Back to the Books

The best $12 I spent in the last week was for this beauty.

I've wanted a globe for so long --- to have for school, but also just because I think they're fascinating. 

I've always loved them, and a friend of mine got rid of this one at a yard sale.

Her loss is my gain.

I brought it home last Saturday, and set it in the front room that evening.

Lights were low.

I had bananas drying in my kitchen.

Patio lights were on, and the BYU game was playing over the radio.

When the kids got home that night and everyone came inside,

Claire cracked us up when she noticed the globe.

She said, "Mom, this is beautiful!"

September is crisp mornings, the sunlight starting to change, orchards and fruit drying and pie making and getting back-to-the-books in a formal way.  

It has been exhausting and delightful.

Here's a glimpse into school for us lately (and even tho, in most of these photos, I only highlight the particular activity through one child, all three of the older kids are doing all of these things): 

Tie-dying

 Spelling

 Playdoughing

 Research reading on rattlesnakes

(We're doing self-chosen research projects each month.  They choose something they want to learn about and get lots of books at the library and then make big posters about what they've learned and teach it to everyone else.  This time around, everyone chose animals: snakes and spiders, lizards, and bears.)

 Piano practicing

 Math work: conceptualizing numbers in the thousands for this gal,

and the boys practicing lots of skip counting (multiplication), money problems, addition, subtraction, reviews on telling time, and being introduced to the bar graph.

 Science: doing a plot study at a nearby park we love with an awesome wetland area 

(while eating alphabet pretzels---who can resist these? They're adorable!)

And history!

We are learning about different people through time.

Each of the kids have really nice timeline books---and as we learn about different people, we are adding them into the timeline.  By the end of the year, they will have an awesome visual resource to see how all of these people have interacted through time, which people were contemporaries and where everybody is placed across a broad spectrum.  I am loving this.  It actually makes me a bit nostalgic.  It feels almost sacred to me as I think about all of these people and their contributions, the human story from creation 'til now.

Last week we learned about Queen Elizabeth I, and were fascinated by details (like this gross one about that fact that she never removed her coronation ring and her flesh grew around it and it literally had to be cut off her finger (!!)).  We were impressed with what a strong woman she was, and we loved this quote that she said to her armies:

"I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king."

Rock on.

This week we learned about Gandhi.

So inspiring to talk about his philosophies of nonviolence and love.  

I was particularly moved by this quote from him:

"If you want to see the brave, 

look at those who can forgive.

If you want to see the heroic, 

look at those who can love in return for hatred."

That is beautiful.

That is a philosophy I want my children to hear and embrace, a philosophy for my house, for my life, for my heart.

Here they are, coloring their figures that we put in their books today:

 (and I'm busy helping them paste them in -- still in my running clothes from my run earlier this morning)

Potato prints (and leaf prints and whatever else they wanted to do)

 Daily journal work -- I love these.  

Like so much.

 Daily reading, and lots of it.

Other activities not pictured?

Karate
Dance
Lots and lots of lego building
Dollhousing
Popsicle eating and chicken feeding

I love watching my children, love hearing how they're putting information together, how they relate to the world, what they think about.

It's a gift.