Bringing us up to date

It's been two weeks since I wrote here about what we've been up to here at our "Sparkroot Farm Homeschool".....so I will attempt to remember our endeavors and describe them before they fade into distant memory.....why, btw, does life have to be like that? Wouldn't it be lovely if you could remember everything freshly and have it all right there to hold and experience in our mind's eye for always? What is this life, that everything we do just fades into the wake of time? What is the point of losing it all and having to write it all down, and capture it all in scrapbooks and files upon files of digital imagery and video? Is video memory G-d's intention? Or is it just experience and carrying on? I don't get it, is all...why life's experiences and day to day living end up as so much wisp and lost forever unless we take great pains and effort lest we lose every last scrap of life's experience....seems funny, and almost cruel to me....

Anyway, onward to the whole point of this post (and the whole point of this blog: journaling our time together so it will be here for us always to hold with us)....

For the past two weeks we have been covering math main lesson blocks and taking our time in the early and late afternoons for handcrafts. We have taken a break from the recorder, although I am blown away by Amelie's ability to remember songs and play them back effortlessly. I can't remember the tunes quite often, but she can just play her whole playlist one to another without stumbling.

Our math lessons have been based on stories we have been telling, recalling and playing with. The Woman who was Not Afraid focused on multiplication tables (2, 5 and 10).  We made cut out fish, a cauldron and dumplings out of beeswax, a real rice for counting out the times tables. In the story the old woman uses a mortar and pestle to grind her rice into flour to make dumplings, so Amelie did the same, creating about 2 tbsps of flour, not much to do anything with but still a fun learning experience. The previous weeks story was all about division, and we told, recalled and played through a story called "The 12 Dancing Princesses." Through these stories we focused on multiplying and dividing numbers creating and breaking down 12 and 24 (2x6=12; 2=12/6, etc etc) We drew pictures in her good book and wrote math sentences. Amelie has been reading a little to me each day, and I have been reading to her, Black Beauty, which we are nearly done with. Amelie completes a washcloth she made for her nana, and a ball she knitted for her sister. She learned to crochet (a chain) and has watched me knit a hat. She took up weaving on a loom we made ourselves from cardboard (Chris is outside now putting together a loom he is making from wood). Noah has also learned to weave and is really quite good at it. He understands that the snake goes under and over and under and over, and if the snake goes under the fence and out, he must turn around and go back over the fence on the way in.....
Eden says to us all "you make a ninning? (knitting?)" and she wants to hold the skeins of yarn and poke them with a knitting needle :)

With the crazy amount of rain we have had here, it has been a lesson in nature as well. We have been discussing the angle of the earth's axis, making the days shorter, reasons for daylight savings time change, and with the flooding in our yard we have observed the snails and wooly-bears climbing high sticks up out of the flood waters, and collected beetle larvae (drowned) to feed for the chickens. Ami aptly noted how the beetle larvae were only found in high ground areas where they were more likely to have burrowed and taken by surprise by the rising water levels. We have had an excellent example of water finding its way to new places--rivers, creeks, streams--by observing the overflow of our pond into the woods, out into the pasture and into the neighbor's back yard....we talked about how water finds its place by traveling to lowest levels and rising, just as the bathtub would overflow out the door and down the street if we let it.

Ami has been a wonderful big sister to both her siblings. She loves her sister and really seems to be understanding how babies have a lesser capacity for understanding than older children, that self-control goes along on a continuum as we grow.

We learned a new song which is from the This is the Way we Wash-a-Day CD,  and it goes like this"

Peace we invite you to greet us
Faith dance with vision around
Love circle through us to open our hands
We recieve with deep thanks
The gifts of the land....

We have taken to singing and dancing to this song and singing it before we eat. We sang it holding hands on teh Sabbath last night. I think the kids really enjoyed it. It felt really good to sing together like that as a family around the lit candles. Especially since we have found a new way of talking about our inclination to do either good or bad, to act in the right way or the wrong way. If someone is feeling grumpy, or responding aggressively, we remind each other: "your candle is going out, you need to take a deep breath and relight is before the cold darkness sets in..." Everyone can relate to this. On Saturday nights our little Havdalah ritual consists of this, mostly: lighting a candle and looking at the warmth and beauty of the flame. Talking about how each of us has a little flame, a little dancing spark inside each of us, and that is the spark given by the Creator. We are meant to help our own spark grow brighter and brighter and warmer by acting with care and kindness and love. When we act meanly or hurtfully our candlelight is growing dim, coldness is setting in, our candle is in danger of being put out by winds of meaness, grumpiness, aggression, etc. So we remind each other to take care our flame doesnt go out. It's been a very good visual way of calling attention to our emotions and self-control, kindness, care and actions.

