This Rabbit Trail is Sprinkled with Fairy Dust!

A funny thing happened during the first week back to a school year rhythm. In the absence of firm plans and without the books we thought were coming, a bigtime rabbit trail was born. Mary Beth's plans from Oak Meadow were delayed, so she set about to find some copywork in A Journey Through Time. She was happy to find some delightful flower fairy poems from Cicely Mary Barker. She read the poems and chose one to copy and then drew a picture to accompany it.She decided she was going to work her way through all the fairy poems in the book. It just so happened that I was hanging out at amazon.com at the time and I just so happened to one-click this book.

Later that day, I read Christopher's Harvest Time aloud to a whole gang of my children. And I totally fell in love. This is right there near the top of my "favorite books of all time" list. The pictures are clear and lovely and the characters delightful. Every single child was taken with this book. Katie just loved that the boy fairy was named "September" because when you are about to turn five and  your birthday is in September, any fairy named September is a friend of yours. Stephen and Nicholas followed Christopher's adventures utterly enraptured and were sorry to see them end. And Mary Beth was very happy to find still more botanical fairies rendered in a different artist's pictures.  More botanical fairies...hmmm...

I tried to nudge Nicholas towards the drawings I'd done to go with the alphabet quest story from Christopherus' First Grade Syllabus. He wanted nothing to do with them--or the story. He'd heard me tell Katie and Gracie that it was "B" week and he'd heard a "B" themed fairy tale to go with their picture. Mr. Order dug in his heels and insisted that "B" was fine for him, too, since he could not possibly start with K, P, Q, and W (the letters I'd chosen to present). Oh, and by the way, he said, he already knows his letters and how to read and he found a coloring a book leftover from last year's fairy study and the "B"  page just so happened to be yet uncolored. He spent the rest of the day copying that "B" fairy and recreating scenes from Christopher's story in his main lesson book.

The hours I'd spent at Google Calendar trying to get too many good ideas to form a coherent plan were rising to haunt me now. Why do I do this every year? Why do I think and think and think (though this year I didn't write intricate plans, I definitely thought them) and then dissolve into something altogether different than I'd thought it would be?

Because I listen to my children. And this year, they were hearing fairies.

They took up the beeswax and created Children of the Forest. They built more fairy houses in the backyard.They began to fashion felt folk who looked a lot like Woody, Hazel and Little Pip.
Soon, we decided to begin our days with "September" from Around the Year and recite it often enough to memorize it. They gathered acorns at  Patrick's soccer game, all the while talking about the  Acorn Fairy as if she were a familiar friend.

By now, enthusiasm was bubbling up and spilling over. Mary Beth was sharing her fairy-fondness with her friends  and I was telling their mom all about my plans gone awry. Katherine had a little fairy dust in her pocket too and suddenly we were obsessed.

I found myself ordering botany nomenclature cards to go with my botanical fairies. I ordered a refill for my Klutz fairy-making book. We dusted off Fairy Houses and watched the video version as well. (Incidentally, the video was shot in New Zealand and we all know there are definitely fairies in New Zealand;-) I found fairies to teach us how to knit. My friend Rebecca assured me they would probably prefer knitting needles like these.

Did you know that Frederick Warne published Cicely Mary Barker's books, too? And she has a website as lovely as Beatrix Potter's.  When you are there, you can learn the fairy code and write letters to friends in Texas. And those of us who love Beatrix Potter's Journal are equally delighted with Fairyopolis (same sized book, same idea--they're brilliant, those Warne boys;-) Those botany cards will work perfectly with the fairy finder. Type in your favorite fairy and learn its song, some folklore, and some botanical facts and some planting indications--that's if you can tear your eyes away from the whimsical pictures.  Shhh...don't tell the children, but there's an awful lot to learn here.

(Oh, and what about the Christopherus syllabi and those from Oak Meadow? It's all good. I've learned so much and we will use it all in one form or fashion.The greatest lesson I learned is that big families can't do "Waldorf at Home" the same way smaller families can, nor can they replicate "Waldorf at school." And I'm not a Waldorf purist anyway, just like I'm not a Charlotte Mason purist.  But that's the stuff of future posts. Right now, I have a fairy house to tend)

While I appreciate the beauty, the materials and some of the methods of Waldorf education, I am not a follower of Rudolf Steiner, his educational philosophy, or his religion. I am a practicing Catholic who is very clear in teaching the faith to her children. Please see this post for any further explanation of incorporating methods or materials that might also appear in Waldorf schools into your home. Take inspiration from what is good and what in in harmony with the true faith and leave the rest. If you can't discern, then leave it all alone.

