Jumping in...

We are so excited to be homeschooling all four kiddos this year. Wondering what that will be like? We are too! Stay tuned for updates on our daily life, big adventures and a ton of great learning. 

Breathing life into math and learning

Today we began hearing a series of stories about the Gnome King, Equal, and four of his Gnomes: Plus, Minus, Times And Divide. Matthew is really excited by the stories and it’s a beautiful way to bring word problems to life. 

We made our own gnomes and he has been waiting anxiously to hear their stories. 

Our Morning Walks

One of the anchors in our homeschool day is our morning walk. This time is so important for getting everyone off to a good start. 

Mornings outside are also a wonderful opportunity to make observations as the seasons change. Matthew mapped out a path, which takes us past the same tree every day. We are watching anxiously as the maple’s leaves slowly give way to their autumn colors.

On one of our morning walks, we were lucky enough to find an owl pellet! This was SO exciting for Matthew, as we had just been to presentation on “birds of prey,” the week before. When we came inside, he got straight to work dissecting the pellet and sorting the bones. We even found a website with a virtual dissection of an owl pellet that allowed us to clearly identify the bones we were looking at. What a great way to further explore what we had learned.

Our hands, hearts and minds are full, and for that I’m grateful.

Autumn is upon us.

As Summer slowly takes its leave, I can feel Autumn reminding us to draw upon our own strength in spirit as the days grow cold and short. This time of year, I welcome the crisp mornings with excitement. It’s not yet the cold dark of winter, and after seemingly endless adventures, it’s nice to slow down and shift focus to our family. 

Having one at home (with his baby sister), and two in public school, finding the balance we ease into naturally this time of year is proving a bit more challenging, but we are finding our way. 

I look forward to sharing our journey... 

Spring is finally making herself known!

The Spring has finally arrived and the damp smell of warming earth is welcomed with each breath. The children are spending their days climbing trees, digging in the dirt, swinging on their new swing and playing with their friends. We are enjoying the beautiful weather and I hope all of you are as well.

On March 20th, in recognition of the official start of Spring, we invited lots of friends (old and new) to help us celebrate and welcome in the new season. At the time, we still had quite a bit of snow, but the sun was shining and it was well above freezing outside! The children made crafts, played outside, did a Spring circle and a dear friend of mine told them a beautiful story with the help of her eldest daughter. I It was a wonderful experience and I am definitely looking forward to getting to know so many other home-schooling families in our community! 

March 25th we found ourselves at the MiSci museum in Schenectady to check out a really neat butterfly exhibit. This is an awesome museum for children. Magnets, sand tables, sound, gravity, wind. So many awesome exhibits that the children can actually TOUCH and experience!

Most of our group went into the "wind tunnel."

Martin has been hard at work building a chicken coop, while the children and I are are doing some fun reading about chickens and eggs. A dear friend of ours recently introduced us to Reg Down's "Tiptoes" series and we are currently reading and loving the "Eggs for Hunting" stories. Charlie is especially fond of the ridiculous dynamics between two of the characters, Pine Cone and Pepper Pot. We read one or two chapters before bed each night, and most evenings Charlie will beg for "just one more chapter." 

Of course, Martin is not just building a coop for the fun of it. 

With all this help, it amazes me he didn't have it done in one day!

This means, in another week or two, we will be getting chickens! We are hatching out some, and have a few being fostered at our friends' farm.

We currently have five chicken eggs, in an incubator, that are due to hatch on Easter morning! The boys are so excited about this- and Charlie has taken a real interest in the whole process. Matthew tells everyone that we have "hard boiled eggs on the counter." We candled the eggs, and barring any major disaster, we will have five baby chicks joining our four ducklings next week. Oh yea, the ducklings. These cuties right here:

We all have fallen in love. They are four Khaki-Campbells and we are really enjoying their silly little ducky dispositions. I assumed because I am the one feeding and watering them, that they would sort of "imprint" on me.. but apparently they think Abbie is their mother. They follow her around outside... as she giggles and squeals with delight!. But if I want the ducks to go somewhere, I now have to try to get my one year old to lead them... easier said than done.

Did you catch that? A one year old. Abbie turned one this past weekend! 

What a beautiful, loving soul this child has. Her smile is absolutely contagious and I see so much joy and light flow from her. She brings such a wonderful presence to our family and we all are so much in love with her. 

Sunday we spent the day outside- playing, working on projects, and getting the garden prepped for some early plantings. The children helped us to spread some peat moss and the resulting mess was just so adorably messy. It took three rounds of hair washing and scrubbing to get them clean!

The rest of the week we will be preparing for Easter, baby chicks, early plantings, and sunshine. I hope you will be finding ways to celebrate and experience this time of new birth, new growth, and new life. 

A Sunday at Home...

After a busy few days, it was so nice to spend the whole day at home together. The rhythms of home are so calming, and they restore a sense of balance and joy that is simply undeniable. 

Charlie often tells us that Sunday is his favorite day, "because Sunday is pancake day!" 

Today, we mixed that up a bit and had waffles- but no one complained! 

On Sunday mornings, after breakfast, the boys can be heard running and screaming, "Yay! It's time to go to the dump!" They usually go in their pajamas. And rain boots. The whole thing is comical. They don't get out of the car. They just sit there the entire time. But they love their special, "boys only," thing to do with Daddy each week. 

When the boys got home, Martin took all three children upstairs to play while I got some chores done. When I asked them if they wanted a snack, Charlie said, "I have a great surprise." He came downstairs with me and got right to work. My job was to make the popcorn. 

Apparently, we had these bags sitting in the drawer, left over from a party. When everyone came downstairs, Charlie started calling out, "Popcorn! Popcorn for sale!"

In the early afternoon we bundled up and headed outside to tap the rest of our maple trees. All of our taps are set and we are so eager for temperatures to start poking above freezing during the day. 

Charlie and Martin spent a few hours sledding while Matthew and Abbie napped. 

When Match woke up, we bundled up and took a walk, just the two of us. I often lose sight of how sweet the stage Match is at can be. Then, we have a 15 minute walk during which we sing, "You Are My Sunshine" and "Itsy-Bitsy Spider," twenty nine and a half times.

 On the way home, holding hands, he tells me, "I love you mommy. And, mommy loves Matthew." 

My heart melts. 

"Yes, Matthew. Mommy loves you."

We rounded out the day with an early supper and some nice wet-on-wet watercolor painting followed by some painting with leftover acrylic paints. It became a super fun mess of "splashing" on the paint.

"March nodded to Winter, “Goodbye! Goodbye!

Off to your home in the North you must hide.

Oh, have you forgotten, under the snow

The wee seeds are waiting — yes, waiting to grow?

“They are Spring’s little babies, and soon she’ll be here,

Whispering her welcome to each baby dear;

So I’ll tidy the earth; I’ll sweep and I’ll blow,

Getting it cleared for the flowers to grow!”"

Happy Valentine's Day!

We spent Valentine's Day snuggled at home during a snowstorm!
We did lots of crafts, made Valentines for each other, and read all of our Valentine stories a few more times.

One of the really neat things we made were recycled paper Valentines to send to our friends! We put used paper in the blender with some water and then poured it out onto a screen we had stapled to a wooden frame. After we got most of the water pressed out, we used a rolling pin to make the paper even and smooth. We let it dry out and then made some fun Valentines!

Wet-on-wet watercolor painting.

"I will be your Vawentwine!"

The boys thought this little visitor (who came in on our firewood) was so cute.


I hope everyone else had a really nice Valentine's Day! 

"Love is a symbol of eternity. It wipes out all sense of time, destroying all memory of a beginning and all fear of an end." -Author Unknown