Joyfully Weary

Primary Literature Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson, a sweet rhyming story of a hibernating bear who's lair fills up with other animals as he sleeps. He wakes up to find them having party and is bit distraught until a mouse invites him to join the fun.  Vocabulary words to review. hibernate - to spend all or part of winter in an inactive state where heartbeat and breathing slows lair - den of a wild animal dank - unpleasantly moist scuttles - run from view nibble - small bites flutter - moving quickly titter - a nervous laugh slumbering - sleeping blubbers - crying noisily fret - irritated state Complementary Literature  We worked on memorizing When The Snow is on The Ground by Mother Goose The little robin grieve When the Snow is on the ground,  For the trees have no leaves And no berries can be found.  The air is cold, the worms are hid; For robin here what can be done? Let's strow around some crumbs of bread,  ...

In December we just finished Story of the World: Ancient Times . We greatly enjoyed this curriculum. However, it was sublimating it with other great literature and resources that made history come alive for Big Buddy. The curriculum took us almost a year and a half to finish because we enjoyed digging deeper into some areas. Below is a list of some of our favorite books and other resources. A few of these are recommendations from Story of the World's Activity Book: Ancient Times . If you do decided to use Story of the World as your history curriculum I can't recommend the workbook highly enough; it's filled with additional literature suggestions, coloring pages, maps, and learning activities. Kid's Animated History with Pippo: 16 Ancient Cultures - short videos introduce children to different ancient cultures is a humorous and engaging manner. These videos can be watched for free on Hulu . DK, Ancient Civilzations   - brief look at several ancient civilizatio...

I didn't really set any New Year goals. I do hope to keep up with working out and it would be great if I could get more reading done. What I'm really striving for though, what it feels like I've been working towards forever, is contentment or rather a sense of inner calmness/peace. See even though I didn't set any particular New Year goals I was ready to get moving this week: there were plans to be made, tasks to be checked off, etc. Then Jeremy's work got unexpectedly busy and he had to check out sooner than I'd hoped. We had to deal with some family illnesses. Nothing got planned! Very few of the tasks got checked off. I woke up this morning feeling behind and out of balance. I don't always deal well with feeling behind - I get edgy and mean. This has lead to many past regrets so this morning I prayed for mercy and strength. I was gently reminded that my main goal is to make my husband and my children feel like they safe and that they are loved. I memori...

We are done with Christmas number two and only have one more go! The last couple days have been good ones. One of the best things about Jeremy being a professor is the extended time he gets off for the holidays. It's such a blessing that despite all the business of the holidays we also get a change to relax and recharge as a family. christmas morning at our house The night before our Christmas we all get a new set of  pajamas. We don't do matching sets (my MIL takes care of that), instead I try to find something that fits everyones personalities. For the last couple months Mini Man has been really into the TMNT. I was so excited when I found these footies at Target, however, when he put them on they were too small! He was so pumped about them though that he insisted they fit. We decided to let him keep them and I'll just replace them with a larger pair later. I can't believe he's outgrown an XS - I wish parenthood came with a pause button.  For...