Sweetness and Light

In Which We Keep Kindergarten Interesting

 
Sean-Paul is one of my most interesting children. Not that the others aren't interesting, they are, immensely, all in their different ways. But this little guy (yes he's still little in my book) finds ways to amaze and perplex me in ways that my other children never have. He is my fourth (and likely final) Kindergartner. Yes, it's a sad realization, but also a liberating one in terms of the nitty gritty. As in, I do not have to worry much anymore about a little one putting the pre-schooler's work into his mouth, and the like. But this particular Kindergarten year with this particular little person has been very different than any other Kindergarten year that I have experienced. Not in a bad way, not in the least. A challenging way however, as he is not as easily pleased with the materials I used with the other children. I am having to become more creative in how I present learning activities, which on good days is fun and things work out fine, on days that I am unprepared however, I fall short miserably. Alas, the learning curve that God has set pour moi, is ever changing and high, as it should be :)

 Our Kindergarten year has been ripe with many new endeavors and some familiar and repetitive ones; the secret weapons that I used time and again with my past three Kindergarten graduates. So yes, there is a light at the end of the Kindergarten tunnel, and yes I know my child will be happy and ready to move on to 1st grade no matter his learning style.

 
Kindergarten doesn't come in a box, it comes with the love and attention you spend with your little person learning about a few special things. Charlotte Mason tends to be the backbone of our preferred learning style, but our Montessori  materials also hold a very special place in the Kindergarten learning room. That being said, sometimes, just a really good read aloud and some letter recognition games may be all we accomplish in a day, or a week, depending on stuff...LIFE.

 
Truly, the best of our days are when I let go of the impulse to drive my K-er forward too fast. When we slow down and do things deliberately with a relaxed atmosphere, it's much more of a win-win. Thus our equation is Happy Kindergartner = Happy Mama!

Sean-Paul is a one-of-a-kind boy surely destined for great things in his life. I am just happy to be along for the ride wherever it may take us :)

A few of the things we are enjoying right now ~

ABC Zoo Animal Bingo Board Game 

UNO (we have the Cars version)

Skip Counting

Addition & Subtraction Work

Chess & Checkers

Connect Four

Outdoor playtime ~ basketball, playing catch, tag, hide & seek, rollerblading, scootering, bike riding....

Allrighty, I'm off to play another round of Uno, how has your Kindergarten year been going?? Love to hear what 'good things' are working for your little people :)

Many blessings in your day, thanks for visiting.

The Look of Wonder

In honor of Sean-Paul's 3rd birthday this Sunday, I thought it fitting to re-post this delightful and captivating moment I shared from his early years.  It's hard to believe that he's already three and that we seem to be crossing the threshold away from baby-hood, but he is becoming such a creative and imaginative little boy, not to mention the fact that he is a treasure and is gracing our lives with more than we can imagine as a little child of God.  May God bless many more of your days and Happiest Birthday wishes to you sweet boy, we love you more than words can say!!  St. Gabriel the Messenger, Pray for Us!

From July 2006: 

We had the pleasure of going to the butterfly exhibit with Daddy the other day, and this precious picture was taken as a butterfly landed on Sean-Paul's hat while simultaneously one had landed on a nearby bush and he was mesmerized by it, as well as the hundreds that were fluttering everywhere!!

He is now 15 months old and I'm so yearning for another pregnancy. Not because my baby is growing up fast as he is still such a wee one. Mainly because I'd like so much to give him the gift of being a big brother. This post is not about having babies, however, it's about that special look of wonder that just melts my heart whenever it comes across my little one's face!

It's like a little snapshot into his soul and how there's something so revealing of his wonder and glory of being part of God's creation.

It's a blessed moment in a mother's life as well to be able to catch these awe inspired gazes on film! For me it can be such a sweet moment of realizing how much love I have for each one of my children to see themselves in such a state of awe, and a true window into the human pshyche. (Don't worry, I won't go Freud on you here, I just think it's pretty darn sweet!)

With four children it can be tricky sometimes to slow down enough to capture these awe-filled moments and to ponder at each child when they are studying something so carefully.

I revel when I can see that they will pause in wonderment at even the simplest things, for in nature nothing really is simple, as it is from God Himself.

I am not fortunate to catch all these "moments" on film, even with the digital age of technology we are in right now, but my heart is locking them all away, for another day.

That precious look of wonder must be what Our Blessed Mother pondered in her heart on the day her Son was born and so many moments throughout his earthly life.

I hope you are able to find some moments in your day to capture those looks of wonder in your precious children and to celebrate their uniqueness and pleasure in our Creator and His Creation.

MayGod bless you in your day!

Talk About Sweetness

Yes, a picture is definately worth a thousand words!!!  Have a wonderful Monday!

Too Cute!!

