All photos taken by Renee Walton Photography.
Showing posts with label Fall. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fall. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
October Morning Mild
Last month was so very busy.
It is so nice to slow down and take time to enjoy this beautiful season.
Today was one of those days that left me feeling so content.
The girls and I went for a long walk after school.
It was so peaceful and perfect.
And exactly what we needed.
O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
To-morrow's wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
To-morrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow,
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know;
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away;
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
~Robert Frost~
Friday, October 12, 2012
This Autumn Day
O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!
They winds, thy wide gray skies!
Thy mists that roll and rise!
Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag
And all but cry with color!
-from Edna St.Vincent Millay's "God's World"
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Thanksgiving 2012
We started our Thanksgiving holiday early this past week and headed off Thursday to visit family.
It was a much needed getaway, full of family time and memorable adventures!
Having completed 6 successful weeks of school, I thought it was all well deserved, too!
Unfortunately, I left my camera behind so I'll have to share my photos another time.
Thankfully, my sweet sister-in-law captured many moments for me to share with you!
Here's a glimpse at our Thanksgiving fun!
Here's a glimpse at our Thanksgiving fun!
1. Rockin' good time at the playground.
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| photo by Mya 2. Climbing 'mountains'. |
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| photo by Mya |
3. Exploring. Throwing rocks. Touching a waterfall.
Loving the great outdoors!
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| photo by Mya |
4. Everyone wants to hold Mommy's hand.
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| photo by Mya |
5. The jumping pillow.
(The girls most favorite activity!...Maybe mine, too?...))
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| photo by Mya 6. Tractor ride smiles. |
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| photo by Mya 7. Pumpkin patch posers. |
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| photo by Mya |
8. Getting lost in a corn maze.
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| photo by Mya |
9. And found again!
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| photo by Mya |
10. Cutest little tag along.
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| photo by Mya |
11. My kinda rocker.
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| photo by Mya |
So thankful.
For family.
For moments and memories.
For love and laughter.
For wide-eyed, flossy headed girls.
For all of God's perfect, priceless gifts.
Monday, October 1, 2012
How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World {FIAR}
Last week we rowed How To Make An Apple Pie And See The World by Marjorie Priceman.
I purposely planned it for apple picking season and this story did not disappoint in getting us into the apple picking spirit!
Art:
The story is about a girl who wants to make an apple pie but finds the market closed. Therefore she travels around the world collecting the various ingredients she needs.
The story and illustrations are very comical so we took some time to look and see what aspects struck us as being the most humorous.
Then we tried our own hand at a humorous drawing!
Piper drew her and Taitum with pie on their head.
She also gave herself crazy looking ponytails because she found that pretty hilarious!
Geography:
The girl in the story visits Italy, France, Sri Lanka, England, Jamaica and Vermont, USA.
The girls placed story disks on each of these countries on our world map and we discussed different things about each country.
The illustrations themselves gave us some things to talk about that were specific to each country.
We also discussed different languages and accents.
In the picture above, the girls are pointing at the country they liked the most.
Piper - France
Taitum - Sri Lanka
(You have no idea how fitting their choices are! haha!)
Science:
The little girl gathers some salt water from the ocean while she is crossing the Atlantic on a banana boat headed for Jamaica.
She later has to evaporate the water in order to obtain the salt for her recipe.
The girls experimented with this by dissolving salt in water themselves and leaving it in the sunlight (and eventually on the warm stove to speed up the process!) so the water would evaporate.
With in a few days they had some good results!
The girl also brings home a cow from England which she milks and churns the milk to make butter for her pie.
So, of course, we had to make butter too!
I placed our mixer at their level so they could watch the process.
We used whipping cream since I wasn't so sure milk would work.
With children the age mine are you need to be able to see results pretty quick!
I was actually surprised how well this little experiment went!
It wasn't long before our cream turned into butter!
Then Piper rinsed out the buttermilk and added some salt and we had butter to take along to Nan and Boppa's for supper that night!
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Math and Memory Making:
The manual suggested making apple pie to introduce basic measuring skills.
I thought this was a fantastic idea!
The problem was, I've never made a pie before!
Thankfully, I know someone who is a veteran when it comes to the pie making buisness - my Nan!
So not only did my girls get introduced to measuring and pie making skills, they were also able to make a beautiful memory with their great-Grandmother!
This whole project was so precious!
My Nan was so patient with them and let them help with everything!
She explained why she did things a certain way and what the dough should feel like, etc.
I learned a lot, too!
We all had a wonderful time!
For us, this is one of the beautiful things about homeschooling - learning from our elders and making memories with those we love.
The girls were especially pleased when I let them have pie for breakfast the next morning!
:)
Language:
I had all intentions of doing a vocabulary word list for this book but in the end it never got done!
The only word we defined was 'spoil' because Piper asked what it meant!
Other adventures:
In the story, the girl uses various modes of transportation to get to all the different countries.
This inspired me to make good use of some transportation cookie cutters I had!
I whipped up some apple pie playdough and got the girls to pick out all the vehicles the girl traveled in.
They then did what they do best - played and created all kinds of things with the playdough!
Tait asked me to make her a playdough apple pie and was delighted with the results!
She toted it off to her play kitchen, 'baked' it, brewed some tea and offered me a little of each!
Of course, we couldn't read this book without going apple picking for ourselves!
Unfortunately, our week started out with sick kids followed by rain but finally we found a perfect day to go and perfect company to join us!
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| photo by Mya |
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| photo by Mya |
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| photo by Mya |
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| photo by Mya |
We absolutely enjoyed our first row from Five in a Row Volume 1!
Next we are off to row Cranberry Thanksgiving!
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Apple (Picking) Variety
Some are apple pickers...
Some are apple eaters...
And some are apple tree nappers!
But they're ALL the apple of my eye!
:)
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Apples Up On Top!
Apples.
This theme is one of my favorites!
And this year we gained a new apple themed book that we LOVE -
My Dad brought it by for the girls the day we went apple picking and it has been a huge hit!
The best part was trying to balance apples up on top ourselves!
This produced tons of giggles and smiles!
We also did a multitude of other apple related activities...
Piper's personal favorite was this one from 2 Teaching Mommies' Apple Unit.
She would throw the dice and then dot that number of apples on the tree.
She continued this until the tree was full.
Of course we did the classic apple prints!
And made apple sauce!
Both girls had a great time cutting up the apples for it!
She was very keen on making her observations and filling out the sheet correctly.
This made for a rather interesting snack time!
We placed them "up on top" of pictures we drew of ourselves.
Piper accomplished this with minimal help from me.
Taitum and I worked together on it.
She shocked me by knowing what number came next for all of them except 5 and 7!
This girl does not miss a thing!
Piper played around with these Life Cycle of an Apple cards from Montessori for Everyone.
She arranged them in the right sequence and worked at matching the words with the correct pictures.
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