Walking through a zoo or farm

Yesterday, when we were walking through the farm, we enjoyed our stay so much. I told the children that we were there for the goats and that we would do other things after we were done watching the goats. It worked out wonderfully!

While we were studying them, I noticed a few families that came by. The children would so be soaking in every bit of what they could. They were having fun getting to know these wonderful creatures! After just a couple of minutes, not even enough time to appreciate the animals, mom would start saying, "Come on honey, we need to go. Let's get going. Come on, let's go see everything else. Let's go!" I know I used to be this way too, but when one learns how to appreciate nature and then hears this, it makes one want to turn around and say, "Now, hang on a minute! Your child just got here and wants to have a nice conversation with a new friend! Why don't you come over here and find out how amazing these creatures are! Give your child a chance to at least say hello and watch it for a few minutes!" But I must keep my mouth shut. It is a pity that children are so often rushed on to the next activity.

That is one aspect of Miss Mason's methods that I have come to appreciate so much. It has really made me slow down and soak in all that God has blessed me with.

Another wonderful CM day! Wk 2 Day 1

We finished off our reading for the day and Benjamin Bunny's narrations are doing great. Flopsy is even beginning to tell a little about the things she hears. Today, we read the Burgess Bird Book and she just loved that our favorite Beatrix Potter character was in the story!
We finished the field study for our Nature Study of goats today. We got to ask a few questions and the children were able to feed some baby pygmy goats. It was absolutely wonderful. Tomorrow, I'm going to ask them some questions about the goats and get an official writing for what we've learned about goats. We'll work on the pictures for our Nature Journals as well. I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know these lovely creatures and I call them my friend.

Week 1 down and now on to #2

Last week was fantastic! We thoroughly enjoyed all the berry picking. The nature study of goats was so fun, we get to do it again today! All the books are so wonderful, I have never read such beautiful works! Benjamin has been saying, keep reading, don't stop! He said so many times last week - I love school! I love school! I love math! The only thing we're going to struggle with is going to be writing and doing his own reading. I've told him that right now, he needs to be reading to me at least for 10-15 minutes a day. For writing, I'm going to gradually work him up to 2 verses for copy work. I also have available for him a notebook for creative writing.
Well, I'm looking forward to another wonderful week. I'll leave with a few pictures from last week.
Enjoy!

A Lovely Morning Walk!

This morning, Benjamin and I went on a regular morning walk and went off the road on a little excursion. We found the most wonderful thing! WILD blackberries!
It was fabulous. What a wonderful way to start a new day.

Day One, Day One, 2nd grade has begun!

Well, folks. We officially made it through our first day of our first offical CM / AO year 1.

Notes:
my schedule is out the window now! It was a great ideal, but goodness, did God ever show me that I have no say in how our days go! We did fine though. I just need to give more time to things like meals and clean up. And I need to do some of the reading while Peter Rabbit is taking his nap.
I do fear that I pushed too hard on the first literature reading and naration. It was "A Lesson of Faith" from PARABLES OF NATURE. It was only 7 pages, but how could I expect him to narrate 7 pages!? He did fine for that nevertheless. I am proud of him and have decided that I need to divide up the readings quite a bit more, but now I'm wondering how I'll fit it all in.
Today, we also did nature study. We are doing mammals and the goat was our first subject. We went to a local farm and watched the goats for probably 15-20 minutes. The children loved it so much! We really did have a good time. One thing that Benjamin said he learned today is that he thought nature was only plants and insects, but it's not, it's animals too! Oh, there is a world of knowledge awaiting him! I'm so excited for him. Little Flopsy just soaked it all in and loved the animals. We also took some time to look at the other animals there and went to pick some black berries. It was a lovely day.
But I've got to slow my horses down. I have this perfect picture in my head and I need to do some serious erasing! Well, school is over for today and tomorrow is day two, a fresh new day with a clean slate.
Thank you, Father, for the graces of this day.

A wonderful morning at the lake...in a wild flower meadow

Saturday was wonderful. We woke up early and got some things done and then decided we had enough time to go to the lake and just enjoy the peaceful morning. It couldn't have been more of a CM morning for us so far! It was absolutely lovely! I needn't say anymore. The pictures will speak for themselves.

Scheduling...AAHHH!

