In our Kitchen

Last week I posted Her Room, this week it's our kitchen.

In our small kitchen you'll find

Matt cooking (me reheating), children with messy faces, babies in pajamas all day, hand sewn wrinkled place mats,  a refrigerator with out handles (to keep babies at bay), hand thrown pottery, paintings from children and friends, bowls of fruit, flowers, wedding gifts, family antiques, traditions, collections, candy bowl, inside jokes,

and noise until the sun goes down.

A solar celebration

 

 Sunday May 19th we set out to enjoy the solar eclipse.  We had a few different plans throughout the day that just weren't working out.  We decided to go out, even without a functioning set up.  We wanted to be there to celebrate the change. 

My family was very fortunate to meet a man (a physicist from here)  and his son at the park who were also there to witness the eclipse.  He had spent his afternoon building this amazing set up from backyard scraps.

The light from the sun travels through the hole, and an attached binocular, then reflects the sun's light and shape onto the back board.  So so perfect.

As the moon and sun made their way across the sky my family spent time flying the kite, exploring the park, and enjoying the rapidly changing light.
 

A moment of full disclosure:  I edit about 98% of the photos that I put on the blog.  Usually I crop, and often I adjust the light some.  I chose to keep this set of pictures pure of edit.  This is just as they came out of my camera.  Aside from the photo at the very top the rest should be in order of time.  The time stamp ended up wonky, so I had to just judge based on the sunlight.

I took quite a few (44) pictures of the reflected sun light on Dr. Immel's contraption.  These five below show the dramatic changes starting about 20ish minutes after the eclipse started.  They have been edited for contrast, and cropped for size.

 What a blessed day.

Gratitude Monday

Here's what I'm loving today... 

~Solar Eclipse!

~ Settling into our new home
(getting new shelves to finish the job)

~Weekend explorations..
(A trip to the USGS open house!)

~ Rethinking next year's homeshool

(again)

~getting caught up with this years homeschool..

~Making connections with the local Waldorf school

~Nature Rainbow Scavenger Hunts...

~Corn on the cob, wild rice, and barbeque salmon...

~A baby who's shoe obsessed...

~A boy who makes things with tape and paper...

~A girl who takes tender care of her family...

~A partner who's thoughtful.

Weekly Wrap Up #27

This week in first grade we...

 May 13- May 18

This is the 9th week of our 9 weeks of

 "throw everything out the window, accomplish what must be done"

 era of first grade.

(every thing we must accomplish = math, spelling, and phonics) 

This week was all about review.  It's been a few weeks since we've done any school work, and I wanted to have a gentle transition back into our rhythm.
 I had Ava write a few sentences about our move for us to proof read together.  We went over previous math lessons including the warm ups, and games.  This week's 'schedule'  had us skipping phonics, and reviewing spelling, so that worked perfectly.  We read together everyday, and I read some poetry to her.  With all that, I really didn't take any pictures of 'school'.  whoopsie.

This week has me thinking a lot about 'schedules'.  I think I'd like to shift away from long stretches of work, coupled with long breaks through out the year and move towards shorter stretches of work and many small breaks.  Along with that I would also like to add a Charlotte Mason influence to the pacing of our day.  I'd like to make sure we end a lesson before she gets tired of it.  I want to try to stop 'pushing' through things.  (the lesson, the hour, the month)  I think that this will change her perspective of 'school' for the better.

I'm pretty excited.  I love homeschool.

One Moment

Backyard Adventures

In these past few weeks my children have discovered something very important.

 They can still fill their days having adventures in their own backyard.

~Naming known plants...
~Planning future gardens...
~Picking strawberries...
 ~Washing aphids off a table, while a Knight watches on...

 ~Making up names for unknown plants...
~Stacking bricks, and rocks so you can knock them down...
~Feeding birds...
 ~Hunting and gathering dinosaurs...

~Making a playground out of patio furniture...
~Snacking on mint...
~Running and jumping and yelling.  Just because...
~Making fairy homes out of sticks...

 ~Dancing in the sprinkler...
~Having picnicss...
~Potting plants...
 ~Building space shuttles, race cars, bridges, rockets, anything he can think of...

~Hiding marbles...
~Painting, coloring, drawing...
~Picking flowers..
 ~Discovering snails...

  

~Making snail homes....
~Finding out that twilight, plus daylight savings time equals staying up later...
~Playing 'one person' baseball..
~Playing 'rock baseball' in his 'pajamies'...

What will they come up with today?

Her Room

 

With Monday's post I mentioned my gratitude for Ava to have her own room.  It's something that she's wanted for a while now, and it became something that Matt and I wanted for her.  A special place to call her own, a place for her treasures.  This is a little bit of what makes her space so 'her'.

When little things are Big

 

We have lots of beautiful flowers growing in the front and back yard of our home.  For this I thank the previous tenants, and the gardener.  I don't have any experience with bay area 'seasons'.  I'm not sure what to expect, or even when I should expect things to change.  Learning the rhythm of this new place is something I'm very excited about.  For today we have flowers, and flowers, and flowers.  We Love It.

 

One of our first nights here I gave my two bigger kids a little brown bottle to place in the window sill of their bedrooms.   A little arrangement to build as they please.

 It's a small thing.  It's such a big thing.

Gratitude Monday...

It's been one month since I last checked in.  

We are now 

(mostly) 

settled into our home in the 

San Fransisco Bay area.  

I am so very very grateful.  

Here's a little bit of what have have to celebrate.

~We are 21 miles from The Wharf

~ We are less than 50 miles from Half Moon Bay

~ We are about a mile away from the San Pablo Reservoir

 

~We have calla lilies, roses, jasmine, lavender and lemon trees in our yard that make my whole house smell like spring time in a botanical garden

~Fresh seafood

~Flying kites

 ~Wildflowers like Crazy.  They are in every color, and in every spare place of land.

 

~Snails, earthworms, and slugs.  (seriously, my kids are THRILLED)

 

~Seashells, and a new growing collection of sea glass

 

~She finally has her own room

 

~My children are in my backyard picking strawberries right now.

 What more could I ask for?

I'm going to try to get back to this blog regularly.  

Try.

Here's to a brand new week full of possibilities.