Thought for the Day...

I read this today and I am currently mulling it over.  Letting it run around in my head because this is something totally new for me.  This is not a thought I generally can accept let alone put into practice.  BUT I DON'T WANT TO BE THE "LAW" PERSON.  I want to be the gospel kind of parent.

Every way we try to make our kids good that isn’t rooted in the good news of the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ is damnable, crushing, despair-breeding, Pharisee-producing law. We won’t get the results we want from the law. We’ll get either shallow self-righteousness or blazing rebellion or both (frequently from the same kid on the same day!).  From this site

The End of the Salt Dough Map

I give up!  The fact that I just really don't want to do this has won.  Please remind me that I HATE salt dough maps the next time we are supposed to do this.

Here's our week in review:
B reading Golden Fleece

 M reading Hittite Warrior

 C doing a little recreational reading

 C's nature journal.  He really enjoys doing this and I love to see what he comes away with.

Boys making a flower press.  I had to make it cool by adding in the power tools!

 Little Miss working on Rod and Staff Adventures with Books

Finished!

The ongoing saga of Milkweed.....

I think we found some!  This happens to be the only thing living right now.  I am suprised at how excited I am over a silly plant but we really have spent time looking for this little bugger.  The people whose yard it was growing in probably think we are a bunch of loonies but its not really that far of a leap anyway!
In case you are wondering, this is actually what the ground looks like right now.

 Neat variegated leaves around the small flowers

The leaves grow out of it like they are unfolding from the stem.

The Habit of Obedience

I recently was reading some of Charlotte Mason's writings on Habit Training, specifically on Obedience.  This is an area I feel like we struggle in, among others.  So here is a little nugget that struck me:

To secure this habit of obedience, the mother must

exercise great self-restraint; she must never give a command

which she does not intend to see carried out to the full. And she

must not lay upon her children burdens, grievous to be borne, of

command heaped upon command.

OHC: Milkweed

Looking out on our yard all we see is a sea of brown.  The grasses are crunchy and the dirt is turning into dust.  We were skeptical when we started out on our nature walk this week if we would be able to find our challenge from our Outdoor Hour Newsletter of milkweed.  Usually it is all over the place.  We might even be able to find some monarch chrysillases attached to nearby plants.  But because it is so dry, I thought the best we could do was to look up some pictures on the internet.  We did, however, find one type of milkweed.  It was looking very sad, it had already bloomed, the seed pod was dried up.  We were able to find the seed "balloons", those feathery, cottony looking things that help the seed travel on the wind.  Which was pretty neat. 

So feeling a little better that nature hasn't completely revoked our privileges, we are going to make a project today that I will post about a little later.

Allison

Salt Dough Map

I confess, I really don't like making salt dough maps.  They seem like a great idea, it sounds like the kids will really have a wonderful learning experience.  It's all hands on, tactile, kinesthetic.  All the things that make for great learning.  But I still can't stand it.

That said, I have made the gooey mess, the children have made what appears to be Isreal and it is in the process of being painted.  We were supposed to have painted it 3 weeks ago.  We should be labeling the Judges on it.  I'm just hoping to get finished with labeling the tribes of Isreal.  I post this picture with trepidation -- please don't judge our lack of artistic ability! 

Next week we will add outlines of the tribes and hopefully label the judges.