is what we are rowing this week.

The Wild Horses of Sweetbriar

We will be doing some fun activities this week.  (You can get complete lesson plans by using Five In A Row.  Of course we will be using our new acrylic paint set to try our hand at painting horses.  We may have to cruise through some thrift stores and look for a horse barn and some horses to add to our doll house.

We started with special activities today by playing a go-along card game I purchased to help my daughter learn the various breeds of horses.  It sure was fun!

Happy Rowing,
Lynn

I had so much fun painting the first picture last night, I just couldn’t stop.  ~:-D  My daughter said, keep painting, Mama.  So I did.  (She thinks I am an artist, which should fully tell you how little real art we’ve studied.)

My second attempt, and then I had to put the paints away.  With this painting, I tried to just quickly paint my mood.  That was really fun.  It’s called Fall Garden.  This has intensified my interest in getting my daughter some art lessons.  I think she would appreciate it so much as she gets older and wants to fill her time with lovely things.  I know I am wishing now that I had had some earlier in life.

So the doll house accessories…

Did we do too much pink?  The canisters are bright, I know, but we are talking about dolls.  I am not sure what we’ll do with the rose, but it’s pretty anyway.  Some little friends of my daughter’s showed her how to easily make a rose from clay.

I like the clock. 

Lynn

 is harder than it looks. 

We don’t paint much around here, as in making works of art.  At least, I wish we painted more. 

This afternoon we went shopping for acrylic paints to paint our doll house accessories.  (Yes, I know I was supposed to have done this last weekend.)  Anyway, I began adding up the prices of individual containers of acrylics plus a set of brushes and I realized I could spend a little more and get a beginner’s acrylic paint set with brushes, paint, palette, instruction book, carrying case and everything.

We are not done with the accessories, but we did try our hand at making a work of art with acrylic paints!  This is my daughter’s painting.

I love the tree.

And… promise not to laugh.  This is my very first time painting with acrylics, after all.  Here is my painting.

I think I need to stick to more abstract things.  ~:-D

Anyway, I really enjoyed this.  I want to paint more. 

Some of the doll house accessories need another coat and more touching up.  I promise we will finish them and show then off when we are done!

Lynn

Did you know that caps from toothpaste tubes make great doll house accessories?

It’s either a great doll house cup or a cool doll house canister.  Your choice!

Keeping it simple,
Lynn ~:-D

Okay, here’s the next review.  Another book that we got for Christmas:

The Unschooling Handbook : How to Use the Whole World As Your Child’s Classroom

There’s a lot to like about this book–namely, validation that, yes, I am doing enough.

I have mixed emotions about homeschooling:  I love many of the subjects heralded as “classical,” but that did not come from having received a “classical” education myself.  I love nature and a gentle approach to teaching, which has always led me to keep a variety of Charlotte Mason “help” books on my bookshelf.  Life, however, continues to throw me curve balls and I have confidence that my children are smart and capable, so I’ve often found myself “settling” for an unschooling approach.  Somehow, though, unschooling has taken a liking to our family, and I have truly taken a liking to unschooling, and I find myself thinking that it is the only real way any of us truly learn.  

In the future I’ll write more about our unschooling adventures, but for now I just want to give you a short review of the book.

I think unschooling is misunderstood because it is so hard to define.  It’s different for every family.  There are, however, similarities that all unschooling families seem to have:  they do what feels right to them, they trust that all children have a natural drive to learn, and they choose not to force a curriculum on the family.

Some things you’ll get from this book:

• Personal accounts of what unschooling is for about 30+ families.  There are first-hand statements throughout the book to complement the topic at hand.
• Information and thoughts about how T.V. and modern technology fit in.
• Resources at the end of each chapter, including information on the three R’s.
• How various families record what they are doing to create a portfolio or transcript.
• How to deal with your children as they begin to change from child to adult.

Like I said, I already embrace unschooling.  We started out using it by default, but I really like the results I am seeing from it.  If you are tempted to unschool or wondering if you should continue unschooling, this book might be of great help to you.  It can, at the very least, settle some doubts.  If you don’t unschool but just want to know more about it, this book is very much for you.  It contains information beneficial to not just unschoolers but all homeschoolers.

Lynn

Unschooling Voices

I must say I am so pleased.  I just had to share this.  Sweet-pea and I sat down this evening and worked on a piece of doll house furniture — a dresser.  With a mirror and everything!

We used match boxes for the drawers.  My husband carefully removed a mirror from a compact I had.  Last night at work we had some excellent boxes that were going to be thrown out.  They were heavy cardboard, but not corrugated.  Very smooth and sturdy.  Just right.

We cut out a “frame” from one end of a box, into which we could glue the drawers.  Then we cut a piece of box to be glued onto the back.  Finally, the mirror was glued into place.  For the pulls on the drawers, we used a needle to punch holes (carefully now!) into two places on the front of each drawer.  We took a little piece of raffia and drew it through and tied in the front.

