a gypsy caravan

Autumn Circle Time

Last autumn,  we began having a daily Circle Time for the little ones.  My children have responded so well to this small amount of structure, movement and attention in the morning.   Here are some previous posts about Circle Time in our home.

This is our Autumn line up of songs, fingerplays and poems:

• Light candle
• All sit in a circle on the floor
• Morning prayer: "Dear Lord Jesus, I give you today, all that I think and do and say. Amen."
• Announce the day of the week and today's date

Songs:

• Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush (sitting with motions)

• I've Been Working on the Railroad (sitting)

• Apples and Bananas (sitting)

• Father Abraham (large motions, standing)

• Where is Thumbkin? (fingerplay)

• There are Seven Days (sitting)

• Humpty Dumpty (Nursery Rhyme, sitting)

• Open Them Shut Them (fingerplay)

Poem to be read aloud:

• Rain (or)
• Bed in Summer (or)
• The Cow by Robert Louis Stevenson

(or any other you'd like them to learn)
We read ours from A Child's Garden of Verses by RLS, illustrated by Tasha Tudor

• Hymn: Stabat Mater from 36 Traditional Roman Catholic Hymns

• Closing Prayer: May my hands work with care,  my heart work with love and my mind work with attention. Amen.

• Have a child blow out the candle.

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Immediately following Circle Time, the older kids work at the table on their lessons.   Prior to adopting Circle Time, the girls were disruptive and were constantly demanding attention during the boy's table lessons.  I have found the girls are happy to play quietly for an hour or so after having had the attention and interaction that Circle Time provides.  I make available a different toy each day for them to play with.  This is the schedule we used last year and it will work fine again this fall.

Monday: Brio trains
Tuesday: Dollhouse
Wednesday: Wooden blocks
Thursday: Farm and animals
Friday: Marble chase

Rotating the wooden toys keeps them from becoming "old hat" and gives the girls a pattern of play to look forward to each week.  I keep each of the different toys in a separate container that I carry up from the basement after Circle Time.   This has worked well for us thus far.

Do you do circle time in your home?  Please share your ideas in the comments.  Thanks! :)

Spring Circle Time

The birds have been singing, the flowers are blooming and all has come alive in our region of the country.   So, we will be changing our circle time songs this week to reflect the lovely Spring season.   The upcoming month of May is devoted to The Blessed Mother so the hymns we will be learning are Marian. The songs, fingerplays and poem will be about animals, weather and gardening. 

We begin by lighting a candle, mentioning the current day and date.  We then make a Morning Offering:  "Dear Lord Jesus, I give you today, all that I think and do and say."

Six Little Ducks

Baa, Baa, Black Sheep

Two Little Blackbirds (fingerplay)

Oats, Peas, Beans and Barley Grow

He's Got the Whole World in His Hands

Old MacDonald

Arky, Arky Song

The Squirrel Song

Poem:
The Wind by Robert Louis Stevenson

Hymn: Alternate every other day
Immaculate Mary
Salve Regina

Closing prayer "May my hands work with care, my heart work with love and my mind work with attention. Amen."  The children blow out the candle. 

More on circle time in our home here and here.

Songs for Nature Study

I've been meaning to mention that a local naturalist named Foster Brown is one of the children's favorite singer/songwriters.  His music is acoustic, sort of folk-sy, very pleasing to the ear and educational to boot!  Our favorite CD called  Songs from a Naturalist's Notebook.  It is available for purchase here either in CD format or as a download. You can listen to some samples on his website.   I can't tell you how much the children have learned from him and how many times a day I hear them singing one of his tunes. You might like to check it out for yourself.  :)

More on Circle Time

Just  wanted to take some time to address a few of the questions that were asked following my recent post about Circle Time.

Mary wrote:
"What do you do if you have toddlers mixed in with older children?  How do you plan songs for differing ages?"

That is a great question.  My oldest son (11) does independent table work while the rest of the children (8, 4, 2) do circle time.  I try to include some traditional nursery rhymes for the littles, some songs with hand motions and some livelier, patriotic tunes for my eight year old.  Anything involving marching or military seems to be a hit for boys. :) The girls current favorite is A Ram Sam Sam.  Here is a video clip from UTube, though we don't do the "Olha a Onda" part, but rather sing the "A Rafi" version.

Michele wrote:
"What music sites or sources do you use to choose the songs and, fingerplays?"

