MFW ECC Norway

September 15, 2016September 15, 2016 ~ Feisty Mama ~ 2 Comments

Norway! Quite possibly, our favorite unit so far. Surprising because on the eve of this study’s inauguration, my husband had to call an ambulance to come get me after I began to experience sudden and horrific pain. Two days in the hospital, lots of prescription meds and a slow recovery had me forecasting a pretty dreadful, overwhelming and miserable few weeks of school, but the exact opposite happened. Our village lovingly reached out and made meals, came to visit, took over some of my responsibilities and encouraged us. My husband even went in my place to our Classical Conversations community day and wore the Director’s hat on my behalf. It blessed me deeply to have such thoughtful love and care poured over us. Even the boys were extra helpful and diligent in their work. While we did not have as many outdoor adventures as usual, we still had a lovely time with our study!

We spent many, many hours reading this time around. The D’Aulaires have a wealth of books for Norway study and we read them all. Many cups of tea and several knit dishcloths later, we went through the pile and chose our favorites and read them again. We also enjoyed Joanna Spyri’s “Heidi” as one of our overall European books.

Norway/Scandinavian Booklist:

Welcome Back Sun by Michael Emberly
D is for Dala Horse: A Nordic Country Alphabet by Kathy Jo Wargin
Once Upon a Northern Light by Jean Pendziwol
East of the Sun and West of the Moon
Norwegian Tales by Ingri D’aulaire
Ola by Ingri D’aulaire
Children of the Northern Lights by Ingri D’aulaire
Leif the Lucky by Ingri D’aulaire
Book of Trolls by Ingri D’aulaire
Katie the Windmill Cat by Gretchen Woelfe
Boxes for Katje by Candace Flemming
Hans Brinker, the Silver Skates
Hannah’s Cold Winter by Trish Marx
My Tour of Europe by Teddy Roosevelt Age 10 by Ellen Marx
Heidi by Johanna Spyri
Snow Treasure by Marie McSwigan

Science with ECC continues to be a bit shaky at times. The kids love the science experiments (don’t skip them!) but POE is still hard to get through. So we do what we can and then we take off on our own. The BBC Planet Earth series is phenomenal and we loved the episode on forests. We used tree cards from Tanglewood Hollow and a beautiful crochet tree ring I received from a Montessori Materials swap. My son and I have been knitting tiny crochet bowls like mad lately and we have been using them to hold some of our favorite nature finds.

While the older boys finished cataloging tree rubbings and leaf samples in their nature journals, my youngest children went with me to the kitchen to make The Homegrown Preschooler’s Herbal doh recipe. We had a lovely time practicing math and practical life skills. The older children went outside and collected pine needles and pine cones to decorate the table. I set out some natural materials like acorns caps, sweet gums, petals and walnut shells. The boys sat and played with doh while I read through books and eventually we switched over to enjoying various Scandinavian composers and musicians.

Its encouraging to witness the engagement that takes place through living books. Dry textbooks just do not impart the same connection and inspiration. The boys were utterly captivated by the life of the Lapp children and spent many hours learning more about reindeers and the midnight sun and of course, the northern lights.

Even during their quiet time, I caught them reading in little corners all over the house. I think we all needed to be still for a few days. Don’t get me wrong, by the time my husband returned home they were always bouncing off the walls with pent up energy, but overall, they were content to snuggle on my recovery bed, drink tea, knit and listen to stories. Or at times, day dream while I read and make incredibly accurate laser gun noises under their breath while they battle evil forces in a galaxy far, far away. Ah, boys.

Towards the end of the week we experienced an actual beautiful weather day! Granted, a massive tropical storm was providing cloud cover for the entire state, but hey! it was nice and cool! So we jumped on our chance and headed outdoors for a picnic. But first, the boys had to get incredibly dirty. They caked on the mud, made leaf crowns, painted each other’s faces, adventured in other realms and had a marvelous morning. They settled onto their blanket as I read aloud from a stack of books I brought outside with us. They watched the clouds for a bit as I read and eventually, they each closed their eyes and just listened to the story. They looked so peaceful all cuddled up together. This only lasted a few minutes before someone threw a punch or tooted or threw grass in someone’s face and the equilibrium was lost. But still, those fleeting moments of silence and peace were magnificent.

Lastly, we marked the anniversary of our faithful friend’s passing on September 6th. Our beloved pup, Frankie, who was with us for 8 years. It was a hard day for everyone. I am thankful that the boys have had time to grieve his death and I recognize that they are still sad and grieving. Its the biggest loss they have encountered so far and it was a heavy day in the midst of our study. I am glad that we could honor that day the way these boys needed to. Reindeers, Dutch cookies, Norwegian myths, poetry tea time and a walk to our friend’s grave with a fistful of purple flowers.

Norway was beautiful and its one of those studies I will treasure in my heart because of all we experienced as lived out our week.

We’ll meet again in Paris!

Beautiful Feet Books and MFW Adventures

March 20, 2016 ~ Feisty Mama ~ 3 Comments

I spent forty minutes in the Beautiful Feet Books booth at our convention last year. Everything about their books and curriculum called out to me. I love reading, its my absolute favorite thing ever, and every book in that stand beckoned to my book crazed heart. Beautiful words, engaging illustrations, they are precisely what comes to mind when I think of Charlotte’s urging to read “many worthy books.”

If you are planning out your Adventures year, you will find a list of recommended read alouds in the back of your MFW Adventures manual. Several of the books listed there are part of various curriculums created by Beautiful Feet Books. You can read more about this delightful company here.

**Before I go any further let me state from the get go that the history portion of My Fathers World is complete as is. You do not need to spend another dime to “beef” anything up!**

While planning Adventures, I kept returning to Beautiful Feet Books (BFB). My boys love reading and they are obsessed with American history. I knew they would be game for more and that it would not overwhelm them to add in a bit more. We do a lot of journal style notebooking in our home and I loved what I found in BFB’s Early American History Guide (EAH). Short, meaningful lessons with great heart and ripe with curiosity seed. I ended up purchasing the EAH guide and the Geography Guide for $3 each when Mardel had their clearance sale last summer. I managed to glean the rest of the books from the list via online thrift sales. I had already collected several BFB books from other studies and we had received a few other BFB books from other homeschool families. I laid everything out and came up with a little plan to weave these books in with our MFW study.

The first 1-11 weeks of Adventures had a BFB from the EAH guide directly corresponding with it, then there were many long breaks with only weeks 13, 20, 27, 28 and 30 fitting in with the EAH guide. We filled the odd weeks out with BFB from other studies.

