We have had a great weekend, I managed to do quite a lot of tidying up and recycling of things we no longer need. We seem to have so many piles of things all over the house and as soon as you have found the places where they belong, they seem to find their way back again! Do you also have this problem with stuff? Sunday was a warm day so Jenna and Caiden swam, Sandy LOVES the water and jumps in to fetch her ball over and over, it really is amazing to watch her. She runs furiously up to the pool and without hesitation, seems to elevate upwards, on all fours and land with a belly-flop in the water.
Kye was ill on Sunday and stayed in bed for most of the day, outside our bedroom window is a birdfeeder that was full of fruit and seed. Two Black Collared Barbets have started visiting everyday and they were there on Sunday. They are young and have just learned to fly from the looks of it. But how sweet to witness them feeding and ‘speaking’ to eachother in their raucous but beautiful banter. We just sat and watched them for hours, it was amazing!
I don’t know if your little ones, or not so little ones are Lego fans, but our boys and girls definately are. After seeing the post over on Jenni’s blog about what makes her happy and her photo of their Lego figures, my little ones went racing off to find all of theirs and lined them up for a photo. Legos are the only plastic toys that we have in our home, they have been passed down and gifted to us by friends and family and some have even been bought. They do love them so and even though I really go out of my way to avoid platsic at all costs, this is one I cannot say no to right now. I do know that they will treasure these little items and will pass them on when the time is right and perhaps even give them to their children one day… Kye wants me to knit him some lego figures but I have only been able to find crochet patterns for them, my crochet skills are so new at the moment, I really don’t know if I will be able to crochet an entire figure. Anyone know of any knitting patterns out there?
Aaaah, this is one of my favourite birds, the Rameron Pigeon. He stopped by for a visit near our little pond, to me he is so beautiful! They are large and have the most amazing YELLOW features and spots! They usually appear in flocks, but this was just one lone one….
Other than that, that was our weekend, we have also been having a look at which curriculum we will be moving on to. Our Waldorf homeschooling curriculum that we have only goes up to Grade 8 at the moment and Jen is already in grade 8. I am not sure if there are any others out there that go beyond this point, I would love to hear from anyone if they have any information, I would be most grateful:)
Happy Monday to everyone:)
xo

I know of this lego pattern one on Ravelry that a friend pointed out to me one day
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/some-assembly-required
(Ella’s Pattern Store)
Love the bird photos x
Thanks so much Dawn!!
xo
Linda
Sounds like busy weekend. If you search the Ravelry database for lego there is a free brick pattern (one each for kntting and crochet) and a lego man pattern too
Thanks Halfpint:)
Your bird photos are so pretty! I’m looking forward to swimming pool weather….counting down the days. 😉
My son loves to line his lego people up like that too.
So, how come a dog can belly flop and it not hurt but when we try. OUCH! 😀
Lovely photos of a lovely weekend.
What a wonderful weekend! The swimming looks like so much fun. You have the most interesting and beautiful birds where you live.
I love the picture of your dog jumping in the pool! And you have such colorful birds where you live, that is the most amazing pigeon I’ve ever seen!
I love the tone of your weekend. Mine was spent spreading manure and photo correcting. And church. Always that. I love the energy of the children, shooting out of the water. And I can send you nowhere for lego patterns, sadly.
The bird shots are really quite stunning. Every feather a miracle of art and engineering. And the color.
I used the Saxon math curriculum for the higher, more formalized maths. I like the way it’s organized – each concept being woven through all the ones that build up to it. The exercises at the end of each chapter incorporate all of the concepts of the maths so far learned rather than fixing on the one skill taught in the chapter. I found it accessible and solid, and my children did very well on college boards having used only this series of books.
As for the arts – after eighth grade, children can use about anything. I have always favored Edwards’ Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.
For histories, I used biographies. For writing – the only thing for it is doing it. If the kids want to write things and have me read them, I am very glad to do so. You might actually make separate pages for their stories or poems on the blog. How have you addressed things like grammar?
The sciences are interesting. There are any number of books that are not strictly text books that address the biologies and the physical sciences. Asking a child to observe and come up with questions about how the world works, then having them research their questions is a good strategy, but you need some grounding in basic principals. Animal and plant classification are a really good place to work with natural sciences. But you want to research cells and how they function first.
Some ideas?
I just had to comment on the legos. I’m not sure how to justify this but; legos do not fall under the ‘plastic’ rule. I think it’s because as you stated, they are dearly loved and will always be passed down to someone else who is guaranteed to dearly love them. Heirlooms per se. My son is 24 and the only toy from his childhood that is still kept at hand is his huge basket of legos. He brings them out when he has visitors of the younger set and invariably he plops himself right down there with them and creates!
Haha, look at Sandy’s smiling face when she jumps into the water!
I don’t know anything about knitting or crochetting legofigures, sorry.
Lovely birds! I don’t know that pigeon, but he is beautiful!
Love, Yvonne
Dear Kristen,
Thanks so much for all your suggestions! At the moment we are using Live Education Waldorf curriculum so this has covered everything so far. We also do Kumon maths and English. We will continue with this but I am looking forward to looking through what you have listed here:)
Thanks Kristen
Love
Linda