Winter Tea and Poetry Recitation

A group of seven families (including ourselves) decided that we truly enjoyed our monthly California history group a la CM last year, that we formed a weekly CM co-op this year: The Large Room.  One of the things we planned for the year were three seasonal teas' with an opportunity for the kids to recite a memorized poem.  Our Fall tea was wonderful and our second tea, Winter, was hosted at our house this past week.  My children had a wonderful time planning and hosting.  My oldest and youngest students picked their poems a few weeks ago and had been memorizing/practicing for the big day.

We had nine kids recite this season! They did wonderfully...my daughter chose a Christina Rosetti poem and my son's selection:

January is Here

 

by Edward Fawcett

 

January is here,

with eyes that keenly glow,

A frost-mailed warrior

 striding a shadowy steed of snow.

 

Certainly not what our January was like, but, definitely his vision of what "Winter" must be...somewhere ; )



Botanical Garden and Little Keepers

Our Little Keepers group has been working on earning five pins for the year.  Among them is a Wildflowers pin, which they began in February.  We've had our monthly meetings and worked on some of the following. They created some flashcards (picture of flower on one side/name on the other) and then at our next meeting they quizzed each other for recognition.  I also read a chapter from Shanleya's Quest: Botany Adventure for Kids to study our Mustard flower a bit more.  I gave the girls a diagram as well.  I'll take a moment to say that the green book was a must buy since my nature girl wanted to learn more about Wildflowers than just what we covered in our monthly meetings.  She has really enjoyed How To Know the Wild Flowers and pulls it out after every hike we take.

 

On a different meeting the girls brought in some samples of wildflowers and then made a great effort to watercolor dry brush their flowers (I should also mention that they were encouraged to bring some poetry about wildflowers to share at every meeting):

And now we come to our last meeting of the year, in which, we decided to head to our local Botanical Garden and take a nature walk.  The girls enjoyed this!  They took a stroll through the garden; they were able to pick out some wildflowers we'd talked about, looked up a few unknown in my field guide and enjoyed other wonderful living things on the trail : D

 

Before meeting the rest of the moms and siblings for cookies and juice (and lots of playing time)  the girls gathered in a circle.  One of our youngest member recited part of a poem the girls memorized for recitation at the beginning of our school year.  It sums up our group and another wonderful year together:

 

Others

by Charles D. Meigs

 

Lord, help me live from day to day

In such a self-forgetful way,

That even when I kneel to pray,

My prayer shall be for others.

 

Others, Lord, yes others,

Let this my motto be:

Help me to live for others,

That I live like Thee.



President's Day Hike

We've been really good about keeping up with at least one weekly trek.  Unfortunately, I haven't been so good about posting our pictures.  Yesterday was such a beautiful day that I just had to come in here and share.  We teamed up with friends and headed to one of our favorite spots; taking a flatter and certainly more scenic trail this time.  Enjoy!

 

 

Don't know if you see the same symbolism as I did when I took the pictures or if it's just my very sensitive heart being immersed in the season of Lent, but oh the emotions ...

Little Keepers Christmas Cookie Exchange

 

Last year we had a Christmas Tea Party.  This year the girls are working on a Cookie Baking pin so we decided to have a Christmas Cookie Exchange Party.  Each girl brought a dozen and a half of their cookie along with the recipe. The rule was taste one, take one home, tell us about your recipe/baking experience and just have fun!

Before the tasting and collecting of cookies began, I had the girls create a little cookie recipe pouch.  You know me and pretty paper so I had the girls pick out a pretty sheet of Christmas paper cut it to 10x12, fold in half, used my binding machine to make holes on both ends, and then had the girls weave in red yarn.  The final touch was a pretty stick on label.

We had a few girls that tried every cookie but most took a nice full bag of cookies home ;D

On All Soul's Day: a little Dia De Los Muertos

Last year my oldest daughter requested that we please observe All Soul's Day Latin style; meaning with some Dia De Los Muertos traditions.  I thought that with our Nana, now in heaven, the kids would appreciate the significance this year.  I've heard of the traditions all my life, but, honestly, never participated because I didn't understand loss. 

So, early fall I ordered a sugar skull making kit from MexicanSugarSkull.com.  We stayed up one night to mold our sugar skulls, all 30 of them:

And then over the weekend we invited some friends and cousins to join us in decorating our skulls:

They turned out pretty neat:

Now, you can't eat these and you know kids...so I decided to use last year's All Soul's Cake recipe to make skull cookies.
 

We let them decorate and eat these!!!

Everyone had a wonderful time and we did talk about the significance of the tradition and the ties to All Souls Day.  Our Dia De Los Muertos Altar has sat all week as we remember our Nana and all the other soul's who have passed.

Little Keepers Welcome Summer Tea

The girls had a lovely time at their Little Keepers end of the year tea yesterday.  My daughter's and I spent all morning getting ready for our tea lunch.  We decorated with a nice bright summer quilt, glass mason jars for drinking and some quick scrap booking bright papered ornaments: 

We also did lots of cooking up of some delicious eats:



Lemon Zest Meringue Cookies: this was the first time I've made these. They didn't turn out like they're intended, but, oh, were they sweet, sticky and addicting!



Flying over the Rainbow Fruit Skewers.



Tulip Garden Butterfly Cucumber & Cheese Bites.

Mini Bear Claws and Strawberries.

I didn't take a close up of our Sunshine Mini Egg Fritas and Brownie Dirt Covered Flowers, but they were also very delicious.  The girls had a chance to chat and participated in a round robin of poetry readings.  I had also made a set of story starter cubes with some summerish themes; garden, beach, and princess fairy tales.  O.K. the last one is not summer but this was meant for little girls ; )  They seemed to get the hang of it and enjoyed a few rounds as well.  Our youngest Keeper got to take those home.  Then, like any other meeting, the girls seemed to have the best time playing on our little hill.  Boy, they don't need story starters when they go out there!