me and I thought I would share my answer here.

The question was basically,

"I was wondering... you have alot of experiencing with autism and combining it with a natural learning style. I imagine that would have been very challenging finding that balance with where you wanted to head the family and what members of your family needed. How did that journey look for you? How did you know where you had to put more structure in place and how did you implement that given the kids had alot freedom of choice in other areas?  I know this has probably been a very difficult journey".

While it has been a difficult journey in some ways, it has also been a very rich one for us as a family.
We have learnt to weather the stoms together.
We are learning about how to listen more and how to understand better.
We are learning about what humility looks like in a doctor's waiting room with people looking on and a child melting down and having a very hard time.
We are learning about how arrogant we may have been had we not had to deal with special needs' kids and how we don't want to be like that to others.
We are learning to be flexible but that structure is not something to be feared either.

We have and continue to make mistakes along the way.

For instance, putting too much structure into our day in some ways taught me to look at the effect that had on my kids and learn to relax a bit. This also gave me more confidence in my ability to look at the needs of MY family and then put in place what is right for US....not what is right for any other family but what is right for US.

Sometimes I listened to the advice of loving and well meaning friends or aquaintances when I should have politely said, 'Thank you for offering that" instead of thinking I HAD to put that into place.
It wasn't right for US.
 It may have been right for THEM but it wasn't right for US and I should have never tried it.
This has happened with a number of different things and I am learning to just listen to Yah as He leads our family. Some may scoff at that but I can personally attest to the way that Yah has helped us on this amazing journey.

A QUICK STORY

I'll give you a quick-i'm-totally-digressing-from-the-main-story-kind-of-story for a second ;)
We were taking Elijah to an occupational therapist a couple of years ago. He liked going. It was hard work on our part to get him there because it took 50 minutes to get there, the appointment time was 5.20pm and so Liji would always fall asleep on the way there. This meant that by the time I was able to rouse him (he's very tough to awaken!!!) and he adjusted to where he was, he really only had about 10 good workable therapy minutes in him. It also meant that I had to have dinner organised and if we were going down as a family (which we mostly did) that I had dinner and drink bottles etc packed along with a packed picnic basket with clean plates, cutlery and sports equipment for the others who would play at the park while waiting for Liji's session to be over.

{2007 Having dinner (low salicylate cottage pie) together in a park near Liji's therapy clinic}

As I said, taking him there while good, was also ALOT of effort for our family.
On one of our travels down there Brett said to me that he was thinking that we should maybe stop taking Liji to this particular therapist. He wasn't sure it was helping him enough to justify the effort basically. We didn't want to stop it if it was going to have a positive impact on our cracker, but we also didn't want to keep going to something that was really not all that helpful in the long run.
We weren't sure what to do.
Brett just prayed for clarity on the way down.
He asked God aloud that He would show us what to do.
It was a simple, heartfelt prayer from a Dad who wanted to do right by his son.
I went in with Liji to the session while Brett took the other kids to the park.
About 3/4 of the way through, Liji's therapist just out of the blue looked up and said to me very calmly, "Well, I think we've probably taken Elijah as far as we can. He's doing really well and I don't know that you coming here is going to do any more good to be honest".
I was gobsmacked.
It wasn't the last week of term or even close to the end of term.
He hadn't done anything terrible to make her want to terminate the sessions in fact he'd been responding to her more and quite well too.
She wasn't upset at all. She was just very matter-of-factly telling me that they had taken our boy as far as they could.
And there in that moment we VERY CLEARLY had our answer.

See, that's how Yah has worked in our lives.
When we aren't sure what to do, we pray. He often gives us a clear thought on which way we should go although sometimes when he doesn't, we wait and then often an answer comes clear in time.
Perhaps in those times he's teaching us to be patient and content.

Ok digression over.

A REFLECTION

Back to the question on how WE'VE integrated both a natural learning approach to our homeschooling journey AND structure to help our kids.
Once again, this is a reflection on OUR journey not a one-size-fits-all-kind-of-thing ;)

We began our homeschooling journey with ALOT of structure. I kind of felt like I needed that to 'prove' to others that what I was doing was valid.

