O Come, Let us Adore Him.

November 29, 2015November 29, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ 3 Comments

I love Advent. I love the confident wait, the certain hope, the undeserved miracle. I love the still, quiet moments around the table with our kids. When the house is shrouded in darkness save for those glittering candles reminding us of His light and His love.

Our firstborn son was born the day after Christmas. In fact, I was admitted to the hospital Christmas night, swollen and scared and wondering.

Anticipation, expectation, wonder.

I have walked Advent with those very palpable feelings tied about my heart. As Mary makes her way round our wooden advent wheel, I am right there with her. Expectation and wonder. Scared and filled with joy.

We have shared 7 advent seasons with our children. Some of them were rife with illness or stress. Some were lonely, painful seasons. Some we crawled our way through, we made it by the skin of our teeth.

All of them had hope, because all of them had God. After all, Emmanuel has never skipped an advent. He’s right in the thick of it with us. We don’t have to put on our Sunday best to meet Him. He gets the broken bits, the tattered rags. He doesn’t mind that I haven’t done the laundry or that dinner was more than slightly burnt. Or that I skipped the Caroling at the Nursing Home field trip because I did not want to be around people. We are a mess and, unlike me, Emmanuel still showed up.

For those that have been writing in and asking what we do for advent, yes, I will be including a list of our favorite books and resources below, but I wanted to write first and say that you don’t need to buy or make anything so that your children can experience advent. Emmanuel–God with us– is all that truly matters. He is near to us as we wait with confident hope. The tender security of this season is not dependent upon what we mothers accomplish as social directors of the season. Lets make time to draw near and worship. Lets make it the priority.

We often see Christmas as our time to serve the community, or to teach our kids about loving others. Are you looking for opportunities to serve in your community and minister to others this season? Fantastic! Don’t forget to love God first. I have to remind myself of this over and over again. Our most important commandment is found in Matthew 22:34-38, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind.” As Henri Nouwen says in The Living Reminder, “It seems that in fact we live as if we should give as much of our heart, soul and mind as possible to our fellow human beings, while trying hard not to forget about God…But Jesus’ claim is much more radical. He asks for single minded commitment to God and God alone. God wants all of our heart, all of our mind and all of our soul.” Yes, love others this Christmas season. But we can’t forget to love God first. A few years ago my obsession was not getting, it was giving. And not the good kind of giving. I emptied myself so much I was basically inside out. A frazzled, empty mess. God was not first. He was not even a distant fourth. Everyone and their mother (except this mother) came first that year. My devotion was distracted. He showed up and I left the room to help someone else.

Lets lead our little ones to the advent wreath and spend time with the Lord, but let us not forget to get ourselves there first. Your advent season with Jesus matters too. So before you skip down to the resource section and kill yourselves trying to add in every single book or print out, find time in this often too busy season and carve out space for yourself to celebrate this expectant longing for Jesus. Wether or not you have an advent wreath, step away from the chaos and be near to Him. He loves you so. Come, let us adore Him.

This Advent I am asking God to help me understand the depth of His love for me. All these years of walking in faith and I still wonder, “really? Do you really, really love me?” I am a disgusting human being. Could He, in all the magnificent splendor and blinding blaze of His perfect righteousness, truly love me? My Sunday school answer has always been “Yes, He loves me!” I am certain of His love for others. Greatly, greatly certain of His love for others, but always cautious and insecure when it comes to me. I am praying for it to hit me like a ton of bricks this Christmas. I want to be utterly wrecked by His love. At the end of this Advent season, I want to live life like an unchained, freedom-gifted girl, adored by the God of this universe.

What will you ask Him to show you this season? What will you ask Him to reveal to your children this season? Pray faithfully over it. Pray it often. Write it down and pray the same thing over and over. I am determined to forget the dishes for awhile, arrive late to the party, leave the Christmas movie for later. Are the kids fighting? I’m committing to take a few minutes to intervene and help them reconcile before we move on and come to the light. If I start fighting with my spouse? I can stop in my selfish choo choo tracks, make it right and gather with my frail human family and worship Him– immortal invisible God only wise. There are a thousand distractions, a million blinking lights, begging me to turn away from the only light that matters. I refuse to be blinded by them.

Turn out the lights, come to the table, strike a match and light the candles.

Soak in His light. Hope, peace, joy and love.

He is coming.

Nothing can stop His coming.

Not fighting kids or messy rooms or canceled plans or strained family relationships.

He is coming.

Joy to the World.

