Music, Math, Mapping, and More

With the holidays behind us, we're getting back into a steady rhythm at home.  We started the morning with a little music.  Like her dad, A. loves composing her own...

Figuring out the notes...

writing them down...

& putting it all together.

Then, instead of hitting the books right away this morning, we went for a little adventure...

   We found a heart shaped hollow in a tree...

... and a heart shaped rock.

We walked by a little stream, smelled pine needles, listened to the sound of the water...

... and built a fairy house.  

When we got home, it was time for some math.  We've been working on what we're calling "doubles."  (2+2, 3+3, 4+4, etc.)  A. has them committed to memory through eleven now -- so I thought I'd try something new.  I gave her some division and multiplication problems based in the knowledge she's already acquired.  I thought maybe since she knows four plus four, she can figure out eight divided by two and four times two.  It worked like a charm all the way through twenty.  

We've also been working on word families and spelling.  Instead of just writing her words again and again (that would be boring!), we have make-believe spelling bees.  I gave her thirty-two words today (some from the Second Grade No Excuse List, others from the Fry's 300 Instant Sight Words, others just easy word family words like rain, train, and plain.)  She only missed two.  I think that really says something about the importance of keeping it fun. 

Where's Mama Wind?

There She is!

Then it was time for some Social Studies.  Last session we learned the four directions using the wind and a naturally dyed silk ribbon streamer that we found on Esty at the Tan Family's amazing shop, Syrendell.

With that knowledge intact, we started a cartography project today inspired by our Oak Meadow first grade curriculum.  A. created a map of her bedroom using the four directions to accurately depict the placement of her furniture and other big objects in her room.  Next week we'll expand her map to include the whole house.  Once she's successfully mapped our home, we'll expand to include the neighborhood, the whole town, the state, the country, and then the world!  

I think this geography lesson also has a deeper meaning.  Home is where all adventures, great and small, begin.  And when our foundation there is solid, there's no limit to where we might go.

Living with Intent

I like having a purpose.  I encourage my little one to declare an intent each morning and enjoy sharing my intents on Intent.com.  Making public declarations helps us live more consciously and bring our aspirations out of our dreams and into reality.  With the year winding down, I've discovered a new intent bubbling up within me.  I thought I'd share it here today.  

My intent is to rise each morning and smile... to be rooted and fluid, steady and secure, transparent, passionate, and balanced... to be accepting of my faults, prepared to get back up again when I fall, and to see everything as my teacher... to have a soft and grateful heart, open and ready to receive the blessings and abundance in my life, to be grounded in my family -- loving them and being loved in return... to know that divinity lives in me as me, and to rest in the awareness that I am enough. 

If you have an intent you'd like support achieving, please feel free to share it here -- or join me at Intent.com.

An Affirmation for Forty

I turned forty this week.  The day sort of crept up on me.  We spent it at home cuddling under warm blankets, noshing on yummy food, playing games, and watching movies.  Hubby even made me cupcakes.

Forty feels good.  It feels solid and steady, grounded, inward, and whole.  Twenty and thirty were outward times -- always trying to get somewhere, ambitious, sometimes blue, often grasping.  The last ten years have been filled with letting go, falling apart, and coming back together again.  

Being pregnant at forty is a curious and beautiful thing.  I'm bringing a new life into this world while giving birth to myself and the next phase of my life.  During the last few weeks I've been releasing fear and instability and, as Thich Nahat Hanh writes in Touching the Earth, bowing down to receive the earth's energy of stability and fearlessness.  I'm turning my focus to images of the sacred feminine, earth goddesses round and full, and practicing seeing myself in Mama Earth herself. 

The preface of the Ksitigarbha Sutra says, "Earth means that which is stable, thick, and has a great capacity for embracing."  This has become an affirmation for me.  It's helping me find my roots -- to open, and soften and feel the stable earth within.  We're planning a natural birth at home and I imagine that these are qualities that will help during labor and delivery.  It seems that once again, life is giving me just what I need to learn.

Trusting Our Inner-Wisdom

Amelie's Sunset Heart

Stepping outside of the mainstream takes courage.  Once you're there, staying there takes both a commitment to your own ideals and trust. But how do we learn to trust our inner-wisdom?  The first step is by paying attention with moment-to moment awareness.

Our decision to homeschool didn't come easy.  We had all of the same questions and doubts that everyone else has.  Can we really do this on our own?  Will she really get the best education we can provide?  How will we create positive socialization?  What about college?