We would finish MFW in the mornings and in the late afternoons the boys would come back to the classroom and we would read from our EAH along with the assigned book and then we would do the lesson. It would take around 20 minutes of time once the reading was completed. The boys looked forward to these lessons. They even remarked that it felt like a fun hobby, something extra that they enjoyed doing on the side.

During weeks 14-16 we read through books from a few of the other studies. The character study books were so much fun we ended up deciding to use the character guide this summer!

Weeks 21, 23, 26 and 34 correspond with the Geography study which I can not say enough good things about. If I had to pick one study to do, it would be this one. You can really do it at any point in the year but I chose to fit them in with their corresponding states. I can not believe how much my children learned from this study. In “Minn of the Mississippi” we engaged in biology, ecology, geology, hydrology, art, geography, language arts, math, dictation, narration, cartography and anthropology. When we studied “Tree in the Trail” we experienced history, cartography, geography, sociology, anthropology, botany, meteorology, arithmetic and biology. “Paddle to the Sea” and “Seabird” were phenomenal as well. Again, short lessons packed with such richness!

Most libraries carry the majority of BFB, especially the d’Aulaire books. Be sure to check with your local library to see if any of these books are carried!

Beautiful Feet Books has a special offers page which lists discounts for lowest price finds, military and missionary families.

Beautiful Feet also has free printable note booking sheets to correspond with the EAH that you can use too!

You can also take a closer look at any of the study guides by downloading sample pages here.

Lastly, here is the link to the pdf BFB reading list I created: MFW Adventures Beautiful Feet Book List

MFW Adventures: Abraham Lincoln

February 29, 2016 ~ Feisty Mama ~ 3 Comments

We have spent the last two weeks learning about Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. The boys picked up their Beautiful Feet Early American History Guide again and dove into Ingri D’Aulaire’s “Abraham Lincoln” which, like all D’Aulaire’s books, was a big hit with my kids. This book really brought Lincoln to life for them. Our conversations this week were centered around the importance of truthfulness, the discipline of hard work and the responsibility we have to stand up for justice.

My eldest son (age 8) was able to memorize the Gettysburg address over the two week period. We would spend 5 minutes at a time reviewing and adding a new line. This would happen on the way to the grocery store or before bedtime or while we waited for his brother’s soccer practice to wrap up. It was really great to see him accomplish a lengthier piece of work.

We spent so much time reading this week, desperately trying to catch up on the read alouds we missed while my throat was out of commission. I placed a large piece of kraft paper on the floor and the boys had their war plans laid out on it while I drank cup after cup of Throat Care and read. We did not make any fancy lap books or spend time with handouts. Other than a few coloring $1 coloring books from Dover on the various uniforms and weaponry of the Civil War, we mostly engaged with the battlefield below while listening to living book about the war.

I also want to share one of our favorite productions from Audio Adventures: “With Lee in Virginia.” You can follow the link for information on the all star cast and how the production came together. We are huge G.A. Henty fans over here and I was over the moon when I discovered that Audio Adventures was producing so many of his stories. (We also have “Under Drake’s Flag”, “The Dragon and the Raven”, and “In Freedom’s Cause” all of which get an enthusiastic recommendation as well!) The boys were riveted by the story “With Lee in Virginia” and they listened to it several times over the past two weeks.

Another treasured audio CD is from Greathall Productions, read by Jim Weiss. “Abraham Lincoln and the Heart of America is a wonderful biographical CD. We could listen to Jim Weiss read all day long. His voice is just wonderful. (Last year, my son said he wanted to be Jim Weiss when he grew up!)

Here are a few of our favorite books from the pile we read:

Abe Lincoln: The Boy Who Loved Books by Kay Winters
Abe Lincoln Crosses a Creek: A Tall, Thin Tale by Deborah Hopkinson
Abraham Lincoln’s World by Genevieve Foster *** This is a great book to flip through and read bits out of but it is definitely out of age range (2nd-3rd) as a main study. But we loved looking through it!

Abe loved books. We decided to really celebrate that this week and the boys spent a lot of time enjoying their favorite books over and over. We had our monthly “PoetTreats” tea time this week to make sure we celebrated our favorite poems too. “PoetTreats” is always a special time for us. I decorate our table nicely and make their favorite tea and treats. Everyone gets to bring their current favorite poetry book and we go around the table reading poems out loud while we enjoy our snacks.

To cap off our study of Abraham Lincoln, my husband took the boys out to the wood pile where they learned how to chop and split wood. They were all so eager to lend a helping hand and learn from their Dad.

The second week of the study was spent learning about slavery and the Civil War. We enjoyed learning about the first submarines of the Civil War and the kids came up with some really fun designs for old war machines!

I brought out a reproduction newspaper from the civil war era and we discussed how differently news traveled back then and how soldiers communicated with various camps and the people back home. Each boy got to pen a pretend letter containing important battle plans for another civil war captain to read. Then they had to be delivered by another soldier through the woods to the campsite. Lets just say, I am still finding bits of paper and the occasional wood rifle in the backyard. It was a busy day!

We have taken a few “Civil War” field trips in the last year and half. Knowing that we’d be diving into Adventures and eventually studying the war between the states, I made an effort during our road trips to stop off and show the boys bits of history. Over Christmas we stopped off at Gettysburg in Pennsylvania. Last April, my Mom and I took the boys to Fort Sumter.

We learned a great deal at the museum and this week I asked the boys to recall some of what they had learned. They remembered many, many details from the fort and the museum inside. My eldest described in great detail, the flag pictured below, which is the original flag that was flying over Fort Sumter when it was attacked.

My youngest remembered passing by the old Slave Mart (now a museum).

Slavery is a hard topic to explain to children. We are proud to be Americans but we also want to acknowledge the very terrible things our country has been a part of. Racism is especially heartbreaking to explain when your children are completely innocent that such a thing exists. They first heard about it last year during our Cycle 3 study with Classical Conversations. I read them wonderful books starting with the civil war era up through the civil rights movement and they were left feeling very confused. They would ask about their African American/African friends and family members and wonder what it was that subjected them to these horrible things. I was feeling a little anxious about starting that painful topic all over this year.

But this year, we had a few months of prior African History study in Cycle 1 of Classical Conversations. Hearing about the Songhai, Zanj and Zimbabweans, gave them a clearer picture of Africa and its history. We studied the start of the slave trade and its origins briefly to give them an idea of its full scope and long history.

We did read several books about the lives of slaves on southern plantations and their experiences in the underground railroad, but the most helpful book we read was, “Who Owns the Sun?” by Stacey Chbosky. Now at first my son could not stop saying “God!” in answer to the question so I had to start over and preface it by saying, “Yes, God owns everything. But this book is asking if any one man owns the sun?” and this helped us move on with the book.

