books – Giants & Pilgrims

November 2017 Adventures in Homeschooling

December 30, 2017/0 Comments/in Abacus, Creative Process, Family, Homeschooling, Monthly Themes, Online, Writing /by Betony Coons

Last year we began homeschooling Lucy (8), Hattie (6), Beatrice (3), and Arlo (1). We’re including this on our Giants & Pilgrims blog as all our family adventures seem to impact our art & music so much! Also, we just like sharing the stories. So we’ll be sharing posts on the themes we’ve been covering each month and calling the adventure “ABACUS”! Our hope is that these posts will help spark creative direction and inspiration for your family as well as giving us somewhere to be document and record our experiences.

Writing and Letter Forms:

As part of our history reading, we learned about Cuneiforms which then led to making our own fonts and lettering.

Harriet had her first show and tell at her Homeschool Access kindergarten class. She worked very hard filling out her “Read All About Me” Poster.

Arlo’s 1st Birthday:

On November 18th, this handsome, ornery, little dude turned One!! I can’t even believe it. He has discovered the joy of food.

He always seems to have a mischievous little twinkle in his eyes.

His tiny makeshift snowman birthday cake made out of cake pops.

Enjoying his cake pop under his new name banner (a one year old tradition for all the kids)

And another birthday celebration with grandparents in Kansas.

Playing with a birthday gift from his Aunt and Uncle.

Around the World:

To learn the continents, we made our own fun version of pin it maps, really enjoyed this Hopscotch song about the continents, and played map games.

We kept adding to our museum of world monuments by making a great wall of China, a Statue of Liberty, and a Sphinx.

https://s28969.p27.sites.pressdns.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/IMG_5268-2.jpg

We took the Statue of Liberty downtown to visit our own tiny Statue of Liberty (right after reading Her Right Foot – which was so great).

We enjoyed another Top Munch box – this time from Germany!

Science Club:

We started an impromptu science club. Our first experiment was to remove the chlorophyll from leaves, then we did some experiments with old Halloween candy, and finally we made lungs out of old plastic bottles and balloons! So fun!

Art and Crafting:

Lucy immediately decided our house was not festive enough and added tiny hats, trees, reindeer antlers, and presents to all the photos/artwork.

We made handprint turkeys

Someone got over her fear of the hot glue gun.

I made a ridiculous thing. Peg dolls for days….

Lots of late night sketching

Decorating paper christmas trees

Gaming:

I like for November to be our family game night. So I usually add a few new games to our collections. This year I found these beautiful spectrum cards.

This silly but awesome game called “There’s a Moose in my House”

And my current favorite, Qwirkle

In the Kitchen:

Would it even be November without lots of wonderful goodies to bake?

Two books really dominated our kitchen decision making this November. Baking Class for the kids, and Bravetart for me. Both are great.

Homemade graham crackers from Bravetart.

Practicing knife skills

Lucy baking braided bread

And Lucy making her first original contribution to the Thanksgiving feast

And Music:

Music always together. Usually with a little brother crowding in on the fun.

In the Prairie and Great Outdoors:

We got to go home to Kansas for Thanksgiving this year which meant lots of beautiful walks on the farm/prairie.

A couple of woodworking projects –

we built a teeter toter just for fun out of random scrap boards.

And I worked on cutting pieces for an upcoming project in Houston

Thanksgiving:

We feasted and celebrated. It was beautiful. We are full.

Matching Thanksgiving outfits from Grandma DiDi and Grandpa Ed

Discovering and Rediscovering the magic of Calvin and Hobbs together.

Our thankful tree

And an adorable pilgrim girl

Much love from us,

March’s Adventures in Homeschooling

April 10, 2017/0 Comments/in Abacus, Creative Process, Curriculum, Homeschooling, Monthly Themes /by Betony Coons

This year we began homeschooling Lucy (7), Hattie (5), and Beatrice (2). We’re including this on our Giants & Pilgrims blog as all our family adventures seem to impact our art & music so much! Also, we just like sharing the stories. So we’ll be sharing posts on the themes we’ve been covering each month and calling the adventure “ABACUS”! Our hope is that these posts will help spark creative direction and inspiration for your family as well as giving us somewhere to be document and record our experiences.

