Sunday 29 March 2009

Plans for Holy Week



Palm Sunday:

Light the candle on our nature table.
Go for a Praise walk, followed by a picnic, weather permitting!
Marveling at the wonders of nature are prayers of praise. As we walk outdoors, we can reflect upon the Lord's creation & praise God for giving us a world that meets our needs.

Light the nature table candle daily.

Good Friday:

Light our candle
Bake & eat (!) Hot cross buns
At 3pm blow out our candle, followed by a quiet hour of reflection.
(We have a quiet hour daily, where everyone goes to their own room. For this hour, we will stay together, but they must play quietly & their 'prayer' buckets will be available & I will be praying, reading my Bible, reflecting.)

Easter Saturday

Dying eggs
Laying our our new easter clothes


Easter Sunday



REJOICE!!!!!
discover ' alleluia' on our nature table
Church
Family over for sunday tea (we always bake an easter egg cake, adapting this recipe
Easter egg hunt

Our holy week Jesse Tree will be as follows:

Sunday: Palm Sunday - Matthew 21. A palm branch.

Monday: Cleansing the temple - Mark 11. A whip.

Tuesday: Jesus anointed - John 12. A small beaded box.

Wednesday: Judas plots - Matthew 26. A bag with silver coins.

Thursday: The Last Supper - Luke 22. A loaf of bread and a cup.

Friday: Crucifixion - Luke 23. A cross.

Saturday: Mystery Saturday - I Peter 3:18-22. No ornament.

Sunday: HE IS RISEN! - Mark 16. A clay tomb - empty.

Monday: The marriage supper of the Lamb - Revelation 19. A placemat with gold & silverware.

The Homeschool Daybook



I have been re-jigging our schedule recently & here is a brilliant idea we will be using.

Making Butter



We had a go at making butter today. It was so very easy & the butter tastes delicious! The buttermilk was wonderful, too. Very light & creamy.
We followed this wonderful tutorial. Very easy & satisfying.
We also had our first 'proper' salad of the year...salad leaves, corn on the cob, jersey royal potatoes with butter & fresh chives. Tasty ham, boiled eggs, carrots, spring onions. Yum.
I baked some fresh wholemeal bread & a yummy Dorset Apple Cake.

That time of the year, again....

The toads are out in force, their sweet little chirrup can be heard as they call for a mate.











We collected some frogspawn & have put it in a small aquarium on our welsh dresser. Hopefuly the little fellows will do well....
Here is some useful information if you would like to do something similar.

Sunday 22 March 2009

Pink











Psalm 113:9
He maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children. Praise ye the LORD.


Happy Mother's Day!

Thursday 19 March 2009

Seasonal food



In my New Year's goals post I talked about food; wanting to eat more healthily & creating more 'rhythm' to our lives. Food is a wonderful way to introduce rhythm to our days, using local, seasonal produce. Often we make little connection with the time of year or location of food. I hope to change that for my family.
Here is a great resource for seasonal food month by month, along with delicious recipes.

Wood Mouse

Wood Mouse Another entry for E's garden notebook.







Wednesday 18 March 2009

And the winner is:





HELEN!
"This isn't a book, but just today I bought a DVD called Tractor Ted in Springtime which we are all enjoying very much.
I like your new green blog by the way!
Helen (Devon, UK)"

Well done to Helen! Please email me at lynnseddon at yahoo dot co.uk with your address, Helen.

Thank you to everyone for leaving me your comments on your favourite spring time books.

Saturday 14 March 2009

Some books for sale!


I have some books I would like to sell on.
Please make me an offer at: lynnseddon at yahoo dot com. No reasonable offer refused! ;)

The Homeschooler's Book of Lists: More Than 250 Lists, Charts, and Facts to Make Planning Easier and Faster (Paperback)
by Sonya Haskins


Jumping Ship: What to Do So Your Children Don't Jump Ship to the World When They Get Older
by Michael Pearl


Praying the Bible for your children by Heather Kopp, David Kopp


Educating the Wholehearted Child by Clay Clarkson, Sally Clarkson

Cuisenaire Alphabet Book

Exploring with Color Tiles

Ecoart!: Earth-friendly Art and Craft Experiences for 3 to 9 Year Olds

thanks for looking!

Spring-time Fun & A Competition....



The Spring Book Basket post had me thinking..it would be fun to have a little 'spring is in the air' competition!

Have a little look at the above post & leave a comment for me in the comments section of The Spring Book Basket post about your own favourite spring-time read. Even if you dont have a book to recommend, just leave me a brief 'hello' in the comments section & on Wednesday I will have a random drawing & the winner will win a copy of Pelle's New Suit

Pelle's New Suit is one of my favourite spring time reads.
It is about a little boy called Pelle. Pelle has a lamb whose coat grows longer and longer, while Pelle's Sunday suit grows shorter and shorter! Pelle shears the lamb, the wool is carded, spun, dyed and woven. Finally the tailor makes a new suit for Pelle.
This is a really charming story by the classic childrens author Elsa Beskow.