Two of my favorite songbooks are Rise Up Singing and American Folk Songs for Children.  Both are dog eared books that I have used since my oldest was a baby.  We have never done a formal Circle Time prior to this past fall but I have sung to my children since they were tiny, especially in the car. 

The Rise Up Singing book has a myriad of songs by topic, plus guitar chords for those of you who play. The book is spiral bound, which I love. There are a few songs in it that I would never sing to my children but the good far outweighs the bad.

Also, American Folk Songs for Children comes in compact disc form.  It is a two disc set which contains most of the noteworthy songs every child should know.  Mike and Peggy Seeger have VERY DISTINCT voices, great for folk music.  Most people either love them or hate them.  I would really encourage you to listen on the Amazon page before purchasing the set, just to make sure you like their voices.  (My husband can't stand them.)

I would encourage anyone who is tempted to just play the songs for their children from a CD player NOT to do it.  Play them for yourself so you can learn them but sing them to your children.  Your kids don't care if you are not the best singer.  They love you and want to have fun with you!

I love to teach the children folk music because it is so richly steeped in our country's history.  So many of the songs were passed on from generation to generation, sung on the prairies, the cattle ranges, and the battlefields of our country.

I also use the patriotic songs from Wee Sing America.  There is an accompanying CD that I can't seem to find on Amazon right now....

Jennifer wrote:
"LOL!! I tried it Rebecca. Now you said that the children wouldn't mind my singing voice, but when we began The Itsy-Bitsy Spider, my three year old son curled up in a ball on the floor and began to sob. What did I do wrong??? :) Too funny"

I smiled when I read this because Mary Kathryn put up quite a fuss the first few days that we did circle time.  In our case, it was that she was not accustomed to having a lot of fun and personal attention in the morning.  I think the structure and stimulation was a little emotionally overwhelming to her.  After a few days, she began to ask for circle time but initially, she was very disruptive.  (I really doubt it has anything to do with your singing voice! :) ) My guess is either the overwhelming interaction of it all or that your son is afraid of spiders. LOL!

It is helpful when doing circle time with little ones to arrange the songs in such a way that there are quieter songs in between the large motion, louder ones.  That seems to help the children to settle and calm down after much excitement.

Above all else, don't give up!  Little ones really thrive on routine and circle time is a gentle way to introduce a morning rhythm. 

I hope I did not forget anyone's question.  If I did, feel free to resend it again.

Have a great day!

Circle Time in Our Home

This past fall we decided to add circle time to our daily rhythm.  Circle time is simply a gathering time at the beginning of the day  in which to sing,  read poetry, do fingerplays and incorporate movement. 

I have always felt that it would be a good idea for my littles to have some sort of organized activity before I start tablework with the school aged children.  Circle time takes about twenty minutes to a half hour each morning.  I try to alternate songs that are lively with much movement with those that are quieter and slower.  This seems to keep the children's attention quite well.

Last fall, I arranged a repertoire for the children.  We ended up repeating the same song list for the months of September, October and November.  I intended to arrange something for Advent and Christmas but it fell by the wayside.

I will include a few songs, a poem, a fingerplay and a hymn each time I come up with a new list.  Below is what I have planned for the remainder of winter, until late March.

I read somewhere that it is important for the children that the list of songs, etc. remains the same for several weeks or even months before changing to a new list.  Small children love consistency and find much comfort in repetition.

Christopher sits in on circle time so I have tried to add several songs that would appeal to him as well as my toddler/preschool daughters.

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Light a candle
Say Morning Prayer "Dear Lord Jesus, I give you today, all that I think and do and say."

Today is: (Day and Date)

A Ram Sam Sam
Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear
Fingerplay: Itsy Bitsy Spider
March: When Johnny Comes Marching Home
The Wheels on the Bus
I'm a Little Teapot
Peas Porridge Hot, lyrics and some history
Hot Cross Buns, words and history
Yankee Doodle
Poem:  Read aloud My Shadow by Robert Louis Stevenson (After several weeks of reading the same poem each morning, the children will naturally have it memorized, without intending to do so.  School aged children can illustrate the poem in a poetry book.)
Hymn: O Lord I am not Worthy

Closing Prayer: May my hands work with care,  my heart work with love and my mind work with attention. Amen.

Have a child blow out the candle.

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If you are interested in beginning a gathering/circle time in the morning with your children, choose a few folk or nursery songs that you'd like them to learn, a poem perhaps and a fingerplay.  Start small. Don't be afraid that you do not have a nice singing voice.  Your children will not notice or care.  They will have fond memories of spending time in song and play with their mother and siblings.

