Author Archives: Carrie

“A Donsy Of Gnomes: 7 Gentle Gnome Stories”

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This  182-paged book is one of my favorites for five and six  year olds for “school” but also for bedtime reading for almost any age.  My seven and a half year old and I just got done going through these stories at bedtime again, and they are so lovable.  The stories are seasonal and so sweet, and include imaginative ways to present the stories and how to re-tell the stories.

The stories include the gnomes of Limindoor Woods and the two human children who live nearby.  The seven stories are:   Pebble (whose father teaches him the family trade of being a crystal gardener); Brother Acorn (who keeps the world forested) (this story has a lot of repetition and is shorter so may be of delight to even younger children); Tommy Tomten (a winter tale about giving); Teasel and Tweed (this is a longer story and has a rescue element – not scary, but may be better for children a bit older); Gilly ( a springtime tale); Bracken (an adventuresome gnome); Mossy (a Midsummer story that references all the other stories and characters in the book).

The stories have some simple, beautiful ink drawings to accompany them that are lovely and could be a springboard toward your own creation of wet on wet painting moving pictures (where the characters you paint move through the scene).

There are also many “extras” in this book:  Continue reading →

Are You Drowning In Stuff? A Challenge!

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This article is a fascinating look at Americans and their things: http://realestate.msn.com/blogs/listedblogpost.aspx?post=e0026a0a-03df-4f70-b1e5-6eaaeec9ec86.   This article is an anthropologist’s look at “stuff”.  In particular was mentioned the accumulation of things that comes with adding more children.  One thing that was amazing to me was one particular child’s room contained 248 dolls!

I actually don’t know anyone in real life that has “stuff” to this amount of excess, to be honest, although I am sure it exists.  It is a sad commentary on American society if this is a normal state of affairs for much of the population. As we become more overweight, more depressed, more anxious – here we are, taking our homes that we are so fortunate to have in comparison to the rest of the world and stuffing them to the brim!

I love the summertime for doing major, deep, significant de-cluttering.  So, I have a challenge for you this week:  set aside a two-week period this summer, and every morning, work on getting rid of your stuff.  No, don’t just organize it! Get rid of it! Continue reading →

Minimalism

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My house is officially on the market.  It is bittersweet to me.  We have lived in this home for fourteen years, and I adore my neighbors.  I know them so very well.  I know every nook and cranny of the once farmland that is now our little subdivision:  the tadpoles in the creek by my neighbor’s house (and how she so kindly lets us tramp through her yard to get to the creek!), the long Deep South days at the pool, the way we can see the Fourth of July fireworks from the pool, the hill we can sled on in the winter in the few years we actually do receive snow.  A true sense of place, which seems to be rare in this day and age. Continue reading →

Gathering Love

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I was thinking specifically about new parents, and parents of children in the age of birth through seven when I wrote my post “Gathering Grace” recently.

One thing I think about with the children aged seven through fourteen, who really are in the heart of childhood, is that they should be gathering love. Continue reading →

Very Simple Homeschool Planning

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I have shared with you in past posts some of the little forms I created for homeschool planning.  I am talking to more and more mothers lately who are becoming affected with what I call “a case of the curriculum crazies.”

Please remember to keep things simple.

Pray.

Know your focus.  Know your child, and your top goals for that child and for your family.  What is the ultimate goal you have in mind for the education of your children?  Structure things around that.  You cannot do it all, and nor should you try.

Play a Very Simple Day.  I shared mine already:  gathering the children in song and movement, a main lesson with lots of movement and art, a tea break with read-alouds, another main lesson with lots of movement and art, lunch, a half hour after lunch for one child only per day four days a week for any “extra” work, and three days a week handwork, crafts or religion.  Add in outside time and chores and that is plenty!  We plan four days a week; you may need even less!

Plan in field trips, seasonal activities and FUN. We homeschool to have a joyous family life.  Please don’t forget that!  Homeschooling is first and foremost about having joy as a family.

Many blessings,

Carrie

 

“Solve Your Solvable Problems”: The Seven Principles For Making Marriage Work

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If a couple wants to solve a solvable problem, then the most popular conflict resolution method is to “put yourself in your partner’s shoes while listening intently to what he or she says, and then to communicate empathetically that you see the dilemma from his or her perspective.  It’s not a bad method – if you can do it.”

 

But many folks can’t do it.  By studying the happily married couples in his lab, Dr. Gottman came  up a five-step process for conflict resolution. 

 

Step One:  “Soften Your Startup” – Approach a subject you want to solve with humor; avoid criticism, contempt, defensiveness, stonewalling.  Be gentle with each other.  “Discussions invariably end on the same note they begin,” says Dr. Gottman.  So, if things start off defensive and nasty, the conflict is unlikely to end any better.

 

A harsh startup is more likely to happen if you let things store up; bring up issues as they happen.  Be clear, concise, polite, appreciative.  There are many exercises in this section to help you learn how to make a gentle startup. 

 

Step Two: “Learn To Make and Receive Repair Attempts”  –  This section talks about how to make repair attempts if the discussion gets off track and becomes harsh and defensive.  There is also a large section on phrases that will help soothe yourself and your spouse under the headings of “I Feel,”  “I Need To Calm Down,” “Sorry,” “Getting To Yes,” “Stop Action!” and “I Appreciate”. 

 

Step Three:  “Soothe Yourself and Each Other” –  Less stable marriages have a hard time with conflict discussions because inevitably one partner or the other becomes emotionally flooded.  If you are flooded, you cannot hear your partner and what they are saying.  If you become flooded during a conflict discussion, then you may need to stop and take a break.  Calming yourself down for twenty minutes or so before continuing the discussion can be invaluable.  After that, it is good to calm each other down.  Dr. Gottman notes that this is important: “Soothing your partner is of enormous benefit to a marriage because it  it really a form of reverse conditioning.  In other words, if you frequently have the experience of being calmed by your spouse, you will stop seeing your partner as a trigger of stress in your life and instead associate him or her without feeling relaxed.”

