Magazines That We Love

Some magazines that we love!

Click here to order easily through Amazon. Type the name of the magazine that you want in the search box.

Living Crafts

Compleat Mother

 
 
 
 
 
Home Education

Natural Home

Spin-Off

Interweave Crochet

Yoga Journal

Tree of Happiness Award!

What an amazing week!

We have also received the Tree of Happiness Award from Lisa at 5 Orange Potatoes! We thank you, and we look forward to following your blog...sharing ideas.

We are nominating the following blogs for the Tree of Happiness Award!

1. Carle at http://ourholisticlife.blogspot.com/

2. Linda at http://naturalsuburbia.blogspot.com/

3. Jenn at http://naturenest.wordpress.com/

4. Mama Roots http://www.mamaroots.com/

Circle Time!

Hey, hey let's start the day

Sitting in a circle

Hey, hey what do you say

Let's start the day in a circle...

Circle time is a precious opportunity for the 4 of us (or 5 if Daddy is home!) to be together. We do this on Mondays and Fridays after breakfast. Starting off with our "Circle Time" song that the kids composed, we sing, play guitar or piano, and sometimes throw bean bags to the beat!

Circle time may include yoga stretching, reading stories (fairy tales, folk tales, myths) that go with the current season, holiday or S.S. theme, singing/movement songs, bean bag throwing while counting by different numbers, and singing the calendar song. On Mondays, we also talk about the upcoming week and we create a poem together. We type up the poem, print it out, and then use pastels to decorate it. On Fridays, we do form drawing to a story first on chalkboards, then on paper with crayons. We also play geography ball, throwing the inflatable globe around and asking each other to find continents and countries. About every other week, we do a drum circle at the end of Friday's circle time.

Circle time occurs in the living room. We sit around one of our naturally-dyed cloths or silks. On the cloth we'll have tree blocks, yarn, wood puzzles and bean bags out. This keeps fingers busy (especially for the 5 year-old!), when needed. Sometimes, we meditate or just close our eyes and focus on something positive. Some weeks, we talk about what we enjoy doing, and give each other praise, or say a nice comment to each other. It's a wonderful time to bond, plan, evaluate, experience the arts and bring a sense of opening, and then closing to each home-learning week. Feel free to use our circle time song!

Syrendell

Welcome to Syrendell!

We are the Tan Family: Jennifer (mother), Rick (father), Ricky (son 11), Joey (daughter 9), and Wilson (son 5). As a home-learning (homeschooling) family, we share our experiences with others...always teaching, and forever learning.

Our motto is, "LAPHH". Yes, it sounds like "laugh", which is something we do a lot of as a family!

L = Love
A = Abundance
P = Peace
H = Health
H = Happiness

Whether we are learning at home, traveling, attending lessons, visiting relatives, or walking our labyrinth, we do our best to stay true to our motto.

We are inspired by a variety of teaching and learning techniques and philosophies, including Waldorf education, Montessori, and Earthschooling. Music, art, nature and stories are part of our daily rhythms. Holistic pregnancy, home waterbirthing, attachment parenting, and natural healing are some of the many pathways that we explore. Come join us and follow our blog so that we may learn from each other!