...and this is what happens when littlest brother plays dress-up with his big sister...

That was the scary tiger....next...Yes, he would have made a lovely girl, ahem...

...an Olympic Medalist???

...little bunny foo-foo?

...and last but not least, and surely one of the cutest...A Knight in shining black and gold, or is he a Matador perhaps??!

Have a blessed and fun weekend!! See you next week sometime!!  I'm so glad you stopped by today.

Sunday Afternoon Nature Walk: Sean-Paul Style

Sean-Paul and I found ourselves unexpectantly alone Sunday afternoon as the older two boys went with their sweet daddy on an impromptu bike ride and Violet decided to stay in and catch up on reading the umpteen books she's got stacked next to her bed. As it was a deliciously beautiful Autumn afternoon, we two donned our boots and jackets for a casual Nature Walk around our property. 

Let me preface this by saying that our acreage is landscaped *near* the house and the remainder is a very unkempt and not too recently cut alfalfa field.  We also have two irrigation ponds on particular corners of the property that are mostly dry, but we found it necessary to peek into them and dicipher whether they were worthy of our time :) Sean-Paul pronounced them, "Kinda yucky mommy."  So we didn't give them another thought!

Our sweet boy looking at God's splendor!

This is Sorel, very prolific in our area!

   

As we walked the full length of the property we had to stop at each wheel on the line so I could take Sean-Pauls picture.  I have about 20 of these adorable shots :-)

A chance sighting of Tansy, turns out we have quite a bit of this delightful flower right outside our doorstep!

We took a chance and ventured across the road parallel with the wheel line to investigate the newly plowed field just south of us.  We recently watched the tractor do his work at churning up the earth to get ready for Winter.  There is also a lively herd of Antelope that live in this field and we watch their antics daily, but they were just far enough away that I couldn't get a clear photo of them, next time I hope, they are truly beautiful!  Here Sean-Paul had to put his finger in the deep ruts the tractor had made, and he immediately said, "Oh, I got some dirt on."

Here is  the little discoverer with the full-length of the neighboring field behind him!

And to our joy and (not) surprise, as we ventured back to the Eastern side of our house we rejoiced at the numerous Michelmas Daisies that were blooming for us!!  They are only a week late, but I'm pretty sure they were just waiting for us to discover them on this fine day out, thank you Saint Michael the Archangel!

To close I'd like to share the beautiful Song of the Tansy Fairy from Cicely Mary Barker's enchanting Complete Book of Flower Fairies, this has been a favorite of ours for quite a while now...

In busy kitchens, in olden days,
Tansy was used in a score of ways;
Chopped and pounded,
when cooks would make
Tansy puddings and tansy cake,
Tansy posset, or tansy tea;
Physic or flavouring tansy'd be.
People who know
Have told me so!

That is my tale of the past; today,
Still I'm here by the King's Highway, Where the air from the fields
is fresh and sweet,
With my fine-cut leaves and my flowers neat.
Were ever such button-like flowers seen--
Yellow, for elfin coats of green?
Three in a row--
I stitch them so!

Many Blessings for your nature days ahead with your dear children!!

Practical Learning Galore!!

This little Basket inspired this Folding Presentation by Violet to Sean-Paul:

He LOVED it!!  Here is the rest:

And the finale, folded beautifully!!  Yeah, Sean-Paul!

And now for some other Practical Life activities of the day:

Care of a Pet, the family dog Sadie having some fun with Matthias!

And a little Table Washing Activity, outside, as the weather was gorgeous and plenty HOT!!

A little more help from Sissy :)

It turned out to be a very Practical Life kind of day!!  Tomorrow I'll post our Sensorial Work, but this one is LONG enough!!  Many blessings in your day!

In A Word...

Contemplation.

Howdy Partner, There's a New Sheriff In Town Today!

Seamus bought himself a new "Sheriff's" set-up yesterday with his *own* money he'd earned weeding the Mary Garden.  He was so excited to find it at an afforable price and still have money left over!!  He looks pretty tough wouldn't you say ;)

Thanks for stopping in for a little Sweetness and Light today!

"Touch-And-Feel Mary"

I just had to post this picture of our "touch and feel" Mary.  Violet made this for Sean-Paul for Christmas and he is very fond of her and kisses and blesses her every night before bed.  We thought she was perfect for our altar for the little boys.  We're also planning on adding a felt stuffed Good Shepherd to the basket below as well! 

Making these felt figures is a great handiwork project for older kids to make for their siblings!!  Farm Animals, Forest Friends, Easter or Nativity Figures all come to mind!!!  Enjoy!

Blessings in you day!

Happy Birthday Sean-Paul, You're TWO Today!! Hip-Hooray!

How did THIS, go to THIS so FAST???