Isn’t it great??  ~:-D

Lynn

then what’s a blog for?

I just had to share what I found earlier at the thrift store.  I met my mom and my sister and, together with my daughter and my niece, we had the best time just looking at all the stuff there. 

I know it’s hard to see, but I found two very pretty skirts in dark gray/black and then one beige linen skirt.  The three shirts are not necessarily to go with the skirts in the picture, but just three shirts that I liked.

The coat?  Oh man!  I needed a new coat and this coat was worth the trip to Wake Forest, was worth the money (15 dollars).  It is so Victorian.  It is so me.  ~:-D

I love the way it hangs.  I love the cuffs on the sleeves and the big pockets.

I love the big plum-colored buttons.

You had to see the coat up close so you can see this pattern.  It doesn’t always look this bright.  It is a soft velvety fabric.  Under the light of the flash, the contrasting color patterns in the fabric show up well.

By the way, here’s a trick to getting off that marker that thrift stores use to write on things.  It’s easy on most dishes, etc., but may be a bit trickier on fabrics.  On the label in this coat where the price was written, it worked like a charm:  take a couple of drops of essential oil (I use lavender) and drop directly onto the ink.  Let it sit for a bit (not too long for a fabric label) and then wipe off.  I would be careful putting directly on fabrics as opposed to the label, but then I would probably not buy something if the price was written directly on the fabric.  Hope this helps you.

I’m so happy,

Lynn

I was thinking yesterday about The Year of the Doll House – my commitment for 2008.  There are already mothers out there joining me for this, making their own commitments to play dolls though 2008.  I am so excited!

It has been about two weeks since I decided to commit myself to this doll house adventure, and so far it’s been easy.  I just wanted to share that.  Easy!  Yes.

I don’t want it to seem something complicated.  Life is complicated.  Playing dolls is not.  But playing dolls — I believe — can help a girl to handle the complicated things that will come her way in life some day.  

I’ve learned a lesson raising four children.  It’s a lesson that has thrilled me at times, but sometimes has been painful.  Children do what they see their parents do.

The day before Christmas, I woke up feeling very overwhelmed.  I am working outside of my home right now after all (just a season, I tell you) and it’s easy to get overwhelmed.  I was thinking, how will I get the gifts wrapped, or even finish buying the few things I need, and rest well tonight, and enjoy Christmas Day, knowing that I have to be back to work the day after Christmas??  I had a deer-in-headlights moment and did a totally abstract thing.  I hung up my new 2008 calendar.  It was probably meant to be.  The quote for the month of January 2008 was exactly what I needed to see.

It is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all.  Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867-1957)

I held that thought close.  I decided to pick the sweet, simple things out of all the thoughts swirling through my mind and focus on them.  Playing dolls with my little sweetie-pie was one of the first things to pop into my mind.  The second thing was how much I wanted to see my mother and my sister (and how much they wanted to see me), so wrapped gifts were not as important as I could build them up to be.  The important thing was me having a soft and sweet spirit and enjoying the important things.  I decided just to relax and enjoy the days ahead.  After all, my daughter is watching, and so are my sons.

The Year of the Doll House is all about playing.  It’s about doing something simple.  In doing the simple things, though, we often paint such a larger picture that it’s hard to see the whole masterpiece at one time.  The Year of the Doll House is about doing a sweet, simple thing, and doing it day by day.

There’s a precious thought that a dear friend shared with me recently.  It keeps coming back to me in all that I do.  It’s helped me to focus on the sweet, simple things.

“…precept upon precept; line upon line…here a little, and there a little:”  Isaiah 28:10

Precept upon precept and line upon line — little by little.  That’s how big things are built.

Lynn

Looks good with guinea feathers, no? 

My mother has guineas, and we took a Christmas day walk yesterday. I picked up a bag full of treasures from nature.  (Pictures from that soon.)

We’ll have to keep the vase and feathers away from the flames.  One must be careful with fire in the house! (And outside of the house, too.)

Lynn

PS – I think making things for the doll house, especially from nature, qualifies nicely as a Charlotte Mason handicraft.

We had a delightful day today with family.  We went to see grandma and grandpa who live in the perfect little log cabin in the woods.  My sister and her husband and my niece were there.  (My niece and my daughter are only three months apart, so they love to have time together. )

I have the best mom in the world.  She just falls in and supports me and my sister when we decide to do something.  A good lesson for me in raising my own daughter. 

She found these cute little bottles and wrapped them up for my daughter for her doll house.  She knew we’d find something to do with them.  She also found a set for my niece.  Of course she got the girls other gifts, but it’s the little things like this that were specially found that are so much fun.

The clear glass bottle looks like a great base for a doll house lamp.  I am not sure about the other one yet.  It looks like a lovely vase for foliage on a doll house hearth.

Lynn