Family-time ways to start the New Year right

Family- one of the greatest gifts of all. After the fun and frenzy of Christmas, we are going to refocus our energy on family as we move in to the New Year. Here are ideas to help you do the same:

 

Go on a hike & find a geocache

Just a few days ago we took the boys to a great park outside of Philadelphia where my husband and I used to hike long before kids. Geocaching will lead you to great out-of-the-way places that you never knew existed. Sign up at www.geocaching.com or download the app.

 

 

 

Play a new game

 Last week, thanks to my sis, we discovered the game Labyrinth.  It was so much fun requiring thought and planning. Here we have my 9 year old trying to outwit my 81 year old mom and my sis. Good luck, kid. :)

 

 

Start a nightly story time

We are fortunate that both of our sons are good readers, but I find they still enjoy being read to. It is calming and gives us something to talk about that is both entertaining and often filled with life lessons and deeper meaning. We are just about to finish the Seven-Year-Old-Wonder-Book and move on to the Bobsey Twins.

 

 

Visit a National or State Park

Grab a Junior Ranger booklet at the visitor center of any national park and start working on collecting badges for the kids. Some parks even have programs for adults. Click here to learn more about the Junior ranger program and download the booklets - you can even earn some without leaving your home.

 

However you choose to celebrate 2018 may it be full of fun, love and adventure!





SImple Summer Days

How is your summer? Although I am working full-time, ours is turning out to be nice and simple. Over the next several weeks I will share photos and thoughts on our simple summer days with while looking forward to the academic year ahead. 

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The best way for our family to simplify our summer is to get back to nature.  Our big trip this year was several nights camping at Shenandoah National Park.  It was wonderful!
(And we all happily survived without electricity, phones, and screens.)

Nature Time

A Shenandoah Salamander

Buddy dog worn out on the Appalachian Trail

A Little History Love and Creative Learning #29

Welcome back to another week of Creative Learning. I began teaching a class titled "18th Century Life and People" for our homeschool co op today. I have 9 second and third graders and I can tell already that we are going to have a blast.

I began class by asking each student what they like to study the most and then explained that when you study history, you study about everything. I could see little light bulbs of understanding turning on in their minds as we talked. We also did a Venn Diagram of life then and life now to show that people now are similar to people then, yet some of our resources make our lives seem different. 

I will come back later and share some of my ideas on helping kids love history later.  Now it is your opportunity to share with us. What creative learning have you had this week?

My Sister, My Friend

Today, my younger sister left for home after spending a week at our house. We had such a wonderful time together! One day we had High Tea with my mom and youngest son and enjoyed tasty morsels and wonderful tea, another day, we met with my neice and her two little boys at Longwood Gardens and reveled in the lovely flowers welcoming spring.





She is a fun nanny to two girls and a superb crafter, so I introduced her to some Waldorf-inspired crafts:


Our Saint Patrick Peg People



Beautiful Paper Stars



Star Lantern Aglow

Her Welcome Sign

My boys love her so much that they call her "Grand" Patti - a step above "Aunt" Patti.

We are not only close sisters, but good friends, despite an 8 year difference. We finish each other's sentences and sound so much alike that as infants my boys turned their heads in her direction when she spoke, thinking it was me. Don't even try to beat us in charedes! We both dream of travel, art, and heaven. We are both lovers of nature, books, and classical music.

I am blessed to have such a delightful life-long friend whom I call "sister."

A Room Full of Paper Butterflies

"The only advantage to not being too good a housekeeper is that your guests are so pleased to feel how very much better they are." - Eleanor Roosevelt

The above quote made me laugh when I read it today! My sister came to visit this past weekend and while I cleaned up, I spent some time at creating a distraction - for her pure enjoyment, of course. Paper Butterflies!

Now, some people would not fully appreciate being welcomed by a dozen paper butterflies hanging throughout the first floor. But my sister did! She has a wonderful whimsical, silly, crafty, side that I enjoy so much.


Want to make them yourself? It is so easy...

For each butterfly choose 2 colorful pieces of paper (I used pages from a home decorating magazine.) Cut out 2 squares, one 6 inces and the other 5 inches on each side.


Next, make an accordion-fold beginning at a corner. Mine were 1/2 inch folds.


Fold a 12 inch pipe cleaner in half. Make a small loop at the bottom and center the small paper square then the large square inside the pipe cleaner. Twist the pipe cleaner above and below the wings and curl the ends for antennae.


Now you have it. Another way to remind us of the joys of nature - I think I will make some small ones for our nature table...

Countdown to Christmas

We have begun or countdown to Christmas. Since Aidan was very young, we have celebrated this season of reverence and the anticipation of celebrating Jesus' birth. It is a perfect opportunity for us, including my children, to remember what is truly important in life and that there is a Truth.

We use an Advent calandar like this one from Germany. Each day the boys open a flap and we talk about the picture inside. Then they receive a surprise, which includes gifts (beanbags, stickers, etc), and fun crafts (dying playsilks, making a gingerbread house, decorating the winter nature table, etc.)