In my (window) garden

It's winter, and it is very cold. I planted my garlic in early December but that is all that is going on outside. The desire to grow was just too strong though, so we grew some things inside just for fun. 

Left to right - navy beans, basil, celery

The navy bean plant started as an experiment for Jujubee's science. When the bean started growing, we just couldn't kill it so we decided to just let it be. We were not expecting beans to actually grow because it's inside. Don't beans need pollinators?  Maybe I should look into that because this is what they look like right now. 

It only has 3 pods on the whole plant, but we were excited about its success.   

The basil, I planted a couple weeks ago and put it in my plant window. Nothing happened. Miss Kitty thought it would make a nice litter box - but I caught her in time. To keep her out, and see if I could help the little seeds, I cut the bottom of a milk jug off and placed it on top. One day later, and little leaves are popping up! You can kind of see them here. 

While scrolling through Pinterest one day, I saw something about regrowing food from your kitchen scraps. We had celery in our pot roast a week or so ago, so I figured why not try it?  Today, I can tell the little celery plant is starting to come up!  Look at me and my green thumb. I'm so proud. 

I also have an aloe plant in our plant window. That plant is a trooper. It's been from our old house, to my moms, to this house and has hung on for several years. Totally neglected most of the time. I love plants that can tolerate my neglect. At this point, I'm afraid to show it more care because I'll probably kill it if I do, but I think it could really use a bigger pot.

So, that's what is growing in my (window) garden. Do you have anything growing?  Are you planning your garden?

Jujubee wanted a garden for her birthday...

We have been reading the book, The Secret Garden, for a couple months.  (This book is LONG, but wonderful).  Jujubee loves it and looks forward to it every night before bed.  When asked what she wanted for her birthday, she chose a garden "like Mary" - the main character in the book.

Well, who am I to get in the way of a girl having a garden?  So, off my husband and I went to get timbers to build her garden in the corner of our yard.  Our family members were informed she would be getting a garden, and bought her several wonderful additions to it, as well as some regular 7 year old items.  :)

Helping build the box

Box complete, but empty.

Thankfully, my dad lives in the country and has a bobcat. He got us a truckload of dirt :)  Thanks dad!

Dirt!

Julia planting her perennials.

The garden this year.  Next year we will be adding more flowers, and vegetables.  It was too late in the season to grow from seeds this year. 

The bird and gnome Julia chose for her decor.

She is so excited about this.  We've had the garden for a month and she is still watering it daily when it doesn't rain, and waiting for that first weed to pop up so she can pull it.  Little does she know, next year she will be so sick of weeds!  

Our homeschool curriculum choices for first grade

I've talked about it before, but now that everything is finalized I want to share it with you.  We are following the Charlotte Mason Method, and mixing in a little Classical Education.  Those words probably mean nothing or very little to you if you are not a homeschooling family, and possibly even if you are!  Basically, it is just a guide on how we homeschool.

I spent months researching curriculums, reading books, reviews, talking to other moms.  My favorite resources to figure it all out have been Simply Charlotte Mason website, the book The Well Trained Mind, as well as the forums on the Well Trained Mind website, and an amazing group on Cafemom called Homeschooling Moms.  Finally this is what we decided on:

Math - Saxon 1
Spelling - All About Spelling, level 1
Handwriting - Handwriting without tears, my printing book
History - Story of the World, Ancient Times
Science - Outdoor Secrets, and we will be doing our own body curriculum after we complete OS
Poetry - Favorite Poems Old & New, and A Child's Garden of Verses
Personal Development - A Child's Book of Character Building, Book 1
Art - Drawing with Children
Music - World's greatest composers series, starting with Bach
Nature Study - using Hours in the Out-of-doors as a guide, as well as the Handbook of Nature Study
Reading - reading books relating to our Science and History
Literature - following the literature list on www.simplycharlottemason.com
Grammar (will not start until second semester) - English for the Thoughtful Child

Wow, so that seems like a lot.  But the nice thing is that with the method's I am using, most lessons only take 15-20 minute, and of course we do not do every subject every day.  We started Handwriting over the summer, and are about halfway through that book, so we are trying to decide if we should move on to the next HWOT book, or start doing copywork like the CM method suggests.

Another great thing about the method we are using, is that it uses "living books" instead of a lot of text books for subjects like science, history, etc.  So that means, my library has been an amazing resource!  It has saved me so much money, and so far, they have had every book we will need for the first month or two, or a very good substitution.

Wish us luck!