We picked lots of carrots this week, and the remainder of our tomatoes. The kids have been enjoying the turkey that we put into the freezer as well. They sure did make a fuss over it when we were cleaning it and packaging it-"Eeewww! I'm not eating that! Gross!" But when it's all cooked up and on their plates, down it goes :)

All in all, a full, good, happy two weeks.

And I discovered a great website: a little garden flower, with a talk radio program I have been really enjoying, and a program I believe I would like to participate in (called Be a Beacon). It's a n Inner Work program, something I think I need a lot of and I am excited to be a part of. I will look into it after we return from Grandma Alice's in early December.

Oh yes, we also reorganized and redistributed the craft and school supplies. We now have a doll building, fiber and felting zone (which we call the "crafty corner") in the living room, a painting and coloring cabinet in the kitchen near the table, and a couple of knitting baskets on the bookshelf next to the couch. I feel like things are going in the right direction and feeling very positive generally. I really do feel that this homemaker, artist, waldorf-homeschooler path is the right on for me to be on, not just one that I  have to be on because of life's circumstances. I sometimes get very concerned that something could come along and sweep it all away--a serious illness, something tragic, you know?--this is because I am realizing how precious this is to me and I don't want for any reason to give it up. I feel frazzled often, and frustrated too no doubt, but also very blessed and thankful for this opportunity to be at home with my children and walking on this path, taking this journey. This is an amazing journey, so many discoveries already. What more am I in store for? Looking forward to every minute of it.

Love......

Eden River turns TWO!

Our baby is no longer a baby--but a full on sweetie pie toddler, telling jokes and explainin' all kind of things in colorful commentary. I miss all my babies now, every now and then I think maybe one more baby would be nice, but then I remember that pregnancy and birth and recovery go along with having a new baby, and I snap right to :) I will simply have to slow down, enjoy the ride and watch closely, hoping time will slow, so the children don't grow up too fast.

Eden had a really nice birthday, which was marked by the first day of nor-easter Ida which brought floods and damage to the coast of NC. We now have waterfront property, as our pond has overgrown it's banks, swept across the pasture and into the rear neighbors yard a couple acres away.

Grammy was here to celebrate with us, she stayed overnight and spent much of the following day because of the wind and rain. Amelie knitted a ball for Eden, Noah made a picture of a pregnant seahorse and babies for her, and I made her a Waldorf baby doll (in her image), complete with curly hair and chubby little cheeks. We also gave her a handstitched felt crown and a fairy "shooting star" wand which we all helped create that afternoon. She also got an emerald green silk dress-up cape, and set of wooden veggies for cutting from Auntie Gina and a set of musical instruments and clothing from Grandma and Grandpa.

We told a little story we wrote about Eden while we sat around our new birthday ring, lit with 2 beautiful little beeswax candles. We each contributed something to the story, explaining why we love having her here with us each day as sister and daughter. Eden was taken with all of this fuss and loved hearing her name sang out to "Happy Birthday" over her cake (an orange cake decorated with  a butterfly). She blew out her two candles successfully and then enjoyed taking fingerfuls of frosting right off the top of the cake...yum :)....

Give Yourself into the Ocean--Rumi

You've heard descriptions
of the ocean of non-existence.

Try, continually, to give yourself
into that ocean. Every workshop
has its foundations set
on that emptiness.

The Master of all masters
works with nothing.

The more nothing comes into your work,
the more God is there.

Dervishes gamble everything. They lose,
and win the Other, the emptiness
which animates this.

We've talked so much! Remember
what we haven't said.

And keep working. Exert yourself
toward the pull of God.

Laziness and disdain are not devotions.
Your efforts will bring a result.

You'll watch the wings of divine attraction
lift from the nest and come toward you!

As dawn lightens, blow out the candle.
Dawn is in your eyes now.

~Rumi

Version by Coleman Barks
One Handed Basket Weaving

We heart felting....

