My latest chalkboard drawing depicts our two little ones flying a kite
Greetings! The calendar says it's supposed to be Spring now, but we still have plenty of snow on the ground outside!
By the time I managed to run to get my camera, this herd of deer in our back yard had dwindled down from about 15 deer to this small group of five or so. The rest bounded off into the woods when they saw me observing them through our sliding glass door.
We went to a Lego Village Building event last weekend put on by Habitat for Humanity.
We had an absolute blast!
After such a long and busy day.....
So, so, so precious!
In other news, homeschooling has been going very well in our home. We've been working our way deeper into The Seven Year Old Wonder Book, as well as adding double-digit numbers and skip counting by 2's and 3's. We've been gearing up for Easter/Ostara by painting some wooden eggs and creating other egg-related crafts. For science, we have been studying frogs as well as watching the new Cosmos series on Hulu together (we always love studying about the universe!).
My son still does his weekly spelling words along with read-aloud stories with me. We do circle time as often as possible during the week and we try to get outside every day to play.
I know that our family is probably some sort of weird exception, however I very, VERY rarely ever get any kind of protest from my son to do his homeschooling. He may try to negotiate for more play time here and there, but he typically is not difficult to coax back to the table to finish his work. Of course, since we do still have some screen time on the weekends, he is highly motivated to do his lesson work since he knows that I will subtract from his screen time on the weekend if he doesn't come "willingly, quickly, and joyfully". I realize that screen time is a touchy subject with some. We have whittled it down as low as we feel comfortable with at this point, but yes we do still have some screen time in our home on weekends.
We do put a great focus on play time, circle time, lesson time, baking time, craft time, outside time and meal time. We are trying to find a balance that works for our family. If at any point we feel that screen time takes away from any other activity or becomes too long in duration, we do quickly intervene.
It is still a work-in-progress in our home right now. I sometimes find myself defending the fact that we have some screen time in our week, but then I meet other Waldorf-inspired families who also quietly admit that they have a few hours of screen time each week as well, and that their family is also happy with that arrangement.
I think one has to look within and try to find a balance that makes them and their families happy.
I can't beat myself up over the fact that we may do things differently than other families regarding the inclusion of some media amongst our weekend activities. We're doing our best over here. This has been a big change in our family over the past year or two to incorporate Waldorf principles into our home. We've come a long way, and we are still learning and growing. I love the direction our family has been moving in, and I prefer to focus on our successes rather than beat myself for areas that are still evolving.
May you have a wonderful weekend, full of your own evolutions
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