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Outdoor Hour Challenge. V.
We’re up to lesson number seven in our Outdoor Hour Challenge. Despite the picture that may imply otherwise, the kids are still completely engaged. And – equally exciting – are coming to expect this Nature Walk as part of our Tuesday routine. This week we took our stroll through the woods surrounding our house. We practiced being quiet and listening. We looked for signs of birds. We spotted another bird’s nest and witnessed quite a few birds enjoying our new feeder. And then we headed in with a handful of items for our collecting mantle – a pair of pine cones and some conjoined acorn lids. Our assignment was to begin…
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Virginia Woolf Does It – Why Can’t I?
This weekend I made buckeyes. And it isn’t even Christmas. Our washer has been blinking E20 every time I try to wash a load of laundry. I woke up Sunday morning with a severe crick in my neck and my Hawkeye curled around my head. When I told him “good morning” he replied, “If I eat a vitamin and a bite of spaghetti at the same time, what would that taste like that?” We brought our heat bill down by $90 last month but this weekend’s colder weather will likely alter next month’s bill. Our thermostat rests at 58 degrees. In the morning I can see my breath in our…
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good words IV.
I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time. – Jack London
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The Bean Store
I don’t do a lot of sticker charts. I can’t remember to keep up with them. I’m not all that great at rewards systems. But sometime last year I found myself answering the same question one trillion and two times each day. “Can I play a game on the computer?” And I was always making up and then breaking various rules and guidelines. I’d try to time the kids but then forget to see how many minutes they’d actually been on that day. What eventually developed out of my frustration was a counting system of sorts. The kids could earn beans for various tasks – chores, completing schoolwork without being…
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fly like an eagle. (steve miller band reference anyone?)
Life is just full to the brim of change. Seasons of busy and seasons of slow. Years of diapers and years of dentist appointments and years of watching kids play fill-in-the-blank sport. Seasons of something. Seasons of nothing. And I have known days in my life that I have felt as if time was going backwards. Seasons of such slow progress and such lethargic pace that I felt I had time to waste. Time to spare. Time to place hastily in a black trash bag and drop off at the Goodwill box in the parking lot outside of Target. But this time, this season, this present life I am shaping…
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Outdoor Hour Challenge. IV.
Here’s what I have learned to love about the weekly Outdoor Hour Challenge: 1. My desire to complete a goal and write a post about it has encouraged me to be regular and routine in our Nature Hikes and Nature Notes. 2. The kids look forward to Tuesday walks more than I do. 3. The regular walks have been a great excuse to take weekly photos of the kids, the yard and our school progress. Because I am joining the Outdoor Hour Challenge late in the game, I am currently working my way through the first ten “getting started” challenges before joining the challenges right where they are. But I’m…
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down for the count
Thursday Piper Finn got sick. In her bunk bed. In the middle of the night. Which is never good. Hair. Bedsheets. Eagle. All altered. The sound of bath water running at two a.m. has never been a welcomed sound. Friday morning Riley had all four of her wisdom teeth removed. She came home looking swollen and feeling dazed and in pain. Friday afternoon I started sharing Piper’s illness. It was a long weekend. (Understatement intended.) Kevin was stellar. I was unendingly grateful for his care and provision the past several days. This ship would have undoubtedly sunk without the careful navigating of Kevin as captain this weekend. I also realized…
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good words III.
This is what He has given us to do, this task here on earth, not the task we aspired to do, but this one. The absurdities involved cut us down to size. The great discrepancy between what we envisioned and what we’ve got force us to be real. – Elisabeth Elliot
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yes. bananas. oatmeal cream cakes. my hawkeye.
The afternoon was caving in. I had desserts to make for a group gathering that evening and my culinary ambitions were far exceeding both my abilities and my time frame. Otto was napping and the girls were playing together and finishing up their school work. I tied on my apron, clicked om my Avett Brothers Pandora station and tossed out my ingredients on to the trusty butcher block. Little feet scuttled into the kitchen. “Can I help you cook this afternoon Mommy?” a little voice asked. I surveyed my helper and considered the offer. I knew what this type of help usually entailed. I tried to hold in my sigh.…
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she was impressed.
Looking over my shoulder as I typed on the blog recently, Mosely took in a giant breath of air. “Whoa, Mom,” she exhaled, “you’ve got your own dot.com?”
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Outdoor Hour Challenge. III.
The Outdoor Hour Challenge has really helped direct our time spent on nature hikes each week. And since we joined the challenge already in progress I decided to take their advice and walk though the “getting started” challenges listed on the website. It’s been good advice. It’s reminded me of the hows and the whys of using The Handbook of Nature Study as our guide and it has served me well to give me direction and accountability in what I am attempting to accomplish through our weekly jaunts outside. Last week we used our words to describe what we saw and heard. On this walk I choose to combine both…
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words, not drawings.
These warm January days have been a gift. Sitting on our porch last week the kids and I were supposed to be working on our Nature Study drawings. The kids colored and drew steadily. But I didn’t draw that afternoon. Instead, I picked words over drawings. …… Blue, blue, so bright it burns. Mistletoe, woodpeckers and the sound of the mourning dove. “It mimics an owl,” London explains. And already she knows more than me. A kind of success, I think. We sit at the abandoned red table on the porch’s sunny side and even though it’s January, it’s warm and beautiful. And so so bright bright it almost burns.…
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a real thursday.
What is it about a plan, anyway? Seems like whenever you make one, it goes awry. Our homeschool’s motto is stolen directly from Charlotte Mason. I am. I can. I ought. I will. I get the first three. No problem there. It’s the stinkin’ “I will” that always throws me for a loop. It’s not the man getting me down, it’s me. This week I have once again renewed my efforts to establish a daily routine and a nearly-hourly plan for our days. (These schedules have ebbed and flowed for me over the many years of homeschooling, in accordance with our lives and the number of children running around in…
