Volcano!

On Friday we made a start on one of Huwyl’s christmas presents, a volcano making kit.  He mixed the plaster and poured it into the mould and then waited (sort of) patiently for it to set.  Next he painted it, graciously allowing his little brother some creative input, and allowed that to dry.  I think it was a longer process than he’d originally imagined.

Neirin had his own little experiment tray to play with, water, baking soda and some drops of food colouring kept him entertained for quite a while!  When it came to the big explosion we exchanged the water for vinegar and fun was had by all.

I love how serious Neirin is when he works on things, his little frown and teeny pout are so cute.  The boys had a blast working on their ‘science’ this morning, wearing their Darth Vader costumes that Huwyl made for them yesterday.  He’s been working on a Star Wars project for a while now and that was the culminating task he’d set himself.  I thought the black made them look like little alchemists!

After several rounds of volcano eruptions we watched a couple of videos, made some drawings and then made an explosively themed snack for ourselves…popcorn!

i-viking

The vikings, it seems, were not really called vikings.  The term i-viking, meant going off raiding and generally causing a bit of a fuss in boats and furry coats.  This is the kind of thing you get to learn when you study vikings for about a month!

I always knew that this would be one of my favourite bits of  Story Of The World 2 and we have really enjoyed exploring these naughty norse folk.  There are some links to activities and documentaries on my homeschool history pinterest board for anyone who is looking for inspiration.  We’ve also had fun using the book World Book Encyclopedia: Vikings  that I borrowed from the library.  It has lots of fun crafts that are just right for boys of 3 & 7 (and their Mummy) that can be executed with what we have already in a reasonable time frame.

As we’ve progressed through learning about different aspects of Viking life, from the battles to the wonderful myths and stories, I’ve been really inspired by how much the boys have enjoyed and embraced the topic.  Huwyl has been particularly motivated, bringing ideas to me from the craft book we are using and being much more proactive about the project than ever before.

Being a little perfectionist (don’t know where he got that from *cough*Stephen*cough*) he has needed my help getting some of the details just right but I’ve tried to inspire him to give it a go too.  He simply can’t bear a project going south because of a little mistake, so things like tricky cutting out or lacing have had Mummy help.  I’ve had to reign in my own perfectionist tendencies (not always successfully) and tried not to take over, I hope we’ve struck a balance.  Certainly the projects were child led/demanded!

I’ve loved the diversity of the crafts and activities and the fact that both of the boys seem really engaged and interested within their own capacities.  Neirin has dipped in and out while Huwyl has been much more focused.  True to form Neirin most enjoyed having his own axe and decorating the Viking warrior, he placed the clothes on just so, his dexterous little fingers working to position them perfectly.

Today he did a bit of painting and then created what appeared to be a mini art installation!  Really it doesn’t matter so much to me the specific outcome of each project, or even the focus, it is simply that each child is motivated and keen to learn and create.

I don’t know what it is, but he does.

The homeschool breath out

This week I decided to call a bit of a halt to our more formal activities and ‘just’ live for a week.  Back in the UK we have a week’s holiday in the middle of each term, it always helped to stop everyone tipping too far into exhaustion, so I thought I’d implement it chez us.  Though we’ve not been ‘studying’ as such that doesn’t mean we haven’t soaked up some good old life skills.  It’s been cold but sunny here and the boys have been enjoying some outdoor romps, climbing on hay bales, chasing chickens and planning anarchistic revolts against a police state.  Seriously.

And of course there are the inevitable hours (and hours) in the kitchen.

I find it hard to get away from the idea that learning all has to take place at a table, that writing and reading are the only skills that matter.  But of course that isn’t why we homeschool.  I want my children to write creatively, to read with joy, not just because Mummy is telling them too.  We’ve worked hard on some core skills over the last weeks and we were ready for it all to sit, we were ready for a breath out.

So instead of writing and maths skills we’ve focused on chopping, running, climbing, measuring, making and being.  I’d hoped to achieve a ton without the extra work of school but really I’ve just been emerging from a cloud of tiredness that’s been bogging me down these last few weeks.  A cold that lingered, a little person making night times less (ahem) restful than we need.

I’m trying not to categorise everything we do in terms of how it matches up to a ‘curriculum’.  Chopping – fine motor skills, cooking – life skills, measuring- maths, ipad spelling app – phonics, IT, documentary on Meerkats – science and nature….it is tempting but it doesn’t feel quite right.

