a fond farewell

this is our last post in this blog.....one last fond farewell... if you have not yet subscribed to our Primary School blog, please do so...the Facebook page will remain the same but just receive the blog updates from the new Primary blog. On the eve of First Grade we bid adieu to our younger years...but not our Flower Fairies! ;) They have lots to show us yet!

Bad Mommy! Lol...Just kidding...But I did miss announcing her Bday!

Sigh...I am always a day late in stuff like that cus the actual day is always so hectic! But my Darling Daughter is now 6 years old...as of yesterday! Lol! I am so proud of her!

I say it every year no matter what, no matter which child....be it Guitar-man who turned 19 in March, Gamer-Geek who will be 17 this November, Boo-man who is headed towards 8 rapidly, or Twirly-Whirly who turned 6 yesterday: "I can't believe ______ is already ____ years old! How fast it went! I still remember holding that brand new baby in my arms."

Yup...like a mantra....I say it every time! Of course, as a friend pointed out, *we* never get any older! LOL! At least not in spirit.. ;) I will be 50 this August 16. I am so looking forward to it! I *love* hitting milestones! My Half-Century rocks! I know...I *am* weird! A woman who gets a kick out of bdays that send some women crying. But what can I say? I do! It beats the alternative, eh?

The truth is the only thing that is a bummer about getting older is how by the time you work out how it all works, the ride is halfway over! Oh well...much of the build-up is spent in La-La Land, the land my dd is on the brink of leaving...one more year or so and that special dreamland of early childhood will be gone and not even really a memory...just a swirl of blurred colors and fuzzy feelings. We don't remember much of those times.

 Then it's the next whirl of life from childhood to adolescence...some of the best/worst times in life....friendships made/lost/etc...then comes teenager years...let's face it....we really do *not* want to be teens again...we covet their energy but not the experience...it can be glorious but it can also be brutal....a time when things are burnt away from us so we can find who we really are....necessary but painful.

Then comes early adulthood when you are still part teen but taking baby steps into the adult world. Despite all desire to fly and be free, it too is rough. There are much bigger birds out there and some of them are hawks! Yikes! But no turning back now! you have to carve your place in the world. Good thing we are pretty full of ourselves at that age. (Try telling someone that age anything, I dare you, they will say you don't know *them*) If we knew then what we know now, we might not ever leave the nest! And from early adulthood into twenty-then-thirty somethings we do what we think we are supposed to (and if we are blessed we are doing what *we* know we are supposed to do not just what we were told it was, ya know?)

and then we hit 40....some cry thinking their best days are now spent....so sad....the truth is it is another time of shedding...but this time not with the fires of adolescence...this time it's more like diving down deep deep deep into our souls.....letting go of whatever holds us back to reach the treasure under the sea.....some turn back afraid of drowning....but what we really do is grow gills....we mutate into some of what we had been but now we are more....now we are like merpeople but even better....we can breathe both air and water...we can swim the depths and walk on land...at will....

that is where I find myself approaching 50...that moment in time when I surface like a joyous Orca that can walk upright. There is now a power and an essence that transcends what life has been up till this transformation. So much has become immatterial....things that used to seem important no longer are so critical.( You won't find me standing in lines for hours to see the latest movie...I have learned it's just as good a week later and maybe even better when you're not packed into the theatre like sardines..lol...if you wait a bit longer you may even have the whole place to yourself....some billionaire build their own theatres to have that experience! It's cheaper if you just wait for the rush to die down! )

Maybe this is the beginning of that wisdom that is written about in tomes from long ago. The blessing of croning. I half-way through my croning, if i have figured it right. Crone....there is an essence in that word too....an elemental energy. I guess that figures as one draws closer to the other side of the veil....a lightening of the load so that one day we cross over as unburdened as we incarnated....hmmm....

Anyway, to get back to homeschooling the Grrrly....it is from here I am also looking forward to stepping into first grade this fall.....i hope to offer her as much from the good I have learned and also from the bad, so as to know what to avoid, areas where I tripped up that she may sidestep them. I could say I wished I had as much to give my other children except they have always gotten all I could give...it's just what I have had and the amounts of it that have changed as I have changed.

I had a wise Child Dev Prof once who told us that even if they share the same set of parents children in a family always have a diff set than the ones before...because each child encounters their parents in a diff phase of a parental life....and so no mother can love all her children exactly the same way...each mother-child relationship differs as each individual differs....but the mother can still love each child just as much as she does the others..I know that's how it feels with me. I feel so blessed by my four...3 fine sons and my 1 daughter....each one of them brings out different aspects of me when I am with them...and at those times when we are all together...this MomWolf feels so very whole and thensome! (Wow....I can only guess how it will feel when there are grandchildren......exponential love no doubt).