Mary Consoles Eve by Sister Grace Remington

Farmhouse Schoolhouse Favorite Advent Resources

Advent Books/Curriculums for Children

Jotham’s Journey by Arnold Ytreeide
Christmas Carols for a Kid’s Heart by Bobbie Wolgemuth and Jonie Eareckson Tada
Unwrapping the Greatest Gift by Ann Voskamp
The Advent Jesse Tree by Dean Lambert Smith
The Jesse Tree by Geraldine McCaughrean
The Advent Book by Jack and Kathy Stockman

**We have also heard great things about Star from Afar and Truth in the Tinsel but have not personally tried either.

Christmas Books

The Story of Christmas Illustrations by Pamela Dolton (illustrations are featured above)
The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey by Susan Wojciechowski
A Tree for Peter by Katie Seredy
The Glorious Impossible by Madeline L’Engle, illustrated by Giotto
The Journey to Bethlehem by Chris Molan
The Christmas Stories of George Macdonald (one of my favorite collections!)
The First Christmas by The National Gallery London
The Legend of the Poinsettia by Tomie dePaola
The Candle in the Window by Grace Johnson
A Cowboy Christmas by Audrey Wood
The Small Miracle by Peter Collington
Josie’s Gift by Kathleen Long Bostrom
An Orange for Frankie by Patricia Polacco
Christmas Day in the Morning by Pearl S. Buck
Song of the Stars by Sally Lloyd Jones
Father and Son by Geraldine McCaughrean
Humphrey’s First Christmas by Carol Heyer
Back to the Manger by Margaret Ann Philbrick
Go Tell It on the Mountain by Debbie Trafton O’Neal
The Crippled Lamb by Max Lucado
The Tale of the Three Trees by Angela Elwell Hunt
Letters from Father Christmas by JRR Tolkien
Christmas Tapestry by Patricia Polacco
Christmas in the Country by Cynthia Rylant
The Little Drummer Boy by Ezra Jack Keats
B is for Bethlehem by Isabel Wilner

Advent Calendars
The Story of Advent Calendar
Kurt Adler Nativity Calendar

More Resources
Nativity Creche (Free printable)
Nativity Shadow Puppets (Free printable)

Half a Hundred Acre Wood’s MASSIVE Advent Activity list

Your Littlest Inklings

November 21, 2015November 21, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ 5 Comments

I was made to be the mother of boys.

Containing bugs, naming dinosaurs, tree climbing, up for adventures, making people happy with food, handy with a slingshot and always up for inventing something new.

Born to do this job.

Yet every once in a blue moon….

When the house is overwhelmed by farts, potty talk, poop jokes and crying from the latest gonad kicking contest…

I feel this way down deep pang of longing for a little girl.

For afternoons filled with high tea and Jane Austen. Mornings spent reading Anne of Green Gables or Little Women. Sewing projects and canning jam.

This longing has always made me feel guilty. I have been blessed with four healthy boys. My hands and my heart are full! How can I still want something other than what I have been given?

I pondered this today as I chopped basil for my husband’s salad and washed mint leaves for our afternoon tea. Our second born walked up and asked, “Mom, I want to preserve this St. John’s Wart for my collection of herbs.” I glanced at him, “You are collecting herbs now too?” He smiled, “Yes! I want us to grow them and then I want to preserve them so we can use them at home for all these different ailments. Just like the pioneers did. Just like Ma Ingalls!” I grinned back at him, “That sounds like fun! Lets do it! Dad and I are putting the new garden in this weekend and I’ll make sure we get our herbs reorganized and ready to go.”

Twenty minutes later the third born sauntered by, pantless, of course, arms laden with felt and a rapidly unwinding spool of thread. “Mom, can we make more Christmas ornaments?” We sat together for a few minutes, cutting scraps into shape and getting them ready to decorate. He looked up at me with his melting chocolate brown eyes, “I love making things with you, Mom.”

Half an hour ago my eldest found me folding laundry. “Mom, remember that story about the four sisters? Their Dad is fighting in the Civil War and their Mom’s name is Army?”

I blink. “Marmie? You mean, Little Women?”

“Thats the one!”

“What about it?”

“Well, I wanna get the Audio CD out again and listen to it.”

“I thought you didn’t like it?”

“Oh no, I liked it just fine. I wanted to move on to Guardian’s of Ga’hoole because I was excited about owls at war so we never talked about it. But I liked the story for many different reasons. Can we listen to it again and then talk about it? Like we do with all the Narnia books?”

“I would love that!”

I ran my fingers through his brown hair and said, “You know, CS Lewis and his friends were in a club of sorts. They would get together and talk about writing and life and books and faith. They called themselves the Inklings.”

He smiled big at me. The gap where his two front teeth used to be drawing me in with its devastating charm.

“Mom, we should do that too!”

“Talk about books? I already told you we could.”

“More than that! Make a club. You know? Drink tea as long as it comes with shortbread and talk about our favorite books and stories we want to write.”

“That sounds heavenly”

He hesitated, head tilting to the side in thought,”And we can call ourselves…. Your Littlest Inklings.”

“Or just, Littlest Inklings. What do you think, Mom?”

“I think I could not ask for more.”

I wasn’t just made to be the mother of boys.

I was made to be the mother of these boys.

I am thankful to the one who made us all.