March has been a journey of “chasing the spark.” Lots of wonderful explorations lead by curiosity. March was about humor, and Egypt, and computer coding, and St. Patricks day, and musicals, and so much more. I am loving these simple full days with the people I love most. I love being able to share in the education of my children. I love that the world we live in is so rich and fascinating to explore. I love that in both the most mundane moments and the most extravagant they are still learning and growing. Tim and I have looked at each other so often in this last month and said “Man, I love our kids”. What a gift it is to be living out this story as a family.
Thanks for following along with us.

Coding & Quilting:

This pictures captures our two oldest daughters perfectly. Lucy working on learning how to program on Scratch (because she wants to make her own robots) and Harriet making a tiny quilt (that she wants to use for babies, picnics, and snuggling). Love seeing them discover new interests and following “the spark”.

Color and Light:

A few years ago our theme for March was Spectrum. In keeping with the tradition and all things rainbow for St. Patrick’s day, we did a little color work this month.

A new awesome one-player game called Colour Code by SmartGames – like a more interesting version of tangrams.

Color mixing, painting color wheels, and learning about hot vs. cool colors.

And discussions about what it would be like to not be able to see colors. We read I am Helen Keller and the Black Book of Colors. (both of which are great).

We also learned how to write our names in braille!

Ancient Egypt:

For our country this month, we took a trip to Ancient Egypt! (which tied in great with our Rich and Rooted Passover study as well!) .

These were a few of our favorite books we dug into.

The girls set up an Egyptian style Bazaar (which Harriet made traditional shaped Egyptian bread for!). My sisters and I used to play this same game – brings back fond memories.

We added a new game to our collection called Imhotep. It is great! You play the role of ancient Egyptian architects and are working to build monuments.

Inspired by the game, we build some block monuments of our own.

This lead the girls to build a whole city of mini block monuments.

We got this little mummy excavation kit on amazon. It was really great (but do it outside!!). It comes with a plaster block carved with hierogylphics. The kids use tools and act as archeologists to unearth the mummy inside.

I happened to have some Egyptian wrapping paper, so we made bracelets.

We talked about the significance of the Rosetta stone and then made our own clay Rosetta stone cartouches. Lucy did her name in English, hieroglyphics, and braille.

Getting Moving:

Lucy and I are taking up a new hobby – Rock Climbing! We went to a ladies night at the Rock. It was a little momma daughter date night. Pretty great.

We haven’t started up our Monday adventures again yet, but we did try to get to as many parks as possible.

Musicals:

From now until forever, I have officially dubbed March Musical Month. We were given (thank you Patti!) tickets to a local production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella and we rented Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat from the library. The girls LOVED both and we have been listening to the soundtracks non-stop (maybe a little too non-stop…go go go joseph you’ll make it some day….go go go joseph….!!!!!)

We went to Cinderella in costume.

Afterwards was a Princess Tea Party where the actors and actresses came out in costume and interacted with the kids! It was great fun.

Reading and Writing:

Our two read-aloud books we finished this month were Finn Family Moomintroll (one of my all time favorites) and The Search for Delicious. Both were perfect for the kids age – funny and light heartened.

Harriet has been working on the first steps of learning to read, so we made some sight word blocks together in fun bright colors.

She also practiced her letters a lot in her sand (cornmeal) box (…that is until little sister got ahold of it…)

The 2nd of March was Dr. Seuss’s birthday, so we celebrated by getting cake pops and reading all the Seuss books.
For writing practice, the girls both wrote out their elaborate plans for their birthday parties (which are in June/September…ha ha).

Character Building:

During the season of lent, we have been going through Jennifer Naraki’s Rich and Rooted Passover guide. I am hoping to make this a yearly tradition as well. There is a lot depth to her guide that we barely scratched the surface.

One Sunday we headed to Fort Collins because their local Islamic mosque was vandalized. We joined with a large crowd of others in solidarity and support of those effected.

Science and Logic:

Grandpapa reading an old family favorite – the Mad Scientist Club to Lucy for the first time.

The girls requested to learn how to play chess. Our local coffee shop has this great “Easy to Learn Chess” game that makes it simple with the little reminder graphics on the pieces.

