Sonlight Garden

Random Thoughts

There are a lot of things going on here. Busy, busy, busy!! 

DH is away on business. We are on day THREE. There is a light at the end of the tunnel though, he will be home tonight!!

We have had a very relaxed week of schooling because our property has turned into a major construction site. We have the "tree guys" here, clearing trees in our pastures, (today will be day FIVE of that) and they are still not done. It is killing me to remove so many trees, but they (the trees) are preventing the grass from growing. We need the grass for our "grass based" farming. There are so many trees on this property, so thankfully there will be plenty left. We are going to plant more in the "yard" area of our property in the near future.

We are building a barn. With that comes the "site guy" with 8 loads of fill, dump truck size, and a bobcat to spread it all out. The "lumber guy" with his semi-truck of supplies. And last but not least the "barn building guys" they will probably be here for about four weeks. Besides the barn we are also building a milking station. It will be nice once I start milking the cows again.

All of this activity is very distracting to homeschooled children who want to be outside watching all of this. I am sure there are things that they can learn. Maybe we can "age"some of the trees by counting the rings on the trunk. I wonder if the "barn guy" will go over the building plans with us. How do you go from a drawing on paper to an actual structure? hmmmm....

I would love to be taking pictures of all of this, but I cannot find my memory card for my camera anywhere. GRRRR!!! I am hoping that after I tackle my room I will find it somewhere.

On a brighter note, my laundry is caught up. After doing mountains of laundry this past week and donating 5 garbage bags full of clothes I am hoping things will be more manageable in this area. We just had to many clothes. I think I can even purge some more.

I hope to do some planning tomorrow for the upcoming week. We are starting our Indian and pioneer studies. We did finish our Africa study. I would love to post pictures.... but did I mention I can not find my memory card for my camera!!

Have a wonderful weekend!

A Week in Review

Now that we have finished our first week of project based learning, I can't help but review how the week went. Overall I feel that this style will definitely work for us. They enjoyed the projects, we had time for our read alouds, they loved completing a project and moving on to the next "station".

These are the things I feel that we need to "tweak"-

What to do with the little ones- I need to find more activities for them to do during school time, something to keep them from driving us crazy occupied. They were climbing on the tables and wanted to be involved in the projects. hmmmm.....

I have to constantly keep myself in check. I get sooo wrapped up in checking off the boxes and moving on to the next thing. I need to relax and let them take the time to create and ponder their new discoveries. For example, making our dioramas I had Joe and Julia research on line about the different animals found at an African savanna watering hole and write down one or two things.(Again, my agenda "lets get it done so we can move on to the next thing")  Well Joseph was taking a long time with this. He wanted to read more and learn more about each of these animals. FABULOUS. He really took the time and he really learned a lot yesterday. So we didn't get the salt dough maps done or Our Lady of Africa page done (I really wanted to wrap Africa up in a week, but we will continue into next week) They were doing real research and enjoying it and enjoying writing about it.

I need to be more organized in the area of having all of the materials ready to go for our projects. It is frustrating not having everything on hand and having to search for things at the last minute. I need to start now with our next area of interest which will be Indians and pioneers and that time period. I am very excited about this "unit" of study. We will take  our time studying this, there are so many great books to read and projects that we can do.

Overall, I think it was a great first week. I think it will only get better!

First things first

I read this in the May 2007 edition of Catholic Digest and it made me smile.

Put "eat chocolate" at the top of your list of things to do today. That way, at least you'll get one thing done.  -unknown

Well on our list of "things to do" we are going to make our savanna watering hole dioramas. The children said they wanted to do this today. I will be assisting them with this as this is the first time we have done these.

And if there is time we will finish up our salt dough maps on Africa's ecosystems. I found this great website for the different regions of Africa.

Have a great Friday!!

