52 weeks of photos. A special moment during the week of January 23, 2017
{Creatively living lightly with less.}
Friday, January 27, 2017
Friday, January 20, 2017
52: 3
52 weeks of photos. A special moment during the week of January 15, 2017
Old Town Sacramento in the rain
Thursday, January 19, 2017
harmony for change
The start of the new year coincided with the need for a new notebook. I had drifted away from daily use of a notebook and pen for lists, podcast notes, and other random brain dumps, instead appreciating that my phone and computer notes sync with one another. But I began noticing that, even though this simple notebook has never been a journal, the absence of putting pen to paper (even if only to make a note of something I wanted to do later on the computer) was creating an internal bottleneck for me. So recently, I have been starting my day with a little writing by candle light, followed by exercise. I take my journal and this notebook to the table with a cup of tea and a candle, to get my thoughts out for the day. This has been key for me, uncorking words that have been stuck for a long time now. I have been feeling the need, for some time now, to unlock some things that have welled up inside, but that I have been holding back. I thought I had been moving through things smoothly, but comments from each of my three people (two little and one big) were painfully startling to me, making me realize that feelings I think I have been hiding, have actually been bubbling over more often than I think.
This is the year of harmony, but I have been feeling strongly that this will be a big year of change. I am seeing it all around me in the lives of others I know, I am seeing it in my own life and in my bottled thoughts, we are feeling it following the election, and I am feeling s sense of it, deep down. I think some of the change will be good, some bad, and some will be unexpected. Some might be welcome, some resisted. So at the moment, I am trying to focus on balance, on harmony, and on acceptance, and on releasing a little more to pen and paper.
Saturday, January 14, 2017
learning period 2: 2016-2017
Better late than never...a post about our second learning period (October and November). Our first learning period post is here.
Social Studies: A great resource for this year has been Give Your Child the World, by Jamie Martin. It is a book of books for a variety of ages, from all around the world. I probably should have mentioned it in my post for our first learning period, but I didn't think to. During this second learning period, which covered October and November, we spent a lot of time exploring our community, learning about government, and how to create change, all on a very simple level. The kids wrote to our local representative, commenting on traffic flow and safety in our neighborhood and asking for changes to be made to make things safer. We continued exploring the presidential election process and talked after the election about what we can do, locally, to support our neighbors and the issues we believe in. Also during this learning period, we read about, learned about, and celebrated some of the Jewish holidays, in keeping with Waldorf 3rd grade studies for Little Brown Mouse. When we covered this when Lala Bug was in 3rd grade, some of the celebrations resonated with me, and I have considered them each year. I love the idea of a new year, casting off one's wrong-doings, and asking for forgiveness of oneself and others during Rosh Hashanah. We also enjoyed apples dipped in honey and tossing our mistakes from our pockets. Lala Bug also grew in appreciation for American Girl recently, has shared the love with Little Brown Mouse, so many American Girl books have been read. We could do an entire year of American history with a certain set of the American Girl dolls!
Math: Lala Bug settled into math club this learning period and likes all the playfulness of it. She is using an online program as part of the math club, which we also tried at home. It is fine, but she doesn't like it as much as Khan Academy (which we use sporadically) and I really don't like using one more resource! Mostly, this learning period, we stuck with Beast Academy and the Key To series, as well as games!
Science: We got ourselves sucked into and somewhat stuck in a geology block this learning period. I say stuck because as I write this, it is actually nearing time to write a summary of our third learning period and we are still dipping our toes into geology. It has been fun to move in and out of geology exploration when you live in a place like California! Science has also been following interests; reading books (we are still enjoying an older series called Destinations in Science), exploring outside, and enjoying Mystery Science. For our 3rd grade farmer, we learned about and participated in harvesting corn (some of which we later gave as holiday gifts), and all of us enjoyed visiting clustering Monarchs after raising our own.
Writing: Writing continues to be tied into what we are learning, although Lala Bug really enjoyed the creative writing class she took this learning period, through our charter school. She worked on all sorts of ideas in this class and from it blossomed a girl who spent tons of time creatively writing on her own. She also wrote a suggestion-filled letter to American Girl and is in the middle of a couple of stories that have the potential to go from short to mini-novel. Little Brown Mouse likes me to scribe his stories and he is more and more full of them these days. He is also learning cursive.
Language Arts: I might have to refer to the writing paragraph above, with the addition of commenting that I have been working, slowly, through The Wand, from Brave Writer, with both kids, in large part because it is teaching phonics, grammar, and writing in a more systematic way than I had been doing previously.
In addition to the core topics at home, we incorporate lots of play, nature exploration, Little Brown Mouse was in a soccer club, both kids were in a soccer group, 4-H was active, and both kids took classes through our charter this learning period.
Social Studies: A great resource for this year has been Give Your Child the World, by Jamie Martin. It is a book of books for a variety of ages, from all around the world. I probably should have mentioned it in my post for our first learning period, but I didn't think to. During this second learning period, which covered October and November, we spent a lot of time exploring our community, learning about government, and how to create change, all on a very simple level. The kids wrote to our local representative, commenting on traffic flow and safety in our neighborhood and asking for changes to be made to make things safer. We continued exploring the presidential election process and talked after the election about what we can do, locally, to support our neighbors and the issues we believe in. Also during this learning period, we read about, learned about, and celebrated some of the Jewish holidays, in keeping with Waldorf 3rd grade studies for Little Brown Mouse. When we covered this when Lala Bug was in 3rd grade, some of the celebrations resonated with me, and I have considered them each year. I love the idea of a new year, casting off one's wrong-doings, and asking for forgiveness of oneself and others during Rosh Hashanah. We also enjoyed apples dipped in honey and tossing our mistakes from our pockets. Lala Bug also grew in appreciation for American Girl recently, has shared the love with Little Brown Mouse, so many American Girl books have been read. We could do an entire year of American history with a certain set of the American Girl dolls!