Instead I want to think that we spent the week nourishing our family, working out some kinks, finding our balance.  That the children playing is justification enough, that the cooking of soup is just soup.  That the bacon frying in the pan is our home raised, home cured bacon; a satisfaction that can’t be quantified.   That my boys belong to a family where the lines can blur between school and life, where learning is in everything.  This is something I forget, it is worth remembering.

So whether we are heading out to the library, meeting friends, working on math skills or trying (desperately) to catch up on the laundry, we are together.  We may not always get along, it may not always be easy, but we’re in it together, a family, a team.  If we can all keep that lesson in our hearts, I think we’ll be ok.

Preschool Preparedness

A certain 3 1/2 year old person has decided that school is for him too and is now arriving at the school table full of expectation and ready to work.  O…kay.  So I’m ramping up on the preschool action and we’re all loving it.  Whenever Neirin does anything he does it full throttle so he’s suddenly recognising letters, numbers, patterns and generally being a clever little bean all over the place.

I already have the preschool curriculum from Confessions of a Homeschooler (it’s ridiculously good value) but I want to make sure that we’re not all paper based.  So I’ve started researching different approaches and have pinned about 4 million activities on Pinterest.  I’m really drawn to the montessori style activities for Neirin, they are complete, simple and allow him to develop skills in a natural way.  I also like the minimal likelihood of finding the tray stapled to the cat and painted red.  This is the sort of thing I have to worry about.

For this tray I mixed coloured and white beans in a container, then put a couple of each type in the other bowls.  Without being asked Neirin sorted the beans by colour using first the strawberry huller (encouraging the pincer grip) and then a large spoon.  Eventually he found neither suited him and so finished sorting them ‘with my fingers‘, he happily sorted all of the beans into the two bowls and not a single one ended up attached to the cat.  Perfection.

I’m hoping to do a different tray or sensory activity for him each day as well as using both paper based and ipad activities.  I’ve found some lovely letter tracing and word building apps that really compliment all of the other work we are doing and use similar montessori methodologies.   I think the key to keeping Neirin interested is variety and using simple things we already have around the house will keep me from becoming overwhelmed.  It’s going to be busy at the school table from now on; just the way I like it.

 

Walking Circle

Tuesday dawned bright and crisp, inviting us out to play in the way only an Autumn day can.  Usually we begin our homeschool with a circle, song and a bit of yoga movement.  Instead I decided that we would take our circle outside and make the most of the cold, refreshing air.

 

 

We held hands in the sunshine and sang our morning song, then we took some deep Prana breaths and swung our arms and legs around, our feet becoming soaked with the dew clinging to the grass in shining droplets.  We warmed ourselves with our movements and energized our lungs with the frosty air.  Any pretence at structure was quickly abandoned as we made off into the morning, investigating the changes that Autumn have brought with her.

 

 

 

 

We chatted with our neighbour cows and their guard donkey investigated us, making sure that we were friendly.  Those curious creatures, so much larger than us, with grass hanging from their steadily chewing mouths, held our attention for quite some time.  Then we headed back to the house, our heads clear, our bodies refreshed.

Every day does not start as well as this, with so much to do and errands to run around town these moments of quite wandering feel like a real luxury.  But on those mornings when the stars align and we make it outside, all cosy and ready for the freshness of the day, we all return renewed and happier.  This season really is a blessing.

Autumn Days

I know I’m not alone when I say that Autumn is my favourite season, it’s that way for many of us, but I think it might be my children’s favourite too.  The scorching heat of summer has passed and they are outside much more, enjoying the fresher breezes and blue skies.  The house is flooded with light as the sun drops lower on the horizon, making me feel more energised and alive; the tumbling winds have blown away some of the cobwebs that the last stagnancy of summer seemed to leave with all of us.

 

As well as our regular lessons we’ve  been exploring Autumn in our homeschool too.  For our circle and preschool type activities I have the Seasons of Joy Autumn curriculum, packed with rhymes, songs and crafts to keep us going until the snows come.   We’ve also been reading the stories about Mabon (the Autumnal Equinox) in Circle Round this week, and it’s all tied in nicely to our art and music lessons using our Harmony Arts curriculum.  This morning we listened to Vivaldi’s Autumn on the ipad and Huwyl drew a picture based on how the music made him feel.  We talked about the different moods and he described what it conjured up for him.  We also chose the colours we thought he’d need for an Autumn picture which he drew as he listened.

 

While Huwyl was drawing, Neirin worked on his own art, chalk and water painting on the blackboard; I was amazed how long this kept him happy.  Huwyl  included all sorts of details in his picture, the tumbling leaves, rain and snow coming in, as well as groundhogs hibernating underground; I love seeing how his imagination is really coming to life in his drawings.

