Archive for ‘Traditions / Rituals / Holidays’

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March 15, 2012

Fostering a Book Time Ritual

I think the most important part of an education is allowing children to develop a love of books.  Through books children will learn.  This is why it’s one of my main priorities, and even when we can’t follow through on the other homeschool priorities I have for them, I always find time for book time.

Making Books Accessible

My husband and I have been reading to both boys since they were about 1½, mostly at night before bed, but also during the day.  When my first-born was about two years old, I cleared a low shelf in my bookcase and made that the shelf for the children’s books.  This way, my son could easily look at the books whenever he wanted.

Later we converted our dining room into the “activity room,” and we bought some used bookshelves and painted them.  We have accumulated quite a few children’s books through gifts from relatives each birthday and Christmas, and I am a big fan of library book sales and used books bins.  Occasionally I have bought a book full price when I had a specific need.

Making books easily accessible has been key to allowing my sons to develop a natural love of them.  They seek out the books just like they do toys. 

I don’t think you need a lot of books to do this.  I just think you need to keep them accessible.  Lately I have been making good use of our local library system, and I keep a big stack of library books on a small, separate bookshelf so that I don’t lose track of them.  I’ll write more about how I use the library in my next post.

The Book Time Ritual

We read books everyday right after breakfast.  I call out, “Let’s do book time!  Everybody pick a book!”  Letting everyone pick a book (or books) is essential:

  • The two-year-old gets to pick his favorite books – those same books over and over and over again.  Sigh.  Yet I know this is normal and healthy, and it’s creating a love of books for him.
  • The five-year-old gets to pick something he’s excited about.  Thankfully he is past the stage of always picking the same book.  He usually picks the library books that he chose when we were at the library.  He likes non-fiction.  This week he wanted books about the solar system and also Native Americans.
  • I get to pick 1) something different, which is key to keeping me awake and enthusiastic about book time, and 2) something educational (yet fun) that I’m trying to work on with the five-year-old.  Though my son is picking really cool, educational stuff, I have some “goals” I’m working on, which I’ll talk more about in a minute.

Many of the picture books I pick can keep both of my boy’s attention, but frequently while I’m reading the two-year-old’s choices, the five-year-old gets bored and starts playing on his own.  It also happens the other way around.  This is okay with me.  What is tricky is that the books I read to the five-year-old are longer, and the two-year-old doesn’t always go off to play nicely by himself.  He makes noise or goes into the refrigerator and brings back food he wants to eat — My five-year-old and I have to endure a lot of interruptions.  I simply do the best I can with this.  Sometimes we put a bookmark in the longer books and go back to it later.  

Meeting Educational Goals Through Book Time

I have said many times that I don’t think formal lessons are necessary at this age (my boys are 5 and 2), but through books I find that I can cover a lot of educational goals that the five-year-old would be learning if he were in Kindergarten.  (Note: I wouldn’t start him in Kindergarten until this coming fall, if he were attending public school.)  Curling up on the sofa with some good books is a very no-pressure way of teaching, and so far my five-year-old son is very interested in all the non-fiction books we’ve read.  By seeking these out at the library, we’ve been covering these subjects this past year.  (All of these subjects will eventually get their own blog post.  I’ll add links as I write them.)

  • The solar system: As you might imagine, there are plenty of books about the solar system and different planets at the library.
  • The weather: I also found a lot of good books about the weather at the library, particularly about the water cycle, which was fun and easy for my five-year-old to understand.  He also picked out books about hurricanes and tornadoes, which interested him very much.
  • Math: I have pulled back on formal lessons with math, and I’m just reading math picture books to the five-year-old.  There are many of them to choose from.  There’s even a series about each number that includes some simple addition.  My son enjoys them, and I think it’s helping him realize that math can be fun.
  • Literature: This is my favorite and easiest to take care of!  The library is brimming with storybooks!  Any book will do!  But I have taken a more intentional role with choosing which books I’ll read, and I’ve found some resources to help me.  I’ll write about that in my very next post. 