MFW Adventures: Ohio Pioneers

November 15, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ 2 Comments

This past week, I opened American Pioneers & Patriots and began reading the story of the O’Neill family heading down the Ohio River.

The boys were decidedly not interested.

I knew attention and participation would be an all day, uphill battle.

I was not in the mood for that.

So I took some cardboard and the hot glue gun and built a flatboat. Then, I asked the boys to bring out the aluminum foil. We walked to the driveway with a bucket of chalk. I sketched out the states surrounding the Ohio River.

We set the foil out along the line of the river and curved the side up high. The eldest grabbed plastic teepees, warriors and canoes. The six year old held the raft and began gathering “supplies.” Little leaves, tiny berries, small stick to use as rifles.

We poured water into the Ohio river and the cardboard raft achieved lift off.

The boys were thrilled. As I read aloud from our book, they acted out each page. They asked thoughtful questions that sent me running to the computer for more information. They played with this set up for hours. Long after I had finished our assigned reading and the extra books in our basket, they played on.

I sat in a green lawn chair and hummed through Over the Rhine’s Ohio album.

By the end of the day, the water had leaked out and washed away the chalk. The next day, the boys ran out of the house with a laminated map in hand. Together they determined where the boundaries of each states should be. They carefully reshaped the Ohio river and even thought to elevate one end with flat rocks to help the stream flow in the right direction.

Its good to change the scenery sometimes. Its good to give their small hands something to do while they absorb information.

Before starting “On the Banks of Plum Creek,” I handed each boy a bowl, tweezers and an ear of Indian corn. They pried kernels loose while I read. We are collecting all these colorful kernels for our upcoming Thanksgiving unit. I love the concentration they exhibit during this exercise. The silence is also pretty fantastic.

We read five or six books on Johnny Appleseed this week. Our whole week was infused with apples! I made apple dumplings for the boys to eat while I read aloud from Margaret Hodges book. We sliced apples in half and used them to stamp butcher paper. We carefully folded up our project and stored it away for next month, we’ll be using the long rolls of apple stamped paper to wrap up presents for family. My five year old collected dozens of apple seeds and we used them as counters for our math lessons. The boys learned a great deal about John Chapman’s character this week. I believe it is the first time they have ever truly considered the idea of legacy. They are starting to wonder if they could change the world around them, even in a small, yet still significant, way. I pulled out Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney. After reading about the transformation Miss Rumphius ignites in her neighborhood, I charged the boys to begin thinking of ways they could impact our neighborhood for Christ. I am looking forward to hearing what they come up with!

We have been studying kingdoms and classifications in Classical Conversations this year. We used a few of our science worksheets and lab sheets to reinforce our MFW Science. The boys really enjoyed this exercise in particular.

Animal Kingdom Notebook Printables helped flesh out our Animal Kingdom Classification Books. Divider pages for each different kingdom are provided. The boys filled in facts about each one and went through a pile of magazines and cut out animals for each category as an “end divider” for each kingdom. Now as we study various animals we encounter in stories, on nature walks, or in our curriculum, we can draw their picture, record facts and file them behind the appropriate kingdom.

Team B enjoyed many fun projects and games throughout the week with their Year of Playing Skillfully curriculum. Team A joined in the fun! They still need heavy doses of play throughout their day. Pumpkin volcanoes and a Van Gogh study kept hands and minds engaged during breaks this week.

We also had the opportunity to watch a free performance of “Peter and the Wolf” at our local library. I was amazed at how much the boys remembered from their study last year during My Father’s World 1st grade. They called out the names of different instruments and characters and remembered the majority of the plot line.

We are getting ready to study “The Nutcracker” in a few weeks. I have finished compiling all the assignments and we will complete the entire unit before attending the show! We can’t wait!

MFW Adventures: Eli Whitney & Failure

November 11, 2015November 11, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ Leave a comment

We have taken full advantage of all the FREEDOM homeschooling has to offer these past few weeks. During our study of Eli Whitney, we managed to travel south to visit my family for a celebration, we returned home to host my in-laws for a few days and we visited Legoland. We managed to stay on schedule, despite a birthday celebration and the stomach flu tossed into the already crazy mix.

Legoland offers wonderful deals for Homeschool families. We enjoyed an almost empty park and the boys returned, brimming with ideas for new builds. Perfect place to be for studying the great Eli Whitney.

We always love heading back to my hometown. The boys have four great grandparents living there and they soak up all the time they can with them. After spending time discussing the process of harvesting and deseeding cotton, the boys had a chance to visit my grandparents and harvest coffee beans off their coffee plants.