By the last page there was not a dry eye around our table.

I don’t think I will ever find an easy way to talk about slavery and/or racism, because it is a horrible and hard thing no matter how you approach it. Giving the boys a bit more background into the culture and discussing the topic of slavery in general, helped us understand the specifics of slavery in America a bit more clearly. Their tender hearts were pierced by this which was hard to watch but necessary for them to experience as they continue to grow in a world where racism is very much alive. We finished our time of study by praying to God and thanking Him for the life of Abraham Lincoln, who stood for up for justice and truth. We prayed for our country as we continue to be divided on issues of race. We prayed for our men in uniform overseas and here at home and for our leaders that govern our country.

MFW Adventures: The Trails!

February 16, 2016 ~ Feisty Mama ~ 1 Comment

We are limping back to life at last! We’ve been sick for the last two weeks and I am ready to get back in the saddle again. A few days before we fell ill, I happened upon a local listing for a huge solid wood hutch. I’ve been searching a long, long time for one of these bad boys. I was thrilled to find one so close for so cheap ($50). Within the hour it stood in our classroom. It was quite the beast to move! The boys helped me get everything settled before I sat down to finish organizing everything for the week. I had an unfamiliar moment of feeling like we were on top of our game. I was grateful for the way God had provided the hutch, I was grateful for our classroom and for our curriculum. I was finally allowing myself to feel ecstatic over the fact that we had not fallen behind all year long and that the kids seemed to be thriving with the rhythm I had set down for them this year. Really, the week had gone like clockwork. I realized that we had reached an all time high in our homeschool life and it felt really, really good.

And then a day later, we all fell very, very ill.

We were a miserable, hacking, snotting, petri dish of ultimate yuck.

So now that we are once again, at the bottom of the barrel, allow me to share with you what we did for Unit/Week 26 of Adventures in US History.

The American Pioneer and Patriots stories this week were fantastic. The kids loved them! The boys wanted to investigate a little further so we pulled out our Geography guide from Beautiful Feet Books and started a study of “Tree in the Trail” by Holling C Holling.
I purchased a bunch of blank books at the beginning of the year and the boys each pulled one out and started their own Tree in the Trail notebook. They drew cottonwood trees and diagrammed their features. We studied their life cycles and habitats. We studied various indian tribes and had a bit of zoology fun with buffalos, pronged deer and wolves. We charted out the trail and studied the arrival of the Spaniards and the westward movement of the pioneers. I am so glad we took on the extra work!

Here are a few other resources we used and enjoyed:

Santa Fe Trail site has photos, an interactive map, timeline and historical info
Oregon Trail Museum
Oregon Trail Journal of Francis Parkman

You can find the 1990 version of Oregon Trail HERE and play it on your browser. All the 4th grade feels. Totally played while my kids were asleep! I am so glad to be hauling 2000 lbs of Buffalo meat and be suffering from dysentery once more.

Another game we’ve been playing often is Ticket to Ride. My kids pull this one out all the time and they can play it by themselves which is fantastic!

We’ve been using Walter Wick’s book “A Drop of Water” for our Liquid, Solid, Gas unit. Check and see if this title is available at your local library. This book really brought a lot of the concepts from the Usborne experiments to life!

We’ve continued with our nature journaling, even in the midst of sickness, thanks to the small collection of little odds and ends that we can study whenever our health or the weather prohibits our usual nature walk. This week the boys took a closer look at the seashore.

I love their drawings. Its so much fun to watch them grow more and more specific with time and experience. I’ve mentioned before that we had a rough start with art. Its great to see them naturally progressing after such an uphill battle. If the above resonates with you, I encourage you—don’t give up on art!

We started Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War this week. I mentioned to the boys that we only have 6 weeks left after this unit. They were so sad! The rest of the afternoon was spent revisiting some of our old work and looking at our favorite read alouds from the year and reminiscing. My eldest flipped through a book on Native Americans and I found my second born tucked away in the book nook, battle helmet on, reading about his favorite viking. We love you, Adventures!

MFW Adventures: Gold Rush & Geography Study

January 30, 2016January 30, 2016 ~ Feisty Mama ~ Leave a comment

While most of the eastern seaboard was buried in snow, we were entirely inundated with rain this week. Nearly 6 inches fell in a 48 hours timespan. The zucchini patch has drowned, roots rotted through and through. Thankfully, the lettuce rows and kale patch do not seem to mind the rain. The turkey eggs continue to incubate, we are roughly one week away from hatch day(s)! Hubby spent all day today in the back hollow, digging holes for our fence posts. Its the first in a series of bays we are setting up for various animals. We are excited to see our little dream unfold.

Studying the California Gold Rush, spurred the collaborative creation of the “Sunday Times Donut Gang” (pictured above). I briefly entertained the idea of panning for gold with the kids at the local fair but the constant downpour was a great deterrent. Instead, we chose to spend the week reading Sid Fleischman’s “The Great Horn Spoon.” We fell in love with Praiseworthy and wish we could go on an adventure with him. Jack and Good Luck and Mountain Jim were so endearing, we could not bear to put the book down. We are two thirds of the way done and will finish it up next week during our study of California. This book was a huge home run for the kids! If your littles are always begging for more books, this is a lovely one, especially on a rainy afternoon!

By Wednesday I realized that we were nearly out of groceries. I did not relish the thought of walking through a monsoon with the kids so we foraged and made the most of it. A meal of freshly baked bread, milk, jam, cheese and fruit made the cut. We brought out our favorite books and ate while we listened to the rain fall on the rooftop. A Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail picnic of sorts, but the boys had another take: “Mom, this reminds me of Plum Creek and the Ingalls family. Sometimes a simple meal made up of all you have tastes so much better because you worked really hard to put it together.”

We fell into a great rhythm this week with our school work. If you follow our blog, you know the boys like to play outside between subjects. This week they had to stay indoors and I loved watching what they gravitated towards for play. Our Pin it! Maps were reached for the most often.

Six months of near daily use and these beauties are holding up wonderfully well! The Land and Water forms set is by far the most popular with the current age span.

This week, we also reached the end of our Beautiful Feet Geography study using “Minn of the Mississippi” by Holling C Holling.

We followed the journey of a three legged snapping turtle named “Minn” from the headwaters in Minnesota down to the Gulf of Mexico.

We found extra study materials, maps and clip art on Little Schoolhouse in the Suburbs.