Please stay tuned! You can sign up for my RSS feed or sign up to receive my posts by e-mail in the right hand margin.  (And psssst…..There will be a free give-away later next week on my blog for mothers who want to nurture their creativity!)

How do foster a love of reading in your home?

Posted in Homeschooling, Kindergarten, Traditions / Rituals / Holidays | 8 Comments »

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February 22, 2012

January / February Activities with Small Children

One of my goals this year was to plan a lesson / activity around each of the holidays, and I wanted to try to start some new traditions too.  Unfortunately, I have not started off well in this 2012 New Year.  Though I’ve done a few projects for New Year’s, Valentine’s Day, and even Groundhog Dog, I didn’t feel very prepared, and I didn’t do anything for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day or Washington’s Birthday.  Oh well.  I plan to do this every year, so I’ll make up for eventually.  Since my boys are so young, I have probably done just enough anyway.

To help myself, I’ve just looked up and bookmarked some sites that will tell me the holidays.  Here they are:

2012 American holiday schedule:

Here’s a few visuals and notes about what I did accomplish these past two months. (I’ll repost this next year before the holidays.)

January 1, 2012 – New Year’s Day

For New Year’s, I thought it would be a good time to go over the months of the year with my five-year-old.  He has already learned the days of the week on his own.  I think he’s motivated because he likes to know what our plans are, and he understands that some of our routines happen on a weekly basis.  He almost knows the months of the year, but not quite.

I made these calendars with the boys and laminated them, but I admit, it was more for me than for them.  They had fun creating a list of their “favorites” for 2011, though.  It’s a great item to put into their keepsakes box.

We put a 2012 calendar on one side and their list of favorites for 2011 on the other.  I invited them to decorate the calendars, but the five-year-old wasn’t really into it.  (This seems to be typical of him.  I think decorating is more of a girl thing.)  He did want to cut out his calendar and list and paste it to the construction paper, though.  He also picked the color black – one of his favorites.

I also made this peace dove for New Year’s.  Again, I thought five-year-old might enjoy making it since he likes making so many animals out of paper, but it turned out I did the creating here.  And it turned out rather blah too.  Oh well.

February 2, 2012 – Groundhog Day

If it wasn’t for checking the Internet on the morning of the 2nd, I would have missed Groundhog Day altogether.  Athens has a pretty fun Groundhog Day celebration with Gus, the groundhog who resides at Bear Hollow Zoo.  We may have been able to make it there that morning, but it was cold, and I wasn’t feeling that energetic.  So, I turned to the Internet to help me.

I printed off some fun sheets to color, which you can access by clicking here.  Whereas in the past my boys have not been into coloring at all, I’ve noticed that changing a bit.  They had fun with these sheets, and we hung them on the bulletin board.

I told my five-year-old what the holiday was about, and we watched several videos about groundhogs and Groundhog Day on YouTube.  Here’s a couple, and you’ll find many more on YouTube.

  • Ground Hog Day (2012 HD) - watch a real groundhog take a peek outside his burrow.  I enjoyed the music on this one.
  • Groundhog Day - Get some more information about groundhogs and Groundhog Day history on this one.
It happened to be a lovely, springlike day, so we also went outside to see if we could see our shadows!!
Despite my lack of preparedness, I could tell that my five-year-old enjoyed learning and celebrating Groundhog Day.  At the end of the day, I said, “I’ll have to check the newspaper to see if Gus saw his shadow today.”  The five-year-old said, “I just don’t understand…..groundhogs don’t understand like people do.”  He’s a smart little guy.  I told him, “Yep. The groundhog has no idea what all the fuss is about.  This holiday is just for fun….”
February 14, 2012 – Valentine’s Day

For Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d get an early start (unusual for me, if you can’t tell), so we started making crafts a week or two early.  I made this Valentine’s mailbox, and the five-year-old helped me decorate it.  I wrapped a box with some old paper that they had already drawn on.  (I try to recycle whatever I can.)

