Looking for a way to bring peace and joy to your day?
Seasons of Joy is my 10-week seasonal guidebook to add rhythm and fun to your daily routine. Each guidebook has ten weeks' worth of circle times, stories, arts, crafts, and handwork, painting, playtime activities and more!
Seasons of Joy seeks to empower families to create peaceful rhythms and routines and joyful celebrations that follow the circle of the year. The blog also chronicles our adventures in living simply, loving exuberantly, and Waldorf inspired homeschooling.
I have a little project in mind for the next 7 months or so, starting now in February. The plan is to use this space both to tighten up our rhythms and routines as well as to (hopefully!) give you some practical ideas and inspiration as well. This month, we’ll have a month of Mondays.
During the first week of February, I’ll introduce you to our Monday homemaking rhythms. In our house, this means laundry and caring for clothes.
During the second week of February, we’ll look at Monday homeschooling rhythms. This includes our planning meetings, assignment sheets, and crafting for others, among other things. Read more...
I am so excited and blessed to be participating in Erin Goodman’s 10-Day Family Recharge!
Saturday was the first day, and I woke up to this lovely video in my in-box.
Isn’t it a beautiful song? It actually reminded me of a very similar song from Sweet Honey on the Rock’s “All for Freedom” album, which I used to play a lot a billion years ago when I taught preschool. So I dug around a little, and it seems to be based on an old gospel tune. The earliest version I could find was by Bessie Jones. Read more...
“To maintain a joyful family requires much from both the parents and the children. Each member of the family has to become, in a special way, the servant of the others and share their burdens. Each one must show concern, not only for his or her own life, but also for the lives of the other members of the family: their needs, their hopes, their ideals.” ~ Blessed John Paul II
Oh my goodness, how on earth did it get to be February already!!?!?!
Well, OK, it isn’t February yet. But it’s almost February, and we’re starting our February planning.
I have plenty of planning to do, too. Main lessons are as follows:
Seventh Grade- Renaissance, with a focus on individuals who made a difference and reading biographies.
Fifth Grade- American geography, which we’ll learn while getting to know some great American heroes
Second Grade- Celtic saints Read more...
Yeehaw! Here are some posts I’ve enjoyed around the internet this week.
Chocolate eyes has the sweetest little peek-a-boo dolls on her website. She has an easy-as-pie tutorial too. I can envision making all sorts of these– flowers for spring, snowflakes for winter, sunshine for summer, pumpkins for autumn… What a lovely Valentine’s day gift or project!
If you’ve hit a homeschool slump, you may want to pop on over to Heart of the Matter for A Winter Tutorial for Homeschooling. She has some great ideas to help brighten these cold winter days. Read more...
What started out as a simple cold has morphed into bronchiolitis, and we ended up in the emergency room last night for a breathing treatment and a chest x-ray. It’s not RSV, thank goodness, but seeing her struggle to breath and feeling her baby heart race was certainly scary!
Even having a stuffy nose can be frightening for a baby. Infants are obligate nose-breathers, God’s design for allowing them to breathe and nurse at the same time. So when little noses get stuffed up, things can get very difficult very quickly! Read more...
We’re several weeks into our switch to whole foods and we’re doing OK. Today I had a crazy need for chocolate so I used the last of my giftcard the hubby got me for the local natural foods store to pick up some yummy organic peanut butter cups. This way of cooking takes a lot more time and energy and intentionality. We’re getting there…
Even though I’m surrounded by books and papers with ten tabs open on my browser as I prepare for a Sunday night frenzy of lesson planning, the last word is enough to make me look up and pay attention to what my four-year-old is saying.
“What about blood?”
He lifts his foot and shows me a smear of red covering several toes.
“Daddy said it will be OK. I either stepped in paint or it’s just a little blood.”
He wrinkles his brow and looks to me to tell him that he is indeed fine. I see the question in his eyes. Read more...
View of cascading water frozen on the mountains on some back roads of Pennsylvania
When icicles hang by the wall
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail;
When blood is nipt and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl:
Tu-who!
Tu-whit! Tu-who! -- A merry note!
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marian's nose looks red and raw;
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl
Then nightly sings the staring owl:
Tu-who!
Tu-whit! Tu-who! -- A merry note!
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
~Shakespeare, Love's Labour Lost
Our Current Read Aloud: On the Banks of Plum Creek
In the car we’re listening to… The Incorrigable Children of Ashton Place and the Hidden Gallery
Nursery Rhyme Nursery School
Rain on the green grass,
Rain on the trees,
Rain on the rooftops,
But not on me!
Character Counts! This month we’re learning about…
Sincerity
2 Corinthians 1:12
For our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience, that we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God, and supremely so toward you.
We’re several weeks into our switch to whole foods and we’re doing OK. Today I had a crazy need for chocolate so I used the last of my giftcard the hubby got me for the local natural foods store to pick up some yummy organic peanut butter cups. This way of cooking takes a lot more time and energy and intentionality. We’re getting there…