We finally did some of our Christmas test tube science kits the kids got in their stockings (from the dollar bins at Target).
This is gravity goop –

St. Patrick’s Day:

A selection of St. Patrick’s day books we got from the library –

Grammy Didi reading one of her favorite – Tommie DePaola out loud to the girls.

Getting ready for our annual St. Patty’s day feast and sing along

Aquarium:

All three girls (but mostly Beatrice) have been obsessed with the kid’s show Octonauts. I think they have watched every episode at least 3 times.

In the show, the team of animals are always working to rescue/help undersea creatures. Each episode ends with a “Creature Report” which has cool facts about actual sea critters. The girls have learned all sorts of interesting aquatic facts. So, we thought a trip to the Denver Aquarium was in order.

The girls loved it. We all had a wonderful time – especially petting the sting rays.
The next day when we got back, they did their own “Creature Report”s on their favorite animals they saw.

December’s Adventures in Homeschooling

December 28, 2016/0 Comments/in Abacus, Art, Creative Process, Family, Homeschooling /by Betony Coons

This year we began homeschooling Lucy (7) and Hattie (5). We’re including this on our Giants & Pilgrims blog as all our family adventures seem to impact our art & music so much! Also, we just like sharing the stories. So we’ll be sharing posts on the themes we’ve been covering each month and calling the adventure “ABACUS”! Our hope is that these posts will help spark creative direction and inspiration for your family as well as giving us somewhere to be document and record our experiences.

December has been a full month around here learning how to be a family of six, shuttling kids to Nutcracker rehearsals and performances, doing ALL the advent things, baking cookies, celebrating Christmas, and enjoying time with family. Here are some highlights from this month of homeschooling –

ADVENT Activities:

For years, we have enjoyed the Jacquie Lawson computer advent calendars. This years was a British seaside theme.

We also always love the Lego advent calendars. They have a tiny set to build every day..

This year we purchased Jennifer Naraki’s Slow + Sacred Advent. It is an ebook that was written to guide families through the four weeks leading up to Christmas. It includes personal stories, Biblical theology, and four weeks of creative, yet simple thematic plans. We really enjoyed it and look forward to using it again in years to come.

Advent closed with all of us at a candlelight service together at Tim’s Church – Saint Andrew United Methodist in Highlands Ranch.

Getting MOVING:

December is always hard because weather in Colorado isn’t the best for playing outside. And, with a new baby, it’s hard to get the girls out and about. Here are a few of the fun activities we fit in –

Cosmic Kids Yoga (always a hit around here) –

Tim took the girls ice skating –

and sledding!

And Lucy and Harriet had their debut in the Nutcracker Ballet as presents! They were stunning.

Arlo missed most of the show…Grandma was just to cozy.

RUSSIA:

One of the things we are doing this year is our Passport idea for Geography/World Cultures. We are “visiting” a different country every month – exploring the food, culture, dress, arts, and music through themed activities. This month, because the girls were part of the Nutcracker, we chose Russia.

We had a wonderful “Russian” tea time – listening to Tchaikovsky, making these delicious Russian tea scones, and drinking Russian spice tea, and reading the Nutcracker.

Canon has a whole set of the amazing (FREE!) printable paper models of famous building. So we made St. Basil’s Cathedral! The instructions and cutting were a little too tricky for the girls, so mom and I did most of it. My puzzle loving brain had a blast. I want to make more!
Here are the books we read about Russia. Thank you High Plains library!

History:

Our favorite history activity this month was visiting Centennial Village’s Homesteader’s Holiday.
Centennial Village is a living history museum in Greeley (actually where Tim and I got married!).
Here are the girls making hand dipped candles in the old Carriage House –

And Beatrice exploring outside the historic church –

STEM:

Lucy saw an experiment in The Dangerous Book for Boys on how to make a Battery. She has been asking about it for a while so we decided to try it. And it worked!

Battery making led to playing with our Snap Circuits Jr. kit – a great toy that teaches the basics of Electronics.

We also picked up a cool new single player puzzle game called Katamino that is quite the brain teaser. Harriet got quite into it.

