Life has been busy around here- good, but busy. Soccer is in full swing, swimming is wrapping up and dance is officially done tomorrow.
One post I have enjoyed today in between lawn mowing and dinner is this one from Willa:
Time to Breathe
The title caught me, especially as our life has seemed to have a bit of an absence of that breathing space as of late.
As a mother here at home with my kids, I have been seeing that one of the big areas I am always trying to guard in our life is 'margin'- that space that allows my children to think, discover, grow, breathe, and just be. It is no small feat in this busy world, especially at times among 'busy homeschoolers'! But without this time I see how our lives can lose their anchor: with God, with each other, and with ourselves.
So as I go about planning for next year this 'breathing space' is going to be in the forefront of my mind.
While reading Willa's post I found myself pondering this line...
I find it easier to have things thought out ahead of time, and be flexible about the approach. I should remind myself though, now, that I am trying to structure things minimally
I don't tend to plan things out ahead of time to well- I research heaps, have lots of fuzzy ideas, even some well written out goals, but they seem to get overlooked all year. The unschooler in me balks at them. However, my slow brain has realized how helpful it would be for us to have some skeletal plans, some goals I look back at. Otherwise our tides can be overfull, or sorely sluggish, without me having much of an anchor. I am seeing how these simple plans would give me enough of an anchor that as we wander off on our adventures, work at our lessons, and live our lives, I would be able to keep grounded.
I also appreciated how she looked at the three focal areas; disciplina, discovery, and basic life skills. It reminds me of the book I read years ago by Clay and Sally Clarkson, Educating The Wholehearted Child. Enjoying all the scientific diagrams from my science years in University, I think I could use these three categories to give myself a good visual for the year to come.
As I am singing Willa's praise, I can also give her a hat tip for this idea as well: to keep a notebook this summer where I can journal about my children- how they are spending their time, what interests they are developing.... the skies the limit!
With these ideas percolating in my brain I am excited for a summer of intentional planning for next year and lots of margin and joy.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Thursday, May 15, 2008
The Rhythm of Spring
Spring seems to have come for good now to this neck of the woods. My hands are cracked and full of earthen lines.... I am happy. The garden is shaping up and I am waiting somewhat impatiently for the tree to be limbed and I can put out the vibrant seedlings growing in the window.
Today was one of those days that seem to come naturally in the spring. I had thoughts to do a sort of intensive finish in our present areas of study to finish up our time before summer, but our family rhythm wasn't in the same groove.
So today we woke sort of lazily after a late night at the soccer field. Aaron, Caleb and I snuggled for a good read of Tintin first thing. Breakfast was had and Ar read to us from the Bible. We informally talked about Diego Rivera (his art! not about nitty gritty of his life!) and I pulled out Caleb's violin. He practiced while I cleaned up and kids were off getting ready etc. Hannah had already created a neat sign of congratulations for Bilbo, Caleb's caterpillar (he successfully attached to the top of his jar in readiness for his chrysalis). After some more music practices Ariel was on the Gutenburg Project reading a novel while Hannah was hanging laundry with Caleb. (I was I think by this time distracted looking at more fuel efficient cars on the computer- our minivan is terrible on gas).
Hannah's hair needed doing for her first feis so we got out all the gear, boys all went out for a croquet match and to string up a large spider's web with old yarn, and got going on the hair. We figured out how to download Inkheart from our library so we listened to that for the last hour of the curling.
At some point I made some lunch and we ate it out on the deck while I read out of some field guides about caterpillars. All the kids were pretty interested as we have about 16 caterpillars at present.
Hannah then went off to continue on with her pond building and found a caterpillar that we didn't recognize. Onto google to look it up but with no luck. Hannah and I continued to work on the veggie garden, dig and chat while Ariel played lego inside with the two younger boys.
Dinner (Ariel's now on the weekly rotation and he did a great job- we needed some new juice in the menu department as my mind always wanders to the garden these days and not to the kitchen!).....then onto my Ultimate game. Lots of Redwall on tape both ways, and home for a late bedtime.
This is probably pretty dull reading for any of you but I have been in a wee bit of an attitude rut and I wanted this day to be my reminder of the joy that comes from being home with my kids...present...living out our day to day lives....working...praying...and being together.
Today was one of those days that seem to come naturally in the spring. I had thoughts to do a sort of intensive finish in our present areas of study to finish up our time before summer, but our family rhythm wasn't in the same groove.
