I was out in the garden today for a relaxing break from all the stuff that goes on INSIDE the house.  You know, cleaning, working, cleaning, cooking, cleaning, math, cleaning.  Did I say cleaning?

Four times?  Okay. 

Anway, high up in a large gardenia bush was this…

Yes, the gardenia bush is large.  The praying mantis sits above my eye level.  Quite an imposing sight.  Praying mantis slowly moved the wasp(?) away from its face to look at me. 

Praying Mantis has obviously been eating.  I can only imagine the dread this wasp felt when caught.  If wasps experience dread, that is.

I think Praying Mantis strikes a very imposing silhouette.

I mean, I would hate to be an insect right now.  Wouldn’t you?

Lynn

I have posted this before, but I love it, and it warrants reading again.  ”Hurry never” comes to me frequently when I feel myself rushing into something that does not feel just right.  Being the best I can be with what I’ve been given is a personal goal, but I sometimes need a little push to remember it.

My Symphony

To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly; to listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart; to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never.  In a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common.  This is to be my symphony.

William Henry Channing
1810-1884

Looking down the garden path

it’s easy to see a big picture – a mass of growth and a little pathway upon which to work myself through it all.

But coming in a little closer, I begin to see the pretty faces of little flowers; faces I had not noticed before. 

Well, maybe I did notice these little lavender-pink sweeties, but it took getting closer for me to really see their beauty.  They weren’t so defined from afar, back when my focus was on simply making my way from point A to point B.

There are so many of them — all the same, but all different.  Some are still “sleeping” and some are awake, showing off their beautiful array.

One bright bloom calls louder than all the rest.  Why?  I’ll get closer still.

Oh, there’s a world within a world.  A life I might not have seen.  A whole world I might have missed had I not slowed down to look closer at where I am standing right now, today, without hurrying so hard to make it from point A to point B.

Life is busy, but maybe there’s enough time to color a picture with a child or grandchild, or to sit on the front steps and drink a cup of hot tea, or to read from a favorite picture book, or to write a letter, or to hug someone who really needs a hug. 

Lynn

I realize not every home is as sophisticated as ours, but we have special thinking caps we put on to do mathematics.

I can only hope that your homeschooling has soared to altitudes that ours has.

Lynn

Did you think I had quit going to the thrift store?  Never.

These were new, still in the pack, gold bobby pins.  These are so nice for a fancy up-do with purposefully wayward curls.

And someone must have cleaned out their scrapbook supplies.  All this, still in packages, some 33 cents, some 99 cents, some 1.99.   Yay.

Lynn

PS – I am wondering tonight, did I really need two servings of warm blackberry cobbler with vanilla fudge twirl ice cream?

I think I’ll go see if the Ab Lounge still works.

As I’ve mentioned before, Story Starters is a resource I am using with Princess of the Universe this year for 5th grade.  I don’t use it every day, but I do pull from it regularly.  Today was a good day to use it.  We are studying Very Last First Time this week and Story Starters happened to have a prompt about a man shipwrecked on an island in cold, Atlantic waters. 

Here is what Michaela wrote:

Striving for food, he desperately wanted sandwiches, meat, and cheese.  Struggling for warmth in the icy climate, he skinned some of the penguins for warmth.  On the cold water, the sun was like a ship not sunk then sinks into darkness.

Waking up cold he burnt some of the wood from his ship to make a fire.  Sitting for hours and his gun beside him, he took the powder out and burnt his gun too.  He frowned, but gazing over a iceberg he grinned.  A ship was in the water.  It had food, water, and warmth.  He went aboard, ate, and drank and got warm.  And lived happily ever after.

We’ve got a few issues to work on in the way of grammar and sentence structure, but not bad for a 10-year-old.  I am not sure about skinning the penguins, but they do look pretty big in the picture.  I imagine you’d be in some legal trouble after you got rescued. 

Lynn 

Sometimes I get out a little pair of rabbit-ears and tune in PBS for Reading Rainbow.  Generally speaking we are a non-TV family but we live very close to UNC-Chapel Hill where our local PBS station is broadcast.  It’s very handy to be able to tune in educational television and nothing else, but even educational television has a limited place here.  I do regularly check the PBS weekly schedule to see if anything fits our unit study for the week.

On Wednesday’s Reading Rainbow was Little Nino’s Pizzeria. Even though we are not rowing Little Nino’s this week, I knew it’d be fun to tune in and watch! You know what it did right? It had us all craving pizza.

So Princess of the Universe and I made some homemade pizza dough, a good measuring follow-up to How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World, and we topped it with fried bacon from Whole Foods, browned ground venison, sliced turkey meat, bell peppers and purple onion.  Oh my, it was SOOOOO good.

See what Reading Rainbow and Five in a Row can do for you? 

Lynn

I just LOVE it when a FIAR author or illustrator has a website.  Ian Wallace has some fantastic artwork in Very Last First Time.  If only I could fit one of his prints into my budget right now!

http://www.ian-wallace.com/

It’s worth a visit to view his gallery, IMHO. 

Lynn

I would definitely recommend doing a science lesson each week with Five In A Row.  They are so easy to do and hands-on science almost always leads to other, natural questions on the part of the student.

Here’s Princess of the Universe measuring the water for one of the science lessons we did for How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World. We are still watching it to see what happens…

Lynn 

I was at a teacher supply store, Not Just Paper, yesterday and I found the perfect little globe made by Hammond.  I just love it.  I have owned a larger world globe before but just did not like having one more large thing to take up table space.  Our house might be fairly large in square footage, but it is small in 100-year-old choppy space.  If you’ve been in an old home, you know what I mean. 

I located Hammond’s website on line where they offer small globes for sale.  The print is small on the globe, but I love having something that can go just about anywhere in the house with no problem. 

Lynn