Please join me in wishing our little Sean-Paul a happy 2nd Birthday today!!!  He gets sweeter by the day and we couldn't have asked for a more joyful boy than you!!!  We love you more than anything sweetie, Happiest Birthday wishes on this very special day!!!

St. Gabriel the Archangel pray for us!!  John Paul the Great, pray for us!

Toddler Carnival Upcoming

Announcing the Carnival of Toddlers here at Sweetness and Light!!  With all the wonderful feedback and encouragement from my Toddler post, I concluded that MANY of us could benefit from a Carnival dedicated to some of the smaller ones in the crowd out there. 

So without further ado...we will be hosting the Carnival in honor of my little Sean-Paul's 2nd Birthday on Friday, April 20th!!  If you have a submission rumbling around in your head, get it into a post and send it my way!  I can accept them through Thursday evening the 19th of April by 6:00-ish Eastern time.  If you have ideas but are not blogging, email it to me and I'll put it together for ya'll!

Thanks for considering this for the younger set, anything that is working for you:  games, Montessori, books, music, babysitters (LOL) we're looking for what's your fancy and that has to do with Toddlers and their little lives!

Blessings in advance for your efforts and I look forward to seeing your posts!

For Those of You Who Have A Toddler(s)...

....I'm looking for some ideas and suggestions on how to keep my dear little guy happy throughout the day while his older siblings are "doing their thing" and not able to occupy his every desire. 

Also, I'd love some thoughts for me on how to have a little more peaceful discourse with him (as in: "Not having to say "NO" to him every time I turn around and he's getting into something!")  I would really like to learn how to turn down the frustration meter during this very sweet and valuable learning time for him in his toddlerhood!

So in essence, this is a little Toddler SOS!!  I'm thinking of compiling a Toddler Time Carnival if there is interest and desire to offer suggestions!!  I know I sure need them!!

Please leave me some comments about what's working for you right now with your little people (or person) and what helps you in your day when working with any other children you have to keep the toddler happy and developing as a whole person, not just another task to be handled!

Blessings for all your suggestions and ideas, they will be of great importance for this Mommy-of-a-Toddler-Who-Is-Almost-2!!!

Looking forward to hearing from YOU!!!

Words For the Week

Lest I leave my last post up any longer, I think I have recovered from the trauma of Sean-Pauls injury, be that as it may, I know he's certainly moved on!  His words for the week since his little incident has been, "No touchie, bandaid."  Isn't that just too sweet, poor little lamb.  Anyhoo, he's mending just beautifully and here's a scene from a day or so ago to put it all into perscpetive, as in 'they really do bounce right back don't they!'

This brings me full circle to the Question of the Week?

Gee, I wonder how long that fence will hold him back???

Praise God for continued good recovery of his little nogin, thanks for visiting and I'll be back on track here momentarily!!  Blessings in your day!

How Didst Thou Spend the Afternoon...Let Me Count The Stitches!!!

Excerted from My Learning Notes from yesterday:

....Right After Teatime, Sean-Paul took a horrendous header into the corner of the coffee table and split his forehead open.  We immediately rushed him to the DR (daddy met us there) and he now has 4 stitches in his sweet little head.  Rest of the day was a blur, oh, we all watched The Big Six video and had popcorn, it was great.  Then somehow I managed dinner for the kids while dh did some late business with a client and then he and I had a yummy Greek Salad and Crusty Bread for dinner.  Oh what a day....

This precious little forehead will never be the same...Please say a little prayer for Sean-Paul to heal up properly.  Thanks for stopping by today, Blessings!

Look What I Built, All By Myself!!

Sean-Paul has finally figured out how to buld with the Duplo's and while we were all busy doing "our" thing, he built this magnificant tower, with no help from anyone!! 

Yeah for Sean-Paul, he's getting to be such a big boy, all 21 months of him!!

Please say a prayer for him on this feast of the Conversion of St. Paul!!

Thanks for visiting and May God Bless you in your day, St. Paul the Apostle, Pray for us!!

My Littlest Learner!

My littlest learner is NOT a baby anymore.  Baby Sean-Paul as we have so lovingly called him is definately a full fledged Toddler!!  My heart yearns for that littlest baby stage, but he has entered this new toddler-hood with abandon!  I should have seen it coming way back when at 10 months he was cruising and climbing the furniture.  Well, nostalgia aside, here we go into the delighful world of a Montessori toddler!  He wants to do EVERYTHING his siblings are doing, and repeat it over and over.  I truly love this stage of early childhood development even if I'm tearing my hair out at the same time trying to keep him safe and me sane!  Some of the things he likes to do are pictured here, and many thanks to Kim at Starry Sky Ranch and Rebecca from A Gypsy Caravan for letting me peek into their Montessori worlds with their littlest learners!

Playdough and Soft clays have become a new thrill for him, now that he can almost resist eating it!  We have to monitor him, but most of the time he just likes to hold it and hammer it!

