Salsa and Adventures

This picture of Mr. Blueberry Eyes cracks me up. He is crawling out on the top branches of birch or cottonwood tree that had been felled by beavers. He is out over a river, but it is not as dangerous as it looks. We were having a walk with The Wood Artist's family and The Wanderer when we took this picture.

The kids have developed a funny tradition of wading through the shallow part of the river with The Wanderer in the late fall when the water is very cold. Then we rush them home and into a hot bath!

I made a LOT of fire roasted salsa with my abundant tomatillo harvest this year. Here is a picture of a batch of tomatillos, garlic and serrano peppers headed into the broiler. We will have a lot of yummy mexican food this winter!

I seem to be having a bit of trouble keeping up with all of my homeschool goals. I think I expect too much out of myself sometimes. We have to catch up on history and science. We've been doing them, but not as consistently as we need to. Another problem I have is that we tend to take more time on the lessons of history and dig a little deeper on certain lessons and that gets us "behind". But, I don't think that is necessarily bad. The learning is definitely taking place. It is just that my personality seems to enjoy checking off a list and this style of learning isn't quite as tidy. I still like it, though.

I'm using Sequential Spelling with Laughing Water twice a week to supplement her regular spelling workbook this year. I love the improvement I see! Mr. Blueberry Eyes seems to have hit a bump in his reading readiness. He was doing so well, but now shows a great deal of frustration and inability to do what he did so well a few weeks ago. I'm going to lay off the reading for a while.

I attended an educational conference a few weeks ago and sat spellbound by a professor of education from LaSierra (?). She talked about the danger of pushing a child to read before they are ready - even up to age 12. She said that if you push them, they will learn, but when they hit their integrated maturity level, where they would normally have started learning, they can develop neuroses. She talked about their fovial vision not being developed yet. I want to research fovial vision. I don't understand it, but I'm thinking that is what is getting in Mr. Blueberry Eyes' way right now. There is something about the way he isn't tracking on the words like he was for a while.

I find it so much easier to advise the clients I work with to wait with their children than to do it with my own!

Today is a lovely day, weather wise. There are nuthatches eating the vegetarian suet that The Wanderer helped Mr. Blueberry Eyes make a few weeks ago. It is almost gone and we need to refill the feeders. Maybe I'll share the recipe on here sometime.

We are going to do history and then study the planets and then have lunch and hit the road for an afternoon of piano, guitar, and violin lessons and ice skating lessons! Wish me luck. I'm really tired today! - Nanette