A fall chill in the air!

Today there seems to be a fall chill in the air and it definitely warrants a sweater! We're having "birthday party hangovers" today from all the excitement last night! We're expecting some friends later this evening from Traverse City so hopefully we will be in different spirits by then! I've been organizing and going over the homeschooling materials we have chosen to use this fall and am very excited about starting a fresh school year with the kids! I am very exited about all of the new things we'll be learning and the fabulous arts and crafts we have in store for us! Our base curriculum is Oak Meadow and Alec will be learning to play the pentatonic flute or soprano recorder. I may have Elysa and Nick learn alongside us, but have not decided quite yet! I am having a hard time deciding on flute or recorder! The Choroi pentatonic flute is what Waldorf classrooms worldwide use as it has a heavenly sound and no matter what note is played sounds harmonic. This sounds to be a good choice since I have no talent whatsoever in music! You can just ask little 3 yr old Nickolaus, who upon me leading a morning circle and singing the various songs looked at me and told me to "stop that noise." If we went the route of pentatonic we would switch to soprano recorder in the 3rd grade. The soprano recorder is what the Oak Meadow curriculum calls for. I have reservations about this as it is a harder instrument to learn and has more notes which could be a problem for his little fingers. Either way, we will use a wooden instrument as their is a noticeably different "feel" to it over plastic. One of his handwork projects for the fall will be to learn to knit...yes boys can knit!!....and knit a safe home for his instrument. Knitting has a lot of great qualities that have been lost in the hustle and bustle of today. It is wonderful for fine motor,mathematical concepts, and concentration. This coming Monday we will be starting a rhythm and getting into the "groove" of schedules with Ballet starting. This weekend, I will be putting together our daily rhythm and post it when I get finished so everyone can see what a day in our home looks like! Wayne and I decided not to officially start school until the first week of October as he will be taking the 8Th until the 16Th off to get some things around here done and take a little family time and a little journey somewhere. We will still be learning, but in a less conventional way. We are currently reading 'Mary On Horseback.' This is a story that takes place in the Appalachian Mountains in the 1920s. There are no doctors or hospitals so Mary Breckinridge, founds the Frontier Nursing Service to help those in need. This book is from the Sonlight program and we plan to read the core from them alongside our normal curriculum. My kids enjoy being read to and I love reading so this benefits us both!


I have started a yahoo chat group for those of you who use similar homeschool materials to us and would like to chat and garner some positive discussion about our daily rhythms and whatnot. Here is the link to join....http://groups.yahoo.com/group/holisticeclecticlearning/