A Perfect Gloomy Day

It was a rather gloomy day today. You could feel fall in the air and it just felt like a good day to be inside and cozy. Our morning was full of board games and tea, with lots of laughter and friendly competition. Chase spent some time teaching Lily chess this morning. He loves chess and is always very serious about winning, but I was pleased to see him patiently helping Lily play out the game without taking advantage of her lack of chess knowledge too much. 

Unfortunately, he did not go so easy on me and quickly beat me, 2 games in a row, at Laser Khet. 

We worked on Chemistry a little, going on a chemical hunt and thinking about what chemicals we use daily, which chemicals are good and which are dangerous. 

 We had a second lab planned but got side tracked when Chase was looking at the ingredients of a Sanpellegrino and began to wonder what 32g of sugar looked like. We took out the kitchen scale and spent a good amount of time measuring out grams of sugar of any packaged food item we could find. That naturally lead to some great mental math as we had to calculate how many grams of sugar there would be total if the item had more than one serving. 

After realizing how much sugar is in packaged foods and being thankful for the reminder of one of the several reasons we need to eat fresh foods from the earth, the kids busied themselves with the microscope. 

First looking at anything and everything that would fit on the platform, and then running around outside trying to find special little pieces of nature to make their own slides with. It had been a while since we had the microscope out and they were so captivated with it.

It was the perfect day to curl up with a book and a blanket and the kids spent a good portion of the day reading story books and school books. 

 Chase checked out the neatest book on dragons from the library, so when he wasn't reading story books to Lily, he was enthralled with dragons.

Lily continued to read her book on prehistoric animals. We've been working on prehistory for months now, and she loves it. 

Lily did some notebooking on what she was looking at in the book. This is typically how we learn; we read books about the subject we want to learn about and then copy diagrams or draw pictures about it and then copy any information they deem important enough to write down. I love this way of learning. The work comes out beautiful, so the kids are happy to do it and are proud of the work they've done 

Chase is learning early American history right now so his notebooking today was on the regions of the original 13 colonies. 

The kids finished their work and moved onto chores, cleaning up our school messes and unloading the dishwasher. It was a pretty normal day, but it felt different today for some reason. Maybe it was the gloomy weather or the feeling of fall in the air, but it was one of those perfect homeschooling days that fills me with pride and joy and leaves me so grateful that they are able to experience this type of learning. 

A Day at the Aquarium

One of my favorite things about homeschooling is getting to use the world and any of the places in it as our school. As homeschoolers, we recognize that learning doesn't just happen in a classroom or during school time. Learning happens all day, everywhere, through every experience. We try to take field trips or travel as often as we can because learning is so much more fun when you are seeing or doing!

Last week we took a trip to the ocean and visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium. 

We have been many times, but it's a favorite place of ours and we are always excited to go back. I love watching the kids enthusiastically learning and exploring with wonder and excitement. I love the squeals and the "ooh"s and "ash"s, when they come running to tell me all about something they've just seen or learned or when they eagerly pull me along, bursting with excitement to share it with me. 

Chase's favorite is always the touch pools, especially the Rays and Lily is always quite content with just watching the fish. 

The Jellies are my favorite. I could sit and watch those amazing creatures for hours. 

The Moon Jellies especially. They're so graceful and beautiful. 

We are always excited to see the eels. Eels are just so cool!

So many amazing sea creatures to see. 

We even got to see a cuttlefish ink!!

They learned so much. They learned more about echinoderms, bioluminescence, invertebrates, flightless birds, and the CA coastal habitat, just to name a few. This is the kind of learning they love and the kind they will retain because they were having fun. They come home with a new arsenal of awesome facts, a stronger love for the ocean's animals, and a memory they will continue to cherish. 

Wild Explorers

I would argue that next to mindfulness and matters of the spirit, the most important thing you can teach a child is to love nature. Listening to the wind blow through aspen leaves, or the silence of freshly fallen snow, or the sound of waves crashing on shore; being surrounded by trees, or on the top of a mountain, or at the shore of the mighty ocean; nature fills us up. It's like home for us. There is so much world to explore, so much beauty to see. We try to take every chance we can get to get outside and explore. 

We recently joined the Wild Explorers Club and we are so excited about it. It's a wilderness club where you fulfill assignments to work towards badges.

1. Wolf - Embrace the Life of an Explorer
2. Bobcat - Be Relentlessly Curious
3. Bear - Learn New Things
4. Elk - Care For Others
5. Fox - Know How Things Work
6. Bison - Read Great Books
7. Beaver - See the Adventure in Everything
8. Owl - Discover Your Passion
9. Hawk - Make Awesome Things
10. Eagle - Travel to New Places

 We begin with trying to achieve our Wolf badge. Each badge has several wilderness assignments for you to complete to earn that badge. Our first assignment was to fill a pack with everything you need to go on an adventure. We filled ours with the things we use when we go for hikes, as that is what we do most often. 

We are very excited about the adventures to come as we work through the badges and become Eagles! You can check out the Wild Explorers Club by going to www.wildexplorersclub.com or searching #wildexplorersclub on Instagram. 

