FIMBY

Picked pounds of blueberries (hadn't planned to but how could we resist all those berries) on a hike with friends up Bald Mountain this weekend. Read Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey tonight to the kids. I love Maine.

I steamed farm beets for supper last week (a vegetable I'm learning to love) and saved the "juice" left in the bottom of the pan. I stored the juice, about 2/3 cup, in a glass jar in the fridge and pulled it out yesterday for the kids to paint with.

The kids also mixed up a yellow paint with 1/2 cup hot water and 1 tbsp tumeric mixed together.

The resulting artwork is beautiful and my own art (photography) is inspired by my children's creativity. For more natural painting inspirations check out one of our favorites, Berry Smudges and Leaf Prints by Ellen B. Senisi.

I'm very pleased to share a web resource I recently stumbled on via a comment left on my blog.

Playful Learning is a website with blog posts that feature "simple, playful learning experiences that parents can easily share with their children". I personally like the simple part.

Discovering this website/blog comes at a perfect time. I find that the first months of late spring and early summer are intoxicating for my children and they want to be outside all day. It's bliss for me, I get so much indoor stuff done without distraction!

But mid-summer has hit and although the days are gorgeous the kids are less inclined to spend all day outdoors. That's ok, it's hotter and they need a break from the sun a bit (we don't like using sunscreen).

When they're indoors they craft and create. Now that we've found Playful Learning we'll have more inspiration for projects. But the really cool part is Playful Learning posts include aloud books and on-line resources that go along with the project.

Mariah, the educator and mother-mind behind Playful Learning, wants to "create a community of families who document and share their playful learning experiences so that we can learn from and collaborate with people around the world." So if you blog about cool activities with your kids pass them on to her. I shared the shadow puppets activity the kids created earlier this summer and she posted it on her site but added a materials and resources list complete with books and on-line videos. Wow, this woman's good!

If you have young children check it out. It's a great resource. If you forget where to to find it in the future (you should really add it to your RSS) I am featuring it in the sidebar of FIMBY Natural Family. It's the quintessential "how-to" for natural kiddo activities.

Celine recently sewed this adorable circus sea lion.

Here is the pattern. To print, click on the picture, then chose Original. Drag that to your desktop and print from there. I have a Mac and this works for me. If it doesn't work for you get a Mac (seriously they rock) or leave a comment and I'll try to get a pattern to you.

When Celine sewed it she added a magnet to the nose and in the stuffed ball (pattern not shown) to make it "stick". We recommend using felt for easy edge sewing for kid's projects.

Stepping off my local foods soapbox to get on my other favorite box, relaxed home education.

(If you're not interested in reading a rather long-ish post on the education of my beautiful and fascinating children, hop on over to Camera Happy for this week's backyard shot.)

In spite of it being the very middle of summer my mind is thinking about education. I define our family's "school" year, to the state, as September - August so I'm getting ready for our year end portfolio reviews next month. A very low key one-on-one meeting with another homeschool mom, who also happens to be a certified teacher.

She'll check over samples of Celine and Laurent's work and "oh" and "ah" at all their art, scribbles and projects and then assure the state that the kids have made "improvements". Simple as that. No tests and no "at grade level" assessment crap. Ok, that's a strong word for me but I hate grade level assessments. What are they supposed to mean?? Who says a grade two kid should know a, b or c? What if my child wants to know X, K & F? Maine doesn't require anything of this c**p and I love that.

So, what are my kids learning these days? Our youngest two, in addition to their marble painting, critter catches (this time of year there is always caterpillars, chrysalis' and cocoons in jars around our house) and catapult launches (small dangerous objects flying around Laurent's room) are delving into math, for fun. As in "can you print more math sheets for so I can take them to bed with me?". Mind you our 5 year old has to work with our 7 year old so she can read the numbers for him but he's picking up very fast.

Picture it: two pipsqueaks snuggling in bed together, giggling, while they do math "problems", and complaining when it's lights-out time.

What about our 9 year old? Anyone else wondering if this girl of mine does anything besides sew? No worries, she's quite well rounded. She also spends time scouring craft blogs for her next sewing project and thoroughly exhausting every book we own on doll/stuffie making. I agree, she's destined for Etsy.

Celine and Isabella

Other than that she reads, a lot. Especially fantasy, and she's currently interested in fictional stories about, you guessed it... dolls. Oh, and she's devouring all the fictional prequels and sequels to the Little House Series. As I write this she's re-reading her favorite Tin-Tin comics, go figure.

But what about, you know, her schooling? Funny, we think her interests are her schooling. It's what she is highly motivated to pursue (right now) and she is excelling. I can see the report card now: A in Doll Making.