 

Step Four:  “Compromise” –  there are several exercises to work on this most important step.

 

Step Five:  “Be Tolerant Of Each Other’s Faults” – Don’t focus on the “if onlies” but on the acceptance of flaws and finding common ground.

 

Many blessings,

Carrie

Gathering Grace

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In the midst of planning, many mothers can caught up with looking at every program out there, and then extend into looking at  almost every homeschool philosophy out there. Have you ever felt like that?

It can be the same way with parenting:  such division and derision: the “mommy wars”, the strife over feeding methods, discipline methods, so many  decisions to make, so many times of wondering.  “Am I doing the right thing?  Am I going down the right path?”

Being a mother, being a parent, can be so hard.

There is a lot of talk in homeschooling circles about the formative years of birth through seven being about training the will or creating good habits.  Yet, this passage speaks of the balance to me:

In the spiritual education of children, our first concern is not to train their wills, but to attract grace – by our life and prayer – to their environment, and to let each child’s heart become attached to grace. Theological discussion with children is a very small proportion of Christian education. Prayer that God will touch them with grace is a permanent dimension of all our dealings with children, even when they are not with us.

Protopresbyter George Metallinos, recalling the holy Elder Porphyrios: ‘He told me that I must deal with one of my children by praying a lot more. He specifically said to me about that child, “Whatever you would say to that child […], say it to God. Kneel before God and through the grace of God, your words will be conveyed to your child.” About my other child, he said to me: “[…] He listens, but he easily forgets. Therefore, again you will kneel and you will ask for God’s grace, so that your fatherly words will fall upon good soil and will be able to bear fruit.”**

*Fr. Theokletos Dionysiatis, “Between Heaven and Earth [in Greek], (Athens, 1955), p. 130.

 

So, if the Early Years has another dimension outside of training wills, forming habits for the body and within the home, I believe it resides in gathering grace for our children.

We can do this through having a strong prayer life.  There are so many things where we will not know we are “doing the right thing” until our child is an adult.  Prayer is a lifeline.

We can get lost amidst the myriad of decisions, and  we can pray that we do not lose sight of the big picture of things we want to impart to our children before they are out on their own.  We can pray for that, and we can pray to have grace when we and our children make mistakes.

The base of all of this is to have peace in our hearts, and to show this to our children in an outward way that they can see through our actions. May they see us praying, reading and studying the Bible, participating in the life of the Church Year.

May we also gather grace by having meekness and quietness in how we speak to others; we must show them love and kindness.  This is the outward manifestation of peace in our hearts.

May we gather grace by living joyfully  in simplicity and in a strong rhythm.

Let us never forget that humility, meekness, serving others, joy and peacefulness are what lies underneath all the parenting and homeschooling decisions.

Many blessings as you decide things today,

Carrie

What’s On My Heart–Links to Read and Love

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Planning is still on my mind.  I have enjoyed looking through these samples of main lesson book pages from every grade here:  http://www.waldorftoday.com/gallery/Main+Lesson+Book+Pages/

I have also enjoyed following along with how Sheila and Rachel are doing their planning here:  http://sureastheworld.com/2012/06/18/planning-611-617/  (this is one in a series) and Rachel’s here:  http://justtosay.typepad.com/just-to-say/2012/06/planning.html

I am using this link from The Department of Religious Education from The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America to help plan our religious education for the year:  http://www.goarch.org/archdiocese/departments/religioused/resources/

More on planning to come!

I have also been thinking of my reader Jane, who has started a website to encourage single ladies to wait patiently for the right man;  a man who will love and respect them and help create a positive family culture as they marry and raise children.  She asked me if any of my readers who are happily married would be willing to share their inspiring story of finding each other or other encouragement for her single ladies.  Here is the link: http://www.gettingtotruelove.com/tell-your-inspirational-love-story/.  Thank you, Jane.

For my families who have children affected by sensory processing challenges:  http://www.sensorysmarts.com/july_tips.html provides some great tips specific to summer and sensory challenges.

As always, I continue to find so many of my readers’ blogs inspiring, like this post by Kara: http://www.rockingranola.com/2012/06/slow-learner_14.html and this post by Annette (so happy she is blogging again and taking readers on a journey through the day in a series of posts!  Do check it out!):  http://ourseasonsofjoy.com/rhythms-and-routines/good-morning-dear-earth/  If you are sharing something wonderful on your blog and you would like my readers to know about it, please do go ahead and link below.

Many blessings,

Carrie

Day Eight: Twenty Days Toward Being A More Mindful Mother

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With the publication of such important works as “Last Child In The Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature Deficit Disorder” by Richard Louv, hopefully parents everywhere are considering the importance of  nature, being in nature, and the foundational learning that occurs from spending time in nature.

I have mentioned many times that I bank on a extraordinary amount of outside time for small children under the age of seven – three to four hours a day  is not too much, and some children may need many more hours.   Young children need the sensory experiences of being in their bodies:   pushing, pulling, tugging, lugging, digging, moving, rolling in order to establish the fundamental bodily senses as a  proper foundation for later academic experiences.

If being outside is new to you or you need some ideas about what to do outside, here is a very, very popular post regarding connecting your child to nature: Continue reading →

Get Your Planning On! Chores and Movement: Where Do They Fit?

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A few posts back, I  shared the daily planning form that I am going to use this year.  Several folks wondered about that all important movement that children need and that I keep talking about, and also about chores.  So here are some of the ideas that work for me personally, and maybe some of it will resonate with you.  Take what works for your family!

MOVEMENT:  Continue reading →