The best part of preparing for Valentine’s Day was teaching my five-year-old how to make a heart: by folding a piece of paper, drawing half a heart with its center on the crease, and then cutting it out.  Once he opened it up, he was so happy to discover a perfect heart!

However, he couldn’t quite draw half a heart very well, so my five-year-old was very disappointed with his first attempts.  Since he can be quite a perfectionist, he usually gives up when this happens.  I was pleasantly surprised to watch him keep trying this time.  Soon, he mastered heart making, and once he could make some good hearts, there was no stopping him!  We strung his hearts up along the doorway to our activity room and also pinned them to our bulletin board.  It was really fun for me to watch him do the decorating on his own!

We’re lucky to own a few Valentine’s Day books, so we read those too:

  • My First Valentine’s Day Book - This a great book for 2~3 year olds, and my 5-year-old still likes it too.  It consists of simple rhymes, and there are little cards on each page that your child can take out of an envelope and read.
  • The Best Thing About Valentines by Eleanor Hudson – Also for youngsters. A cute book emphasizing how we make our own Valentines and give them away.
  • Valentine’s Day by Cass R. Sandak – This is a great book, but I got lucky and found it at a library sale. It has the history and customs of Valentine’s Day throughout history. It’s for older kids, so I only read my five-year-old a few pages.

We also made (and bought) some Valentines for each other.  I made each of the boys a special card with their names on it and described their personalities and things they like to do.  Similar to the calendar, and it’ll go into their keepsakes box.

Unfortunately, on Valentine’s Day, I was extremely sick with a bad cold and fever, so some other things I had wanted to do will have to wait until next year.  :(

So please tell me, what kinds of traditions do you have during January and February?  Do you celebrate these holidays and/or celebrate other holidays / traditions this time of year?

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February 15, 2012

Hiking at Harris Shoals Park

Harris Shoals Park, Watkinsville, Georgia

Note: This column was printed in the Barrow Journal on February 8, 2012.

Now that the boys are getting a little older, we’re ready to hit the trails.  My husband initiated a hiking ritual for our family, and at Christmas, he and I got some new boots to make it official. This has been a great winter to start hiking as a family because of the mild weather we’re having.

We love going to Ft. Yargo, but one of our goals is to explore as many parks and other wildlife areas that’s not too far away.  Since the boys are still young, we have to ease them into hiking.  Maybe by next year, they’ll be ready for some mountain trails!

Last week we went to Harris Shoals Park in Watkinsville.  The entrance of the park is at Harris Shoals Drive, which is located on Highway 53 between Interstate 441 and VFW Drive.  The small park provides a valuable green space between the interstate and the town of Watkinsville.

There’s a large playground for kids with one of the biggest and best slides around, and the park offers some shelters and BBQ pits for parties.  There’s also a baseball field.  We headed over to the shoals, however, because my boys love the water.

The water that flows over the shoals is Calls Creek and eventually it meets up with the Middle Oconee River.  The shoals are flat rocks that have been there for thousands of years and have been eroded slowly over time.  It’s a picturesque and peaceful place despite the fact that you can hear some of the traffic on the surrounding roads.

It’s easy to walk out onto the rocks and splash in the water or in the case of my boys, throw rocks into the water.  My two-year-old is like a robot when he sees water. He throws rocks and little twigs in the river without even looking up to see their splash!  We literally have to drag him away when it’s time to go.

The flow of the water over the shoals was slowed somewhat when a dam was built upstream for the old Watkinsville Water Treatment Plant.  Take a short walk up the Harris Shoals Nature Trail, and you’ll be able to see the dam.

According to a leaflet that was provided by Christopher Adams for an Eagle Scouts Project this past fall, “The marsh area behind the dam used to be a more prominent creek until dammed up and was used to hold and treat water which was then pumped up to the city….After the water plant was abandoned, the dam area overgrew to the current marsh like condition of today.”

