Today's Adventure

We began later in the morning because of the great storm that rolled through about 3am and woke up all up.

Our day always begins with song and movement. I burned a new cd and our songs we did today were Round and Round, Sailor Boy, My Little Pony, Trip Trip Trap, Wild Goose, Autumn Recorder Song, The Mill (new), The Apple (new/fingerplay) and Come Celebrate and The Cool of Autumn. (celebrating the equinox)

We read about the loons migration and breeding and will hopefully go to Sand Lake tomorrow to see the loons close up.

We set up three new bird feeders, two window ones and one for thistle. The birds took two days to find the seeds in the old feeders. We filled them on Wednesday. We took a lot of pictures of the leaves and the birds with our digital camera. I'll post some later tomorrow or next week.

We watched an Eyewitness video about birds. For our afternoon we played outside, drew birds in our daily journals, and played more. We've all got colds and took it easier today. Ethan didn't feel he could concentrate on his workbooks so we left that for another day.

And now I'm off to teach yoga.

Today's Efforts

If I do what feels right for the day, we have such fun days. If I do what thinks right, I break down quite early on and nothing flows well. Go with feeling.

And today was a feeling day. I woke up feeling good. We started our day when it felt good. We moved in a way that felt good. We danced to songs, tramped around the couch and played ponies and sang our fingerplay songs. We read about geese flying south for story time and drew a picture in our daily journals. We took a break outside before lunch. After lunch we went outside and put birdseed in the feeders to attract the birds for our bird themed week and came in for afternoon focus. We did five pages in Ethan's math workbook, made a chain garland out of five fall colors and made a color tapestry by weaving strips of paper together. We hung the garland in our livingroom. We cleaned up and ate a snack and are back outside watching for birds.

Avery and Ethan want to catch one.

I think we had a really good day. It felt good. It felt like flow. I can do these kinds of days. Do what feels right and things go really well.

And tonight we go into brainerd to run errands.

Making Choices

I've come to realize that we're already living an enki lifestyle and a lot of the material in the guides are for families coming from very disconnected lifestyles, or with special needs children. If I just let the guides sit unused I feel that we will have a successful school year regardless of their use. The material is at the heart of why I chose enki, the activities, stories, and crafts. I love the songs, movement, projects, stories and the spirit and heart behind everything. I love being able to weave what I want into our days and weeks and months and feel very flexible and confident in my approach.

But yesterday was another matter. Every now and then I need to have someone listen to my concerns and help me see my path. I needed help yesterday. And help came. Friends are such treasures.

And So We Begin

Our Enki daily schedule will follow this outline-

10am- Movement
10:30- Story time
11:00- Story Work and Creative Play
12-noon Lunch
12:30pm- Rest
1:30- Afternoon Adventure

In there I have 11 books worth of curriculum and material to weave. The titles are- Folk and Faerie Tales, Nature Stories, Community and Festival Songs, Learning through Movement- Seasons and Skills, Learning through Movement II, Seasonal Crafts, and five guides.

I will go through the materials tonight, again, and choose what I want to focus on for Harvest for September's theme. We're coming into harvest season and tomorrow and Tuesday we'll begin to decorate our house with Fall Colors. We'll also have a starting ceremony tomorrow to begin our homeschooling adventure. I have offered my home to a guest from out of state to do some private sessions and we'll be gone on an afternoon adventure when she's here. I think we'll go to a fun park and play and talk about the colors we're starting to see in the trees and flowers. Maybe we'll go on a nature walk. The poison ivy is less. :)

Lots to choose from. I'll post my choices in this week's reading, craft, and movement activities when I have my list.

A Week Off

We took last week off from anything homeschooling. Labor Day weekend we visited the MN Zoo and learned about all kinds of animals. Ethan's favorite animal at the zoo was everything. He got a stuffed Raccoon that he calls Cutie Pah or Cannon Boat. (yes) Avery got a wolf that she called an otter. (yes)