Category Archives: Kid-Speak

Read Aloud Thursday–favorite toddler books

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The curls are gone. . . sniff, sniff

You’ll excuse me if this post is a little sentimental and nostalgic, right? 

We’ve passed a milestone here at the House of Hope. As of Saturday, I am no longer a nursing mother.   Our usual morning routine for the past many months has been for me to get the DLM out of bed around 8 a.m., change his diaper, and then sit in the rocking chair beside his bed for him to nurse.  We’ve followed up the nursing session by reading several books for many weeks now.  Having practiced child-led weaning with my girls (who weaned themselves at 11 months and 15 months), I really had no idea how much longer this would go on and what weaning would look like for the DLM, my best nurser yet.  For the past couple of weeks, the DLM would say “book!” in the middle of nursing, and sometimes even before.  He’s twenty-one months old and is really exerting his self-hood:   if it’s books he wants (and it usually is–he has an insatiable reading appetite already!), it’s books he insists upon.  And so the end of nursing happened almost accidentally.  Just when I’d settled into weaning him who-knows-when, I realized on Monday that he hadn’t nursed since Saturday morning.   Thinking it wise to take advantage of the situation, I suggested a book to him on Monday morning, and he never even mentioned “going night-night,” his code for nursing.  On Tuesday he suggested “night night” once, but he chose reading over nursing without a backwards glance.  It’s a little bittersweet, of course, this ending of one more little piece of his dependence on me.  It makes it a bit easier that this transition was accomplished through the love of reading. 


He most assuredly knows what he likes.  A book he couldn’t get enough of last week might be met with a definitive “NO!” tomorrow.  The books pictured above mostly came from the basket in his bedroom, so they’re the ones we read the most often, with a few notable omissions.  Most of these books are hand-me-downs from the girls, which is nice for me, of course.  I like remembering reading them to the girls and the building of the family culture that follows.  What’s even sweeter to me is that the girls read them to the DLM, too. 

I won’t bother with mentioning all of the titles above.  Maybe it’s because I’ve read all of these so many times, but I feel like surely everyone and her sister must know them all by heart like I do.  ;-)   I do want to mention a few special ones, though.

I picked out Chugga-Chugga Choo-Choo on a whim for a little Valentine’s Day gift for the DLM, and it has been a winner (well, up until today, when he positively refused to listen to it ;-) ).  Kevin Lewis is the author of this sing-songy, rhyming little board book full of all sorts of locomotive action and fun.  I love that the book ends with “Good night, engine, safe and sound” instead of the engine black and red caboose careening wildly about the track up until the last page.  (In other words, it’s a good bedtime story, too.)   I think we need to add more of Kevin Lewis’ books to our decidedly vehicle-sparse collection.  Daniel Kirk’s illustrations are bright, colorful, and graphic, perfect for a toddler.  The DLM (sometimes) and I (always) give it a Highly Recommended. 

Another favorite of mine is one I bought specifically for the DLM, and it’s the only other book that I can think of that we own that’s about a motorized vehicle.  Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle is also about a bunch of animals, and which just adds to the toddler appeal.  Of course, I’ve already said that. 

Hands down my favorite toddler book is Owl Babies by Martin Waddell.  Our copy was already well-loved by the girls, but the DLM has taken it to a new level:  for a while, every time I read the line

“I want my mommy!” said Bill,

he would turn around and give me a big, tight squeeze around the neck.  Every single time.  Now I’m more likely to get a grin than a squeeze, but I’ll never forget that sweet phase or this precious book.  I love it. 

It’s not long before this. . .

turns into this. . .

What’s your favorite, favorite book from your children’s toddlerhoods?  Please share!


Week in Review

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It’s way past my usual Friday afternoon or Saturday morning collage/week-in-review post, but I enjoy writing these up so much that I’m going to go ahead with it even though the week is officially over. I’ve been up to my eyeballs in over my head this weekend with preparing items for not one but two consignment sales (children’s clothing and furniture/housewares), ferrying Lulu back and forth (and attending with her) a piano competition, and shaking my head in dismay getting really excited about the remodeling of our schoolroom which has to be accomplished before we get to the real remodeling projects: the dining room and family room. We had a really great week of learning, though, and I don’t want to forget it!

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1.  We’ve focused on art a bit more this week than we have been lately.  I positively love art–everything about it, from the process of actually making art to studying the works of great artists to reading about it.  I have one child who loves it as much as I, so this week I encouraged her to participate in Sketch Tuesday while her sister had a doctor’s appointment.  Louise took her time drawing a picture of something that hums and coloring it with watercolor pencils.  (We love these!)