I've learnt that I don't need to do that.
However, I've also learnt over the past 4 years especially, that my kids (all of them!) actually do thrive and CRAVE a certain level of structure.
Again, that may not work in some families but in ours it DOES!

FINDING OUR RHYTHM

We term this kind of structure our 'rhythm'.

I blogged about our rhythm a little while ago in THIS POST: 'RHYTHMS, RELATIONSHIPS AND RESOURCES'.
This has remained something that works for us.
We have a basic rhythm for our mornings and our afternoons.
This means that in a week we cover our KLA's (key learning areas).
However, we are also quite flexible.
We don't keep to a time schedule.
So we are not sitting down at the table at 9am.
More than likely you'll still find us in our pj's eating slow cooked oats and chatting then!
But it means we DO have a plan for our morning and we more than often actually stick to it in a loose kind of way!
Just as a side note, yesterday my kids were raring to go bright and early and had knocked over chores, maths and spelling by 8.30am! And I LOVE that the flexibiliy of our weeks means some days we have that kind of morning and other mornings are harder and slower and that's ok too.

TOOLS IN OUR TOOL BOX

Let me touch a little on some of the tools we use and give you examples of how using them helps us.
Brett, when teaching the kids about using tools from their tool box, always says to them, "You have to have the right tool for the right job to get the right result".
This is true of our family's approach to using the right tools for our children in order to help them not only have safe and happy learning and living experiences but also aiding them in self regulation, healthy expectations of others, social situations and communication.

A TOOL WE USE: PHOTO BOARDS

Every morning after chores (more on this in a sec!), the kiddos know straight up that they do maths and some spelling. Now in the past we tried not 'making' them do these daily and trusted that they would just learn maths concepts and liteacy as we have a very literature-rich environment.
This is still true; we still trust they will learn every day and in many varied ways however we also help them to COPE in their day by providing rhythm help.
We found that ALL the kids actually struggled with not having things to do each morning even though we made suggestions.
They were ASKING for bookwork and wanted us to give them some structure.
I remember when I put back up the photoboards:



It was like the kids felt secure again and HAPPY!
They all sat down eagerly, pulled out their books INDEPENDENTLY and finished off their 2 pages and were EXCITED about what they had achieved.
I remember thinking, "Man, why have I been fighting this?"
This is what our kids like, it is what they ask for and it is what they need. I now embrace that and will do my best to facilitate those kinds of healthy happy feelings towards their learning!
Liji actually said that on days when he didn't know what learning was going to just 'happen' that he'd felt lost. I'm SO GLAD we found our way with our learning rhythms and that these have worked for us.
Some days when the kids are a bit more 'antsy' and need a bit more of something different, we invite them to use the Ipad app Splash Maths or the Maths games on SHEPPARD MATHS ONLINE. Sometimes they use their 'blue books' (some books we got from Target/KMart that have really helped them) or sometimes they'll use their Math U See books.
Either way, there is flexiblity but there is also predictability and security.


{These are laminated photos of parts of the rhythm of our day including snack and lunch breaks. Predictabilty definitely helps my kids feel secure and much more confident knowing what is to come. These photos have velcro dots and can be moved about when needed}

The photo boards have been a real help to us.

AN EXAMPLE OF HEALTHY RHYTHM
MEETS FLEXIBILTY

Here's a bit of an example for you from a day last week:
Ok so the kids have done chores, maths and some work on either spelling/handwriting/writing...and it's a Monday.
On Mondays we have 'Learn from the Past' (ie history) as our morning rhythm and Crafternoon (art) as our afternoon rhythm.
Last Monday I read to the kids from our Story of the World (Ancient History) book.
Our kiddos LOVE this book and I love the layout of the narratives and maps.
I read aloud to them about the Medes and the Persians in the sun while we snacked on apples.
While I read the kids coloured in a map of the Persian Empire.
Liji immediately identified 'the Boot' (ie Italy) in the map and they had a discussion about which bits of the map were sea and which were land. They also talked amongst themselves about which continent they were looking at and where Israel and Egypt were. The other colouring sheet was of King Cyrus. We realised this was THE same King Cyrus that we read about in the Bible so we grabbed a Bible and read some verses from 2 Chronicles 36 and also from the book of Ezra.
The reading, colouring, identifying, listening and discussing took a hearty hour or so.
By this stage Brett's sis had arrived for a lovely visit
While they chatted with their Sulley (my SIL), I made some lunch and the kiddos enjoyed that outside. They then came in for their 45 minutes of silent reading time.

