Catching the Magic

Silent Sunday

Posted in Sarah, Silent Sunday on June 16th, 2013 No Comments »

Tweet ~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~≈~ What is Silent Sunday? Share Wikio

The Photo Gallery | Together

Posted in Alice, Charlotte, Dan, Sarah, Sophie, photography on April 2nd, 2013 No Comments »

Tweet A long weekend gave us time to be together as a family – even if, at times, my mind wasn’t all ‘together’ with it! In my mind there are always people floating around – physically distant from me, but close in my thoughts, that I wish to be together with – for a moment [...]

Keeping on running

Posted in Inspiration Weekly, Sarah on March 26th, 2013 No Comments »

Finishing my run with a stretch on the beach at Princess Bay, Wellington

Tweet This past fortnight I’ve been running and kept on running. I don’t know where this sudden urge to run has come from, but it feels great (and I’m just hoping the clocks going back, on the first Sunday of April, along with autumnal weather to come, doesn’t dampen my enthusiasm!). In the past fifteen [...]

Things I’m Loving this first week of 2013

Posted in Loving & Not Loving, School hols on January 7th, 2013 No Comments »

Tweet In our little corner of the world – Wellington, New Zealand, the New Year started with a roar of strong winds on the 2nd of January, which quickly abated to give us the most glorious sunshine weekend to start the year with. I can’t remember the last time I saw Wellington’s beaches so busy. [...]

Super Grandparents are in the House!

Posted in School hols on January 4th, 2013 No Comments »

Tweet How many grandparents would step off a plane, after travelling from the UK to Wellington, New Zealand, non-stop (two looooong international flights and one domestic) and handle a full day with three energetic granddaughters – with NO nano nap?! My grandchildren have SUPER Grandparents (but – they just don’t know it… yet!). One day, [...]

The Christmas tree(S) are up & peace has been restored.

Posted in Learning & growing on December 5th, 2012 No Comments »

Tweet I blame the shops for having decorations up from beginning of November. By the end of November my children are dragging the decorations from beneath the stairs in readiness for the 1st December. The first day of our Kiwi summer now coincides with ‘tree up’ day in our house. With the 1st December falling [...]

As a British Mum, living in New Zealand, I write about 'Family Life', 'Family Fun' and 'Schooldays', along with capturing all those magic moments with 'Photography'.

I've been blogging since I became a parent in 2003 and it's been a source of positive inspiration, a way of keeping family overseas connected with our growing children and we've made amazing friendships along the way too. We're set to relocate to Santa Barbara, California, later this year - which will be a whole new expat adventure for us!

Thank you for stopping by (if you would like to know more visit the 'About' page!).
Recent Posts…
- Prose for Thought – If the rain could wash his pain away…
- Grateful for the little slices of life that make up every day
- After ‘3am In The Morning’ I am hanging out for ‘Midnight in Paris’….
- Silent Sunday
- Prose for Thought – Lovers Winter Retreat
- #FMSPhotoADay | 7 – 13 June
- The weekend before the man of the house returned
- Sometimes time apart is a good thing
- Prose For Thought – The Bond
- LOVING #FMSPhotoADay Challenge | 1 – 6 June
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Education sites we ♥
- BBC – Learning Zone Broadband Clips
- BBC Schools
- BBC Schools Ages 4-11
- BBC Schools Number Time
- Brain POP
- Cooking with Kids
- Donna Young – Printables & Resources
- Enchanted Learning
- English Games – Topmarks UK
- History for kids by BBC
- Home Education Foundation NZ
- Homeschool Share
- Jolly Phonics Worksheets
- Khan Academy
- Languagenut NZ
- Linguascope – French/English
- Lure of the Labyrinth
- Mathletics NZ
- Maths Games – Topmarks UK
- Maths NZ with IXL
- Museums: Wellington
- National Geographic Kids Animals
- National Geographic Kids Countries
- No Excuse List – Learn Anything, FREE
- NZ Marine Studies Centre
- NZ Maths Centre
- Poetry for Kids
- Science Learn
- Starfall's Learn to Read
- Storynory – Audio Stories
- Study Ladder
- Te Ara Encyclopedia of NZ
- Te Papa Museum Education Programmes
- TED Ed Lessons Worth Sharing
- The Magic School Bus
- WickED Maths Games
- Young Commonwealth
Home Education & Unschooling blogs
- Balderdash and Blokus
- Ben and Me
- Classroom Free
- Completely Cottage
- Cottage Tails NZ
- Enjoy Life Unschooling | Resources
- Homeschool Creations
- How to homeschool my child
- Learn at Every Turn
- Learn Live Love Laugh Learn
- Living Montessori Now
- Magical Mouse Schoolhouse
- Preschoolers and Peace
- Rosie Boom
- Ross Mountney's Notebook
- Snapshots – Jen
- The Pukeko Patch
- The Unconventional Parent
- Unschooled-Kids NZ
- Wandering The Road Less Travelled
Quotes on Learning

“You cannot teach a person anything; you can only help him find it within himself.” – Galileo

“I was happy at home with my toys in my nursery. I’ve been happier every year since I’ve become a man. But this interlude of school makes a somber grey patch upon the heart of my journey. It was an unending spell of worries that then did not seem petty, and of toil uncheered by fruition; a time of discomfort, restriction, and purposeless monotony.” – Winston Churchill

“Thank goodness I was never sent to school; it would have rubbed off some of the originality.” – Beatrix Potter

“It is… nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom; without this it goes to wreck and ruin. It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty.” – Albert Einstein

“I suppose it is because nearly all children go to school nowadays, and have things arranged for them, that they seem so forlornly unable to produce their own ideas.” – Agatha Christie

“My grandmother wanted me to have an education, so she kept me out of school.” – Margaret Mead

“I was undisciplined by birth, never would I bend, even in my tender youth, to a rule. It was at home I learned the little I know. Schools always appeared to me like a prison, and never could I make up my mind to stay there, not even for four hours a day, when the sunshine was inviting, the sea smooth, and when it was joy to run about the cliffs in the free air, or to paddle in the water.” – Claude Monet

“Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.” – Plato

“How is it that little children are so intelligent while men are so stupid? It must be education that does it.” – Alexandre Dumas

Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.” – Oscar Wilde

“How could youth better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living?” – Henry D. Thoreau

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing it is stupid.” – Albert Einstein

“Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.” – Leonardo da Vinci

“If we value independence, if we are disturbed by the growing conformity of knowledge, of values, of attitudes, which our present system induces, then we may wish to set up conditions of learning which make for uniqueness, for self-direction, and for self-initiated learning.” – Carl Rogers

“Children are born passionately eager to make as much sense as they can of things around them. If we attempt to control, manipulate, or divert this process, the independent scientist in the child disappears.” – John Holt

“What does education often do? It makes a straight-cut ditch out of a free, meandering brook.” – Henry David Thoreau

“Education: free and compulsory – what a way to learn logic!” – Frank van Dun

“From my grandfather’s father, [I learned] to dispense with attendance at public schools, and to enjoy good teachers at home, and to recognize that on such things money should be eagerly spent.” – Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Roman Emperor

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” – William Butler Yeats

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” – Aristotle

“Do not train children in learning by force and harshness, but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.” –Plato

“To develop a complete mind: study the science of art; study the art of science. Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.’ – Leonardo da Vinci

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.” – Albert Einstein

“It has been said that the primary function of schools is to impart enough facts to make children stop asking questions. Some, with whom the schools do not succeed, become scientists.” – Knut Schmidt-Nielsen
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