This dear baby loves her mama!
She loves me so much (as in she hardly leaves my sight) that I am shocked that I have photos of her not being on my lap.
I think I am getting a hang of homeschooling three kids. There are days where I feel like superwoman and days where I need to text or email someone to talk me out of buying workbooks (or sending them to public school- those thoughts last seconds 😉 )
From what I am learning, the key is to:
take care of myself first (shower, get a drink, take a deep breath)
then snuggle and nurse Sarah
Next…
Lead a circle time that feeds everyone (fingerplays for Sarah, ring games for Hannah and lots of big movement for Noah)
After that I take turns between all three making sure that they are supported in their lessons and activities.
Some days Sarah is terribly cranky and I feel absolutely overwhelmed. On days like that, I gather everyone up and we walk to the park or the library. We stop into Great Harvest for a slice of pumpkin or cinnamon bread and share a can of blackberry Izze. Suddenly, the world is right again.
Despite the setbacks that come just from learning what works for our family, we experienced some really lovely stories and outings this month.
Here are a few:
- Went on nature walks every other day. We choose a few spots to visit from September until the first snowfall, so we could observe the changes in foliage, animals, etc…
- We had autumn time and fall books as our anchor for each day.
- Noah started King Maximo and the Number Knights. King Maximo’s stories introduce the numbers 1-12 on a fun quest to discover which number is the greatest of all. Each of the 12 knight reports back to the king with some magical qualities of the numbers. We loved the stories and enjoyed this imaginative overview of the qualities of the numbers and felt it was the perfect warm up to starting our math block.
- For Hannah, we are continuing Halloween songs and stories and learning the gentle balance of allowing her to weave in and out of Noah’s work, so long as she lets him focus on his work.
- Field trips: We visited a pumpkin farm and historical village
- Arts and Crafts- we dipped autumn leaves into beeswax, made pumpkin bread, created little fall peg dolls and painted rocks to look like owls for our nature table.
Hearth Magic Mama 