Day 5

This morning when I woke up my two year old, Jade was already awake and ready to start her day. I started my coffee (I can't live without coffee and I'm a coffee snob). While it brewed I started opening up our school room to give it a chance to breath in the small amount of cool air our mornings produce these days. As I opened up the door that leads to our backyard Jade walked out. As I began to turn away I hear her exclaim, "Wook at dat Mom!!! Wook at dat!" I walk back outside to find her pointing in amazment at the morning sky. The picture below is what Jade was showing me. Even to her this scene was extaordinary. It looked completely different than the rest of the sky this morning and it was set directly out our door for us to see. Had we have walked out our front door we may have missed it completely. It was the kind of scene I needed today as our week wound down. To me it was a gift from God for my job well done. It wasn't there in time for the big kids to see. Just me. I was lucky to get the picture with how fast it faded as the gentle breeze blew it into abstraction.

Today I am posting more than just our paintings. I took pictures through the morning of the activities we participated in. I thought it would be neat for those who read the blog to see that we do more than just paint.

Joey took this picture of Eden and I. We have been doing our circle time outside since the weather is warm when we get up.

Brothers. Notice Mystic in the back.

Jade spreads out the nuts we use in our game.

Here have one......

If you read my blog yesterday you know about the game Eden and Joey are playing here. So funny to watch them do this. Eden could pitch for the Majors with her feet!!! She can get a nut all the way into the middle of the street using her foot with her eyes closed! Weird talent, but hey.....

4x4 is 16, 4x5 is 20....While they recite their times tables they have to pass the nuts from hand to hand and from one to the other. It keeps the rhythm.

We play a game similar to the electronic Simon game, but with maracas. Everybody needs maracas!!!! Its a game to help stimulate the memory because a whole sequence is done by one person and the other has to copy it. It's fun and Eden stumped me several times. Thank you Lisa for the maracas!!!!

See the concentration! The kids are better at this than me.

It took Joey a couple tries yesterday to get the feel of the game, but today he loves it!!

Ring around the rosey.....Just a way to get Jade involved

Writing our Bible verse on our painting from yesterday. It's our way of reviewing the lesson from the day before and a way to practice our cursive writing.

More writing....No classroom is complete without a cat sleeping on the table. Make yourself comfy, Mystic!

Our lesson today was the fifth day of Creation when God populates the earth with every type of fish and every type of bird. Our paintings are of the birds in the sky.

Here is Joey's painting

My painting

Eden's painting

Creation Day 4

Today went much better than yesterday. After Jerod spoke to Joey about the importance of good behavior during school things went much more smoothly.

We began our day with our circle time which I think sounds so young for Eden, but we include activities for everyone to do and she really enjoys the time. We pray and learn a poem. We do some fun games. Then we throw in some times tables and some challenging mental math problems. Well, I thought they were challenging. Despite Eden's resistance to math, she's a wiz at it and she buzzes through the questions I recite to her. She doesn't work any of them out on paper. It's amazing how much she retains with math. Joey does the same thing. Obviously his questions are geared for a 4th grader, but he just answers in a snap. They don't need to be too challenging I guess. They're really just used to keep their mind sharp.

Our main lesson today was on Creation Day 4. This is the day God gave the earth the sun and the moon. One to rule the day and one to rule the night and to separate the light from the darkness. We read a story after we read the Bible verse which comes from a Legends of the Bible book. The story that goes with this part of Creation is really quite cute. It basically states that when God originally created the sun and the moon they were given equal power. The moon speaks to God stating that with so many things God created there was one more powerful than the other. For example, water is more powerful than fire because water can quench fires. The moon gives a couple other examples of this in his speech. The moon then states to God that He created the sun and the moon and it would only be fitting that one was greater than the other. This makes God angry because God can see that the moon wishes to be the more powerful one and he punishes the moon making it's power 1/6 of the sun's. Then the moon is sorrowful and begs God for mercy, so to speak, and God provides that mercy by stating that in the future world the moon's power will be restored full strength. Instead of simply being thankful the moon decides to inquire what the sun's power will be in the future world. This angers God again because the moon obviously is still worried about power, so God commands that the sun's strength in the future world will be increased 7 fold. The story goes on to explain in more detail how the sun travels and the angels that accompany it through its journey etc. It also states that at the beginning of each journey the sun and the moon beseech God to relieve them of their duties because they no longer can bear witnessing the sins of man. The story goes on to talk about why the sun continually becomes weaker as time goes by etc. It's a really beautiful tragic sort of story and we all liked it very much. So today we did a painting showing the pale moon and the stars in the night sky. They turned out really neat and we really had a lot of fun today.