The Monkey and the Crocodile

We had a late start today, but it ended up productive. Noah is learning how to finger knit, we spent a few hours yesterday making flowers from finger knitting. Eden tags along, mostly scribbling on paper and parroting what her big brother and sister say about what they are drawing. If Ami is drawing a picture of a monkey and crocodile in her good book, then Noah draws along, creating something wonderful as well, showing me "look at my crocodile mama!" then Eden holds up her paper, full of scribbles, saying "I make it! I make a wokadile!" Adorable. She is so proud of herself and loves to just chime in and join in. I don't know what I would do without all of them, all so different and so amazing.

So, today we worked on our second day of math lessons. We went over the number 10, finding out what numbers were "in 10." (9+1, 8+2 and so on). Then we drew a picture of The Crocodile and the Monkey and wrote some subtraction problems out which were associated with the story. Ami draws beautifully and this Waldorf schooling is perfect in supporting her artistic abilities. After math, all the kids made playdough food and played with a makeshift kitchen they constructed out of a stool and a pizza stone.  Ami then read me another chapter of Owl at Home while I deconstructed turkeys on the counter--putting all our birds in to the freezer. We had a good long talk about killing animals for food, the morality of it, what the Creator/Universe ultimately wants from us (according, of course, to our beliefs), and why we will refrain from raising animals specifically for food any longer. Ami found a praying mantis today that was gravely injured and suffering, we talked about suffering and how it was more humane to help the poor thing "go back to the Creator" rather than suffer needlessly in a failing body. We said goodbye and put the poor thing out of it's misery, and the kids buried it.

Ami went to pottery class then, by herself, and created an amazing lion (Lion King, again :) After pottery, the kids played outside and then came to dinner, we had duck with plum sauce, wild rice and cranberries. Chris took the little ones to bed for some stories, while Ami and I sat on the couch knitting for a while, then I read her some Black Beauty and a great story from The Brown Fairy Book.

Inner Work: Appreciate every day and realize that the children are gifts which we will have for only a short while. Do our best to show caring, patient, reflecting exteriors, even if we don't exactly feel this way inside. Radiate calm and caring, cultivate peace. Every moment is an act of creation.

Clowns of God

CLOWNS OF GOD

I know what are you thinking.

You need a sign.

What better one could I give

than to make this little one whole and new?

I could do it; but I will not.

I am the Creator and not a conjurer.

I gave this mite a gift I denied to all of you

ETERNAL INNOCENCE

To you she looks imperfect

but to me she is flawless,

like the bud that dies unopened,

or the fledglings

that fall from the nest to be devoured by ants.

She never offended me,

as all of you have done.

She never perverted the work of My hands.

She is necessary to you.

She will evoke the kindness that will prompt you to

gratitude for own good fortune....more.....

she will remind you every day that I am who I am,

that My ways are not your ways,

and the smallest dust mite whirled in darkest

space does not fall out of my hand.

I have chosen you.

you have not chosen me.

this little one is my sign to you.

TREASURE HER.

Math Main Lesson Block, week 1

So, today we began the day with a new CD I purchased called "This is the Way we Wash-a-Day," which was very helpful in getting the kids focused on brushing their teeth, getting dressed, making beds and putting away laundry, before we began our lessons. We started back with math again today for a new block. We wrote with sidewalk chalk on the porch, numbers from 1-24 and then jumped out the 2 and 3 times tables on the number track, while holding hands and leaping. We also circled every 5th number to get a feeling for the 5 times table.  Next we read a story for subtraction called The Monkey and the Crocodile, which we will go into tomorrow in the Math good book. We sang spanish songs about the alphabet and counting. Then we had lunch. It was rainy outside today so that we couldnt really go out. Ami drew an amazing picture of the Lion King characters, a movie she is excited about now since we checked it out from the library last week. I tell her she can watch the movie as long as we get all our lessons and reading done and so long as she is knitting while she has it on. She has been knitting a washcloth for Nana and is excited to start on a lion stuffed animal (again, Lion King excitement). We practiced recorder again, singing and playing "Raindrop Faeries" which Ami is really getting good at. Noah learned to sing the song as well. We made Sweet Potato biscuits and filled up on them so we really couldn't eat a proper dinner. Ami read me the third chapter of Owl at Home, and I read her a couple chapters of Black Beauty before bedtime.