Here is the Little Artiste at play with his big sister, and yes, the costume was definately her idea, but he loved it just the same!!

Here he is doing one of his favorite activities, these are his "Beews"  as he so lovingly calls, them.  He can only do them in my presence as he really likes to put these little guys in his mouth!!!  (When does it end?)  But who could resist these cute little bears anyway!

He very carefully places them into a "Hershey's Cocoa" container with a nice bear sized hole cut out of the top lid.

He had two in his hand so here goes the second one.

And of course, the bears are regularly dumped and the work continues...Isn't that just the most precious little pincer grasp ever!!  He'll repeat this for a couple of times, and then we move on!

This is another of his favorite activities is sneaking up to the piano and playing his music after his big brother Matthias has had his practice.  I think we have another musician in the making, won't that be awesome!!

Thanks for stopping in today and as always, God's Blessings to you and yours, especially those littlest learners!  +JMJ+

The Little Einstein

Guess who was excited to see biggest brother's Musical Science Experiment deserted so he could have a go at it....

I was in another room and heard that disctinctive clinging-on-glass sound, just the Little Einstien busy at work!  Have a glorious day with your wee ones!!

My Montessori Boys At Work

Here are some fun pictures of my Montessori boys doing their work:

Seamus loves working with tongs!  Here he is doing some transferring with tweezers and beads and sugar tongs!  And here is baby brother...

Sean-Paul was so excited to use the mini-scoop, he loved doing what big brother was doing, even if his medium was cheerios!!

Our Learning Space(s)

We, believing that the normal child has powers of mind which fit him to deal with all knowledge proper to him, give him a full and generous curriculum, taking care only that all knowledge offered to him is vital, that is, that facts are not presented without their informing ideas.  Out of this conception comes our principle that :--

"Education is the Science of Relations"...  (Charlotte Mason, A Philospophy of Education)

One of the lovelist things about home education is just that, that I get to be home with my dear children and learn along with them.  It's such a joy to be the one to hear of their first discoveries of any given subject or at their enthusiasm at learning a new thing.

Our Learning Room is a room that was used as a guest room on the main level of our rental house and is right down the hall from the kitchen, so for me seemed the logical place for us to gather for table time.  In the past we've had our learning space closer to the children's bedrooms, and also at the kitchen table, but in this new place we've settled on the guest room!  Upon entering the room, the focal point on the adjacent wall is our Marian Shelf/Mini-Altar that we just completed and installed on Our First Day! 

Learning Room Mini-Altar/Marian Shelf:

I also put up our 2007 Liturgical Wheel Calender which won't begin until Advent, but I love the look of it and it helps to remind us of our faithful living of the liturgical year everyday of the year.  We also have a Monet wall calender that we use for picture study off and on.  I also just put up our World map and map of the United States.

We chose to go with a table and 4 chairs set up with a bench as well.  We've tried separate desks, but they seemed a little too distant and as our Learning Room is on the smaller side the chidlren seem to work better with me being able to "float" the room.  It is necessary for me to be on the floor Playing or in the reading chair with the little boys, so I am still accessible for the older two at the table.

So here are some pictures to give you a sneak peek into our school:

Reading Corner:

Little Ones Reading Corner - Board Books:

Music Center:

Math Work:

Puzzles & Sensory Work:

Small Motor Skills Work:

(Notice the missing "peg" I've had this since Violet was 4 mo.s old, so we're hoping it turns up!)

My Learning Space Shelves:

This closet goes all the way under the stairs and is directly across from the Learning Room so I am trying to move stored items towards the back and most of our Arts & Crafts items and all of my home school books are kept in here.  My dear husband was a peach and installed extra shelving all the way across the back for dual purposes!

Lacing Beads:

Varied Play - Rice Box:

Many different things go in and out of this!  Usually little trucks and tractors, but also small pitchers and cups of different sizes for pouring and transferring!!  The tube in the corner at present is a "grain silo"!

I haven't as yet been able to set up any permanent low shelves with Montessori trays as our littlest guy would just dump them all. 

Learning Room Closet:

I do have more shelf space in this closet where I have the older kids things up high and play things down low and on the floor.

When the weather is good (and not too hot) we love to take our Learning outside, especially for read alouds, or working on nature notebooks!!

So here's a look at the many items and places we like to learn with in our home.  I hope maybe some of them will inspire you in your Learning Spaces.  I'm not sure whether they are elegant, but they are simple and to me that's the lovelist thing of ALL! 

Thanks for visiting and my God Bless you in your day!

This One is For The Scrapbook For Sure!!

Now wouldn't this make any Daddy proud???  Notice he's clutching the remote as he drifted off to sleep by himself in the crib.  Hey whatever works, right!!!