Restoration Place

Quiet Here...

Posting has been sparse here lately. You know how sometimes you just feel the need to be quiet in your blog space? That's how I have been feeling. There has been much to tend to in our family, mostly just regular family stuff, but a couple of bigger things, too, and I've felt the need to be quiet here.

This seems to be a new season for me and for my family. I don't know what it all means, but I'm journaling more than I have in a long time and seeking God in fresh ways. So if a few days passes between posts these days, you'll know why. All is truly well.

 

These Snow Days

We don't get much snow in our part of Maryland, so when it snows and accumulates, we get out in it and have fun. And then we come back inside and have snow ice cream and lots of hot tea, sit by the fire, and read piles of books about winter.

 

 

Winter Tabletop Garden

I was inspired by Amanda's beautiful tabletop garden at Hearts and Trees last year and knew we must make our own this winter. Anything green and growing in the house (except for mold in the fridge ~grin~) gives me a lift in January and February.

Our good As We Walk friends came over to join us in the project:

We gathered several kinds of root vegetables: parsnip, carrot, sweet potato, russet potato, rutabaga, and turnip. Here's a parsnip, turnip, and sweet potato:

 

I had already gathered jars, toothpicks, and bamboo skewers (which we exchanged for the toothpicks because they were too big). We poked toothpicks in the sides of the vegetables so that the bottom half would be suspended in water in the jars.

Here they are, in a normally sunny spot (cloudy morning), and all we'll have to do to maintain them is keep the jars filled with enough water so that the bottom of the vegetable stays immersed:

 

I'll be posting updates about the growth of our garden!

Oops! Winner Announcement Retraction

Well, I bungled the winner announcement. The winner is actually Heather of Gottfredsen Academy, not Heather of An Untraditional Home, who was gracious enough to inform me of my mistake right away. Hmmm...I think I might need a little more sleep and order those vitamins I've been meaning to get ~grin~.

Now, I'm off to bed and hoping for a clear-headed tomorrow.

Good Queen Bess ~ We Have a Winner!

All the names of those who said they were interested in the book are folded up and dropped in a jar, then swished and mixed by 4-year-old Ben:

Ben should have had a nap, and does not want his picture taken, especially if "you're gonna put it on your blog, Mom!" Ok, I say, I will try not to show your face on the blog. Please just reach in and choose a piece of paper, ok?

The winner is Heather at An Untraditional Home! Congrats, Heather!

This was so much fun! I love the idea of passing along a good book to another home educating family. I'm going to be purging more of my shelves. I already know of several more books...

Transition Complete ~ Sonlight 2 & 5 to Ambleside 3 & 6

A couple weeks ago I posted about pondering making some changes to our home education "base" though I'd already been thinking about it for a month or more. I expected we would make those changes next August/September, but God surprised me by making very clear those changes were to take place sooner--much sooner. As in, when we started up our routine again following the vacation break.

We're there right now, in the midst of those changes, and they feel right. Amy Lu of A Mile In My Shoes put it like this in her comment on the changes I was considering: "When making this decision ourselves, I came to the conclusion that Sonlight fit us like a mitten and Ambleside fit us like a glove." (Thanks again, Amy Lu, for sharing this with me!)

Yes, that's exactly how I feel! There's much to love about Sonlight, but for various reasons, Ambleside fits us better for this season in the children's lives. Perhaps one day I'll go into detail about those reasons.

But why transition now? I wonder that, and you may well wonder the reason for such a shift mid-stream. I can only say that God knows us, He's guiding us, and though I don't always understand why or how He does things {chuckle!}, I'm going with His flow. He knows my children in ways I don't and knows who He's creating them to be.

Though I am always open to making changes in our home education, and following the various trails our interests take us, the one thing that has remained constant is my commitment to a Charlotte Mason education.

Maggie is enjoying her Ambleside Year 6 readings, and I'm doing Ambleside Year 3 with Jacob, Katie and Ben (yes, he sits and listens to everything! ~smile~).

A few of our Ambleside friends...

Book Giveaway ~ Good Queen Bess by Diane Stanley

I have a new, unused hard back copy of Good Queen Bess : The Story of Elizabeth I of England. It's part of our Sonlight Core 2 books, but we didn't use it because we already had a copy. It's been sitting on a shelf.

The book is also a biography choice for Ambleside Year 3, Term 2.

If you'd like to have it, leave a comment saying so (be sure to leave your email in the comment info form--it's private), I'll wait a few days to see how much interest there is, draw a name out of hat, and send it to the winner, gratis.

Nature Study/Journal ~ Red-bellied Woodpecker

Nature journaling has been slipping by the wayside in the past few months (though we did do much nature hiking/exploring/reading) but I've found that if I plan and actually set aside a weekly block of time (even a "floating" block of time), it's more likely to take place. I'm not the most dedicated planner, so this is a stretch for me. The children love it, we all want to do it, and it's up to me to help preserve the time for us and make it happen.

I had planned, for the time being, to slot the nature study and nature journaling on Friday afternoons, but yesterday a male Red-bellied Woodpecker entertained us at the kitchen window suet feeder all day, so in the afternoon we seized the opportunity to learn more about our frequent visitor.

 

That's not the best photo, but he's skittish as the feeder is very close to our window and he can see five bodies and five faces just a few feet away.

Unfortunately, the Handbook of Nature Study (our main nature guide) doesn't have an entry for the Red-bellied Woodpecker, so we rounded up our 15 or so bird identification guides (yep, we do have that many ~ smile) and starting learning about the woodpecker. I've found that every identification guide has a different way representing a bird, and there are unique tidbits of information in each one.

The children sketched the bird (using print-outs and books as visual help) while I read to them about it. We also listened to the bird's calls and sounds online.

 

 

 

 

That last one is Ben's. He's four and his drawings have really become more specific and detailed lately. It's a joy for me to see this process.

Week in Review

 

 

Books-I-Haven't-Read-{For-Shame!} ~ 2008 Retrospective

Well, I've been shocked into awareness these last few days about how few books I read in 2008. I'm rather embarrassed to even share my skimpy list...but, greatly inspired by the volume of reading that other home educating moms are posting about (I'm sure you're already up on all that), I'm going to share my lackluster list and quietly excuse myself.

In no particular order, and not even categorized for your convenience:

Making Brothers and Sisters Best Friends

What Every American Should Know About American History

Permission Granted: To Do Church Differently in the 21st Century

Paradise, the Holy City and the Glory of the Throne

Interpreting the Times: How God Intersects With Our Lives to Bring Revelation and Understanding (still working on this one)

A Short History of Nearly Everything

The Big Wave

The Master Puppeteer

Daughter of the Mountains

Commodore Perry in the Land of Shogun

Torches of Joy

Shadow Spinner

From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

And others I can't remember...though I do remember a dusty stack slipping off my dresser and getting kicked under the bed (wood floors are slippery!). I did eventually retrieve the books. Much later, thanks to my observant four-year-old.

And now I'm reading...

In the Company of Crows and Ravens

Signs and Seasons (John Burroughs)

The Bronze Bow (it's making me lose sleep!)

The Story of Mankind

Secrets of the Universe

Archimedes and the Door of Science

The Best American Essays ~ 2006

There are so very many books I would dearly love to read, but meals, laundry, and home educating my crew leave little time. How do the rest of you do it??

Quietly excusing myself now.