Felt Ornaments

Written By Sereina

Last year I came across a book called Fa la la la Felt just after Christmas, so I've been waiting till this Christmas season to check it out from the library. It's an awesome book filled with simple felt crafts. There are three sections: ornaments, decor, and stockings. So far I've made two ornaments, a bird and a bell and today I started on a candy garland. 

I made both of the ornaments with materials I already had. The felt was left over from other projects and I got the buttons from Tiana (she has tons of them). 

You may recognize the wing fabric as the material I used for my circle skirt.

Alina's Schleich Videos

As I mentioned in my last post, Horses - One Interest Two Bents, Alina made a video using her Schleich horses.  In September she took her collection outside and made a video introducing all her Schleich animals that she had at the time.  

As you can see from this video (above) she has many (and has added several since then) and has named each and every one of them.

This video (above) is the first episode of a series she intends to make of the adventures of Kovu and his herd.  This was all done with the video option on her point and shoot camera and then edited on MS Moviemaker.  She used a tripod to keep her camera stable in the scenes.  The entire project was something she came up with on her own, created the story, produced, edited, etc. all on herself.  She has episode two put together and waiting for the editing process, so there will be more to come soon.

Note:  If you are receiving this post as an e-mail and are not able to view the videos, you will be able to view the video's at the blog site by clicking on this link:  A Delightful Journey

P.S. The video's seem to work on Alina's computer, but not on mine... please let me know if they are not working on your computer.

Christmas Wreath

By Sereina

While I was blog reading, I came across a project using the inside of an embroidery hoop as a base for making a wreath using live greenery (I found it here. Those snow globes would be fun to make as well!) I liked the idea of using the embroidery hoop, since their cheap and easy to find, and then suddenly inspiration struck: I could use strips of fabric and tie them onto the hoop to make a wreath. We have a bit of Christmas fabrics that had been sitting in a bin and never got used for many, many years, so I though it would be perfect for a Christmas wreath. It's also a great project to use fabric scraps with as well.

Luckily we have lots of embroidery hoops in sock at our house right now, so I grabbed a 9" hoop and that Christmas fabric that I mentioned earlier.

It was so simple to make, since all I had to do was cut the fabric into strips (I didn't measure mine, but I'm guessing they were around 7"x1.5") and tie them to the hoop. I alternated my colors, using one red, then a green. Mine took about 112 strips.

The finished wreath. It's now hanging on the outside of my bedroom door.

Horses - One Interest Two Bents

Alina is 13 and Tiana will soon be 15 and somewhere around 8 years ago their mutual interest in horses became apparent.  Over the years I have provided them with riding lessons when we could afford it.  One year they volunteered to muck out stalls though they were not able to ride.  A little over a year ago their riding lessons were stopped due to my husband being laid off.   This was about the time I began to get re-involved with Lifestyle of Learning and I was hearing things relating to children “proving their interest.”   I had noticed that my girls interest in horses was focused mainly on taking lessons or being around them.  I had encouraged the girls to read books and try to learn more about horses to help them get more out of their lessons, yet they didn’t do that.  This caused me to wonder if they were really interested in horses or more interested in being provided something fun to do, if their interest in horses was based more on entertainment.  The idea of encouraging our kids to “prove their interests” was an answer to my concern.  I explained to the girls when we stopped the lessons they could continue their interest in horses through learning all they could through books from the library, etc. and I explained to them the principle of “proving their interest.” 

Initially I didn’t see much activity and wondered if this was my answer to my concerns about the horses being more of an entertainment for the girls.  Then all of a sudden I began to see different things happen in two different ways.  I didn’t know it at the time, but two bents for the same interest were beginning to be developed and would eventually be revealed to me.

Tiana ordered lots and lots of books from the library, and still does.  She looked through different horse magazines picking one to subscribe too.   She has been reading about the different types of horsemanship, reading about how horses think, and learning differences in breeds.  She has practiced drawing horses with pencil and on the computer, she has recorded breeds,  and has written short stories that include horses.  