While this is a geography study, the boys ended up engaging in math, cartography, botany, biology, anthropology, archeology, paleontology, language arts, composition, drawing, water color, and spelling. I loved watching them engage with dictionaries, encyclopedias and various nature books as they conducted their research. We read two chapters per lesson and really enjoyed the questions and exercises provided in the Beautiful Feet Geography guide. The boys are eager to start “Tree in the Trail” next week when we begin our study of the Sante Fe Trail.

If you are already feeling overwhelmed by the Adventures workload then I do not recommend the above study guide. If you are looking for something extra and have 30-45 minutes a day to spare, then I highly recommend looking into Beautiful Feet Books Geography through Literature Pack. We love Holling C Holling’s living books and look forward to finishing the series. It is recommended for 4th grade and up so we scaled back a few of the exercises. I will likely revisit this pack again when we return to US History.

MFW Adventures: States & Birds

September 30, 2015September 30, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ 4 Comments

We are loving our tour through the United States.

The boys memorized all fifty states and capitols last year during Cycle 3 of Classical Conversations. They also tackled all the geographical features and memorized many different important pieces of American History in their weekly History sentences. I’ve loved watching all this information burst out of them at different points this year.

I was initially worried that the State Study would not be enough on its own for them. But once again, turns out what MFW has prepared is more than sufficient!

I comb-bound all our state sheets into one notebook for each boy and purchased a special set of Prismacolor colored pencils. The boys know these pencils are very special (aka mucho dinero) and are only to be used with our state sheets. I love seeing the special care they have taken with these new tools. Its made them work carefully and their trademark little boy sloppiness has diminished greatly as the days pass. They are eager to shade their state birds just so and capture the exact color of each state flower.

While the boys work on their State Sheets and Lego State creations, I read from various books. We have been using the suggested book list from MFW, but I have also incorporated a book of collected poems by Lee Bennet Hopkins entitled, “My America: A Poetry Atlas of the United States.” I also try and include readings from a few poets or authors hailing from the states we are studying. We usually glean these authors from the list of state poet laureates. (PS There are FIVE states with Official State Poems). Lastly, I read the next book off of our Beautiful Feet Books list. I will be posting our list and references soon so be on the lookout! We’ve read so many wonderful new books in the last two weeks. Its fun watching the boys play “raise the barn” or make knick knacks around the house to sell at Portsmouth Market like the Ox-Cart man.

Some days the reading outlasts the work at hand. On those days the boys rush to pull out their much adored US History Geo puzzle. Some days the work outlasts the reading. On those days I rush to find a bottle of my much adored Essie nail polish.

The littles stay engaged by coloring their own states sheets and then making states out of play doh. Other times they prefer to stick with their own motor skill/sensory play activities.

I have honestly spent more time in the last two weeks preparing activities for the younger boys to engage with so that our older boys can focus well on their work. Of course, this means that when the older boys finish their work they rush over to see what their younger siblings are up to and the join in the play!

Our study of birds is progressing beautifully. I am in love with this portion of Adventures! Having the Everglades nearby blesses us with a large variety of birds year round. This gentle introduction of state birds has blossomed into a new hobby for my children.We’ve started collecting feathers and nests. The eldest has asked for several new books on Audubon’s life. We are eager to learn about the birds in our area and are planning a field trip to our local Audubon base. Pretty much everyone was happy… until they realized we would not be making a delicious chocolate nest treat every single time we studied a new bird. Oh, the drama!

Training the boys to observe nature quietly is not easy. I’ve armed them to the teeth with binoculars, notebooks, cameras and colored pencils, hoping that occupied hands would silence voices that lack volume control. This plan met with mixed success. I finally realized that merging the toddler’s snack time with our nature walks was the way to go!

BEHOLD!!!

A recipe on my blog. This may not ever happen again, so enjoy it….

Audubonbons

Ingredients:
Granola bars
Chocolate Bar
Wax Paper

Step 1: Cut granola bar into bite sized squares.
Step 2: Place granola squares onto a cookie sheet lined with wax paper
Step 3: Melt the chocolate bar and drizzle it onto the granola squares
Step 4: Place in fridge until hardened. Or place in freezer as an extra treat for teething toddler or as a tooth loss motivator for your 7 year old and his loose tooth thats been hanging in there for two months without falling out. Sigh.
Step 5: Place in baggie and take along on your nature hike.
Step 6: Hand it to your toddler and say “stick some Audubonbons in your pie hole and let your brother draw the mockingbird!”

Next week, we will be writing up a more thorough look at our bird watching activities. It will most certainly not be a “how to” guide, more like a “don’t you feel better about your nature walk/life in general now?” kinda thing. Tears and laughter abound.

Speaking of life in general. The humidity is starting to dissipate! Its still warm, but its bearable. As in, I no longer feel like I am walking in a can of soup when I walk outside. From this point on, any schooling that can be done outside—will be done outside! Hooray! Time to bust that picnic basket out of storage.

Anyone else adoring “Farmer Boy” by Laura Ingalls Wilder? Its inspiring the boys to get even more involved on the farm. Training the new pup to guard the chickens, pulling weeds and helping mark out garden plans. Its going to be a lovely, all hands on deck, kinda Fall!

MFW Adventures: The New Nation & The New Routine

September 24, 2015September 25, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ Leave a comment

We are gearing up for growing season! All around the country people are getting their harvest on, but we are prepping for planting season. The avocados, bananas and pineapples are just about done and the kitchen garden is in the works!

We have lots of little hands eager to help around here. Hubby graciously agreed to build a potting table for our science lab. The boys are so excited to plant seeds and watch them sprout.

But first: rocks, weeds and grubs! Turns out our new pup, Trusty Banjo, loves to pull weeds. We are well matched and well pleased.

We wove in as much MFW to our farm routine as possible this week. As we pulled weeds and readied garden beds, we looked for bugs that birds might eat, saving grubs for our chickens while we turned over rocks and caught tiny green katydids. We walked the property, searching for abandoned birds nest, knocked down by squirrels. We found four lovely little nests and enjoyed studying them in all their intricate, thrifty glory. We read five or six books on Audubon and the boys drew a zillion pictures of the birds in our yard. We do have a bald eagle that makes the rounds here on the farm. We love catching sight of her in the early morning. What a powerful bird! She has been featured repeatedly in our sketches this week. We searched for our local Audubon chapter and found tons of field trip opportunities and information on local birds. Last but not least, a rainy afternoon snack of “dirt in a cup” (chocolate pudding, crumbled Oreos on top with a gummy worm or two tucked inside) helped round out our first bird week.

The boys are eager to start marking out our kitchen garden plot. They are not eager to take more pictures with the sun shining in their faces. Soon, we will have time in the garden each morning as part of our Fall-Spring schedule. There is talk of a Darth Vader scarecrow. I can not wait!