Now that we're doing it, I find that those same questions still arise... but so do their answers.  We began our homeschooling journey in preschool.  A combination of disappointment with the available choices and love for learning together with our little one brought us here.  Now it's four years later and we're two and half months into first grade.  What's keeping us here?  A commitment to paying attention and trusting in the process.

I recently attended a debate for County Superintendent of Schools.  While neither candidate seemed to have the same vision for our schools that I would like to see, one of them possessed a perspective that stood in stark contrast to my own.  In support of standardized testing and basing teacher's wages on their student's performance, she said in a slick voice, "Data makes the invisible visible."  I wholeheartedly disagree. 

What makes the invisible visible is not data but relationships.  No multiple choice examinations or collection of processed figures can replace what the human heart is capable of perceiving.  We don't need more "measurable" results.  We just need to listen more closely to our children. 

If you think back to when your kids were very small, you'll probably remember all of those early milestones -- stacking blocks, sorting objects, gripping crayons, drawing circles, naming shapes and colors... first steps, first words, hopping, skipping, and jumping.  As parents, we're naturally tuned into our children and we see each of these little miracles as they unfold.  Then something happens.  They turn five and we stop trusting ourselves.  We send them off to school and forget that we - more than anyone else - are equipped to understand them. 

Our cat has a debaucherous habit of waking us up in the middle of the night by knocking over anything and everything in his reach.  Last week, he jumped up on Am's dresser and startled her awake.  I actually didn't hear a thing until she came in to tell me about it.   

"I was scared and my heart was beating really fast, mama," she said.  "So I sat up and listened to my breath... and my heart slowed down again!"

If you've been following our blog, you know that mindfulness and breath awareness are essential elements in our core curriculum.  Hearing her say those words was the sweetest little gift -- more measurable than any test result or report card.

Whether you're educating at home or just committed to engaging in your child's education, paying attention moment to moment can help you stay connected to their inner-world.  When we when bring this level of awareness to our parenting, we see the little miracles as they unfold.  Often, the little things we notice are the greatest gifts of all.  They enrich our lives with joy and help us build a strong foundation for trusting our inner-wisdom, trusting the process of parenting, and trusting that life is the best teacher.

This Moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. Inspired by Amanda Soule at SouleMama.  A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see. 

This Moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. Inspired by Amanda Soule at SouleMama.  A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see. 

A New Beginning

We've been on a pretty long hiatus, haven't we?  But Om School is not closing its doors.  We're making room for a new student, actually.  

I've been absent from the blogosphere because we've been sitting on some exciting news for about a month now.  I wasn't ready to share with the entire universe until after that first sonogram... and having a little life growing inside me has been just about the only thing I can think of -- so the blogging had to take a back seat.  Until now.

We're due in late May and happy to report that Baby Om is growing strong and healthy right on schedule.  I'm focusing more on the magical, natural, and spiritual aspects of childbearing this time around.  I put down "What to Expect" after the first few pages and instead read Deepak's, Magical Beginnings, Enchanted Lives from cover to cover in just a few days.  Instead of buying into the medicalization of childbearing, I'm emptying my mind and embracing my inner-wisdom.  Our bodies know how to do this.  Like with so many other things in life, often all we really need is to get out of our own way.

Our schooling has already taken on a new shape... with first trimester challenges like morning sickness and pregnancy fatigue cutting into our usual program, we're learning to be more flexible with our schedule -- a skill we'll certainly need to have mastered by the baby's arrival.  We've been embracing our creative energies and looking at impermanence for our October mindfulness unit.  Am's added the soprano recorder to her musical repertoire, continues to enjoy piano, and has advanced a belt in karate.  We've been painting, counting by 2s, 3s, 5s, and 10s, and invented a new character, the Can Can Fairy, to help us with the four functions (of math).  We've read some amazing books lately -- our favorite being, Old Turtle and the Broken Truth which I hope to give a full review to here soon.   

I had all but forgotten what a magical time pregnancy is -- it's a time when our connection to Mama Universe is even more evident... a wondrous time when we're smack dab in the middle of the universe creating itself.  In Magical Beginnings, Chopra writes, "With the birth of every child, the universe chooses to look at itself with fresh eyes."  I hope you'll enjoy sharing this new beginning with us.  Many blessings to all.