Sometimes Friday comes along and I, too, wonder if the past days' hours and minutes were well spent.
Sometime I think yes.
Sometimes I think no.
And sometimes I feel like sharing a bit of what occurs when I give my children time and space to explore and create. Keep in mind that the wonder you'll see below could only happen because I intentionally limit planned academic rigor to just a few minutes a day for my kids under age 8 and maybe to an hour or two a day for the older ones. So here's a collection of this week's moments. I'm positive they were well worth adding to my children's long list of life experiences AND developed their brains just as they needed:
<The Boys went on a campout last Friday night. So the girls dug out their tea sets. Naturally.
It started simple...and grew...until it resembled a full blown Fancy Nancy party that included costumes.
My girls hosted. I just played along.>
<above pic by Cienna>
<For the other half of the day that the Boys were gone, I unveiled a shrinky-dink fairy kit that I'd purchased at JoAnn's back on Black Friday and was saving for a rainy day.
For $10 (or whatever I paid for it), entertainment ensued from 2pm until bedtime and into the next day. Our new fairy friends even liked what we ate for dinner and picked the bedtime story.>
<I loved this book when I was a kid, too!>
<After studied detailed YouTube clips, Kenny mastered the 4x4. Well done.>
<We discovered Spring's first blossoms.>
<Diggy tested out the walking stick he'd carved last fall. It still works.>
<Diggy took the younger girls outside for some fresh air. They created a skit together. After showing me, they bowed and I clapped.>
<Cienna tested out her running shoes...and discovered that they make her run so fast she gets out of breath.>
<And then it rained and rained and rained. Our back yard became a pool for worms to gather for a Spring party.>
<Brent had a few projects on his list...some swords for the musical Kenny is in next week, the leaky kitchen faucet, the front door lock...and so the kids were of course glued to his side. Especially Kirsti this week. She even helped him clean out a friend's flooded basement for several hours after all that rain.>
<Kirsti also participated in an awesome 3rd grade show led by the fabulous music teacher at the elementary school. They did 3 performances. She sang a beautiful solo.>
<Cienna felt proud of her progress on controlling the big red punching balloon.>
<We made good use of the library books.>
<Allison displayed intense interest in copying Diggy's long division work...number by number, line by line. The next day, I explained to her what division is. She asked lots of questions and wanted to write down some real problems of her own. We acted out 12 divided by 4 and 4 divided by 2, etc. She was thrilled. The next day, she wanted to do it again. So we did. I observed about 20 future math lessons soak deeper into her brain cells than if I had tried to push them in...all because she had been inspired by big brother, Diggy, a mentor. And it only took about 15 minutes.>
<MaryAnn practiced making faces.>
<With a dismantled kitchen faucet, we washed dishes the Little House way. We had to carry buckets of water all the way from the creek (the bathtub), scrub by hand, and carefully dry everything using towels. Allison declared this activity as her favorite thing she's ever done in her entire life.>
<I sensed a migraine coming right before the dinner hour while Brent was away from the nest one day (my eyes get blurry about 15 minutes before the intense pain hits so I know it's coming), so I *snuck* up to the bathroom to soak my feet in hot water. A few minutes later, Kirsti took the above picture for me. I felt like Mrs. Large from one of my favorite books.>
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