A reflection of our first official week homeschooling in Year 0, commonly known by Charlotte Mason educators or otherwise known as, Kindergarten. We began the day after Labor Day. A Tuesday. We met with our favorite friends, our Nature Study group. The air was full with excitement and joy. We enjoyed a hike through nature discovering along the way. We took a class portrait and recited our September poem. We documented our discoveries in our Nature Journal's and explored in the creek. We picnicked. We played. It was a good day.
Wednesday brought about a Frontier Life field trip to Riley's Farm in Oak Glen with our Nature Study group. Many of our students are reading the Little House series of books. This was an amazing experience for our children to get a glimpse of what life was like back then. Just one thing I adore about homeschooling is that our children, of all ages, get to experience these wondrous activities together. We gathered apples, pressed fresh apple cider, listened to folk songs played by a banjo and other assorted instruments, built a log cabin, washed clothes by hand, started a fire with rocks, wrote with a quill, sawed logs, ground coffee by hand, pumped water, made corn husk dolls, took a tractor ride through the farm, ate freshly dipped caramel apples, and enjoyed climbing rocks, gathering sticks and exploring the land. It was a good day.
Thursday was our homekeeping day. We worked together to clean our home, bake fresh bread, and go to the market.
Friday was our library day. We gathered books for the month's lessons. We chose one of our new books and took our quilt to a shady tree, seaside. There we read. There we had school.
Our first week was enchanting. [This week, our second week, was not. But more on that later!] And, this is just a taste of what our week included. There was more. Much, much more. I am thankful to have the freedom and opportunity to be able to educate our children at home. Or, outdoors- at the farm, by the sea, wherever we may fancy. And look forward to what the year will bring.
"Education is the Science of Relations"; that is, that a child has natural relations with a vast number of things and thoughts: so we train him upon physical exercises, nature lore, handicrafts, science and art, and upon many living books, for we know that our business is not to teach him all about anything, but to help him to make valid as many as may be of– "Those first-born affinities that fit our new existence to existing things." -Charlotte Mason
So great that your week was enchanting...and the fact that the 2nd one was not...well, that's just how it is sometimes! loved seeing your pics - your nature study group sounds amazing!!!!
ReplyDeletep.s. how do you get your photos to have that beautiful rustic look?