THE EXAMPLE CONTINUED WITH
ANOTHER ONE OF OUR TOOLS: THE TIMER

Autistic people often need very clearly defined boundaries.
There needs to be little to no grey areas because that unpredictability can be very unsettling.
Believe me, we've tried.
We've tried being very free... 'please just sit where you like' in the lounge room. But when you have a child who has very real personal-space issues and then someone just comes and tries to squish in next to them...i'm telling you now, it aint gonna look pretty!
So we established each person's reading space.
Then we also agreed on a good amount of reading time for everyone.
45 minutes definitely seemed to feel right for us all.
The timer gets used here ALOT.
Timers are predictable.
Timers do not forget how long their kids have reading for and have very concrete parameters...ie you push the button to start it, the noise sounds when it is finished and then you push the button to turn it off. Many people reading this post may not understand what this means but I can tell you from having lived this out, people on the Spectrum definitely DO respond more postively with clear boundaries, expectations and predictability.

Ok, so the timer goes off, silent reading time is finished and then it is normally time for Crafternoon. That particular afternoon it was warm (for a change here!) and so we decided to let the kids have free play in the arvo and instead we'd do something else for Crafternoon later on. They all agreed it would be great to make the most of the sunshine!

Once again, our rhythm was there to guide us but not to dictate to us what should happen without any flexibility.

Before dinner that night, I pulled out a special new book on Leonardo Da Vinci that I'd found in a book sale.
While dinner was finishing off in the slow cooker, I gathered the kids in the loungeroom and invited them to come check out the new book. We'd just watched Ever After (the movie) again and Da Vinci features in it so they were excited to see the cross over and that he was a REAL person!
We read through the book, stopping to talk about the things they noticed in the sketches, taking time to look at details in his works and giving them room to say why they liked his work )or why they didn't like!).
The next day they were still talking about Da Vinci's flying machines and Liji had asked if he could finish off drawing and designing one. He showed it to us over breakfast.
Even though it was a different rhythm day, we decided to fill out our 'Name that Artist' sheet that morning for our handwriting. This still allowed them to write and it was something that I didn't push the day before being the end of the day when they were tired. But starting with fresh eyes that morning (and with chewing gum to help them regulate) really did make a big diffence.

The reason I went into all that boring detail was simply so that you can see that our 'Crafternoon' that day in fact ended up being something we did AT NIGHT AND the NEXT DAY!
The kids' desire to play in the afternoon sunshine was NOT trumped by our need for a schedule, nor was it viewed badly the next day when it was time to sit down and write about Da Vinci.
 Just trying to tweak that balance sometimes is hard but I feel mostly that we are getting there with Yah's help.

ANOTHER EXAMPLE: THE TADPOLES

Tapping into our kids' interests, likes and dislikes is something that we are very passionate about.

We seem our kids as people, not just kids if that makes sense. Therefore, we recognise that they have things they are really keenly interested in and therefore NEED TIME to develop those interests or to let it ride out naturally and seem them develop whole new interests!

All our kiddos love nature and what's there not to love about tadpoles? I know most kids love them but man Liji REALLY loves them!

So one day he kept asking and asking about going to catch some. We organised to take them down to the lake that afternoon and enjoyed watching them get dirty, talk about the different taddies they were catching and how long it would take for them to grow into frogs!
Once home, Liji spontaneously pulled out a Childcraft book which had a beautiful illustration of the life cycle of a tadpole. My not-so-into-reading-yet boy was really enjoying reading up a storm in this book.

Liji then went and gathered some 'clean' paper and pencils and stapled a 'book' together.

You guessed it...he wanted to make his own book on tadpoles.

He formed a sentence, told it to me then asked me to write it for him to copy.