2.  I remembered to get out our art calendar and do a bit of art study.  I got this week’s Sketch Tuesday.  When I told her she was to draw something that might be found in a treasure chest, she decided almost immediately on a crown.  I grabbed our Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia of World History and found a picture for her to use as inspiration.  Sketch Tuesday is such an easy way to inject these little bits of art into our week–I’m making a resolution to do it weekly!  (Be sure to check out Tuesday’s slideshow to see all the treasures.) {I have no idea why #2 and #3 have run together.  When I try to edit it, it looks correct on my screen.  Computers!  :-) }

4.  Math went much better this week than it did last week, praise the Lord!  I think “easy does it” needs to be my motto when it comes to letting Lulu settle into a new mathematical operation.  Too, RS C lessons 87-90 involved using manipulatives to do the multi-digit subtraction and not depending so much of mental math entirely.  (This was really the hard part for Lulu–keeping the numbers straight in her mind when doing the subtraction mentally.  I encourage her to persevere and work on increasing her capacity to remember the numbers without writing them down because I think it’s important that she improve at this.  For the record, the problems she was doing mentally involved mostly two-digit numbers, and we played several card games during the week to work on this skill.)  She caught on quickly to using the abacus to do this multi-digit subtraction and then to using symbols to represent the various places and to represent the trading.  It was a great math week for us, which was very welcome after a couple of weeks of really struggling.  (How could it be bad, when you get to do your math dressed in your favorite kimono? :-) )

Louise and I worked through a couple of lessons in RS B together.  We finally got to a lesson that involved using the part-whole circle.  This is still mostly review for her, but she is really enjoying the one-on-one attention.  (Oh, and she was very excited to finally get to do a worksheet this week.  ;-) )

5.  I could’ve entitled this post “Back in the Saddle Again with SotW”; this week we came full circle once again and started back using SotW volume 2 for our history.  We left it way back in November when we started a unit of sorts about Native Americans (read about some of the resources we used here).  After that it was Christmas and we went around the world again.  After Christmas I tried out a hodgepodge of resources:  Tapestry of Grace, Simply Charlotte Mason, doing my own thing.  We’re pretty certain we’re joining a Classical Conversations community next year, so we’ll be back on the ancients again for that, so I was just discombobulated–should we continue on with our Middle Ages study, knowing that we’re backtracking next year?  In the end, I decided just to go with it.  Right now we need something simple and effective that doesn’t require me to do a lot of groundwork, so we stuck with reading chapter 11 (material we had actually already covered in other resources), doing a couple of notebooking pages, and reading Marguerite Makes a Book.  Lulu and I work together on her narrations, but she has grown in the past couple of months to really wanting to do her own writing.  Narrations are really the heart of what first drew me to the classical method, and I really, really like the idea of having ongoing notebooks that the girls can look back on to see what they’ve learned and how they’ve grown as writers.


6.  The DLM has taken apart every puzzle that he could get his hands on this week.  Oh, and he has climbed into and out of our new cabinets (and mashed his fingers in the doors of them, too).  {More about the new cabinets in a bit. . . }

7.  We went outside as often as we could this week.  I even sent the girls outside one day before lunch to do a bit of nature study inspired by the March issue of the Handbook of Nature Study newsletter.  The weather has been very spring-like in northwest Alabama–cool and windy, but pleasant.  I have to note one thing that happened this week that has nothing to do with nature study but everything to do with this picture.  Often when I send the girls outside, Lulu will take a book along to read.  (While I can certainly appreciate this, I usually send her outside to actually get some exercise.  ;-)   )  In language this week, among other things we finished the list of prepositions that we’ve been working on memorizing.  (When I saw we, I mean it very loosely.)  Lulu had to complete this sentence to illustrate using the preposition with:  “I like to play with ______.”  When I asked her to fill in the blank, she sat still for a minute and responded, “Books.”  Yep.  In other language news, it happened that lessons 68-71 in FLL volume 2 dealt with writing a friendly letter.  It worked out nicely that Lulu had just written a letter to her penpal, so we just incorporated that into our lessons.  We were able to zip through lessons 68-72 this week, and we can see the end in sight! 