What she said

I wish every parent would read this and consider how they encourage or discourage learning.

Children learn by imitation. Do we give them examples of perfectionism that won't even allow us to try, lest we be disappointed by our efforts and frustrated by our failures?

Today, inspired by Sara's courage, I'm going to try to learn to knit. And I'm going to try to set for my children a good example of cheerful perseverance and good-natured willingness to fall very short of perfect in the name of learning something valuable.

Speaking of attempting to do something, even when you're quite sure the results will fall short of perfect, Katherine, the kit is on its way. If you're brave enough to attempt it, I can can be emboldened by your example. But I guarantee we're in it for way more than 12 hours.

Are You Ready for Some Geography?...

Tonight begins Monday Night Football, noted on my calendar for the entire season as "MNF."  Why does a middle-aged mama note Monday Night Football on her calendar? I like to keep track of my husband. He won't be on the couch with a beer and a bowl of chips. He'll be at every Monday Night Football site all season long (with the exception of San Francisco tonight--he can't bi-locate so when MNF is at two locations, he's only at one of them;-). As much as we love sports around here and as grateful as we are for this job, this is a very long haul through the fall.

Last year, as my younger children began to figure out the rhythm to Mike's travels, we started moving a Post-it note arrow around on a big wall map so that they could see where he was. But a flat map on the wall doesn't really do much for a child's imagination. They couldn't really picture him where he was working.  Kim introduced me to the idea of geography textboxes these wonderful picture books, and an idea was born.

Every week, on Monday, we spend the afternoon reading and writing about the state where Monday Night Football is being played. The books are packed with information and illustrations and pictures. There is a short rhyming verse on each page, perfect for the little ones. The older children spend more time with the book, reading the more involved columns on the page for detail.

Last year, the baby arrived four weeks into football season. I relied heavily on the idea in these free unit studies which are keyed to the books. This year, I think we are going to focus only on the information in the book during our study time. Each child is creating his or her own book. The books vary according to age and interest and I'm giving the children free reign to pull out of the alphabet books what matters most to them and then to express that in their notebooks.

On Monday evenings, we watch ESPN beginning well before the game. In all honesty, this has nothing to do with geography and everything to do with our Daddy's shows. But, the bonus to our devotion is that we see great scenic shots of the places we've just read in the books. All the way up through the pre-game show and the introduction, there are sights and sounds of the state we've studied.

Finally, as he dashes through the airport on his way home, Mike collects a few postcards from each state to add to the book. All the books we will use for Monday Night Football geography are linked on the sidebar. Maybe you'd like to travel with us this fall!

The First Week of ... Whatever

We've just come to the end of the first week of school for children in our town. Since we don't send our children to school and we don't "school at home," it wasn't our first week of school--at least that's what I keep telling myself. This week:

We celebrated Grandma's 80th birthday with the cousins. It was a very sweet time. It just so happened that it was Karoline's last "month birthday"--she's officially eleven months old. The next one is a biggie!

The college boy came home for a quick visit. He reclaimed his Sox hat and tried to claim the block stacking title. He was pretty impressive, but Christian reached the highest heights.

Everyone came down with a nasty cold. The nebulizer once again took up its seasonal song. I met the new doctor in our practice. My dear, veteran doctor and good friend is fighting a losing battle with breast cancer. Please pray for her.

The new doctor and I became buddies. I made several trips to the doctor and spent a several hundred dollars on medications to ensure my children will breathe through the fall. I willfully brushed away my irritation at having to pay to breathe and instead prayed for two friends whose children's breathing problems are not so easily fixed with medicine.

The washing machine broke on Monday night. Three or four times a day, all week long, I drove my laundry up the street a mile and lugged it up two flights of stairs to wash it at my friend Mel's house. Then, I lugged the wet laundry back down the stairs and back home. I have biceps. And triceps.

I called the washing machine guy no fewer than six times this week. His voice mailbox is now full. I filled it with desperation.

I bought paper diapers.