Math: Lala Bug settled into math club this learning period and likes all the playfulness of it. She is using an online program as part of the math club, which we also tried at home. It is fine, but she doesn't like it as much as Khan Academy (which we use sporadically) and I really don't like using one more resource! Mostly, this learning period, we stuck with Beast Academy and the Key To series, as well as games!
Science: We got ourselves sucked into and somewhat stuck in a geology block this learning period. I say stuck because as I write this, it is actually nearing time to write a summary of our third learning period and we are still dipping our toes into geology. It has been fun to move in and out of geology exploration when you live in a place like California! Science has also been following interests; reading books (we are still enjoying an older series called Destinations in Science), exploring outside, and enjoying Mystery Science. For our 3rd grade farmer, we learned about and participated in harvesting corn (some of which we later gave as holiday gifts), and all of us enjoyed visiting clustering Monarchs after raising our own.
Writing: Writing continues to be tied into what we are learning, although Lala Bug really enjoyed the creative writing class she took this learning period, through our charter school. She worked on all sorts of ideas in this class and from it blossomed a girl who spent tons of time creatively writing on her own. She also wrote a suggestion-filled letter to American Girl and is in the middle of a couple of stories that have the potential to go from short to mini-novel. Little Brown Mouse likes me to scribe his stories and he is more and more full of them these days. He is also learning cursive.
Language Arts: I might have to refer to the writing paragraph above, with the addition of commenting that I have been working, slowly, through The Wand, from Brave Writer, with both kids, in large part because it is teaching phonics, grammar, and writing in a more systematic way than I had been doing previously.
In addition to the core topics at home, we incorporate lots of play, nature exploration, Little Brown Mouse was in a soccer club, both kids were in a soccer group, 4-H was active, and both kids took classes through our charter this learning period.
Friday, January 13, 2017
52: 2
Last week, I posted a week of photos (one for each day of that week), noting that I had tried to post a photo a day last year and failed. I had hoped that posting on just one day, including photos for the whole week, would do the trick. In my mind, all week, though, I kept coming back to the weekly posting begun some years ago at Soule Mama. I haven't been a regular Soule Mama reader in a long time now. So long, that I didn't realize she stopped {this moment} a year and a half ago. But as someone who is not on Instagram and is still wanting to share snippets big and small in this blog space, I am going to do just that; a {this moment} of sorts. These are the days. So project 52 commences, with one (or more) photos weekly.
Saturday, January 7, 2017
365: 1-7
Last year, I started the year determined to post a photo a day. Yup, failed at that. I am sort of going to try again. This year, as part of an attempt to get myself more organized and consider my focus on harmony, I going to try and carve out a little regular blogging/writing/photography time weekly, so I am hoping to post photos from the week, once a week. We'll see how far I get. Here is week one.
Sunday, January 1: Winter spiral walk
Monday, January 2: Archeologist block from Dada
Tuesday, January 3: Thank you notes
Wednesday, January 4: Memory with Mama before everyone else wakes
Thursday, January 5: Lunar landing at the space science center
Friday, January 6: Our first (previously loved) drum set. The littlest drummer didn't want me to take a photo of him.
Saturday, January 7: Dinner at Grannie's
Thursday, January 5, 2017
Countdown - December 2016
Each year, from December 1 through January 1, we set up a holiday countdown for the kids. They are big enough that they don't need it to keep track of the days (in fact, there are certain things I can no longer include, because they are such a given, including them in the countdown would detract from the anticipation and joy the kids still get), but the countdown is one of the favorite anchors of the holidays for all of us. Below is the list of activities that were included in the countdown. I have really long list that I have created over the years, which I cut into little strips, each strip with a message, so one strip gets tucked into each countdown sock. As you can see, we celebrate a lot in December. Today seems like a fitting day to finally post as we wind down with the 12th day of Christmas. The 12 days of Christmas isn't something we have historically celebrated, but last year, we listened to the Advent stories and then the 12 days of Christmas stories from Sparkle Stories. We loved them and did so again this year. Today was the final day. With that, the holidays come to a close and the new year truly commences.
December
- Change nature table
- Pull out the holiday books
- Have a party!
- Make paper snowflakes
- Have a lunch date out!
- Happy St. Nicholas' Day!
- Outing with Grandma and Nonno
- Pull out holiday decorations
- Take care of our bird friends
- Get a Christmas tree!
- Decorate the tree and watch Yogi's First Christmas (a family tradition!)
- Treasure Hunt
- Decorate a wreath for Grannie
- Merry Making
- Pick a candy cane from the tree
- Write holiday cards for a stranger to appreciate
- See Bethlehem scene
- Go to a winter concert
- Make a lantern
- Solstice Eve lantern walk. Think of others today. What can you do or say to someone else that would be especially kind?
- Make a new menorah (just Little Brown Mouse)
- Dip beeswax candles
- Treasure Hunt
- Make gingerbread houses
- Buon Natale! Merry Christmas!
- See neighborhood holiday lights
- Make latkes and applesauce
- Play dreidel
- Create a Tommy Tomten booklet and print card (Both kids love this book series)
- Enjoy a Hanukkah doughnut
- See holiday lights and enjoy family game night with a fire
January 1. New Year winter spiral walk
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