A Little Holiday

Valentine's Day seemed like a good day for a Poetry Tea Time. We haven't made this happen this year, even though it's always a favorite activity, but it's been hard to fit in extras most weeks.

We enjoyed a few poems, a new blood orange bread from Trader Joes, and tea, of course.

We also got out for a quick bike ride through the park to see all the almond blossoms in full bloom.

Morning sunlight is supposed to be great for our bodies and minds, and I do think it makes a difference on the days we get out early.

These blooms are so beautiful--just wish they lasted longer.

And this was too funny--sweet bunny looking longingly out the window. She wants to be out there so badly.

 

Spring School

Love the park in the spring!

We've been up to all types of fun. Egg dying,

a spring poetry tea time.

I love that this boy likes poetry.

We did a little clover nature study with Ms. Cindy (No Sweat Nature Study).

And a spring painting with Nana (You Are an Artist).

(I love painting with Nana, probably more than Peanut does.)

Peanut painted this in his virtual art class with Ms. G. We miss the in-person classes, but she's done a great job adapting it for online. And I'm blown away by some of the art Peanut has come up with.

We finally got around to making the Udon soup. This has been a fun adventure in Japanese cooking.

And we pulled out his new game--Hogwarts Battle. We only played the first round, so we still have 6 more years to play through. Trying to pull in some extra fun for our Harry Potter schooling.

 

December Adventures

It's been a month of hiking (and catching a beautiful sunset at Del Valle).

Sometimes it's just the kids and I, but we love it when Daddy-o gets to come with us.

Peanut and I continued our Christmas Carol study with a chalk pastel of some symbols that represent the story. Peanut was very taken with this book and has loved all the different versions of the story.

We've taken a LOT of walks to see the lights around our neighborhood, and to get those 1000 hours outside.

I can't always convince anyone else to do a chalk pastel lesson, and this is one I wanted to do last winter and never got around to, so I sat down one evening with Nana from You Are an Artist and did this one on my own. I love little birds.

Our city put together a geocache style hunt that took us around the city, including a couple new spots that we hadn't visited before. It also has gotten us out for a really long walk one evening and a bike ride another.

Peanut and I made "snow" from baking soda and shaving cream and had fun playing with our artic animals.

We haven't baked quite as much as we usually do, and haven't done any marathon baking days, but I almost like this better. I made snickerdoodles one day. A few days later, Daddy-o and Peanut made Mexican wedding cookies, and then the kids had a gingerbread man baking zoom call with friends one day. It's meant that we've had a pretty steady stream of cookies all month.

Bean was with them most of the call, but then she had to go.

I love how the cookies turned out. We usually make buttercream frosting because I think it tastes better, but royal icing is the way to go for pretty cookies. 

There have been a lot of games played, many outdoors. Really, in order to get those outside hours, we've been taking everything we can outside. Peanut had fun learning how to play chess.

Peanut and I collected sticks to make these fun decorations.

Peanut and I had a surprise visit with the Grinch when we were dropping off a food donation.

The kids and I also had a fun winter picnic in the backyard--hot chocolate with all the fixings, cookies, a nutcracker picture book. 

We even made some fun shrinky dinks while we were out there.

An outdoor dinner on one of the warmish evenings. And notice the tent in the background--the boys slept outside for 3 nights in a row in order to make a dent in those hours they needed. They were the three warmest nights of the month, but it was still a little chilly.

We went hiking near Berkeley one Saturday, grabbed dinner at a Jewish deli, and then stopped by the Oakland Temple on the way home to see the lights.

If I had to pick, I'd say lights and outdoors are our theme for the month. We have been on every street in our neighborhood, as well as a couple other neighborhoods as well. We went to visit another spot one evening to do a decoration scavenger hunt (we had to go somewhere that none of us were familiar with, or the boys and I who had done the most neighborhood walks would have had an advantage.) We had so much fun running around for 45 minutes seeing what we could find. Daddy-o and Bean found a couple more items than the boys and I did, but they were a couple minutes late getting back to the car, so we're calling it a tie (and excited for a re-match next year!)

It's been a pretty fabulous month.

Christmas Schooling

I had big hopes for Christmas schooling this year. Every year, I plan to take the month of December off from some of our normal schooling and instead focus everything on the seasonal activities. This year, we had so many things to read--for history and daily advents and language arts--along with crafts and celebrations.

I had all our Christmas journaling things ready to go, lots of baking to do, and even some Christmas themed math to replace our normal math activities.

But, as happens every year, real life seems to get in the way. There are just so many things that we can't really quit to make room for all the fun, and it ends up not all happening. Art classes and piano and swim lessons don't go away, and this year, the first couple weeks of the month were scout heavy as the boys were finishing up their requirements for the goals they'd set before the end of the year. There's also the hustle and bustle of shopping and planning for Christmas that starts to creep into my schedule.

But it wasn't a complete loss. We managed a Poetry tea time breakfast one morning, where we read our advent reading for the day along with some seasonal picture books.

And we're enjoying our read aloud, which is set at Christmas. When I got a cold and lost my voice, we got a little slowed down, so we won't be finished before Christmas, but the book will still be fun after as well.

We did throw in some activities that we haven't had time for this fall--Peanut got to open one of the many Little Passport envelopes that I've been saving for him, and we put together the scratch off globe I picked up at a thrift store this summer so he can keep track of which countries he "visits". 

Bug also got to do one of his Eureka crates once he was done with all the scout stuff. He saw this one come a couple weeks before and has been chomping at the bit to get to it.

It's a table tennis machine so you can practice returning the ball--so fun!

And we did have some fun field trips this month. Besides the book binding, we also went to a local fire station for a tour.

The tour was cut short, by two different calls during the hour we were there, but the kids still got to see the station and it's kind of fun to see how fast they can be ready to go!

And finally, we hosted a Christmas Party School morning. We learned about the history of a few different Christmas traditions, like Christmas trees, candy canes, and all the good food, and then did activities to go along with each. We had a German Christmas market for lunch (all thanks to Bug--this kid is still a crafting cyclone when he gets an idea in his head.)

All the families contributed foods and Bug had them all set up for the kids to get from each of the stands.

The vegetarian welsh sausages were delicious!

I think a big part of the appeal of any homeschool gathering is the chance to hang out with other kids for a couple hours. They all enjoyed the lunch break where they could just chat. And we got so lucky with the weather. It was cool, but sunny and dry so we could get outside for a little while.

After we learned how candy canes are made, we played around with our candy canes. Heated at a low temperature for a few minutes, they become flexible again and can be twisted into different shapes. 

The kids noticed that after cooling, they were even more brittle than before, which got them into a discussion about why that might happen.

After learning about some of the traditional foods, we decorated gingerbread men. I kept it simple--just white frosting and then some little candies to embellish, but it was just right for 10 kids.

 

(They can still do a lot of damage with just one color of frosting, haha.)

So, while the month hasn't been quite as relaxed and cozy of a Christmas schooling as I'd hoped, it's had it's moments. We have only journaled twice and are days behind on our advent reading; we have felt rushed and hurried and have only baked gingerbread men, but I'm trying to just go with it and be okay with whatever we have done. There's just no sense in letting the fun turn into chores. And maybe we'll get to some of the activities after Christmas. Or not. It's all good.