Alina, on the other hand, wasn’t delving into the books so much, though she  enjoys  reading  stories about horses or that include horses.  She began to collect Schleich model horses and play with them.  Alina’s bent towards imagination was noticeable since she was very little, creating imaginary stories with various objects,  including toothbrushes, since she was a toddler.  At the time she began to collect the horse models and play with them I was just beginning in the Seven Seasons to LYFE pilot program.  I realized there would be benefit to letting her spend lots of time playing with them, and though I didn’t understand the “why” I chose to be okay with that.  Now that the program is in Season 6 the “why” is being revealed to me with each day.  Her interest in the horse models has led to many activities. She has been working on building a miniature barn with her daddy, she has built and continues to build many things with popsicle sticks like a tack room, a shower room, horse jumps, fences.  Just yesterday she completed a round pen and two more stalls.  She also has created many horse blankets, saddles from felt that looks like leather, and reigns from faux leather chord and supplies from her beading interest.  The collection didn’t stop at horses, but led to a smaller collection of dogs, cats, chickens and her most recent purchase a cow and calf.  She has built things for these animals to that include a chicken coop, a cat tree, cat food, dog houses, dog bones, etc.  She spends many hours playing, building and thinking about what to build next.  She has also ventured into movie making with her Schleich and has made slide show video chronicling her horses with their names, she made a stop motion video and recently made a full story that included video and pictures.  She explained to me one day how this is her way of learning, and gave me examples of things she has learned so far such as why saddles are designed the way they are, specifically how the western saddle came about, as she made reigns (looking up the designs) she learned the difference between western and English reigns, she has learned through the models themselves about the breeds she has collected.

It’s amazing to me how different these two bents look.  How one looks so huge with playful activity where the other is more academic and contained looking, yet the knowledge (fruit) is evident with both bents, especially when I sit down and talk with the girls about horses.  I think of how easy it would be to brush the value of these activities aside (particularly the play oriented ones) with a more schoolish mindset.  I am so thankful that I am learning to value my children’s natural bents, learning to nurture them and encourage them.  My children are thankful too.

Daniel's Bents Revealed in Games

In the Lifestyle of Learning pilot program for "Seven Seasons to LYFE" we have entered into "Season 6 – Liberate Your Child’s Uniqueness."  We have been observing our children and looking at their unique gifts, talents, interests, bents and dispositions up to this point.  We have been learning that there is "healthy play" which provides a vital foundation for children to develop a strong ability to self educate and "unhealthy play" which produces self focus and boredom in the child’s soul which leads to many problems.

This week we are focusing primarily on peculiar bents and dispositions in our children.  I have noticed that Daniel is developing a pattern of inventing games.

Several months ago he began to think about the LEGO board games that are in the stores.  He has never played one, so he went to the LEGO website and studied the information on the games that they offer.  It would be easy to look at this as silly, but he is learning to research through ths process.  From there he went through the process of discovery, asking himself, “What if I put this piece with that piece?” and entered into imagining what it would be like to use certain LEGO pieces together as part of a game.  From there he created a base model of his first game.  He brought his sister, Alina, into his imagination and creative process as they began to play the game that he had started.  Together they came up with new ideas, trying this and then trying that, challenging themselves to make the games more elaborate and fun.  The two of them then brought Tiana into this process with the game and the three of them began to ask “What if we this or added that?” and further modified the game.  They spent hours and hours playing what turned into three separate games that they had worked together in (1) discovery, (2) imagining, (3) creating, and (4) challenging themselves in.  They all had participated in the four elements of healthy play together.  The story isn’t finished as Daniel is now continuing on with this three-part game, turning it into one big game.  He is continuing in discovery, imagining, creating and challenging himself and will do so until he is ready to play the game again.  He is engaging in healthy play.

Recently I noticed that Daniel and Alina were playing a game with the die cast cars from the movie, "Cars." They were rolling dice, counting things, etc., it was very interesting.  Yesterday Daniel and Alina taught me to play the game.  It was a really fun game, and I am not saying that just because he is my son, though anything he does IS fun to me.  

When I began to ask Daniel questions I learned that he was playing with his "Cars" cars when he began the process of discovery, asking himself, “Which race car is best?”  He then began to imagine and create a race track, create actions that would happen when a player landed at each car, and create rules to the game.  Daniel then challenged himself by playing the game and making small modifications to make it more fun to play. Again, there is that healthy play.