The area is a haven for wildlife.  Up the trail a bit, we found a beaver dam, and I’m not sure if the beavers still live there, but we also found evidence of their presence at a big tree stump which looked as if it had been chewed considerably by the large teeth of a beaver.

As we were walking, we also saw many birds, including a beautiful heron, which took flight at the sound of my children’s chattering and footsteps.  A marsh area like this would also be home for many fish, reptiles and amphibians.  We did see some little fish in the water at a place we stopped to rest while the boys threw more rocks and twigs into the water.

My favorite part of the park is the long bridge that crosses through the marsh.  I don’t think I’d want to cross that bridge in the middle of August, but right now it gives an interesting view to marshland.  I bet if you sat on that bridge alone in the early morning, you could watch some wild animals too.

Next time you feel like getting out into nature, drive over to Harris Shoals Park.  Bring a picnic and sit down next to the shoals, and don’t forget to pick up a few rocks to throw in the water too.

Where are your favorite places to go hiking?

Posted in Field trips, Homeschooling, My Newspaper Columns, Nature, Resources for Georgia Homeschoolers, Traditions / Rituals / Holidays | Leave a Comment »

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December 28, 2011

Hiking 101: Getting the Family Into Nature

One of my best Christmas presents was a request from my husband that we buy ourselves some new hiking boots and begin to make hiking a priority and a ritual in this family.  Yahoo!  A mutual love of hiking was part of why I fell for my fella, and we used to go on day hikes in the mountains often before we had children.  Though I know people who are serious hikers and strap their babies to their backs and hit the trails, that’s not us.  I had a hard enough time managing breast feeding, diaper changing and all the other demands of babies and toddlers here in a comfortable house let alone out in the wild.  But I’m thrilled my boys are getting older, and we can be more intentional about getting out into nature.

So we got our boots earlier this month, and we took advantage of the warm weather December decided to bring this year in Georgia. We wanted to break in our boots and start off easy by visiting some local parks and gardens.  It’s a good thing we did that too because we learned that with a five and two-year-old, our “hikes” are going to be more like strolls punctuated with a lot of stops, snacking and complaining.  But that’s okay.  We’ll make hikers out of these boys yet.

And hiking with my boys gives the photographer in me great pleasure.  They gave me plenty of time to find the light while they played by the water.  You can see those photos by clicking here.

The photos here are from Ft. Yargo State Park and The State Botanical Garden of Georgia.

Getting children into nature is very important, and I consider it a goal in our homeschooling lifestyle too.  For more information about getting kids and your family into nature, you might like to look at these links (which I posted in my Worthy Reads a while back):

What’s your preferred way of getting out into nature?

Posted in Field trips, Nature, Traditions / Rituals / Holidays | 16 Comments »

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December 24, 2011

The Best Christmas Gifts For This Tired Mama

Lucky me: the five-year-old took over the big job of decorating the tree this year!

Note: This column appeared in the Barrow Journal on December 22, 2011.

Last week we trimmed the tree, or, actually, my five-year-old trimmed the tree.  I assembled it and put the lights on, and then he put on every single ornament by himself.  He got very irritated with me if I tried to put one on.  He wanted to do it all by himself.

I know what you’re thinking, and you are right.  It’s not the most organized tree, but it’s still quite pretty.  At least with the help of a stepladder the ornaments are not clustered at the bottom of the tree.

And this is when I realized something.  Things are starting to get a tad…a smidge…a little bit easier around here.  My boys are five and two-years-old.  They have fleeting moments of extreme independence.

Since their birthdays in August, I’ve noticed that sometimes they play happily without me.  They play pretty well with each other, but sometimes they take off in different directions.  I’m still shocked when my two-year-old will go upstairs by himself to play with the GeoTrax.  He is actually being good.  By himself!

This is the best Christmas present that this mama can get: pockets of free time.  I still have plenty to do, including the dishes, laundry, and write my column, but it’s wonderful to be able to write during the day when I’m not so tired instead of late at night.

