Just popping in to say hello, and that I hope you had a pleasant holiday. All of these pictures are pre-Christmas (the apple pie was for Thanksgiving!), though I guess they're a pretty accurate representation of our winter days: tea and chores and food and knitting. I took a picture of the stacks of clean towels because Indigo folded all of those herself and I was very impressed!
Tennyson's little pie tin was filled with cornmeal, and inspired by Charlotte Mason's method of learning letters:
Our children learn their letters without any teaching. We always keep by us a shallow table drawer, the bottom covered half an inch deep with sand. Before they are two, the babies make round O and crooked S, and T for Tommy, and so on, with dumpy, uncertain little fingers. The elder children teach the little ones by way of a game. The sand is capital! We have various devices, but none so good as that. Children love to be doing. The funny, shaky lines the little finger makes in the sand will be ten times as interesting as the shapes the eye sees.
I don't think there's really any benefit to teaching letters at this age, but Tenny likes to be involved if Indy wants to sit down and write her little notes and letters to people, so I'll give him the letters from his name and let him copy them. He does that as long as he likes and then moves on whenever he wants.
We've had a few snows, and while the older two head out to play Ephraim is trapped inside with Mama (poor thing!) so he gets his own pan of snow :)
I'm working on some topical posts, but I also hope to get into a rhythm of being in this space in a more chatty sort of way too. It will inspire me to be more intentional about pulling the camera out, and I do so love to have all the pictures.