 

 

Of course Huwyl really likes to insert realism into his art (and stop Mummy from getting far too giddy)  so he made sure that the horse (who is out hunting in the forest) leaves a big poo on the forest floor.  There are extra lines in case you aren’t sure where it came from as well as the rising steam to show it’s a cold day.  That’s my boy.  

 

Early Days

September 4th saw children across the nation heading out of bed earlier than they had for months and boarding the school bus for the big first day.  Around here things were a little less formal.  I’m filtering our subjects in over the next two weeks, adding something extra each day and building up to what will be our regular schedule for the coming months.  There will be ‘days off’ for a myriad of reasons I’m sure, perhaps a trip out, a family day or sickness will throw us off track, but other than that we will be doing school each morning, four days a week.

This is the first time I’ve properly tried to integrate both boys into our learning.  Neirin isn’t going back to preschool this year so I’m balancing his needs with Huwyl’s 2nd grade curriculum.  They are both at really different points in their learning so I’m trying to take that into account as I plan activities and resources.

We began our first day in a bit of a muddle, the clean up from the honey was still evident, as were bowls of the amber liquid all over the kitchen counters.  The ‘school’ table was covered in art projects and I hadn’t uploaded some of our resources onto the i-pad as I’d planned.  But the joy of homeschooling is that you can simply say ‘ok this is going to take a bit longer, go play and I’ll call you when we’re ready’, I find the boys will usually comply with this instruction pretty happily.

It didn’t take too long to get it all sorted (with a bit of phone coaching from my much more tech savvy friend) and I was able to call us all to order.  We started, as I hope we will every day, with some movement.  Today it was yoga using our Yoga Pretzels cards; Huwyl chose two postures and we working on them for a little bit with Neirin joining in as and when he could.  Over time I know he’ll gain the patience to participate more fully, but for now I’m grateful that he shows any interest at all.  I’ll need to vary our activities over time, I’m intending to include Brain Gym movements too, supporting connections in the brain necessary for learning.  But for today we started small.

Then we moved to the table.  If I’m honest I’ve been dreading this part for a while.  The moment where we shift from our free floating summer to a ‘sit down and write’ activity that I really think we need right now.  But luckily I had a plan that I borrowed from a Ms Charlotte Mason and it worked very well.  Rather than focusing on the amount of work I just allotted 15 minutes for each activity before moving on to the next; short and sweet as they say.  This strategy works really well for Huwyl, it gives him a clear time frame that he knows is relatively short without having a ‘goal’ that creates anxiety and stress for him.  If I had said ‘do four pages’ I would have had push back and complaining, but instead the instruction is ‘do what you can’ in the time.  In fact he did about 5 pages!

Explode the Code 3 was our first table work of the day, I’m planning to work through this and the 4th book this year.  Huwyl honestly doesn’t really enjoy the work but it really has supported his reading and writing so I try and get it out of the way quickly.  Next we moved onto Writing With Ease which will be our writing programme for grade 2.  I really like the Peace Hill Press resources and the mix of copy work taken from literature and narration activities really mesh well with our Charlotte Mason influenced approach.  Huwyl raced through the lesson much more quickly than I thought but I resisted the temptation to push onto the next lesson and we stuck to our time limit.  I think you can see that the timer isn’t just for the student but the teacher too!

After that we went to Art History using the Harmony Arts Grade 2 programme.  I have it on the ipad so I am able to click directly on the links and go to the art works referred to in the plan.  Huwyl really enjoyed being able to zoom in on the pictures and look in a little more detail.  We talked about the pictures and what we noticed about them, he made some great observations and we looked at various pictures by Cimabue, a painter from the Byzantine era.  The paintings were religious in nature and Huwyl was really distressed to hear the sad story of the betrayal of Jesus by Judas and the resulting crucifixion.  He’s not been desensitized to the crucifixion images so we spent a bit of time talking about that and getting over the shock of such a horrible punishment being inflicted on another person.

This gave me a bit of a jolt because we’ve been reading historical stories about battles for quite some time.  I think it was the personal nature of the art, a face to the name, that made the experience more immediate.  I discussed the Christian stories a bit and why Jesus is seen as important to so many people, hopefully I’ve given him a good overall impression.  Perhaps we need to do a little religious studies module in the near future!

In the meantime Neirin pretty happily played with his playdough, making long snakes and cakes to cook in his play oven.  I’m planning on creating a little Neirincentric table that he can work at more easily and where I can place appropriate activities.  I was really pleased with his ability to play contentedly while we worked.  I’m sure this won’t always be the case and I do have activities planned for Neirin as he develops a little more, but for now his work is his own play and imagination.