He then illustrated the pages beautifully and then proudly announced that one day it would be printed in the library for all small children to read ;)

I'm sure I don't need to tell you this as to me it is bleedingly obvious; I didn't then say to him, "Now you STILL haven't done your 'spelling work' son. You will need to get that done'.

NO!

He had done a GREAT job writing in his book and had been creative, resourceful and shown initiative all in this one exercise. How wonderful! How fantastic that he had the space to be able to do that!

Now, just in case you were wondering, we have tried letting our kids do that kind of unschooling ALL day EVERY day and while I do know that they were learning (without a shadow of a doubt) as I said a gazillion times earlier, it did not work for our whole family.

And that's why we have had to work at getting a balance between natural and structured kind of stuff.

A COUPLE OF LAST TOOLS:

FUN THINGS TO DO PHOTO CHARTS,

THE CALM DOWN SPACE,

MORNING CHART HELPERS,

THE HELP-YOURSELF BASKETS,

ZIPPI'S DAILY RHYTHM PHOTO CHART,

OUR FAMILY RULES,

OUR CHORE CHARTS

OUR SNACK CHART

Ok, so this post has been epic enough but I thought I'd leave you with a couple of snaps of phot charts and tools we use around here to help one another.

These are not to help us lord it over our kids.

These are used to help each of us love and respect each other.

These are in place only because a need has arisen to have them.
These have been put in place because they help our visual learners, help those who need predictability, help those who don't to still be able to be free enough to grab something, help those who need help with self-reglulation of energy and emotions and help ME (mama!!!) to maintain some sanity!!!

So here are our:

FUN THINGS TO DO PHOTO CHARTS:

{laminated posters of 60 fun things to do -mostly without help - }

OUR CALM DOWN SPACE:

{The calm down Space - a place to come and chill out when 'engines are running too high' ie: too much emotion, energy, whatever the case may be. A box of fidget toys is right there next to the chair filled with chewy necklaces, spinning tops, stress balls to help encourage self regulation}

OUR MORNING CHART HELPERS:

{Attached to the kitchen wall with 3M removeable velcro like tabs, these are something the kids love. We get them down each morning, the kids carry them around like prompts to help them remember to get through their tasks like their morning chores, brushing their teeth, tidying up their floors. They then have the satisfaction of ticking the little box (believe me when I tell you how much my kids LOVE that part!!!!) and then they earn themselves 10 extra minutes up at night. This has been a very motivating incentive for our kiddos. I'll do a whole 'nother post on bedtimes but yep we've done the bedtime where they take themselves off whenever and it just didn't work for our family. Having a set bedtime has worked for ALL of us.}

THE HELP YOURSELF BASKETS:

{These baskets can be also seen in the above link to the post on 'rhythm, relationships and resources'. The kids can help themselves to anything in these baskets. Draw it, read and write it, observe it, join it, create it....are all names for the baskets' contents}

ZIPPI'S DAILY RHYTHM CHART:

{Another interactive laminated photo board on velcro dots. Zip decides what she'd like to do during the day; painting, beading, playing with beanbags, dollhouse play etc. Again, this kind of visual prompt helps her as we try to extend her past some current rigidities. We don't always use this chart and I can really tell when we don't. I just get lazy sometimes and forget to get the photos out with her in the morning. It's something we are working on at the mo a bit more ;) }

 OUR FAMILY RULES:

{Pretty self explanatory but these are the two biggies we try to uphold around here; using gentle words and hands to communicate and listening to each other. We're reminded about this as we look at our fridge!}

OUR CHORE CHARTS:

{The kiddos' chore charts which get swapped over each week. They have a once a week chore on there, plus a section of the dishwasher to do daily along with dinner table chores and a morning chore. We all work at the same time and encourage our kids that working as a team helps our whole family to flow more freely. Gotta say they are really good with their chores because I think they can see how it affects our whole family positively when they are involved and contribute.}

THE SNACK CHART:

{This will probably seem very OTT to some people but I can not tell you the amount of fighting, whinging and bickering this has stopped! It was worth the effort to hand draw at like midnight one night! lol! It lives in a plastic sheet on the inside of one of my pantry doors. It helps our kids to see what they are getting that day (although they also know that sometimes we HAVE to change plans too which is also good for them to learn). This also helps me with the shopping and planning and in a family with 7 needs to consider that is one more help for me! Honestly, again, this has really worked for us.}