Art and Handicrafts:

With the flurry of gift making and house decorating, we spent a lot of time MAKING this month.

Making foil stained glass windows –
Making Foil star garlands and stick stars (for our Nature Pal Exchange friends) Making Waldorf window stars –

Making handmade Christmas presents –

Making all the Christmas cookies –

And making a stocking for this handsome little man –

MUSIC:

The girls have continued with their music classes at Union Colony Children’s Music Academy which they love. Tim has been working on tracking for our new album -which means we have amazing musical visitors in and out of the studio. Our friend Sigourney was kind enough to let the girls try out her stunning concert harp.

NATURE STUDY:

For our nature study we received this super fun box of nature crafts from our nature pen-pals in Florida.

WRITING:

We did lots of letter writing this month – tons of thank you notes, pen-pal letters, and of course some super sweet correspondence addressed to the North Pole.

On a different side, Harriet has really enjoyed playing Reading Eggs on the computer.

READING:

We enjoyed so many wonderful stories this month. (Especially thanks to lots of time sitting nursing!)

We also really enjoyed Read Aloud Revival’s Christmas Book list recommendations –

Merry Christmas everyone! Thanks for following along!

November’s Adventures in Homeschooling

November 30, 2016/0 Comments/in Abacus, Creative Process, Family, Monthly Themes, Writing /by Betony Coons

This year we began homeschooling Lucy (7) and Hattie (5). We’re including this on our Giants & Pilgrims blog as all our family adventures seem to impact our art & music so much! Also, we just like sharing the stories. So we’ll be sharing posts on the themes we’ve been covering each month and calling the adventure “ABACUS”! Our hope is that these posts will help spark creative direction and inspiration for your family as well as giving us somewhere to be document and record our experiences.

November was such a beautiful and memorable month around here. Most importantly, we welcomed the newest addition to our family on November 18th – sweet Arthur Thaine. A Boy! Heavens!

We are still adjusting to what it looks like to have one more around here, but mostly things are going well. Momma needs more sleep, all the girls are in need of a little extra snuggle time, and chaos is reigning just a little bit more in our house, but it is all so good and everything feels right. And we are all relishing the tiny ears, coos, and fluffy hair of our tiny Arlo.

Here is where we have been during the month of homeschooling –

COOKING and MATH:

Since November is meant to be about all things feasting, we took a break from our normal Math rhythms and learned about fractions, addition, and measuring through the very practical handicraft of cooking. I found this highly reviewed kids cookbook on Amazon. (And these inexpensive but very practical aprons – the kids each picked their own color). We also got these fraction sticks to help explain how fractions work – very helpful when measuring ingredients.

The girls – with very little help from me – made ‘grab and go’ granola bars, popcorn balls, homemade orange juice, breakfast sandwiches, yogurt parfaits, perfect grilled cheese, parmesan chicken bites with dipping sauce, and more. Lucy especially loved the independence of doing everything herself. And all the recipes were tasty! The cookbook also has lots of fun stickers and punch outs in the back.

Our cooking month’s finale was of course a grand Thanksgiving feast.

One other little note on Math –

We have LOVED the new BigNumbers Ap from Dragon Box. It sneakily teaches lots of cool long addition and subtraction.

GAMES GALORE:

Our second theme for the month of November was Games!!

A couple of new favorites that we added to our collection:

CURRENT EVENTS:

A day was spent on our political system, voting, and elections.

A thank you note written to the president for his service.

Watching election results come in –

A visit to our city hall

And dropping off our ballot.

READING AND LITERATURE:

Here were our reading books for the month:

Plus ALL the Thanksgiving books (especially thanks to Read Aloud Revivals beautifully curated list):

Tea time mostly had to move inside because it is starting to get CHILLY here! Not nearly enough snow yet though…

Art and Handicrafts:

Especially while passing the time waiting for the newest addition to our family, Lucy, Harriet, and I all worked on our own little illustration projects.
Me on a whole series of Alphabet Letters (the first part of are available here).

Lucy on a whole series of Christmas Reindeer to sell at Indie Arts Greeley (a wonderful local craft show that has become a family affair)

And Harriet on a whole series of Christmas Trees that she also sold at Indie Arts Greeley’s Winter Market.

