{this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you’re inspired to do the same, visit Soulemama to leave a link to your ‘moment’ in the comments for all to find and see.
Outside my window…it’s incredibly windy.
I am thankful…that our calendar for May is delightfully empty. No big commitments. No parties to plan or attend. A nice lull.
From the learning rooms…we are working on our new curriculum from WinterPromise. I know I haven’t blogged about U through Z yet for the Alphabet Path. I have so many wonderful pictures and memories to share, but I just don’t know if I’ll ever get around to it. We did finish the Alphabet Path, though, and we loved our adventure! Joseph keeps asking when it will be A week again.
In the kitchen…aside from a pitcher of sweet tea, I made nothing today. Alcapulco and Bill Miller’s BBQ did my job for me.
I am wearing…workout shorts (although I am obviously not working out right this moment) and a pink v-neck t-shirt.
I am creating…a calendar for the next school year, planning and re-planning and trying to fit in all my grand plans.
I am reading…Stupid Things Parents Do To Mess Up Their Kids by Dr. Laura Schlessinger. I can never get enough Dr. Laura.
I am listening…to the constant hum of the air conditioner. Seems like it never gets a break down here in the south.
I am pondering…Why the Kids Really Need a Little Red Hen Mama and all the wisdom within Ann’s thoughts. (If you haven’t visited Mom Heart yet, it’s totally worth your time to stop by and read some of the heartfelt, encouraging words you’ll find.)
One of my favorite things…Grandpa Gary and his buddies.
Here is a picture for thought I am sharing…
Joseph reminded me, first thing this morning, that it was St. Patrick’s Day. Out came the green shirts and green socks (and the boys even found their green underwear!). I pinned on their St. Patrick’s Day patches that Grandma Cindy made and their outfits were complete. We made St. Patrick’s Day cinnamon rolls (cinnamon rolls with green shamrock sprinkles), read Patrick: Patron Saint of Ireland (which served as a great reminder that “nothing is impossible with God”), and made shamrocks out of play-doh. What did you do to celebrate?
{this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from our week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you’re inspired to do the same, visit Soulemama to leave a link to your ‘moment’ in the comments for all to find and see.
T is for…Thrift fairy and St. Therese. After reading Serendipity’s Flower Fairy story, Joseph and William colored pictures of the fairy. Joseph also did some copywork from the poem that is in the Flower Fairy book (which he did while listening to the Flower Fairy CD). Then we looked up the actual wildflower in our field guide. We read about Saint Therese in our Alphabet of Catholic Saints. Joseph did some copywork. We also used the picture from the book to practice the letter formation.
T is for…the letter T. We practiced letter formation using the Cuisenaire Rods Alphabet Book, Do A Dot, Gray Block paper, and Pin Punch letters. We listed as many words as we could that started with the beginning sound /t/ and then the boys got a little adventureous and decided to list words ending in /t/…excellent letter-sound practice for William.
T is for…tessellations. It just so happened that one of our RightStart lessons this week was about tessellations. So we made tessellations using squares and then rectangles. Joseph tried using octagons and found out that he couldn’t do it.
T is for…tracing. Joseph loves the Rod and Staff preschool workbooks. There are quite a few coloring pages in there, so he traced around the outside edge of the pictures and then colored them in.
T is for…trees. For art apprecation, we studied paintings of trees and then using their pastels, each child replicated a painting (William’s are the first two drawings; Joseph’s is clearly labeled as his). We also studied trees for science using Tell Me Tree and A Tree is a Plant. We then taped paper to the trees in our backyard and did bark rubbings.
T is for…Tell the Truth. We’re still using these great coloring pages and we’re including one each week along with a virtue story.
T is for….tye dye. We didn’t actually get to tye dye our shirts yet because Joseph and William want to wait for Grandma Cindy to arrive, but we did make it to Hobby Lobby to pick up the t-shirts (and a onesie for Roo!). While we were out, we also went to Target…just because it started with T.
T is for…trains and treehouse. Joseph is big into Thomas the Train right now, so this was a great week for him…such a great excuse to play with Thomas and all his trains. We also dug out the old Playmobil treehouse and played with it.
T is for…tangrams.
T is for…telling time. We practiced telling time again and again and again. And, of course, we could not practice time without Usborne’s Telling the Time book.
