Books of the Week {#4} – More of Autumn

More books about autumn this week!

First – Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf by Lois Ehlert. In my opinion, pretty much any book by Lois Ehlert is a winner. :) This one is no exception. The book describes the leaves and seeds of a maple tree, as well as what the tree looks like in each season, and describes how seedling trees are gathered, brought to nurseries and sold so people can plant a tree of their own at home. The pictures are lovely works of art, textural collages using fabric, ribbon, and a variety of other materials. We have a sugar maple tree in our front yard, so I was super excited about this book! I’ve read it once with M, and he was interested, but some of the information may have been a little over his head.

Next – Up, Up, Up! It’s Apple-picking Time, by Jody Fickes Shapiro.This is a sweet, warm story about a family who goes apple picking together. It describes the sounds and scents of the orchard and the feel of partaking in a family ritual. We are lucky to have our own apple orchard (it feels bizarre to even type that) on my husband’s family farm, and I want M to have all the wonderful experiences the boy in this book has. This is a very feel-good cozy book and I love it. I haven’t read it to M yet… I’m waiting for our apples to be ready for picking sometime in October before we start too many apple activities. I’m sure he will love it.

Lastly – The Apple Pie Tree, by Zoe Hall. Zoe Hall’s books are all highly recommended! I had never read this one before, but I really like it. Two young girls have an apple tree in their yard and they watch it through all the seasons, until time for apple picking and making pies. It’s a great story and a very cute part is the family of robins that live in the tree, going through their own stages of growth as the tree goes through the seasons. I think this book does a great job of describing the life-cycle of apples and I will be using this with our apple life-cycle cards.

I hope you are all enjoying some good books with your little ones! Go here for more reviews.

Have a beautiful day! :)

Thursday Thinking – Rethinking our Routines

We’ve been working on setting up a new routine here this week and there’s still a lot of adjusting and fine-tuning to do. 

Setting aside a large amount of time for “school” one day a week just isn’t cutting it for us right now.  We’ve been trying to make sure to spend one day per week at home, which I feel is reasonable, but I’ve been trying to get all the house-cleaning done that day, set aside a large chunk of time for tot school, and stuff in a bunch of other items from the never-ending to-do list… and I’ve been left feeling pretty… well, crabby, to be honest.  Stressed, exhausted, unhappy… that’s just not the mood I want to be in when M and I have special time together. 

So, I’m thinking of having activities that M can do by himself on Tuesdays (or whatever day it ends up being) that I can check in and out of while I take care of other necessary household *stuff*.  I’m not sure how I want to set this up… maybe tot trays or workboxes.  I like the Montessori method of having a specific “work” area that the child brings the work to, and which he cleans up before picking a new activity.  In my mind it works beautifully, but realistically I’m not sure M will really cooperate with it.  He’s not exactly a pick-up-after-himself sort of guy. :)  But we can all learn, right?  I bought a bamboo mat for him to use as his work area at Target this week as an optimistic act of faith. :) 

The other part of the plan is to then have 20 to 30 minutes a day of what I’m calling “circle time” in my head.  I don’t know what I’ll call it when talking to M; circle time sounds a little funny when it is pretty much just he and I!  But it will be time for a story, one or two activities, poems, songs, flannel board, etc.   I plan to make our weather chart part of this on a daily basis, sense we’ve gotten away from doing it.  Also, we will add in prayers, character building lessons, learn the days of the week, and maybe a game once in a while.   I think I will have it all revolve around certain themes.  The current theme is autumn, and I’m thinking there’s enough resources out there that we could easily do seasonal and holiday themes for a very long time! 

We’ll either try to do this in the mornings or after nap time, before it’s time to start cooking dinner.  M rarely takes a nap any more, I just have him rest for a while after lunch – this is when I let him watch a little TV (usually a dvd of Clifford shows or something along those lines), or sometimes he sits in bed and looks at books.  I’ve thought of doing our “circle time” after lunch since it would be easy to fit in then – but after trying it a couple of times I’ve found it to be disastrous.  He may not need a nap, but I definitely need a break of some sort at that time of day.  That is my energy low point and I need to take that time to rest, focus on something else, and just recharge my batteries. 

We’ve got a busy fall ahead of us – Mondays we have a pray/play group with a bunch of moms at church, then we run errands before lunch; every other Tuesday we will have a class at our local nature center (“playful polliwogs” – isn’t that cute?); Thursdays we’ll alternate between story time at the library and another church pray/play group at various moms’ homes;  Fridays will be our days for field trips or play dates with just one or two friends.  There’s also some activities at the local community center scattered throughout the calendar that we want to go to.  Whew.  I hope we can manage it all… and I hope that if we can’t manage it all I will have the presence of mind to rethink things and say no to some activities.  It’s hard to do, isn’t it?!?!

So, just thought I’d spell it all out here so I have a record of my plans, and maybe I’ll even get a few great suggestions!  Feel free to tell me how you get things done and still have time for your child(ren).

Happy fall!  Have a beautiful day! :)