A New Beginning

This time of year, when many homeschool moms are trying to wrap up their school year, we are embarking on a new journey, a new way of learning. I have been doing a lot of thinking and evaluating at how we do things around here as far as our learning goes. I pondered the following question. Do my children find joy in their learning? The awnser was NO, not really. Now don't get the wrong idea, it has not been all drudgery around here, but it is lacking PASSION! I know I get so wrapped up in the process of learning that I forget about the passion that can be found in learning something new. Homeschoolers have the unique opportunity to allow their children to be passionate about their education, to really own it and make it a part of themselves. This is our new journey.

Every year the man in the brown truck drops off boxes and boxes of workbooks. This is how I measured our success, by how many pages we have completed each day. Were the children passionate about this? NO. How could they be. Now I am not saying workbooks are all bad. They have their place, as is mentioned here by Elizabeth Foss. But to do this everyday, Well for us, it is just not working any more. We need to do something new.

As I browse the world wide web and visit wonderful homeschooling blogs such as this one and this one. I realize there is something better out their. After visiting their blogs and peeking in on their "schools" I I noticed that not only do their children seem to be excited about their learning, but the moms are also. You can feel the love they have for learning and discovering something new. 

In particular, I am drawn to Theresa over at Lapaz Farm Home Learning. She posted about this and this (project based learning) and I was hooked. I have never seen anything like this before. I have been picking Theresa's brain about how she does things and she has been gracious enough to help me out. I can't say enough about her. Her children are Blessed to have such a creative mom!

So this is our new adventure. We are going to be more project based. My wonderful husband and I overhauled the learning room to make learning stations. (I will post pictures later, so you can see the final product) I am very excited and so are the children. I believe this new environment will be especially great for my 9 year old son. He is a very hands on kind of kid. (The poor thing with all of those workbooks!!) And this style of learning is very hands on.

So this week we are off to Africa. Our week will be filled with salt dough maps, dioramas, web cams of watering holes, and great books. Why Africa? I am following the children's lead I asked them what they were interested in learning about and some of the things on their BIG list were wilder beasts (9 yr old saw a special on Animal Planet about them) and lions and giraffes.

So here we go on our new journey!

9 Year Old Wisdom

The other day we were driving home from a day full of errands. It was dusk and the sun was setting. To get to our home from town we have to drive over a bridge that is over one of the many, many lakes in our area. God treated us to one of the most absolutely beautiful sunsets we have ever seen. The sun was a HUGE pinkish, red circle, incredible!

My 9 year old son Joseph says "Mom, you know when you see the sun so beautiful, and beautiful butterflies and beautiful things in nature... That's how you know God is beautiful.

Wow! So simple, but so profound. The wisdom of children never ceases to amaze me.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

What do you get when you have 5 children, a plot of dirt, packs of seeds, and shovels? The craziest most mixed up garden ever! There were seeds flying everywhere.

I would get one child started with their pack of seeds and their designated row ready to go and I would turn around only to find my 2 year old and (newly turned) 4 year old with opened packets of seeds falling to the earth. (And not in their designated row, I might add).  "Mommy, can I pwant these?"

AAAHHHH!!!!

After the nicely spaced out rows were being stepped all over, I gave up on my vision of my nice organized garden. I just stepped back and let them get their hands dirty. So now, I have no idea where anything is. I don't know if the seeds were planted deep enough.  I don't know if the seeds were spaced properly. I just don't know.

But I do know they had fun. I know I will never forget my sweet daughters face with dirt all over it. I know I will never forget my sons great look of accomplishment after emptying his pack of seeds in his "row". I know I will never forget two sisters working together to plant a row of beets. I know I will never forget a big brother helping his little sister get those teeny tiny carrot seeds out of her pudgy little hands.

This is what it is really all about, right? These everyday moments that become so special when we step back and really take it all in.

So, how does your garden grow? My garden grows with love.

Prayers Please

To my blog friends, I have a favor to ask. If you could please take a moment and pray for my dear mom. My mom has been diagnosed with cancer again for the third time. This time it is the breast cancer that has spread to her abdominal area. She starts chemo tomorrow and we are praying that this helps her. She is suffering so much right now with constant terrible headaches and weakness. She used to attend daily mass and can't any more at this time. She loves Our Dear Lord and has a special devotion to St. Therese. Thank you.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day

Happy Saint Patrick's day from our home to yours!! I am off to start corned beef and cabbage.

