Month: March 2016

Is it obvious I’m not in the mood for writing great titles today?

A quick photo post…

// healing tea for nausea – lavender, elderflower, passionflower blend

// sparkle stories inspired apple turnovers, pie, and an attempt at a rustic sort of pie with the leftover dough

// a little guy with two missing font teeth – the first to arrive and the first to go (bite photv from about 5 years ago!)

// big bro solitaire lesson

// hooray for spring – loads of time in our backyard nature school – and muddy fingernails all around!

Lately we’ve been keeping busy with learning adventures and life in general – and generally the two are one and the same…

A trip to the museum focused on their love for animals and interest in shelters. We did a little animal scavenger hunt through the museum and were able to find examples of a log cabin, tipi, mud house, and wood framed house on our journey.

A little cafeteria action from our little one who brought out snacks and drinks and served them to hungry customers.

Homemade pineapple gelatin gummies didn’t last long. These were the best consistency we’ve made so far. The reason? Your guess is as good as mine… I have a bit of a problem with making recipe notes and very rarely follow a recipe exactly! Anyone else roll like that?

The kids made some apple pie filling and dough with some pals from homeschool co-op. It was to serve at the puppet show they wrote, designed costumes and sets for and acted out for friends and family.

Fun with a special homeschool co-op visitor. Since our kitty died last summer, we haven’t had a pet. We’re pretty happy to visit with the various pets of friends including puppies, bunnies and cats – and the various horses we meet while homestead hunting (horse close-up photo by Cohen)!

On the home-front the kids have been busy playing math games, knitting, crafting, reading, building, playing. We’ve been listening to a lot of audio stories lately – Magic Treehouse, Sparkle Stories, and with the coming of spring, we’ve jumped back into Herb Faries to learn about healing herbs in a magical and inviting way.

Check out these articles for info on celebrating this fresh, life-giving season in an eco-conscious way:

Natural Easter Basket Stuffers             Naturally Dyed Easter Eggs              Healthy Easter Paska

Gardening with kids comes with many benefits – connecting with the land and their food, connecting with each other in a fun way, academic learning, and the end result – eating the food they have planted, cared for and harvested. If you’re jumping into this A Garden of Learning series now, head back to the first post for tips on planning the coming season’s garden with your children.

This is a great time of year to grab any seeds you have on hand and check to see how viable they are.

Head over to EcoParent Magazine none to get the full how-to article!

If you’ve ever thought farming is a summer-only job, think again – our farmer friends are cozied up indoors during these months carrying out the important task of planning for the season ahead. You don’t have to let them have all of the fun; next time there’s a cold day keeping you indoors, gather your gaggle of kiddos and get started on your own garden plan! Gardening offers myriad learning opportunities in the areas of science, social studies, math, and art. If you’re homeschooling, you may like to connect this activity to your provincial curriculum.

Head over to EcoParent Magazine online to get the full article with tips on how to plan your garden with kids, including how to plot your space, choose your plants, make your plan, and print out a fun square-foot gardening activity.

If anyone else is stuck in the same boat I’m about to describe and has some tips, or even some snacks, please share! So, the solid side of the boat, the strong side, the side we really prefer to be on is made up of a super strong bond of brotherly love. On that side of the boat, we find two brothers cuddled up, and the eldest is reading to the youngest. We find them playing board games, lego, and spies. We find the older teaching the younger how to play solitaire, and the younger eagerly giving half of his birthday money unprovoked to his older best pal. And oh my, we see moments of clasped hands – at the dinner table, in the car, at the mall – in this thing together. But over there under the bench of the boat, there are some holes. Over there we see the battle of the temperaments between the sanguine, phlegmatic boy who believes anything is possible and is quite insistent on it and the choleric (maybe also sanguine and a bit melancholic?) who demands that things be fair and true to real life. The difference of three years is becoming more apparent as these two strong personalities strive to hold fast within the context of their bond.

Since we learn at home, these boys spend their days together. We can see the older desires more time on his own to work on his pursuits – reading, drawing, game design. Yet the younger can think of nothing better than playing with his bro. Finding ways to honour both needs is proving to be a challenge, not to mention there are several other temperaments in our crew as well! When they do play together, the battle of temperaments is popping up more and more frequently. These two definitely have some non-violent communication skills and I’m often in awe at how they can talk through problems with one another… and there are some serious emotions at play. Hurt feelings, anger, sadness. Yet those communication skills often take a back seat to raised voices and yelling matches. Or we get a somewhat endearing combination of non-violent communication sentiments being yelled between the two of them. But I’m feeling frustrated because… !!! 

I know we need to get back to an old tradition of one-on-one dates with each of the four kids to give them breaks from each other. To carve out individual time for the older, and ways to fill up the younger’s desire for play and connection. To find time for connection in the hectic schedule of a highschooler playing sports, and for the only other chica in the house.

I know that as hard as it is to admit to myself,  I am the boat and they are just reflecting back my own holes of stress, impatience and busyness that are taking me away from real presence in our days. It’s my work to hold the space, to provide rhythm, and I feel that we’ve strayed, I’ve strayed, and that rhythm has unraveled. Time for a hearty push back in that direction.

How do you balance the different temperaments of your children? Share in the comments!

P.S. apologies for the award boat analogies… not a lot of time for reworking my writing these days… : )

Most kids love the sticky, sweet Canadian goodness that is maple syrup. My kiddos certainly do. I always feel a little bad limiting their use of such a down to earth, delicious and nourishing natural food – and for some reason they never quite understood what all the fuss was about when we would say that it is pricey and to be used in moderation. Until they made their own; until they did the work of tapping trees, trekking out to do the daily bucket check and hauling the loot home, patiently boiling it down… to find that their several 4L milk jugs produced about 100ml of syrup! Ouch.

Are you ready to tackle some tree-tapping with your crew? Follow along with this tutorial by local tree expert Ken Fostyof Forestry Training Services in Manitoba. You can check out his website for more info on tapping, trees, and even growing your own mushrooms at home! Then check out our maple-themed children’s book list for some cozy post-tree-checking story cuddles.

Get the whole tutorial and book list over at EcoParent Magazine…