This Precious Growing Time
The Fall weather has been beautiful this week!
Isn't it funny that everyone is in a better mood when we are outside?
When I think of the preschool years (or pre-preschool in our case), Charlotte Mason's teaching on "quiet growing time" and the value of spending time outdoors always comes to mind. There is so much pressure to send kids to school sooner, do more worksheets, compare to others, learn this or that and so on. That "growing time" can easily become anything but quiet.
How wonderful would it be if that love for learning lasted a lifetime? That's my hope for them (and for myself as well!).
This week we gathered leaves of all different colors on a couple walks. I'm pretty sure I enjoy this more than the kids do, as E spends most of his time looking for fighting sticks and W is simply thrilled that he can walk on his own.
Along with the beautiful Fall leaves, we collected bark from the Birch tree in our yard. After flattening the bark in a book, E used it as his "writing paper".
We certainly don't meet Mason's recommendation of 4-6 hours outside per day but we do our best :) And while indoors, we manage to keep busy. More so I try to keep the kids busy to prevent them from fighting constantly! Sibling probs...
Our Favorite Activities Week:
Our Favorite Books This Week:
Oh yeah, these two little people brought home a load of candy on Monday night, too!
I hope you enjoyed a peek into our week!
We are using the free version of God's Little Explorers Preschool Curriculum from Motherhood on a Dime for activity ideas with our 3.5-year-old and the 1.5-year-old spends his time finding trouble or hanging on Mommy's legs.
Joining up with Preschool & Kindergarten Community Weekly Link-Up, Mommy Moments and Practical Mondays.
Isn't it funny that everyone is in a better mood when we are outside?
When I think of the preschool years (or pre-preschool in our case), Charlotte Mason's teaching on "quiet growing time" and the value of spending time outdoors always comes to mind. There is so much pressure to send kids to school sooner, do more worksheets, compare to others, learn this or that and so on. That "growing time" can easily become anything but quiet.
"In this time of extraordinary pressure, educational and social, perhaps a mother's first duty to her children is to secure for them a quiet growing time, a full six years of passive receptive life, the waking part of it spent for the most part out in the fresh air. And this, not for the gain in bodily health alone - body and soul, heart and mind, are nourished with food convenient for them when the children are let alone, let to live without friction and without stimulus amongst happy influences which incline them to be good"." - Charlotte Mason (Vol. 1, p.43)Children love to learn. They do it all the time even when we're not intentionally "teaching" them.
How wonderful would it be if that love for learning lasted a lifetime? That's my hope for them (and for myself as well!).
This week we gathered leaves of all different colors on a couple walks. I'm pretty sure I enjoy this more than the kids do, as E spends most of his time looking for fighting sticks and W is simply thrilled that he can walk on his own.
Along with the beautiful Fall leaves, we collected bark from the Birch tree in our yard. After flattening the bark in a book, E used it as his "writing paper".
We certainly don't meet Mason's recommendation of 4-6 hours outside per day but we do our best :) And while indoors, we manage to keep busy. More so I try to keep the kids busy to prevent them from fighting constantly! Sibling probs...
Our Favorite Activities Week:
- Making "homemade" binoculars for a treasure hunt
- The letter "X" activities
- Line tracing on the dry erase boards
- Eating fresh apples off our tree
- Pouring and splashing in the kitchen sink while mom baked
- Our new habit: Making the bed
Our Favorite Books This Week:
- The Big Black Horse by Walter Farley
- Jesus Story Book Bible by by Sally Lloyd-Jones
- Meet Me at the Moon by Gianna Morino
- We're Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen
- Corduroy by Don Freeman
- A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson
Oh yeah, these two little people brought home a load of candy on Monday night, too!
I hope you enjoyed a peek into our week!
We are using the free version of God's Little Explorers Preschool Curriculum from Motherhood on a Dime for activity ideas with our 3.5-year-old and the 1.5-year-old spends his time finding trouble or hanging on Mommy's legs.
Joining up with Preschool & Kindergarten Community Weekly Link-Up, Mommy Moments and Practical Mondays.
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