It began to rain as we pulled the red beans off the plant. The large green leaves overhead kept us mostly dry. It was a moment to etch upon my soul, working alongside my little guys in my Abuelo’s backyard, the rain falling all around us and pitter pattering on the leaves. We chatted as we gathered, then we tried to come up with ideas to make the coffee harvest a bit easier.
I spent a few days cleaning up all sorts of coffee gin prototypes off the floor. My favorite lego creation featured a giant claw hand that was manipulated with a long hollow stick. A button on the side opened and closed the hand. The beans fell through the stick into a sorting compartment that hulls the seeds with “tiny razors.” Later, the compartment detaches, the seeds then dry out in the sun within the confines of the compartment. Once the seeds dry, the compartment can be placed over a stove top for roasting. They spent a long time thinking through the design of their coffee gin. The five year old wants to market it. Sometimes I am tempted to make projects for the boys, especially models of things we are learning about. I have to remind myself that they learn nothing from sitting by while I fashion something. It is always, always better to let them build and discover for themselves. The boys made the cotton gin pictured above. They failed repeatedly before they got it just right.
Every week, they are getting better and better at failing. Its wonderful! They are learning how to make mistakes and how to recover from them. They are learning that success takes patience and hard work. Sheltering my kids from mistakes and failures is probably one of the cruelest things I could do to them. I want them to experience failure while they are in my home, while I am nearby to support them as they sort out what went wrong.

We are looking forward to learning more about other great American inventors. So many learning possibilities await! I am currently gathering all sorts of odds and ends, from broken appliances to random spare parts. We are making room in our home for an Invention Station. I can’t wait to see what they come up with!

We are more than halfway through Adventures. The boys have completed over half of their Saxon Math work for Grade 2. They completed the Wolf level of Wild Explorers Club and have moved on to the Bobcat level. It all feels an awful lot like growing up…..
We celebrated all these good things with a day at the theater. I am thankful to live near a theater program that includes homeschool families in their arrangement with the local public school system. Its costs our family much less money to attend the live theater than to attend the movie theater.

Ohio Pioneers are on the horizon. Looking forward to building rafts and making maps with my boys!

Orderliness + Sensory Play: October

November 9, 2015November 9, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ 1 Comment

October has come and gone. It was an incredibly busy month for us. I am still trying to process all the things we learned together. I brought in lots of extra ideas from The Homegrown Preschooler this month. My newly minted 5 year old is quite over the moon whenever he gets to do “baking math,” my 3 year old is over the moon about the end product of “baking math.”

I love having my little Team B on this AYoPS curriculum together. It is fascinating to watch how they approach a new skill or activity. Add in sensory issues, speech & developmental delays and two very different personalities, and its a research field day of love and laughter!
I set out the invitation to play. Usually on a surface at his eye level and equipped with baby wipes or a small bowl with water and a dry towel, ready and waiting in case someone becomes overwhelmed by something. While the eldest children dive right in, my youngest always approaches new material with caution. Sometimes it takes him awhile to acclimate to a new sensation or a formerly distasteful, but currently acceptable, sensation.

***Side note: Please never ever force your child to touch something that freaks them out. It will not “cure” their sensory issues.

At times he will pause midway through an activity and stare at his hands this way. Wonder, watching, waiting? I’m not sure what he is doing, but he does it almost every time. I leave out the invitation and walk away. He approaches and deals with it on his own terms. Its been working for us and his confidence is gaining momentum.

I love that his curriculum and therapy bring him JOY. That is a big, big deal.

I remember paging through “A Year of Playing Skillfully” while standing by the Homegrown Preschooler booth at the FPEA convention last May. The month of October listed the character trait: Orderliness. I wondered how it would manifest itself in our home.

Yes, the boys put clothes and shoes away. Yes, they helped tidy up dishes and even swept under the tables for me. But the real surprise with Orderliness was ordering their world to the extent they did. The boys loved reading “A House is a House for Me,” last month. It carried over to the month of October and into the trait of orderliness. Finding a birds nest on the ground means that my little guy will carry it in and fill it with his toob birds. Tucking socks inside shoes because, “Go home, sock!” Making the bed because, “Go home, bed!” Wanting to put bananas back inside their peels because, “Go home manamana!” Last month he would count when putting toys away, this month he would say, “First, and then, and then, and then.”

Meanwhile, the 5 year old ate up all art and music activities this month!
We currently have an orchard of family trees and more yards of apple stamped butcher paper than I know what to do with. “Don’t worry, Mom. We’ll tell every one its jingle bell paper and use it for Christmas,” he said with a sly smile. Ah, yes. Fall colored jingle bell paper. Perfect. 🙂

We went on many walks in October. After reading “Counting on the Woods” by George Ella Lyon and making ever so many Nature Counting books, the boys are now on a constant watch for math in nature. “5 Kestrels and 4 vultures, ahoy!” Being outside with them is my favorite. Nothing to make or prepare beforehand, nothing to clean up afterwards. Just the boys and I and all the time the day has to offer.

They come home with dirty toes and a million ideas.
Nature calms and soothes my little guy. On days when I know the invitation to play will be asking a lot of him, I make sure he gets time outside in the wide open.