 

When we finished I threw the boys outside for an hour before lunch after which they happily settled down to their own projects.  Huwyl went off to collect eggs and then had some Brainpop time, feeding his ever growing appetite for scientific and historical facts.  Neirin played for the best part of an hour with his bricks, a full tummy allowing his mind to focus happily.  He joined me for a bit of outside time and then returned to his own games, chowing down on home made smoothie lollies the whole while.

In the background classical music was playing, right now a mixed selection, but over time it will reflect the composers we’ll be reading about in our Harmony Arts programme. For a moment I paused and looked upon the scene every home school mother dreams of, the children happily occupied in educational recreation, classical music playing, dogs asleep on the floor.  Sigh.  Not all days will be like this, not all will go relatively smoothly or happily, but when they do it makes me very grateful that our version of back to school means that we don’t have to go very far.

Drifting

This summer I promised myself a break.  Last year we built a house and this year we’ve been working on the farm in what seems like every spare moment.  Our weekends are dominated by farm work so I’ve tried to compensate by letting our weekdays drift.

Not all rules have gone by the wayside, tv is still limited to certain times as is i-pad time.  We eat at regular intervals and have predictable evenings and bedtime routines, the times may slide a bit in favour of cooling our bodies at the swimming pool or hanging out in the vegetable garden a bit longer, but a pattern still exists and stops life descending into chaos.

You don’t have to look far for information on how much is ‘lost’ over the summer as academics slide away and children spend their time on fun and play.  There are statistics on how much data escapes their brains, leaking away out of their ears, making the transition back to school so much harder.  Valid concerns for sure.

But this year I’ve taken a different perspective.  After several years of driven activity of one sort or another, I’ve been happy to take a break from the fast lane.  Our summer report will certainly not have an ‘A’ for achievement but I think something more important has taken place.  We’ve rested our minds and bodies, truly taken a break from academic work and allowed the days to slip by without any great ticks on our to do list.  While we’ve had some fun, embarked on some projects and games as the mood has taken us, we’ve steered clear of anything too structured or taxing.

Unstructured days are not without their problems.  Siblings bicker more without focused activities to keep them occupied, sometimes it is easier to provide them with something to do rather than mediate all the time.  The days can end up merging a little and the less fun domestic tasks end up being the focus of the day because there is nothing more pressing to set them aside for.

But as the summer has gone on I’ve noticed a few things.  The boys have become firmer friends, playing more complex games for longer periods of time.  They’ve also found little grooves of time in which to play independently, working on their own ‘projects’ for a while.  Neirin’s attention span has extended to allow for complex play dough landscapes mixed with playmobil and anything else on hand.  Huwyl’s reading has steadily improved, he now attempts to read anything he sees when we are out and about and can be regularly found with a book or annual; he’s even taken to reading stories to his little brother on occasion!  Neirin has begun to recognise  numbers and can now count up to 11 or 12 easily and recognises individual numerals.  All without formal instruction.

It makes me wonder if this period of down time, this drifting time in which our brains can slip into neutral for a while, is really very necessary.  While the boys haven’t done formal school they have learned to use their bodies with more confidence, can dive and swim underwater, climb on tall hay bales….and I’m sure a million things I haven’t noticed.  And for me this has been a time to recuperate a little, release myself from the demands of a specific schedule and time frame.

In a couple of weeks we’ll be starting school again, this year (for the first time) I will be schooling both boys.  I’ve got all our resources sorted out, I know roughly what we’ll be doing on each day and how we’ll be fitting our new extra curricular fun in.  Unlike my feelings in June I’m actually excited about starting, I’m looking forward to the mental challenge of mixing preschool and grade 2.  The time off has given my brain a rest but it is starting to rise from it’s slumber and stretch a little.

But for now I’m happy to drift for a little longer.  A couple more weeks of tomato collecting, pool visits, sofa lounging and field meanderings.  Sounds good to me.

Wildcrafted Plantain Tincture

Yesterday the boys and I embarked on a bit of a herbology lesson by making our own plantain tincture.  Plantain is a plant readily available in most areas, it is often found on less lush ground, covering it with it’s generous leaves, spikes pushing their way defiantly out of the clump.  Like many ubiquitous plants (often called weeds) it has great healing properties and has the added benefit of being free!