8.  Thursday night science was more about solutions and mixtures by way of earth science.  Steady Eddie pulled out the big guns and showed the girls a bunch of different types of rocks discussed how they were formed.  (That’s pumice floating in the glass there, in case you’re like me and don’t remember everything you learned in eighth grade earth science.)  The pièce de résistance at the end of the lesson:  a vial of volcanic ash from Mount St. Helens!  The girls looked through loupes at all the rocks and the ash and noted which types of rocks are made of crystals and what size the crystals are.  (Oh, and the rock candy we attempted to make a few weeks ago never “grew” the way it should’ve, but we did get some nice sugar crystals in the bottom of a couple of the glasses, so the girls also got to compare the size of these sugar crystals to salt crystals.)  On Friday I read aloud Volcano:  The Eruption and Healing of Mount St. Helens as a follow-up to our science lesson from Thursday night.

9.  I have to mention this, though it really wasn’t a part of the official school week: Lulu earned a medal for participating in a local event called the Piano Olympics on Saturday.  She played one song for a panel of judges and an audience, she took two written tests (theory and composers), and she completed two listening exercises in which she attended two short recitals and responded to all of the songs that were performed by circling descriptive words about each of the songs.  We went back in the afternoon for an awards ceremony, and about twenty of the piano students were selected to perform in the honors recital.  Most of the students chosen played more complicated pieces than Lulu is capable of playing yet, but it was a joy to listen to and watch these young pianists be recognized for their hard work and talent.  Both girls practice the piano each day just after they do their morning chores and just before we begin with math.  I hope that we can move from it being a duty to it being a delight (it hovers on the line most days) so that they can both grow into accomplished musicians.

Oh, we did other things, too:  some reading, handwriting practice (the bane of my existence as a homeschooling mother!), spelling (only one lesson, alas), etc.  We went out for errands and library runs on two days:  Thursday and Friday.  On Fun Friday we enjoyed free hot chocolate at the library’s coffee shop (all proceeds in this wonderful little cafe benefit the library!) thanks to our completion of the library’s winter reading program.  We then walked over to the city’s art center to take in the art exhibited from a juried art competition for junior high and high school students.  We saw everything from crayons melted on canvases to a gorgeous dress made of hundreds of strips of fabric and everything in between.  It was a lovely way to spend the morning.

This week felt really good, the best we’ve had in a long, long time.  Much of it depends on me and my being in a place of peace and contentment about what we’re doing.  That’s why it’s so important for me to really know why we’re doing things, curriculum-wise.  If I feel like it’s a waste of time or too something (hard, easy, whatever) for the girls, I’m not going to be at peace with what we’re doing.  And now it’s time to start planning for next year.  :-)

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I can’t not include a few shots of what we’re doing in the house.  (All of these pictures are in-transition mess pictures, but you get the idea.)  We’re moving the built-in bookcases that Steady Eddie made many years ago for our family room down into the school room, but not before he installs cabinets along the wall in the school room and paints them.  For that to happen, all the books and the bookshelf had to be moved up into the kitchen.  Yes, I have a full-to-overflowing bookcase in my kitchen.  I guess it’s official now:  we’re a homeschooling family.  :-)

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Back in the saddle again + a fabulous field trip

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It has been a whirlwind week of returning to routine, only to throw routine to the wind once again and take a two-day road trip that culminated in a fantastic field trip.  All this after a week off the week of Valentine’s Day and a weekend getaway sans children for Steady Eddie and me.  The week off didn’t go as I expected (do they ever?), and my feelings about it have run the gamut from why bother with a scheduled week off every six weeks when they are so unproductive (for me)? to maybe I need to rethink how I approach these weeks off and go in with lower expectations and more of a plan for the children.  The jury’s still out on how this will affect the future.  Our plan going into this school year was to work for six weeks and take the seventh week off.  Our first off week took us to Disney World (which actually ended up being two off weeks) and the second off week was around Christmas (two weeks again), so this was the first off week in which we had nothing planned.  Part of me thinks with my over-achieving personality I’d be better off just taking off unplanned days as we need them; the other part thinks it’s good to plan in some down-time, if I can truly look at it that way.  Do you take week-long breaks during the school year?  What do those weeks look like?

All things considered, our back-in-the-saddle week was a good one.  Here’s a little peek into it:

1.  On Monday Steady Eddie was off work, and it was nice to have him hang out with us, observe our school day, and help corral the DLM.  The local public schools were out for President’s Day, so my sister called and invited us to eat lunch with her and my nephew at our favorite Chinese restaurant.  We couldn’t turn her down.  :-)   That’s the DLM and Louise, gazing longingly into the goldfish pond at the restaurant.  I love that homeschooling gives us the freedom to have a more seamless life!