The nature journals are ready to come back out now that the heat is finally becoming bearable again. The boys were quite taken with all the new mold patterns on our towering slash pines. In fact, all new growth immediately caught their attention. We drowned in our doggy grief for so many weeks, we failed to notice all the new life outside our windows. The changes took us all by surprise. I love that even in a place with only two seasons, we can see change in the nature around us. The boys have their special trees that they visit regularly. We may not ever see them change color or drop leaves, but they are still living, growing wonders, with plenty of subtle changes for attentive eyes to discover.

Along with a new farming season, we have now officially incorporated all the components of our year. We began Adventures in June and added in new things each month. This month was the final add in, our preschool curriculum, “A Year of Playing Skillfully” by The Homegrown Preschooler. Before the week was out, I noticed something strange…

Team B, the two youngest in our crew, were behaving like angels in the schoolroom. Playing quietly with their resources. Listening well to directions.

It was weird.

It was a miracle.

It was a wee bit disconcerting.

Why is this happening? Are they plotting something? Will there be an ambush later?
I’ve previously shared about our rhythm. I teach in block schedule format. If we begin arithmetic at 8AM, we do not begin our next subject until 9AM. If the boys only take 15 minutes to complete arithmetic, then they have 45 minutes of free play until they return for their 9AM subject. It they finish arithmetic in 58 minutes, then they have two minutes before the next subject starts.

Well, the boys were certainly focused this week! Team A finished each subject with at least half an hour to spare for free play. Team B played quietly on the sidelines, waiting for the all clear signal.

Why was everything suddenly working so well? They were behaving with exceptional dedication and focus because they knew what was waiting for them on the other side of responsibility….

Play. Play was waiting. Beautiful, glorious, child-led play. My 7 & 6 year old need time to play. Lots and lots of time. I am giving them the very intentional gift of time. The hours are not packed to the hilt with lists of things to do. They finish their work and then they are released to enjoy their play. What a gift free time is for them. Time to be a child, time to pause and wonder how to employ new skills and test the world around them during that precious half hour of leisure.

Wonderful things are happening on the farm. Confidence and happiness. Less stress and more mess. They are learning more than ever through these invitations to play and discover. The preschoolers rush outside and engage everything head on. Sorting, measuring, testing, creating, evaluating, gathering, thinking, wondering and learning how things work. They all come back to the schoolroom, refreshed and ready for more work. No complaints.

I used to look over my planner at the end of each day, to judge how successful our day had been. I measured in check marks.

The rubric has changed. I walk up to my boys and flip their precious hands over. I look for marks of happiness and wonder and discovery. I look for dirt under fingernails and paint stains on the soft pads of their fingertips. These are the marks of a good day.

New Nation Resources!

This week, our reading list did not stray from the book basket recommendations made by MFW. We finished up another book in our Beautiful Feet books study, 1801: Year of the Horseless Carriage by Genevieve Foster.

STATE STUDY-
Coloring Sheets: My four year old is quite keen on joining in the state study. I’ve been printing out free state coloring sheets from crayola.com and he loves them! They also have smaller state shape cards that he is enjoying as well.
Legos: My older children love building state Legos after completing their state sheets. I flip their sheet over and begin reading about the state. They grab the Legos basket and begin building the state shape while I read. So far, I’ve made it through each sheet and at least one book from our state book basket.

New Jersery
Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken (DVD) A portion of the film takes place in Atlantic City
Adventure Aquarium: One of our favorite aquariums in the country. My boys love to go on here and read about the different animals in the exhibit. We will be returning for a visit this winter, so it was good to refresh our collective memory and take stock of which exhibits we want to spend the most time at.
New Jersey History Kids: a fun website to explore!
New Jersey Historical Maps: This website contains historical maps of New Jersey that are interesting to look through.

Pennsylvania
Mr. Nussbaum’s Learning & Fun!: Another fun website with several resources.
Historical Maps of Pennsylvania: site of historical maps.
Virtual Liberty Bell

Georgia
Georgia Peach Festival
Colonial Georgia Images

MFW Adventures: George Washington + Bribery

August 28, 2015August 31, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ 2 Comments

Last Spring I sat at my desk and pulled out my new planner. I wrote out all the things we would be doing in the fall and felt tired just writing it all down.

A few weeks later I trotted off to the FPEA convention and had a rather eloquent kick in the butt from Sonya Schafer of Simply Charlotte Mason. I went home and stripped my schedule down to the bare bones—and it was still overwhelming.

So I made the decision to start Adventures months earlier than I had initially planned. Early enough to get in at least 10 weeks of school before Classical Conversations, A Year of Skillful Playing, therapy and sports all took off in late August/early September.

I am so grateful for that decision!

We spread our unit on George Washington out over two weeks. In that course of time, Classical Conversations began and our in home therapy sessions started for our youngest boy. Next week, our year with Homegrown Preschooler starts. (Check back for updates!) Its somehow easier to add extras into an already established routine. The boys were eager to add new things in while still adhering to our established rhythm with Adventures. Real life seems a bit more manageable this year! I may have to repeat this schedule for Exploring Countries & Cultures. I always have to remind myself to take advantage of the freedom that comes with homeschooling.

Here is the breakdown on Adventures Week 9: GEORGE WASHINGTON!

(disclaimer) My eldest son is OBSESSED with GW. For his 7th birthday, our entire family dressed up like different Revolutionary war heroes and we spent the morning reenacting different battle scenes. He wanted a GW tshirt and a documentary for his birthday. I knew we needed to spend a few weeks on ol’ George so the booklist is hefty!

Activities:
1) Land Survey
Mother Earth News provides a very detailed explanation on how to survey your own land. I was not really up for going all out on this one. I just wanted to give the kids a basic idea of what a teenaged George Washington did to earn his bread and butter. Our homestead is 2.5 acres, flat as a pancake. We made the chaining pins and used a piece of yarn to get our level measurements. It was 92 degrees and we received approx 18 mosquito bites between 5 people in the span of twenty minutes. The boys were thrilled!

2. Indian Hoecakes
Based off one of our booklist treasures, “George Washington’s Breakfast” by Jean Fritz. The boys begged me to cook these little cakes outside in the fire pit on an actual hoe. I was pretty close to complying until I imagined my exhausted husband shaking his weary head and asking, “Sooo how exactly did the fire that ravaged our entire home start?” We stuck to our stove and a regular ol’ frying pan.

