30 Days Hath September

Our 3, 5, 7, 9, & 11 yr olds got their September calendars all numbered and adorned with their own personalities and they are each now ready to be 3-hole punched and added to their big 3-ring binders that will hold the evidence of what they do this year in our homeschool.  Writing samples, artwork samples, math quizzes, pictures from field trips, with just about anything and everything having to do with the things they learn and the things they experience, these binders can end up, well, rather plump.

I let them loose with markers (washable! after years of many young children I’ve learned that washable markers are worth the extra dollar…) and colored pencils and no artistic guidelines, unless you count “Draw whatever you want!”   Hopie cracked me up when she started right out with a blue snowman.  We did have about a 20 degree shift in our high temps, but I think she may be jumping the gun a bit with the snowmen pictures… We’ll have to talk a bit more about seasons, and the difference between fall and winter, but then, with our Frozen Tundra weather it could start snowing right after I convince her that fall comes first and that it’s all about cooler temps, changing leaves, and apple orchard trips.

I don’t know if you can see it, but to the right of the snowman there is a treasure chest, some swirling paths above it (like on a treasure map), and X to mark the spot, and a sword to warn the treasure hunters that there are pirates in the area.  I’m not sure what that all has to do with snowmen, but let’s just say that the variety doesn’t surprise me one single little bit, especially coming from this child. 

She also started writing her name correctly with a capital “H” and then an “o”, then she paused and crossed it out before writing her entire name in lower case letters.  I think she just likes the look of a lower case h better…

We’ll work on that.

Grace set to drawing the sweetest picture of a little girl with a delightfully patterned fall sweater and set of matching mittens, surrounded by falling leaves.  Delightful.

Before you jump to the conclusion that our boys are obsessed with violence, let me tell you that we had just watched Davy Crockett and Jaron had Bowie knives on the mind.  Our boys are not violent in the slightest, but they are all boy and they do carry some handy pocket knives, which comes in quite useful when I can’t get a package open without breaking another fingernail.

I’d seen the knives before, but before watching Davy Crockett for the 1st time I had no idea who Jim Bowie was.  I must’ve missed that lesson in American History way back when I was in school.  No matter, I’ve just added it to the list of the many things that I didn’t know but happened to learn right along with my children!

Liberty, our oldest daughter is so much like me it’s scary sometimes.  The open-ended “whatever you want” directions were too much for her this day.  After several minutes, when each of the other children were eagerly drawing away, Liberty was still sitting there tapping her pencil.  I told her not to worry about picking the perfect thing to draw, to just draw anything that came to mind, maybe even just draw her name with fanciful colorful letters.  “I know, but…”  I told her that if she didn’t hurry up and decide, that I was going to assign her something random and goofy to draw, like, um, uh, a purple fish.

She grinned and told me”You’ve just given me an idea!”

And she drew a fish. 

I just love 3 yr olds’ drawings!  I could fill dozens of scrapbooks with these treasures if I kept every one of them, which I am often tempted to do. 

Working on our calendars is more than an art time for our homeschoolers.  It’s a time to review the months of the year, to learn their order (things we take for granted, like just knowing that September is 9 when we write out the date with only numbers and slashes), to learn the number of days of the months, to review the days of the week, and practice counting to 30 (or 31, or 28, or even 29) and writing the numbers.

Fun stuff.

I’m excited to watch the September sections of their binders fill up with all kinds of goodness!

Related posts:

1. Planning For Extraordinary Days {Updated!}

Tagged as: Homeschool, homeschooling