2.  Steady Eddie was once again my Science Hero this week as he led the girls in an interesting investigation of solutions.  They love that it ended up with a drinkable product, something they never have at home:  Kool-Aid!  I love that they now know the meanings of the words solvent and solute and have the minibooks to prove it.  :-)   (Of course, their lesson was a little more in-depth than that, but those are the high points.)

3.  Lulu pulled out the dictionary this week to look up how to divide words at the ends of lines for one of her narration lessons.  I love fitting in skills like this in real-life situations. (WWE week 21 days 1-3)

4.  The DLM made lots and lots of messes this week.  Number four is just one of them.  He also discovered the word No this week as a preferred response to almost any question, and he perfected the shoulder shrug.  If you’ve never seen a twenty month old shrug his shoulders when you ask him a question, (etiquette aside) it’s just about the cutest thing ever.

5.  We broke out level two of All About Spelling this week and Lulu reviewed open and closed syllables and added some new spelling rules to her repertoire.  I really, really like this curriculum. (AAS level two steps 1 and 2)

6.  I took a bit of time this week to just do something with my girls.  When they asked if we could put together a puzzle together, I said yes.  I said yes!  We didn’t finish the puzzle, but I am so glad I ignored the to-dos and simply said yes.

7.  RightStart level C (lessons 83-84) took us back into the world of arithmetic this week and away from geometry for a while.  I can’t help but say that I’m glad!  Lulu caught on quickly to adding multi-digit numbers in a column and even enjoyed it.  We had a rough few math days, though, over a lesson that involved figuring out the number of dimes and pennies in a monetary amount (and vice-versa).  It’s all about place value, of course.  I think a more hands-on approach and possibly some living math books would be helpful. Any suggestions?

8.  We left our well-traveled path of Medieval history this week for a simple, straightforward biographical study of George Washington Carver in preparation for the week’s field trip.  I’m particularly proud of that notebooking page up there because Lulu did it all by herself.  Well, I read aloud from the biography (and she had already read a {fictionalized?} children’s biography herself as her required reading for the week) and asked her questions to draw out the salient points in the information a lá Writing with Ease.  I didn’t correct it much; I just pointed out some punctuation problems in the last bit to her and worked with her to fix it.  I didn’t correct her spelling at all.  It is amazing to me that she has gone from a child who never wanted to write anything to one who actually prefers to write her own narrations.  I’ve been encouraged to re-start my pursuit of formal notebooking after reading this spotlight post at the Notebooking Fairy.  I’ve long been a reader of Daisy’s blog and have been impressed with the quality of work her children produce, especially in their notebooking pages.  This is the way I envision school working around here, and I am actively taking steps to make it a reality in our homeschool now that the girls are getting old enough to really do this.

As far as history goes, though, I’m sort of at a loss.  We’ve all but decided to join a newly-forming Classical Conversations group that’s starting in our area next year, so we’ll start over again with the ancients in history.  I see no real pressing need to continue on with our Middle Ages study, and I was really floundering with it anyway. I’m half-way tempted to just go with biographical studies of interesting people for the rest of the year; my girls would love that.  And I think why not?

9.  Our week culminated in my birthday (well, on Thursday) and a road trip with Steady Eddie and the girls to the south-central part of the state.  Steady Eddie had been asked to help judge in a state-wide, highly prestigious high school science paper reading competition hosted this year by Tuskegee University (a different state university hosts each year).  This is a competition which he once had his students participate in and one which nets the winners big scholarship bucks.  I’m usually kind of at a loss at these events, surrounded by savvy public and private schooled students.  At the banquet Thursday night, our party of four was already seated, plus one of Steady Eddie’s colleagues, leaving three empty seats.  Who should sit down in those three empty seats but the lone homeschooled student who was up for the scholarship award and accompanied by his father and teacher.  (From what I can gather, he actually participates in a once-a-week chemistry class at a homeschool co-op {?}.  As his teacher said, it’s as close to private school as one can get and still be homeschooled.  Still.  I’ll take it.)  The young man had re-built a gas-powered truck to function as an electric vehicle.  Wow.  I guess seeing a homeschooled student in a setting like this, among the brightest lights in our state, helped me realize that yes, we can do this, too.  (Am I the only one who needs reminding about this?)

