Recently I have been reading about classical education and particularly Charlotte Mason’s educational philosophy. The subject is huge and I’m not posting about that tonight, but I wanted to preface the recap of our day with what I’ve been reading. My friend Jill recommended “Pocketful of Pinecones” by Karen Andreola about making Nature Notebooks, along with the book “Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons” (which is the book Jerome is currently thriving on), and she mentioned others that I made notes of when I had her over to my house to glean from her store of knowledge and experience. I am also gleaning from people like Charlene, Misty, Judy, and Mom who have all gone before me are reaching back to give me what treasures they have found. I’m so grateful to them!
We had the delightful surprise of having Peter come home early as his school campus was closed and he didn’t know it until he got there. The boys and I had already gone to the library after lessons and picked up a box of Agapanthus from Grandma as she had extra from thinning hers out. Peter helped us plant them in front of the old tree stump in our side yard. As he was digging he found what we thought at first was a tiny snake that had gotten it’s tail chopped off under the hoe, but it turns out after some research that it was a California legless lizard and it probably dropped it’s own tail. Jerome learned how to water the new plants so as to soak them and not flood them, and we’re hoping the new plants take nicely…and cover up that stump. 🙂 Jerome is also learning how to ride his bike without the training wheels, as one fell off today, and Daddy took the other off. He’ll probably get the hang of it soon, and we need to get him a bigger bike!
During dinner I shared with Peter and Jerome how I wanted to begin a Nature Notebook with him soon, and what one was. I also want to order the Handbook to Nature Study by Anna Comstock to aid us in our study. We were laughing that we might not have to even step out our door to do some nature study, and yet how grateful we are to live as though in the country here. As we were reading library books after dinner Jerome wanted to learn how to draw a snake, and then continued to draw the asparagus plant in my kitchen window quite accurately! Tomorrow he will draw the Agapanthus and we will paste it in under his snake drawing, which is really supposed to be a legless lizard!
So today, rather by accident, we began Jerome’s Nature Notebook and made his first entry!
In other news, Ian is standing up on his own more and more from a squatting position and is quite proud of himself. He positively crows when he gets up and he knows we’re watching him. Here are some pics.