3. Fort Necessity
I am so sad I didn’t snap a picture of this activity. The boys built an enormous blanket and pillow fort and had a blast all day inside. We brought in a lantern and knocked 6 books off our list in one afternoon. There was a massive thunderstorm outside which made the fort an extra cozy haven for us.

4. Unsanctioned crossing of the Delaware
I managed to get my two youngest children down for a nap last week. After a night of little rest, I asked the older kids to build legos while I took a quick nap. Whenever my eldest children are left to their own devices, unexpected things happen. Thankfully, the firstborn develops ulcers at the mere whisper of anything unsafe, so I can rest easy. It may be unexpected, but it won’t be dangerous. I woke up 30 minutes later to find the boys floating toy boats filled with soldiers in a bathtub filled with water and ice. I never ever would have thought to do such an activity. They adored it.

Book List for George Washington Unit

Benjamin West and his Cat Grimalkin by Marguerite Henry. (Part of our Beautiful Feet book study)
George Washington’s Breakfast by Jean Fritz
Phoebe and the Spy by Judith Griffin
George Washington by Ingri D’aulaire
A Picture Book of George Washington by David A. Adler
A Picture Book of Patrick Henry by David A. Adler
Journey to Monticello by James E. Knight
The Winter at Valley Forge by James E Knight
When Washington Crossed the Delaware by James E Knight
The Cabin Faced West by Jean Fritz
George Washington’s World by Genevieve Foster
***This book was given to us by another homeschool family. I don’t recommend it for younger children as a stand alone read. Its basically a text book about the world during the time of George Washington. My son is always asking “what else was happening in the world?” whenever we study something (Thanks, Classical Conversations!) and so he loved flipping through this book.
George vs George: The American Revolution as seen from Both Sides by Rosalyn Schanzer
Paul Revere’s Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Sybil Ludington’s Midnight Ride by Marsha Amstel
The Story of George Washington by Patricia A. Pingry (board book for littles)
George Washington and the General’s dog by Frank Murphy
George Washington: Our First Leader by Augusta Stevenson
Pauk Revere: Boston Patriot by Augusta Stevenson
Who was Paul Revere? by Roberta Edwards
Sarah Witcher’s Story by Elizabeth Yates
George Washington by Cheryl Harness
Additional Resources1. Jim Weiss
We love Jim Weiss. We started collecting his stories last year and they are the most requested stories for the CD player each night. For this unit, we enjoyed George Washington: First in the Hearts of his Countrymen.
2. Drive Thru History
3. For God and Country- Adventures in OdysseyI know—its a huge booklist.But like I said, my kid is a BIG FAN of all things George. The truth is, all these books were one big candy incentive to get my eldest boy motivated to do some ART! And boy did we ever have time to do artwork! Renderings of George as land surveyor, Farmer Washington, Major Washington, General Washington and President of the United States, are now littering the classroom along with a dozen or so gruesome battle scenes. (We are binding all the drawings into one large book for the two boys to enjoy) Before each reading session I would set out basic art supplies and we would spend ten minutes discussing our OiLS concepts from Classical Conversations. Then the boys would begin to draw. We’d stop every few chapters to look at work and discuss what they would be attempting next.

It worked! It worked so well. No complaining whatsoever. Glory be!

“Please Mom, read another story and we’ll do more art work.” Music to my ears. I won’t flood my post with pictures of artwork, but I will post one that I am very proud of; my eldest son’s drawing entitled, “Portrait of Reluctant George.” I asked him why he named it that and he responded, “Poor George just wanted to be a farmer after all that fighting. Then they went and made him President!”
Woo-hoo! Something that is not a stick figure. SUCCESS.

Whenever hands became cramped we would return to pattern play or working with our lovely Land and Water Forms Map. (10% off Promo code: farm now extended till 9/30/15)
We saved all of our science to do on one day. On Friday we sketched out our trees and leaves. We read “The Reasons for the Seasons” by Gail Gibbons. I set out our Montessori months of the year cards and tried to explain the concept of seasons to these southern-raised one season boys.Unit 9 is done!Now we await a tropical storm and next week’s unit on THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION!

MFW Adventures: Benjamin Franklin & Layers

August 13, 2015August 13, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ Leave a comment

We get a lot of lightning storms. This time of year, we have them almost every day! Our study of Benjamin Franklin coincided nicely with the weather. Last night, the bad weather rolled in just as the sun was setting.

It was overwhelming. Soon after the evening meal, the inside of our home suddenly turned a brilliant golden pink. We ran outside to see what was going on! We were greeted by brilliant colors, the rumble of thunder and powerful lightning bolts transecting the sky’s rosy palette. A great way to end a week of lightning watch. Thanks, God!

If you’ve been following our blog, you know by now that I am a bit of a book junkie. I hyper focus on books all. the. time.
So I am taking a page out of Ben Franklin’s personal book of improvements and finding ways to improve the way I ~~do laundry~~ homeschool with books. Book overload is not a good thing. I am learning to cut back on book volume and instead of grabbing copious amounts of literature repeating the same information ad nauseaum, I am choosing a few solid books that are well written and beautifully illustrated. I am trying to make sure that our book basket has variety and sustains high interest levels. Do I really need 6 books on Benjamin Franklin that all present the same biographical material? No. For example, we picked up “A Picture Book of Benjamin Franklin” by John Alder at our local library last week. This book is fine but not necessary for our week because it parrots back all the information we received through other sources. We ended up slipping that particular book, along with a few others, back into the library bag.

Benjamin Franklin Book List:
1. Benjamin Franklin Young Printer by Augusta Stevenson We read a few chapters from this biography every night before bedtime. The boys loved hearing stories about Benjamin Franklin as a child. In fact, he simply became “our pal Ben” during these evening readings. How fun to step inside the Franklin family banter! Ben made tough, deliberate decisions even as a child–this captivated my boys.
2. Now and Ben by Gene Barretta We loved this book! Bright and engaging. Parallels our world today with the innovations created by Franklin way back “Ben.” The four year old always came sniffing around when this book was pulled out.
3. The Amazing Life of Benjamin Franklin by James Cross Giblin The pictures alone are enough to draw a crowd.
4. Electric Ben by Robert Byrd My boys read this one back and forth to each other.
5. Ben and Me by Robert Lawson Another great chapter book read. This was our lunchtime book and my children are so hopeful for their own Amos.
6. Whats the Big Idea Ben Franklin? by Jean Fritz My second born has chosen to read this book on his own. He is 3/4 of the way done and I am excited to hear his “report” when it is finished. I love that he is interested enough to pick up a book on his own.
7. Ben Franklin and the Magic Squares by Frank Murphy Simple enough for my son to read by himself. He came running into my office, waving the book and begging for help so that he could make his own “magic squares.” He made magic squares all week long.
8. Benjamin Franklin by Indri D’Aulaire Our primary resource (outside of The Story of the U.S.) Beautiful, informative, incredibly engaging.