Well, not sure anyone will make it through alive to the bottom of this post but if you have, well done! lol!
I honestly hope that sharing some of these things which we have put in place over the past 4+ years will help a child out there somewhere who, like my children, maybe need that little bit more of a mix of both natrual learning freedom + healthy structure and rhythm.
I praise Yah for helping us through and for teaching us about ourselves, our world and Him along the way.
I continue to look forward to the learning journey He may have for us down the track...whether that is how it looks now or COMPLETELY different too!
I trust He will continue to lead our family well.
Is there anything that has helped you achieve a balance of natural learning and healthy structure in your home?
I'd love to hear your ideas!

Love Lusi x

Some shots from around here that I haven't posted recently but wanted to share!

Picking greens from the garden which we've been either juicing in the mornings or eating with dinner at night...

Brett *wearing* Zeeki whilst watering the garden...

the necklace we got for Hazel which spells her name in Hebrew...

Cooking Ratatouille for dinner (yummo!)...

Oh our quirky little Zippi girl *reading* in the sun. She has her dummy stuffed up against her nose like this all the time. She is obsessive about this (and many other things actually but that's a whole nother story!) and it is one way that calms her down...



My mum and dad stayed here recently. Gosh they are gorgeous.
Anyway, here they are cuddling Zeeki...

We had a celebration this week (more on this soon!) and mum and dad were here with us for it which was extra special. We had gluten free pizza (for me) and other *safe* pizza for everyone else...

And one more of Brettsky and Zeeki just because I love this shot :)

More another time,

Abundance from the Garden

Brett took the kiddos out into the vegie patch last week and they helped to harvest some vegies.

Beetroot...

Round Carrots

Red Odourless Onions...

Spinach...

The lettuce got attacked by the chooks this week but all in all we've had a great little backyard garden harvest to share.
Praise Yah for His amazing abundant provisions hey!

More soon,

Cleaning Naturally {Part 2} and a Free Printable

{You can read Part 1 in this series
HERE WHICH IS ABOUT THE BENEFITS OF KEEPING A CLEAN AND ORDERLY HOME}

Part 2 today is about some of the natural cleaning methods I have been using around our home.
Now please don't get me wrong; these things are NOT things I do each day or even each week. Some I use more often than others like my vinegar spray and my bicarb to clean the toilet but other things I mention here might be once-in-a-blue-moon kind of cleaning experiences.

Anyway, the reason I like these are:

* They are less toxic than store-bought cleaners which means they are safer to use in my home

* Because they are less toxic, it means my children can also safely use them and be involved in learning the skills of keeping our home clean and orderly

* They are MUCH MUCH more cost effective!

* They are MUCH better for the environment around us

So I thought I'd break down what I use to clean different areas.

Here goes!

I'm sure many of you already use these but thought I'd write them out here and share what works in our home in a kind of basic way.

ALL PURPOSE CLEANER:

My all purpose cleaner around here these days is vinegar and water.

In a spray bottle put 1/3 cup of white vinegar and about a cup and a half of water.

Vinegar is great because it neutralises smells, is an antibacterial and actually CLEANS so many surfaces from bench tops, bathrooms to mirrors and glass!

I have a spray bottle of it in each bathroom hanging over the shower screens plus one in the kitchen.

Because I don't have to worry about nasty chemicals that my children might breathe in when they use these, they can help by cleaning the glass windows or mirrors.

IN THE BATHROOM

TOILET CLEANER:

Sprinkle some bi carb soda (baking soda) into the toilet bowl. Scrub away with your toilet brush.

Spray the seat and surrounding areas with the vinegar spray.

The bi carb helps whiten, deoderise and stabalise ph levels which are all great things for the toilet bowl!

In our ensuite, I have a box of bicarb sitting on the window sill with the vinegar spray next to it.
Seeing it there reminds me to actually use it; to pour some into the bowl, swish it around with the brush and spray with the vinegar too.



