{This and That} :: Thanksgiving Week

Hello friends! It is hard to believe we are in late November now. We have a short school week this week for Thanksgiving, and then we're officially halfway through our school year! I can't believe how fast this school year is flying by. 

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First happy news: my oldest two were confirmed!

Their sponsor got them these watercolored saint portraits from The Fig and Thimble. They love them!

For their confirmation saints, Gianna picked St. John the Evangelist and Vincent picked St. John Bosco. Both choices were unexpected but made sense to me in hindsight.

We are studying Titian this term, so we thought it would be neat to get Gianna a framed print of Titian's St. John the Evangelist on the Isle of Patmos. Isn't it striking? Vincent got a couple books about St. John Bosco that he has already started reading.

Gianna asked me for an at-home Confirmation Retreat, so I prepared a week's worth of short readings for them to do alongside their novena to the Holy Ghost. I pulled completely from religious books we already had on our shelves -- a little wisdom from St. John Vianney, Cardinal Newman, the Baltimore Catechism, Mother Loyola, and more. It is so nice to have a good selection of books to choose from for projects like this! I am always thankful to my younger self for taking the time to scour used bookstores and church library sales and investing in a long-term library of our own.

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Emilia just turned ten months old! She is so playful and determined. She loves all the attention she gets from her siblings and plays Peek-a-Boo, Pat-a-Cake, and This Little Piggy. She is also a full-time walker now. Such a fun age! If only she could start napping a little more reliably... :)

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We did the seasonal clothing switch-out last week. This is one of the chores I dread each year, simply because of the sheer number of children and clothes. My kids have capsule wardrobes -- very manageable and streamlined. They all wear a "uniform" of sorts, as you may have noticed from posts through the years. But still, if I were a millionnaire, I would donate the kids' wardrobes at the end of each season and start fresh every time! There is just something about this task that always ends up being more complicated than it ought to be.

However, I'm finding that the chore has been getting progressively easier -- even though I have more kids than any other year, having more bigs than littles really has helped so much! And this year, my to-buy list is unprecedently short: just a couple pairs of replacement leggings for my girls and a few tops and bottoms for Vincent, my oldest, who grew several inches this year. Gianna is now as tall as I am and has been for about a year, so I think she's close to finished growing. All of her clothes from last year still fit, which has never happened for any of my children, ever! A new stage of parenting, for sure.

I also gave all of my girls (except Emilia) haircuts this past week! All but Clara had it down to their waists and were super overdue for a cut, but they LOVED their long hair. They finally consented and they love the shorter hair too, thank goodness.

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Are you getting started with Christmas shopping? I am hoping to take some time over Thanksgiving weekend to look through my lists and begin making plans. We keep things very simple around here, just a few things per person, but times that by ten and it's still a pretty big task. But I have been quite determined to get my shopping done before Advent this year.

(Speaking of Thanksgiving, I have a post from ten years ago here on the blog that I always share this time of year: Cooking Up a Thanksgiving "Feast.")

I also took and ordered photos for our Christmas cards this weekend. Christmas cards take a good amount of time to put together and send out, but they always feel worth it to me -- and especially this year. Sending something personal during a year of very little personal interaction is the kind of hopeful statement I want to end the year on.

I am planning to pull together a few quick gift ideas here on the blog this weekend if I get a chance, but in case you're wanting suggestions now, I have a bunch of favorite links from last year compiled here: {This and That} :: Thanksgiving and Advent.

And since we are almost at Advent, you can read more about Advents past in our home. This year we'll once again be lighting the Advent wreath, choosing Christkindls, observing some special feast days, and decluttering and deep cleaning with a hopeful but penitential spirit! And we'll be adding the free printable Advent calendar from Lydia -- so lovely.

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Our Halloween was quiet -- there was no trick-or-treating in our neighborhood, so we stayed home and had an impromptu party. We told the kids they had 45 minutes to dress up as a saint with items from the constume bin. Then we spent the evening playing board games and making cookies. In times like these, I'm grateful that we always have enough people for a party here at home!

The hit of the night was Pictionary, which we don't play that often...but every time we do play it, I think we ought to play it more! It is such a fun game if you have preschoolers in the mix.

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Justin turned five! Besides books and a Schleich animal, he got embroidery thread for making friendship bracelets and a bunch of plastic canvas squares for "sewing" with yarn. He was so pleased and has done little else since then. He is truly a delightful kid and I am soaking up this age.

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Scenes from the past couple weeks...

Animalium has a helpful diagram to accompany Life and Her Children

More Fesole -- this time, a still life!

Vincent set up his still life as well, but hasn't finished his painting yet -- isn't it perfect for fall?

Free time painting for Bridget after studying Titian's Saint Christopher

Fireside prepping (my favorite!) for the Form Meetings with the CMEC

California fall!

And some recent work in clay over the past two weeks. We all love this medium!

(We have these silpats and Chavant Clayette clay -- which is unfortunately out of stock right now, but I'll add the link when it's back -- both thanks to recommendations from the art teacher at the CMEC. The Fall Mini-Retreat immersions were so helpful in giving us a good start.)

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Well, that's it for now! What are you up to this holiday weekend -- and what's on your menu? I am going with a classic Thanksgiving line-up this year, though we'll do chicken instead of turkey since my husband prefers it. But I am looking forward to teaching my girls to bake apple pie! I have made it by myself in the past but skipped the past couple years. Now I have eager helpers, and I think we'll have a good time perfecting the method. :)

And before I go, I want to say too that I am grateful to the kind community of readers who read along, leave comments, and send emails -- thank you for your encouragement and I wish you a wonderful week!

