Amazing how a little sun and warmer weather can brighten your mood. Yesterday morning the house was a wreck; but the sun was out and the weather was mild and my sister had the day off. Housework can wait.
“Let’s go for a drive,” I suggested. Sophie and Ben immediately scrambled for their coats and shoes. Bella needed a bit more convincing; but I eventually got her motivated.
I packed some food so we could lunch on the go and then we went.
Of course, once we were at the park Bella didn’t regret it at all.
Ben loves geese. He had to be restrained because he was determined to get down to the water. Eventually I had to forbid the girls from throwing sticks and such into the water because they were tempting him too close to the edge. Once they wandered away and did something else, he was content to move away as well.
This particular park is fast becoming my favorite destination for an outing. It has beautiful paved trails that make it easy for a pregnant woman with three small kids and a double stroller to enjoy the beauty of woods and water.
For whatever reason our yard never seems to fill up with leaves in the fall even though we have quite a few trees. Which as far as Dom is concerned is great—no raking. But it also means the kids don’t get to play in the leaves very often. We found a nice spot away from tempting water where there were lovely drifts of oak leaves for them to run and play in.
Ben and Bella went at it with glee. Sophie is a bit more stoical. Her look as she ran about in the leaf drifts was one of calm concentration.
But I was able to get her to become a bit more animated when she noticed the camera.
Bella just had to climb on every rock she saw. Impractical shoes, skirt, tights did not slow her down at all.
Bella fell and scraped her knee. Ben very nearly threw himself into the water several times and threw a massive temper tantrum at one point, flinging himself to the pavement over some imagined slight. Sophie fell out of the car and hurt her finger when she was trying to climb into her car seat in her two year-old “do it myself” way. Nonetheless a very successful outing. We all came home happy and tired.
Today I cleaned the house and now am feeling content inside and out.
Thanks Melanie! I try to play something beautiful over breakfast, but it’s so hit and miss sometimes. These links are great!
Wow, thanks for sharing this! My one child is a bit young (13 months) to care about this, but what a lot of good resources. I must figure out a way to save and organize all these “future homeschooling” links so I can find them in a few years!
Jenn, My playlists are as advertised by their titles. However, I will warn you not everything in my You Tube favorites list is necessarily “beautiful” or kid friendly. It’s sort of a catch-all and can include things that were “interesting” that I thought I might want to be able to find again. Just so you know that part of it is more parental discretion. I really don’t think there’s anything that would be bad for your kids; but I can’t promise. Still, there is a bunch of really great stuff in there that is not in the playlists because I haven’t organized it yet.
Harmony, You might check out Evernote.It’s my favorite way to organize links. You can tag them and put them into different folders. Best of all it’s both online and synchs with your computer so you can add things even if you are using a different computer and they will download to your computer later.
It lets you save the entire text of the web page, not just the link so if the site disappears, you still have the content. Or if you don’t want everything on a page, you can select and save just as much of the text as you want. And it won’t save the ads either.
I used to have a record introducing kids to orchestra instruments growing up. I just found mp3s of it online (1mp3 per side) and I’m so excited. Each instrument is a character and they each have their own little song. I think it’s from the 60s. i loved it and I can’t wait to listen with Claire and Anna.
http://www.artsreformation.com/records/
the listing is “GLP 1 A Child’s Introduction to the Orchestra.”
The site itself looks pretty nifty and I think i’ll explore it further.
http://www.artsreformation.com
Betsy, I’m almost positive I’ve downloaded that at some point; but I can’t find it.
I did find this online game based on Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra but I couldn’t figure it out and then we ran out of time for playing on the internet for the day. .
Money well-spent: Susan Hammond’s Classical Kids series. Gave the kids a hook to recognize famous composers.
The Virginia Symphony Orchestra had an outreach to school kids called Young People’s Orchestra – with program guides on their web site. Each performance had a theme (superheroes, New World, Physics…). They were cheap, fun concerts, and the school kids were usually loud enough that I never felt self-conscious about having a toddler with me. We also used to go to free outdoor concerts in the summers. So much fun! Something I miss here…
Melanie – thought I’d share with you a link to one of my favourite pieces of music – shows the playing of various instruments in the Baroque style. Very peaceful and beautiful.
Best wishes to you and your family – from Valerie of New Zealand.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_vrBLedI9E