Have a wonderful day today!

Art, Music and Nature in Winter

Today is a picture postcard day.  There are huge downy flakes slowly falling from the sky, as though we were living in a snow globe  or in Narnia.  The ground is blanketed with almost a foot of pure white snow.

Annie and Mary have been watching the squirrels from our back window.  Annie squeals with delight when one of those little brown fellows comes close to our window. She claps our hands and laughs out loud.  We all think it is especially funny when one of them emerges from the snow with a little cap or beard of white. "Just like Santa!", yells Mary. 

We have had many feathered visitors at our feeders lately now that their normal food is difficult to find.  Juncos, sparrows, nuthatches and cardinals have been regular friends.  It is so pretty to see the cardinals with their beautiful red feathers against the snowy branches.  Winter is a wonderful time to study birds because the landscape is stark and bare.  They spend much time at the feeders, giving the us all a longer chance to sketch them. 

Each of the children recieved a copy of the Beginning Birdwatcher's Book for Christmas this year.  It has forty eight realistic bird stickers to place in the book when the bird is seen by the child in the wild.  Each bird page contains the following information: bird name in English and Latin, size, nest, eggs, food, range.  There is also a section on each page for the child's observations including: date seen, time of day, locality and remarks.   

I remember back to when I was a young woman in the corporate advertising world, just how much I dreaded northern Ohio winters. Maybe it was because I was out, dressed in a suit and heels, battling the elements.  Maybe I was just immature or plain old unappreciative of the glorious changing seasons.

I now enjoy the beauty and slower pace of winter days.  There is something so comforting to me about a season of  "hibernation" so to speak.  I love the change of pace, the change of menu, the more peaceful activities surrounding our family.  We spend much more time reading in the winter months, more time listening to good music, working on art projects, etc.

On some of these quiet winter days, we have been listening to the  Masters of Classical Music CDs.  Included in this set are full length discs of the music of ten different composers: Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Strauss, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Vivaldi, Chopin, Schubert and Verdi.  We have spent the past week revisiting Mozart and Bach, who are among my children's favorites.  We studied Tchaikovsky and Vivaldi recently as well.

Benjamin plays the Irish tin whistle and has been filling our home with many lively tunes while the snow falls.  He is planning to attend a session of young Irish musicians next weekend. Christopher plays the recorder and picks it up several times a day to practice the songs he has been learning.

We have also been spending more time on art this winter season than we have in the past.  Last autumn, I purchased the fine arts program Artistic Pursuits based on a recommendation from the Mater Amabilis website.  I cannot rave enough about what a wonderful art program this is for young people.  My children absolutely love it.  I am loving it right along with them.  The lessons are simple yet leave much room for artistic interpretation.

One of my favorite picture books is Tomie de Paola's  The Art Lesson in which Tomie explains his frustration at having to do an art assignment "a certain way".  This program gives guidelines for each assignment but does not dictate precisely what the children are to draw, paint or sculpt.  It uses quality art materials; watercolors, pastels, clay, graphite drawing pencils, etc. to teach children to express themselves artistically.  Each book comes with a set of art masterpiece prints to be inserted, for conversation and example, into the book.  There are several levels of instruction, and a couple of books for each level.  Our whole family started out using the first book together. It is not too advanced for my six year old nor too slow paced for my ten year old or myself.  My three year old has done most of the projects as well.  I hope to post some photos of the work the children have been doing soon.

So as far as I am concerned, it can snow up to the rooftop because we have plenty of beautiful things to do, to look at and to listen to. I hope you all are enjoying the winter months and spending special time with your family doing what you love.

American Musical Culture

Becky, at Farm School, has put together a comprehensive post with recommendations on picture books, music and movies celebrating American culture. This is timely for us right now as we are beginning a study of American folk music.

When Ben was a baby, I sang to him incessantly because it was one of the only things that soothed him. I ran out of songs after some weeks and bought myself a couple Pete Seeger cassette tapes (back then) which I played until they fell apart. I wanted to learn some new tunes to sing to him and Pete has Oh So Many. I also purchased Mike and Peggy Seeger's American Folk Songs for Children which is a double disc set of many traditional and Appalachian folk tunes sure to please the small folk.