Nicky was devastated by his inability to build block towers of any commendable height. We distracted him with Connectagons. Way cool.

The girls fell in love with Cicely Mary Barker and the little boys discovered Elsa Beskow. I think we are about to ditch the Colonial America plans for a woodland fairy rabbit trail.

I watched my friends' little boys on their packing day. And their moving day. Sure hope they didn't take our colds with them to Florida.

Christian did some math. I am certain of this because Teaching Textbooks allows me to check his progress with a click of the mouse. I think I have found math heaven.

I managed to make Indian food on the feast of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta.

We read the book for the feast on the morning after the feast.

We had the tea and sweets for the feast at 9PM on the evening after the feast. We never got to the craft. Oh well, I get points for trying, I think.

In an act of utter insanity, I decided this was a good week to get Karoline's first set of shots. A faraway friend's recent tussle with Pertussis and the counsel of the new doctor led me to go ahead and do it. News flash: Karoline is 1 in 1000 who would scream for three hours or more. What's the chance of three of my children being those 1 in 1000 children? This is a purely rhetorical question. Please don't attempt to teach me math. Whatever the chance, that's the reality. I'm just grateful it wasn't worse.

We spent an hour or so of quality time drafting for Family Fantasy Football. I'm glad we made sure to do the important stuff;-). Yes Michael, you missed it. No worries, Katie picked for you;-).

The long awaited art supplies arrived and I fell in love with Lyra pencils.

Mike hit the road for the first installment of Monday Night Football. Yep. It's officially the beginning of a new season. School or not.

And Monday will come again, right? And we can start "real school" then? Maybe not.

On Beauty

This summer, we traveled to the beach. We went to visit my mother and my aunt. They both live in a beachside community. You are picturing a house on stilts by the shore. I am going to paint a different picture. Both of them live in year 'round homes which are not at all the "roughin' it at the beach" type of houses. Instead, they are beautifully decorated showplaces which are hung with amazing art. Both homes are veritable feasts for the eyes.

We stayed primarily in my mother's home because, of the two, it was far more appropriate for small children. My aunt's home is a museum. Literally. The very house is equipped with serious hurricane protection, blackout blinds, and a security system that rivals a fine art gallery. That's because it is a fine art gallery. My aunt collects art. Not long ago, much of the art in her home hung in a museum. Now, it is in a beautiful house on the water.

One Sunday afternoon, as a thunderstorm brewed, we were driven up from the sand and surf and into my aunt's house. There, my children of all ages, in their swimsuits, walked from room to room and stood in awe of fine American art. I showed them my favorite, an 1895 Theodore Robinson painting called Washing Day. We searched in vain for my husband's favorite, William Harnett's Table Still Life (I think it's in New York), and then we stepped back and let the children fall in love with their own favorites. Stephen was smitten by the Portrait of a Girl with the Red Shawl, a Robert Henri painting that my aunt purchased for my uncle's sixtieth birthday. As the children gazed, Aunt Diane told the stories of the paintings. It was, beyond the shadow of a doubt, a most glorious and memorable art history course, all on a Sunday afternoon.

Mary Beth sat up on my aunt's bed and just took a tour around the room. Aunt Diane told her about Sunlight and Snow and how the woman who lived in the house from which Richard Miller painted the picture, found old canvases separating the compartments of the boot box in the mudroom and found even more discarded canvases in the attic.

She pointed out the patch on N. C. Wyeth's The Faded Tablecloth and explained that it had once been a window, by Wyeth didn't like that light in his studio so he closed it up. When he set to paint the still life, he painted it true to life, complete with the patched wall. From Wyeth,  they let their eyes wander to a Whistler etching and Aunt Diane explained to Mary Beth how etchings are created.

Around the room they went, and my little girl listened, enraptured to one fascinating "backstory" after another. As I took it all in, I recognized that the "backstory" isn't incidental, it's germane. One doesn't have to know the story to love the painting, but the stories do help make the painting come alive in a special way.

Left to wander and to wonder, my children truly could not get enough of the visual feast. I watched as the air conditioned chilliness took hold of the damp bathing suits and teeth started to chatter and lips began to turn blue. A six-year-old boy stood in rapt wonder with his four-year-old sister in front of a statue of a a dancing girl. I could barely pry Stephen away from the Girl in the Red Shawl. I wish I could take credit for this sophisticated appreciation of art. I cannot. Truly, the environment captured their hearts and their imagination.

