Spring Garden

Good-bye Winter garden!  Good-bye fava beans!

Roto-tilling the soil

Adding compost

Adding ladybugs

Planting Seeds

Dividing and transplanting strawberries

Photosythesis, Bugs, Tools, Parts of Plant in MLBs

Our favorite gardening book!

Waldorf in the Home Conference - Fair Oaks, CA

This year's conference was titled: "Mothering and Spirituality: Resourcing Feminine Wisdom."  What an empowering, nurturing and inspiring weekend!

The conference was held at the lovely Sacramento Waldorf School in Fair Oaks, CA.  Because we live just around the corner from the school, we were fortunate to house the amazing Kristie Burns from Earthschooling and her daughter Sofi with us!  They came on a train all of the way from Iowa.  Kristie's workshops went very well and she had her new book on the temperaments available for sale.

I enjoyed meeting vendors that had everything that I love -- Barefoot books, naturally dyed yarns, aromatherapy, artistic clothing, Waldorf dolls, puppets, wood gnome homes, wood play kitchen items and cooperative games.  Steiner College Bookstore was on hand to tempt us with their many books related to Waldorf education.

http://www.monangedolls.com/

Our speakers this year were Nancy Jewel Poer, Regina Sara Ryan, Carol Lee Flinders and Cynthia Aldinger.  There were many wonderful workshops to select from...what a hard choice!  I ended up attending "Picturing your Child" with Lee Sturgeon Day, "Clay, Color, and Word" with Ellen Springwind, "Beeswax Painting" with Joya Birns, and "Soul Development through Changing Your Handwriting" with Jennifer Crebbin.  I could write pages about the inspiration that I received as a result of learning from these goddeses!

I look forward to going again next year!

 

The Great Outdoors Challenge

Lisa at 5 Orange Potatoes (one of our favorite blogs!) has a wonderful challenge posted about taking children out to explore nature in your own back yard each day! 

We have been taking walks in the garden and the creek this past week...both are in our backyard.

Each day we venture a bit further down the creek. 



One day the kids saw tiny fish swimming in the deep areas.

We love the shape of this old tree...the bark, and the holes in it!
Tomorrow, we are going to bring a trash bag with us and pick up any trash that we find. 

We know that this creek leads to the American River.  Perhaps we'll hike all of the way there someday soon!

Down by the Creek

Sometimes the best moments of homeschooling are not the ones that we plan.

It's about taking a closer look at what is right in our back yard.

Helping each other jump into the creek.

And exploring....

What To Do With All Of Those Watercolor Paintings!

If you are anything like us, you have piles of watercolor paintings and other beautiful artwork from your children somewhere in the house.  It is hard to throw away art, so we let it pile up in boxes, cupboards and filing cabinets.  We use them as backgrounds in our bookshelves and hang them on the walls. 

This year, we decided to use our watercolor paintings for other projects.  Here are some of the projects that we have done.


Gift tags and cards for birthdays, thank you and holidays

Star lanterns

Vases for holding pencils, knitting needles, egg tree branches and more (glue onto a oatmeal can)

Cards with embroidery

Backgrounds/matting for picture frames

Rune Cards

We would love to hear your ideas!