And a happy feast day to our Patrick. (who has no clue what his shirt says) Of course the Irish girls the shirt is referring to would be his four beautiful fair Irish sisters! The cutest Irish lad I have ever seen.

One of the Reasons-part 2

Just this past week I had another reason to be thankful for homeschooling. My son Joseph went in for bilateral hydrocele surgery. It was an outpatient procedure. He did well. The Dr. prescribed some bed rest for a couple of days. So needless to say, no school for a couple of days. My patient was tucked in to mommy and daddy's bed and allowed to watch TV (this is a really big treat in our house) and I was at his service. Well the next day after Julia had finished her lessons and chores she climbs in bed next to her brother to keep him company. (Yes I know, you are thinking she just wanted to lay around and watch TV like her brother.) I thought so to at first, but no, she was there to take care of him.

"Joseph would you like some more water?"

"Would you like some more soup?"

"Mom, I think Joseph needs some more Tylenol."

She was genuinely concerned about her big brother. When you see your children truly care for one another, well, these are the moments that make a mother's heart leap! Mine did. My "patient" is healing and doing well, he is starting to run around. School is back in session. The little petty arguments have started up again between brother and sister. But I had a glimpse of their true love for each other. I am so glad that my children are home. My daughter had the opportunity to serve her big brother and he was able to receive her gift.

Just another moment I will tuck away in my heart and remember always.

One of the Greatest Gifts

Let me tell you about a gift I once received from one of my friends. It is a gift that will never wear out, I will never lose it, and I can pass it down to my children. This gift my friends, is the gift of baking bread. My dear friend Sharon showed me how to bake bread. (This same friend also showed me how to milk a cow, but that is a whole other story and gift in itself) I have always dreamed of baking fresh bread for my family.  I had tried and tried on my own without success, each time I would try something different hoping to get that perfect loaf, kneading a little longer, adding more flour, adding less flour, trying different recipes, always hoping to produce beautiful full loaves of bread. But to my dismay the only thing that came out of my oven was something similar to a hockey puck. My poor family.

After crying to my friend Sharon of my failures and feeling like a failure. She said "I can show you." I jumped all over that and took her up on her offer. She came on a Saturday afternoon. She showed me the little tricks, how the dough should feel, how warm the water should be. When to add a little flour, how long to knead. She also gave me her wonderful recipe. Not only did we whip out beautiful loaves of bread. She also showed me how to make homemade Cinnamon rolls. YUMMY!

The following week I was on my own. I was nervous. But much to my surprise I did it! Beautiful edible loaves. I think the children and I ate an entire loaf when it came out of the oven. I never thought I could become so giddy over bread. It was really more than the bread. It is the feeling of being able to take care of your family. Sure, I could run down to the market and buy a loaf of bread, I would still be providing for them. But when it is worked for it is that much better. It feels better putting it on the table. This beautiful gift my dear friend gave me, a gift of knowledge, is something I am surely going to give to my daughters and my sons. So that someday they may also bless their families with this wonderful gift.

Thank you Sharon!!

PS. I now have a full fledged operation here!! I have a mixer and mill. Having the right tools makes all the difference. I now make about 5 loaves a week for my family. Here is the recipe that I use.

Whole Wheat Bread

18-20C freshly ground flour (12-13C grain)

6C warm water (120-130 degree)

2/3 C honey

2/3 C oil

3T yeast (I use instant rise)

2T salt

Put 5C flour and remaining ingredients in mixer and start mixer.Gradually add remaining flour until slightly tacky dough. knead for 6-8 min.  Shape on greased surface into 4-5 10" loaves (1lb 12 oz) rise for 30-45 minutes. preheat oven to 350 and bake for 32 minutes.

My Mill

the grain

the loaves right before baking