Sorry to be MIA...Bdays and Family Time

Life has been keeping us so busy lately that I've taken a break from blogging. I'm almost caught up and eager to share what we've been up to, but not today. I want to mention that I have several comments that I haven't published yet with wonderful awards that I'm so flattered to receive. I will blog about them as soon as I can and thank every one who sent some love my way :)

In the meantime, my baby girls turned 8 in Feb! My mom flew out from Chicago and spent about 3 weeks in California to attend a lavish wedding of my cousin who got married at St. Patrick's Cathedral in San Francisco, followed by a reception at The Palace Hotel where many VIP's have stayed at this historical hotel. Will blog some pictures about that later. It was gorgeous there!

In the meantime, we had two different bouts of the tummy flu blow through our home (coupled with a broken washing machine with parts on back order - ugh) and ended up having a very mellow b-day for the twins. They haven't finished opening their gifts yet because we kept getting hit with illnesses and family obligations. But here is a glimpse at our store bought cake (I know...I know...) and a couple of special gifts they received this year.


Charley held up the "banana cake" for Elena to blow out the candles on since she was under the weather :) Yes, it is literally an opened banana with candles - lol!

A few special goodies...

They were thrilled to get a few Ostheimer horses to add to their collection and some used Ostheimers we found from a special mama who was ready to pass them along.

And I will be returning to the blogging world soon to share some lesson plans. Am excited to announce that my friend, Lisa, has something very special planned for everyone that I'm playing a tiny part in...and I will be bringing back my shop soon! I've missed working on projects, but had to take a much needed break.

Hugs to all my friends out there and hope to catch up with everyone soon! Happy weekend!

LA Block: Where the Mountain Meets the Moon

"Where the Mountain Meets the Moon"

by Grace Lin

Carrie from The Parenting Passageway tipped me off to this great book this summer. As usual, she was right. It's a wonderful mix of fairy tales wrapped into a lovely cultural story about a young poor girl in China who wants to change her family's fortune. After hearing inspiring stories told by her Ba (father), she follows her heart on a magical journey complete with talking goldfish and a lovable dragon on her way to find The Old Man of the Moon who will hopefully tell her how to help save her family from their difficult reality.

The chapters are short, but don't kid yourself, your children will not want you to put this book down - lol! We are more than half way through it and I ended up changing gears and have been planning our whole Jan block around this book.

I am drawing a picture from the book twice a week that the girls will then copy into their MLB's. They have been helping me write sentences/summaries that they are placing in their book, on the page next to their drawing. Above the drawing, is also a very short sentence in which the nouns are identified in blue (and the verbs will be identified in red starting this week as we are covering a part of speech each week). Here is an example:

.

We are writing down words to keep on a large piece of paper that pertain to the book that they are learning. These words are helping them to form sentences of their summaries and are helping reading, writing, and spelling. They are also learning the beginnings of punctuation.

Along with beeswax modeling, a traditional Chinese meal, and a little lesson on the Chinese New Year (Feb 3rd this year), we are enjoying painting.

Elena is the type of child who is more comfortable following a model. When she feels satisfied, she then takes little steps to branch out to make something her own.

Charley, on the other hand, has always marched to the beat of her own drum. Even though we've discussed why we lay down the background first and then remove paint to add an element, she was very insistent on trying it this way - putting the dragon down and then painting around it. It was a good way for her to see that it does not layer the picture well, though I admit, it does have a pretty neat effect. It is also more challenging if the paint runs a bit, as wet on wet tends to do. Her picture took a lot longer than the others.

Elena's is listed below...

Setting them out to dry...

The girls are happily preparing to make their First Reconciliation at the end of this month, so we've been heavy into religious education, which fits beautifully in with the studies of the Saints this year. Here Charley is with our long term foster pup, Stanley (10 years old). He's helping her prepare :) Stanley had a dental whereby he lost most of his teeth, so his little tongue hangs out to the side permanently. Once in a while he pulls it all the way in his mouth, but we think it just adds to his charm! He doesn't see well, but he is a total sweetheart. I have fallen really hard for this little senior. We've had him a month now, but he's been in the rescue since August and no interest in him yet (good for me, right?!?! :D)

Another part of the 2nd grade curriculum is learning the basic parts of speech. We have started learning about nouns and verbs. The first week, we tackled nouns. I found some fun books to enhance our understanding. Brian P. Cleary has written some simple books which rhyme and add to the fun. The other selection of books are more advanced, so I cover the first few pages, but then when it goes off on specifics that we are not yet ready for (branching off into more detail than we are ready for at this moment "Imperative", "tenses", "helping verbs") then I am just stopping there. These books (by Ruth Heller) will be great as we progress, but I am finding the Cleary books to be more on our current level.