Weekly Plan



Circle Time

Prayer
Recite our memory verse:
Philippians 4:4-8:
Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice.
Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand.
Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

Devotional reading:Everything a Child Should Know about God
Hymn:Joyful Joyful
French: Counting to 10 plus practiing our greetings.
Math Facts: Bean bag games
Read one poem from A Child's Garden of Verses

Faith

Continue with Jesse Tree
Daily prayer times

Habbits & Service
Good manners

Language Arts
Daily Reading-Peter & Jane
Phonics Book (E has made her own book in which she records a phonics rule as she encounters it in her reading. )
Copywork-memory verse & writing that occurs naturally.
Narration

For Miss R:
Reading her alphabet book
Get Ready for the Code - Book a

Numbers
PlayBean bag games
Using our golden beads

People & Places
Our Island Story

Nature Study
Continue spring planting in our garden
Continue mapping our garden
Work on our garden notebook: record our planting.
Look though Amateur Naturalist together.
Continue to read Enid Blyton's Nature Lover's Book

Creativity
Journaling
Knitting
Drawing
Painting

Project Work
garden:
more planting
record what is planted

Our Week














The Spring Book Basket



Thoughts of spring are upon us, as we begin our garden planting. We have a seasonal book basket & the books within change with each season.

Although not officially spring until March the 20th, I have just stored away our winter books & lifted out the spring time selection.

I thought it would be fun to share:

Spring Story (Brambly Hedge)

Pelle's New Suit

Spring

How a Seed Grows

A Seed Is Sleepy

The Dandelion Seed

The Jesus Garden: An Easter Legend

The Spring Rabbit

Toad by the Road: A Year in the Life of These Amazing Amphibians

Home for a Bunny

In our home, we are bookaholics!, so any recommendations you may have for springtime reading, please do leave a comment.

Friday 13 March 2009

Exploring Creativity


If you homeschool, please stick with me on this post..it is not just knitting related :)

I recently listened to a really inspiring knitting podcast by Kelley Petkun. In the podcast, Kelley talks about compiling an inspiration book. An inspiration book! That is just my thing!
My 'knitterly' goals are Lace & Fair Isle, so I began to compile my own inspiration book.
To give you an idea, so far I have included:

Lace & Fair Isle charts found on-line
Photographs from nature
magazine clippings
scraps of wrapping paper & ribbon
anything that speaks to me of colour & texture & beauty.

For example, the following photo has really inspired me to want to knit a pair of striped socks in shades of orange & grey:



The main point for me to remember, when collecting things for my book is the following:
This is my book, designated just for me to keep all the things that I find to be inspiring..

Simple!

As I have been putting together my Inspiration book, I came across this wonderful post all about keeping a Knitting Notebook.
Now, I already keep a knitting journal, in which I make notes about patterns, items I would like to knit & I also keep photos of projects I have completed, modeled by the owner of the garment,plus notes on the prayers that I prayed for the recipients, as I knit those items.
Something about this format really resonated with me, though. The graph paper, the simplicity, just the whole little package. I dug out some mountboard we had & three book rings. My graph paper I downloaded here. I tore out the pages from my old knitting journal & added them to the new notebook & I love it! I feel much more free with it - free to make mistakes, free to be imperfect. Perfectionism kills creativity dead faster than anything else I know!

Are any homeschoolers still with me? I'm nearly there ;)

This week I picked up Inspired to Knit by Michele Rose Orne

This is a fabulous book! This is worth hunting down in the library, even if you do not knit, just for the authors handling of the creative process.
She has 'workshops' tucked in throughout the knitting patterns that are so inspiring & I plan to follow them with the girls.
We began today with the first workshop: Finding inspiration.
Michele begins:
"Every design begins with a spark of inspiration. For me, inspiration can come from just about anywhere. You too can find inspiration in your everyday surroundings. All you have to do is train your eye to look closely at the world around you & to think in terms of individual design elements. You'll soon find ideas everywhere you look."

This workshop deals with sparking creativity & the putting together of a 'mood board'

Michele says:
'For this workshop, you'll create your own mood board. It has nothing to do with knitting in particular, but playing with a handful of things to reveal a common theme is a fun & easy way to excercise your creativity'

And so we come around to homeschooling...I intend to follow the workshops in this book with my girls. I intend to use the excerices to help me create a knitted item. What my girls will create - who knows!

We began this morning- browsing through past issues of Country Living. we ripped out images that we liked & I was surprised at how the girls grasped the idea that we were looking for colours, textures, any beautiful images that appealed to us. Our ripped pages are stored away in our own folders...we will be collecting nature finds & going through my collections of fabrics, ribbons & buttons, before making up our own mood boards.
I am very excited about this project...who knows what we can create?

Here is a great interview on Lori's blog with Amanda Soule about her own mood board. Be inspired!