Here is their practice set up for the market –
Note: I love this tradition. I feel like they are learning so much through the process – talking to customers, making change, money math, etc.

We made concrete candle holders and poured soy candles (which Tim’s scented in various wonderful Christmas scents)

The girls rolled beeswax candles

And we got out our little loom and started work on a colorful scarf (alongside our Native American study)

History and Culture:

Instead of choosing a country to study this month, because of Thanksgiving, we decide to read about and explore Native American stories and culture.
Here is a sampling of the library books we found –

Good old fashioned audio tape books are the greatest –

An unseasonably warm November made for perfect teepee building weather – and the perfect location for tea and stories.

Our history study of Jamestown lead us to creating a lego reenactment of Jamestown, John Smith, and Pocahontas.

Nature Study:

This month’s nature outings weren’t anything grandiose. Just simple quiet times visiting and playing in some of our favorite spots and soaking up the last warm days.

Swinging on willow branches

Weaving willow branch baskets

Colorado sunsets

And a little moss collecting from beside our house made into a simple terrarium.

Sketches of what moss looks like through a microscope.

And leaf jumping of course.

CHARACTER:

For November, we continued our family tradition of making a Thanksgiving tree table altar.

And finally, to get into the spirit of Christmas/Advent, we put together a box for Operation Christmas Child together.

Processed with VSCO with c2 preset

October’s Adventures in Homeschooling

October 30, 2016/0 Comments/in Abacus, Art, Creative Process, Family, Lists, Online /by Betony Coons

This year we began homeschooling Lucy (7) and Hattie (5). We’re including this on our Giants & Pilgrims blog as all our family adventures seem to impact our art & music so much! Also, we just like sharing the stories. So we’ll be sharing posts on the themes we’ve been covering each month and calling the adventure “ABACUS”! Our hope is that these posts will help spark creative direction and inspiration for your family as well as giving us somewhere to be document and record our experiences.

READING AND LITERATURE:

Here were our reading books for the month:

We read Kate DiCamillo’s The Tale of Despereaux (one of Tim and my all time favorites), The Boxcar Children (which Harriet LOVED and has been watching the Netflix movie of over and over again), Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (the new beautifully illustrated version), and a really cool pop-up version of The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe (which also led to the Calvin & Hobbs Monster Drooling Poem based on The Raven, and the Simpson’s Halloween episode of The Raven – both SOO funny and good).

We are still loving our morning reading out-loud tea time on the front porch. Although it is starting to get chilly!!

For our History books we read these two – (we are going through Beautiful Feet History’s Early American series in order). We really enjoyed both books.

As part of our history study (and since we finished the Columbus book last month) I thought it would be fun to carve soap boats on Columbus Day. I usually set out our morning activity the night before. On this particular morning, the girls got up without waking me up (like they usually do) , and happily carved through all 8 bars of soap on their own, and this is the scene I woke up to. Soap everywhere, but no one was bleeding and they were thoroughly pleased with themselves. Pretty hilarious.

Geography/Culture: Mexico

One of the things we are doing this year is our Passport idea for Geography/World Cultures. We are “visiting” a different country every month – exploring the food, culture, dress, arts, and music through themed activities. This month, Harriet and Lucy chose Mexico as our country to visit.

I have been using the book “Give Your Child the World” as a reference for books. I think the High Plains librarians are starting to hate me because of how many books I put on hold each month. Oh Well. Sorry guys.

As recommended in Give Your Child the World, here were the Mexico themed picture books we read through from the library.

And the movie –

Elena’s Serenade and The Legend of the Poinsettia were probably our favorites.

One of the major reasons we picked Mexico was because we wanted to do a Day of the Dead celebration. The girls fully planned, prepped, and decorated for this themselves!

Getting Lucy started on Adobe Photoshop early 🙂

Like the invitation says, we decorated with Papel Picado and marigolds, painted faces, watched Book of Life, Colored skeleton faces, ate Mexican food and authentic Mexican candies from our local Mexican grocery store, and made skull rocks. This will definitely be one for the books and I can see it becoming a yearly tradition :).