We made our pile of leaves out of rubberwood tree offerings. The boys like to restock and form the pile anew almost every day for more jumping and leaf throwing. It was probably their favorite activity of the entire month and it required next to no preparation from me.

Though our little guy does take his time putting the pile together.

“First this, and then this, and then this, and then this, and then this…..”

MFW Adventures: Wilderness Road & Wild Boys

November 9, 2015November 15, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ 1 Comment

Wilderness Road! Wilderness Road!

This curriculum is just too much fun.

We started unit 17 with a long walk through our local grassland preserve to celebrate our “Wilderness Road Day” Celebration. Thanks to the damp sand, the boys managed to track a rabbit for some distance. They also managed to track each other for a good long while, which was very funny. They’d ask, “What on earth made these funny tracks?” I would respond, “Hmmm, looks like a North American Pre Pubescent Homo Sapien to me.” Their father played this trick on them weeks ago but they still fell for it when I did it. Yessssssss!

We spent the rest of our walk imitating bird calls. One boy would pretend to be Daniel Boone and the rest of us were Native Americans. We’d hide and call out like wild turkeys to try and draw him out. We went through our yard and ate lunch based off of what we could find outside. We ended up eating eggs and cocoplums, and drinking pine needle tea, just like our friend Daniel Boone. It was terrible tea and we laughed over the tops of our cups and there were plenty of gagging noises and melodramatic “death by poison” scenes acted out at the table.

Then the Lincoln Logs were brought out and the boys built ever so many forts while bedecked in coonskin caps and fringed pioneer pants. We ended our Wilderness Road Day Celebration with “wagon wheel “cookies and milk. Don’t go looking on pinterest for an adorable recipe for wagon wheel cookies. You won’t find it what we made. Our wagon wheel cookies were made by my son. They are regular old sugar cookies with wagon wheel tracks on them. 😉

The boys happily settled in for their Saxon math lesson after all that exploration, building, gagging and feasting.

We’ve been able to build some really cool models and replicas this year. For this unit, we built a Frontier fort with the help of a very patient homeschool principle. I found this fort at the Rainbow Resource booth at the FPEA conference for $3. A quick search of the Rainbow Resource page did not yield an available link for purchasing this kit. Here is the more expensive Amazon link for the fort. This fort kit if for ages 8+. The boys definitely needed help with using wood glue and clamps to get the pieces to hold together.

This winter we will be harvesting from our first big garden here on the farm. We spent this month preparing the beds and starting our seeds. The boys are excited to eat like frontiersmen. I keep reminding them they will be working hard too. This garden will be a full time job!

We spent that Saturday morning sorting through our seed archive. We talked about what plants would yield the most crop at this time of year. What would be most beneficial for our table to plant? How would we store these vegetables once they came in? The boys had so many interesting answers based off of our readings in Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder. They are quite eager to harvest the crop and find ways to preserve our food! It is their dearest wish to pack something in sawdust and then walk in to the kitchen to find that I have cooked a mountain of food the way Almanzo’s mother does every five minutes. (Seriously, that woman cooks SO MUCH FOOD!!!)

Little House on the Prairie blog has these great pioneer paper doll printables, (along with a dozen other cute things) that we used this week. The boys loved putting these together while I read from Pioneers & Patriots. They ended up coloring and cutting out a bunch of accessories for their paper dolls to take on the long journey.

All this Wilderness Road/Pioneer reading made for a pack of mighty wild boys. They spent the week running, playing in the house, jumping in leaf piles, chasing the dog and bouncing on the adventure rope.
I am so thankful that they get to run wild.

On days when our parenting is terrible, our boys walk in through the back door and I look at them and take comfort in knowing that in this we are doing what is right for them. Sweaty hair, red faces streaked with dirt, grass stains on their clothes, windblown, smelling like sunshine and laughter and joy and childhood.

For the Birds– Birding & Resource List

October 19, 2015October 19, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ 4 Comments

Bird watching with tiny ornithologists is no easy feat.
There is a constant flood of noise trumpeting our arrival minutes before we reach the glades that hold our most sought after birds. They often take flight before we even get there. Chances are, if we venture out of the house in search of a specific bird and preschoolers are in tow, we won’t have much luck.

So we learned to look for signs of birds around us. Discovering their nests, learning about their feeding habits, watching for patterns in their departures and returns to the neighborhood. We set up bird feeders in our trees and left colorful yarn in the back hollow for the birds to use when building their nests.

We stopped to listen.

Because we slowed down we heard the tiny chirps of baby cardinals tucked high in the limbs of our jasmine tree. We were there the day the nest tumbled down after a particularly bad storm. We scooped up the nest and quickly tucked it back in place.
We started collecting abandoned nests in the late summer once the squirrels started knocking them down from the trees.

We know where the owl lives in the back hollow. Its small and brown and we love to look for its pellets. His head can rotate in the most alarming ways.