Actually, I guess it's not a horrified scream. Maybe more of a rejoicing scream! Today, I think that our schedule came together. I'm hoping it works. I keep looking at it in wonder and amazement, thinking, "how do I ever get it all done?" I've been trying to read Managers of Their Homes and have been working to implement the scheduling ideas. All I can say is I hope this works. I think it's going to be nice. We laid down what chores will be for each child (yes, even Peter Rabit has chores) daily, and weekly. If this works, our 'home' will be running so well! My main thoughts are about how the school part of it all is going to work. Using CM, there are several things studied once a week and so that puts us in a position of basicly a different school schedule each day. I'm anxious to see how it all plays out.

Two Weeks...Count down continues!

Yep, we have two weeks till our first official day of our first year using AO. I'm excited. We celebrated a wonderful 4th of July and are now head long into preparing for our first week. I've been trying so hard to get a schedule put together, trying to figure out when to do everything and what days. It's going to be a great schedule, as it looks right now. I'm just trying to figure out how to make it all work with an anxious pre-schooler (Flopsy) and an ever growing mischevious toddler (Peter Rabbit). I'm not too concerned though. God will guide us.

We purchased "school suppplies" yesterday. It was fun for the kids to pick out new folders, notebooks, and pencils for the new year starting so soon. We have also decided on our selections for term 1 composer study, and the print selections for picture study. This first term, we are not going to follow the suggestions for these two. Since we will be reading Mid-Summer Nights Dream in Shakespear, we are going to listen to Mendelssohn and use his Wedding March during that story. We will be looking at the artwork of Monet now as opposed to term 3 because there is an extremely large work of his "Water Lillies" at the museum in KC and we may be moving very soon. I wanted to give the kids a definite opportunity to see a work that we will be studying in person. How fantastic will that be?!

I've just about got everything in place and I think I can say,

I'M READY, BRING IT ON!

Yay!

A Nature Walk through Echos of History

Last night was marvelous. We went to Shawnee Mission Park and went down into more of a natural area. It had the tall grass prairie of KS and it was down by a creek. It was simply a delightful walk for our family. We came to a display stating that some Native Americans lived in that area about a thousand years ago. The kids really got into it. We heard a lot of sounds that made the kids think there were still people living down there, carving rocks. Then, later, as we were walking more in the prairie part of it, Flopsy related that we were like the Ingalls! We then proceeded to run in the tall grass, just like Laura did as a girl. It was fun to pretend to be in a time so long ago. We picked a few wild-flowers and brought them home. We also picked a couple of leaves from two different trees to bring home and try to identify. That is still in need of being done. I want to have the kids identify them and then do a leaf rubbing. That would be fun! We also took some of the flowers and pressed them, preparing our scrapbook of pressed flowers (as discussed in CMs list of attainments for a child of six).

Today has been pretty wonderful too. This evening, Flopsy found a frog in our garden. We watched it for a while and then she really wanted to get out her Nature Journal for this upcoming year and paint this frog. She wanted my help so I helped her see the lines in the shape of the frog and we figured out how to draw it as best we could, then she filled it in with her water colors. It turned out quite cute. I must remember to date it and label what it is and where she found it.

The school year is nearing rapidly as we have two weeks until our first day. I'm sure this promises to be our best yet. Flopsy will begin a light kindergarten year including: a plethera of reading material (AO's Year 0 book list); a letter for the week; about two or three numbers a week; a color each month; and nature studies, composer studies, picture studies, art studies, handicrafts, lifeskills, hymns, folk songs, and Bible studies all with big brother Benjamin. Benjamin's 2nd grade year will include the above studies with Flopsy and AO's Year 1 book list and schedule. We are awaiting these new studies with extreme excitement!

Bible Studies

This morning, I found a fantastic free Bible Curriculum! As I was sifting through things in the Padfield website, I discovered the website for Wycliffe Bible Translators. They have a few links to a wonderful set of Bible class curriculums, most of which seem to be geared toward missions. At first glance, it seems fantastic and definitely something we will add in to what we will already be using. The first set we will use will be on prayer. They have a journal for children. This is going to be a fantastic journey through prayer, I think Flopsy and Benjamin will benefit greatly from this study.

18 days until DAY 1 of the new school year!

Plans for today: A trip to Shawnee Park, fun in the summer sun, but also a small amount of Nature Study.
Time to prepare for the day.

This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it!