Of course, my homeschooling mother angst has nothing to do with our field trip, does it?  I actually consider the whole thing a field trip–the girls devoured the audiobook of Black Beauty on the way day.  (We downloaded the one from LibriVox, but we actually found the title via Books Should Be Free.  I like the way it’s organized much better than LibriVox.)  They behaved beautifully at the two-hour long banquet.  They walked all over campus with me, which is something I dearly love to do.  It takes me back to my days as a high school student on field trips that involved finding my way around college campuses across the state.  I just like to do this, and it was a bonus for me to be doing it with my girls.  The real high point of trip, though, was our time spent at the George Washington Carver museum which is located on campus at Tuskegee.  It was wonderful.  It will get its own blog post sometime in the near future, I hope.  :-)

Of course our week also included lots of reading, the beginning of a new math curriculum (RightStart B) for Louise, and the chanting of prepositions.  :-)   Louise is getting to be quite the reader, too!

I’ve been inspired by this post at Miss A La Mode this week to figure out how to “pay” myself for what I’m doing.  As someone who is easily overwhelmed, I think her advice is wise and timely and (believe it or not) not at all luxurious and self-indulgent.  We are the engine that runs the homeschool machine, mamas, and if we don’t take care of ourselves, it will crash and burn.  What do you think?

I’ll end this ramble with a little funny.  We’re getting cranked back up on our memory work (We started memorizing the hymn “Eternal Father, Strong to Save,” but we haven’t settled on the other stuff yet.)  While talking about poetry, Lulu shared her judgment of the revered Robert Louis Stevenson’s stuff:  “I hate poems by Robert Louis Stevenson.  They’re too poemish.”  Is there any hope that this girl will love poetry like her mama does one day?  Only time will tell. . . :-)

Have a relaxing weekend, friends!

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Caught Reading

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This is Lulu reading at our favorite Chinese restaurant last week.  I don’t usually let them take books in when we go places like this (hereby trying to avoid being the nerdy homeschooler stereotype, I guess ;-) ), but on this day Steady Eddie and I both relented.   I read a picture book aloud to them while we waited for our meal, and then Lulu read her American Girl book which she had just checked out from the library while the rest of us finished eating.  I’ll admit to have been caught reading in restaurants when I go alone more times than I can count; in fact, I count it one of the small pleasures in life.  How about you?  What’s the most unusual public place you or your children have ever been caught reading?

This Week in Books

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We’ve had our Jubilee week here in our homeschool, which hasn’t gone exactly the way I’d hoped or planned. Still, though, no week can be entirely lost if good books were consumed therein, right?  :-)   Lulu and I have been on a Laura Ingalls Wilder kick this week, with Lulu working her way through two of the Little House books and almost finishing a third.  (Probably by the time this post is published, she’ll be on to a fourth!)  I’ve been reading Let the Hurricane Roar by Rose Wilder Lane, which is reminding me of just what hard lives the pioneers had.  I also finished and reviewed Breadcrumbs.  The biggest surprise success of the week has been Louise and her Valentine’s Day book.  I bought her Big Max by Kin Platt, a retro I Can Read book, because she really likes mysteries and the stage 2 I Can Reads are right on her level right now.  She loves it.  We read it together right after she received it at breakfast (heart-shaped Chick-Fil-A biscuits, which Steady Eddie went out and purchased for the occasion!), and she has read it alone at least once since then.  Score!  I love watching my children blossom into passionate readers!  It’s amazing to watch the confluence of interest and developmental ability sweep them away into becoming literate individuals. 

All in all, not a bad week of no formal learning.  ;-)

Caught Reading (Double Decker Edition)

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Lulu’s reading a pictorial abridgement of Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates–just her favorite part, she told me later.  (I guess laboring through the unabridged tale was worth it, after all. :-)   )

Louise is reading singing (both, really) Sandra Boynton’s Snuggle Puppy, one of the DLM’s favorites.  (How can I resist him when he brings me the huge board book and says imploringly, “Ooooooooo!” ? If you’ve read the book, you know what I mean!)

**Don’t you love the earrings?  They’re clip-ons, and they belonged to Steady Eddie’s grandmother.  The girls took turn-about (my granny’s way of saying they took turns) wearing them in two hour intervals.  I know they had to pinch, but the girls sure felt elegant while they were doing their lessons.  :-)

 

Red Sings from Treetops by Joyce Sidman (again)

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I don’t think I’ve ever done this before (well, except for the times I’ve gone on and on and on about how much my girls love all things Laura Ingalls Wilder), but I’m highlighting a book today that I’ve reviewed already.  Alice’s RAT post last week reminded me of this book, and in a fit of “I’ve got to spend more time on my middle child’s education!”, I picked out some books with a common theme of seasons (also thanks to Alice) to read to her.  Joyce Sidman’s Red Sings from Treetops came home with us from the library, but it’s one I definitely want to add to our home library.