When the baby mockingbirds flew away from their nest, we peaked inside and found one egg that never hatched. Frail and small; blue and perfectly speckled. Dwarfed when held next to one of our chicken’s eggs. We marveled at it.

The gaggle of ibis that frequent our yard, their long hooked beaks and funny legs probing the grass. They’ll hunt for bugs alongside our chickens.

The flash of bashful pink under the pines when the roseate spoonbill comes to visit.

Sandhill cranes, poking around the fence, stretching to their full height of 3-4 feet, look like nosy neighbors. The Gladys Kravitz of the bird world.

Our proximity to the Everglades provides us with a wide variety of birds to watch in our own yard if we simply sit down and look up. Peregrine falcons, hawks, and other raptors abound out here. We are even visited with some frequency by a beautiful bald eagle. We hear the loud screeches of these raptors as they close in on their prey. We find remnants of their meals on the ground beneath the towering pines near the orchard. The back end of a rabbit. The head of a small bird. A gutted fish.

Tell me about the robin’s nest? Where is it located? What is the nest made of? What does the robin eat? We discovered these answers over days of rambling about the farm, remembering to keep our eyes and ears open. Pirate raids and jousting tournaments put on pause when we heard the familiar call of the blue jay that lives in the oak tree. We watched the epic battles between the jays and mockingbirds unfold before our very eyes. Quick turns out to the yard after breakfast to stop and listen under a nest teeming with young. We watched them grow up and fly away.

We spent time writing down the things we saw and when we saw them. Recording our findings helped us to see the patterns. The exquisite formula of nature.

Two weeks ago we drove to a bird trail and found the gates locked. The boys were terribly disappointed. As we slowly drove home along the canal, we encountered a large stork, lit up by the early morning rays, a long snake dangling from his beak. I stopped the car and we stared at him in silence as he slowly slurped the snake down his throat like spaghetti. Nature always finds us, even on days when we are turned away at the gate.

Yet the boys were determined to begin their own birding expeditions away from our yard. So I set about slowly teaching the boys how to birdwatch on the trail.

We started out by reading “Take a Backyard Bird Walk” by Jane Kirkland. This is a fantastic introduction to the world of birding. How to find nests, learning about habits and migration, even learning how to determine what a bird eats based on the shape of its bill. There are blank pages for observation notes. This is not a book for bird identification but rather a birding “how to.” Truly, a great find that cements birding in the backyard and helped transition us to birding on the trails.

A few other books have sat on our school table, providing information and vocabulary tools for any curious passersby.

Along with the house favorite Fandex….

We started with our native birds. Two at a time. We loaded our ark with knowledge in this way. We drew pictures and watched quick youtube videos about each bird. We squinted up into the sky in search of them.

We learned how to pack for our nature hikes. I learned to always bring a snack for the loudest preschooler. It keeps him quiet and out of trouble. I recommend our recipe for Audobonbons.
We record our findings and remember to check in with our local Audubon Society for help identifying unknown birds we encounter. Birding with littles can be challenging. Teaching children to be purposeful in their nature walks is challenging too. Both are incredibly fun and rewarding.
What started out as a brief unit study for My Father’s World Adventures in US History has become a lifestyle habit. We observe and record birds. They are familiar to us. They are part of our life rhythm here on the farm. Birding teaches us to classify, record, relate, recall, and dialogue. It is now an integral part of nature study for us.

Here are a few other tools and resources we use in our ongoing bird study.

Booklist:
Mama built a Nest by Jennifer Ward
Birds, Nests and Eggs by Mel Boring
Feathers, Not Just for Flying by Melissa Stewart
What Makes a Bird a Bird? by Mary Garelick
A Nest Full of Eggs by Priscilla Belz Jenkins
About Birds: A Guide for Children by Cathryn Sills
The Bird Alphabet Book by Jerry Pallotta
Feathers for Lunch by Lois Elhert (great for the littles!)
The Burgess Bird Book for Children by Thornton W Burgess
Beaks! by Sneed B. Colard III
An Egg is Quiet by Dianna Hutts Aston
Birdsong by Audrey Wood
Our Yard is Full of Birds by Anne Rockwell
Two Blue Jays by Anne Rockwell

Activities:
Bird Bingo: A family favorite! There is also this version which features lovely hand drawn illustrations instead of pictures.
Lego Birds Model Kit: Bluejay, Hummingbird and Robin. They come with stands and a little sign inscribed with their latin names.
Bird Printables: I discovered these gorgeous printables off the delightful homeschool blog Chaos Meets Creativity. We used our printables around the house on a rainy day. I perched them on picture frames or high on shelves. The boys took their toilet paper roll binoculars and practiced spotting them an identifying them.
State Birds & Flowers 1000 piece puzzle
Birds of the Backyard 1000 piece puzzle
Backyard Birds toob: We always use our 40% off coupons at Hobby Lobby for these. They work in sensory bins, working with ordinal numbers or color sorting, and we love to make homes for them out of playdoh.