Plantain is an astringent so helps with skin related problems such as bites, scratches or blemishes.  A crushed leaf can help with a bite but the tincture is more concentrated and has the added benefit of apple cider vinegar which has it’s own beneficial properties (and can also be made at home).  As an astringent (meaning something that draws together or tightens) it is a useful tea for loose bowels, avoid using the seed pods though unless you want to opposite affect!  I initially saw this project here, and I thought it would be a great project for Huwyl to do almost independently.  This is how we went about it.

First I showed Huwyl pictures of the plantain, he knew immediately where to find it and went dashing off only to return with a massive bunch of perfectly identified leaves!  He washed them and we let them rest for a few minutes while he watched this video on Youtube, it gave an overview of the whole project but was short and to the point.  I had already set up what he would need so he could get started right away.

A mezze luna isn’t a strictly necessary tool, you can use an ordinary knife to chop or even shred the leaf with your hands.  The key thing is to break up the leaf so that the properties are released into the tincture.  I do love this tool for working in the kitchen with children though, I wouldn’t give it to Neirin to use unless I was holding it too but Huwyl is more than capable of using it to cut up medicinal or cooking herbs.  For Neirin I used a crinkle cutter than I picked up in a thrift store when Huwyl was about the same age, it gave him the chance to be safely involved and we thorough enjoyed working together while Huwyl worked independently.

I used a jam sized jar as I didn’t want the project to take too long, but honestly I think the boys would have happily chopped twice as much!  Huwyl had to do a second run outside to get extra leaves and I’d estimate it took about 8-10 good sized leaves to fill the jar.  We didn’t crush the leaves to really pack it down but we did fill it as much as we could before we added the apple cider vinegar.

The plantain leaves need to be covered with the vinegar to avoid mould and spoiling, this might be something you’ll need to top up over the time the tincture steeps.  This tincture needs to sit in a dark cupboard for six weeks and be shaken twice a day , if it looks as though the liquid level is below the leaves then top it up and give it a good shake to blend with the tinctured vinegar.

If you are looking to do this project yourself here is a quick list of what you’ll need and how to do it:

Plantain leaves (collect big green leaves that look full of life!)

A clean jam jar with a lid that will close tightly

Apple cider vinegar.  You will need a live vinegar such as Bragg’sin order to create a proper tincture, you will recognise a live vinegar as it has a sediment (called the ‘mother’ in the bottom) and it should be organic.

1. Chop or shred leaves (you could also bruise them with a rolling pin to release even more goodness)

2. Pack them into your clean jar, get as much in as you can without it spilling over the top.

3. Fill with vinegar.

4. Leave in a dark cupboard for 6 weeks, shake twice a day. I put  a label on ours with the start date and the date it will be ready so that we don’t forget!

5. Decant by pouring into a sieve lined with cheesecloth, squeeze out as much liquid as you can.  Put the liquid in a clean jar or bottle and keep in the fridge.  You can use this tincture for cuts, scrapes, bites or blemishes, it can also be used as a skin toner but don’t use if you will be out in the sun or if you have very dry skin as vinegar and plantain are astringent.

While this project isn’t immediate gratification (no bad thing!) it does help to demonstrate to our children that good health isn’t something that comes out of a pharmacy or a pill box.  We have access to so much goodness all around us, in hedgerows, on playgrounds or in your own garden.  As well as being free this kind of herbalism is accessible to even young children, I can’t think of a better gift to give them!

If you are looking to continue sharing herbal knowledge with your children I’d highly recommend the wonderful game Wildcraft!   It’s one of our favourites.

Cloud Sand

What do you do on a boiling hot afternoon (37C with humidity) when you can’t head to the pool because one of your number has a poorly tummy?  You make a double batch of cloud sand and stay in the shade of course!

For something so incredibly simple (flour and oil, that’s it) this was a real hit.  The boys played with their trays of sand for the best part of an hour, giving Mummy the chance to sit down for a bit whilst trying not to melt into a puddle.  It also got us through that 3-4pm time slot and got Neirin just messy enough for a cool bath with lavender oil while Huwyl listened to an mp3 of greek myths.  What could have been a tough afternoon ended up being tranquil and nicely occupying without being overly taxing; I was glad we all got out unscathed!

As Neirin approaches the end of his preschool year (and won’t be returning next year) I’m conscious of providing more sensory experiences for him.  Luckily Huwyl loves this kind of thing too so it really is win-win.  I have a preschool pinterest board that is rapidly filling up with ideas and I’m planning on attempting one or two a week over the summer to discover which ones work for us.  Its a great opportunity to vary our school life and give the boys opportunity for creative, kinaesthetic play that develops all of their senses.

Plus there is the sitting down; the sitting down is good.