I keep trying to get going on this, and the time just keeps flying by. Boys continually find new projects to drum up at their workbenches. Here J is making a box:
All sorts of things have evolved lately, here is a bike lock J welded with the help of Papa:
Little bro getting in on the action:
The fishing gig continues:
Using magnifying glasses and sunlight and leaves proved to be a good impromptu science lesson with a friend:
Making armor out of scraps of copper, little bro is happy to model it:
Papa found a fixer canoe on Craig’s List, which needs a lot of help. Luckily, he has a willing recruit:
Making lanterns with nails and copper:
Time for a cooking lesson ~ making mayo and using math to measure:
J is not as enthusiastic about harvesting the garden as I’d hoped he’d be. But he does so when I really press hard for him to help out:
Gearing up with the study of the sun during the first weeks of homeschool:
Working with the figure eight and Eurythmy movement turned into a spinning poi excercise for both of us!
An impromptu loaf of bread shaped like the sun happened when we were talking about the sun:
Before learning to tell time, we watched the progress of little bro’s shadow throughout the day:
And made a sundial to chart the sun’s progress in actual time:
Fishing is always a big request once Papa is done with the workweek, and the weekend hits:
And catching a fish or two is usually the result:
Once into September, we of course had to get going with corn activities, like making corn husk dolls:
Our beekeeper J so sweetly included us in a checking for the queen activity and provided us with some gear to wear:
Fruits of our labor:
Harvesting blackberries for a pie:
Taking creative advantage of fall’s offering by making a pie together:
Our first fancy crust pie:
Back in the side garden, thinking about the placement of a worm bin (to be built by J), clearing out excessive Mexican Daisies:
Another impromptu bread (thanks to using a ~ large quanitity ~ super easy bread recipe taken in part from Mother Earth News’ 5 Minutes a Day Artisan Bread), this time on Equinox, with equal amount of sunlight and darkness, with a sun / moon image:
Back to examining the latest catch, up close:
And it is lots of fun to use Papa’s sharp fishing knife, when he let’s you:
Our Friday group came over to our house ~ we read “St. George and the Dragon” in honor of Michaelmas, and the kids made flags to hang for their play the following week:
I got assistance during a brief VERY HOT spell, and got some white Narcissus and Red Tulip bulbs planted into the ground:
I always love it when little kids wear gardening gloves, and actually use them!
We got a bit of fork knitting done, after a friend taught us how to do it at our Friday group:
It worked well for both boys to learn, they ended up happily making long belts for knights ~
Back again at the shop, more knightly gear continued, this time a sword with a copper band evolved, with a little help from Papa:
Anything dragon is a hit these days, still. We continued to hear stories of great deeds done by great people:
Writing the 7’s times tables onto our front porch tile turned out to be super fun for J.
Time to make dragon bread, this time for a little Michaelmas celebration we had at our friends’ house ~
We used raisins for the eyes and nostrils and sunflower seeds for the claws and spikes:
Things weren’t going to smoothly school-wise one morning, when my husband came in at just the right moment and encouraged us to pick the apricots from a poor thing of a tree that had fallen to the ground with the weight of the fruit. We were happy to go outside:
The creativity without our involvement is amazing to me ~ seems like the kids come up with more innovative ideas when we just let them be. Or when they ask for help, we are happy to offer it. It’s such a fun age!
We were originally going to go on a group camping trip to Big Sur, which was postponed, and I was delighted because we were able to take Grandpa up on his offer to go to the mts with him to an apple pressing party. J got to use an old time apple presser ~ after we picked, washed and cut up the apples:
It was hard work, but J seemed to really have a fun. And, the juice, well, it’s like a whole other animal compared with even “fresh squeezed” you get from the store. I want a juicer!
Picking the apples with Papa ~
Our traditional October activity has been to go to the Renaissance Fair in Casa De Fruita ~ the boys love to dress up (imagine that?!) and watch the jousting. K is a good sport and watches that with them while I get a chance to brouse around at all the fun goodies… We came home with a lot of inspiration for a lot of projects that came up in the following weeks.
Working with scraps of plywood, J got assistance from Papa to make a worm bin. He was able to use some practical math in figuring out the dimensions. There was some frustration when it came time to paint it. Both children had definite ideas about how to do it, so we will probably start the paint job from scratch again soon:
One of the ideas that sprang from the Renn Faire was chainmail, which is a major obsession with my kids. Papa got them going on coiling copper around a rod and cutting it to make chains. I was given a lovely chain necklace as a gift from J.
We’ve just finished up the 7 days of creation, with huge amount of influence from Nature’s Nest blog ~ we did rainbow water chimes with water in jars filled with varying amounts of water and food coloring, creating the rainbow musical scale and lighting candles, chiming each day before we read that day’s story.
We wet on wet watercolored each day during our creation stories ~ here was day one, and then there was sun:
The apple theme kept running through, when we were doing the poem about the star inside the apple, the potato/apple print idea came to me, so we had some fun doing printing:
The garden harvesting continues to make us all smile, though it sometimes doesn’t taste as good as it looks!
Having fun with the bugs that that were hidden inside the leaves ~
Rancheygal 