A is for Animals

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As we travel along the Alphabet Path, we don't reach the zoo until the very end. But Wednesday was just so beautiful and I knew that it was way too early for anyone to have already organized school field trips and I was pretty desperate to inhale great gulps of fresh air, so I declared that "A is for Animals" and off we went.

Long ago, I promised Stephen that when he finished the entire Apologia Zoology Series, he could give us a tour of the zoo. He was a most impressive tour guide. Seriously, they should hire this kid to sell the series. He learned--and retained-- so very much. 

We had a glorious day. Katie was given free reign with the camera. Nearly all the "big camera" photos are hers. And even though we'll revisit the zoo, both in story and for real, at the end of the Alphabet Path, I did bring our just a few zoo books for the occasion.

Zoo: For the youngest set. A very simple introduction to the zoo and the people and animals there.

The View at the Zoo: Darling rhyming book with whimsical illustrations. See the zoo from the animals' perspective.

If Anything Ever Goes Wrong at the Zoo: A little girl who lives on a hill above the zoo tells various animal keepers to remember that the animals are welcome at her house if ever anything should go wrong at the zoo. There's a flood and...

A few more zoo books here and here:

My Visit To The Zoo

100 Animals To Spot At The Zoo

National Zoo Board Books

Z Is for Zookeeper: A Zoo Alphabet

We'll do it up big with zoo books in the spring.

For more about our Storybook Year, read here. And, there are Storybook Science books, from A-Z, linked here, scroll down on the lefthand side.

iPhone shots:

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Amber on the Mountain

One of my favorite books in the autumn, just as school is shiny and new, is Amber on the Mountain. It's the sweet story of Amber, a girl in the mountains, far from school and books and even pencil and paper. Another little girl, Anna, moves into the town for a time while her father builds an "impossible" road. Anna teaches Amber to read and gives her a great gift in the process. She so persuades her that she can "do almost anything if you fix your mind on it" that Amber teaches herself to write after Anna leaves. 

The book is beautifully illustrated with rich, luminous pictures and we all sigh a happy sigh every time we greet Amber and Anna. We've had a bit of a rough beginning this semester in the reading department. It's hard when you are well old enough to read and write and people littler than you seem to do it much more naturally and easily. Much perseverence and hard work is going to be required this year of some of my middle kids. But reading and writing are worth it and they know it.

{Karoline, on the other hand, is reading right along and setting all "reading lesson" plans on end. Note to self: don't order the reading program in the spring and think you can set it aside until fall. It just might be irrelevant by then.}

For more about our Storybook Year, read here. 

needle & thREAD

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{all photos credit: Katie}

This week, I tried to sew all the things that I've been promising the girls we'd sew "this summer." I didn't even come close. Karoline had a sweet piece of needlework long finished, that I'd suggested for a pillow. She chose fabric from the stash and pieced together a bit of a log cabin square. I referred to my pillow tutorial and she made a sweet cover. Delighted doesn't even come close to capturing how she feels about it (and herself). Bonus points: she happens to have a matching sundress. Everyone matches their dresses with their throw pillows, right?

Then, we made some notebook covers. The girls each have a new compostion book for the new school year. Sarah and Kari are using their for journals. Katie calls hers a "conversation book" and she's begun a dialogue with Kristin. Very cute. Kristin's thinking deep thoughts while barfing, by the way.

I've used Rachel's tutorial every time, embellishing a bit differently with each cover.

All in all, some fun playing with pretty fabric just before the school year kicks into high gear. That lofty list of sewing goals? Oh, dear. Time is closing in quickly.

 

In the reading department, this volume has become available at Amazon:-). I've been reading through (which is so not the way it's intended to be read) and pondering ways to create community online around folks who are using the book along with me. There was a book club suggestion on Instagram. Not sure what that would look like. I'd also like to find the way to make the Small Steps Companion Journal available to you in some form even though it's not going to be republished. Thinking thoughts. Dreaming dreams. Dream along with me? I'm happy to hear your thoughts.

What are you reading and sewing this week? 

I am eager to hear!

  Or are you embroidering? Pulling a needle with thread through lovely fabric to make life more beautiful somehow? Would you share with us just a single photo (or more) and a brief description of what you're up to? Will you tell us about what you're reading, also? Would you talk sewing and books with us? I'd love that so much.

    Make sure the link you submit is to the URL of your blog post or your specific Flickr photo and not your main blog URL or Flickr Photostream. Please be sure and link to your current needle and theREAD post below in the comments, and not a needle and theREAD post from a previous week. If you don't have a blog, please post a photo to the needle & thREAD group at Flickr. 

       Include a link back to this post in your blog post or on your flickr photo page so that others who may want to join the needle and thREAD fun can find us! Feel free to grab a button here (in one of several colors) so that you can use the button to link:-).

All About Apples

The first couple of weeks of school are always apple-y around here. The Alphabet Path story begins with an apple tree and the fairy who lives there. And, of course, there are apples to pick and apples to make into pie and apples to can for later. The apples where we like to pick aren't quite ready for us yet, but we have our apple books out and we're exploring the science behind all that apple loveliness. 

