Tales from Belleview Cottage: Preparing for Spring

Our house feels like a small zoo with animals and kids galore. Just in time for spring we ordered butterfly larvae and a butterfly garden to keep them in. Painted ladies to be exact. They just emerged from their cocoons today and the children are so excited. What a fun learning experience it has been.


Chickens:
We have five chickens now. They won't be ready to lay until this summer. They are so sweet and so fun.

We have a Buff Orpington, a New Hampshire Red, and a Brown Longhorn. We also have some pure breeds which are a blue cochin and a black silkie bantam.

Garden:
Last year's garden was so successful that we decided to expand it and also to give each child a small plot to grow what they want to. We suggested themes and many of them chose color themes. I ordered the seeds from an Heirloom site online called rareseeds.com. Here is what we ended up with. 


My flowers:
Black Prince - Snapdragon

Meredith's Cowboys and Indian plot {7}
Royalty Purple Pod Bush Bean
Giant Indian Flint Corn
Yellow Wonder Wild Strawberry

Makenzie's Assorted Mix plot {10}
Stone Mountain Watermelon
Yok Kao Cucumber
Albino Bullnose Pepper

Cailynn's Snow White plot {16}
Alaska Shasta Daisy - Wildflower
White Emerald Cucumber
Snow White Carrot

Madison's "Scarlett" Red Garden plot {8}
Early Wonder Beet
Red Mini Bell peppers
Chadwick Cherry tomatoes

Bella's purple extravaganza plot {5}
Pandora Striped Rose Eggplant
Cosmic Purple Carrot
Cupani Original Sweet Pea flowers

Benjamin's Pepper Bonanza plot {13}
Golden Cal Wonder peppers
Sweet Yellow Stuffing peppers
Lemon Drop Pepper

Charisa's kitchen garden plot {14}
Tendercrisp Celery
Corne De Belier Snow Peas
Early White Vienna Kohlrabi

Until next time...

The Chores and Rewards Systems We Do

I'm sharing with you the chore system and rewards we do that has been most effective for us. Enjoy!



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The Beauty of a Classical Education

After learning all about bears my four and three old were overheard having this conversation:

3 year old, "I'm scared of the bears in Colorado."
4 year answers, "There's no reason to be scared because number one, it's winter time and bears hibernate during winter, remember? And number two, Colorado only has fuzzy bears."

Another conversation they had while playing:

3 year old, "Let's put all the Panda bears in the raccoon family."
4 year old, "No, we can't do that. Don't you remember that scientists have changed their family? They used to be in the raccoon family and now they're in the bear family."

Classic Kids Book List That EVERY Child Needs: List Four

This is part four in the series as the book lists I have to share are VERY long. Keep checking in for new lists. Some of these books you may or may not recognize from your own childhood. One thing I love about book lists is being reminded of good books I may have forgotten about. Time to rekindle some pleasant memories and make new ones with our children today.

Here is the next book list:

Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke
The Rose in my Garden by Arnold Lobel
Taka and his Dog by Edna Walker Chandler
Sailboat Time by Maj Lindman

Series Books:

The Littles Series by John Peterson
The Littles
The Littles Take A Trip
The Littles To the Rescue
The Littles Have A Wedding
The Littles Give A Party (originally issued as "The Littles Surprise Party")
The Littles and the Great Halloween Scare
The Littles and the Trash Tinies
The Littles Go Exploring
The Littles and the Big Storm
The Littles and Their Amazing Friends
The Littles Go to School
The Littles and the Lost Children
The Littles and the Terrible Tiny Kid
The Littles and Their Amazing New Friend
The Littles and The Scary Halloween
The Littles Have a Happy Valentine's Day (adapted from The Littles Have a Wedding)
The Georgie Series by Robert Bright


Young Readers:
Five Little Monkeys with Nothing to Do by Eileen Christalow
Bear Snores on by Karma Wilson
A Frog in the Bog by Karma Wilson
Billy and Blaze by C.W. Anderson(Good beginning reader)
The Seven Chinese Brothers by Margaret Mahy
The Giant Jam Sandwich by John Vernon Lord
Pickles to Pittsburgh by Judi Barnett
Froggy by Jonathan London
The Island of the Skog by Stephen Kellogg


TJED is based on Classically based books and mentoring. Start buying and reading the suggested books and see which ones will work for you and your family library. For those who missed where I got these book lists, I received from a good friend who is well versed in classic books for kids and has a house filled with bookshelves full of classic books for children. Several afternoons she had me come and copy down the titles so I could start my collection. Thank you, Linda! Happy reading, everyone!

