Blueberries for Sal :: July Circle Time

I hope you all had a lovely weekend. We sure did! The kids and I headed down to Virginia Beach, my hometown, to spend some time with my mother and brother at the beach. We all had a great time and came home happy and tired! I however got too much sun, but that's old news. I'm casper and my kids well they're well bronzed year round. Oy! 

 I digress though... (the sun must have gotten to me). Today we started back up with circle time after a week long break while Craig's grandparents were in town for the 4th. Like I mentioned in my last post, our monthly theme is berry picking and our main book is Peter in Blueberryland. Last month's theme was oceans and Curious Fish was our main book. However I also like to add in a few related stories. Sometimes I read them, other times I act them out with puppets of dolls. For this story I blended in Sal, form the book Blueberries for Sal, with the blueberry and blackberry gnomes we have. 

Our Sal was the little blue peg person. 

When Sal first got to the berry patch all but one bush was hidden. The berry gnomes had hidden it with their magic to see if she would gently pick the bush gently and be kind to it. After the gnomes saw that Sal was a kind hearted girl, all the other bushes magically appeared! Sal was able to pick as many berries as her basket would hold.

After we finished that little play I then read 'Blueberries for Sal'. I think my favorite part was when we got to the end and Sal and her mother were canning, Jonas cried out "WE DO THAT MOMMY". Yes Jonas, yes we do. 

Ah I love our little lives, even on the tired grumpy days. This is why I blog. This is why I keep this place positive. Because my dear friends today was overall not the best of our days. But thinking back to our sweet circle time. To Brynna's first painting. To Jonas' sweet and excited outburst. Well it really puts everything into perspective. It affirms why we do this. It keeps me focused on the larger work at hand rather than the rough patches on the way. 

Well dear friends, I hope your Mondays were lovely!! I will be back tomorrow with a giveaway. 

What are you up to this month? Do you have any favorite berry books? how do you do circle time? Also why do you blog, if you do?

Love and light,

Nicole

Also Our $75 Nova Natural giveaway is still going on until 7/19!

Don't forget to enter!

http://dotingondeirdre.blogspot.com/2013/07/my-favorite-things-75-nova-natural-gift.html

Linking up this week with Frontier Dreams, Magic Onions, Natural Suburbia, and Crafty Moms Share and a few others! Please check out my 'where I party' page! 

Summer Circle Time

We're closing in on the end of the traditional school year. My son goes to speech therapy at our local elementary school and it is buzzing with testing and the end of the school year jitters.

For us however we really do schooling year round. After spending some time thinking about what to do this summer I finally realized that we'll just keep doing what we do every summer and every season.

Even before we began home-schooling somewhat formally this year- and as in formally I mean really just making what we have been doing official and being a bit more intentional- we always read books, went on outings, and did crafts geared around the seasons.

I can remember when I first began this blog back in summer 2009 how Deirdre was just old enough to do crafts and we tried our hand a pudding painting. We'd visit the library weekly and as we'd go in I'd ask, "what do you want to learn about this week?" We'd always leave with a stack of books on that subject she answered and that's what we'd do that week.

So as summer makes it's way towards us, we're continuing doing what we have always been doing. Living and learning as we go about our daily and weekly rhythm. The kids have become so used to circle time that I hardly can go without doing it every morning. We do a daily art activity and the books that we read in circle time are the same ones we read at bed. The song and verse we're learning over the next few weeks, is sung all through-out our day. Our play takes on the theme we're learning about. It just all flows so well together.

So I thought I'd share with you what our circle time looked like today. A week before the season changes, I begin telling the kids about what is coming as a way to transition. So today summer came to introduce herself. I introduced our summer verse, book, and song. We did a caterpillar finger play and read our poem about May for one of the last times before we did our calendar. Then to end our school day we packed a picnic and went to the lagoon- one of our favorite summer pastimes. Needless to say the kids are excited for summer.

 As I begin planning next year I will come back and share a bit of what we've done over the past 9 months. I hope it might serve as a encouragement to you if this is your first jaunt into home-schooling or Waldorf. Many things we idd were lovely and then there were things that did not quite fit. There was lots of unlearning I needed to do this year as well. My very type A public schooled and rigid brain had a HARD time trusting my heart on what was right for my children versus what the world around me was saying.

Also Our $75 Nova Natural giveaway is still going on until 7/19!

Don't forget to enter!

http://dotingondeirdre.blogspot.com/2013/07/my-favorite-things-75-nova-natural-gift.html

At any rate, I hope you're enjoying this lovely May day!

Until next time,
Nicole