We always allow lots of time for freeplay and the Ostheimers are still favorites!

This week's saint was St. Antony of Egypt. His feast day was on January 17th, the day after the girls daddy (who is also an Anthony) had a very special b-day!

For this St. Antony, I gleaned inspiration from "Stories of the Saints", as well as the Catholic teachings found online. EWTN has more extensive explanations, like St. Antony of Egypt's found here. Not sure how much I like this book yet, but we'll see over time. We are doing St. Agnes tomorrow for her feast day and a lot of liberties have been taken in the "Stories of the Saints" book. My question is - how true do we need to make them to be historically accurate, especially as a Roman Catholic who wants to respect that history of the church - versus making the story speak to the child with fantastical liberties, ya know? I am trying my very best to do both so I'm finding that pulling some elements from the prewritten stories, coupled with the accounts from the church is probably the best way to tailor it to our little ones.

It was Daddy's birthday on Sunday...

Charley is holding little Ralph - our one week foster

as we help out the head of our rescue.

And finally - some delicious homemade granola!

Charley loves her granola so I decided it's about time I make my own organic granola. I asked the awesome mamas at the Green Tara Mama Yahoo Group and got several great recipes to try. This one came in first and so we gave it a whirl - very good (and easy)!

This recipe came from Leslie K. from the Green Tara Mama Yahoo Group:

Slow Cooker granola (A friend sent this recipe to me, she said it came from "Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker" by Robin Robertson).

5 cups oats
1 cup sliced almonds
3/4 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup sesame seeds
2/3 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup canola
1/4 tsp cinnamon

Mix all of the ingredients in a crockpot. Do NOT cover with the lid. Cook for 1.5 hours on high, then turn to low and cook for 2 more hours. Stir occasionally. Spread on cookie sheets to cool and dry until crispy. Yields about 8 cups.

Making Flower Fairies & Elves

The girls have been busy crafting on and off this summer. While I pour myself over waldorf books and lesson plans, the freedom and imagination nurtured by a waldorf inspired education has allowed me the time to prepare for the challenging year ahead.

I love so much about Waldorf education, but one of the things I love is how it nurtures the imagination and creativity in children. So in-tuned with the natural development of the human being is it, that I find myself tickled to see how many waldorf inspired children work with their hands to create such beautiful and special treasures that are truly age appropriate :D I've seen it on so many other blogs and I see it in my own house.

A few years ago, when we just were coming to waldorf education, I came across a very easy tutorial on how to make simple flower fairies. Through the years, we've made many - for the girls play, for decoration, for gifts for friends and little cousins, and for dressing up gifts (these tie on really well to packages)...so one of the items the girls will be making this Christmas will be Christmas fairies (shhhhh...don't let our family know)...


You will need to run to a crafts store where you will find all of these items. Many of your crafty mommas will already have them at home...

Supplies:
~wooden beads of various sizes if you are making families
~pipe cleaners
~silk flowers
~tacky glue
~embroidery floss
~feathers
~skinny sharpies of various colors (if you want to put faces on them)
~scissors

The tutorial can be found here. Here are some pictures of the fairies the girls made this morning...(winter themed)

These are a couple that Charley made a while ago with faces...

And Elena's with faces...

An acorn boy and a Christmas elf...

And Charley's Winter Fairy Queen...

Elena's Winter Fairy, trying out various silk flowers to hold in stead of a scepter...

A baby she made a while back (without the wings)...we always say they are elves when they don't have wings. Otherwise, we've made fairies and angels with feathered wings.

These are some we made years ago to be attached to presents.

For a nephew who loved the dark spiderman and his sister, who loved fairies...(I wrapped black wool roving around the design to make the spiderman - which he ripped right off as a 3 yr old rough and tumble boy! So I wouldn't recommend these for the under 5 crowd, unless they are gentle players or will mainly be decorative)...

And some Star Wars themed gifts for two of my nephews who can't get enough of Star Wars :D I used the same flower fairy formula and made clothing out of felt and O.B. Wan's beard is wool glued to the bead.

So many possibilities! Have fun with this one! You could make these as party favors for birthdays, stocking stuffers for the holidays, wrapping embelishments, make them into Saints for those in Grade 2 or those studying the Saints, seasonal/nature table spreads, storytelling, toothfairy gifts, or just plain freeplay fun!

You can see a gift inspired by these that the toothfairy left for the girls when Charley had lost a tooth here. I wrapped the edges with embroidery floss to avoid the pinchy wire, which I recommend doing :D These can poke when the ends are not folded properly.