Nature Study

We have been using this ebook as a guide for our Nature Study. And it is SO beautifully done.

It has a simple activity each corresponding with the season, paired with a recommended book list, an art piece to enjoy, a poem, and art ideas.

Nature Outings:

We have designated Monday as our outdoor adventure days. It’s our day off together as a family, and we just love it. This month we visited a local cemetery where we did some grave rubbings.

Took a family bike ride on the Poudre River Trail to look at the changing leaves –

Went on a nature outing to our beloved Homestead Park to search out our favorite trees and do a little Pond Study.

(Harriet studying a sample of pond water we brought home with us)

And of course October wouldn’t be complete without an outing to a pumpkin patch!!

Along with our weekly nature outings, we finished up our Nature Pal Exchange box (and received one back in the mail from North Carolina!). It was such a fun project. I am already looking forward to the next time we do it.

Harriet’s “Leaf Lady”

The contents of the box we put together:

Music

All of the kids are really enjoying their music classes through the Union Colony Children’s Music Academy here in Greeley. It uses the musikgarten approach which I am loving more and more all the time – especially as I see how it grows and expands with the kids.

Math

We needed to switch up how we were doing math. No one was enjoying it. So this month we used the book Bedtime Math (which is so fun).

We added some more tactile/playable elements to our routine (counting bears, a shape rubber band board, an abacus, etc…)

Science

We have really enjoyed various Steve Spangler Science videos. We broke out the cornstarch one morning and recreated his cornstarch slime experiments.

We also enjoyed some Magic School Bus “Inside the Human Body” and this really cool Human Body model from Target.

Which led to drawing white skeletons on black paper of course.

Art/Handicrafts

Since we read Hansel & Gretel (candy house and witches…), we made Hansel & Gretel dolls to play with. My friend Lindsay had given me this amazing tea towel that has a beautifully illustrated pattern already printed onto it. The pattern is from Sarah Young’s etsy shop. Now that I have made them, I think we are going to need the little red riding hood one too 🙂

A cotton snow storm –

We used a fun little kit to make these Halloween luminaries.

We did some major papier mache magic with tape and cardboard to make Lucy’s “Spooky Tree” halloween costume.

We played with our freshly organized rubber stamps to give our letter writing days a boost.

Since we are reading the Tale of Despereaux, the girls sewed these very simple little felt mice from this pattern.

And of course what would October be without a night of carving all those wonderful pumpkins with hot chocolate and popcorn of course and a spooky playlist.

And, finally, I will leave you with a very spooky (and hilarious horror film by Lucy)

Happy October friends! Thanks for following along!!!

July Free Calendar Desktop and iPhone Wallpaper

July 1, 2016/1 Comment/in Art, Bellwether, Desktop Backgrounds, Downloads /by Betony Coons

How is it July already!?

Our house has been listening to all our Independence day mixes this morning. This year is our first “quiet” at home July 4th we have had in a while and we can’t wait.

Make sure to also read this fun list of July ideas. Also, here is a list of some of our favorite summer books.
Enjoy this new summer desktop wallpaper inspired by explorations into the wild and quiet summer reads!

For the desktop, click on the image below to view the large size image.

For the iphone wallpaper, navigate to this page on your phone and then click and hold on the iphone images. Select ‘Save image to camera roll’. Then from your camera roll set your home screen/lock screen.

High Resolution Desktop Wallpaper:

iPhone Wallpaper:

April Practice & Process: “Converse”

April 12, 2016/0 Comments/in Bellwether, Creative Process, Family, Lists, Monthly Themes /by Betony Coons

In creating our new project, Bellwether (an art series and album due winter 2016) we’ve decided to share what we’re doing each month before it’s released.
We’re calling these posts “practice and process“.

They will detail the spiritual/life practice we’re doing,
give a look at our in-process art that we’re creating in response,
and then include a whole host of resources and activities! (like the new desktop wallpaper, book/music/movie lists, recipes, explorations for kids, etc. This is so as an entire family we can engage in this year’s exploration of “belief” we’re calling Bellwether.

