popping in

We have to really pay attention to notice Autumn, but there are glimpses of her presence. This crepe myrtle in our front yard is particularly colorful this year. This photo doesn't quite capture it. I do like the contrast with the green in the background. The leaves are growing redder day by day, and in a week they'll be gone.

I remember reading somewhere last summer when I was preparing our second grade year that developmentally second graders are looking for heroes. Hence, the sage stories are nourishing because they provide the child with people to admire and respect. Well, I see the hero thing with Alybug and Em. We are FSU soccer fans- they are having a great year and are in the NCAA quarterfinals later this week. Alybug and Em know all the players' names and positions. They cheer for them enthusiastically when we go to the games and at home on our little soccer field, they take turns being Jessica Price, Erin McNulty, Becky Edwards, etc. They both have plans to someday go to FSU and play on the soccer team.

Alybug and Em are reading, really reading. They read level 2 easy readers to me during our afternoon practice time. When I read chapter books to them, they are looking over my shoulder, sounding out words on their own. Their eyes have been opened to the world of words. From the newspaper to signs to restaurant menus to books, they are finding words all around them. They are loving their newfound ability.

We are wrapping up our Mourning Dove Native American block. I have really enjoyed the story of Keeten and living it with the girls. We have done some fun activities this block (and Pumpkin happily joined us for them all)- we made moccasins with this kit; we made dreamcatchers which now hang above the girls' beds; we loved playing Native American games- Ine Iche Chaio and the stick/blindfold game from Enki materials, modified just a bit; we have learned and played string games (this youtube video was inspiring; we have read some great Native American picture books (Old Turtle, Beardream, Between Earth and Sky have been favorites). We have talked about how there are different tribes of Native Americans and yet they all seemed to run together a little bit in our cultural block. I didn't do much intentional distinguishing between them. I'm not sure if I should have or not. We have spent some time this past week learning about nighttime. In our story, Keeten goes out at night to seek her guardian spirit. Alybug and Em were particularly focused on this part of the story. So, we've read books about nocturnal animals and we saw a great little show at our planetarium called The Little Star that Could. It was fact heavy about space and the planets, but it was set within a story. The girls just loved it.

Now we're doing a weekish with math review for our morning lesson. I think we'll spend the month of December preparing for and anticipating Christmas. Christmas has been a traditionally magical time for my girls. This post has some of our favorite books. We're planning lots of crafting, baking, sewing, and knitting this year for gifts for friends and family. We'll have a winter circle to start our days off and the rest of our days will probably be spent Christmasing and creating. We'll see how it goes...

stone bunny

This bunny lives by our front walk and we dress her as the seasons change. The girls came up with this little number today, complete with the sign. Note 5 flowers and 1 small one- that's the baby's flower.

An aside about the baby, I'm beginning my second trimester and feeling well. I just began knitting a blanket for baby. The girls all have plans for knitting hats and toys. We're all excited to meet this new little person. She is a regular part of conversation around here. Yes, baby is still most often referred to as she, but Alybug often reminds us it could be a boy!

fall festival

Our co-op group, Children's Garden, celebrates fall every year with a festival. This festival was our 4th one with the group. It has become an important tradition for our family. This year we did a fall craft together and then the usual Stone Soup story where the children are all villagers and as the story is told, they each add something to the soup. The soup is always tasty, and different every year, of course, as stone soup should be.

The children also ran an obstacle course. This is always the favorite for all 3 girls. Pumpkin takes it most seriously, running and jumping and throwing as fast as she can. It's fun to watch. The children all cheer one another as they race around the course.

