Half a Hundred Acre Wood

Christian homeschooling integrating Classical and Charlotte Mason principles

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The Thirteen-year Cicada

I’ve seen these interesting, big-bug-eyed insects several times over the course of my life.  I recall hearing their loud, deafening cadence somewhere in the distant past.  But I’ve never seen them quite like this: They were all over the boys’ playhouse…   and the trees…   and the grass. Hundreds of thousands of these insects can emerge from a […]

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Nim’s Island Unit Study & Lapbook

Sometimes I get in over my head on something.  Like telling Stephen we could lapbook Nim’s Island, only to find that there were no lapbook templates out there for us to use.  Thus, we embarked on an adventure as mother and son, creating our first lapbook from scratch.  An unexpected benefit from doing this was that […]

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Rub-a-dub-dub

When little boys tried to convince their mom that they didn’t need a bath, it went something like this: Me:  “You need a bath.” David:  “Why?” Me: “Because you’re dirty.  Just look at your feet.” About this time is when I became distracted with doing something else.  When I walked back into our bedroom, I saw this: Levi and David […]

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My green thumb: You mean I DIDN’T plant daffodils?!?

I love flowers. I love herbs. And I love vegetables. I love trying to grow my own. Last fall, we had some dirt work done around the old guest house, which had hundreds of daffodils planted around it.  As they were leveling the land around the house, we had them place a pile of dirt aside so that we […]

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Celebrating Easter in One-and-a-Half Weeks

My husband works a rotational assignment as a supervisor on a drillship in another country. A drawback:  He misses holidays, birthdays, and lots-of-other-days (including Easter). A benefit:  We celebrate each holiday that he misses either multiple times or across many days… And so, our Easter celebration started on Palm Sunday when we colored Easter eggs with some very good friends of ours […]

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Church Search: A Mom’s Grace Experience

Despite the fact that I have taught and directed children’s ministry, led middle school Bible classes, and taught adult Sunday School lessons, I have never experienced something more intimidating and exhausting than stepping foot into a new church.  Even as an experienced church-goer and teacher, I still feel so much anxiety going to church now […]

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Earth Day Earthworms: Natural Farmers

Today marked the day that we moved the firewood pile from beside the garage down to the barn. In doing so, we uncovered a habitat filled with all sorts of critters – several types of larvae, some roly-polies (or pill bugs), an orange salamander (I’m unsure but maybe it’s a red-spotted newt?), and earthworms galore, which […]

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A Great Balancing Act

As I watched my son struggle, patiently steadying himself, starting out, wobbling a little, gaining speed, slowing down, wobbling again, toppling over, re-steadying himself, starting out once again, wobbling a little… I thought, My life is like that. How many times I set out to do something, I concentrate on steadying myself, I wobble a bit […]

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ArtMaps

The students in our homeschool group are creating artistic representations of one week of our geography memory work for display during our awards ceremony.  Stephen chose to paint a Monet-style watercolor of southeastern Asia because his daddy works in South Korea.   Stephen drew his map free-hand, and it was a bit challenging because Guam […]