Our Beautiful Feet study has now synced up perfectly with MFW Adventures. We read the D’aulaires book, “Benjamin Franklin” each morning while coloring in the free pages provided by bfbooks.com.

One of our favorite chapters in the book, “Ben Franklin, Young Printer,” describes Josiah Franklin’s undercover methods of educating his children. Josiah and Abiah would invite guests over for dinner and through carefully crafted questions, lead the guests through a series of informative conversations that would edify their children and open the world to them while their little feet remained planted under the dinner table.
Now on his return trip home, Uncle Captain David stopped by for pizza and brought along his sea charts. Once the pizza was consumed, the chart was placed on the floor, measuring instruments were brought out and my children were soon learning how to plot courses around buoys, shipwrecks and shallow water.

My eldest remarked later, “I think we should do this kind of Franklin School Style more often!” We are so thankful for a wonderful visit with our dear friend and for his willingness to sprawl out on the living room floor and talk to our boys about the things he is learning.

I would have loved to spend our week outdoors doing fun Ben Franklin Activities as originally planned; but the heat, lightning and mosquitoes convinced us otherwise. The great outdoors are a great misery right now. I didn’t want the kids bouncing off the walls all week. (This summer we are averaging 3 nose bleeds a day thanks to wrestling, wiggling and plain-old “not watching where you walk”). How to have a fun week learning about Ben Franklin with minimal outdoor time while also avoiding meaningless handouts? Hmmm…

Dare we try lap-booking?

Confession: I never really fancied myself a “lap book” kinda gal. They seemed like an inordinate amount of work for Moms with mixed reviews on how much kids actually learned. The endless copying, card stock, glue, coloring, assembling–yay! More “Things to Do.” I wondered what percentage of these books were actually put together by children? Also, anything that feeds my Type A personality in a negative way is something I tried to avoid. Lap books just seemed like the homeschool version of crystal meth for my personality. (RUN AWAY!) Anyways, my boys have loved Ben Franklin for many years (devotion to the point of attempting non-sanctioned haircuts in B.Franklin’s money style) and they wanted to do a BIG PROJECT when we reached our pal Ben during Adventures. You know whats coming….

We finished a lapbook.

Or rather, THEY finished a lapbook. Yup, we took the plunge. As you can see from the cover page, I was not in charge of coloring. I certainly did the majority of the assembling, but these boys took charge!

Homeschool in the Woods lap-pak study of Benjamin Franklin was incredibly fun and meaningful. The instructions are clear and precise. The Benjamin Franklin book we assembled was lovely and I am so thankful that it came with Audio accompaniment. I was able to leave Team A coloring, cutting materials and listening to audio, while Team B and I sorted laundry on the other side of the house.

I was a bit worried that we would overload on the Franklin family if we integrated this lap-pak with our MFW study, but it complemented everything quite nicely. The boys were always looking forward to the next small project. If they did not have such a high degree of interest then the lap-pak thing just would not have worked for us. But these boys wanted more! And the lap-pak delivered.
Leather apron trades, inventions, timelines, contributions, documents, etc. Kudos to Homeschool in the Woods for this thoughtfully prepared material. My eldest loved getting to set the type for his own name with all the letters placed backwards and then seeing it close down on his name with the letters facing the right way. The second-born loved reading about Ben’s inventions and setting up the printing press diorama.
Once we assembled the books, I carved 10-15 minutes out my day with each son so they could walk me through their lap-pak. They were so proud of their hard work and eager to relay as much information as they could.

“See this armonica? Mozart liked it so much he made music for it. Thats how awesome Ben Franklin was. I want to build an armonica because you can’t get them in a store. They are in museums now.”
“All the printer’s type go in backwards because when it presses down then the letter go the right way. Its a mirroring thing, you know?”
“Just think about how important the Treaty of Paris was, you know Mom? And Ben Franklin helped write it and sign it! He was already pretty old by then so he had to use the bifocals he invented.”
“This is all the stuff he did. This line right here stops right before he’s your age Mom, which means he did all this before he was your age!”
“Ben Franklin practiced these 13 virtues. My favorite is Temperance but really I think we could all use more Silence.”

If Ben Franklin is just another week for you, proceed as planned. But if your kiddos have a special interest in him and would enjoy something “extra” then I recommend this lap-pak with two hearty thumbs up. (PS. Its geared for grades k-2). The boys learned a lot about the life of Ben Franklin and the importance of following directions. I learned that I am a lap-book “once in awhile” kinda gal and am in no danger whatsoever of becoming addicted.

Last but not least, SCIENCE.Lots of Magic Schoolbus over here! Beep, beep! We love reading Faith McNulty’s “How to Dig a Hole to the Other Side of the World.” Its one of our favorite books to read on a fairly regular basis.

This year I deliberately included Gail Gibbon’s “Planet Earth/ Inside Out.” This book uses evolution and big bang terms throughout. I walked the boys through the basics of each theory using the book. We looked at the creation account (even browsed through our old MFWK Creation books) and then reread “Planet Earth/Inside Out.” Plenty of discussion and great questions. I had to look up a few things and the boys followed along as I researched. The second born was fascinated by Robert Ballard’s current research of the biblical flood’s impact on an ancient shoreline at the bottom of the Black Sea. My eldest wants to research the possibility of pangea’s existence before the flood and the subsequent break up as a result of the flood. I love that he is wondering about that. I am glad that he is sorting through questions about creation and evolution while at home. I went to an evangelical college with a lot of kids that were taught nothing but creation at home and then went through major crises once they arrived in science class and began learning all these theories. I love that homeschooling provides platforms for researching and asking questions together about the beautiful mysteries of the universe our God so lovingly created.

How fascinating is our earth? The boys resounding question was “But how do scientists know this FOR SURE?” They are hungry to learn more about the scientific method and the history of science in general.
I made a pretty ~~ugly and haphazard~~ basic felt puzzle for the boys to play with. They loved sorting the layers of the earth and labeling the various pieces, all the while asking for MORE INFORMATION! Something tells me that our high school science years will be quite the doozy!

Next week we begin our study of my eldest son’s all time favorite person ever: George Washington! We may be taking more than a week to finish our study, we plan on enjoying it to the fullest!
Happy Adventuring, friends!

MFW Adventures: New Netherlands + Wiggle Room

July 31, 2015July 31, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ Leave a comment

Lots of new growth on the farm this month! Pineapples, bananas, watermelon, and avocados. What a great boost of encouragement for us as we lay out plans for our big fall garden.