APRIL Theme: CONVERSE

March was actually a difficult month (and we weren’t very good at doing our “practice & process”)! A lot is going on that’s going to bring change in the coming year. So Betony and I have chosen the theme of “converse” for April. (I started the week after Easter “conversing” with God with some rhythmic daily prayers, just needing recovery!)

So, Betony and I hope to get away a little bit and find some spaces to talk about everything- life, spirituality, future, etc!

Practice:

This month we are

Getting babysitting once a week and going out to talk about life!
For our Table Alter this month we’re continuing to set up little pots and planting seeds – we’ll water and watch the slow progression of growth, again hitting on the death and resurrection truths we find in the world around us. This is an ongoing conversation we hope to have with our kids.

Process:

Betony has hit some big finish lines last month regarding ongoing art projects. Then Tim is song-writing this month with Charla Bultman, continuing to add some more songs to the Bellwether project.

The other process is going to be exploring this big idea: there seems to be spiritual archetypes that happen all over our favorite stories. In movies, books, all sorts of art, you’ll find baptism scenes, out-to-the-desert scenarios, resurrection pictures… Betony and I are looking in to these universals to better inform our own belief.

Resources for “April”:

APRIL Dates to Take Note of:

April = National Poetry Month
April 1st – April Fools Day (we love to freeze our girl’s breakfast cereal…)
April 22nd – Earth Day (which if you happen to live near a Ben & Jerry’s is also Free Cone Day)
April 29th – Arbor Day
April 30th – International Jazz Day

Local: Greeley, CO events:

April 10th – Handel’s Water Music UCCC
April 23rd – Arbor Day Celebration at Lincoln Park, 9:00 am
April 27th – Greeley Children’s Chorale Spring Sing (at Northridge H.S.)
April 27th – Ballet West at UCCC, 7:00pm
April 30th – Copelia at Niwot High School

Let me know if you have other fun Greeley events I should add to this calendar!

RESOURCES/EXPLORATIONS :
(from Betony…)

POETRY:

April is National Poetry Month so this works perfectly with our theme “converse”! We hope to read some poems with the girls and work on writing too!
For kids, we LOVE this book –
Outside Your Window by Nikola Davies. The Illustrations by Mark Herald are just gorgeous.

Speaking of Mark Herald, I have been drooling over this wallpaper of his. I’m thinking I might need to dive into wallpaper design some time soon.

For myself for poetry month, I am going to read Felicity by Mary Oliver. I bought it a few months ago at our favorite book shop in Hutchinson, KS and I have been saving it just for this occasion.

READING LISTS:

How to talk so your kids will listen by Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlish

What we talk about when we talk about God by Rob Bell

LANGUAGE:

We felt like with this theme it would also be a great month to explore different languages. Lucy has loved this app that teaches Spanish.

This Frida ap also looks pretty great –

What language learning programs have you used? Any fun games language games for kids that you would recommend?

THE ARTS:

Conversing does not always have to be verbal. I am planning on taking the girls to several ballet productions this month.

MAKE:

My front door is needing a new spring wreath. I am thinking I will make something simple like this twig flower beauty.

I also like this Square one from Megan Brooke Handmade

MUSIC:

Curate a Tree themed Arbor Day playlist

Midwest Road Adventures and “Maps” – a round up of the month of July

July 30, 2015/0 Comments/in Abacus, Almanac Adventure Days, Family, Travel /by Betony Coons

Most of our July was spent exploring the midwest. What better way to incorporate the theme “Maps” then getting out and living on one. Eight states in two weeks (that includes Tim’s whirlwind trip to North Carolina for the Wild Goose Festival)!

While road tripping, we did several fun pages out of the Maps Activity book –

We weren’t able to stop a lot (seeing as we were in the car for too long already) but, we did make two really wonderful detours on our way to Lake Geneva, WI. Since we were going through two state capitals, we stopped at both the Nebraska State Capital building and the Iowa State Capital Building. And WOW were they wonderful. Why is “Visiting Every State Capital” not something everyone does?!? These two building were filled with incredible history, art, incredible architecture, and craftsmanship that you just don’t see that often in our ‘slap it together and sell it cheap’ culture we live in. We all felt like we were exploring old castles of old. And both the Iowa building and the Nebraska buildings were so different! Here are a few picture from both.
Nebraska First –

Amazing Castle-like building, beautiful mosaics, and, best of all, an old wood paneled elevator that took you to the top of the tower to an open air walkway with panoramic views of the whole city.

