reviewed verse--Gracie said it on her own.
sang What a Friend We Have in Jesus, girls are starting to sing it own their own
made play-doh butterflies
went to the lake to see our tree, compared it in winter and spring
leaf rubbings and journal entry (handwriting, spelling)
looked up the origin of the word butterfly
read the Tower of Babel
Gracie and I read Has Anyone Seen My Emily Greene? aloud to Madelyn (reading practice)
animal classification with butterfly and cardinal
practiced calendar and math songs in car
looked at painted lady images and printed out for butterfly scrapbook page (butterfly life-cycle)
colored a butterfly

reviewed verse/song
read Ecclesiastes 3
Bible journal page
moved chrysalises to butterfly garden net, drew picture in nature notebook
read Little Bear's Wish, drew picture
read-aloud The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Chrysanthemum
saw a male cardinal in our tree, which is unusual, and listened to him sing, drew a picture of him and used invented spelling to spell 'cardinal' (crnl)
listened to Jonathan Park and talked about the Tower of Babel and why people look different today and speak different languages
used game pieces from The Very Hungry Caterpillar game to do math--Madelyn counted and sorted and showed which pile had more, Gracie created AB and ABC patterns and drew her own ABB pattern, answered questions about What is your favorite fruit? graph
Madelyn practiced tracing her name
Gracie is also working on her end-of-unit project--she chose to do a scrapbook page that will include the life-cycle of a caterpillar/butterfly

I am truly enjoying our new delight-directed days! Sometimes I feel a though we have accomplished nothing during our day, and then I sit down and write out all the things that have happened. Learning truly does take place without me always realizing it!

reviewed song and verse
The Very Hungry Caterpillar coloring page
handwriting and cursive practice--Gulf Fritillary butterfly
played at a friend's house and helped out with a one-year-old
Gracie read outside to me--Max's Chocolate Chicken and a baby book from a friend
read aloud The Very Hungry Caterpillar
read facts about the painted lady butterfly
fingerpainted a painted lady butterfly and wrote a fact using own spelling--they taste with their feet!
added another straw to our place value cups and wrote down the number 54
added today's date to our special green calendar
listened to Jonathan Park and talked a little about fossils
played in the hose in swimming suits

Another Delight-Directed Day

Today we had visitors and a lot of play time, inside and out. The weather is just beautiful! Here's how today has unfolded so far.

reviewed our verse/song
caterpillar coloring page
added another drawing to nature notebook to show two more caterpillars turning into chrysalises
Madelyn played with money
Gracie read from her reader and decided to read to us from Max's Chocolate Chicken as well
Gracie practiced handwriting and cursive
each of the girls created pictures for our visitors (drawing, handwriting)
Gracie took a poll of our visitors' favorite food for a graph she is using in math
Madelyn found a plant/rainforest book that I am thinking of using later this spring
read Sugar Cookies: Sweet Little Lessons on Love
made Arizona flags because AZ has the most types of butterflies
looked at images of AZ butterflies
used watercolors to paint a gulf fritillary, an AZ butterfly
Gracie added a Noah's Ark page to her Bible journal
read The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Delight-Directed Learning

I made a wonderful discovery over our spring break! I noticed that our best and most enjoyable learning experiences come when I have not planned anything. I did not really need to question why. I knew. We are more relaxed and able to follow what delights us on those days. But the learning still takes place. I am able to guide and encourage the girls on those days as they explore a topic together. Days like that leave us all more content at the end of the day. I have decided that needs to be our approach everyday. The girls and I (since I know what they need to learn) decide on a topic or book to study. We brainstorm every question or idea that we would like to explore. And this is where the delight-directed idea comes in. If Gracie is interested in the art of a certain period, she is free to explore that more in-depth. If Madelyn would rather explore the food or clothing of that same period, she is free to explore that. I teach them how to research on their own, how to document their learning in their journals, etc. At the end of a topic, they get to choose a project to share what they've learned. That project will be shown to a family member as closure for the topic. Math will be a separate workbook. Reading will still be done in the readers I have right now, but I am also encouraging Gracie to read magazines, newspapers, picture books, etc.

Here's what we did today.

Learned a new verse and song

danced to the song

read the Creation story in the Bible

played with coins (sorting, reviewed names and amounts)

cleaned pennies with vinegar and salt, journaled about experiment (also counted as handwriting)

listened to Madelyn "read" The Very Hungry Caterpillar and The Very Busy Spider

practiced beginning sounds with Madelyn using game pieces from The Very Hungry Caterpillar game, the girls also "played" the game on their own

updated nature notebook to show that our caterpillars turned into chrysalises

completed a Venn Diagram (in the shape of a caterpillar) on the two books

Gracie read to us from her reader

read a caterpillar poem

listened to Jonathan Park during our Listening Lunch

created a Bible journal and Gracie made a Jesus and his disciples page, Madelyn practiced her name

read Amelia Bedelia to Madelyn

looked at images of other chrysalises

And only a few of those things were planned.

Excited to let the Holy Spirit guide us!

Health

We are once again trying to make decisions about one of our children's health. Madelyn has had nose and chest colds just about every other week since last fall. She has also been yawning all day long like she isn't getting enough oxygen. I believe it has affected her behavior and made her irritable. She has always been a mouth-breather and breathed loudly when sleeping. She used to snore a lot as a baby. Her tonsils are very large, and I wonder about her adenoids. Her pediatrician thinks it might be asthma and told us to give her Gracie's rescue inhaler three times a day for a week to see if that helps. This medicine is not fun because it makes the heart race. Gracie calls it her "jittery" medicine. There is no doubt in my mind that Gracie has asthma. But Madelyn, we have our doubts. After doing research, the frequent chest colds could indeed be asthma. I decided to go ahead and give her one puff of the medicine to see if that would take away the yawns and shortness of breath. It doesn't seem to have helped. We are leaning more towards asking to be referred to an ENT. I want the poor girl to stop getting sick and have enough breath.

I feel like my faith in doctors (our doctor) has been lost. I so often have to be my children's doctor myself and rely on my own research and intuition as to what might be going on in my children's bodies. With all of the health issues my children have had, I wonder what God is trying to teach me. Does he want me to take all of this knowledge I'm gaining and use it to become a nurse? I have always had an interest in the body's functions and how it all works together. I took many of these courses in college and enjoyed them, but I don't think becoming a nurse or doctor is the answer. Does he want me to draw closer to him and look to him as the Great Physician? That is more likely. One of my recent devotionals said "come to me for understanding." Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. Matthew 7:7

So I am praying for wisdom as we try to discover what is going on with Madelyn, if anything. Wisdom to know if we should change pediatricians, wisdom as to whether or not we should go to an ENT doctor, wisdom as we make decisions for these little ones that God has entrusted us with.