By Lynn, on December 10th, 2008%
“Little Mrs. Peter Rabbit, who used to be Little Miss Fuzzytail, sat at the edge of the dear Old Briar-patch, anxiously looking over toward the Green Forest. She was worried.”
“There was no doubt about it. Little Mrs. Peter was very much worried. Why didn’t Peter come home? She did wish that he would be content to stay close by the dear old Briar-patch. For her part, she couldn’t see why under the sun he wanted to go way over to the Green Forest. He was always having dreadful adventures and narrow escapes over there, and yet, in spite of all she could say, he would persist in going there.”
From The Adventures of Prickly Porky by Thornton W. Burgess.
Thus we traveled last night on another new bedtime reading adventure. We opted for something light. Something fun. Something about animals.
And while we are talking about animals, please excuse the disheveled look of old Bunny in the picture above. He has been loved by four near-grown children and has had many bold adventures himself.
If you just cannot get enough of animals with big personalities, who talk and interact with each other in their forest and prairie homes, you’ll probably enjoy this sweet little book.
There’s even a Thornton W. Burgess Society, I was pleased to discover. You will find some very pretty coloring pages at their website, information about the society, and more.
Unit-study-wise, we are following after, in a most relaxed fashion, the sword and the snowflake. What is that? you might ask.
Well, Joseph and I are beginning a study of Shakespeare and Hamlet. Though it’s been in my mind for forever, it seems, we still have not read anything by Shakespeare. It’s time. The child graduates in 2009.
Princess of the Universe and I are currently rowing Snowflake Bentley (Caldecott Medal Book) , using Five in a Row for lesson plans, of course.
I am just anxious to see how the two intersect, because I know they will.
Last of all, you might want to visit the HomeMade DollHouse to see what the dolls are up to. Picture a little general store in Vermont where the snow is piled up underneath the windows and they sell candy canes and sleds. (I love how the doll house gets tied into school.)
Wishing you a wonderful day!
Lynn
By Lynn, on December 7th, 2008%
I never know what a day will bring forth around here. But do any of us know? No. Life just unfolds, and we are blessed beyond measure when the day ends with everyone safe and healthy, and hopefully with a cheerful heart.
There is something very satisfying about not wasting anything. A couple of days ago I baked some sweet potatoes that were on sale for 29 cents a pound. Oh, I did stock up! The baked sweet potatoes were not all eaten, so I used what was left to make a sweet potato casserole this afternoon. It was SO good.
I have a couple more baskets of sweet potatoes in the pantry to use in the next few weeks. And I am not beyond planting them if they start to grow.
I found myself with an hour or two this afternoon to work at my sewing desk. Not too long ago I bought this shelf at a thrift store for a couple of dollars. Today I took the door off. I have a project in mind, but I’m still thinking on it, so I just put the shelf to the side. For now.
Princess of the universe got her first sewing lesson this afternoon. We were making things for the doll house and she wanted to make two little pillows for her project. I showed her how to fold the fabric right-side-in and then stitch around. She did very well!
In the meantime, I was working on my own project for the doll house, and I think it turned out very nice indeed! Even now I am posting more details over at Homemade DollHouse. You might want to pop over there soon to read about it.
A bed fit for a princess!
Lynn
By Lynn, on December 3rd, 2008%
We’ve had a lovely day. I can say that, even though I’m exhausted and my brain hurts. Time for bed, no doubt.
I won’t bore you with more marked-off lesson plans today, though it was fun to share that for a couple of days. It helped me find some of our weak spots, and I hope it helped you as well.
Homeschooling is all about learning to live real life, so real life happening shouldn’t scare anyone out of homeschooling.
As noted, we are dutifully finishing up The Raft this week. What an amazing book.
You all know me and my love of the doll house. We’ve been making some sort of doll house souvenir from each book we’ve rowed. It just so happens that the Five In A Row lessons for The Raft included a perfect doll house accessory without me having to come up with anything on my own.
Yes, it’s a raft. Princess of the Universe will likely, at some point, get around to adding information about this to her blog. I’ll be adding this to our doll house blog later. You may want to pop over to Home Made Doll House anyway and see our new doll. She’s most intriguing to the dolls already living in the doll house.
My walk today was nice. The day ended up being a bit warmer than I had anticipated, so my black shawl was all I needed. No coat required.
I love the old trees in our neighborhood. They certainly have personality. The trees look different without their leaves.
Pretty.
I love this tangle of wild roses with only some small rosehips left hanging on.
Goodnight.
Lynn
By Lynn, on November 28th, 2008%
Do You Remember Year of the Doll House? I bet you do. This year of playing dolls and purposing to spend more time with my daughter has been amazing. Even though 2008 is not quite over, it’s been about a year exactly since the thought came so strongly to me. I have been so much more aware of my actions this year.
