Poppy Headbands

This summer I saw a tutorial on Ruffles And Stuff for this headband and was inspired. I thought it was a brilliant use of resources! And it was so cute. I finally got around to making some in the early fall. I decided to sacrifice my only red purse for the project. It was too small anyway, so now it lives on in a more useful capacity. I like to think it's happier that way. :o)
I changed it up from the tutorial a little. I made poppies instead of bows, and I added some beads for the flower centers. I also did decorative stitching. And I didn't glue anything, I sewed the flowers on. So really I just took the idea of killing a purse to make mother-daughter headbands! Disney at Ruffles And Stuff is great for inspiration like that. She has a craft budget of 0.0001% of the household budget, same as me. So her projects are very do-able.
I love how ours turned out. I love poppies! I think we'll wear them often, since they'll go with most of our winter clothes. Well, most of my winter clothes. Suzy's wardrobe is still mainly pink and purple, whatever the season. :o)

A close-up of my pretty girl:

This is really blurry. I had to zoom in to crop out my face. Don't judge! Anyway, I think you get a vague idea of what it's supposed to look like:

And just because she wanted her picture with Daddy too:

First Week of Homeschool!

We finished our first week of homeschool last Thursday. We go Monday through Thursday, and then take Friday off since that's Nate's day off.
It went so well! We do Bible, Math, Reading, and Drawing. Suzy is really doing well. We're using Phonics Museum by Veritas Press. It combines art with reading and writing. I've already seen Suzy expanding her appreciation of art, and we're only a week in!
She came to me one day dressed in a tutu and a yellow tank top. She handed me a red hair scarf and said, "Will you put in my pretty peach ribbon?" I tied back her hair, and she struck a pose. She clasped her hands behind her back, and tilted her head back. "Look!" she said, "I'm Degas' Little Dancer!" It was so cute!
This Friday we took a family field trip to the Brooks Museum of Art in Memphis. Suzy was so excited to go! She chattered about it the entire one and a half hour drive. She loved looking at paintings of people, especially of queens and kings. She liked the jewelry! She's already asking when we can go back.
Tomorrow we start our second week, and I hope things continue as well as they have been!

The Penland Academy for Young Ladies

Yesterday we received our home school curriculum. As Nate was pulling loads and loads of books out of the box, he was getting more and more excited, and I was getting less so. I began to have simultaneous feelings of happiness, self-doubt, and buyer's remorse!
I was happy because I love teaching Suzy, and I've been intentionally teaching her since she was 10 months old. I made little lesson plans, and had a checklist of developmental goals. I know, I know! But she’s my only one, so why not?
So, last year, she met all the preschool developmental goals. At that point, I had no idea what further to do with her. I had taught preschool for years, and poured all my training and experience into Suzy, and I flat-out hit a wall. I had no idea how to begin teaching reading beyond letter recognition. We decided that instead of the both Suzy and Momma languishing a whole year not knowing what to do, that we would start kindergarten early, with a complete, made-by-someone-else curriculum.
We went with Veritas Press. It’s a classical education, with a heavy emphasis on the arts and languages. We got the kindegarten-1st grade combo (so she’ll do it for two years) of their reading program, The Phonics Museum. It combines art history with reading. It seems like something we’ll like.
Also, since it’s a pretty good bet (given her parents) that she’ll be more artistically than mathematically gifted, we got “Drawing With Children”, a book to help parents teach their children the basics of drawing. I was dismayed to find that it was over an inch thick, with nearly a third being prepatory work for the teacher. This brought in the self-doubt. However, since Suzy already spends hours contentedly drawing, I think she’ll love it so much that it will be well worth it.
My one big area of doubt was the math curriculum. We bought Saxon K, even though Veritas Press recommends skipping it and doing Saxon 1 for kindergarten. But since she’s only four, we went with the K. Looking it over last night, I think about a half of it are concepts she already knows well. This brought the buyer’s remorse. I decided to just go ahead with it and skip the lessons that would be too boring. And it’s all based around a calendar workbook that starts in September. It’s October, so it makes it awkward. We may just skip to the September lessons all together.
Anyway, these are my first impressions of the curriculum. Tomorrow is my Teacher Work Day. Nate will keep Suzy, and I will haul all this stuff to the library and plan my lessons. I’m actually really looking forward to that! I am excellent at planning. Not so good on follow through, but excellent at the planning!

Dorkiness

I am a dork. No, no, don't make polite denials. I know it. I ENJOY being a dork. It's fun.
I love to read. I love to read history, and occassionally...grammar. Yes, that's how bad it is. Eats, Shoots, and Leaves was a great book! It's a book making fun of people's grammar mistakes, for you non-dorks.
The podcasts I listen to? Several BBC programs: Global News, From Our Own Correspondent, The History of the World in 100 of Objects, and Documentaries, a French Word-of-the-Day, and Grammar Girl. Yes, Grammar Girl. I listen to podcasts about adverbs.
Last month, on my weekly trip to the library, I was really pleased with the three books I brought home: Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior by Temple Grandin, The Dog That Drove Home, the Snake Eating Mouse and Other Exotic Tales of the Animal Kingdom by Vida Adamoli, and The Story of English: Revised Edition by Robert McCrum, William Cran, Robert MacNeil.
I start reading all my library books at once; I don't go through them one at a time. I'll tote them around to various rooms in the house as I'm working, and just pick up which ever one happens to be handy. Eventually one will pull ahead and I'll focus on it for a while.
I really liked Animals in Translation. There was a lot I doubted, but I thought the facts and insights into animal behavior were fascinating. That means, if you know me, you will avoid me for at least two weeks, in order to prevent yourself from being bored to death by "interesting" anecdotes from the book that I simply must inflict upon you. If you know me REALLY well, you will merely brace yourself. It's futile to resist.
The Exotiv Animal Tales wasn't as good, but I did like some of the stories. Try not to mention nursing, puppies, or snow to me for a while, or I'll tell you about the Welsh woman who was snowed in without formula, and nursed her newborn on her loyal German Shepherd, thus saving his life.
The Story of English was very interesting - about the history and development of various forms of English. I didn't finish it before I returned it. It was overdue, so I wasn't allowed to recheck it. I have to wait until Friday to find out how it ends. Ha!
I like being a dork. I have to go now, there's a tornado documentary on PBS.