 Daniel’s imagination led him to another area of learning as he desired to make a trophy for the winner of the game.  For the first time experienced Daniel making something with Polymer clay.  He began with discovery, asking what would happen if he pressed the polymer clay this way or rolled it that way.  He imagined that if he did things a certain way it would look a certain way then he began to create what he had imagined.  He found out that his ideas didn't quite work out the way he had imagined and had to challenge himself and, begin the process over again, asking what would happen if he did this or that just a little different.  It took a little trial and error for him to get the look he was hoping for.  He continued using all four of the elements until he was satisfied with the trophy and this is what he came up with.

This is Daniel's drawing of the layout of his game.  He sat down and drew this out before he put the game away the first time so that he wouldn't forget the lay out and what some of the pieces do when he puts the game together next time.  The next part of this project will be to write about it and keep a journal of his projects as they grow.

Some of the things I am learning about Daniel's bents and dispositions are that he enjoys playing quietly, either alone or with his sisters.  He is happy to do both.  He pursues his interests with imagination toward unique expression as well as copying other ideas to a point and then launching off of those things or things he has experienced.  When Daniel has created something, he enjoys using or playing with his creation just as much as going through the creative process.  He enjoys playing his games over and over as well as bringing others into the process of creating and playing with the final result.

I am so glad that play is such a vital part to education, it's something my children enjoy and LOVE to do.  They excel at it!

Books we are reading in Season 6 are Get to Know Your Children and WWOL Book 2 - The Unit-of-Life Learning Model

Tiana's Tree Photo's

Below are some pictures taken by Tiana.  She hasn't taken as big of an interest in photography as Sereina has, but does enjoy dabbling with it from time to time at this phase of her life.  I think she too has an eye for composition.  The bottom two pictures are my favorite of the four.

Gilligan Myth

My children enjoy watching Mythbusters and Gilligan's Island, so it's quite natural for them to have come up with a Gilligan's Island myth to test.  Below is what Tiana wrote about it:

Anyone who's seen Gilligan's Island should know this myth.  Can you really charge batteries with salt water, bobby pins, pennies, wire, and cocounts?  Well today my sister Alina and my brother Daniel decided to try it out!  This was really fun to do.  so go ahead and do it yourself!

All you need is:

Bobby Pins

 Wire

 Salt (and water)

 Pennies

 After you get everything together put the salt into bowls (or coconuts!)

Then you want to place the wire under the bobby pin, but make sure the wire is on top of the penny.

Then we used scotch tape to hold the wire on the battery. Be sure and tape the wire on both the top and the bottom of the battery.

 Next take chop sticks (or anything else you want) and stir the salt water. Keep stirring for awhile

If you want to know if it really works, here's a spoiler (but those of you who plan to do this yourself don't look until after you do it!) Myth Confirmed. In other words, it really works!


Have a great rest of your day everyone!

Lego Games and Teamwork

The sound coming from the other room was so enjoyable! I heard lots of silliness and giggling. When I went to see what the source of all the joyful sounds, I discovered my three youngest children sitting at the kitchen table playing a game I hadn’t seen before.

As I pressed in to find out what they were doing I discovered that they were playing a LEGO game. Daniel, my 9-year-old, had created three game boards with the LEGOs. The first had a volcano on it, the second an island and the third was a robot castle. The point of each game is to collect the fire crown from the top of the volcano, the emerald staff from the robot castle and the water sword from the island by spinning a wheel made out of Legos. This is done by moving the little peg-styled man the number of spaces indicated by the spinning wheel through various obstacles, pick up the item and bring it back to their original spot.

As I continued to listen I learned that Daniel came up with the game ideas and built the game boards. He invited his sisters, Tiana (14) and Alina (12) to play with him and they, over a period of time, helped him improve this and tweak that until they came up with the game I was seeing. I was so blessed by their ability to work and play together in a productive and enjoyable manner!

A few days later Alina and Daniel wrote up directions for the Volcano version of the game. Alina typed as they both brainstormed on how to word the instructions. When the instructions were done and printed out I sat and played all three games with Daniel.

I was so impressed with how much fun the games were to play! We came up with some modifications to their game directions and they are in the process of editing them.