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{This and That} :: Two Weeks In!

We are beginning our third week of school and things are moving along pretty smoothly! I am so happy with how things have shaped up thus far.

Form 1 students working together

This past weekend I had a (very rare!) few hours to myself and was able to sit with all of my notes and think a bit about the rest of the term. So restful!

After Week 1, I made a few tweaks to the schedule and printed new timetables to try. But my Week 2 reflections didn't require any timetable adjustments, so I think we have now hit on a nice rhythm. (Except for the baby, that is -- my #1 wild card as to whether my day will go smoothly or not! :) But she is still unpredictable in her napping so I am honestly trying not to plan around her too much because I think by Term 2 she will be napping at the same time as my little boys. Always an adventure!)

I did spend some time sketching out more complete ideas for special studies, art, handicrafts, and foreign language. Those are often subjects that I plot out a few weeks' work for to start off with, then wait until Week 3 to fill in more thoroughly for the year. I actually always have a "Consider on Week 3" list in my planner for the things I didn't quite have time to flesh out before the year began but that I wanted to think through once we had settled in. I find it to be a helpful practice -- I keep the same kind of list of things to Consider for Next Term and Consider for Next Year. Plopping things that come to mind there (rather than letting them swirl around in my brain) helps me to stay focused on the work in front of me.

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One great addition to our schedule this term has been chalk drawing! 

So far our lessons have used circles and symmetry.

I am doing it with all of my students, from age 14 down to 4, and not only are they really enjoying it, but also they are taking away skills and ideas that I am now seeing in their other art during free time. It has been such a good addition.

I also have my Form 1 students draw in chalk a scene from one of their readings each week while I do Plutarch with the older kids. The first week, for example, they all drew the Creation story from Genesis from our Old Testament lessons.

Even my kindergartener can't bear to be left out of chalk time!

This week, I think we will be drawing fruits and do some more warm-up circles. There is so much flexibility in these lessons.

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My older kids are reading in astronomy this year, so we are all taking it up as one of our special study topics for the year -- it fits so nicely with the Weather and Sky special study focus that we are doing alongside the rest of the CMEC. We have begun our lunar charts and are working on the constellations of the summer sky. August ended up being a wonderful time to start, not only for the meteor shower, but also because Saturn and Jupiter are easy to find right now.

It may not look like much, but we were SUPER excited about it!

A friend sent me a star chart and Vincent has been faithfully taking it out at night with a flashlight and looking at what is visible with the naked eye. It turns out that even with the city lights (we have a street light RIGHT in front of our house), we can see quite a lot. I always consider this the best place to start -- with what we can see without any "help." It gives us a good reference point for further work. (But we do have a telescope on the way -- should arrive any day now!)

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Emilia is seven months old tomorrow and is crawling all over the house, cruising along the furniture, and getting into all kinds of mischief.

Luckily she has lots of people who love to play with her! Justin runs down first thing in the morning to see how he can make her giggle.

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The high schoolers got a good start on the Fesole Club Papers. We did the famous Lemon assignment over the past couple weeks -- with a sleeping kindergartener, to boot! :)

From here, we are planning to move on to the chapters covering trees in leaf, architectural drawing, and still life composition before circling back around to the Boughs of Branstock and Fesole Flower Studies (which will be better in winter/spring here). We will also fold in some work from the other books assigned for art for the CMEC Upper Forms here and there. (I am looking forward to the mini-retreat in the fall all on art in the Mason method!)

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I was on The Charlotte Mason Show to chat with Julie Ross about the basics of notebook-keeping in the Mason method. If you would like to hear both the philosophy behind it and some super-practical tips, have a listen! I hope you find it helpful.

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So that's what's happening around here! Later this week I'm going to sneak in a post about our summer reading. I meant to get it up sooner but school planning took up my time. But even though it's not quite summer break here anymore, it IS over 100 degrees here this week, so I'm pretty sure I can still count it "summer."

Have you begun your school year yet? How are things going so far?

Spring :: Arts and Crafts

More Lenten blooms around town this week!  Spring is finally officially here, and I have Easter preparations on my mind now that we have entered Passiontide.

I usually plan some arts and crafts as part of our Easter octave celebration.  My kids love art projects, so it's great fun for them!  I do try to choose projects that will either provide genuinely lovely decorations for our home through the Easter season or serve as Mother's Day or Father's Day gifts for the grandparents. (I like to be prepared!)  

I have a terrible habit of sharing after our project is finished and it's too late for others to join in, so this time around, I'm sharing some projects I have bookmarked in advance.  These would be fun to do during Spring Break or the Easter Octave, and a few of them could nicely segue into genuine CM-friendly handicrafts.

So, just a few projects I've Evernoted (totally a word!) with Easter in mind:

Lovely Lacy "Ceramics" (we've used air-dry clay in the past with good results)

Handstitched Hearts (a bit valentinesy, but these colors invoke spring to me)

Paper Flowers (always fun!)

and More Paper Flowers (we've done tissue paper flowers before, but these are much more lovely)

Stained Glass Flowers (stunning!  I ordered the materials, but I doubt they'll arrive in time, so this may be a summer project for us)

Botanical Letters (my girls will love this, especially for the connection to illuminated manuscripts)

I'll share a few other ideas that we have done in the past (as well as which of the above crafts we get to this year!) when Easter is here.  And if you do any of these projects, let me know!  

Wishing you a blessed Passiontide--and first week of spring!