Mama Speak
Celine has been sewing up a storm these days. To hear the sewing machine humming, to provide feedback for her design ideas and to see the quality work she's producing is such a blessing to this mama's heart. I feel a sense of deep satisfaction as she makes this learning her own, knowing that the way we've chosen to homeschool has given her the time she needs to pursue her own goals and dreams.
Sigh... I am a happy homeschooling parent.
One of Celine's recent projects was to sew a sock monkey for her cousin, who turns two years old the beginning of next month. This was a paid commission from her aunt to create a handmade toy that the parents (Celine's aunt and uncle) could give to their son as a gift.
I am so proud of Celine for accepting this project and following through. Damien and I encouraged her to take on the project and offered whatever help she needed. But ultimately the choice to make it and the work was done by her.
We took her shopping to buy an appropriate pair of socks, helped her find a pattern, read through the instructions with her and at the very end helped her sew on the eyes and mail the finished product. But that was it, the rest was her doing.
In case you are interested in doing a similar project this is the pattern Celine used, found at Craftbits.com. The instructions are straightforward and Celine was very pleased with the end result.
But more importantly Celine was pleased with the process. This girl loves to sew and I couldn't be happier for her. These are Celine's own words for how she feels when she's sewing, "I'm in my element!" Music to a mother's ears.
I'm taking a little breather from the final sorting of the girl's stuff to share with you this week in homeschooling.
March has been a lovely month for the kids and I as we've settled into a steady late winter routine. In reality though we're experiencing an early spring but I haven't been out too much (the kids have) to take advantage of it. I just can't wrap my head around spring in March. I still have too many projects that I had planned to do indoors this month and once those wrap up I will embrace this next season. At which time we'll probably have a snowstorm!
Some of our learning has been outdoors: hikes and play dates at parks with homeschooling friends, a visit to the farm and backyard science.
Other activities have been indoors: a symphony orchestra concert, setting up marble works (like every other homeschooled kid this week who watched this amazing video), drawing lessons, making crystals using the kit Laurent got for his birthday and Celine sewing. Always Celine sewing.
It was a good week. Most days I really enjoy being home with my kiddos (honestly). But this week I especially felt that way. Enjoying these last days of winter (that are suspiciously warm) before the intense activities of yard clean up, gardening, bike riding, trampoline jumping and everything else that spring holds in store.
Over the past year as I've started to share more about our family's outdoor adventures I've gotten questions from people asking how we do this with our children.
I think the overall vague question of "how do you do this?" can actually be broken down into several questions. Two of them being, "how do you make the time?" And "how to you get multiple family members on board?"
As we have time to articulate our thoughts (we're actually quite busy having adventures and making time to write about having adventures is challenging) we plan to answer these questions fully. Here at FIMBY, our home blog, and ADVENTUREinPROGRESS, our adventure blog and eventually in a book devoted to that very topic, hiking with your family.
But before we ever publish a book with gear lists, menu plans and clothing guidelines we would like to help families get started by addressing a few of the basics, one of which is making the time.
Damien just published a fantastic post on this subject. Time is such an important topic to discuss because if you are wanting to be outdoors more with your family finding the time to do so will be one of the biggest obstacles to overcome.
Damien's post, One Day A Week, explains in some detail our family's experience with setting aside one day a week to be outdoors, all together, for the better part of the day (ie: morning till supper). I plan to follow up on his post with more practical tips from a homemaker's perspective. Let's just say actually getting out the door is the hardest part of the whole adventure. Never mind hiking up the actual mountain!
When I get around to writing that I'll be sure to give you a heads up. But to get you started you can read what Damien has to say about how to make family day a priority.
PS: With this recent "new look" you'll notice at the bottom of the FIMBY main page that you can read the titles of the last 10 posts written at AdventureinProgress.