It's my theory that good picture books can completely cover all necessary elementary science. To that end, two favorite apple books are How Do Apples Grow by Betty Maestro and How Do Apples Grow.

Karoline chose How Do Apples Grow, a simple book which follows an apple tree from the bare winter branches until autumn picking time. We read the book and talked about it and then she chose her favorite picture to copy. 

Katie chose The Life and Times of the Apple, which is sadly out of print, but worth the hunt. It's a more advanced lifecycle book with excellent detailed illustrations.

Other favorites are:

Apples (a Gail Gibbons, book. She's always excellent.)

The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree (Gail Gibbons again. Excellent again.)

The Apple Pie Tree (this one is new to us this year. I pretty much love the collage illustrations.)

We have some favorite apple-themed fiction books. I'm saving those for next week.

For lots more apple-related and "A" themed learning, visit us here.

For more about our Storybook Year, read here. And, there are Storybook Science books, from A-Z, linked here, scroll down on the lefthand side.

So how did the first day go?

I've been homeschooling something like 20 years, give or take a year because I'm too lazy to do the math. And, I promise you, in this house, the first day of a new term never goes as planned. After all these years, though, it always goes predictably.

I can predict that it's going to be a bit rocky.

It begins with me arising early, super early, because I am eager to have everything just so. The environment is readied--I've spent hours getting everything just so. I'm very visual and I find a certain peace in the order and the color. All good.

 

 
 

Then, I awaken the children, earlier than usual, because I want them to be eager to begin also. The details from there vary from year to year, but they go something like this:  Despite great provisioning just days before, we don't have eggs for breakfast. Littlest Darling has a runny nose, a fever, and a croupy cough and she doesn't want me to leave her to go to the store. Two little girls mourn the absence of the neighbor's child who slips in and out of our family life. She is going to "real school" today and will join us at 2:30. There is a bit of envy over lunchboxes and school shoes. Little boys are not so little any more and not so eager to be awakened, either. Everyone wants eggs for breakfast.

 
 

We begin determinedly, my enthusiasm ebbing a bit as my lofty plans meet reality. I remember a morning over a decade ago when I had such awesome things planned, such an elaborate environment readied, and three little boys responded ... well, they didn't. I'm not even sure they noticed, but they certainly weren't impressed. Those were days before blogs, before the temptation to leave my disappointing crew in our dining room-turned-learning room and go look again at the beautiful pictures of other women's learning spaces (here's where I am resisting the urge to link like crazy--y'all can find them;-) and to download page after page of other people's plans. No, I didn't leave my regular, ordinary, unimpressed boys in my regular, ordinary home and head off to the computer to escape to some sort of blog perfection. I called my husband and I cried. He didn't get it. Well, he got that I was crying, but he didn't get that I thought those things that were so important to me would inspire the boys. And on that day, I learned it's not about me. It's about them.

 

Flash forward a dozen or so years. Now, the plans grate up against reality on the first day and I'm not surprised. I know this day is the day I test drive my philosophical underpinnings and see how it all works in real life. And when that beautiful basket with the multi-colored gems is gleefully dumped all over the wood floor and the wee one with the big eyes and runny nose delights in the sound so she does it again, I remember.

They haven't been clicking around Pinterest.

They haven't been trading stories on Facebook.

They haven't been reading wonderful, inspiring books about family rhythm and prepared environments.

They haven't been planning curriculum all summer. 

They are why I am doing this at all.

They are the same today as they were last week. We have to meet in the middle. I have to look realistically on all my ponderings and plans and adjust them according to the real life I live here. With them. I have to recognize where I haven't left margin. Where I didn't consider.

 

 
 

Room.

Room for stopping to wipe noses and to swish toilets. Room for cooking and eating and cleaning up afterwards. Room to be alone, each of us in our own spaces, to think and dream and create.  Room for balance.

Reading and running free. Staying on task and stopping to notice and wonder. Pencil to paper and needle to fabric. Still at the table with close up tasks and quick on their feet with a ball beneath them. Discussing what I planned and pondering things I never would have considered. Planning with diligence and moving away from the plans.

 
 

The first day is always a little off balance. These days, I plan for that, too. This is as it should be. The grace of the plans that just don't work sheds glorious light on the beauty of educating at home, together. I can adjust the plan. I can allow them to force me to consider each one of them individually and to see where my notions meet their needs and where they fail. When I see that the first day is their day, I begin to understand that the first day might just be the day when I learn the most.

 

 
 

I learn that I can't do this on my own strength. I am reminded that I must see the child, each child, and meet him where he is. I learn anew that this isn't school at home. It's a lifestyle of learning that requires an incredible amount of sacrifice and even more grace. 

 

It's just the first day. It didn't go according to plan. But that was actually part of the plan.  I embrace the rough spots, the weak places, the small failures,  knowing that He is teaching me; He is begging me to show my children that I can be taught.

 

Oh, I can!  Show me, God. Show me your holy will.  How does it all fit together? How do we all grow together? What is Your plan for this family? Grant me the grace and the humility to set aside my plan for your better one.

-from the archives