There is so much going on in our yard right now. We have been learning so much!
"I dig and dig
I plant some seeds
I rake and rake
I pull some weeds
I wait and watch
And soon I know
My garden sprouts
And begins to grow"
Let Them Be Little |
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"Let them be little, 'cause they're only that way for a while. Give them hope, give them praise, give them love every day. Let them cry, let them giggle; let them sleep in the middle, oh, let them be little."
- Written and Sung by Billy Dean
Here is a look at our garden. We have pumpkins, watermelon, cucumber, zucchini, swiss chard, beets, turnips, green beans, peas, broccoli, spinach, lettuce, carrots, green onions, and onions all growing right now. Audrey made these rock garden markers. She painted the pictures, I wrote the names, and we placed them in our garden. We also have two apple trees with tiny little apples growing on them, two blueberry bushes, two strawberries, and a raspberry bush.
There is so much going on in our yard right now. We have been learning so much! "I dig and dig I plant some seeds I rake and rake I pull some weeds I wait and watch And soon I know My garden sprouts And begins to grow"
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"In the heart of a seed buried deep so deep A dear little plant lays fast a sleep Wake said the sun and creep to the light Wake said the voice of the raindrops bright The little plant heard and arose to see What a wonderful outside world might be." Audrey has always loved flowers. She really enjoys looking through seed catalogs and going to garden centers to look at flowers. She happily points out the ones she loves best. So this spring, she decided to create a rainbow flower garden. First, she picked one packet of seeds for each color of the rainbow. Before sowing the seeds, we spent some time comparing and contrasting them. Then, Audrey planted her rainbow garden. She created these colorful flower markers for her garden too. Dandelion, yellow as gold, What do you do all day? I wait and wait in the tall green grass, Till the children come to play. Dandelion yellow as gold, What do you do all night? I wait and I wait in the tall green grass, Till my hair grows long a and white. What do you do when your hair grows white And the children come to play? They take me up in their dimpled hand And blow my hair away. ~from Wynstones Press, Summer We love dandelions so much around here. They are little dots of yellow among the fields of green. They are so sunny and happy. In fact we love them so much, Audrey named one of our chicks, Dandelion. So, we wanted to learn more about one of the prettiest weeds we know. We read the story A Dandelion's Life (Nature Upclose) by John Himmelman. We were amazed to find out that a Dandelion is actually made up of hundreds of little flowers, they close up at night and open again in the morning, and when they close up for the last time as a yellow flower, they open the next day as that fuzzy ball of seeds. Audrey made a yellow dandelion fork painting and a white dandelion Q Tip painting. She also observed dandelions and recorded them in her Flower Book with oil pastels.
How fun it was, making dandelion play dough! First, we collected dandelions from our neighboring field. Then, we whipped up a batch of our very favorite play dough. The children loved pulling the dandelions apart and mixing them into our dough. We all enjoyed playing with our new dough, but Sophie seemed to have the most fun of all. Isn't it beautiful? I just love making different kinds of play dough, especially with bits of nature mixed in.
We just started our flower theme this past week. Our story for the week was The Flowers' Festival by Elsa Beskow. This is a lovely story of how all the flowers come to life for a Midsummer's Eve Party and a lucky little girl gets to witness it. Inspired by the story, we played with flower petal play dough, did some flower printing with paint, and made flower petal suncatchers.
