Valentines Day Plus a Playroup

Happy Valentines Day! This morning the kids woke up to some yummy treats given by those who love them. Cookies, M&M's and chocolate popcorn - yumm.


I guess I am mostly talking about the playgroup in this post not to take away from the yummy love of the day : )

Last month a mom from our homeschool group approached me to help her start a playgroup for the 3-6 year olds. She new we use Waldorf in the home and had been borrowing my books. I told her I would love to help and then she asked me to lead it : ) A ploy to get me interested and then to get me to take over! That is ok , because it was nice to lead a playgroup again. I have not done so since we had Ryan's playgroup in CT.

I was a little nervous about it since Adeline is a tough character and seems to throw fits when my attention is not on her - which is normal for a child I think who has been raised my an attachment parent and she herself is starting to realize her independence. I knew she would enjoy it so I agreed. We meet twice a month one time is a playday and the other is painting/craft day. Our first meeting was a play day and it went well. Adeline threw herself on the ground at the beg. of circle but then joined us soon after. She had fun playing with her new friends.

Yesterday we had our first painting / craft day. I wanted to take pictures , but I have one broken camera and one lost camera which = no camera!

Anyway, the morning went well and the painting in the picture above is what we did.
In circle I have been using the verse about King Winter (which thankfully the mornings of the playgroup have been chilly! down in FL you just never know this time of year) Plus in was Valentines day so I combined the two and came up with my own little story that goes something like this

King winter was walking all around the land noticing how chilly it was (paint blue around the outside of the paper) Soon a little red fairy appeared and brought warmth to the land, a warmth that glowed in his heart ( paint with red in the middle) Soon he was dancing and noticed a new friend had arrived a beautiful purple fairy had joined them. With the warmth in his heart, King Winter knew that spring would soon arrive.

I had drawn a heart on all the papers with white crayon, before painting so that the warmth of the heart would show once the kids painted with the red. The kids seemed to like it and with all the thankyou emails after they are all proud of their paintings!

For the craft I took the idea from my dear friend Julie who is a wonderful Waldorf Kindergarten teacher and fellow homeschooling mom - and we made Valentine trees.! Adeline loves glueing so she made a few hearts. It was so diff watching her compared to her brother. Ryan used to rush through the craft and would do the bare min to be done - he still is that way. She sat there for a good 30 min making hearts! Gluing as much as she could on each one.

It was such a nice morning and a BIG thank you to Julia for taking Ryan to Monday group!!!

Camping with the Manatees!

I finally did it! I took the kids camping by myself and we survived!!! It was just Adeline,Ryan and I and we had a great time. Our homeschool group had a field trip to Blue Springs State Park and with it being a 2 hour drive I decided that for us it would be easier to camp the night before and then meet up with the group the next afternoon. Did I say "easy" - easy it was not, but still lots of fun and Ryan and Adeline kept telling me how much they "loved camping" and "when can we go again" and "thank you mommy for taking us camping"! So glad we went!


Blue Spring State Park is the largest spring on the St. Johns River. It is a designated Manatee Refuge and the winter home to the West Indian Manatees.
So after setting up camp ...


We headed out to explore for a bit

I had made us some black bean soup before we left so we heated that up over the fire and it was delicious. Ryan did a awesome job getting a nice fire going for us.


The evening went well and in the morning Adeline and I woke up and realized that Ryan was not in the tent. I looked out and noticed Ryan had already gotten the coolers out of the car and had a morning fire going plus he was cooking the sausages already!! Way to go Ryan , I was rather impressed and proud of my little man!


enjoying the morning fire
Once we packed up , we headed over to the springs and walked around while we waited for our friends to arrive.

The springs are so clear. In the summer you can swim,scuba and snorkle - perhaps we will go back
It is hard to tell , but there is a manatee there . We saw 7 or 8 of them !

1856 this area was settled by Louis Thursby and his family. The Thursby house, built in 1872, remains standing

I don't think this manatee was there in 1872 though : )
Enjoying lunch with our friends :
Listening as Addison tell us all about the manatees

Such a great time !