Don’t get me wrong though.  These pockets of time last twenty minutes at most, and the boys still keep my hopping.  They fight, the two-year-old can be so fussy, and when I get time to myself, I’m frequently interrupted.

But I’m here to tell any parent with children younger than mine that it does happen!  It gets a little easier.  It took five long years, but it does happen.

It could also be that I’ve been more intentional about trying to relax.  I try not to spend every night at my computer, and I always end the day with a good book instead of staring at my to-do list.  Once a week I’m committing myself to movie night too.  This might not seem like much, but until a few weeks ago, I had not sat down to watch a movie for pleasure in years.

I found out that my husband has been doing his own thinking on how we could relax.  He surprised me by saying for Christmas he wanted to get us both a new pair of hiking boots.  Day hikes in the mountains were a frequent recreation of ours before we had kids, and now that the boys are a little older, he wants to start again and take the boys with us.

I jumped for joy.  Though I frequently take the boys out to parks, I sorely miss going hiking.  We’ll have to stick to easier trails for our young children, but it’ll be wonderful to make getting into nature with the family more of a habit.

So we got our boots, and today we did our first “hike” at Ft. Yargo.  (Aren’t we lucky that we live in Barrow County and have this treasure in our backyard?)  On our inaugural hike, I learned not to expect much.  The boys would rather throw rocks and clamshells into the water than actually move down the trail.  The two-year-old tires quickly, and they both need a good supply of snack food on hand.

But it didn’t damper my enthusiasm.  It’s just the beginning for this outdoorsy family.

I hope everyone reading this has a wonderful holiday.  No matter how you celebrate, I hope it’s a peaceful, happy time for you.  I hope there’s someone with you to snuggle up to on the cold evenings, and I hope you get some great gifts too.

Posted in Motherhood, My Newspaper Columns, Traditions / Rituals / Holidays | 3 Comments »

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December 21, 2011

December & Christmas Activities with Small Children

These are snowflakes that we made last year for the tree. I hung them up in the entrance way of our activity room. They make a pretty decoration.

A while back I wrote about my desire to make new family traditions for my family, and December seems like a great time to do that.  However, I have to admit, I have kept this December extremely simple and I’ve done nothing to intentionally start anything new.  This might also be laziness on my part too.  But right now with a 5 and 2 year old, it feels like an accomplishment to get our regular chores done let alone begin new projects!  So I haven’t stressed.  I’ve just done what I could do easily and what the boys were receptive to.

(However, part of the reason I haven’t had to do much is because my husband initiated a new goal for the family!  I’ll be writing about this in an upcoming post. You can read about that here!)

So let’s see.  What have we done?  We have done what we’ve always done…..

  • We decorated a Christmas tree.  And this year, my five-year-old put all the ornaments on by himself!  That was special.
  • We also put a small tree in the five-year-old’s room.  We’ve done this the last few years, so I think we can call it a tradition.
  • This should have been written up under my “November Activities” post, but in early November, I always help my son write a letter to Santa Claus. This year I forgot to put a stamp in the envelope, but if you put a stamp in the envelope and address it to “Santa Claus, North Pole,” you’ll probably get a reply like we did last year!!
  • My five-year-old and I decided to make puppets with some extra cardboard I found and popsicle sticks.  We drew pictures on the cardboard, cut them out, pasted a popsicle stick on the back, and voila! a puppet!  We made some for my little nephews, and then my son wanted to make some for his friends. (A proud mama moment!)
  • We have been reading our Christmas books.  (I keep all the seasonal books tucked away so that we can pull them out around the holidays and they seem like new.)
  • Yesterday I baked one batch of oatmeal raisin cookies with the five-year-old while the two-year-old was napping, and yep, that’s the extent of my baking for the holidays.
  • This week I’ll let my boys watch some Christmas specials on T.V. if they want to.  We own the Charlie Brown Christmas special.
  • We strung up frosted Os for the tree.  We also did this last year, so maybe we can call it a tradition.  Frosted Os (or some kind of generic version) are big and easy for a little one to hold and string!  (That is, if he’s willing to do it.)  (Also, word to the wise: do not put them low on the tree if you have a dog.  Also don’t leave them on the kid’s activity table while the dogs are in the house.)
  • For an easy craft, I cut out the shape of a Christmas tree out of green construction paper, and then I cut out different colored shapes such as a star and circles, squares, triangles & small rectangles to make ornaments.  (My intent was to help my 2yo learn his shapes, but the craft didn’t hold his attention for very long.)  I put all the shapes and bits of paper into a plastic bag with a glue stick and a few extra Christmas stickers, and I told my boys they could make a Christmas tree whenever they wanted. I wasn’t sure my five-year-old wanted to do it, but he finally asked for it today.

