October Sky

While the wild winds of October blow and bring in cooler weather, so do more great homeschooling times! We always loved the really crisp fall days and jacket atmosphere around us. Sometimes life was just too good to be true! Just like the change of weather it is time to stop and be grateful of the time you get to spend with your children and the chance YOU get to be the greatest influence in their education. Truly love it. It can be hard and like everything else always wondering if it is the right thing to be doing. Your heart will tell you. Always stop and restart your heart. It is there.

A must have book that always helped me is A Charlotte Mason Companion. To this day I can still read it and feel the amazing love I had for teaching my own children. This is told by Karen Andreola and it should never leave your side. It covers everything and sheds new light on things you never thought of. I was so reeducated and found love for so many things myself. Please get this book and find a beautiful way to your childs heart and your own.


Collecting leaves~Such a great outdoor activity is always collecting and labeling leaves. Go out into the neighborhood and ask to gather leaves from your neighbor. Rich colors and shapes will help your child discover trees. Have a tree guide and prepare a booklet to draw the assortment, add color, and write the name of the tree. You may also add pods, seeds, cones,and nuts. You can later display your treasure on a table or make a Nature Jar. Fill a clear glass jar with an assortment of shapes and colors to keep or give away.

An Apple a Day~ What a good time to learn the different names of apples. They also have shape,size,and color that can be fun to compare. The best place to make this happen is your grocery store. Take an apple tour, buy a few pounds, then head home for some wonderful apple crisp! Take time to draw some of the different apples, maybe write a poem, paint with apple halves and in the springtime plant an apple tree.

A Pumpkin Patch~ Read and understand how pumpkins grow. A great trip is to visit a pumpkin patch where the actually grow on the vine. Hopefully a hay ride is involved and a wheel barrel to gather a cute little pumpkin for each of your children. An art project to do at home is take a small lunch paper bag and fill it with paper shreds. Twist the tip~top and paint it green and the large part orange and let it dry. Tie green yarn to all you make and you have your very own pumpkin patch. Later in the spring plant pumpkin seeds and watch the vines spread. You may even get a pumpkin!

A Robert Frost poem~ A beautiful and easy poem to memorize. Like spring into winter, so is life. It is featured in the book The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton a must for older children. This is best with a study guide. A hard but great story(you may want to read it first) Also a movie and a beautiful scene of the reciting of this poem.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature`s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf`s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Have your children also write this out in the center of a nice piece of paper and with color draw pictures of spring,summer,fall to winter things around the poem. Frame and display.

Young reading~ Little Bear`s Friend by Else Holmelund Minarik~pictures by Marice Sendak. This a superb book, I loved it as a child and the friendship really comes to life.

Middle read~ Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder pictures by Garth Willams. An amazing story of Laura`s husband, Almanzo, as a child. My son and I read a chapter of this book every night when he was about ten. We had a study guide and did activties during the day. He did a report and made a life-size Almanzo, out of paper and displayed it at the library`s homeschool Famous People exhibit, where he proudly stood by. Later that year we went to Mansfield,Missouri to visit Almanzo and Laura`s home and grave. It was very touching and meant more to all of us since we got to know him. It is one of my favorite memories!

As you teach your young children and prepare them to go out on their own to bless others, remember one of my favorite quotes by artist Paul Cezanne ~ `With an apple, I will astonish Paris!`

Nothing is too small to take our breath away! ~ My words to that.
Danna