Lol....and as I wrap this entry up I hear in the background my fave band (right after my own son's band, 'natch) The Moody Blues singing "Isn't Life Strange?" LOL...yes...it is...and it is good!






"It's never too late to have a happy childhood."

Looking Forward to Our Next Step!

Lol....how many times do you have to tell a nearly 6yo that banana peels and apple cores do not go in the recycling box? LOL!

Anyway...so I have been doing a bunch of brainstorming for Twirly-Whirly's 1st grade year, which will be termed First Grade per CA law, but will more of a transitional kindergarten or 2nd year Kindy, per Waldorf/Charlotte Mason. Twirly-Whirly really is still quite squirrely....she needs more play and growing time before full-on school. As I have stated in other places...I am a developmentalist and believe in delayed academics.

So some of the ponderings looming for my planner:

Using A Little Garden Flower's Before the Journey and Homeschooling Kindergarten, along with Earthschooling's Kindergarten curriculum. Add to this Along the Alphabet Path from a blog called Serendipity.....it is a gentle framework story trail which will revisit the Flower Fairy Alphabet we did in Kindy but will wrap around Tales of Beatrix Potter, a la Oak Meadow's use of the stories, but moreso as I have used all of the Potter tales for each letter, rather than half as OM did.

We will do block crayon drawing of letter pics based on the Potter stories somewhat like Waldorf does but without the phonics work. Oh and we'll be using Tales of Beatrix Potter Number Games cards for beginning maths. For "penmanship" she will be continuing with coloring book pages based on the stories read. She will also do whatever copywork takes her fancy....she loves to copy letters!

We will also be reading from Kindergarten Stories and Morning Talks compiled by Sara E Wiltse back in 1890 and Fingerplays for Nursery and Kindergarten by Emilie Poulsson. These will be used in our Circle Times, along with books by Tasha Tudor, Elsa Beskow, and Sybille von Olfers, as well as whatever else may pop into our heads...not forgetting all the fun to be found in all the other Flower Fairy books, of course, and also the Brambley Hedge series (a short series but very fun).

These stories will aid us in our nature study...plus we'll have our Fairy Garden and the Family Farmette. (Have I mentioned we'll be visiting chickens tomorrow???)

For continuing math work, we'll be doing Gnomes and Gnumbers which is also from the Serendipity blog...coupling that with lots of other gnome stories from various places. We'll be doing some handwork like beginning felting (with chopsticks instead of needles) to make some gnomes of our own....also some peg gnomes too...more handwork will include finger-knitting and easy hand-stitching projects.

Music will be addressed in Circle Times, using ocarina to begin with and later moving to pennywhistle. We'll do a wee bit of composer etc study too. We'll explore the ballet, the orchestra, and the opera with the Sing Me/Read Me/Dance Me a Story trio.

Art instruction will be done with Baby Lambs by Stebbing. It's a Christ-centered book intended for preschoolers but it fits our mode. Artist study will focus primary on those author/illustrators of the books we are using along with some of my most fave illustrators, Michael Hague, Arthur Ransom, and Tomie de Paolo. oh and by "study" I mean we'll look at the pics as we read and enjoy them richly....the same goes for composer study....lol....we'll be playing the music in the background of our day. ;)

Other artistic fun will include wet-on-wet watercolor and beeswax modeling.

I also hope to work in some fun with Mother Goose-based reading, me reading to her, and activities. I do adore Mother Goose, don't you? lol In other words, plenty of stories, rhymes,and poems...lots and lots of language arts. History? Oh yes...using A Child's History of the World, which is done in a very A.A. Milne manner, btw.

We will also help her build her memory skills with our Classical Conversation materials. Getting her ready to begin some classical studies next year...Latin and Greek, if you please! This will also be used in Circle Times.

We'll some fun with French this year...she has already been learning some Spanish from Dora and Chinese from Kai-lan and Dad, who learned Mandarin a long while back. (Don't even get him going on Latin and Greek...lol...)

Domestic arts: rather a la Waldorf...breads, soups, snacks, and what-not mixing in those handwork projects and helping Momma around the house *and* taking care of her "house" in the PlayRoom....which will find full washing/drying gear...a washtub, washboard, wringer, and of course her own clothespin apron with those sliding on pins to use on her line on the family clothesline. I can see plenty of clean doll clothes in the future! She loves to wash things!

