Monday was spent with our homeschooling community. We are reading a few books together over the course of this year. A few of us completed the book, Calm and Compassionate Children: A Handbook by Susan Usha Dermond. Our discussion was centered around the importance of preparing our environments for our children and all that entails. With that being the focus, I made it a point to be early so as the purposely set up our space. We changed how things usually flow so the everyone would take note of it. It worked. Many of the comments made during our sharing time spoke to each of the things we intentional adjusted. Then we encouraged one another to try some of the things mentioned in the book in their homes--one or two.
As far as my children are concerned we spent time learning more about birds and sharing what they'd learned so far with their peers. They also got time to play and talk freely. The treat during their time together was watching a movie together before our time was over. (This was not a typical Monday for sure.)
Tuesday is typically my 'recovery day' from being out of the house all day on Monday. It's also the day the children take it upon themselves to study further and get into the things they enjoy doing most. We passed by the library to drop off and pick up books and over all had a pretty calm day.
Wednesday we ran a few errands in the morning before meeting some friends for lunch. As I am never always sure just who will be joining us when I invite our friends (different schedules and commitments), I decided not to share with my children just who they'd see. They were all pleasantly surprised to see some faces they hadn't seen in awhile along with those we see regularly. A great time was had by most (I say most because the little one in our midst spent a good bit of time in tears.)
During errand running, I was able to secure some yarn for the gifts I'm making this season. I caught a sale too--which makes it even better.
Thursday we celebrated the birth of my eldest daughter. She has been with us now for 12 years. The day was full of music, some dancing, cooking and baking, opening cards and gifts and speaking to dear ones on the phone. We did do more study for our bird unit and worked on our 'Gratitude Garland.' One of the rituals we do around birthdays is taking a 'Last Day as [age]' Photo Shoot the night before the birthday. Then on your birthday we do another photo shoot to start the new year. I started this years ago when things were getting crazy with moving and unpacking and not having time to scrapbook or record things as I'd wanted to. Also, since we don't take 'school pictures,' I wanted a way to document visually each of their ages. It's something they look forward to each year. So do I.
Friday has been, well, much like most Fridays. We're glad it's here as it's the beginning of the weekend--time for rest, rejuvenation and whole family time. We've been working on completing our list of chores--everyone has their specific jobs and then jobs they do in pairs. We also have a few 'entire group' chores to get to as well. I put on some music and we danced as we cleaned--which made cleaning time move along quickly. We completed our tasks today in just an hour.
I've been in the kitchen as I got a hankering to cook. We'll be enjoying an early dinner of acorn squash, sweet potatoes, black rice with coconut milk, black-eyed peas, corn and green beans. Oh, and some corn bread. Yeah, I don't know just want got into me--perhaps I'm just hungry. It smells so good. So, I'm going to end now so we can enjoy it.
Here are a few pictures that capture some of the things I just shared about.
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| Our 'Prepared Environment' at the Rec Center |
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| Lunch with friends |
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| Yarn I snagged on sale |
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| Working on Bird Lap-book |
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| Lego construction |
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| Researching Blue Jays |
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| drawing a dragon |
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| Birthday Photo Shoot Photos by HeatherJamesPhotography |
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| 12th Birthday Cake |
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| Preparing fruit to put in our morning smoothie |
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| Making the leaves for our 'Gratitude Garland' |
This post is linked up with Weekly Wrap Up over at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers. You can find out more about linking up yourself here or read the blogs of those who link up weekly.
Hope your week was filled with fun, learning and together time. I'd love to hear from you so comment below. If you're hopping over from the link-up do say hello. Thanks.
Be well.
2 comments:
Your dinner sounds delicious!
Looks like you had an eventful week that flowed nicely. I love it when that happens. Enjoy your weekend!
It's great when it happens, as it doesn't always--the week flowing well, that is.
Dinner was *so* good--I have to treat myself better and fix food like this more often.
Thanks so much for stopping by and commenting.
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