The Gift of Time

One of the biggest reasons for our decision to home school the kids was the gift of time. 

The gift of time
for the kids...... 
Time to just be. Time to spend with family and not hurry off to school where they spend the majority of the day only to return with homework and then fly off to sport practice or rally/youth group.  Time to spend doing something they love or that has their interest for a time - uninhibited time.  Time to form deep relationships with siblings, parents, grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles.  Time to master everyday life skills that are so often forgotten in todays hurried world.  Time to be children.

for us as parents...........
Time to see, feel and experience our children as they grow and explore the world. Time to form deep relationships with them. Time to impart God's love, wisdom and life experience.  Time to observe their wonder in learning, experiencing and living.  Time to appreciate who they are, their hearts and their creativeness.

The boys found this old cage? trap? thing in an equally old shed on the farm. Consequently transformed it (or tried to) into a working trap. They didn't manage to trap anything although they were pretty close to capturing one of our free-roaming chickens. I bet she got a heck of a fright!

This is Sophie eating breakfast (very) early one morning with the girls pet pumpkin called 'Cracker'.  You can't see in this photo but Cracker has eyes. He also wears hats and drinks tea. Fancy that.

Any home schooler will tell you that learning can take place anytime, anywhere and anyhow.  Children learn just by experiencing things.  At times this just happens, other times you have to identify opportunities and make the most of them.

Which is why a few mornings ago there was a lot of dew on the ground and outside on the fences, trees and  swing set a number of spiders had been hard at work building house aka spinning webs.  They were beautiful to say the very least.  I was reminded of a teaching moment in a book and I saw this as a perfect opportunity to investigate 'webs', how they work and to appreciate the beauty of nature. (even though it was the school holidays)

So Web Catching we went!

Step One.
Find the perfect spider web on an extra dewy morning.

Step Two.
Using a black piece of paper or card.  Put it carefully behind the spider web and VERY carefully and slowly bring it forward, so that the web sticks flat to the paper/card.

...you might be able to fit more than one web on your paper/card.

 

 

Step Three.

Gently shake baking flour all over the black card making sure you have well covered the web/s that you have 'caught'.

 

 

Step Four.

Gently shake excess flour off into sink or outside and you will have a beautifully preserved spiders web!



 

 

Step Five.

Display somewhere nice.  I am still yet to track down some blue-tack to put all ours up.

 

We all had lots of fun doing these, even Sophie got into it.  Of course they especially like sprinkling flour all over the place! 

 

No spiders were harmed in the making of these pictures, although they were probably a bit freaked out. I can almost hear the spider conversations now.

 

"Hey Merv!, Did you see what happened to my house?"

"Nah mate"

"It was here a moment ago"

"Nah mate you're dreaming"

"Well I can't believe it, you turn your back for a second and all your hard work just vanishes into thin air"

"Hang on a minute, come to think about it...I did see a great big black nothing come...maybe they took it?"

"Dude I think you better lay off the aphids! A great big black nothing! - yeah right"



 

 

I kind of feel sorry for them now BUT no need all webs were restored, replaced and then some the very next day!

 

Thought you might like to check out the sunrise that Casey (11) took the other morning.  Aren't we spoilt with a sight like that.