Online Resources:
Xeno Canto: The largest online collection of bird sounds
550 North American Bird Calls: specific to N.A.
All About Birds: Learn how to listen to and identify, bird calls. Browse the rest of the site for great information on birds!
10000 Birds:Loaded with info on birding and conservation
Nature Songs: More North American bird calls
Where do you want to go Birding today?: Database of the best place to go birding worldwide
There are some websites with bird calls specific to each state.
Florida
Wisconsin
Lots more if you do a google search of your state + birds!

MFW Adventures: Daniel Boone & Weather

October 18, 2015October 19, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ Leave a comment

Its time for Daniel Boone! Its time for Daniel Boone!!

We ended up doing a much more in-depth study of Daniel Boone than I had anticipated. My eldest spent the majority of the week sporting a coonskin cap and hauling around his trusty rifle, “tick-licker.” So named after Boone’s own gun which earned its moniker through Boone’s storied ability to shoot a tick off a bear from one hundred yards away.

We read through dozens of books on Daniel Boone. My boys were wide eyed and filled with great questions. Learning about Boone and the Wilderness Road compelled us to study the art of tracking and identification! Check out our MFW Adventures board on our pinterest page for links to various studies and printables. Can I also add that this is one of my favorite things about homeschooling? Find something interesting? Go ahead and deviate from the lesson plan and take time to explore. Fantastic!

We read books. We tracked the chickens in our backyard. We discovered the nests of the feuding squirrel families that live on the farm. We even made tracks in cookie dough for a fun snack! However, once baking started the cookies ended up rising a bit too much and filled in the tracks. But we still had fun making track cookies and eating them. Later in the day, the Littles made tracks in their playdoh using their Schleich animals while the eldest sorted track cards and read through books on tracking animals and identifying various plants.

Speaking of plant identification, we had the best time playing Wildcraft, a lovely cooperative board game that helps children learn about various herbs and their uses.

The kids and I recently signed up for Wild Explorers Club which has been a great fit for us! We ventured out to complete our second assignment for the highly anticipated Wolf Badge and to put our Boone study into practice.

As you can see, not many autumnal colors for us, but plenty of beauty nonetheless.

Our explorers were eager to find tracks and scat. They were not disappointed.
Poop, ahoy!

We found deer tracks and scat, rabbit tracks, grey fox tracks, horse tracks, and snake tracks. Best of all, we got to play nature detectives when we discovered the exoskeleton of a crayfish discarded on a muddy patch of trail covered in raccoon tracks, which led us to raccoon scat 50 yards away. We had read Millicent Selsam’s excellent book “Big Tracks, Little Tracks: Following Animal Prints,” the day before, which had detailed this exact scenario. What a blessing to have it unfold before our very eyes. We were pumped! Its good to spend the morning slowly uncovering nature’s stories.

We’ll spend the next week focusing more on our native plants and animals, along with celebrating our own “Wilderness Road Day” which we’ll be sure to share with you!

The first portion of our weather study was a big hit! The boys loved all their Science with Air experiments. We added in plenty of fun weather related reads to our Literary Lunch hour.

I made sure to include a few books related to the weather in our area. Hurricanes are a part of life down here.

It never ever snows here. So we threw in a few snow related books as well.

One of my favorite science resources is this gorgeous book:
My boys love looking through this book and I often find them copying pictures from its pages. This week we took a closer at Julia Rothman’s snowflake renderings.

The boys were fascinated by these pages. It eventually led us to this snowflake generator. Small clicks leave small ice prisms, long drags and clicks make larger shafts of ice. The 2D and 3D views of our snowflake creations were quite the thrilling experience for these southern kiddos!

Unit 17 is up next. We are eager to continue our journey deeper into the frontier.

MFW Adventures: More States & Birds + Evaluations

October 2, 2015October 2, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ Leave a comment

It’s Fall inside ya’ll!!!

Confession: I love autumn when its actually autumn, but I’ve never been a big fan of decorating for fall when it looks like the the height of summer outside. Yet my boys love decorating, so this is the week when I show them love by hauling out the box of fall decorations from the boiling hot garage and then spend hours of my life tossing fabric leaves on every available surface of my home. Sigh.

Now autumn themed food? I can get on board with that at any time of year. My pumpkin bread will never ever be as good as my Mom’s bread, but that doesn’t stop me from tossing a sub-par loaf in the oven now and then. It smells good enough to draw in one or two kids. Beggars can’t be choosers. Oh the joy of reading “Farmer Boy” around a plate of warm mediocre pumpkin bread! Tea time is 30% better these days.

Week 15 arrived and I realized that we were almost halfway done with Adventures. We are having fun and time is flying fast! Not as fast as the birds outside when they hear us coming, but close enough. I wanted to spend some time evaluating our homeschool life now that we are nearing the halfway mark. Here’s what happened this week…

On Monday morning my son quipped, “Guess we are in for another round of birds and states!” and so we were. You can read all about how we study the states and birds here.