Let's not forget physical activity: Yoga Play and Fitness Fun, both by Gaiam Kids. She'll continue her ballet and both Twirly and Boo will be back to VIP Soccer in the Autumn. And once Momma's bike is fixed, we'll have some lovely rides while the weather is obliging (hee hee...we'll each have a lovely basket too...)

Group/social activities: Awana on Wed eves, Hearth Keepers at Home on 1st Fridays and 3rd Thursdays, possibly GEMS again on Mon eves but that is till in the air, SpiralScouts tbd (once a month tho), SCA as occurs, Sunday School on Sunday of course, and ballet and soccer. oh! SBHN's Park Day ( Wed afternoons...more or less..will depend on proximity to our home so as not to conflict with Boo-man's bus.)

Our fave library will be closing yet again for further remodeling. It will be closed all Autumn into Winter. We'll go back to it in Spring...the weather will be luring us outdoors again by then, I am sure!

There will also be Friday Fun at Madrona Marsh, but that will depend on the activities planned....as the Twirly-Whirly and I have been participating in Ms Cindy's group since it was up at the botanical gardens, we are beginning to see a lot of repetition of things she has already done at least twice....sooooo....that'll be a thinker for me as to what to do....we'll see....

There will also be some holiday festivals we'll be enjoying, with friends, I hope...decorating the Garden Loom...adding to the Nature Table....we celebrate a Celtic Christian Year...it's a mash-up of the Christian liturgical year and the Pagan Wheel of the Year. We celebrate the everchanging seasons, the glorious world around us, and El who made it....

Does this all look like a lot? I know it does to me...lol...but it's really primarily story-telling and read-alouds....hands-on arts and crafts and games and such....homemaking....movement....and plenty of play woven throughout!




"It's never too late to have a happy childhood."

This is a test...repeat this is only a test.... ;)

had this been a *real* blog post, it would have had a much better title...

oh well....holidays are nice but they do get in the way with one's regular plans...so:

Blog tomorrow. For now, back to trying to catch-up on mundanities....

Blahhhggging

I admit it, I'm kinda dawdling. It's been a very nice relaxing day of sorts. Kindergarten is over officially (though in many aspects it will be back come Autumn, just dressed in First Grade's clothing, sotospeak. More on that later.) Today we are enjoying an easy morning of having watered all the plant life, fed all the animal life, and washing a load of laundry. Still not using the clothesline yet....this is too big a load for the smallish line and it's not really quite warm enough either...lol...our last day of school had rain and the longest day was cloudy and overcast for most of that!

The Twirly-Whirly is drawing a pic of turkeys and chickens. She is making it as a thank-you for the lady who may soon be having us over to view the only legal chickens in Torrance! I still hope for that homestead experience for both the girl and myself. Fingers crossed I will be posting pics of said event soon. Meanwhile, pics of the KinderGrad!

Things are Wrapping Up!

Today we released the ladybugs into our yard. Hard to believe how fast they seemed to grow. I can say the same of the Twirly-Whirly. It seems like just yesterday we only just begun the journey of preschooling (sure hope I can recover those pics and video soon)...how almost amazing it is to say this is her last week of Kindy GEMS and Awana! This is also the last week of Spring Storytimes at the library and her Spring ballet class! After that it'll be just 3 weeks of ABC's and 123's and we'll say goodbye to her Kindy year! Why is it the days can sometimes drag but the years fly past?

One of those days.

Urgh...it's one of those mornings where the Twirly-Whirly is more GRrrr!ly. I am still waiting on her to finish putting away like 3 things total...it's taking more than 30 minutes...urgh. We did our Circle Time and then I discovered her nightgown and knee socks were still left out. I made her go back to put them away and get out her dancy-bag for ballet. She still has her FlowerFairy Alphabet coloring page to color (Ragged Robin...a very plain one fortunately.) I hope she finishes before we're too late for ballet class..it's the last one before recital next week. There won't be a summer class for us this year. The schedule conflicts. We have friends coming over for our Hearth Keepers meeting today too. The girls will be working on their sashes..for a while at least before a playdate breaks out.

I am also feeling frustrated that there is never enough time to upload pics. I wish it didn't take so long. I wish they could upload to Facebook as quickly as they download from the camera into the computer!

whew...well she is at last finishing the R coloring page...we may be on time yet..fingers crossed for that and the rest of the day and maybe a photo upload catch-up day tomorrow.