Well, we have been enjoying the cooler weather with a bitter-sweet feeling. Our favorite time of year used to be fall, but with all the outdoor activities that this homestead keeps us busy with, we are actually going to miss working in the hot sun in the garden, mowing on our John Deer that was given to us (for free!!), and sitting back watching the chickens chase the abundant bugs.
We celebrated this cool, gloomy Saturday morning with homemade bread and corn chowder from our neighbor's brother's cornfields.
*Side note- after the kids helped me make the yeast bread dough, Liam literally ate 1/4 cup of flour. He even passed on reading time while the bread was rising so he could stand on the stool in the kitchen and eat the left over flour from kneading!
We all have been enjoying curling up on the couch in the mornings every day and reading numerous books. The kids absolutely love to read and the stories and discussions we share are actually so fascinating that even Liam, a 2 year old boy, is frozen in interest.
We have been exploring 3 of the books for the five in a row unit studies. One of the books is titled How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World in which the market is closed in a little girl's town so she travels the world to collect by hand each of the ingredients for her apple pie. She finds her wheat in Italy, chicken's eggs in France, cinnamon from the bark of a kurundu tree in Sri Lanka (did you know cinnamon comes from the bark of a tree? I sure didn't), a cow for butter in England, salt from the salt water in the ocean, sugar canes from Jamaica, and apples from Vermont. She then proceeds back home and actually takes the raw ingredients and makes them into what the kids and I see daily during our cooking adventures in our own kitchen. She mills the wheat into flour, grinds the kurundu, evaporates the seawater from the salt, boils the sugar cane, churns the milk into butter, etc. I love that the kids get to learn at such a young age that sugar and flour don't just exist in their present forms somewhere out there in the world. And of course, we have to read this book numerous times for the facts to really sink into the kids growing brains.
We will start up with the structured five in a row activities on Tuesday after labor day.
Fall planting has begun and the kids helped us plant the green beans and carrots that we hopefully will be eating by October.Savannah has been working everyday on her kindergarten workbook. Most days she is practicing lower case and staying in the appropriate lines for the different kinds of letters (e.g. d and c and g all have different ways they are to be written on ruled paper.) She's also been practicing writing her numbers which is somewhat new since our math at her age is mainly spoken, me writing the numbers for her to observe, or reading number books.
Liam gets better with his letter recognition everyday and now gets super excited when he can recognize a letter written in random places. He knows his colors and like all 2 year olds learns vast amounts about the world around him everyday.
We all got to watch (even Felicity) a huge tractor with a baler on the back bale a huge round bale of hay about 15 feet away from us in the property behind our house! Gives seeing a bale of hay from the interstate a whole new meaning.
Regarding the hay baling, I've learned that turkey vultures celebrate the end of summer by scouring the chopped off grassy fields that are to be baled and indulging in the suddenly exposed wildlife that's right at their talon-tips.
Stay tuned for more learning adventures!
Looks like you guys are learning lots of new stuff.
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