Classic Kids Book List That EVERY Child Needs: Three

This is part three in the series as the booklists I have to share are VERY long.  Keep checking in for new lists. Some of these books you may or may not recognize from your own childhood.  One thing I love about book lists is being reminded of good books I may have forgotten about.  Time to rekindle some pleasant memories and make new ones with our children today.

Here is the next book list:


Series Books:
Mist of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry (and other sequels)
Betsy Tacy by Maud Halt (10 in series)
The Borrowers Series by Mary Norton
The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall
Uncle Wiggily by Howard Roger Garis
Flower Fairy book series by Federick Warne
Time Warp Trio by Jon Scieska (13 in the series)
A Child's Story of the Book of Mormon (series for those who are LDS)


Read Aloud Suggestions:
Phantom Tollbooth- Norton Juster (Just in time for Halloween)

Good Reading:
Dragon of the Lonely Island by Rebecca Rupp
The Story of Holly and Ivy by Rumor Godden (Good for Christmas)
Moffats by Eleanor Estes
The Middle Moffat by Eleanor Estes
Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
Flat Stanley by Tomi Ungerer



TJED is based on Classically based books and mentoring. Start buying and reading the suggested books and see which ones will work for you and your family library. For those who missed where I got these book lists, I received from a good friend who is well versed in classic books for kids and has a house filled with bookshelves full of classic books for children.  Several afternoons she had me come and copy down the titles so I could start my collection.  Thank you, Linda!  Happy reading, everyone!

Classic Kids Book List That EVERY Child Needs: Two

This is part two in the series as the booklists I have to share are VERY long.  Keep checking in for new lists. Some of these books you may or may not recognize from your own childhood.  One thing I love about book lists is being reminded of good books I may have forgotten about.  Time to rekindle some pleasant memories and make new ones with our children today.

Here is the next book lists:

Series Books:

Berenstain Bears by Stan and Jan
Bear Books Karma Wilson
Weekly Readers book series (the old ones)
The Littles by John Peterson

Good Reading:

Rikki Tikki Tavi by Rudyard Kipling
*Raggedy Ann Stories by Johnny Gruelle
Raggedy Andy Stories by Johnny Gruelle
Floss by Kim Lewis
Just Like Floss by Kim Lewis
Dumpy by Julie Andrews Edwards
My Love For You by Susan Roth
The Girl Who Loved Horses by Paul Goble (An Indian story)
Degas and the Dance by Susan Rubin

Board Books:

Julie Merberg

Books by Author:

Lewis, Kim
Ehlert, Lois (artist)
Kellogg, Steven (artist)

Tate, Suzanne (Especially because shes is NC born and lives in the outer banks of NC -Nag's Head)


*Did you Know?

"Gruelle created Raggedy Ann for his daughter, Marcella, when she brought him an old hand-made rag doll and he drew yupa face on it. From his bookshelf, he pulled a book of poems by James Whitcomb Riley, and combined the names of two poems, "The Raggedy Man" and "Little Orphant Annie." He said, "Why don’t we call her Raggedy Ann?"

Marcella died at age 13 after being vaccinated at school for smallpox without her parents' consent. Authorities blamed a heart defect, but her parents blamed the vaccination. Gruelle became an opponent of vaccination, and the Raggedy Ann doll was used as a symbol by the anti-vaccination movement." (Source: Wikipedia)

TJED is based on Classically based books and mentoring. Start buying and reading the suggested books and see which ones will work for you and your family library. For those who missed where I got these book lists, I received from a good friend who is well versed in classic books for kids and has a house filled with bookshelves full of classic books for children.  Several afternoons she had me come and copy down the titles so I could start my collection.  Thank you, Linda!  Happy reading, everyone!

Poetry for Children

"Do you know what is wrong with people who never read nursery rhymes? I will tell you. When little boys and girls grow bigger and older, they should grow from the outside, leaving a little boy in the middle; even when they are quite grown up, the little child that once they were should be within them. But some unlucky people grow older from inside and so grow old through and through."

We have been reading several poetry books as a family. The book Honey for a Child's Heart has a section about Poetry which inspired me to get back on track with reading the children poetry aloud. We're currently reading "The World of Christopher Robin" by A.A. Milne as a family and we love the silliness of them.

Some other wonderful poetry books aside from our favorite Dr. Suess:

Randolph Caldecott's Picture Books- mostly nursery rhymes, but pictures are magnificent!

Works by Edward Lear:

The owl and the pussycat
A book of nonsense
There was an Old Man--: A Gallery of Nonsense Rhymes
Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany, and Alphabets

Hilaire Belloc:

Cautionary Tales for children

Robert Louis Stevenson:

A Child's Book of Verses

What wonderful children's poetry books do you have to add to this list?