So that is what I have done this December. There’s also a few things I didn’t do:

A simple craft: cut out the shape of a tree and several different shapes to use as ornaments. Stickers are also fun to add.

  • We didn’t decorate the outside of our house.  (Except for a small wreath on the door.)
  • I didn’t send Christmas cards this year. (Needed to save time and money.)
  • We didn’t do a lot of baking. (Except for that one batch of oatmeal raisin cookies.)
  • We didn’t drive around looking at Christmas lights.  (This was a favorite tradition of mine growing up.)
  • I didn’t buy a lot of presents (don’t have the money anyway), make any presents (except for the easy puppets), or invite anyone over for a Christmas get-together.

My main goal this December was to just enjoy the time with my boys, husband and keep up with our daily routine because when I don’t do that, we can all get quite frazzled.  Like I said above, with a 5 and 2 year-old, it’s an accomplishment to get anything done, and routine is important to them.  As their mom, I have to be ready for their mood changes (which can be swift), illnesses or whims (“I don’t want to do a craft, Mommy!”)  I also want to honor daddy’s ideas for family outings while he’s home on winter break.  So, not overwhelming myself with extra chores or expectations is key to making me a good mother.  (At least, most of the time.)

Whether you celebrate Christmas, another holiday, or none at all, I hope this winter season is warm, happy and peaceful for you!  Please leave me a comment and tell me what celebrations or activities you are participating in this December.

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December 1, 2011

The Best-laid Plans of Parents with Small Children

Note: This column first appeared in the Barrow Journal on November 30, 2011.

As you know from my previous column, we were looking forward to our first Thanksgiving at home with just the four of us.  No traveling.  No need to power clean the house.  Just a quiet, relaxing day with a turkey dinner.  Unfortunately, my two-year-old woke up on the wrong side of the bed that morning. It’s typical at his age to have tantrums.  He wants to be more independent, and he can’t always communicate his needs, which leads to a lot of frustration.  It’s stressful being two.

However, there are some days when he’ll go from calm to tempest quicker and more frequently throughout the day.  Is it the terrible twos?  Teething? “Unmet needs” as the family therapist says in the parenting book that is sitting on my bedside table? If I knew what his unmet needs were, I would gladly take care of them!

I have no idea why he is like this sometimes. Unfortunately, he picked Thanksgiving to have an off day.  We all have off days, don’t we? Two-year-olds are not excluded from that.

He cried and pointed to objects that he wanted and then didn’t want after I handed them to him.  He slept well, I held him and played with him, yet he was unsettled all day.

Mid-morning I changed his diaper and he decided he didn’t want to wear another one.  Okay, I thought, we don’t have to go anywhere; we’ll start potty training on Thanksgiving.  Not what I had planned, but I’m game.  Fortunately, it didn’t take long for him to find out why diapers are helpful.  To clean him up, I put him in the bathtub, and his older brother stayed in the bathroom, and they played together with the water and toys for a long time.  That wasn’t so bad.

After the bath, he screamed about the clothes he had to wear.  Did I mention he’s refusing to wear a coat outside and has to pull his long sleeves up on his arms?  Oh yes, he’s spirited.  Someday that spirit will serve him well.  For now, it will cause more gray hairs on his mama’s head.

