2014-15 Ready to Roll!

Well here we go shoving off into the new school year! How is it that I have all 4 kids school age this year?!? Yes my little one is kindergarten so not major academics, but still this is crazy! Here is a look into this years mama's school book, things get wiggled a bit but for the most part this is the plan for the year. (Sorry some of the photos came out blurry I have no idea how that happened!)

As usual we are using Oak Meadow for the majority of the subjects, we do not do their social studies or history. It is just easier on this mama to do that together as a group. I am considering doing Fern and Jake's science together to also help with the amount of material I am teaching and time. As you can see there is also a little Waldorf, Charlotte Mason, Unschooling and TJed thrown in too! I have learned over the years that homeschool labels are generally just narrowing and constricting and so I don't label our philosophy. We take what works for our family from wherever we find it and call it good!

If you have any questions let me know! I'm happy to share!

Lantern Walk

 

 

The stars alined (& the rain paused) so we got to use the lanterns we made for the lantern walk. It was beautiful to see all the kids walking with just their lighted lanterns and then to sit around the bonfire and sip warm apple cider. What a beautiful night!

Fall Festivals

 

 

Schooling goes on even if the blog does not. I have been trying to spend less time in front of the screen and more in real life. I don't always succeed but I'm trying.
We have been enjoying the fall festivals this year. Above are pictures from our Michaelmas celebration. We made sword napkin holders, I made another dragon candle, and this year we talked Dad into baking us some dragon bread! Then at dinner we read the scripture account of the war in heaven and how Micheal drove Satan (the dragon) out of heaven with his sword of truth. Every night we will light our candle and watch how the flame vanquishes the dragon on the candle as we prepare for Christ's birth by vanquishing Satan from our lives and hearts.
We also made these cute little gnomes for our fall nature table.
Just this week we had our Martinmas dinner, I told the story of Martin with small dolls and then we cut our potato in half and shared it with our neighbor. After dinner we put together homeless packets we keep in the car to give out. We also recited the scripture, "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in Heaven". The next day we made our lanterns symbolizing shining our light to others during this dark time of year that hopefully we will get to use for the local Waldorf school's lantern walk this week.
What does fall look like at your house?

There are many activities we do as a family that I am sometimes not sure where to post them, family blog or schooling blog! But I have to say that is one of my FAVORITE things about being a homeschooling family! I see it as our own little homeschooling family culture.

I recently took the plunge and bought the book All Year Round, I have wanted a book to learn more about and incorperate festivals in our home but I have always been afraid of picking the wrong one. Silly right! So I bought this book and got a couple ideas for Michalmas! It was a fun evening, I made this dragon out of beeswax on the candle and then at dinner we read about the war in heaven and talked about the plan of salvation and of course what Michael did. We then lit the candle and have each night for dinner since, the kids love to think about Michaels sword being the flame as it vanquishes our dragon. We also talked brefly about vanquishing our own dragons, it was a fun evening!

I have been thinking a bit about this quote from Mark Twain, "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education". And also, "... they didn’t have to wait for me to be ready to teach them something." from a recent post at Simple Homeschooling.

What thoughts do these give you?