The Macduff Path

Our butterflies hatched! Homeschooling is so funny. Sometimes I can plan out my day and try to accomplish all this school and it falls flat and the kids don't want to learn and I'm yelling and nothing is happening that is good. Other times it just flows. Today was such a great day- It was the Dentist Day. I love Dentist Day. Are you wondering why I capitalize Dentist Day?. Because I take all my kids. They are all signed up for teeth cleaning and I get to sit in the office and drink my latte and ready a trashy People magazine for 2 hours. It's awesome. I so look forward to Dentist Day- 2ce a year. (Ok-upon reading this I'm thinking that's pretty pathetic that I get so excited over Dentist Day) When we got done I decided that it was time to clean the house like someone was coming to buy it. That is the thing I miss from having my house on the market. It was really clean-every day. So I decided we would have Thursdays be our really big cleaning day.
However, when we got home we discovered that our butterflies started to hatch. This is where homeschooling just started flowing. I found my Handbook of Nature Study book and we started reading about butterflies. Then we did a writing exersize where we compared butterflies and moths. And then they wrote poems about the butterflies and typed them on the computer. I thought I would post them for you. Does this great day on homeschooling make up for the last 3 months of not schooling but showing our house? It is so rewarding to have really fun homeschooling days now and then-keeps me going for those not so fun days....

Tsega-
Butterfly butterfly
Fly before the hunter
Come and go
To your home
And while you are going home
Let a bird eat you

Addis
Butterfly, Butterfly
Fly away to come another day
And make more babies


Maggie
Butterfly, butterfly, glide thru the air,
And give your share,
Butterfly walk thru the air.
Spread your wings with a tiddle-de-do.


Hiwot
Butterfly flies
Butterfly sings
Butterfly walks
It has beautiful wings

Abby
A butterfly flies in the yellow sun.
A butterfly spreads its beautiful wings.
A butterfly flies in the day.
A butterfly sings all the way.

Caleb
LIFE CYCLE
I see a yellow butterfly upon a bright green leaf.
She sits and lays a clear white egg upon the leaf so green.
I come back yet another day and see some baby larvae,
Caterpillars, so small and green.
For a couple weeks I watch them, day by day by day.
Till one day I see them no more, just tiny small chrysalises.
Two more weeks I wait, and watch and watch and watch.
And finally, that wonderful day, out emerge the butterflies!

Labels: Charlotte Mason, random happenings

Help! This is the picture that I thought would go great up in the heading of by the Macduff Path. I am so computer illiterate. Does anyone know how to do that. Anyhow. Enjoy the stupid @##$%^$ picture now because I can't get it to where it should be.

Charlotte Mason is a homeschool method based from a woman in the 1800's named...Charlotte Mason (how's that for a deep-thought provoking sentence). Anyhow her method in brief is great novels, short, focused lessons, art, music, handiwork, narration, copywork, and nature study. Love the nature study part- hardly ever get to it. Yesterday was a beautiful day so I decided to read to the kids outside under my favorite tree which blooms for about 1 week a year. I decided since I was posting pictures of the tree I would find out what kind it is. After 20 minutes tracking it down on the computer here it is.

Golden-chain tree is a stunning, small tree noted for its long, pendulous clusters of flowers. A member of the pea family, Laburnum x Watereri is a hybrid cross between the common and Scotch laburnum.

Do I have to tell the kids what I learned for it to be counted as schooling? I've discovered one of the great things about teaching homeschooling is how much I'm learning.
And aren't you in awe of my 3 posts in 2 days? And the figuring out the pictures? My next project might be adding links.
I love the this picture. It was taken about 20 seconds after the first picture but it had all gone completely crazy in those few seconds. Check out Sam screaming. And the next picture is here cause it's just such a cute picture of the 2 of them.

Labels: Charlotte Mason

So yesterday for our bible study I was doing a devotion that was talking about how Jesus is preparing mansions for us from John 14:2

Ok. I'm trying this again. 2 months later. After showing the house 47 times and then passing the girls out for the week we are all back at home. I'm slowly cluttering up the house again and making it more usable. So this weekend I moved the computer back upstairs and can finally get to it. I just never did use it down in the dungeon. The only time I went down there was for laundry. I also am like 80 emails behind on the computer. So hopefully, I will get to this more up here. My next goal is to figure out how to add a picture on here.
Since, we've been mostly...umm...relaxed in our schooling the last few months (but we make some mighty fine janitors and merry maids) I'm hitting school a little more seriously. We are starting a insect/bird thematic science unit over the summer. It should be pretty fun. I'll definately try to make the time to do this weekly (gasp! Am I being an overacheiver here by saying that? Must be the coffee) now that it's more convenient to get to. Well since I made this big deal about doing school maybe I should get off the computer and go collect the kids for it. Ooh. I figured out how to download pictures. Of course, it took more time than if I had taken the picture, printed it and mailed it to each of you but the accomplishment! It might seem small to you but to a homeschooling mother of 7 you got to find it where you can.

Labels: random happenings