Yesterday we took advantage of the gorgeous weather and headed to nearby Lindsborg, KS, a small town with a rich Swedish heritage. The kids enjoyed trying to spot all of the Wild Dalas and Elon snapped pictures of quite a few (though not all!) of them...
It's been forever since I last posted, but for good reason. We've been busy finishing up our study of Ancient Rome (thank goodness!), deep cleaning and re-organizing the entire house, planning for Advent, and planning our study of the Middle Ages.
For Advent this year, we'll be focusing on the history of Christmas traditions. This worked out especially well since many traditions date back to the Middle Ages or before. An amazing overview of Christmas in the Middle Ages can be found in Medieval Celebrations: How to Plan for Holidays, Weddings, and Reenactments With Recipes, Customs, Costumes, Decorations, Songs, Dances, and Games by Daniel Diehl and Mark Donnelly (a preview of the chapter "Christmas Celebrations" can be found here.) The book Christmas in Ritual and Tradition by Clement A. Miles has also been very helpful and informative; The Catholic Christmas Book by Father Francis Weiser is on my wish list.
For the first time ever, I've typed up all of my Advent plans and put them in a binder, neatly organized by daily tabs. Each day's section includes supplemental stories, recipes and craft ideas and the dividers are collaged with pictures appropriate to the day's focus. I worked on much of it this weekend while I was down with the flu, so I can't say that I'm thrilled with the results, but it's certainly better than nothing!
For general Advent planning, I found the following websites helpful:
- Family in Feast and Feria: Advent Planning
- Shower of Roses: Feast Day Plans & Celebrations
- Karen Edmisten: The No-Panic Advent Series
- Life is Not a Cereal: Gearing Up for the Holidays
- A Blessed Christmas: Advent Unit Study (.PDF)
Now, for this week's plans:
- We'll be discussing the history of Advent as well as the history and symbolism of the Advent wreath. Two excellent articles are The History and Meaning of Advent and The History of the Advent Wreath. Shower of Roses also has a wonderful post on The Advent Wreath.
- We'll learn about the history of the Crèche and read The Christmas at Greccio from God's Troubadour, The Story of St. Francis of Assisi by Sophie Jewett. Another article on the history of Nativity scenes can be found here. We'll be studying and discussing the nativity in art: Images of the Nativity and may use our Nativity Bake Set.
- We'll be reading Bright Christmas: An Angel Remembers and An Angel Came to Nazareth. The kids will make Paper-Plate Angels as we snack on Angel Kisses.
- We'll be reading The Legend of the Christmas Rose from Legends and Stories of Italy by Amy Steedman and/or The Legend of the Christmas Rose by Selma Lagerlöf from Christmas in Legend and Story by Elva S. Smith. Our craft will be Tissue Paper Roses.
- We'll learn about the history of Christmas Cards, view examples of Victorian cards, and make our own.
- We'll be taking a trip to Lindsborg to visit Hemslojd and a few other shops to pick up supplies for our St. Lucy's Day celebration.
- On Saturday, we'll be preparing for St. Nicholas Day, I'll be posting those plans shortly. ;-)
Life of Saint Lucy [Ælfric’s Lives of the Saints]
As I'm working on some last minute preparations for Advent, I thought I'd share our plans for Santa Lucia Day, the Feast of Saint Lucy, on December 13th. This will be our first year celebrating the feast, but it's a wonderful tradition that I'm excited to establish!
On the morning of Santa Lucia throughout Sweden, the eldest daughter in each household comes to her sleeping parents, dressed in a long white gown with a red sash, and wearing a crown of lingonberry leaves in which are set seven lighted candles. In her hands she carries a tray of steaming hot coffee, Lussekatter (Lucia buns) and Pepparkakor (ginger cookies). The procession includes her sisters and brothers (the star boys or stjärngosse) also dressed in white, holding lighted candles, and singing of the light and joy of Christmas. The sisters of the Lucia Bride wear a wreath of tinsel in their hair and a piece tied around their waist, while the boys have tall pointed caps sprinkled with stars. Awakened by the lights and the singing, the parents arise and eat the breakfast served, thus ushering in the Christmas season. (Source)
Our celebration has evolved into a two day study of Scandanavian folk traditions.
After Mass on Sunday, we'll be having family over for coffee hour. Maddie will don a lovely vintage Lucia gown that I ordered from an Ebay seller in Sweden. She'll serve the traditional Lussekatter and Pepparkakor, as well as hot spiced cranberry juice and coffee or Glögg for the grown ups. Later, the kids and I will be listening to the CD, Lucia Celebration and Christmas in Sweden and reading from Lucia, Child of Light by Florence Ekstrand. The kids will color a picture of St. Lucy from Fenestrae Fidei and we may make Gingerbread Lanterns.