Our Homeschooling is Always Improving

I recently found and loved the guidelines set in The Well-Trained Mind. It goes along with TJED so well, but I needed a more rigid idea of what needs to be done for my kids but with the classical mentality that I love and feel strongly about. I've been ordering some of the books suggested.

In addition I have a friend, a mentor, who owns hundreds of Classic children's books I had NEVER even heard of! I thought I had at least a mediocre idea of children's literature. I found that I am but a babe, a child myself in this wide world of classical children's literature. I spent two separate days copying all of the book titles in her many bookshelves. I still have another day or two to go to finish. I have hundreds of books on my list to get. When I have some extra time I will be sharing this list. She then took me to the numerous used book stores and helped me pick out additional titles of children's classics to get, many for $1 or less.

Two of those books are from the Mrs. Piggle Wiggle series of which there are four, I believe. We begun reading the first one aloud. I highly recommend this book! It is an easy to read aloud book meaning it is easy to imitate the characters and it is enjoyable. My five year old and up absolutely love this book and beg me to read just another chapter. Even my husband laughs with the kids during some of these funny adventures. We have read almost half of the book in three separate sittings, so it is also a quick read. I am so glad we found this series!

M, my almost eight year old daughter, is listening to the CD that is the audio companion to The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading. She loves it and the songs that go with it. I love hearing the younger children repeating all the alphabet sounds too.

Hope your homeschooling life is going as well!

A free tool for teaching the Declaration of Independence

Michael Greenspan of Bronx, NY wrote this and put it together with his family to help teach children the Declaration of Independence.

Enjoy!




The video, simple sheet music and an mp3 of the song

My Idea for Core Phase

Ok, I will gladly admit that I totally missed the core phase as a child and the love of learning, and the scholar and now I am supposed to have this mission? Obviously I am a mother and a homeschooler and that is definitely part of it. So I figured that we had better get back to basics and get that core stage. So how do you get a 30-something year old to learn to love work and bring her kids along with her? Well I am re-inviting the FlyLady back for the 100th time (or so it feels like). But more so, I was really also thinking on how do I share what is mine....What is Heather's? While I have managed to get my kids to do more writing through my scrapbooking hobby, I had to buy some cheap stuff for them so they would leave mine alone. But I was thinking as a child I loved Little House on the Prairie, I read them over and over again, except for Farmer Boy, I just recently read that for the first time, talk about a treat to save for adult hood. I guess I was just boycotting boys at the time. But what is more core, besides the conveyor belt education, than prairie life. How could I get my kids to love to work and value it as pioneer children do in the suburbs of Denver. While we do have cats, fish and a small garden, it isn't quite the same. So I was thinking that we needed to find a way to make Little House in the Suburbs. Which led me to one of those Epic Adventure Ideas. So on the TJed Muse list, there was great excitement about the Courageous Beings Epic Adventures, while I am not ready to pay the money for a ready made one yet and I am in great need of this core phase, so we are going on our own Epic Adventure. Amongst all the great things we'll learn I hope we can get a good base of learning to value and love work. So any ideas you have to expand upon that would be great.
In addition to the Little House books, I was thinking about Little Britches. I am sure I could come up with plenty more. But it is a start. I was also thinking about getting or making some prairie clothes, chores might be more fun in those, and there would be fun cooking and exploring places with a 1700's-1800's theme. Here in CO, there is the Littleton Historical Museum and another in Golden with actual reenacted working farms. Then we aren't terribly far off from pulling handcarts in WY or visiting the Little House on the Prairie Museum in North or South Dakota (budget permitting). Oh and I thought we would do a pioneer Christmas where we make our gifts, rather than buying the finished product. I think the list could be endless. So obviously I am just at the beginning of my thought process on this, but I thought I would share to those who might care! =) It sounds like fun to me.
Well back to the what is mine issue. I like to knit, crochet and spin yarn. Definitely will go well with our Epic Adventure theme. I like to read and I also spend time with breastfeeding counseling and Scouts. It is rather interesting how much my kids know about breastfeeding. Boy are my future daughters-in-laws in for a surprise. I am also in process of becoming a DONA Certified Birth Doula.
I try and share with them what I am reading, but sometimes I am so engrossed in it I forget to stop and share what is so exciting. So by next summer my kids may be knitting and eying sheep for wool! That would be exciting in the Waldorf education community. Another one of my eclectic adaptations to our homeschool, on a good day at least.

Ok, so I just puked out the ideas out of my head at the end of the day. Thanks for letting me ramble on.

Heather