Cultivating Childhood

The children should have the joy of living in far lands, in other persons, in other times--a delightful double existence; and this joy they will find, for the most part, in their story books. (Charlotte Mason - Home Education p. 153) We will be beginning our version of Pre-K in the fall, and one of the things that I'm excited about is reading through A Treasury of Children's Literature .  The pictures are lovely, and the stories are timeless.  Of course, at age 4.5, Buddy is not yet ready for narration, but I'd love for him to really enjoy the stories.  So, for our form of narration, we will be acting out our stories every week.  The boys love to do this.  They've already performed The Three Little Pigs , but they've also recently enjoyed their lion masks that they made at church to perform the story of Daniel and the Lion's Den. It really is amazing how much they remember if they "narrate" the story.  Daniel and the Lion's ...

Every once in a while, I get asked how our preschool is going at home.  I'm not usually sure how to answer that.  We've come a long way from me making up lesson plans each week or even trying to do a little "school" each day.  Part of this is just trying to enjoy the little years with my kids.  Part of it was that it was just too much for mom and kids.  Instead, I now look for the teachable moments in our day.  Things like explaining why it is polite to sit still while eating or not to talk with your mouth full.  Like why it is important to wash your hands after using the bathroom.  Or how to help clean the toilet or " mop " the floor.  Or how to zip a zipper.  Or why it is important to be nice to people and think of them more highly than yourself.  Or why we should pray for the redemption of "bad people". Academics?  Well, there are definitely things we are learning in that regard too, but I don't really plan for them so muc...

A quick snapshot of our life today. The front of our home is finally looking like spring has arrived.  Our lawn is even mowed! The kids and I went to Central Market and picked out some flowers to pot.  Button picked out the lovely "pink flowers" (a petunia hybrid).  While mommy picked out some chamomile and sweet peas.  We may not be doing a lot of gardening this year, but we can still put plants in pots.  We also have a bunch of herbs, tomatoes, strawberries and blueberry bushes in some pots in the backyard. Buddy picked out the Purple Superbells to grace our steps.  You may also spy our truck and tractor that gets lots of use in the dirt around our front bushes.  Our kid-sized gardening tools also make an appearance. Button loves to play with his bike.  He's usually sporting his helmet and scooting around on his Skuut balance bike. Buddy's been sick this week complaining that his mouth hurts.  Tod...

Really, this is my last installment from our trip!  Maybe I'll actually get back to writing about stuff I'm thinking about and doing some park reviews again.  In the meantime, back to family news! Our last few days in SoCal were special with my parents.  We had some good times with Papa and Grandma at one of the local parks. From this park, there happens to be a trail that appeared to take us back to Grandma and Papa's house.  So, one day I had them drop us off and we would just walk home.  It was a good idea for the first bit, but then we went the wrong way and had to double-back.  I ended up taking turns carrying each boy on my shoulder on the way back, but we made it!  It was a beautiful walk though.  We enjoyed looking at snails, birds, and different plants.  We also had to walk though an old gas and steam engine (outdoor) museum which was very intriguing to the kids. Another day, we went to th...