TOILET CLEANER FOR TOUGH STAINS:

I use Borax and vinegar to shift really tough toilet bowl stains.
Borax is a natural mineral compound and is apparently a great mould inhibitor. I've also read that it has a Ph higher than baking soda!
You'll find Borax in the cleaning aisle at your local supermarket.
I poured about a half a cups worth into the bottom of the toilet bowl, let it sit there for a while (overnight is not too long) and then scrubbed with the toilet brush.
Once again, I used the white vinegar to freshen the toilet area once I'd finished scrubbing the bowl.

CLEANING THE GROUT:

Now I confess to not having the nicest of shower recesses when it comes to mould stains in the grout.

And over the years I have tried ALOT of things to get rid of them. I've even tried to re-whiten the grout with a grout whitener...which did not work!
The number one thing I have learnt is that you can't get rid of the stains without re-grouting but you can kill off any live spores/bacteria there before they do any further damage.

I took some before and after shots of an area on our bath step that needed to be cleaned:

Here is the BEFORE shot...

I applied a thick paste made from bicab and vinegar to the area and left it to dry for about an hour or two...

then I wiped it off with warm water and toothbrush and cloth.
Here is the AFTER shot:

As you can see hopefully from this shot, it came up nice and clean!
However, this has not worked in my shower!I have read about replacing the vinegar with bleach but still haven't tried it as yet.
Keep in mind that the bicarb/vinegar paste will work on less mould-infected areas so if you see that pink coloured mould appearing, use it on there and see if it helps kill off the bacteria and maybe you can avoid the nasty black stuff that I now have! lol!

Below, I also mention a little about cleaning the soap scum ring in the bath and also what I find works best for cutting through nasty soap scum build-up on the shower doors.

Moving on though now, what about the kitchen area?

IN THE KITCHEN

Well my number one spray for counter tops here is the vinegar all purpose spray that I mentioned right at the top of this post.

Here are some other tips and things I use to clean my kitchen.

CLEANING GREASY AREAS

Some of you may remember when I posted recently about cleaning OUR VERTICAL BLINDS NATURALLY using cornflour and water and how stoked I was with the result!

I then tried out the spray (a spray bottle filled 3/4 of the way with warm water and 2 flat teaspoons added to the water - shake the bottle and there's your mix!!!) on a different kinds of greasy surfaces and was AMAZED at the result!

Here is my stove splash back after cooking a stir fry in an open wok recently...

and here is that same area after a few sprays of this cornflour and water mix!

What about the stove top after it's had a thorough cooking-workout?
This is how mine looks sometimes after one meals worth of cooking!
BEFORE:

and again, here is that same area AFTER using the cornflour spray!

No chemicals floating around the house.
No hard labour.
And it's SO cheap!

It keeps so well in the cupboard.
Once the warm water cools down, you don't need to add more warm water - just use as is.
The important part is just making sure you use the warm water at the start when you make your mix otherwise it will turn too thick and pastey.

OTHER PLACES TO USE THE CORNFLOUR SPRAY:

Walls

The top of the rangehood came up BEAUTIFULLY after using this to cut through the dusty grease that seems to accumulate up there!

The cornflour spray also cleans the top of the fridge too and of course the vertical blinds!

I've also taken to the soap scum ring in the bath with it and it shifted it extremely well.
I did try to use it on the soap scum on the shower doors and it did work to a degree but not as good as the CHUX MAGIC ERASERS do! They are incredible on cutting through the soap scum on the glass doors in the shower however they are expensive and I have seen warnings around about NOT letting children or people with sensitive skin handle them. That makes me slightly nervous because there must be something in there that is quite dangerous. I must say though that for now, I keep a stash in my cleaning box and I can't find anything that compares to them. My biggest tip is just don't let the kids use them, wear gloves or if you don't at least wash your hands well afterwards to get rid of that chalky residue.
I'll post another shot below of how the Magic Erasers are wonderful for taking permanent maker off walls!

