Cultivating Childhood

Other notable things happened in December too.  Z was in his preschool's Christmas performance. We never made it to the Seattle Center to see the train so we went with a friend the following week.  They all loved the bus and monorail ride as well as watching the miniature train. Phil's parents also were in Washington for a lot of December.  We had fun decorating our Gingerbread House with them. N's Kids Choir at church also did a couple of performances for our congregation and also at a local senior care facility. Another big highlight was going to Wildlights at the Woodland Park Zoo.  It was a very foggy evening which made it almost mystical.  The boys enjoyed the lights, but they LOVED the snowball fight in the Zoomazium. We made cookies for all our neighbors and sang Christmas carols to them. We had one day of snow!  It only lasted the morning, but it was quite fun nonetheless. On Christmas Day, we went down to Graha...

We had multiple Christmases this year, and it seemed that with alternating Christmas present opening with birthday present opening for N with each family that we were opening a couple of gifts every couple of days.  The boys loved it (of course), and they got to enjoy each new thing without being bombarded with too many things all at once. Our December began with my family from California coming up for a few days.  We decided to go on our Downtown day with them, and at N's birthday request, we also did the Ride The Ducks tour in a clear, sunny, 30 degree day.  It was lovely, and the boys were playing "Ride the Ducks" for days afterwards. Playing Uno with their uncles Reading a TinTin book he got for his birthday Taking the bus downtown Riding the Carousel N's most anticipated event - Ride the Ducks My bros and me On the Duck in Lake Union with Gas Works Park behind them Afterward, we went to go see the gingerbread houses at the ...

Well, I'm continuing my new tradition of keeping track of the books that I've read throughout the year.  Last year, I read 36 books.  This year, I read 59!  My goal was to read a book a week, but I was surprised how many more I read.  I did read more novels this year, so that definitely helped. I really enjoyed a new-for-me author, Kate Seredy.  Her book The Chestry Oak  is just fantastic, and I enjoyed The Good Master and it's sequel The Singing Tree as well.  I also read any of the Jane Austen canon that I hadn't read before.  I think that next year, I'll have to reread some of the ones I've read before. I also read a lot of Sally Clarkson's books.  I just love her encouragement for moms.  In February, I get to go to her MomHeart Conference in California that I'm super excited about.  Tim Kimmel's books are also excellent.  I reread his Grace-Based Parenting book this year, and read his new book Grace-Filled Marriage. ...

Fun Picture Books: In November Autumn Harvest Usborne Stories from Around the World by Heather Amery The Wheedle and the Noodle The Greedy Triangle Wolves in the Walls Lots of  Thanksgiving books  and  Christmas  books Science - We've moved into a more unschooling approach for our science this year.  Whatever N or Z is interested in, we quickly head to the library and check out as much as we can about the particular subject.  These months, we've been interested in salmon, volcanoes/rocks, and mushrooms. Salmon Forest Salmon Creek The Magic School Bus Goes Upstream The Salmon by Sabrina Crewe Life Cycle of a Salmon by Angela Royston The Bizarre Life Cycle of a Salmon by Mark Harasymiw What's It Like to be a Fish? Our Earth Kit from the KCLS Library (11 books) The Mushroom Hunt Mushroom Life Cycle Fungi by Steve Parker Let's Go Rock-Collecting Magic School Bus: Inside the Earth Life on Fire (video) History: Sea Clocks James T...

For those of you who have talked to me about homeschooling, you know that I've been very influenced by Charlotte Mason and her approach to children and their education.  I've tried to model what I thought her method would look like in our home, and I have been pretty happy with how it has been going. One of the biggest reasons I like it is her philosophy on who children are.  In fact, she had 20 Principles which speak of the nature of children how they should be taught.  Here are the first four (see link for modern day paraphrase): Playing at Garden Tots Children are born persons . They are not born either good or bad, but with possibilities for good or for evil. The principles of authority on the one hand, and of obedience on the other, are natural, necessary and fundamental; but-- These principles are limited by the respect due to the personality of children, which must not be encroached upon whether by the direct use of fear or love, suggestion or influence...

After months of constant goings-on, November was a breath of fresh air.  Although Phil had a conference to go to, for the most part everything was quiet in our household.  We were able to focus on what normal life looks like before we headed into the holidays in December. This month, the boys have played a lot of games with their daddy.  Phil actually created a table-top game that they have enjoyed playing together.   We went again to do our first Thursday of the month field trip to take advantage of the free museum days.  We were planning on going to the Nordic Heritage Museum since it was in Ballard near the locks.  We have been completing our study on Salmon so this made the most sense.         Of course, we had to end the day with salmon and chips at Ivars!   We also had a lot of fun decorating for Thanksgiving.  Below is our "Thankfulness Tree".  Everyday we added ...

Hey, look!  I'm ahead of the game for a bit.  It's not yet Thanksgiving, but I'm getting an Advent post up!  Of course, this is mostly because I needed to prepare for it in our schooling time, and Advent starts just three days after Thanksgiving.  Yikes! In the past, I've done a lot to prepare for Advent.  In both 2010 and 2011 , I made a daily activity project and Bible reading.  As fun as these were, I'm learning more about how our days go, and I know that we'll be setting ourselves up for failure if I try to do too much.  So this year, I'm planning on just coming up with some things that I'd like to see happen this December and let them fall where they may. Advent Readings and Books For our daily advent readings, we will be reading through Jotham's Journey: A Storybook for Advent .  In the past I've found a lot of other devotionals , and our church usually comes out with one as well.  We also have a few other longer picture books abo...