Sunday Gratitude

Be grateful for the kindly friends that walk along your way;

Be grateful for the skies of blue that smile from day to day;

Be grateful for the health you own, the work you find to do,

For round about you there are men less fortunate than you.

Be grateful for the growing trees, the roses soon to bloom,

The tenderness of kindly heart that shared your days of gloom;

Be grateful for the morning dew, the grass beneath your feet, 

The soft caresses of your babes and all their laughter sweet.

Aquire the grateful habit, learn to see how blest you are,

How much there is to gladden life, how little life to mar!

And what if rain shall fall today and you with grief are sad;

Be grateful that you can recall the joys that you have had.

- Edgar Guest

I'm going to post the moments from the week that I am most grateful for every Sunday. I think this week, since I wasn't prepared, it's a little more from this month:

This moment, when she wore her fanciest kitty mask on our hike

This moment, when you can see how much they love each other

This moment, seeing her intently reading while we finish two audiobooks from the Spirit Animal series on a long, long drive home

This moment, when this awesome kid's mismatched socks matched his shirt 

This moment, listening to squeals and laughter during this tickle war

It's a lovely life we live! 

A Thanksgiving Harvest

Lily sat quietly playing the other day. After I finished up what I was working on, I went to check in with her and found these beautiful mandalas. I asked her to tell me about them, and this was her story:

The pilgrim and the Indian were living in the same land, but they weren't friends. At first, the pilgrim was mean to the Indian, but the Indian taught the pilgrim to be nice. The pilgrim said he was just being mean because he was hungry, so the Indian taught the pilgrim how to plant his food and where to collect food from nature. They planted their food and waited all summer. All summer they were friends and splashed together in the river. In the fall all their food was grown and they had to get ready for winter. The Indian wasn't very strong and couldn't gather all of her food by herself so the pilgrim brought his truck over to help her. The Indian was grateful so she showed the pilgrim where he could collect watermelons and berries. Once they collected all their food they made these pretty harvest circles of all their foods so they would have something pretty to look at through the cold winter. 

The Pilgrim's harvest

The Indian's harvest

Each color of the gems is a different food. 

I love how she was able to narrate such a wonderful story from her pretend play. And I love how she can joyfully entertain herself acting out these little stories through play. I often catch her deep in her own little fantasy world and love these moments, seeing her caught up in a world of imagination and wonder, just being a happy, content child. 

Mindful Children

Both my kids have very wild spirits. They are independent, and adventurous, and gloriously strong-willed. They have an abundance of energy and like to climb pretty much everything they see. They, like most children, have moments of anger and frustration, moments when they quarrel, or make the wrong choices. But they are funny and sweet and loving and smart, and amazing in so many ways. 

They are bright little beings learning to navigate life, and life can be hard. 

I want to my kids to grow up encompassed in happiness and love. I want them to be able to be wild and free. But I want them to know peace. I want to give them the tools they need to deal with life when life gets hard. I want them to grow up with morals and be kind, caring, friendly people. I want them to understand their emotions and how to deal with them, or how to deal with other people's emotions. I want them to know how to be present; how to slow down and enjoy the small wonders in life. 

We try to begin our mornings practicing these things; spending time doing yoga or meditating, or talking about character traits that we want for ourselves, or talking about our emotions; we try to find moments in the day to be grateful for, we look for lessons in our mistakes, and we talk about how we're feeling when we handle a situation poorly; and we try to end our day thankful for our lives and each other.  I think these are great gifts to pass along to them; the ability to quiet our minds when we are feeling worry or self doubt or stress; the ability to release that stress in a positive way; an understanding that we are all one, here on earth, and that we should love and accept other, including ourselves; that life is only as bad as you're choosing to make it; that we should find lessons in hard moments and grow from them; and that we have the power to be happy and positive whenever we choose.

Happiness is not determined by what's happening around you
 but rather by what's happening with in you.

Our Homeschool Journey

I think I have a general idea, a picture in my mind, of how I want to homeschool. 

I picture lazy mornings with hot tea, all cuddled together while we read classic literature. I picture days filled with exploring anything and everything, notebooks filled with writings and drawings and art, books filled with science and history and maths. I picture days spent outdoors, basking in the sun, with our toes in the sand or our hands covered in mud, surrounded by trees, exploring nature. I picture 2 eager children, in love with learning and exploring as much as I am. I have an idea of all the things I want to teach them and show them, in life 
                             and
                                  in learning. 

    Some days don't go this way. Some days the kids aren't eager to explore, or we don't get done everything we need to. Somedays I plan something great and the day crumbles apart in an epic failure. But those days when everything is great, when I stop just long enough to realize that this picture perfect day I strive for is unfolding right before my eyes, those are the days that remind me why we are on this journey.  We have been constantly changing and transforming our homeschool methods through the two years we've been doing this, as I discover what does and doesn't work for my kids, and I feel like we are finally settling into a rhythm that works for us. I am grateful to be where we are today, settled in to our rhythm, enjoying life and learning together and watching my kids grow up wild 
                       and 
                          free.