Our family tries to make bedtime a very calming, peaceful, and quiet time each night. We start our bedtime routine with a bubble bath using lavender soap. After the bath, the children get their pajamas on and brush their teeth. We light our bedtime candle and then read a story. We say a prayer, blow out our candle, and get tucked into bed. The last thing we do is turn out the lights and say one of our bedtime verses. Here are some of our favorite bedtime verses:
"Sleep baby sleep The big stars are the sheep The little ones are lambs so small The moon a shepherd guarding all Sleep baby sleep" "Hush, hush my child It's time to rest The birds have settled in their nest The moon sails high It shines so bright On fields so still, the snow lies white" "Birdies are flying away home to rest Warm and soft in their feathered nest My baby sleeps in a cozy wee bed Pillow so soft beneath his little head" "Good angel, take me by the hand And lead me through the starry land Stars sing to me while I'm asleep You're loving watch forever keep That when I wake through all my days I may gladly follow in God's own ways" "Sleep baby sleep I see two little sheep One is black and one is white If you do not sleep tonight First the black and then the white Will give your little toes a bite." "Hush my little child and do not weep The sun has gone, it's time to sleep The clock strikes seven, bright shines the moon Sleep well, the morning will come soon." "Blueberry eyes Button nose Strawberry lips And tickly toes Off to dreamy sleep she goes" Every morning at breakfast we light a candle and say one of our morning verses to start our day. Audrey and Ethan choose the verse they would like to recite as we light the candle. Then we all enjoy our breakfast together. Here are some of our favorite morning verses: "Very early in the morning All the birds awake and sing Praising God that now the sun Has warmth and light to bring" "Good morning dear Earth Good morning dear sun Good morning dear stones And flowers everyone Good morning dear beasties And birds in the tree Good morning to you, Good morning to me!" "Morning has come Night is away We rise with the sun To welcome the day" "The golden sun is shining Up in the sky so blue Good morning, happy morning Good morning sun to you!" "The earth is firm beneath my feet The sun shines bright above Here I stand, so straight and strong All things to know and love. Good morning, good morning" We light a different colored candle each day of the week. This is one of the ways we bring in our "color of the day". This helps the children know which day it is and what we will do that day. Monday is purple, Tuesday is red, Wednesday is yellow, Thursday is orange, Friday is green, Saturday is blue, and Sunday is white.
Our little girl is getting bigger! She is riding her two wheeler! It took Audrey about 10 minutes to figure it out. Now look at her go!
During our weeks of caterpillars and butterflies, we took a trip to the Sertoma Butterfly House. This has to be, by far, one of Audrey's favorite places! She looks forward to this trip every year and never, never wants to leave once we are there. Her goal is to see how many butterflies she can get to land on her. She lives for this!!! Ethan really got into it this year more than any other so far. We were able to have Grandma and Grandpa come with us this year, which made it even better!
Our little caterpillars arrived this past month, so tiny and squirmy. We watched as they ate and ate and grew and grew. When it was time, each one changed into a chrysalis. Then it was time to wait and wait. Every day Audrey and Ethan would rush over to see if anything happened while they were sleeping. We got lucky enough to actually see one coming out of his chrysalis. Surely, this was a magical moment for all of us. We fed the butterflies nectar and gave them watermelon. We watched them flutter around their butterfly house. Sophie loved to watch them too. She called them "flies". Then it was time to let them go...always a mix of happiness and sadness. We did some butterfly art projects during our butterfly theme. Here are two of Audrey's favorites for you to see. The top one was done with glitter paint on just one wing. Then Audrey folded the wing over and pressed it onto the other wing so that the paint would transfer to that wing, and be perfectly symmetrical. The second butterfly project was done with watercolors. This is a picture of Audrey's Nature Book. On the first page, she observed and recorded our little caterpillars in their cup. She also drew one of the caterpillars in his chrysalis. On the second page she drew the newly emerged butterflies in their butterfly house. Audrey and Ethan made wool roving butterflies to go with our favorite butterfly song from Sing a Song of Seasons: "Butterfly, buttefly, now fly away to the blossoms Fly blue wing, fly white wing, now fly away to the blossoms Fly red wing, fly yellow wing, now fly away to the blossoms" Here is my chalkboard drawing to go with our butterfly story, The Story of the Butterfly Children by Sibylle Von Olfers. As you can see, Sophie added a little chalk work to my drawing as well.
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WelcomeHi! I am Allison. I am a happy homemaker, wife, and mother to four sweet babies. I am also a Classical, Christian homeschooling mom trying to make every day a celebration of love and family. I love to bake, cook, garden, read, do art, and spend time outdoors with my amazing family. Archives
October 2017
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