I had planned to follow As Cozy as Spring's adorable Lucia wreath instructions (the current issue of Living Crafts also has a great pattern), but Maddie very much wants a real Lucia crown (preferably with actual lingonberry leaves, but our lingonberry plants are still babies!). So, we'll be heading to Hemslöjd in Lindsborg in a few days to purchase one. Unfortunately, though I found these Starboy kits, the boys have no desire to dress up!
On the following day, we'll read Per and the Dala Horse and the kids will be painting their own wooden horses (we re-sized this pattern and cut them out of pine with the scroll saw). They've been facinated by Dala horses ever since we first encountered the Dalas of Lindsborg. Later, we'll be reading The Tomten and The Tomten and the Fox by Astrid Lindgren or Christmas at Tomten Farm by H. Wiberg and making a few Christmas tomte/nisse. For an afternoon snack, I'll be serving cookies cut into the shape of tomtes, foxes, dala horses, hearts and goats (see: Yule Goat).
Links
- The History of Sankta Lucia
- St. Lucia of Syracuse from O Night Divine
- This St. Lucia Unit is full of ideas!
Over the past couple of weeks, in between lessons, work, and innumerable outdoor projects, I've been busy researching my newest obsession: heirloom apples. My interest in apples actually goes back several years to when I first read The Botany of Desire (a fascinating book!). However, during our recent "mini unit" for Johnny Appleseed's birthday, my interest was renewed.
I'm finding it absolutely thrilling to dig through old books researching the hundreds (really, thousands) of apple varieties that exist, or once existed. And in my research, I've stumbled upon dozens of equally interesting "rabbit trails," from Roman orchard management, to the history of apples in Kansas. I even learned about the two apples grown by Almanzo Wilder at his Rocky Ridge Farm in Mansfield, MO (an article about the orchard, written by Laura Ingalls Wilder, can be found here), which I found interesting.
Carefully I've drafted list upon list, trying to determine the varieties that I would most like to grow. With equal care, I've drawn up a map of our property...planning out proper spacing and where each tree will go. There's much to learn, and much to do. Finally, this was the list for our initial fall planting:
Apples
- Calville Blanc d'Hiver
- Lady
- Duchess of Oldenburg
- Gano
- Missouri Pippin
- Nickajack
- Old-Fashioned Limbertwig
- Stayman Winesap
- Winesap
- Granny Smith
- Red Delicious
- Ayers
- Moonglow
This spring, we'll be adding the following:
Apples- Autumn Strawberry
- Bee Bench
- Green Horse
- Ice
- Haywood June
- Forward Sour
- Sal
- Virginia Beauty
- Yellow Horse
- Yellow Winesap
- Smokehouse
- Sops in Wine
- Pink Pearl
- Court Pendu Plat
- Winter White Pearmain
- Ashmead's Kernel
- Wickson Crab
- Irish Peach
- Madeleine
- Beurre Gris d'Hiver Nouveau
- Belle Angevine
- Rousselt de Rheims
All in all, we'll have 35 semi-standard trees, and 20 (?) or more dwarf trees. I'm considering a handful of peach, cherry, apricot and plum trees as well, to add a little variety (and a Medlar tree!). A number of the varieties I've selected (in particular, the 4 French pears) will be a gamble - there was no data to document their success/failure here or disease resistance, so I'm taking a chance on their survival.
This winter, my goal will be to learn as much as possible about organic and low-spray orchard management, including farmscaping and integrated pest management. I'm hoping to add chickens (who will free range in the orchard) and an apiary next spring as well!
"I cannot endure to waste anything as precious as autumn
sunshine by staying in the house. So I spend almost all
the daylight hours in the open air." -- Nathaniel Hawthorne
sunshine by staying in the house. So I spend almost all
the daylight hours in the open air." -- Nathaniel Hawthorne
Have I mentioned how much I love fall?! It is, hands down, my favorite season. The weather this year, in particular, has been SO lovely - it really is impossible to stay indoors. We've been especially busy as a result (hence the lack of posting).
Outdoors:
- We built a fabulous wild bird feeding station! Using a 4'x'4'x8' post and a 2'x4' cut down for cross beams, it holds four large bird feeders easily.
- This week will be our final harvest in the garden since the temperature is expected to dip below freezing this weekend (with possible snow!).
- We'll be pulling everything out of the garden, tilling the soil, and spreading manure in preparation for next spring.
- Some of our herbs will be potted up for a move indoors during the winter, others will be harvested and dried for future use.