CLEANING TARNISHED SILVERWEAR:

We don't have too many fancy pieces of silverware but we do have these lovely old forks. I picked them up from the op shop a while ago but they were quite tarnished with black marks on the prongs.
I picked up this cleaning tip over at RHONDA'S BLOG 'DOWN TO EARTH'. Click on that link and it will explain how she got hers clean. It's super easy + cheap too!
Thanks Rhonda for the tip :)

FOR BAD OVEN SMELLS:

Place a bowl of vinegar in the oven (fridge/microwave/whatever you are wanting to deoderise) and leave it there overnight.  The vinegar absorbs the bad smells like fish etc.

FOR CLEANING THE OVEN:

I must say that when my oven is semi-clean, all I do to keep it that way is the following:

1. Wipe down the oven with a cloth while it is still warm (not hot of course but just warm!)

2. Then if there is some baked on stuff say on the inside of the glass door, I put some cooking salt straight onto it and let it sit for a while until the oven cools right down. The salt, with a little elbow power, acts as an abrasive.

3. Rinse the area well and wipe clean.

Ok so that's what I use when the oven is semi-cleaned. But when it's got real baked on stuff in there, the only thing I have found to work brilliantly is SELLEYS OVEN PLUS HEAVY DUTY GEL. I would love to find something less toxic that REALLY works (I've tried heaps of natural things when it is really bad and nothing seems to shift it like this gel stuff. Anyone got any ideas to share for when your oven has REALLY baked on bad? Please share!)

CLEANING WOODEN CHOPPING BOARDS:

We have this great wooden chopping board that came from Ikea a while back. It has a lip over the edge and can be moved to sit over the stove top easily to create more bench space. However, it gets so much use that I needed to work out a way to clean it well.

I must say here that I never cut raw meat of any kind on this board.

Ok so to clean it, I do use a little warm water intitially but i try and wipe it dry straight away. Too much water can warp a board's shape and undo the glue.

I then deoderise it by rubbing a half a lemon over it. You can also use bicarb soda with this but I usually just use the lemon. It leaves it smelling nice and helps to lift stains too.

OTHER GENERAL CLEANING

DUSTING:

The best thing I ever did with dusting was ditch the feather duster which just seemed to spread the dust everywhere in the air and invest in some microfibre cloths.
I bought these from Coles (supermarket here) for about $5 a pair. I hung one of them on a hook on the side of our freezer which is also where we store our vacuum cleaner and broom and dust pan and brush. It's kind of a concealed area but still accessible....especially to the children!
Dusting is one of their daily rotational chores and the microfibre cloth is easy to reach, easy to use and doesn't make them sneeze! These are also machine washable so just chuck them in the machine when they are very dusty and they'll come up like new again!



WALLS

Well as I said earlier, I do use the Chux Magic Erasers to clean my shower doors of soap scum but I also keep them on hand for times when, say, I don't know....you put a permanent marker up high on top of the computer desk, leave the room then return to find your two year old has pushed a chair to the computer desk, climbed up it and reached with all her might until she has said marker in her hand, takes off the cap and doodles on the wall and computer desk to her heart's delight!

Like what happened here:
BEFORE

(notice that she got crafty on the desk top too?! )

I was so MAD - mostly at myself for leaving the marker around.

So here is the AFTER shot once I had gone through 2.5 boxes of chux magic erasers!

At least it got it clean!!!

REMOVING STICKY LABELS:

I rub some tea tree oil into a cloth or onto a tissue to take off sticky labels from jars and other places. It really removes that residue very well and then I just rinse it off under warm water.

CLEANING THE WHITEBOARDS:

We have a couple of whiteboards in our home and so far the best thing I've found that cleans them is alcohol free baby wipes. Wiping them regularly would probably help too but um...i kind of forget that bit! lol!

Ok, so I don't know about you, but I tend to read these kind of posts and then either:

a) get overwhelmed by what is shared or

b) forget it as soon as I've read it!

Please don't be overwhelmed! As I said at the start of this post, I don't use all these cleaning ideas every day - but I do use them when I need to.

I thought I'd try and help out by putting these things into a little pdf which you can print off.

HERE IS THE LINK TO THE PRINTABLE.

If you do print this off, can you leave me a comment just so I know that you might have done that? I'm keen to see how many people print off the printables that I have shared.

Thanks!

Well, more to come another time.

Have a lovely day!

