After 5 years of being a stay-at-home mom, I found the wonder of mothering slowly starting to get crowded out by the mundane feeling. I realized our world seems to surround people with the negative, and complaining about blessings seems totally acceptable. So I decided to fight against that "normalcy" and focus only on the positive. I look back to my first year as a mom when everything was new and keeping house was fun and I aim to have that attitude again. This blog is my outlet to showcase the daily miracles that surround me in my blessed life as a stay-at-home mom so that I will never forget the wonder of it all.



Saturday, June 1, 2013

Sum it up Saturday

This week, we learned about the ancient citadel cities of the Indus Valley in Story of the World.  I was going to move on to the next chapter mid week, but the kids were so enthralled with citadels that I decided to follow their lead and just focus on that this week.  MANY citadel cities were built with blocks this week.  Many "bad guys" attacked many cities and many citizens (and star wars characters....ahem) ran to their citadels for protection. 





I've been spending most of my down time getting a plan together for next year.  Right now, I'm planning on using Ambleside Online.  Its a free plan using the Charlotte Mason approach.  I decided to put some of Ambleside Online's practices to use this week, just to see how the kids responded to it.  Quite honestly, we naturally have a Charlotte Mason feel in our home school, so I'm not sure the kids noticed a difference.  We started reading Bedtime Stories by Thornton Burgess.  The kids love these sweet little stories.  I love how each one has a moral.  Logan did copy work from the Burgess book, for handwriting, while Felicity worked on what we call "rainbow letters" (letters with arches, such as r, p, b, and h). Both of them did fantastic handwriting this week.  Some of their best work ever. 

Thornton Burgess, copy work, and Sweet Child o' Mine on repeat.
I love how he has his own unique taste in music.


On Friday we had our last science group of the year.  We went to one of the family's homestead and learned about goats.  The kids made goats' milk soap and goats' milk ice cream, and the Mamas enjoyed home made chevre and goats' milk cheese cake.  The Mamas also had a milking competition.  It was my first time milking a goat.  I lost, big time, but oh, it was so much fun!  I'll be back to improve on my skills for sure.  :)

How was your home schooling week?
Leave a comment if you wish, or feel free to write your own Sum it up Saturday post and link up.


2 comments:

  1. Love those blocks! Where might one go to purchase some of those? Are you schooling through the summer? How awesome that Logan was motivated to do good work by copying from a book. We've tried tracing in the past, but I haven't had enough patience to keep working with Audrey on that. Maybe we'll try some copy work.

    http://tattooedfootgirl.blogspot.com/
    Enjoy!

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  2. Tammera, the blocks were collected over years. Some bought, most handed down. We have a toy chest full of wooden blocks. I've never turned them down when handed down. So we have a lot. As far as schooling through the Summer....kind of. I'm going to do some hooked on phonics and math u see as time permits. At least once a week but hopefully more. I'm just not going to stress about it. I'm only doing that to keep concepts fresh. Logan, especially, needs that or all our work will go out the window after a 3 month break. And as far as copy work goes, we've always used that for handwriting. We've never used a curriculum. He copies things I write, books, his hooked on phonics reading passages, the Bible....just about anything. And come to find out, copy work is a daily part of Ambleside's routine. Part of the reason I'm drawn to Ambleside is b/c, like copy work, we already do some of their routines. So we're already kind of traveling a parallel path which makes me think it'll work well for us. Off to read your blog!!!

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