It did my heart good to see them so enraptured and to watch their relationship with my aunt blossom so beautifully. Her passion shone through everything she said and did with them and they began to understand that this world was a part of their world, too. They were also getting to know my uncle, who died five years ago. American art was his passion and his passion is being passed to his nieces and nephews. At the end of the afternoon, after hours of contemplation, Mary Beth led my aunt into the office. "That," she said "is my favorite of all." She was pointing to a large painting behind the desk. My aunt pulled Mary Beth close in a hug. "That was uncle Tom's favorite, too."

When we went back to my mother's house, they paid close attention to the art hung on the walls there.  They noticed some fine American art. They also noticed paintings created by my mother's other sister and by Aunt Diane herself. A growing appreciation for visual art was taking hold.

On our last night at the beach, my mother encouraged my husband and I to go out to dinner at a nice restaurant and have a proper "date." Without thinking twice, we carried out from a nearby Italian bistro and ate on the balcony facing the sea at my aunt's house. She had returned to New York for a buying trip and we had the place to ourselves. After dinner, we wandered from room to room and drank in the art. We remembered that after our wedding, twenty years ago, we had no money and strict mandate to return to work bright and early Monday morning. We spent Sunday at the National Gallery of Art. Art was our honeymoon. We bought two prints that day and had them framed for our home. True, the weren't "real, live originals" as Stephen has become fond of saying, but they were beautiful.  We committed to continue to pursue the family passion in our own new family.

In the days following our beach vacation (I'm not calling it a trip anymore--isn't it amazing how little time it takes to gild a memory?), I thought often about how beauty in our environment affects our lives. Our lofty plans to have a home filled with beauty had been a bit derailed. In truth, there were paintings stacked in a storage room in the basement that I'd never gotten around to hanging. As we added children, beauty gave way to practicality and things became a bit more--um--utilitarian with every birth. I didn't have the time to do much about my thoughts.  We turned right around five days after the Florida vacation and drove to Long Island for a family reunion to celebrate my great Aunt Ida's ninetieth birthday.

We stayed in a very blessed cottage. To say that this cottage took my breath away upon entering is not to exaggerate. It was truly beautiful. The walls were painted a delightful green and huge windows let in the light filtered only by the splendid trees outside.  Skylights brought the beautiful blue sky into the rooms below. It looked as if Miss Lavender of Avonlea had bumped into Beatrix Potter amongst the trees and flowers (and many bunnies) outside and they had conspired together to design a place of beauty and grace.

On the walls were murals of soaring trees with puffy pink flowers, birds, and bees and butterflies. Karoline kept trying to pick the flowers that "grew" along the baseboard. I was inspired once again by the beauty of my surroundings. On the morning of the birthday party, I wrapped a present for my Aunt Ida. It was two framed collages of portraits of my children. I mused about how fitting it was that these were pictures to hang on the wall. Truly , they represented the "art" of my life. I hadn't wrapped the pictures at home because I didn't want them to get bumped and ripped in the van. So, I wrapped them there. And I got a bit carried away in the creativity of it all. I had brought a few things from home with which to embellish packages and I threw myself into the task at hand with  great gusto. My husband watched with a bemused smile. "It's in your genes, isn't it?" he asked.

I don't know that it was genetic at all. I think I was more inspired by the spirit of the cottage and I was prodded along in creating beauty by the beauty of the place itself. And it got me thinking about home again.

When we returned home, we discovered that the basement had flooded. I was literally being forced to re-think environment from the bottom of this house to the top. I began to dig out of the basement and re-create the space with beauty in mind. My house needs to be efficient but it doesn't need to be devoid of beauty. And, as so often in my life, as I worked, I thought about my children and education. The work of my hands reflected my new attitude. My educational plans need to be efficient and full of beauty. Beauty is useful. It has a very useful function. It inspires and soothes and ministers. I wonder at why someone would eschew art. A life without art is sure to become cynical and devoid of joy.

So, with a very soggy basement and a house in need of sprucing up, I was left to do all my planning for the coming year in my head as I mopped and de-cluttered and hung pictures and repainted. And you can bet that  all that planning, which has yet to be committed to paper or computer memory, is rooted in the good, the true, and the beautiful.

|