T is for…Tikki Tikki Tembo. This was one of my favorite books when I was a kid, so I introduced it to Joseph and William at the beginning of our week. It sparked their imaginations. They spent the rest of the week taking turns being Tikki Tikki Tembo and Chang and falling in the well (a pile of cushions on the couch). Then one of them would put a hat on and pretend to be the old man with the ladder. Lots of imagination!
T is for…tea! We made southern sweet tea to enjoy with lunch this week.
In our book baskets this week (I’m choosing one book from each basket to have Joseph do a narration and illustration of):
Science (trees): Tell Me Tree; A Tree is a Plant
History (Trail of Tears): The Trail of Tears
Favorite T Books: Tikki Tikki Tembo; There is a Bird on Your Head!; There Was a Crooked Man; Ten, Nine, Eight; Thy Friend, Obadiah; The Tiny Seed; There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly; Ten Apples Up On Top!; The Three Questions; The Tushy Book; Take Me Out to the Ball Game; Teammates; The True Story of the Three Little Pigs; Today is Monday; Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes; Time of Wonder; To Market, To Market; Twelve Hats for Lena
{this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you’re inspired to do the same, visit Soulemama to leave a link to your ‘moment’ in the comments for all to find and see.
I have fallen behind on blogging for the Alphabet Path. In an effort to catch up, I’m going to post one blog here about letters M through S. We’ve been continuing along with the Alphabet Path plans, so for the main plans (including faith, art, letter formation, nature study and language) you can head on over to Serendipity. Serendipity also has tons of picture book suggestions, so head over there for ideas.
Here are the highlights from our Alphabet Path studies, along with a few photos.
M is for…St. Martin de Porres and mice, so we made mice using cupcakes, m & ms, and homemade marshmallows (I think the first two pictures are actually Monday morning muffin making).
M is for…Martin Luther King, Jr. I blogged about this picture here. We read about Martin Luther King, Jr. in Martin’s Big Words and If a Bus Could Talk.
N is for…numbers. We used sidewalk chalk to practice number patterns. Then Joseph and William had to find nature items to match their numbers.
O is for…oops! I forgot to take any photos and the only thing worth noting that we did this week was learn about owls.
P is for…The Story of Ping. We took a little detour from our Alphabet Path routine and did a lapbook about Ping during P week. It was a nice break.
Q is for…quicksand. We read The Quicksand Book by Tomie de Paola and the kids were wildly amused with the idea of quicksand. So we read it over and over and over again. We know quite a bit about quicksand now.
Q is for quilts. Due to my lack of planning, we didn’t actually sew or quilt, but we did flip through some quilt pattern books and Joseph found a pattern he really liked called Nelson’s Victory. I drew the grid for him and using his colored pencils (and his color choices) he colored in the block. The picture of Joseph and William on the floor is actually them sitting on their completed quilt block. The word quilt in this family usually translates into picnic, so it only made sense that when Joseph finished his quilt block, that they pretended to have a picnic.
R is for…recycling. We attempted to make our own recycled paper. I didn’t realize that the Ad Sack is not the same thing as regular newspaper. It was all about the process not the product.
S is for…stamps. We did lots of stamping…great opportunity to practice spelling and patterns.
S is for…stickers. Auntie Jane had sent the kids some valentine sticker puzzles, which we put to good use during S week. Joseph also did some sticker stories where he chose stickers for a picture and then wrote a story.
We’ve also been continuing with our Right Start Math and The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading, amongst other things. Here are some random photos of the past few weeks of school (not Alphabet Path related):
On Ash Wednesday, we set our prayer altar for Lent. Joseph and William covered the altar with a purple cloth and added a Lenten wreath with a purple pillar candle to the center. We had gone to the local plant nursery earlier in the week to choose small succulents, which the boys added to the altar as a reminder that Lent is a desert journey. An empty bowl to symbolize fasting was placed on the altar. And, of course, a Lenten prayer altar would not be complete without a crucifix. The cross you see hanging on the wall near the altar hangs there year round, but it is especially appropriate for this Church season because it depicts each of the Stations of the Cross.
On Ash Wednesday we talked about fasting and making sacrifices. Joseph and William each chose something that they wanted to sacrifice during Lent (William chose candy; Joseph chose candy and chocolate). They wrote their sacrifices on slips of paper and added them to our fasting bowl. I’ve been quite impressed with how well they’ve stuck to their fasting. Even when we went to Austin to visit and Dad offered Joseph a jelly bean, Joseph replied, “No, thank you, Grandpa. I’m fasting from eating candy this Lent.”
