Our Daily Learning

 

Here's a peek at what my days have been looking like this past week. Clay has been off for the past 9 days & he & Michael have been doing ALOT of hunting! And while they are out in the woods, Alli & I have been enjoying our quiet, lazy afternoons. She has been on a Harry Potter kick here lately. She wanted to start at the beginning & see if we could watch one movie each afternoon while they hunted. So, that's what we've been doing.

Frederick is becoming quite accustomed to being INDOORS. He thoroughly enjoys his snuggle time in the afternoons with us girls.

Granted, we DO get a bit of 'book' learning in here & there. I was just musing the other day over how things have gradually changed/evolved in our home learning. I used to try & get everything done in the morning hours....before lunch. If it didn't get done before lunch, then it most likely rolled over to the next day because we 'played' in the afternoons. The kids would be outside or doing whatever & I could be found at my scrap table working on Design Team projects & what-not. But now....we don't even think of cracking a book til later in the afternoon or into the evening now. Especially when it's prime hunting time & Clay is off. He & Michael are up & out in the woods before daylight. Come home to grab a quick bite of lunch & then head back again until dark. And that's all ok. That's the beauty of learning at home. We can roll with the seasons.

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Some of Michael's learning over this past week has included cooking. One morning, Clay was in the kitchen cutting up some of their recently harvested deer meat & decided they'd fry up a bit to go with some eggs for their brunch. So, while he cut on the meat, he put Michael over at the stove & taught him how to cook the meat. I stayed out of the way & just kind of quietly listened from the other room. Thinking to myself what a great learning experience between father & son.

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Last night, Michael came to me asking for his math to do & since I was talking to someone online, he grabbed his telescope & headed outside to check out the stars & planets, etc. while he waited on me. Instant science. Then, when he came back inside, he got off doing another project with Clay (never got to the math last night, by the way, but again.....that's ok). They were going to make deer jerky with one of their hams & so Michael's job was to cut all the meat off the bone while I mixed up the brine to marinate the meat in. He got so tickled once he got all the meat off the bone....because he was showing me how the joint was still intact & hinging. He said it was like it was 'spring-loaded'. What a great example of Biology! Who knew late-night learning could be so much fun?!

A little arts & crafts going on here. I couldn't help myself after Ella told me about their coloring book time around the table. We now have a stack of Christmas coloring books sitting on our table along with the crayons. What fun! In the above photo, you can also see one of my hooky projects that I NEED to finish up. Notice I said ONE of my many hooky projects. That's a little cowl that's meant to be a Christmas gift.

Remember back to the beginning of this post when I said Alli was on a Harry Potter kick. Clay & I came home from a date night last week & she showed me this awesome wand she had made. When I asked how she did it, she proceeded to tell me that she had found these little wooden craft spools in my supplies & an old paint brush & just went from there. She hot-glued the spools together. Broke the brush part off the end of the old paint brush & glued it down into the spool handle. Then came the fun part of painting/decorating her wand. On the far left, you can see the first one she made. Then she got fancier/more intricate in her detailing the more she made. My very favorite is the one in the middle. She used hot glue to give the texture & then painted/inked over it to give it the aged look.

I tell ya....she could do props, make-up for the theater or something. That girl's got talent!

She even went online & found these cool labels to print out & put on her wand boxes. And Yes...she's making her very own wand boxes complete with the Ollivanders label & wand number.

One of her wands along with the scarf that I made for her a few years ago.

And, here she is sporting her new 'Sly Fox' hat that I crochetd for her. I wanted to do it as a surprise for Christmas, but the pattern I had was for a child with edits at the end to make it fit a larger head....& I just wanted to make sure it fit. So, I had her try it on at different stages as I went along. Really pleased with how it turned out & I'm glad she likes it!! So funny.....she put it on & got down on all fours & scared the living daylights out of Charlie. It was SO funny! He still doesn't like it when she wears her hat. LOL!