Can I just say that this book just about took my breath away when I read it earlier this week, I loved it so much?  Is that too gushy for a children’s poetry picture book?  No?  Good.  :-)   I’m pretty sure I grinned all the way through it.  I loved it the first time, sure, but something about sharing it with my detail-loving, artistic middle child was just pure goodness.  Sidman‘s metaphors are perfect, her rhymes pleasing but not predictable, and her rhythm and timing impeccable.  Here’s a word-picture I love:

Yellow slips goldfinches

their spring jackets.

Yellow shouts with light!

In spring,

Yellow and Purple hold hands.

They beam at each other

with bright velvet faces.

First flowers,

first friends.

 

Without the illustration, this isn’t quite as nice, although it’s still wonderful.  The illustration includes a border of flowers, you guessed it–pansies, in purple and yellow.   Isn’t that perfect?

I also love this one:

In the winter woods,

Gray and Brown

hold hands.

Their brilliant sisters–

Red, Orange, and Yellow–

have all gone home.

Gray and Brown sway shyly,

the only beauties left.

 

Sharing the poems here isn’t quite as nice as reading them in the book, of course.  In addition to the beautiful, Caldecott honor award winning illustrations by Pamela Zagarenski, the text of the poems themselves are colorful.  Did you notice that each color word is colored?  (Of course you did!)  This positively embues every page with emotional warmth (even the pages that are about winter!) and light and joy.   The illustrations are whimsical and saturated and collage-y, just the style I love.  I could study this book for a long, long time.  In fact, I tasked Louise with the (enjoyable!) job of finding some element in the illustrations that is repeated, page after page after page.  I knew she was up to the task!  (I’ll let you find it for yourself–no spoilers here!)

 I also love Joyce Sidman‘s Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night, winner of a 2011 Newbery honor.  I’d love to read more of her stuff, and as it turns out, there’s quite a bit of it. 

I give Red Sings from Treetops a Highly, Highly Recommended. (Houghton Mifflin, 2009)

Related Links:

Sampling of Pamela Zagarenski’s artwork at Seven Impossible Things

Interview with Pamela Zagarenski at Seven Impossible Things

Interview with Joyce Sidman at Seven Impossible Things

Joyce Sidman’s website

Poetry Friday is hosting this week by Tara at A Teaching Life.  I am also linking this book up for the Award Winning Books Challenge at Gathering Books.

Caught Reading

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In honor of tonight’s big football game which I care not one whit about (but obviously some denizens of the House of Hope do!) , I give you today’s Caught Reading photograph.  Yes, that would be Lulu, a reader to the core, perusing today’s sports page over breakfast.  Only in Alabama, and only on the morning of the BCS national championship.  (True confession:  I am an alumnus of the University of Alabama, and I am one of very few people I know my age who really doesn’t care about football at all.  I find days or nights of big games like this an excellent opportunity to shop in peace and quiet!  :-)  )   However, to show family solidarity, I’ll say it:  Roll Tide Roll!

Hawk spotting

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Do you see him?  My children and I were returning home from a morning out just after noon today, and I spotted this fellow perched on a powerline outside the chemical plant where my brother-in-law works.  I was thrilled because after admiring Janet’s beautiful pictures for so long, I have longed myself to shoot one of these with my camera.  I only had my little point-and-shoot in my purse, so that’s what I had to use.  I also had to turn around and come back to where he was perched, so I’m glad he didn’t sight any prey to go after before I got back and shot these through the van window.  (I would’ve loved to have gotten out of the van and gotten a closer look, but taking the DLM on the side of such a busy road was just not a good idea.)
I’m still not sure exactly what he is, and I can’t find our bird identification book.  Cooper’s? Does anyone want to venture a guess based on my very blurry photos?

Once we arrived home, Louise immediately set to work on a drawing of this bird.  She worked on this for a long time during rest-time and added lots of details. I’m pretty sure that those smoke-belching buildings are the factory buildings. 

Homeschooling is a lot of hard work and it can be very stressful.  Today, though, I am reminded of the little blessings it brings to my life.  It is very unlikely that I would’ve developed a love and awareness of nature if I were living a more traditional lifestyle (i.e. working a full-time job while my children were in school), and what’s even more unlikely is that they would’ve had the opportunity to develop their own awareness and appreciation of nature.  They certainly wouldn’t have been with me to actually see the hawk; I would’ve just had to tell them about it.  We are indeed blessed.