The Medieval Faire

The Kind and Queen of the Faire : )

We had a great afternoon at the Hoggstown Medieval Faire today. It was a small faire , but lots to see and do and buy of course

Adeline came home a fairy

Ryan will now protect us with his cross bow (which is pretty cool). Sage did not get anything only because what he wanted was a real sword - teenagers !
There was a living chess board that Ryan thought was cool
He loved the battles
Adeline loved the pony ride!
THen there were games. Ryan played this one where you have to hit a wooden lizard onto a lilly pad and you win a prize.
He won! and gave the prize to his little sister - how sweet!

Of course you can't miss the jousting
Then to our surprise when we were watching this performance we noticed on of Ryan's friends from 4H - he was a very good chello player.
At the end of the day everyone was tired and happy!!

Math

Well it has been a while since I have posted about our lessons. We are plugging along nicely! Ryan has improved so much in his reading and is getting the hang of division. We started working on ancient history and the human body in science.

Sage has finished up his English, Biology and computing classes for the year and has started Spanish 1 and Driver's Ed! Yep Driver's Ed!!!! This mama is a bit nervous about that!

Today we worked on some hands on math by making Geo boards



Lil Sis had to make one too! She is quite good with the hammer once she put the kitty down.
By the way this is not our cat! He belongs next door but comes to visit. Although he can't stay too long because Ryan's eyes start to puff up and get itchy!
So, once geo boards are done it is time to skip count which is great practice for the multiplication tables.
After each set he then drew the design in his main lesson book.
He has so much fun with this that we worked up to our 6's.!

It is flag football time again!

Well it is that time of year where the boys spend their Saturdays playing flag football and they love it!


Little bro and sis watching big bro! Yes Adeline's hair is a mess - she had decided to take out her pigtails - oh well : )


Next year they want to play tackle - oh my!

4H and a Christmas Play

I have not posted for awhile - not for lack of things to post just have been busy. With my recovery going so well we are back to full steam ahead!

From my last post I mentioned that the boys had their 4h contest The Beg. of December and they both did great! I am proud of them both for going and giving it a try. RYan's junior team won first place at the event! Sage's senior team did not have enough 4h'ers to have a team so he and the other senior member had to compete as individuals and that was tough. Kudos to Sage for not giving up!




Last night Ryan was in his first play. My good friend Julia had been taking Ryan to Monday homeschool group where they had been practicing for the Christmas play all fall. Ryan was a bit nervous about it all and kept telling me he did not want to be a part of it - but since I know Ryan I know it is his anxieties talking and he always has so much fun

see - I have the proof : At the dress rehearsal he was all smiles and having a great time. His part was that of a street urchin : ) If you know Ryan , you know that is a perfect part for him -lol

The stage all ready. The moms did such a great job preparing and practicing with the kids. It was amazing!


It was too hard to take pictures during the play , but here is the actor afterwards. He did awesome and look he is still smiling : ) I hope he wants to do another one.
On the way home we saw this house all lite up so we pulled over and checked it out!

Merry Christmas!

4H Beach Walk

Yesterday morning we headed down to Marineland and Whitney labs (about an hour drive) to meet up with the boys 4H group for a beach walk and review for their upcoming contest in December. The boys will be heading to Orlando for their first ever competition!

It started off as a cloudy rainy day and I was a bit nervous about that for me - it has been 5 weeks since my surgery and this was the first time I drove out of town. I ended up doing well, Adeline on the other hand stepped on an oyster shell and cut her foot - poor baby.

This part of the Florida beach was new to me and it reminded me of the CT beaches with all the rocks. They had fun climbing on them looking for marine life.


The rocks had cool holes everywhere
as well as making interesting shapes! This one reminded of the Grand Canyon yet on a much smaller scale! But if you use your imagination you can pretend you in the Grand Canyon : )
This brought to mind our northern friends who got dumped on with snow last week. Instead of snow we have sea foam : )

The clouds went away and it was a pretty day. It was worth the drive and only one other family showed up plus one mom from the group.
The boys discovered many marine plants like this beach morning glory or railroad vine.
This little fish that Sage found
The Whitney Labs had a pond stock full of cool fish.
My favorite pic from the day: