Big Changes

Well, I was planning on regular posts here as the school year started, but then everything changed! Rowan has gone off to school! This journey has been such an adventure and I have tried to take each year as it comes, watching each of my three children learn and grow and find their way. The youngest has been home the longest, but it seems that the time has come to let him fly a bit further from the nest!

So now what to do with myself? And what to do with this blog? I feel like I am just warming up to it. I think I will keep it for a while and see if I can find a new relationship to it, but right now I imagine it will stay rather quiet around here while I relax into my new role...

A Giveaway

I love to paint on Mondays, even in summer, even when we are not schooling. Something I never tire of is playing with color, so I end up with sheets of finished watercolors and wonder what to do with them.
thing I have done is create several sets of alphabet cards, both print and cursive. First I created them for my home classroom and later made some for others. It is a nice way to make something useful out of my artistic impulse and it keeps the stack of paintings in my closet from hitting the ceiling!

Yesterday I was painting and making some alphabet cards and looking at the little scraps of paper left after the cutting process. I have been thinking a lot lately about the concept of "zero waste" and how possible that really is. For a long time now I have been using re-usable grocery bags, storing things in old shoe boxes, recycling, composting, seeking out local foods or growing them myself, raising chickens and worms (both excellent composters). But I am seeing newspaper articles and little stickers in shop windows claiming "zero waste" status and wondering how I can, in my own way create less waste. Perhaps I am thinking about this because of the ongoing saga in my own household regarding our septic system. I have become way too familiar with the ins and outs of our literal waste system this summer! Looking for ways to reduce how we tax our home system has made me more aware of other areas where I can try to reduce waste in my life.

So, when I saw these little scraps of paper I thought about what I could do to make use of them. I came up with the idea for some little greeting cards. Once I had the scrap pile whittled down to only very thin strips I let the worms take care of those!

Now I have this sweet set of four paper collage note cards. One thing I realized was that it took a lot of extra time to sit and make something else out of my little scraps. But the activity was artistic and I was thankful that I had the time to spend. I may not always have the extra time, but now I know that there is always something more I can do. In honor of the project and to encourage others to think of ways to reduce waste in their hobbies, art and lives, I am offering the set of four cards as a giveaway. Just leave a comment here and I will enter you into a random drawing on 30 September 2010.

Getting Ready

It is fun to plan for the next school year! Today I cleaned my bedroom. It felt wonderfulto get all of the dust out of the corners and to begin to sort through curriculum materials for fourth grade.

When I thinkof fourth grade, I smile. The well balanced ten year old, the prime of childhood! There is a symmetry in fourth grade that completely resonates with the study of Norse mythology, fractions, long division and the movement toward science in the Human and Animal block. When I look at my older daughter's work, I see everything in rainbow colors and lovely, imaginative drawings with a new orderliness in the writing samples. My older son, who was actually home schooling in fourth grade benefited from form drawing and tongue twisters and poem's with rhythm. We learned to tie knots, paint animals and sew cross stitch.

The weather and the calendar of events in my area are inspiring me to begin our school year with a block on Local and Natural History, combining a focus on the human and animal with stories of and from local Native American tribes. An Ohlone Day celebration takes place near us in early September. I have been working on a story that involves a young Ohlone boy who sees himself in the still water of a pond. In this he notices some qualities of himself and realizes how different he is from an animal like the fish who swims by in the water or the bird that flies overhead. He will then have a long (something new every day for a month) talk with his grandfather about what it means to be human and admiring the gifts of many animals. I can then weave together some of the early history of California as well as a study of some of the many native animals of California. I don't have it all worked out perfectly yet, but then again, things often don't go exactly as I plan them...

My new clutch of hens has started to lay eggs! I have been waiting expectantly for weeks now and yesterday we had two small brown eggs. After a summer of bravely fending off the predators and watching the hens grow from little fluffy things into full sized clucking ladies, I am finally seeing the little gems they can produce.

Entering the county fair every year means that we often spend the first couple of weeks in September making and preparing entries for the fair. It also helps bring a personal connection to the fair itself and this makes the whole event more fun. This year Rowan plans to enter the baking contest, the Lego contest and the vegetable creature contest. I entered a little family of wool sheep inthe needle felting display.

Summertime

A summer of ups and downs so far: one child with a broken heart, one with an (almost) broken head and one who is just bored.

But I think that boredom is good for children once in a while. Besides, with a week in Southern California, a week in New York City and now two weeks of Celtic Fiddle Camp underway, my youngest really doesn't have much to complain about. I think sometimes he believes that summer should be about having some fun exciting plan for each day. The trouble comes because I want summer to be about having as few plans as possible. So we try to meet in the middle.

As for the broken heart, that has been a healthy process as well, as far as I can tell. My oldest had a sweet relationship that lasted quite a while, but, these young hearts grow fickle and things must change. The nice thing for me is that I have had some very nice hours to spend with this most interesting teenager. One huge first for me is teaching her how to drive! I am amazed again and again to see what a capable individual she is becoming!

And then there is my daredevil! My middle child. When he becomes transfixed with a hobby/sport/passion, he throws himself full force into the pursuit. So it is with his bmx bike and the tricks and jumps and routines he can perform with aid bike. He is careful and thankfully he always wears a helmet and that is what saved him from anything more serious than a concussion and an awful case of road rash on his dear cheeks. No skull cracking so far! It is a risky sport and some ask me how I can allow him to do it, but those people don't really know this child and how silly it is to think of me, his mom, telling him to stop pursuing his passion. Anyway, he suffered through it and seems to have grown from the experience.

As for me, I just try to get into the garden whenever I have a spare moment!