After our dinner of soup and potluck, dusk came and the children were told a story for Martinmas, then we walked a lantern walk through the dark out to a bonfire. We sang these songs as we walked. The lanterns looked beautifully magical in the dark. The evening ended with s'mores. We are thankful to be a part of this inspiring and creative group.

dinnertime

We have a little dinner blessing song we sing before we eat. After the song ends, Pumpkin has recently begun proclaiming, "Amen. I wish I had a farm with 25 horses." It cracked us all up the first time, and now it has become a regular dinner event- the "Amen. I wish I had _____" It just about always involves horses or farm animals for all 3 girls. I tried to change it tonight by beating them all to the punch line, with "Amen. I'm thankful for the cool weather and the fire in our fireplace." They all chimed in with an I'm thankful for but they were sure to add their I wish on as well.

trick or treat

A recent photo of the 3 girls. Alybug is the one with the missing two front teeth.

The girls had great fun trick or treating tonight. They were happy to be often identified correctly as the Ingalls girls.

an afternoon

Today my mom had the day off work, so she picked up the girls a little before lunchtime and I had an afternoon all to myself while they had a fun date with Grammy. It was a perfect day. The rain poured down outside, and the dogs and I sat in a quiet house. I'm rarely home alone, and I had forgotten how quiet quiet really is. I sewed the girls' bonnets for Halloween (pattern found here) then just putzed the rest of the afternoon away. It was fun to sew all by myself. I appreciate my little helpers (Pumpkin is drawn to the sewing machine and never misses an opportunity to help), but it was refreshing to listen to some loud music and sew away with just a little furry something for company. The bonnets turned out great. The girls didn't take them off this evening- mostly they wore them over the backs, like Laura and Mary do, they say.

end of our first block

We have finished our first second grade block lesson around John Muir. Far and away, the girls' favorite part of our 7 weeks has been Scottish dancing. They loved it. I imagine our circle will seem incomplete on Monday without it. They also really liked the trickster tales and the John Muir chapter story work. Em loves writing, and writing the longer summaries was fun for her. Both girls' handwriting is getting neater and better spaced. It's a very rare thing for a letter to be written backward anymore. Both girls are becoming more confident drawers. Last year they wanted all our drawings to be led by me, and this year they're doing great on their own. They usually each depict a different scene from the story when we draw. I draw along with them, choosing yet a different scene. It seems to aid our summaries on day 3 when the girls refer to our pictures from day 2. I don't think I did the best job of immersing us in Scottish culture, but we did listen to Scottish music from time to time- Dougie Maclean was a big hit, and we baked some shortbread cookies. A follow-up sage picture book both girls enjoyed was Squirrel and John Muir by Emily Arnold McCully. We did some science work with trees, and that was fun. We hung our scale drawing of a sequoia tree (alongside a 6' man, a 100' pine tree and an 80' live oak tree) in our school area and the girls often point that out to people. They both connected with John Muir, specifically on the whole save the earth mentality. Florida's legislature (which convenes in Tallahassee, where we live) is debtaing offshore oil drilling and the girls have an interest in following that and in fighting against it. Sure, some of that is because of what they hear from me and Rob, but I like to think some of that is John Muir inspiration!

Our Language Arts skill story this block was Silli Billi, working with syllables. And wow, that has really supported Alybug in her reading progress. She has taken off with it these last few weeks. Em has too, but it's a more dramatic change for Alybug.

The past 3 weeks we have been working with math in our morning lesson. During the trickster and John Muir weeks, we had been working with greater/less and even/odd and some addition and subtraction during our afternoon practice time. So, when we shifted to math in our morning lessons, it was a bit hard. The girls just loved all the drawing and writing we had been doing. We did some of that in math, with the reawakening 4 process story In Case of Drought and again with the counting by story, Missing Diamonds with the strange family characters. But then it was working with math manipulatives, games, and worksheets. It felt like practice time work, but we were doing it in our morning lesson block. We got through it, but I know everyone will be happy to switch back to trickster work tomorrow with our next sage, Mourning Dove, and we'll do math work in our practice time slot.

Rob's off at the Greenway with the girls and I have some preparation to do for our upcoming week. I may get back on tonight with some pictures of our work from this block.