Petals Homeschool

The kids asked me what made the leaves change color, and I realized that I actually didn't know--thus, the following day's group project 🍁🍂 Love the mutual learning 😊

Althea 😍

Love walking to different downtown parks for recess 😁

Sometimes you have to give kids candy 🍭🍬🍫🙄

Winter self portraits using my special mirror 🥰

Made fire cider with the kids today! Love introducing young minds to the old ways ✨

The boys helping each other with reading 🥰

Althea 🖤

Love letter to the body

Starting out the school year with our "new normal" makes this message feel more important than ever 🦋

Ways to Be a Leader:

• Help other people
• Defend other species
• Love more, judge less
• Make up your own mind
• Make art
• Never stop learning

First day back at school and I couldn't be happier about it. In addition to our usual lessons, we started a conversation about what leadership looks like & Althea hit the nail on the head with her infinite wisdom 🌼

Had an important discussion comparing the differences between the things that divide people vs the things that unite us. Eager to continue a more radical and inclusive education for myself as well as these limitless young minds!

Wild foraged wreath :-) Merry Christmas from our little crew 🎅⛄🎄

Throwback to Christmas when the kids wrote letters to Santa for changes they wanted him to bring the world. The list is SO BEAUTIFUL--get ready.
1) Happiness
2) Hope for trees
3) No poverty
4) Peace
5) New nature
6) More colors
7) Families staying together
8) Peeping birds
9) A healthy planet
10) Friendly cars
11) No forest fires
12) Happier farm animals

My boys are so freaking great. Jake and Jasper assigned themselves science homework, actually followed through with it, and then brought it to school to share. ❤️❤️❤️

The cuteness is almost too much

Spring wild w**d forage and discussion of the four directions 🌸

When life takes your teaching voice, you paint with Bob Ross.

I promised the kids a Greek feast once we finished our chapter on ancient Greece. This was also part of our new year celebration as it's a tradition in Greece to feast on the new year and reserve an empty seat for St. Basil or a favorite household saint. The kids dedicated their extra seat to their favorite goddess from ancient Greece, Gaia. How adorable is that?! ❤️

We rang in 2019 by re-enacting different new year traditions from all over the world! A few noteworthy ones were throwing bread against a wall to ward off evil spirits (Ireland), ringing a bell 108 times to call in goodness (Japan), and throwing water at each other to cleanse ourselves for the new year (Thailand). 🙂

Celebrating the summer solstice with ceremony, potion making, and intention setting :-) Today the gang and I walked to a special tree in my neighborhood that I've been visiting recently. As we sat under her protective branches, we meditated together around a lit candle and acknowledged all the sun offers to us. We then began making our "potion" and discussing the symbolism of each ingredient. Finally, we passed the brew around and stirred into it our intentions we wished to set. I am totally honored to work with kids who continually suprise me with their eagerness to learn and try new things. The reverence they showed during this circle tickled me but also stirred profound gratitude in my heart! Thank you sweet fams for honoring me with the opportunity to share this wondrous, ongoing journey with your little ones. 🔮

In lieu of spring break, we've held a week of festivities! Today we dressed up, made a nature mandala, practiced yoga, and learned about gods and goddesses from different cultures and mythologies. We also got to celebrate sweet Henry's birthday with homemade popcorn and crowned him Osiris, the Egyptian god of water and the afterlife. Funnest class to date!

Happy glorious spring, fams!

Playing "restaurant" in order to learn different foods and how to say please, thank you, and you're welcome. The end goal here is OBVIOUSLY for them to be able to order you a margarita at La Nortena (la Texana grande, con sal). LOL!

A special day at school. The buzzing bees told us it was time for spring planting. Photo courtesy of Ila :-)

Look at these goddesses... 🌈

Today we had a good old fashioned girls' day, and it didn't disappoint! We had a discussion about the idea of beauty and it proved tremendously worthwhile. Here's a good takeaway: do you remember a time someone did something nice for you? Do you remember what they were wearing?

Well, I found my soul sister--one hand in the chip bag and one on the hip! Lol! Also, this beautiful cosmic being they call Hank.

There's nothing like getting 100% schooled by your own students. I drew up this birthday banner for Harvey today by picking random dinosaurs off Google only to have him rattle off the scientific name of every single one of them upon first sight :-) Love is too easy.

It doesn't matter what you have planned for the day... enormous cardboard box ALWAYS wins. 📦

Sneak peak at some new material we'll be working with this year :-) Thank you Terese! Happy New Year! Love to all my families

Learning las partes del cuerpo

Happy Thanksgiving! Here's a couple pages from our little book the children wrote and recited for this holiday.
"Estamos Agradecidos" (We are Thankful)

Off for a fun day of Geocaching ☺