Right before dinner he was upset too, crying as I helped my husband put the finishing touches on our dinner table.  (A big thanks to my husband for cooking the Thanksgiving turkey.)  With a child clinging to my leg, I finished the mashed potatoes.

By the time I sat down at the dinner table I was sweating, my husband was irritable, but the two-year-old was finally happy eating his meal.  That’s all we were thankful for at that moment.

The day wasn’t all bad, though.  In the morning my boys and I put on some finger puppet shows, and during the two-year-old’s nap, my five-year-old and I played outside in the beautiful weather, and in the evening, we watched a movie.

Later that night I was reading Falling Through Space: The Journals of Ellen Gilchrist.  In one essay she wrote about spending 38 hours alone with her two grandchildren, ages 4 and 1.

She states, “I am here to report that taking care of small children is the single most exciting, complicated, difficult, creative and maddening job on all the green earth.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself, but I’m still grateful for my boys, bad days and all.

How do you deal with the unpredictability of children?

Posted in Life Stories, Motherhood, My Newspaper Columns, Traditions / Rituals / Holidays | 2 Comments »

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November 26, 2011

November & Thanksgiving Activities With Small Children

In an earlier post, I mentioned that I wanted to create history lessons around each holiday this year.  In addition to this, I want to do general activities to celebrate each season.  However, I still feel the need to keep things extremely simple with my boys.  At ages 5 & 2, they just aren’t ready for big projects or crafts.  When I do initiate crafts, it’s usually me doing most of the crafting, or the boys take over by making it a cutting-up-paper-into-tiny-bits session.  Whether it’s their ages or that they are boys, long sit-down lessons and activities don’t work for us.  (And this also goes for just the five-year-old when the two-year-old is napping too.)

So here are the simple things we did this November to celebrate autumn and Thanksgiving:

  • We had a gorgeous autumn in Georgia this year, so I wanted to celebrate those beautiful leaves.  We collected leaves and laminated them.  Last year I tried ironing them between parchment paper, and it looked awful.  I asked my sister – a first grade teacher – what she recommended.  She said she just laminated the leaves.  Guess what?  It works great!  After laminating them, I strung some up over our window and the doorway into our activity room.  I tacked the others up to our bulletin board, and I labeled the leaves that I knew.  (Tree identification will come when they’re older too.)  (This it the laminator I purchased over a year ago – a worthwhile investment.)
  • We planted bulbs.  And garlic.  I’ve never planted garlic before, so I’m excited to see what will happen.  Planting seeds is a favorite pastime of my five-year-old, which I have written about extensively in this post.
  • We read our Thanksgiving books:
    • What Is Thanksgiving? by Harriet Ziefert – A sweet, lift-the-flap book about a mouse who asks his parents “What is Thanksgiving?”  It’s very simple and dedicates only two lines to the history of the holiday.  It’s mostly about what we do now to celebrate Thanksgiving. I would only recommend it for very young children.
    • The Story of the Pilgrims by Katherine Ross – I highly recommend this book for the approximate ages 4~6 or anyone needing a beginning lesson on Thanksgiving history.  It starts in England and talks about a group of people call Pilgrims and why they left, their journey in the Mayflower, their first difficult winter, the encounter with the Indians and what the Indians taught them, and it ends with the big feast.  It’s simple enough for youngsters but full of interesting details.
  • As we talked about Thanksgiving and what we give thanks for, I used A Child’s Book of Animal Poems and Blessings (collected by Eliza Blanchard).  My boys love animals, so these poems and prayers were fun.  The illustrations are beautiful.  It teaches respect for animals, and it gave me a chance to talk about praying and poetry.  Needless to say, this isn’t a book I will use only for this season.
  • The night before Thanksgiving, I told my five-year-old a story about Jack and Piper and the big Thanksgiving feast they hosted in the forest.  All the forest animals were invited, and on this day, there was no bickering or squabbles.  One by one, each animal said what he was thankful for.
  • Besides these simple activities, I have spent as much time outdoors as the weather permitted.  We visited Ft. Yargo, the Botanical Garden, and spent lots of time in our own yard.