Love,

Linking up with HOMESTEAD REVIVAL BARN HOP :)

Learning this week has looked a bit like this...

For Zippi...
Learning to do some threading with thin wire and dry pasta...



then painting it up...



...making tortillas together; mixing, kneading, rolling & flipping...

The older kids got out Stass' beading sets and had some fun of their own doing threading and creating. Ethi made me a beautiful necklace to wear and Liji made this...

The girls pretended to play mum's and babies.
Zippi is talking ALOT to baby E; she brings him things to see and 'play' with, she calls him by name all the time and kisses my tummy asking if he can come and sit with her. She pretends to take him out of my tummy and then rocks him in the rocking chair and says she is feeding him.
Can't wait to see all the kids together with him.
He is already SO SO SO loved!

I bought some large print find-a-word books for the kids since they've all shown interest in these activities and we have been doing some together. They are really into it!

I introduced Zippi to ONE OF OUR FAMILY'S MOST FAVE GAMES OF ALL TIME....ZINGO!
Reasons I love Zingo: It's easy (so easy our 2 year old can play it) but the older kids still love it, it doesn't take batteries or have any annoying loud sounds built in and did I mention it's easy?! lol
Anyway, I wasn't sure if she would understand how to play it but she got it almost immediately!
She has a really incredible memory too so she took to it like a duck to water.

It started out just her and I playing
(in the background Stass and Ethi are playing THE BOARD GAME 'SORRY!' WHICH WAS BRETT'S AS A KID. He introduced it to the older kids and they now love it too!)

By the end of the week, Zipster was playing right along side the bigger kids!

This week Liji ended up having two teeth pulled at the dentist. Long story short, he has extra teeth already growing there (full length) and we'd been waiting for the baby ones to drop out for over a year. Our dentist is great and doesn't believe in intervening unnecessarily (which we think is excellent!) but since they have been giving him pain now, don't look at all like they are going to budge without help and also his new adult tooth was starting to become mishapen due to it pushing to try and move itself forward, it was time to take action.
So he bravely went to the dentist with Daddy and had his two teeth pulled out.
Later in the week another was almost out and I helped it along. So he lost three baby teeth in a week!

We read from Childrcraft's 'Your Body' book this week all about teeth.
We learnt the names for the cutting teeth at the front (incisors), the tearing teeth at the sides are called canines and the back chewing teeth are our molars. We also read a great cartoon about 'captain plaque' which they requested to be read again!
This week I also had a go at making our own toothpaste for the first time.
More to come on this later...

Other stuff the kids enjoyed:

Computer Time:

Visiting STARFALL, POPTROPICA, ABC READING EGGS and THE WORLD OF BRIAN P CLEARY.

Reading:

Brett finished up our fictional family read a loud this week 'Dr Doolittle'.
The boys read aloud 'The Simple Prince' (Ethi) and Tarzan Goes Bananas (Liji) and are both trying very hard.
Stass has now finished all ten books in Enid Blyton's Secret 7 Series (thanks to Bridge for the lend of these!) and has moved onto reading Pollyanna of the Orange Blossoms which I found for $1 in an op shop a fortnight ago.

Maths:

The chapters in Pollyanna are in roman numerals so Stass was asking which ones were which. We went through them together and she got the hang of counting from 1 to 20 very quickly - we were chatting about it while I was cooking dinner and she was jotting down the numerals.
Did some Math U See bookworks this week and Ethi enjoyed using his blue book and was introduced to fractions for the first time.

Play:

It rained all week here.
All the kids enjoyed playing lego together and making new creations.
Also Zingo, 'Sorry!', marbles, 'last card' (a card game) and hide and seek too.

DVD's:
Thunderbirds and Story Keepers

A couple of other things that I got on top of:
* Reorganising our medicine cabinet.
The boxes went from this:

to this...

I finally laminated and labelled each box;
one for kids' medicines, one for adult medicines + natural oils etc and the other box for bandages etc.

And I realised that my birthing banner wasn't very clear in any of the baby celebration shots which was when I put it up, so I thought I'd show you a somewhat better shot (only somewhat better! lol!)
It says, 'Labour of Love'.

Well more to come another time,
Love