Joseph, William, and I painted the wooden letters for the word ALLELUIA (white with gold glitter sealer) and REPENT (purple). On Ash Wednesday, we buried the ALLELUIA letters (since we won’t be using that word again until Easter Sunday) and then added REPENT to our altar.
This year on each Friday during Lent, instead of The Way of the Cross, which we usually do, we are meditating and praying the Stations of the Cross, guided by the book The Story of the Cross. We added a beautiful wooden dowel tree with these incredible Stations of the Cross ornaments. Once Holy Week arrives, we will switch our Stations of the Cross ornaments with the Holy Week ornaments.
Aside from focusing on the Stations of the Cross, we are also devoting our time during Lent to the parable of the Good Shepherd (my reference books for teaching the parable are Celebrating the Church Year with Young Children and The Good Shepherd and the Child). I introduced the parable during the first week just by telling the story. Then later in the week, I retold the parable as I introduced the materials. After the lesson was over, I set the materials aside, but within the kids’ reach. I’ve seen the materials used again and again as they tell each other all about Jesus, the Good Shepherd. Those little sheep get a lot of exercise following the Good Shepherd around! Today during Mass, Joseph was looking at a book of stories about Jesus and was thrilled to find the story of the Good Shepherd. Neither of them have quite made the association between the sheep and ourselves, but I imagine, given time, they will. Each week we will continue to listen to the parable, use the materials, and reflect upon what we’ve learned.
A few other Lenten plans (ideas from The Lent-Easter Book): We will be painting the river rocks we found on our trip to Austin. We’ve been calling them our prayer rocks so I imagine we’ll add the word “Pray” to each rock, along with whatever else the kids paint on them. We’ll add them to our nightstands as a reminder to pray before falling asleep. We also found a silver pail that I’ll paint the word “Prayers” on and as the kids pray throughout Lent, they can add a strip of paper to our pail, hopefully filling the pail before Easter. I found a neat book by Stormie Omartian called What Happens When I Talk to God that both kids have been reading and re-reading. Sometimes Joseph closes his eyes tight for a few moments and then opens them, looks at me, and says, “Can you guess what I was doing? I was praying. I know you couldn’t hear me, but God could.” And William now spontaneously stops what he’s doing to declare his love for God. I love that they’re learning to pray all the time, not just at our established prayer times. Our last big Lent plan was to make t-shirts, which we did last week so we can wear them throughout the season. Joseph and William each chose what they wanted their shirts to say.
What are your plans for Lent? Please leave a comment and share your thoughts or a link to your Lenten journey.
Outside my window…there’s a gentle breeze ruffling the curtains.
I am thankful…for my friend Virginia. While the kids played, I soaked up her wisdom.
From the learning rooms…we are on letter T on our Alphabet Path. We’ve also been hard at work at some Kumon workbooks and these Rod and Staff preschool workbooks. Joseph and William both keep asking for more.
In the kitchen…waffles with fruit syrup. We added just a dash of V8 Fusion to our peaches and strawberries this morning for the syrup…mmm, mmm.
I am wearing…jeans and a purple tank top with a butterfly on it…a flashback to my college days.
I am creating…scenarios and solutions in my head as I continue to slowly read and digest Liberated Parents, Liberated Children. Now if only I could remember my solutions when under pressure.
I am reading…Building Better Families by Matthew Kelly. My sister has been raving about it for months. I’m finally going to see what she’s so excited about.
I am listening…to the hum of the computer. That’s it.
I am looking forward to…a visit with Mom soon.
I am remembering…a few weeks ago when we went to the park. I was taking pictures of the kids as they were climbing a tree and Joseph kept making a funny face. Finally I asked him if something was in his eye and he opened both eyes and replied, “No, can’t you see? I’m winking.”
I am pondering…Elizabeth’s blog and her adventure in storybooks this year.
One of my favorite things…watching Daxson fly the kids through the house while they sing the theme song for Superman.
Here is a picture for thought I am sharing…
Nothing beats the taste of a homegrown vegetable. Especially when you planted it yourself, helped Mommy water it, and watched it grow. (Don’t worry, little Roo…you’ll be able to join in the fun soon enough!)
With Every Intention 