our apartment has an attic space that once contained josh's studio. josh has since moved his music space to a little 8 x 20 foot room adjacent to our bedroom, leaving the upstairs to function as guest room, small voice office, home & office storage, my craft studio, & shepherd's bedroom. there are lots of nooks & closets in this attic, so it is quite versatile & surprisingly spacious. now that shepherd is sleeping downstairs in a little space off of heron's room, it was time to reclaim his old crib + nursing nook & turn it into a classroom*. but we couldn't stop there. the kids needed more play options to get us all through the long, rainy winter in portland, so we took over some storage space & created a cozy reading nook, too.
here are some pictures of the transformed space...
: my dad's old writing desk where shepherd's crib used to be :
: heron & shepherd each have a tray with supplies for activities related to the day's lesson :
(i've found that though i'm a creative person, i'm not the best on-the-fly, so i'm doing a little night-before lesson & craft planning. everything is out & ready to go for the next day.
: they always do lots of coloring, & heron is learning to cut, too :
: heron is very interested in learning to write her letters, so i found her these handmade sandpaper letters to trace :
: these are the art/learning supplies :
(the lower shelf is for shepherd)
we are using alot of montessori-inspired ideas & tools, from sandpaper letters to individual trays/work spaces, to a well-ordered, aesthetically-pleasing display of activities made of natural materials on a child-sized, accessible shelf. hmm... on second thought, maybe that's just mitchy-inspired?
: this is our bulletin board with the week's lessons :
(i have started by using a curriculum from 1+1+1=1, inspired by my friend julia. this first week we also used this book and this book to correspond with our letter of the week--L!)
: heron & shepherd's first day in the classroom began early, with dancing :
: heron in the reading nook, just to the left of the desk :
: the sun was actually shining, & heron let me take her picture with the new mama-made owl pillows :
this is our first week, so i am just experimenting with curriculum, still discovering my philosophy of education. i am trying to let heron & shepherd be my guides. i want to observe their interests & enable them to focus on those things that are most life-giving & exciting to them. heron really seems to want to learn to read & write already, & she always wants to do art projects. she also loves collecting little treasures from nature on our walks outside, sorting them, & making up games with them. she also loves making up stories, so we are spending lots of time telling stories to each other. and she has really taken to scripture memory, memorizing not only our "L" verse of Matthew 5:16 this week, but two other verses, as well.
shepherd is such a tactile little guy, so good with his hands. he is really into figuring things out spatially, building towers, doing shape puzzles. he also likes painting and music.
on a related topic (which has felt especially pertinent as i've been presenting a biblically-based school curriculum), it is so hard to know how to "train up" our children. while i long to instruct heron in particular right now about right & wrong (she is learning alot about telling the truth right now, & our memorized verse is providing many opportunities to talk about God & sin), & she is crying out for some sort of moral guidance, i want to raise her to have a real understanding of grace, not legalism. i want her faith to be real, chosen, living, & active, not inherited & resented. though i grew up in a christian home, i didn't really "meet the Lord" until i was 24, as it took me until that time to realize that following jesus didn't simply mean being nice or even being a "good" person. so... how do we raise our kids with a biblical foundation, a genuine love for jesus & God's word, & a knowledge of the holy spirit over legalistic rule-following? i really have no idea, but can only try to approach each day with prayer & intentionality, &, as my sister-in-law cris reminded me, model what it means to love & follow christ wholeheartedly through our lives & interactions.
by the way, on the topic of christian child-rearing, has anyone read the book, "give them grace"?
*if anyone is asking, "isn't heron in montessori preschool?" the short answer is that we took her out of school one month in, after a daily faking of illness whenever it was time to go to school :( i still appreciate many aspects of montessori learning, but this school & teacher weren't a good fit. i didn't set out to homeschool her when i put together our classroom, but we are definitely having fun with this "intentional instruction at home" ;). we're open to sending her to preschool next year (she's a social gal, & would thrive in the right environment), but right now, after the expensive experiment of maria's place montessori, i don't have the energy to investigate our options ;) & besides, i LOVE having her home with me while i can!