Our doll house adventures have taken on a blog of their own. We craft together and play dolls and we want to share everything doll house in one place. For more details about the crib above, visit our new blog The Homemade Doll House. You’ll find everything dolls there. The Year of the Doll House continues, for who knows how long!
Just wanted to share. We hope you’ll join us.
Lynn
By Lynn, on November 23rd, 2008%
Last night I used the book that my friend Alana sent me — The Most Wonderful Dollhouse Book, to make a new chair for the doll house.
First I started with an empty baking powder can. I used a Sharpie to outline where I would cut with my sharp Xacto.
You can see how the chair will be shaped. The most tedious part comes next, and that is cutting a piece or two of fabric and smoothly hot-gluing it on so it looks upholstered.
But it turns out well! What did I use to fill the inside? I simply measured out enough stuffing to fill up the seat. I then cut a circle of fabric and laid that stuffing in the center of it. I pulled the fabric together all around it like a balloon and tied it together with a piece of string. The tied-with-string end went down into the seat first, leaving a pretty puffy pillow look on top.
Mama Doll loves her chair. I ended up covering my fabric “seam” on the chair with a ribbon I had recycled from some old PJs. It worked perfectly.
Fancy, no? Princess of the Universe loves her new chair.
Remember to supervise the use of all crafting tools. I always do the sharp work myself and supervise my children very closely when they are working with things like this to avoid injury.
Lynn
By Lynn, on November 4th, 2008%
We finished up The Pumpkin Runner yesterday. It turned into a 3-week study instead of a 2-week study for us due to the unforseen events of late. This week we are working on the Election Fold-N-Learn from Five In A Row and we are just doing some review and the 3 R’s.
We made a little felt pumpkin for the doll house. How’s that for bright orange?? Doesn’t mom look proud of the pumpkin she’s put on the front porch? I think she does. (I simply must remember to trim all the little pieces of hot glue when we’re done. They’re not so great for pictures.)
I toned Mr. Pumpkin-head down a bit for this picture, but he’s still bright!
Princess of the Universe has decorated the house for Halloween. I had to laugh. She’s got this little boys hands in the air and his hair on end when he sees this spider on the couch next to him. Poor thing. He’s trying to have teatime.
The rest of the children are in for a fright as well. Princess of the Universe has also put a large scary bug on their play wagon.
That’s me, above, in my rented sports car. I called ahead to someone in the United States (Princess of the Universe) and said, “Hullo. I’m a reporter and I’ve just flown over from Australia where I’ve been following The Pumpkin Runner. Have you heard of him? Well, I need a room to rent and I need to buy a horse.” 
You can see all my money spread out in the seat next to me.
The person I hooked up with in this nice U.S. dollhouse said of course she had a room and furniture and a horse for sell for $1,000.00. (I thought she did pretty well on the pricing of the horse.)
Amity, remember the ham thing? You are so right. Just get her around a camera.
Lynn
By Lynn, on October 9th, 2008%
This week we finished up our studies of Storm in the Night using Five In A Row for our lesson plans. This has always been a fun book to me. It’s one we read sometimes just to read, as a bedtime story or whatever. I love the dialogue between Grandfather and Thomas! I can just hear how they’d sound to each other.
And you know me. I was inspired to make something for the doll house. As luck would have it – or should I say as the occasion was presented to me, I ran out of my favorite eye cream. The little jar could certainly not be discarded. Anything small has to be considered as furniture or some little thing for the dolls. You’ll see the little jar sitting up at the corner of the book, above, freshly turned into a stool that doubles as storage. For now, let’s take the top off and see what’s inside.
Oh, it looks exciting!!
It’s emergency supplies!! A book of matches for the doll house candle, and a flashlight! And they’ll always be located in the comfy storage stool so we know how to get to them quickly!
Do you know what the flashlight is made from? The little extension pieces that you would use to increase the size of the posts in a scrapbook! They even unscrew so the dolls can pretend to put in new batteries. The tip, light and switch are tiny pieces of felt that were hot-glued on.
Here’s brother, who’s pulled the stool up close to sister’s bed so he can read to her. She’s not feeling well today.
The satin trim on the stool came from an old pair of pajama bottoms that finally wore out, but the tie around the waist was too pretty to throw out, so it went into the “string drawer.” The top of the stool is padded with a cotton ball with a circular piece of fabric placed over the top and then hot-glued into place. The final touch was the trim glued around. The little matchbook is just a little black piece of paper folded with the matches drawn onto a white piece of paper and glued inside.
Now it’s off to Miss Michaela’s room where I’ll read and she can play with her doll house. I’m sure I’ll get pulled in to whatever’s going on.