We added a few great elements this week that my boys enjoyed. Beginning with inspiration from this lovely graphic….
The boys and I started to look around for bird tracks and scat along with feathers and nests. We have found some pretty great stuff so far along with some not so legitimate made up stuff too. (My four year is the King of “Look at this oviraptor egg that I found!”) We are gearing up for a deeper study of animal tracking next week with Daniel Boone, so this was a great introduction. Premeditated Leftovers has a handy dandy article on Bird Unit Study Resources and we used several of those ideas this week.

We are anxiously awaiting our new Birdscapes clear view bird feeder from Amazon. Hopefully feeding the birds straight from our window will provide us with plenty of bird watching opportunities. We decided to wait one more week before decorating our tree for the birds. A low key schedule next week will provide ample time for bird viewing so we can reap the rewards of our hard work! The boys are eagerly planning out bird treats, designing shelters and building additional feeders. We’ve picked a tree close to the house but far from walkways. (No sunflower seed enhanced poo poo on my sidewalk, thank you!) The tree is situated near a large thicket of thorny flowering plants which already house many birds. We’ll be posting updates of our Bird Tree along with our upcoming Bird Watching post!

I’ve been training Team A to take more initiative and responsibility with their school work. Teaching time management is a taxing but worthy effort. Some days the boys decide to forgo our block schedule rhythm and finish all their work quickly in order to spend the remainder of the day outside. My boys are starting to recognize how and when they work best. I don’t think I really learned that about myself until halfway through college! I’m thankful they have the opportunity to evaluate those things now.

This week they flew through their work in the early morning hours and then rushed outside to play the day away. They played with mud, sticks, puddles, grass, stringy moss, leaves and pine needles. I assumed they were just making an enormous mess and having fun. After a few hours my son invited me over and explained what they were working on.

“We are watching the water flow from the top of the crest down into this lower area and figuring out all the ways to break up the stream and make it flow the way we want to. We built the things to stop the water from flowing and doing that created all these little lakes. Then we tested out what things would sink and what things would float. Then we played with the water hose to figure out how much water had to come out at which speed in order to knock down the dams we built. Like a flash flood? And we tried making little mud houses to see if they could stand even against certain levels of water flow. Water always flows downhill, don’t forget. If you stand down there you might think its flowing up towards you, but its not. Its flowing down. Think of the Nile river flowing North. You are North but your elevation is lower so that means our river flows down towards the North. Which reminds me, that puddle is the Sea of Galilee and that little rivulet is the Jordan river and guess where it flows, Mom? The DEAD Sea! We filled it with dead leaves so it wouldn’t get confused with the Sea of Galilee.”

This blew me away. As he spoke I could connect the dots between the years of My Fathers World. Bible stories, science projects, history work, books, and games. Its strange watching MFW K, MFW 1st and MFW Adventures come together in a single moment and then join hands and merrily skip away. I tuck these moments away and reflect on them in the moments when the world tries to bring doubt into our classroom. When the devil whispers that what we are doing is not enough, that the kids don’t know enough, that I am not enough; I silence those whispers with the moments of affirmation God gives me. Those precious moments I can look back on, reach out to cup in my hands and then spill out like little pearls before God as I thank Him for His faithfulness. He called me to homeschool. He is equipping me daily. He is even encouraging me while I stand in the heat, swatting mosquitoes and listening to my eldest bubble up knowledge that feels outrageously beautiful to him.

Here is the plain truth of my homeschool life at the close of week 15: My rough and tumble boys are thriving with their gentle education. Its not perfect. It doesn’t have to be perfect in order for them to thrive. In fact, I think they are thriving because our homeschool is not perfect.

Because the preschooler threw tantrums in the classroom this morning, we ran away to the park and had a beautiful morning.

Because I forgot to print out our language arts cards, we stayed even longer since we didn’t have a reason to rush home.

Because I lost my temper in a flood of sinful anger, I had the opportunity to apologize to my boys under the shade of this beautiful tree. We got to talk about grace again and it reminded us of this week’s Bible verse and before I knew it, we were talking about the Tabernacle and the Temple and the mighty curtain torn asunder and we were all breathing in gratitude together.

Because MFW is gentle with my children, it reminds me to be gentle with myself. Gentle with my expectations and the demands I put upon myself as a wife, mother and teacher. I recite Isaiah 40:11 to myself quite often, “He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.”

He is gentle with us!

I never expected that one of the defining words of their childhood would be “gentle.” And yet there it is, coexisting with other defining words/phrases like: “muddy, messy, adventure, accident-prone, projectile vomit, projectile everything else, stories, farming,therapy, insects, confidence, legos, bravery.”

“Gentle” is the umbrella that covers all the other words.

I am so thankful for that.

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!