- We've been planting apple trees! It started with two trees: a Red Delicious and a Granny Smith that we planted in honor of Johnny Appleseed's birthday. Now I've got an order placed for some additional [heirloom] trees, with plans for small orchard in what is currently our back field.
- The large front flower beds have been weeded and new plantings added. We've done some additional landscaping work around the house, taking advantage of the fall sales on plants and shrubs.
- We started a large raspberry patch that includes 'Fall Red' and 'Heritage' raspberries. I'll be adding a few 'Fall Gold' raspberry plants this spring.
- We're preparing a large gooseberry and currant patch, as well as a trial blueberry/huckleberry/lingonberry patch. I've got plants on the way and will need to get them in the ground and mulched ASAP!
- We ordered our winter's supply of firewood to be delivered.
Indoors:
- The cooler weather seems to have brought out a serious nesting instinct in me this year. I've been doing some much needed deep cleaning and purging the house of all unnecessary clutter.
- Stocking up has been on my mind a lot lately as well. This weekend I'll be re-organizing our pantry and baking cabinet and making a list of what items need to be replinished.
- Laundry has been all-consuming these days. Winter bedding and blankets are being washed, summer clothes put away and winter clothes brought out from storage.
- It's time to start thinking about Christmas shopping, yikes...
School has been bare bones these days, only the basics. I simply don't have time (or energy) to cover all of the extras I'd so carefully planned for. While I'm a little sad about that, I've also realized that it's a necessity right now. The kids are still learning plenty, and it's not a "forever" change.
For last Friday's nature walk we decided to re-visit Pawnee Prairie Park, since we'd never seen it not flooded. We had a nice but rather uneventful walk...and fortunately we left just in time as yet another thunderstorm was looming!
This week was our second *full* week of school, because of all of the computer issues I've had the past couple of weeks. All of my plans, and much of our curriculum, is on the computer so no computer meant little formal schoolwork. I'm starting to realize that the more carefully I plan, the more certain it is that something will happen to disrupt those plans! September was supposed to be a very full month, and yet we weren't able to accomplish much of what I'd scheduled. I'm hoping for better luck in October!
Here's what we accomplished:
Religion: Daily readings from Saints for Young Readers for Every Day, and the corresponding art from Saints: A Year in Faith and Art. We also reviewed what we'd learned in the Old Testament last year and read about the birth of Jesus and John the Baptist in A Life of Our Lord for Children. In Peril and Peace we read about St. Paul of Tarsus, and in the Bible, we read Matthew 4, 5-6 & 7.
Language Arts: We completed four lessons from Spelling Wisdom, four lessons from Intermediate Language Lessons (for the 4th/5th graders) and four lessons from Lingua Mater (for the 7th grader). We also completed four lessons from Catholic Heritage Handwriting. Since we're currently reviewing the parts of speech, we read about "Little Article" in Grammar-Land.
Our current read aloud is When You Reach Me, which the kids are enjoying immensely. Though we're only half way through the book, they've gotten very close to figuring out the puzzle (they just don't know it yet!).
Latin: We began Latina Christiana this week with Lesson 1. The DVD's and CD really make this program a breeze to use and the kids had fun with it.
History: We spent a second week on TOG Y1U4 Week 29, since last week we were only schooling part time. The kids continued to learn about the birth of the Roman Republic, Roman law and the Forum. They also learned more about daily life in the Republic and for fun, were challenged to create a catalog of items the Romans would have used (though of course there was no catalog shopping in Roman times!). The finished product was a catalog they named "Rome Today," and it included various kitchen utensils, clothing, accessories, and of course, weapons. Frankly I was surprised how much research and detail went into the project - I'll try to post pictures soon.
Math: The boys reviewed fractions, doing both Math Mammoth worksheets and assignments in their Singapore books. Maddie continued to work on division and multiplication review.
Science: I've given up on most of my plans for science this month since it's, uh, the end of the month already. We have been learning about all kinds of things, but most of it has been completely spontaneous (which really, has been rather fun!). I'm currently contemplating a unit on the prairie ecosystem, which we've already been studying a bit in the past week or so.
We have not had a single Fine Arts Friday this month, which I'm rather sad about. However, I decided not to start today since my plans really required starting at the beginning of a month. Therefore, we'll begin next week - I've had a number of projects ready to go, so I'm anxious to begin!
Also, this week the kids had their first Lego Robotics class. Since the local homeschool robotics club was already very full, they will be on a local private school's team. This actually works out great because rather than meeting with the club bi-weekly, they'll be in class every Wednesday for two hours, learning more than they would have otherwise.
A few end-of-summer caterpillars
A bountiful harvest of tomatoes!
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