We have wrapped up the unit on New Netherlands. Confession: I had no idea how to plan for this one. Not too many activities lurking around pinterest for this one. A trip to the library yielded a scant six books. I decided to keep the planner as bare as possible for the week. You know, keep a little wiggle room? I was tempted to take advantage of this “slow” week by adding extra geography or art, but I restrained myself. Instead, at the end of each session, I would turn to the boys and ask, “Lets play what we learned! What should we do?”

Well, these boys have zero problems being creative. They loved being in charge of our activities for this unit! We planned out settlements with our lincoln logs. We colored in maps of Old Boston and made a town meeting diorama.

We built windmills, sea port dioramas and Dutch step homes. We played with them during activity time.

We took the loom out to the backyard and did some weaving while we “watched the sheep.” We had to bring our rifles along in case the wolf (our west highland terrier) showed up. We pretended to take long sea voyages while huddled in bunk beds.
Then we had this conversation:

Six year old: “Sooo how come you never make those crazy snacks that go with our Adventures stuff? Like that little cookie bear driving a covered wagon made out of marshmallows and graham crackers.”
Me: “Because toddlers.”
Six year old: “Can I make a cool snack for us?”
Me: “Sure, what do you have in mind for Dutch Pioneers?”
Six year old: “I was thinking crescent rolls stuffed with gummy worms. Ya know, for the moldy bread?”
Me: “Not bad kiddo. You should write out a line up for the whole year!”

Not all ideas were approved. For example, the suggestion: “Lets invent a Separatist’s Diarrhea Bucket for sea trips! You go mix some mud for the diarrhea…” was met with, “Hmmmm, lets rethink this game a bit.”

So we went on a very long sea voyage while summer rain pounded down on the roof of the farmhouse. Whenever lightning flashed we’d roll about on the bunk beds and pretend to be seasick while someone shouted out “Day 42!” or “Day 127!” The boys excel at feigning sea sickness, so I can check that off the list, “Things the Boys should learn in 2nd Grade.” We sometimes read aloud from our book basket to pass the time during the voyage. Then the six year old began to direct things, “We’ll eat this moldy worm bread and Mom, you can be Trinka the cow. Go hide in the closet with the other cows and let out a sad, seasick, ‘Mooooo’ every once in a while.” (I have grown so much as an actress this year between my turns as Goodwife Misery and Trinka the cow). The six year old became a little overbearing and at one point my four year old rolled his eyes and said, “Ugh! You are such a Duke of York!” Guess the preschool gang has been absorbing more than I thought they would…

Have I mentioned how much we love ” American Pioneers and Patriots?” We are quite thrilled with it! Hands down our favorite part of Adventures so far. These stories about children throughout history make my sons wonder about their own place/story in history. Here are a few other books we read this week:

James E. Knight books—so much information relayed through these engaging stories!

We are also plodding our way through Betsy Maestro’s book: The New Americans: Colonial Times 1620-1689. We began last week during Pilgrims and we read a bit more this week about the colonists in New Amsterdam. The book does describe plenty of the violence between the settlers and the Native Americans. I am still not sure how much of the book we will finish in weeks to come. As always, I must balance informing their minds while still taking their young age into consideration and protecting their hearts. The fragility of their innocence is both humbling and terrifying sometimes.

We watched Magic School Bus, baked bread and finished our yeast experiments. We churned butter and kept working on our handicrafts.

We completed our Beautiful Feet study of “The Courage of Sarah Noble,” well ahead of the MFW schedule, which allows us to read “The Matchlock Gun” next week, during Michigan Pioneers. We snuck in “Sign of the Beaver” during our noon reading. “Sign of the Beaver” carries many parallels to “The Courage of Sarah Noble,” but replaces a young heroine with a young hero. The boys were thrilled at the thought of being abandoned in the wilderness with only Indian neighbors for company. They are currently wondering which part of the farm they can run away to and how long they might survive there. Many votes have been cast in favor of “somewhere near the chicken coop so we can eat eggs!” We also managed to squeak in a few chapters of “Misty of Chincoteague.” I had not planned to read this book at all for our Adventures year, but our language arts book, Writing With Ease, used it this week and the boy’s collective curiosity was piqued. After all, “American Pioneers and Patriots” featured animals brought over on ships to New Amsterdam. What other voyages did European animals take to come to the New World? My eldest is considering penning a small children’s book for his baby brother about just such a journey. Whether or not he ever does it, I am pleased that he is thinking about storytelling.

This unit was 40% pretend play, 40% read alouds and 20% science experiments. Does it sound like we read a lot? Well, we do. If your family does not read out loud much, don’t feel less than. I love reading and it has naturally flourished in our home because I make a huge effort to read out loud as many times a day as possible. We suffer greatly in other areas because of that single minded effort (read: LAUNDRY). I encourage you to do what you can with where you are in life. Even if its just ten minutes a day. Don’t feel guilty, just start somewhere and be consistent!

The boys always keep their hands busy while I read. The preschool gang made use of our sensory bins during story time. Mostly water beads, kinetic sand, corn and playdoh. They have learned to play quietly and are quite absorbed in what they are doing when measuring cups, magnifying glasses, scissors and toob figures are involved. Its taken training over the course of many weeks, but the stretches of quiet play are getting longer and longer each day!

This week we used the book “Colonial America.” It provided the patterns for the projects listed earlier in this post. Dutch step homes, windmills, etc. This book was more challenging than the Pilgrims History Pockets book we used the week before. The boys had no trouble coloring in and cutting out all the pieces, but they were only able to independently assemble 2 out of the 8 projects we finished. I would not recommend this book if you are looking for independent work, unless your child is especially deft at constructing these sorts of models.

Our favorite project was probably the “Look Inside Log Cabin.”
The boys loved seeing how simple these log cabin homes were. “No room for toys inside…so that means the outside world was where the kids played all of the time!” They seemed to be inspired by this prospect. During our Mom’s group playdate, my second-born eschewed the splash pad at the park in order to climb our family’s favorite giant banyan tree, far away from the group.

When I asked him about it he responded, “I am a pioneer boy in my heart today. I want to only be in this tree with my thoughts and imagine whatever I want. I think its the best way to play.” Little by little, his brothers joined him. When we arrived home, they quickly changed clothes and headed outdoors again; eager to collect eggs and mushrooms, scouting for places to build a log cabin, gathering pinecones and jasmine flowers to trade with neighboring Indian villages.

These imaginative adventures are made of rich stuff, my friends.