Stinging Stories, Lighthouses, and Book Club~

School is for moms too! I have been taking a watercolor class from Jeanne Oliver called Close To Home: A Watercolor Landscape Journey. I absolutely love it and learning all the things~

I've said it before but bears saying again~ Just start working on something and watch them flock around to do it too~

Monday sweet little baby got stung on the finger while picking a flower for me and guess what she did before she went to bed that night?

Grabbed one of our favorite nature books and sketched it then wrote her story! That's real-life schooling!!!

She is ALWAYS making a book~

Tuesday was Poetry day so I made Pork and Pancakes for breakfast then we read another selection from Rudyard Kipling's poetry book and Just So Stories. We read How the Leopard got his Spots then sketched and watercolored~

Mimi brought her watercolors and painted with us... see her beautiful cat above ↑.

Everyone copied a small portion of the poem then created their cat~

I'm amazed to see the personalities of each one shine through their art~

Wednesday was History and Art Day. We learned about the famous Pharos Lighthouse in Ancient Egypt and found a chalk pastel to paint of a lighthouse~

We paired this lesson with one of our favorite picture books, Hello Lighthouse~

Again the beauty and personality that shines from them is amazing~

These IKEA bookshelves were sitting on shelves so Scott hung them on the wall for us. Now we have a 'little' library in the sunroom of the picture books we are presently enjoying~

Thursday we mixed Nature and Science by choosing our favorite nature books and watercolor books +

 Some of them chose their favorite encyclopedia to sketch from... My kids LOVE them!!!

We also pulled out book holders and drew while I read Karl, Get Out of the Garden~

Everyone got a new pencil case which holds all our color pencils and watercolor cases~

Everyone chose whatever they wanted to sketch~

Today we brought FUN FRIDAY back!!

The kids came in for breakfast and I asked if they would like to skip bookwork... you know what they said! I have 4 things in mind~

We always read our bible devotional and poetry book every day then I chose a math game from these books to play as a group~

This summer we are planning to choose writing projects from Brave Writer's Jot It Down and Partnership Writing to do each Friday,

but today we completed our Hero's Journey Project as a family~

I gave each of them their own copy and assigned them to work on it this weekend. They will share them on Tuesday and we are going to make a book of our stories!

We read picture books Jason Chin had illustrated because we watched the Illustrator Workshop from Read Aloud Revival~

 We loved the workshop and got lots of wonderful tips for sketching and watercoloring!!!

Book Club in full swing~

If there is one thing I wish all parents would hear me say loud and clear... WAIT until children are ready to read and it will be SO much easier!!! I'm working with 3 now and they are amazed at themselves. We picked up Little Bear this week and we are taking it one page at a time~

We watch a short story from the show and go to work on the words!

I write one word at a time on the whiteboard and reread when we get to the end of a sentence~

Pretty soon the whole page is written out and I make a copy of the page for them carry around and practice. When we finish a chapter, we will make their own book. They love it SO much!

I keep all our Book Club supplies in this big basket which they love 'playing' school with~

 

Finally, we have enjoyed our Brave Writer Arrow study book The Boy who Saved Baseball so we chose The Rookie to watch this afternoon as our Friday movie and ate skillet cookie for a treat!~

It's been a  GREAT week of learning and we're ready for the weekend!!!

Queens, Crosses, Gardens, & Stories~

We enjoyed a semi spring break this week but sprinkled through out was...

A day all about Queen Victoria and mapping~

We celebrated Holy Week with this wonderful book and chalk painted crosses and the empty tomb~

We are also reading all the garden and plant books during April so we planted seeds~

Friday is free write day and here are a few samples of what we've been writing~

The sketch of the collie is a gift EK drew for our precious neighbours who let us borrow the tents!!!
Isn't is beautiful??? LOVE it!!!

Lots of Learning~

Calla got a set of Lola book for her birthday and one morning she woke up wanting to make her own Lola book~

We had such a fun lesson one day with directions and went outside to play a simon says game of walking in a certain direction~

Our hymn gave us the wonderful activity of reading Saint Francis and then writing a biography narration~

Amelia found a dead female cardinal beside the road and brought it to Ella who proceeded to pick the bones for her nature shelf. She amazes me~

This was our very first year ordering a butterfly kit and boy were we blessed by it! 2 cups of caterpillars arrived still as could be but in just a few minutes were crawling all over the place looking for food~

Only about a week later, they began to make their chrysalises on the top of the cups~

So we moved them to stands then placed them inside the butterfly house~

Another week passed and we woke to 10 beautiful Painted Lady butterflies~

It was SO wonderful to have the boys here to expeience this with us!

They were amazed although BC said they did it at school, he was able to see close and hold one~

We took them out to our butterfly bush, put our hands in to allow them to light on our hand, and watched them fly away~

What a gift to witness the miracle of seeing caterpillars to butterflies~

God is SO amazing!!!

