Dear Readers and Friends,
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“Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “TODAY,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” Hebrews 3:12-13
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Sweet friendships refresh the soul, and awaken our hearts with joy, for the counsel of good friends is like the anointing oil that yields the fragrant incense of God’s presence. Proverbs 27:9
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XO Lynn
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March, April, and May Pictures
Faithy and the spring flowers at Markham Nature Park
We found some Wooly Bear Caterpillars on the trail at Regency Dr. and took 3 fuzzy guys home. We fed them cut-leaf geranium weeds (by Faithy’s trial and error method to find a food they would eat), they ate constantly for weeks, and then just stopped one day and wouldn’t eat another bite. That was probably two months ago now and we have since moved them to the garage because they won’t eat nor will they make a cocoon nor will they die. We check on them every couple weeks and they are still just hanging out. 🙂
Wooly Bear eating cut-leaf geranium, and a green caterpillar eating Buckeye leaves. The spring nature experiences and memories of childhood held forever dear in our Nature Journals.
Ohhh, we should draw these beauties next March when they bloom at Markham
Our baby praying mantis meets himself in Noah’s nature journal!
My Winslow Homer painting of ‘The Canoe’
Science time–making a thermometer
Can you draw some (processed) food that comes from plants?
Too cute Miss Ingalls
Love my itty bitty bouquets
A very busy Buds and Beans page in our Nature Journal. We grew a bean seed in a glass jar with no soil so we could see root growth, and recorded the growth process of the plant over the span of a couple weeks.
Fun just to be a preschooler
I love my “flowers” from my preschooler (all school year)
Mommy Faith and Baby Nora
…….but still just Baby Faith sometimes
Love our spelling routine.
- Read the next story in the Pathway readers (love, love, love these books) to mommy. Study 3 new words from the story, as listed in the back of the reader, until memorized. Close the book and spell out all three words using wooden letters.
2. Open the book and check the spelling of the words, fix any mistakes as needed. (Faith has more fixin’ to do as she just started spelling this year. Yes, that is “buggy” and “grandmother” that she spelled there.)
3. Clean up the letters (or mix ’em up) and hand write all 3 words in ‘My Word Book’ (notebooks that contain a personal collection of words that belong to the kids now because they can read and spell them, yay!). Open the reader and check one more time to make sure that everything was spelled correctly. By this time the kids usually know their words for sure! Just to make sure though, I quiz the review words on a subsequent day at spelling time (more Noah than Faith at this point).
4. Review time then leads into pre-test time to find the next three spelling words. After the last review word, I read aloud the next word from the list in the back of the book, and my child spells it to me (best guess); if its spelled incorrectly it is assigned as a spelling word, if its spelled correctly it can be skipped. Sometimes we go through 10 new words in order to find 3 that Noah can’t spell, where little Faith usually can’t spell any new words. So the pretest is usually skipped for her, but it is very useful for Noah, my more experienced speller. After the pretest, its back to step 1! We do spelling this way about 3 times a week for a total of 9 words or so a week.
As Charlotte Mason students typically delay formal spelling instruction, next year will be the first “official” year of spelling instruction for Noah, and so its onto Miss Mason’s tried and true method (although new to us): dictation! He and I are looking forward to it; I think he will be well prepared.
Ah, the simplicity of a virtually no routine preschool day
Trip to a favorite spot, The Lord’s Land
Tea time for Faith and Mommy, oh and penguins too. She “planned it.”
Spring Cleaning (I think the only spring cleaning we did was clean out the pantry)
Easter dolls
Easter Garden Basket 2017, with moss brought home from the Lord’s Land, and other shade loving plants
Reading the Bible to Daniel
This is the Bible Faith reads to herself every morning now, and with great tenacity is teaching herself how to read from the Word of God. So proud of you Faithy girl.
Faithy’s Lizzy that she was sooooo thrilled to catch herself, so we just had to keep him
Spring garden time (nothing ever came up in our winter garden)
Noah’s pretty cool tree seeds Nature Journal pages (from last fall, just got around to finishing)
Tartan Day at Ardenwood Historic Farms; Faithy was eager to see the queen because she wants to be one someday 🙂
Weeding at grandmas, phew!
Daddy’s never failing gesture of love upon arriving home, done with each little one through the years
Praying and singing some hymns for the elderly with cousins around Mother’s Day was sweet
Mothers Day handprint cards from the kids and daddy
A forever keepsake: Noah writes his first poem……to me
And of course, springtime hiking…..
Sunol Regional Wilderness
Father Noah. Daniel will go go go as long as Noah is holding his hand. He has really attached to Noah lately.
I adore you little man
Practicing capitals (a rare event here)
Noah with his Roman face and Roman city map (an imaginary city plan), inspired by the book City by David Macauley
Spring camping trip to Big Sur was cold but beeeeautiful
Our second backyard cherry harvest (30 cherries)
Faithy and me, in the garden with tea. XOXOX
Memorial Day at Pixieland
Cherry picking at a cherry farm- 13 pounds! We gobble cherries.
Staying cool at “daddy’s” pool (before all the other kids get out of school) 🙂
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