In the meantime, Daniel is adding a 4th part to his game which involves a cave. As it turns out he has decided to combine all three games into one big game and will be adding the fourth, the cave, when it is done.

The creating and game playing and teamwork continues!

Tiana's Snood

Written by Tiana:


I crocheted a snood. For those of you who don't know what a 'snood' is, it's just another word for hair net. Snood's were very popular in the 1940's. I crocheted this one today with my own pattern that I made up while I was making it (just about everything I crochet it made that way!). One of my favorite things to do is crochet while listening to either music or an audio book. I was able to make this in just a few hours. I think it turned out pretty good!

Tiana's Photography and Collections

Written by Tiana:

I want to show you all the stuff I found when my mom and I went out garage selling. Just so you know, there are a lot of pictures!

I got the entire Anne of Green Gables series!

This Luggage set my mom bought for me. It's so cute!

I've been needing a book bag for so long, and now I have this one! I love how it has horses on it!

I got this vintage suitcase for only a couple a dollars. I love anything vintage.

Here's the inside. The top flips down for more storage.

I've been looking at shirts similar to this one at Fred Meyer but they were always so expensive, so I was so happy when I found this shirt for one dollar!

I love these shoes!

I love these ones as well!

I found this soft yarn and had to buy it! I think it will make a great scarf cowl.

This is all of my stuff together!

Chicken Collage

Written by Tiana:

A while back I found this site called Pugly Pixle with all kinds of Photoshop tutorials. I did a few of her tutorials before I came across on for a staple, which I did. While doing the tutorial I learned a few techniques and other things. Thus resulting in this, um, poster thing of our chickens. I made everything in the picture from scratch in Photoshop.

Tiana's Renaissance-ish Hair Tutorial

Tiana enjoys doing new things with her hair and is often looking at tutorials and has gotten books from the library on hair styles.  This is a tutorial that Tiana made for her "Renaissance-ish Hair Tutorial.

Alina's Beading Process

Several months ago I could see that Alina, my 12 year old, was resisting working through a project that was not turning out the way she wanted it to and her countenance was down.  I learned that I needed to purposefully encourage my children to be willing to persist, and I told her that many things in her life will take practice in order to turn out the way she wants them.  I explained to her that every time she makes a mistake she learns and if she isn’t willing to make mistakes she isn’t allowing her learning process to happen.  I encouraged her to be thankful for mistakes as they give her opportunities to develop perseverance. 

About a year ago Alina thought she would give beading a try.  She has a good eye for design and after Sereina, her oldest sister who had dabbled in beading, gave her a few pointers, she made a few necklaces and earrings, but didn’t pursue learning any more about beading.  I noticed that she came to a point of setting aside the beading until fairly recently.  Nearly a month ago, I noticed Alina was all spread out with her beading supplies and busy for several hours.  She eventually came to me to show me her finished project.  All on her own she came up with the idea to make something new and found an online tutorial for making beaded flowers.  She explained to me the process that she went through, encountering problems such as having the wrong type of beads, the wire breaking just as she finished one flower, and having the wrong size of bead which required a need to improvise.

 As she explained her process to me I helped her see how her education was being worked out in this project with each problem she encountered.  She beamed and smiled ear to ear.  She went on to create a modified flower that she shaped and added wiring to look like a butterfly.  She then came up with smaller flowers, making two of each and turning them into earring sets.  This process had given her confidence and the idea to make a dragonfly for her brother’s birthday, since he has an interest in them.  She found a tutorial and once she was finished, she was so amazed that she was able to make something so beautiful and then made two more, giving two to Daniel and keeping one for herself.

As we talked more about all her mistakes and how she persevered, I explained that her character is being formed through this project and others that she works hard like this on.  When I asked her for more details for this blog post, she told me that in the past she had challenges with crocheting and drawing.  When her projects didn’t turn out right she would get mad and quit, believing she would never get it right.  Alina now realizes she should not have quit.  She told me that when she faced her beading project, she saw how cool it looked in the tutorial and was determined to get it right no matter how many times she had to redo it.  She told me that she use to want things to turn out right on the first try and, since that hardly ever happened, she was discouraged, but now she has learned better and is willing to give crocheting and drawing another try.  Alina now knows that she can use this same determination in any project she approaches.