Archive for the ‘Nature’ Category

February 25th, 2010 | Renae

Silencing the Background Noise or Why I Blog

While kids and weary husband sleep, I sit at the table and peck through chapter by chapter. I copy the author’s words to help me remember, to help me teach.

I strain for the discipline to just finish the last two chapters, but thoughts buzz. Ideas repeated here and there during the day hum for the moment they can be completed. When is that moment? It’s now, when the silence of the night gives ear to their music.

I decipher the purposeful notes and realize daily multi-tasking dulls my focus. My children too easily become part of the background noise. Walls press in, so I must press out. I need new perspectives.

Today three of us lingered at the window. Flocks of birds visited our feeder. We watched the juncos bounce around nibbling spilled seeds. Their black suit coats contrasted with the white snow. Finches of gold and purple brightened the dead lilac bush.

The fourth person here, my son, glanced out, flipped through books, and started asking:

Can we make a suet feeder? Can I make a bird bath? What about a brush cover?

My active, imaginative son always wants to do. I want to bundle up and hibernate until spring. Instead, I make the effort to listen and gather supplies.

Then I pause, before sleep, to capture a moment to help me remember, to help me teach.

What helps you be a better mother and teacher? What do you do to stay focused?

Blogging, Homeschool, Journal, Nature 7 comments

March 14th, 2009 | Renae

Space Frontier Day Inspires Forgetful Me

My eyes scan the entrance. April of Question the Culture planned to meet us if her little ones were well. After thirty minutes I stop glancing around. Disappointed she didn’t appear and sorry for the reason, my children and I continue to make our way through the science experiments.

Children wide-eyed with wonder tug my hands. We stop and squint in a telescope. Run to see the meteorites. Stick magnets to the iron crashed to earth. Take turns. Then hear a growl and glance right. A boy glides on air. Little girls cower, but Bug lines up. His face is serious as he swirls and sails across the floor.

After the noisy earthquake of the hover craft, we assemble constellation charts. Stuffing them in my bag, my troupe steps over to wait for popcorn. The planetarium show is about to start. Kernels explode from the basket, appetites whetted, only to find out we can’t take it with us. Never mind, let’s go!

Around the corner, we are ushered into a dome glowing like the sky. We huddle in back. Our journey through space begins.

A train fills our vision. The rumble of the tracks shake us as the rocket is pushed to the launch pad. A visual timeline erupts as Sputnik breaks free from Earth’s pull.

The details hang themselves on the outline I made with my son earlier. His LEGO creations of the first landing on the moon take their place in the history of the space race.

I learn along with my children. Reminded of the vastness of the universe. The beauty of Earth. The astronauts see Earthrise and read Genesis 1,

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…

I forgot this event, this worship. How often I forget. The whole of existence is not me. I’m small. My thoughts swirl in my own chaos, yet there is so much more to life.

There is beauty in the blackness of space unmeasurable. Blue, green, wisped with white, our home created with words of love.

My son wrote,

We can now see how amazing space is. It inspires me to love God all the more.

It inspires me too, Bug. Me too.

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The article I mentioned above is published in The Science Mouse, a science e-zine for children by children. If you would like your children to participate in future editions, please look at the theme list.

Also, Life Nurturing Education is in the spotlight at Happy to be at Home. You can learn how blogging has changed my life (and my house).

Homeschool, Journal, Nature 12 comments

February 22nd, 2009 | Renae

Noteworthy Links: Spring is Coming Edition

My children and I lounge in the backyard soaking in the sun. The next day we pile under blankets and pretend to hibernate. In East Texas, the weather bounces between spring and winter buffeting my emotions.

February is a month I press through. Like the dandelion, I want to burst out of the cold and smile cheery yellow. Instead, I stretch or hide depending on the cloud cover.

Looking over the articles I noted this week, the tug is revealed.

If I can’t be outside, may the outside creep in.

Holy Experience: A Nature Table Gathering -Lovely display of nature’s beauty

Homeschooling Ideas: Homeschool Nature Table -More ideas to display the wonder of nature indoors

Under His Construction: For the Love of Birds -An entire month of lessons about the winged creatures I gaze at through the window

Texas Parks and Wildlife: Learn About Texas Books -Free books to discover more about birds, insects, fish and more

While inside, I listen, read, watch.

PrincipledMom: A Few New Resources -Some free Principle Approach media to water my thirsty soul

Living Life Between the Trees: The Quest for Primary Readers -An online library to peruse

The Thinking Mother: Books Owned Reveal Past Plans Unfulfilled -If you already have too many books and plans and goals and ideas…

I hope your weekend is warmed by the promise of spring.

Building Childhood Memories

I am pleased to share this guest post by Dana Hanley. Dana writes about faith, family, and particularly education at Principled Discovery. I encourage you to subscribe to her posts. They are always thought-provoking.

We have been listening to “On the Banks of Plum Creek” by Laura Ingalls Wilder. It is amazing to listen to her account of her childhood. Her family had so little…a rag doll and some paper dolls Ma had cut out of old papers were prized treasures. And yet they were so joyful.

Laura’s description of evenings of laughter and dance while Pa played his fiddle evoke a sense of longing for a simpler life in a simpler time. Her tales of running along the creek, chasing fish and pestering crabs cause the reader to pause and reflect on one’s own childhood.

Despite living in conditions most of us today would consider “hardship,” Laura provides such a vivid and loving account of her childhood that over 100 years later we can laugh at the antics of this little brown-haired girl of the frontier. Hours in front of the television watching the latest movie and playing the latest video game will hardly make such a lasting impression on this and future generations.

What memories will our children have?

I’m hoping mine will remember my husband taking time to read to them from “The Bible Story” by Maxwell before going to bed when he returns from a trip. And the post cards he sends them, and the letters they write to include in his lunch box.

I hope they remember breaking open the honeysuckles to get to the sweet nectar inside, and gathering wild plums by the creek north of town.

I hope they remember hiking down the creek at the dog run, balancing across the tree that fell over it, and the time that we all fell in and had to get in the car wet and muddy.

I hope they remember praying and talking and reading about God.

I hope my daughter remembers her excitement at her first “real” Bible.

I hope they remember popping popcorn and mixing it with M&Ms for an occasional family movie.

I hope they will someday sit in front of the fireplace with their grandchildren and have one or two tales from their childhood to share. Maybe even a few that their grandchildren request to hear again and again at every family gathering.

Storytelling seems to be a lost art in our current generation, but maybe that is because children have so little time to build memories worthy of repeating. Perhaps our children need more time when the most interesting thing to do is aggravate an old crab on the banks of Plum Creek.

Published in The Gift Of Family Writing by Jill Novak.

Homemaking, Homeschool, Nature 16 comments

January 27th, 2009 | Renae