A Beautiful Day

We've had a good week so far. Monday was an adjustment day, letting the kids settle back into flow after a busy weekend abroad. I always find it best to begin a week with gentleness rather than force.

Tuesday we did three simple activities- Morning movement focusing on feeling the music and letting our bodies respond. We used three different music selections, classical, beatles, and sean paul. Quite different. Then we read a beautiful book written by a native american chief about thankfulness to the earth and all sources of abundance, and then we created an abundance basket on paper and filled with with fruit representing what we were thankful for. We don't do turkeys around here as the turkeys are really irritated by this holiday and are asking us to shift towards other foods, grains and legumes they say. That was it for the day, and the rest we played and sang and created whatever came to mind but nothing structured.

And today was beautiful. We did our morning yoga and flowed into storytime with our hand puppets and theater. We all took turns making up stories with our favorite hand puppets. The kids love eating their friend puppet and Ethan is dearly fond of the alligator puppet. I love the sheep. It's really silly looking. From there we played cagola, a balance game where you have a boat deck and with the roll of the die you place one or two items on the deck to keep it level, or in my case to shake it up! From there we went into re-reading the blessings book we read on Tuesday and painted pictures of abundance using tempera paints (lovely colors). Then we shifted into making words and I am quite impressed with Ethan. He's now able to hear what I'm asking him to spell and can make the letter sounds beautifully and he is reading, small words and in limited amounts of time. There is no rush to read for it seems to come naturally if the opportunity is there. We worked on _ot and _at word series. (hot pot cot dot....) I love watching him figure it out and get it and it's usually the first time now. Lunch happened with daddy and then we went back in and played with some of our new toys- I got avery a veggie set for her kitchen and these veggies can be cut in half (velcro attachments), so we made soup and smoothies and had a great time working with colors and ASL. Then we painted again, as I wanted to paint a picture to use up more paint (I was a little generous with the pouring). And we all are wearing silk capes because they came today too and somewhere in there we played with carded wool and yarn and talked about where wool comes from (I'm going to get a drop spindle to make our yarn). Now they are taking quiet time while I rest at the computer getting my emails and online stuff completed. I should be doing laundry but Nahni's asleep and computer time is better when she's napping.

From my favorite online store I got 6 play silks for creative play, luscious colors of greens, yellow, purple, and blue and all 100% silk. I can't get 100% silk anywhere in town so I went online and found a lovely store. I also got lots of other goodies there, like beeswax crayons that are so yummy smelling you want to eat them. Imagine crayons smelling that good! We also got watercolor paints for wet on wet watercolor painting, which we'll do tomorrow or Friday. (I won't take breaks like public school does because we don't school from 8-3). We also got the most beautiful unsealed (meaning yummy smelling) pine art caddy to hold our scissors, markers, pencils, pens, and glue sticks. I can smell it five feet away so I had to mention it. I've made some well-thought out purchases in the past few weeks for our homeschool supplies. I've looked at hundreds of items and made some careful selections for art supplies, dramatic play, games, and other tools. I got Ethan a marvelous tanagram set with magnetic shapes and pictures to inspire layouts and structure (Ethan does quite well without them).

We have such an abundance of books that I don't need to get much when it comes to most subjects. I did get a movie and book about faerie houses for the kids for Christmas. I have everything I want to really do a damned good job of educating my children combining modern and ancient wisdoms. I finally feel really settled into what was my vision for this year. I don't feel I could've done it without the accessories that I carefully selected. I have a vision for my children, for our lifestyle, and we are getting so much more into the flow of that vision, every day. It's thrilling! Truly, to live the way you want to live, to be the person you want to be. I am thankful to all the universe for the abundance of my life and for the gifts to make this possible.

So, this is my homeschool thanksgiving post. I am so thankful and honored to be homeschooling. I love working and playing with my children as we learn and grow together. They are awesome little ones, big ones, and I am so blessed to do this dance we do, every day. Namaste

Ethan's Birthday and Letter A

It's Ethan's 6th birthday today! We're having a great morning of schooling. We celebrated Ethan's birthday by morning movement and story time, focusing on Ethan's favorite songs and showing him the scrapbook I made when he as a wee bairn. He really liked the pictures of him as a baby, as well as the ones of Avery, for she made the cheesiest faces. After story time Ethan and Avery wrote and drew pictures in their "About Me" books, to commemorate Ethan's birthday and their overall development and interests. I just whipped one out using MSWord this morning and they seemed to enjoy drawing pictures of people. We took a break and danced out in the snow, for it's the first snowfall today. Ethan's been playing with his new birthday toy, a large bionicle, and Avery's been playing with her kitchen. They also decorated more of the kitchen today with the red and blue streamers that we used yesterday for Ethan's family party. Lots of streamers everywhere now.

And then we regrouped and did more desk work with 6 pages in his workbook- finding shapes hidden in similar shapes and then the letter A. We're starting our letter set as well. It's also letter writing day and we'll be making thank-yous for the birthday gifts.

We're resting now and it feels good to rest. Nahni is resting. Ethan is resting. Avery is coloring. She just finished resting. We had a very busy weekend, with three visits to Brainerd Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Lots of driving. I'm not going to do more schooling after we make the thankyous because Ethan has cousins coming over. We'll have a ceremony tonight honoring the Spirit of Ethan's birth and my becoming a mom. I like to always keep a spiritual influence in their world, as it's a huge part of mine.