Some Zelda scenes “may” have been re-enacted in these stone passageways

Tried to take a family “Selfie” here. Aw… so cute. And then you notice what Lucy does with her bubble gum….

Some things you didn’t want to know… thanks a lot iPhones…

And Iowa’s Capital Building:

They sure knew what they were doing when they designed the gold domes….

Looking up into the ceiling of the main dome. They took guided tours to the top, which we sadly didn’t do because we had to get back on the road, but next time!

A security guard at the entrance told us to be sure not to miss the Library as it was his favorite room. And boy was he not kidding. It was like stepping into Harry Potter land.

As part of our midwest road trip, we stayed in KS for a few days at my parents farm. They live on 180 acres of wild prairie and orchards. My dad mows these lovely ever-shifting paths through the prairie that have become one of the things we look forward to most when visiting home.

Onto modes of transportation! Also while in KS, the girls had their first encounter with bumper cars (hover crafts more like…) and can’t wait for more…

Picnics are always a good idea.

As are hotel swimming pools.

Once we got back home, we mostly have been playing catch-up – especially with all the art shows and whatnot we have had going on. But here are a few highlights from the end of July.
This is one of the books we picked up from the library on maps. It is called “The Once Upon a Time Map Book” – you can get it here. I can’t recommend it enough. My kids LOVED it. And it teaches so many cool map reading skills – directions, scale, keys, distance, etc. The book gives you a quest of sorts and then have to follow the directions to get through the map, while looking for hidden treasures. So fun.

We definitely drew a treasure map of our backyard and hid treasure. Burning the edges and tea staining it is half the fun.

Some afternoons when mom is trying, ahem, to get ready for an art show she is not ready for yet, you google “kids map games” and let em loose.

The church we are part of, called Atlas, does this amazing kids camp where they make a movie. The kids do almost everything – the acting, costumes, songs, etc. One of the days was all about outer space. Each kid was assigned a role as either a planet, the sun, moon, stars, etc. They physically acted out our solar system as part of our movie. It was so cool. I didn’t get any photos of the kids, but here are a bunch of the parent volunteers pricking holes in a black paper wall that was lit from behind to make constellation star maps. The twinkly black wall was the backdrop in the film for the little kid moons and planets swirling around.

We hung a nice big world map at kid level on the wall and have been having lots of fun conversations about where things like panda bears and cousins live.

Summer Reading List

June 20, 2014/2 Comments/in Almanac, playlist, Writing /by Betony Coons

It’s that time of the year. Dusting off the front cover of books we’ve intended to read for a while or picking up something new for the big car ride is a great tradition around our house. Betony Coons made a list of some of her favorite summer reads for our June Almanac. Here’s to getting lost in the pages. Leave some of your favorite summer reads in the comments below.

Some of my Favorite all-time “Summery” reads – Betony

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

Wild by Cheryl Strayed

The Giver by Louis Lowry

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein

Wonder by R.J. Palacio

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

The House of the Scorpian by Nancy Farmer

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kid

The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale

A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Linbergh

New and Selected Poems by Mary Oliver

Posts

November 2017 Adventures in Homeschooling

Writing and Letter Forms:

Arlo’s 1st Birthday:

Around the World:

Science Club:

Art and Crafting:

Gaming:

In the Kitchen:

And Music:

In the Prairie and Great Outdoors:

Thanksgiving:

March’s Adventures in Homeschooling

Coding & Quilting:

Color and Light:

Ancient Egypt:

Getting Moving:

Musicals:

Reading and Writing:

Character Building:

Science and Logic:

St. Patrick’s Day:

Aquarium:

October’s Adventures in Homeschooling

READING AND LITERATURE:

Geography/Culture: Mexico

Nature Study

Nature Outings:

Music

Math

Science

Art/Handicrafts

July Free Calendar Desktop and iPhone Wallpaper

Midwest Road Adventures and “Maps” – a round up of the month of July

Recent Posts

Pages

Categories

Archive