Eden's painting.

Joey's painting

My painting

Jade's painting. She used two colors today.

Day 3

Today was a little rough, to be honest. I had an issue with my son, Joey today. He was very fidgety and argumentative. It was tough getting through our lesson. Plus, it's extremely hot today and our school room is not air conditioned. We eventually made it through and our paintings came out beautifully. I must say my kiddos are so talented. We've had a lot of fun learning about creation and making it so real by painting what it may have looked like.

We started the day, as usual, with a prayer and circle time which consists of activities age appropriate for Jade all the way up to Eden. Today we tossed assorted nuts, in their shells, out onto the sidewalk (we've done something with these nuts each day). Then I had Eden and Joey stand on either side of a line in the sidewalk. All the nuts were on one side of the line. The object of the game was the person on the side with all the nuts had to pick them up with their feet and pass them to the side the other person was standing on. The person on the other side had to then pick them up or kick them back over to the other side. Easy enough.....until I made them do it with their eyes closed. I also had them pick them up with their eyes closed by hand and pass them to the other. They couldn't see where they were handing them or where they were coming from. It was fun watching them figure out ways to get them where they needed to be.

Our lesson today was on the third day of Creation. This is when God made vegetation upon the earth. We also read an interesting legend story about the third day that not only talked about the vegetation here on earth, but the vegetation found in Paradise. It sounds so beautiful. After our lesson we painted pictures of what the earth may have looked like those first days with vegetation.

This is Eden's. I like how you can really make out the trunks of the trees and how the sun shines through.

This is Joey's painting. I like how his trees look like they are closer to us than the vegetation around them.

This is mine.

Jade experimented with blue today. Tomorrow I may let her mix her paints together to make different colors.

Creation Day Two

Yesterday we studied the second day of creation where God separated the two waters to form sky and water. As we will do each day with started with a circle time which consists of a prayer to begin our day, a poem (This week its Spring Prayer by Ralph Waldo Emerson), a few games to bring our minds center and some mental math problems. This week the weather has been really nice in the morning, so we've done this outside.

Then we enter the school room and begin the lesson. As I said yesterday was Creation Day 2. Below are our paintings that followed the lesson depicting what it may have looked like when God separated the two waters.

This one is Eden's.

This is mine

This is Joey's

We let Jade explore with red.

First Day of School at last

Today was our first day of school in our new school room. I've decided to blog with pictures to show how it went.

This first picture is of my husband, Jerod cutting the ribbon into our new school room. I felt it was fitting that it be him since he put the most time and energy into building it. We had a little bit of a ceremony to make it more exciting for the kids.

Here are Eden and Joey sitting at the school table with their new pencils they received as a first day of school gift.

Here's our Jade coloring on the chalk board. We placed it low so she could have fun using it.

Here's Jager just sitting here with all the excitement swirling around him. Here we are ready for our first day!
Our first lesson today was about the first day of Creation. We are studying Hebrew Culture for our first 4 week block. The first day of Creation consists of God making light, so we did paintings depicting what that may have looked like.

This one is Jade's. She is only given one color to paint with at a time. Since our study was on light I though yellow was appropriate. Our budding artist!

This painting is Joey's. I like how his light intertwines with what was once the darkness!

This painting is Eden's I like how the light seems to flow onto the page from somewhere else.

This is mine.

After reading the Bible verse and making our paintings, we took a walk and picked up things that remind us of the season. We came home and read books. Afterwards we worked needle felting. Now we are getting ready to make lunch together. So far it's been a really great day!

Almost time...

It's the Saturday before our school year begins and there are still many preparations to be made. Our Schoolroom is getting a coat of paint before the furniture we've been collecting all summer can be moved in. School books, crayons, paints, paper, play silks, yarn knitting needles, jump ropes and nature table supplies clutter our kitchen table in waiting for their places in our new room. The excitment I have felt all summer for this new school year to begin is at it's highest. I just know Sunday night I'm going to find it hard to sleep just like when I was a kid waiting for Christmas morning.

Some moments I feel ready to begin and others I feel inept. It's our first year privately homeschooling. Which means without a charter. I stepped out on my own to teach a Waldorf education to my son, Joey and because of problems with the Charter school we attended (http://tracypress.com/content/view/10765/2244/) to teach state standard education to my daughter, Eden. It's taken a lot of work, money and prayers to get ready for this year. It's exciting, but I'll admit it's scary too.

So the adventure begins!