Preparing for Winter in our Home

Preparing for Winter usually means getting firewood, checking clothes and other real life preparations.

In our home all these things occur but we also prepare our home learning environment as well.

I am a great believer in creating a beautiful atmosphere and using that as a learning tool to enrich not only our children but for myself and other people who come into our home.

So on the second of June, the day after our Myffwyn's birthday I started getting out our Winter themed decorations.

I love this little print of a boy with lantern light and put a couple of cardboard blue stars with gold glitter on them beside it on the little card holder Stephen made me some time ago.

As Winter has truly arrived and we are using the fire I have moved our display off the top of the fire and over onto the buffet and hutch. Each day Arwen changes the day of the week and our little 'elements: fire, water, air and earth, sit nicely here as well.

Behind them  is our liturgical Father Pine with a Green Chasuble for the 'growing season' of our Liturgical season.

Here is another part of our display, on the following  day with the new perpetual calendar we made. Seriously I just love looking at it.

Putting out the Winter Gerda Muller book that gets the pages turned regularly for inspiration especially at art time is always refreshing for me

Naturally the Tasha Tudor book, A time to Keep, changes too. Of course we have to ignore the actual month of the year as depicted in these seasonal books as all these lovely books are set in the  Northern Hemisphere.

Next to be changed is the Seasons table and we placed out our Winter collection which is looking quite sad at the moment.

I realise now I haven't set out King Winter or Jack Frost and his family and will have to get them out tomorrow.

The next thing is of course the Winter book basket with all the Winter books placed in ready to read.

It's hard to see what is in the basket it so I took photos of the books to share :)

These are probably what I call our real Winter books.

I separated these ones because I am going to be doing a wool dying, spinning, weaving and knitting project with the children using the wool form our own sheep that we had from last season.

More lovely books to read....

and our last selection to share with you.

I know I haven't got them all listed but here is a link to my Winter book list, and as I link to it I see I missed some from our book shelves, which I will need to find and put in our basket.

This is our display that sits right near our dining table and so is very visual for us throughout most of the day.

How do you like to prepare your home for Winter enjoyment?

Blessings to you and your homes,
 

Holy Saturday- Preparation for Easter

Thank goodness Easter is a whole liturgical season and not just a day as is often thought in our society, otherwise I would never get a chance to share our Holy Saturday Traditions :)

On this day, after our Good Friday activities, we do our final preparations for the celebration of Easter.
Usually I finish making our favours that I add to the Easter Baskets.
This year I made  a bunch of Lillies for each person.

Just before bed  we make our Resurrection Cookies all ready for the morning, of course not everyone is happy by this time as the last few days have been very busy for little people, so a small one or two are squirming and fussing.

However now we have the putting of caterpillars in our baskets ready to turn into beautiful butterflies for Easter morning.

Thankfully we made these earlier in the week to try to avoid that over load just before bed.

We keep it simple with just using pipe cleaners of various colours and you can create the caterpillar any way you like.

Place them in the basket ready for the transformation and Mummy will put the baskets on the table later when she sets it ready for the morning.

Then it's off to bed for little ones!!

Now it's time for Mummy and any helpers she can get to set the table for breakfast and fill the the baskets and Easter bags.

Caterpillar all ready for the transformation.

We have our Easter blackboard which Eden prepared earlier in the day.
The countdown is completed and extra butterflies are added.
Father Pine is in His White Vestments and we have our pictures and statues uncovered along with the day of the week all ready.

I just love these paper butterflies made from some water colour painting we had done some time ago.

Our family altar has it's white coverings too after being stripped of all adornments of Holy Thursday.

All items are placed in the baskets-

this being a butterfly, holy card of the Resurrection, a plastic egg filled with a chick and ALLELUIA written on a strip of paper, and of course the Lillies I made and a few little eggs.

Place each basket at each persons place setting......

finish decorating the table

Make sure the Seasons Table is decorated too.

Spread a little more love in the center of the table

Doesn't it look pretty!

Now any helpers have to go to bed as I don't let them look at the chocolate  but it is a huge surprise on Easter morning.

This year was  a first for us - NO Cadbury chocolate!!
Oh yes this was a sad day for us. We have always had a Cadbury Easter Bunny and chocolate but now we have to forgo this treat.
Anyway we made up for it with other new and lovely tasting chocolate.

Cover it all up to stop any mice. Hmmmmm yes we have had  a few furry critters inside lately and don't want them in the goodies.

Then it's off to bed for Mummy till Easter morning..........

Blessings to you and your homes,
 

Autumn Seasons Table

It's Autumn again and so that means we are enjoying the cooler weather and in our hearts preparing for all the loveliness of the Autumn season and then the comfort of Winter.

Naturally this means the changing of the seasons table and associated other areas.
I love changing to Autumn as it is the most colourful of all the seasons and brings a warmth to the house with all those rich colours.

Again and again it seems that having the children means they love to take an active interest in the changing of the table.

Maybe this year I will get a chance to make more items for this display........maybe!!

This is one of my favourite places at the moment

I made these Autumn Leave ladies years ago and keep wanting to add to their ranks.

And of course we are learning this poem but changing the  September to March.

So welcome Autumn and we look forward to enjoying this season.
Blessings to you and your homes,
 

This Year's Spring Seasons Displays

As the year cycles on, faster than I can believe, we are certainly enjoying the Spring season that has come around again. 

We have seen lots of new life in the animals around us, not only our own but also in the countryside as well.

The  flowers are blossoming all over and it is such a joy to enjoy the beauty of  God's creation each and every day as we are spending more and more time outdoors.

In our family circle that means it is also an opportunity to continue celebrating Spring inside our home and thus it is time to change our seasonal display areas too.

Mrs Thaw has arrived to usher in Spring and help King Winter on his way back to the Winter castle, and the root children are gradually being replaced by the flower children.

As I enjoy creating new additions to the seasons tableau  I had decided to make a Spring Flower Fairy using one of my peg dolls I had painted earlier in the year and not done anything with as yet.

The obvious first step to me was to paint on some spring flowers and some hair,

then place her with the Spring postcard and candle and she could stay a Spring Lady, but.........

if I add some felt wings and a flower bonnet  you now have a Spring Flower Fairy!!!

Isn't she pretty??

Next put  all the daily Seasonal things together that we use and you have one area complete.

Phase two is to add all our other seasonal bits n pieces to our other seasonal area and we are ready to celebrate the beauty of this season.

Obviously as the season moves on we tend to change and add or subtract from the display to suit our needs and desires, however I must say that I truly love being able to create and have the beauty of this display in our home.

Blessings to you and your homes,