We are reading through the Beatrix Potter series so we nature journaled squirrels~

AND one morning Evie was standing at the kitchen sink when all of a sudden a huge bee flew to the window. I assumed it was a Cicada killer but Ella said NO Mom, that's an Eastern Hornet.

After I recovered from the shock of capturing it to protect us (and observe), we spent the whole morning researching and sketching it~

Pretty awesome sketches I think~

We tried to save it but it passed so now it's on our nature shelf in all its beauty~

 Lot of learning here EVEN in the summer!!!

Lots of Learning!

One of my favorite things is taking photos, and I have been printing key photos of memories the kids might choose to write about in their journals.

I lay the photos out and once they have chosen, I let them write OR I write down their thoughts for them~

This is definitely Calla's favorite activity mostly because she loves to look back on all the photos tucked sweetly away~

We have loved starting a few new things this month such as an Emily Dickenson poet study and Ancient History study~

I have also begun using The Wand from Brave Writer with the little girls and usually the others mingle in as well~

The treasures I have found in the $$ spot at Target are coming in handy!

EK is working on another display for her nature shelves~

An insect collection.

EK and SJ learned how to make pompoms from yarn and created this adorable little animals~

We have been reading this book with our ancient study~

 This chapter made for a very fun dusting day last week!

Sometimes I walk around the corner to find EC diligently working on a big project~

 Here she is copying the sight words into a tiny book she made.
After she was long done and it lie on the table forgotten, I glued it into her journal for safe keeping.

She, HM, and CA made their own version of pompom pets~

 And just like If You give a Mouse a Cookie...
If you make pompom animals, you must have a cute bag to carry them in.

We made a cute game called Letter Mamas and Babies with lids from pringles with baby letter written on it~

 And Mama letters from a puzzle.
We pretended the babies were crying for their mamas, so we had to match them up!
SO fun!

I also made up a pass the bag game where each child pulled out a three letter picture, and we all wrote it on our boards~ 

 Then we put in our Montessori Phonetic Reading Blocks~

 Three little girls are becoming BIG readers from all this fun!

One day when EK dumped the skimmer, she found this adorable toad frog~

 So she made him a terrarium, and we all observed and journaled for science~

 LOVE bringing real nature in and making it part of our learning~

Planning for homeschool looks a lot different than traditional school planning for me. When I taught school, I had every single minute planned from bell to bell because... 24 children. Every minute had to be accounted for and used to maximum potential. I even began my home school life planning like traditional school just in a home location.
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Planning has changed to serve me, not me serving it. Usually on Sunday, I make a wish list of things I might want to cover sometime next week. (1st photo) and as those things are completed, I mark through them and add unfinished ones to next list.
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At the end of the day or couple of days, I make a list of bullet items we completed that day (2nd photo).

I love writing a list of completed activities (3rd photo) and realizing how much we do in a day that wasn’t even on the list. Having a wish list invites rabbit trails and deep dives.
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For me, planning and listing completed tasks also allows me a place to record growth moments for each individual child because GROWTH is the measure I use in evaluating our learning. Not test scores or completed curriculum or even a new skill cemented. I measure our success with Growth in character, interest, and motivation~ those are the eternal values we all need to strive for whether home schooled or traditional.
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You know the old Theodore Roosevelt quote, “People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
•That’s the bottom line~ Am I teaching them to care and love and serve?!? 


We enjoy a @juliebravewriter lifestyle as much as possible, and one of her tips is to encourage our children to tell their stories and then jot them down~ making writing feel natural, meaningful, and supported.

 One of the ways we have made writing a real life experience is allowing EK to write for her own IG Page.
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She is practicing photography, editing photos, how to write a post, and publishing. We’re keeping it private and enjoying the time we spend together working on it!

We have three little foxes that live behind our house in the woods~

 And we love watching them play each afternoon.

Calla loves to paint and here she is at 6:30am one morning happy as a lark~

Seems like I’m on a writing kick right now and want to share another @juliebravewriter tip~
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Go deep instead of wide meaning it’s perfectly okay to take all the time needed or wanted for a certain thing. As for time, it could mean a day, a week, a month, etc. on any subject.

All my children have Penpals and other than math and read aloud, it’s a Deep Dive Day. It take ALL the time and ALL my energy, so I don’t try to squeeze in all the things.

This was a little book PC made for his penpal and I couldn't help but take photos of it!!

Writing letters is SO rich in many things from thinking to speaking to organizing to communicating not to mention all the mechanics that goes into it X 7. Such a wonderful art that has sort of gone by the wayside. 

This little baby asked Alexa how to spell cat all on her own and wrote on her paper~

 Backwards and all. :)

Fridays are Free Write days and while the big kids were writing their thoughts~

 Evie began copying these adorable new books we ordered from Target~

 And when she began copying, her two younger sisters did they same.
Just look at Calla's little drawings~

And copying the words! I am SO proud of all 7!!!