Isabella: Up close and personal

Isabella

Ah, but what about the stuff she needs to know? If you're thinking traditional school subjects we sometimes do those too. In the fall the "my kids should really learn _______(fill in blank)" mood will strike around the same time I notice yellow school buses driving down my street. And during this time of harvest moon we'll return to a somewhat regular practice of math, spelling and handwriting. But I certainly don't consider those the sum or even the foundation of Celine's education.

I'll be honest, Celine is not as interested, as I wish she were, in pursuing some skills that I personally really value, like putting thoughts to paper or computer. But come to think of it, neither is her father. But man that girl can design, envision and sew like nobody's business and she will soon, if she hasn't already, surpass my own skill in that area. Not to mention she has an incredible vocabulary and understanding of language. Just the other day she was "having fun" (her words) with homophones. But when it comes right down to it, who's to say learning to spell, read or write is more important than learning to sew??

Celine's childhood, all three kiddos in fact, is not about acquiring school subject knowledge. It's about the freedom to learn, grow, explore, experience, play, create, fail and succeed in the safety of a family's unconditional love and support. That's what I call an education.

The kids hijacked my plans for the day. That's a reality of child-led learning. You go with try to go with the flow. Depending on the day I am able to do this to varying degrees of success. Flexibility, for me, is the hardest part of relaxed homeschooling, setting aside my goals to help the kids accomplish theirs.

The goals lately have been largely dictated by beautiful summer weather - picking berries, going to the beach, preparing for and having picnics, visiting farmer's markets and weekly farm pick-ups. But regardless of the time of year my kids just gotta' craft and today was one of those days.

Celine is largely self-sufficient in this area now and is an amazing doll designer and small stuffies seamstress. The younger two are kind of left behind in this regard and need my help to complete anything really substantial. Today's project, totally kid inspired, was to sew snakes. So I found instructions for a Braided Craft Snake and used the craft to teach my 5 & 7 year old how to sew on the machine (they both can hand stitch easily) and braid. I had no choice really with them begging me to teach them how to machine sew.

Laurent first time machine sewing

Snake Charmer Brienne

Laurent's snake hangin out in the garden

While we were machine sewing and braiding Celine was finishing her stuffed sea lion. She found the pattern in the ancient book The Big Book of Soft Toys by Mabs Tyler, passed down to us by a friend. She did the whole project herself and had the most ingenious idea of sewing magnets into the nose and ball as a means for them to stick together instead of the pattern's suggestion of sewing them. This daughter of mine simply rocks in stuffie design and sewing!

Celine hand stitching sea lion

Celine's sea lion: isn't that ball so adorable?
So, the day was different than planned and I won't get to the farm till after supper. The beautiful thing is everyone is so busy with their new homemade toys that I have some moments of solitude. What do I do with moments of solitude? Write about how talented my kids are... I'm hopeless.

It's late, I need to go to bed. Story of my life. But I can't help but taking a few minutes to post my favorite photos of the day. Summer is simply heavenly some days. Even though no day is perfect, summer (at least for my garden, farm, beach, woods, mountains, outdoors happy family) tends to have more perfect "moments". Trying to live more in those moments. These are those moments of my day.

Morning Nasturtiums

Stay tuned for tomorrow's garden tutorial on growing nasturtiums. Short of it is, if you haven't yet grown nasturtiums you should. Come back tomorrow to find out why *smile*.

Blueberry Farm Hand

Picked these for snacking at the farm today. Unbelievable to have blueberries already. I was weeding the Pick-Your-Own flower bed earlier so my finger tips are grimy with good ol' fashioned farm dirt - love it.

Ragamuffin on farm swing

Yes, I know her hair is kind of obscuring her face but this is my wild child and this is simply how she looks - on her better days. She's my ragamuffin and by the looks of it in bad need of a haircut. And I'm in love with her just the way she is.

I found a fairy craft kit at Craft Mania. And I made two of them and their names are Megan and Alice. They are my fairies. Megan has purple and pink hair and she's my favorite fairy.

We spent Saturday night camped out in our friend's yard. It was a wonderful time together on Saturday afternoon and then a night of gentle rain and a little thunder and lightning.

The rain canceled our Sunday hike plans but that meant spending more time chatting with our friends about sustainable living, healthy eating, organic farming, ending world hunger, city living, Jesus for President and a whole bunch of other stuff. All while monitoring the activities of 11 children plus a few neighbor kids. Ah, the chaos and community of the Russell-Hogan (two non-related families sharing one small roof, not a hyphenated family name) household.

During the course of the weekend Laurent lost his third tooth. I couldn't resist snapping pics of all three of my kiddos smiling faces. Their smiles are certainly genuine. They love all the perks of visiting the Russell-Hogan community; all the playmates and friends, yard space, ducks, chicks, turkeys, chickens, dogs, fireflies, lizard and the neighbor's pool.