Maybe next year I’ll get around to baking, more crafts and more history lessons.  Or maybe we’ll just spend more time outside.

What’s your favorite activities for November?

Posted in Homeschool Activities, Homeschooling, Kindergarten, Traditions / Rituals / Holidays | 1 Comment »

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November 23, 2011

Creating New Family Traditions

 

There’s a time when old traditions need to die, a time for new traditions, and a time when old traditions can be reborn with new meaning.

In years past, I have always felt a little lonely during the holidays.  I wished I had a big, happy family that didn’t live so far apart, so we could all come together and eat a lot of food, play games, and exchange stories.

My husband and I are usually invited to a relative’s home each Thanksgiving, and we’ve always gone, but this year I did an uncomfortable thing and turned down the invitation.  It’s because I began to think about what kind of memories I want to create for my two boys.

Except for my dad and step-mom, we rarely see our Georgia relatives during the year, so for my boys, it would almost be like visiting a stranger’s house on the holiday.  What do I really want for them?  I want them to remember the holidays in their childhood home with their loved ones.

So this year we’re going to have a cozy Thanksgiving at home, and we’ll make a big meal (big to us, that is), and we’ll start the tradition of stating what we’re thankful for at the dinner table.

This time of year has got me thinking about family traditions in general too.  A few years ago, I had a conversation with my brother (who is also starting his family) about how we need to create our own family traditions, especially since so many of our traditions were blurred by divorce and moving from state to state.

Shortly after having that conversation, my brother and sister-in-law sent me some books about creating family traditions as a Christmas gift.  The Book of New Family Traditions by Meg Cox and Together Creating Family Traditions by Rondi Hillstrom Davis and Janell Sewall Oakes are beautiful books that have given me many good ideas.

Yet I’m aware that the best traditions spring forth spontaneously.  I have to be careful about stating, “Here is a new tradition we are going to start…” What if I’m the only one on board that boat?  Traditions need to be something the whole family enjoys.

We all have traditions whether we realize it or not.  Religions give us many of our traditions.  My family follows the Christian traditions of observing Christmas and Easter, and we’ll continue to do so.  Traditions can also be unique to each family.

In The New Book of Family Traditions, I read about a family that every month during the full moon, they go outside and roast marshmallows in the moonlight.  By coincidence, my family took a moonlit walk the other night.  We showed our son where Jupiter was and looked for constellations.  It was so much fun, I’m wondering if I could make that happen every month.  (Or almost every month?)

Traditions can be simple daily exercises.  Some people say grace before mealtimes; others enjoy a slow cup of coffee in the mornings (that’s me).  Come to think of it, I have already started the ritual of telling my five-year-old a story every night. Even if I feel uninspired and tell him a boring tale, he seems to love it, and I know that somehow this is imparting my love and beliefs to him.

And this is what traditions do at their best: They give a family or community a reason to come together and share their love and commonality with each other. This in turn gives an individual a sense of belonging.  I want my boys to feel that being part of this family is important. When life gets tough I want them to have a place to come to and feel loved.

This is why we’ll have Thanksgiving and Christmas at home from now on, and I’ll be looking for ways to expand our old traditions, making them more meaningful to us.  I’ll also be thinking about new traditions I can add throughout the year.

What are your traditions?  Old or new?  I would love to hear what your family does because it may give me ideas for my own.  Please leave me a comment.  And in the future, I’ll write about what kinds of traditions we have started or renewed.

Note: This column was first printed in the Barrow Journal on Wednesday, November 23, 2011.  You can also view it online here.

And I hope all my American friends have a happy, warm, loving Thanksgiving!

Posted in Life Stories, Motherhood, My Newspaper Columns, Traditions / Rituals / Holidays | 11 Comments »

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