So today we woke sort of lazily after a late night at the soccer field. Aaron, Caleb and I snuggled for a good read of Tintin first thing. Breakfast was had and Ar read to us from the Bible. We informally talked about Diego Rivera (his art! not about nitty gritty of his life!) and I pulled out Caleb's violin. He practiced while I cleaned up and kids were off getting ready etc. Hannah had already created a neat sign of congratulations for Bilbo, Caleb's caterpillar (he successfully attached to the top of his jar in readiness for his chrysalis). After some more music practices Ariel was on the Gutenburg Project reading a novel while Hannah was hanging laundry with Caleb. (I was I think by this time distracted looking at more fuel efficient cars on the computer- our minivan is terrible on gas).
Hannah's hair needed doing for her first feis so we got out all the gear, boys all went out for a croquet match and to string up a large spider's web with old yarn, and got going on the hair. We figured out how to download Inkheart from our library so we listened to that for the last hour of the curling.
At some point I made some lunch and we ate it out on the deck while I read out of some field guides about caterpillars. All the kids were pretty interested as we have about 16 caterpillars at present.
Hannah then went off to continue on with her pond building and found a caterpillar that we didn't recognize. Onto google to look it up but with no luck. Hannah and I continued to work on the veggie garden, dig and chat while Ariel played lego inside with the two younger boys.
Dinner (Ariel's now on the weekly rotation and he did a great job- we needed some new juice in the menu department as my mind always wanders to the garden these days and not to the kitchen!).....then onto my Ultimate game. Lots of Redwall on tape both ways, and home for a late bedtime.
This is probably pretty dull reading for any of you but I have been in a wee bit of an attitude rut and I wanted this day to be my reminder of the joy that comes from being home with my kids...present...living out our day to day lives....working...praying...and being together.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
The 'Golden Mean'
I think our society tends towards a dichotomy -- XTreme precautions, to the point that you can't buy a real chemistry set anymore and laws are being proposed to restrict fast food; and on the other hand, simple neglect or indifference to a toxic environment. Everyone has to find their own balance for their own family and children. But there is a golden mean between any two extremes, and it seems to me that children learn more about risk by learning to handle it to some extent according to their maturity than by being kept from it altogether.
When I read this tonight I went Yes! with a capital y. Just this month when my parents were visiting this whole controversy about plastic water bottles was in our paper every day (front page). I generally am a little more than neglectful about reading the paper, but my mom and dad read it and so they were informing me of the daily saga. We all have those Nalgene water bottles (I purchased them a while back thinking that they were good because they were hard plastic) but the paper was now saying they were no good. Probably that we would all have cancer by next week. Day by day it went on, describing the ills that await those of us who consume our liquids in these 'unfit' bottles and so on. I explained to anyone who wanted to hear that I think all this fuss about the water bottles is severely missing the point: as a society we drink milk full of drugs and residual pesticides, we drive around our vehicles way too much, we consume too much. Right here in this same city who puts the evils of number 7 bottles on the front page of the paper, the whole city is sprayed with poison to lessen our mosquito population.
Maybe this has turned into a bit of a rant. But it just seems like more and more we are growing away from a our own practical sense and wisdom into this chaos of complete dichotomies.
Following up on the newspaper, by day 4 or 5 we got to the point where now it was alright for people to drink out of the bottles, just don't give them to really young kids and don't put really hot stuff in them.
Maybe I am just a skeptic. Maybe I need to go to sleep. Probably it is a little bit of both.
If you want to read a good thought provoking read on this 'golden mean' visit Willa, from whom I quoted above.
When I read this tonight I went Yes! with a capital y. Just this month when my parents were visiting this whole controversy about plastic water bottles was in our paper every day (front page). I generally am a little more than neglectful about reading the paper, but my mom and dad read it and so they were informing me of the daily saga. We all have those Nalgene water bottles (I purchased them a while back thinking that they were good because they were hard plastic) but the paper was now saying they were no good. Probably that we would all have cancer by next week. Day by day it went on, describing the ills that await those of us who consume our liquids in these 'unfit' bottles and so on. I explained to anyone who wanted to hear that I think all this fuss about the water bottles is severely missing the point: as a society we drink milk full of drugs and residual pesticides, we drive around our vehicles way too much, we consume too much. Right here in this same city who puts the evils of number 7 bottles on the front page of the paper, the whole city is sprayed with poison to lessen our mosquito population.
Maybe this has turned into a bit of a rant. But it just seems like more and more we are growing away from a our own practical sense and wisdom into this chaos of complete dichotomies.
Following up on the newspaper, by day 4 or 5 we got to the point where now it was alright for people to drink out of the bottles, just don't give them to really young kids and don't put really hot stuff in them.
Maybe I am just a skeptic. Maybe I need to go to sleep. Probably it is a little bit of both.
If you want to read a good thought provoking read on this 'golden mean' visit Willa, from whom I quoted above.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
My blog is worth $3,951.78.
How much is your blog worth?
HT: Dawn who by the way has a blog full of great ideas (regardless of it's price!)
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