This morning we had a wonderful arts and crafts class and were delighted that another homeschooler M's age is also in the class. J enjoyed and participated in the class as well. It took him a bit of time to warm up, but then he was immersed in playdough and loved cleaning up with the sponges-- and of course snack time.
This afternoon we met our friends at some local "woods" and I brought along paper and crayons for the kids to do some tree bark tracing, a wonderful activity inspired by my recent Waldorf philosophy reading. Along the same lines as Waldorf and Charlotte Mason, we are spending as much time as possible outdoors these days, including eating as many meals as possible outside. Today we managed to get about 6 1/2 hours of pure outside time! The woods are so fun for the kids and they had a great time collecting acorns and digging for worms.
I also decided to revamp our entire fall schedule. I felt like some things weren't working for us, we were overscheduled, and I wanted our afternoons to be open and stress-free and allow for plenty of outside time-- particularly while the weather is still nice this fall. So, I eliminated swimming and ballet from our schedule and our afternoons now allow for much more unstructured play time. Live and learn.