Lynn
PS – Miniatures are fun, but remember they are small and not for children too young to put thing in their mouths.
By Lynn, on October 1st, 2008%
Yesterday we finished up Very Last First Time . It has been a really good study for us using Five In A Row for our lesson plans and then tying in items of interest that popped up along the way. In my post a couple of days ago, My Symphony, there’s that line I love, “…await occasions, hurry never.” I have been amazed again this week at how many appropriate occasions offer themselves to us when we are “rowing” a book.
I was very pleased to see that Monday’s Reading Rainbow would be Dive to the Coral Reefs. This rich 30-minute episode prompted us to compare what lives in warm tropical waters as compared to the icy waters around Ungava Bay.
Princess of the Universe painted a picture that includes coral reef, a dragonfish, a squid and a blue parrotfish. She wrote in her nature journal about the parrotfish nibbling on coral and then excreting a trail of sand onto the ocean floor. Is that what we end up building sand castles with? Pretty cool. 
You know a FIAR book would not be complete to me unless we had a little reminder in the way of a doll house accessory! I used a little matchbox to recreate Eva’s box that she pulls across the ice. I looked through some of the little boxes on my sewing/craft desk and found a couple of little card charms that resemble picks or shovels. A bottle cap makes a great mussel pan.
I was so thrilled when Princess of the Universe wanted to make her own little sled-box out of paper and tape. Her box is deeper, which I commented is more like what Eva had. And Michaela even tore up little pieces of black paper to make mussels for her pan.
Do you know it just made my heart sing when she said, “Mommy, I love my doll house.”
As occasion would have it, our little girl doll looks like she could pass for Eva.
We have enjoyed this book immensely!
Lynn
By Lynn, on September 23rd, 2008%
Is it just me, or is this just cute as pie?
Do you see the apple pie on the table? I had a bottle cap from my ginger-ale today and thought this would make a perfect doll house pie pan, if only the edges were brought out some.
And what a way to finish up How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World !
We finished up with a geography review and a final reading of the book and some talk about art and now it’s on to a new adventure tomorrow!
This little pie is just a bottle cap with the edges flattened out somewhat by pliers, a circle of felt glued in for the bottom crust, little pieces of felt glued in for apple slices, and felt strips glued on the for the top crust. I think the dolls will have wonderful conversations about Italy and Sri Lanka and England…
Happy Homeschooling,
Lynn
By Lynn, on August 26th, 2008%
I want to give something away on August 28th, Tasha Tudor’s birthday. I will have Princess of the Universe pick a name and we will give away this little doll house dresser.
Yes, the little matchbox drawers may be a bit wobbly, but so is Pooh’s spelling. The inside surface of the drawers will probably be covered before it’s done. Not sure yet. The inside edge of the matchbox drawers don’t show up near so much in real life.
This dresser has tiny little batchboxes with tiny little drawer pulls, so there is a choking hazard for little children and I would NEVER want anyone to get hurt with something I made. So just please heed that caution.
We will pull the name on August 28th, right before Princess of the Universe gets tucked into bed, and I will post the name of the recipient either Thursday night or Friday morning. I would love for you to have this artsy little dresser. It does not have to be for a doll house. I think everyone needs miniature, homemade doll house furniture!!
Just leave a comment on this post so I can put your name in the hat before 9 p.m. on Thursday evening.
Lynn
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About Lynn 
Approaching-50 mother of four. Thrifter. Content with lots of clothes bought for very little money. Loves retro. (That could be styles from the 40s and 50s. And sometimes stuff even older than that. And sometimes stuff from all time, all mixed up together!) Bluffs about decluttering but secretly loves STUFF. Goes through stages. Has standing and staring spells before rearranging the entire home. Just because. Tune in each day to see what new outfit comes home from G.W. Boutique next. (That's Goodwill, by the way.) Oh, and she owns a spoiled beagle named Annie. And this blog.
Grab A Button <div align="center"><a href="http://www.amothersjournal.com" title="A Mother's Journal ~ A Bit of Birdsong"><img src="http://www.innatelygray.com/images/abitofbirdsong_120_200.jpg" alt="A Mother's Journal ~ A Bit of Birdsong" style="border:none;" /></a></div> The Players
Lil Ol' Me
Son Daniel, 23
Son, Big Joe, 21
Son, John, 17
Daughter, Michaela, 13
Annie Fatso Beagle
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
What You Do Sow a thought, reap an action.
Sow an action, reap a habit.
Sow a habit, reap a character.
Sow a character, reap a destiny.
Contact Me 
I would  for you to leave a comment, but you can also e-mail me at lynn AT thehealthyhomeschool.com
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