Now, years later, we received a Pete Seeger disc from Caddie's godparents as a gift. The kids and I are hooked again. Our favorite is The Children's Concert at Town Hall which contains some great "must know" songs like Michael Row Your Boat Ashore, Abiyoyo, This Land is Your Land, and many others. I am also fond of his Greatest Hits CD that has many songs like Guantanamera, We Shall Overcome, Turn Turn Turn, and more. That one is not for children as there is a curse word in one song but it is a great collection of folk songs, nonetheless. Some of the tunes are politically charged, some date back to the Civil Rights movement, many highlight the plight of the working class. Any of you with the tiniest bit of hippie-chick in you will certainly enjoy these tunes. :)

Anyhow, wait'll ya see Becky's list. She obviously put a lot of time and thought into it which I certainly appreciate.

The Advent Log

The tradition of the Advent log is similar to that of the Advent wreath.  It is a means of counting the days until Christmas in anticipation of the birth of our Savior.  Ours is a birch log, approximately 4 feet in length.  It contains a candle hole for each day of Advent, plus one for the Christmas holy day itself.  Some years, when the Advent season is long (like last year), each candle hole is used.  This year, because Advent begins on Dec. 3, many of the holes will remain unused.

The log was lovingly drilled by my father (may he rest in peace) who helped fell the tree from which it came.  I wanted a white birch because its bark is so beautiful against the greens of the season.  My father's friend just happened to have a birch tree in his yard that was dying and was happy to have it removed. 

Traditionally, families use purple and pink candles for the Advent log, similar to the candle coloring of Advent wreaths.   Our family uses all burgandy colored candles with one white candle for Christmas day, for no other reason except that we like those colors.  We use 12 inch taper candles which are just the right length for about a 15 minutes nightly devotion for each night of Advent.  If you are nervous that you might run out of candle (by burning too quickly) by Christmas day, you can purchase 15 inch candles from various Catholic supply stores.  I decorate the area around the log with greens and red wooden cranberry beads. 

The candles are lit every evening.  On the first night of Advent, we light the far left candle.  It is by far my favorite night of the season!  We turn off all the lights in the house and light that single candle.  We read about Christ being the Light of the World and sing "O Come, O Come Emmanuel".  That tiny flame gives such a bright light in the darkness. 

As Advent progresses and Christmas draws near, the light becomes brighter in the room with each candle that is lit.  We light the candles in an alternating pattern, switching sides of the log each evening.  This pattern ensures that the candles will have a cascading effect with the tallest candle being the center one on Christmas day.

The Christmas candle is very special.  It is pure white, symbolizing God's holiness.  Each year's new Christmas candle is lit by the youngest in the house (with Dad's help) using the Christmas candle from the previous year. 

On Christmas Day, we leave the candles burning for a long time while we sing, open presents and celebrate.  The Advent log is used for the twelve days after Christmas as well, ending on Epiphany when it is taken down for the season.

During each evening of Advent, we read from the Scripture, have a devotion together, pray and sing some carols in preparation for Christmas.  I will post more about the devotions and practices that go along with the Advent log another time. 

The photo that I have posted of our log is of very poor quality.  It was taken in our apartment, early in our marriage when we kept the log on our mantel.  In this home, we display it on top of our piano.  You can see by the number of candles lit in the photo that it was taken on Christmas Eve, as the only candle unlit is the white Christmas candle.  I have a more recent photograph that I cannot locate.  I will try to update the picture when I can. 

What we’re listening to these days

In the summer months, we attend quite a few local Irish festivals.  My husband's grandfather's family is from County Kerry.  While I, myself, do not seem to have an ounce of Irish blood in my veins, I am forever being mistaken as being of Irish descent due to my fair freckled skin and dark hair.

Anyhow, we are quite fond of traditional Irish music and have been listening to a fair share of Solas.   Have you heard this wonderful band as of yet?  We also have this CD of theirs as well.  If you scroll down the page, you can listen to some of the songs by clicking on the links.  Good stuff.

Add to it our current read alouds which include Red Hugh: Prince of Donegal and The Cottage at Bantry Bay series for my oldest, plus A Symphony for the Sheep for the littles, and we have a wee Irish unit study in the making.   

Speaking of Robert Louis Stevenson…

We, like many other home learning families, have been memorizing his poetry for years.  The littles start with short poems like "Rain" or "The Whole Duty of Children", gradually making their way to lengthier pieces.  To aid in the process (and for pure enjoyment), we often listen to "A Child's Garden of Songs" .  This compilation of Stevenson's poetry is put to music using instruments commonly played during RLS's lifetime.  The result is a wonderful array of musical poems with a Scottish flair, sure to delight children and adults alike.

*Edited to add:  If you'd like, scroll down the Amazon page to hear samples of the music.