Finishing Up

Much has happened in these past weeks, of course. Our school year is winding down and we found a very peaceful way to do this by returning once again to the Old Testament Stories. We picked up with Moses and spent a full week delving into his life and journey. Next we touched on some of the well known stories of the Bible: Samson and Delilah, David and Goliath and Jonah and the Whale. These stories enlivened Rowan's imagination and brought out great drawings from him. It was a nice way for me to bring closure on this third grade year and its Old Testament theme.

For the past week we have been reviewing the year, looking at all of our paintings and main lesson books and trying to recall our best memories from the year. Most of Rowan's best memories had to do with our wonderful home school group that meets each Friday for crafts, festivals and an annual play production. This group has so enriched our home schooling experience, I am not sure how we would have managed without it.

Now summer approaches and I feel the pull into my own personal pursuits. I love being a home school mom but I also love the perk of summer vacation!

Spinning Cocoons

We had a terrible tragedy in our neighborhood last week and I have found myself a bit untethered. I am distracted and cloudy feeling and find myself lost in thought all the time. It is certainly true that something like this helps bring things into perspective, count our blessings, avoid sweating about the small stuff. As I work to reconcile my own feelings and wrestle with my own faith during this dark time, I find myself also needing to guide, teach and protect my little guy, Rowan.

We are moving sweetly and steadily through a gardening block. This week was just right for my tender mood. We studied butterflies and other insects in the garden. I was lucky enough to receive a butterfly habitat and a little kit with live caterpillars a couple of weeks ago and this week they all miraculously spun themselves into chrysalis. Along with this we had poems, stories and books out from the library. I have a lovely copper ball and found an exercise in Audrey McAllen's The Extra Lesson that involves spiraling the ball around the body from the feet to the head with the imagery of spinning a cocoon and being safe inside. This felt like something concrete I could do with Rowan to help him feel safe even with the sadness and uncertainty that has gone on around us this past week.

Our painting last week was of spring butterflies and so this week I continued the spiral theme and we painted big blue and red spirals. After the copper ball exercise and painting the spirals, Rowan was able to write and read significantly faster and smoother than last week. I am not completely sure there is a connection, but it was a remarkable jump he had this week in his academic ability.
The very best part the gardening block is gardening! We garden all year every year here and Rowan has always been a great helper in the yard, but with this block, he took special pride in our little projects. We worked on mending some raised beds to keep the gophers out (hopefully!) and we pulled weeds, trimmed back the rosemary (again!) and transplanted 14 small cypress trees to a more suitable location on our property. Spring flowers are in full force right now and we soaked in the aromatic beauty and felt as busy and as happy as the bees all around us.

We found a crumbling dyer's mushroom in the garden when we were exploring for garden bugs and decided to have some fun with science and dye some wool felt with different plants and mordants. Rowan is becoming good at measurement and thermometer reading. This dying project was a chance for him to practice those skills in a very practical way.

Finally I pulled out the clay and worked with the methods presented by Hella Loewe in her book Basic Scupltural Modeling: Developing the Will by Working with Pure Forms in the First Three Grades. We began the series of exercises some time ago and it was quite challenging for Rowan to attain a smooth sphere without using the table to pound the clay. This time around, however, Rowan was much more able to work with the different forms with only the force of his palms. We worked through several forms: sphere, oval, egg, saddle. At the very end, Rowan quickly transformed his smooth saddle form into the head of a snake with large fangs! I agreed that he could let it dry like that and put my own sphere back into plastic for another day.

Spring Garden

Our farming and gardening block is so much fun! One thing we just had to do to kick start the block was drop by the local feed and seed and pick up six new darling chicks. Once again, the broom closet is a little barn as we raise up our chicks to be big enough to move into the outside coop.



I found a nice poem to begin our gardening block with by A. Fairman in Wynstones: Spring

A little brown bulb went to sleep in the ground.
In his little brown nightie he slept very sound.
Old Winter he roared and raged overhead.
But the little brown bulb did not move in his bed.
But when Spring came tiptoeing over the lea,
With fingers to lips as soft as can be.The little brown bulb just lifted his head,
Slipped off his nightie and jumped out of bed!

Here is Rowan's rendition of the poem:


We started our formal lessons by reviewing the seasons and the months of the year. We sang the "Months Song" many times and worked out some creative charts. Thanks to Our Little Nature Nest blog, I also found this lovely book online called "Bobby of Cloverfield Farm" by Hellen Fuller Orton http://manybooks.net/titles/ortonhf2865228652.html. This story is simply a perfect accompaniment to our farming and gardening block.

This week, our painting theme was
"The Four Seasons Color Wheel".

Rowan's is on the left, mine on the right.

After our verse, poem, story period, Rowan cannot wait to get outside and actually garden every day! We have been focusing on the soil, getting it ready, checking different garden beds for soil that is too heavy or too sandy, turning the compost so it will be ready sooner, feeding our friendly worm bin and cleaning our the hen's big coop so that we can make use of their fine manure (after it sits a while and cools down!) We cheated a bit and used store-bought potting mix to start some early seeds (squash and cucumbers and lettuce). As we were weeding one bed, I decided to transplant a couple of the "weeds" we had pulled (an evening primrose and some foxgloves). I talked to Rowan about root division and the difference between plants grown from seed and those made from cuttings or division (I am keeping this in mind for a little math work later: division review). After we finish about an hour's worth of gardening, Rowan has plenty to write about in his daily gardening journal.After he finished his youth orchestra performance, Rowan came right home and burned his music! I was a little surprised at this, but now he is super focused on learning some new fiddle songs and it is amazing to see how much better he is at both reading music and picking up the rhythms! The orchestra experience, despite his nervousness, was so positive, I hope he will do it again. He has already said he is looking forward to Celtic Camp this summer (a fun local strings music camp focused on Celtic and other fiddle tunes - combined with climbing trees, swimming and running around in the woods).