September 2014 - Page 2 of 5 - A Brave Writer's Life in Brief A Brave Writer's Life in Brief
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A Brave Writer's Life in Brief

Thoughts from my home to yours

Archive for September, 2014

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Our “One Thing” Brave Writer Day

Brave Writer One Thing Day

Hi Julie-

I just had to share the glowing success of our “One Thing” Brave Writer day to thank you for the inspiration. I also wanted to encourage other homeschool moms to “go for it” and not put off trying it. It’s really not that hard and the rewards you will reap far outweigh anything I could have dreamed.

Inspired by re-listening to your podcast about “One Thing” and also your blog post from August 27 (blog roundup where the family did a day of working on mysteries), I created a Mystery Day for us.

I had been wanting to do this for a long time, but somehow it all clicked after hearing the podcast. I prepared (looked up some references about elements of mysteries, which really took no time at all), chose a day (today Friday, September 5), then told my children a few days ago to keep myself accountable. We are starting back to homeschooling next week, and I thought this would be a great way to start the year off right!

I made our day workshop style. All my children were included, from my 19 year old homeschool graduate who starts a Physical Therapy Assistant program later this month, 17 year old daughter who is a senior, 15 year old special needs (Asperger’s/ADHD) son, 10 year old daughter, 7 year old son and 4 year old son.

Our One Thing Mystery Day

I got out our large dry erase board and colored markers and we brainstormed about the essential elements that can or should be in a mystery, we talked about favorite mysteries we had read, watched (don’t forget Blue’s Clues for the younger crowd) or listened to (such as some from Adventures in Odyssey). An important thing to note is that mysteries do not have to involve foul play or actual crime (we don’t read or watch those).

Then I set the timer and everyone wrote for 10 minutes to come up with some ideas for protagonists, whether amateur or professional detectives. I did the “jotting down” for my 7 year old, and he wrote a whole story! My special needs son he found his niche by “jotting down”and typing out my 4 year old’s stories, since it was too stressful for him to come up with something of his own. We reconvened then discussed what we came up with. Then I set the timer again for 20 minutes to try to come up with a plot, working backwards from the resolution.

The rest of the day was spent by my children in avidly working on their stories. None of them are completed yet, and that’s okay. They have been inspired and this has gotten their creative juices flowing. We even talked about how, many years ago, when the older children were young, I started writing my own mystery story (they were amazed)…someday when they are all grown, I just might finish it!

Final Thoughts

The One Thing principle has energized the atmosphere in our home, especially for me as a veteran (15th year) homeschooler. This is something so bonding and encouraging about working together on a project like this that I’ve been meaning to do, but never got around to.

This was so successful that I plan to do a full month’s focus on mysteries, reading them, talking about them, watching them. Everyone is thrilled.

And I definitely want to plan for a One Thing Day each month!

Blessings,
Nanci


Brave Learner Home

Posted in Email, One Thing | 1 Comment »

Poetry Teatime: Homemade butter and cinnamon toast

Poetry Teatime

Today was our first Poetry Teatime. I didn’t know how my children would like a “formal” teatime, but they loved it. They raced to help me set the table (something they don’t do for a normal mealtime). We used my grandmother’s battenburg lace tablecloth and her silver. We had fancy store-bought cookies and homemade butter (which we’d made for a history/science lesson this afternoon) for cinnamon toast.

For our poetry, I chose to read some of Lewis Carroll’s silly poetry. My son, 7, who is a beginning reader, asked me to read “The Sneetches.” My daughter, 10, picked out a poem from A Child’s Garden of Verses, but she didn’t want to read it aloud. As this was supposed to be a pleasant experience and not a lesson in “do it because I said so,” I told her she didn’t have to.

Both kids were excited to find out I want to do this every week. And maybe my daughter will become more comfortable with the idea of reading aloud.

Thank you for introducing our family to Poetry Teatime!

Andrea

P.S. Instructions for making homemade butter:

We let 1 cup of heavy whipping cream sit at room temperature for a little while, then we put it in a glass jar with a tight fitting lid. The kids took turns shaking it for about 10 minutes (making sure they had a good grip on the jar!). We noticed it got really thick and we couldn’t hear it sloshing anymore. Then we started to see butter granules on the sides of the jar and, all of a sudden, there it was! A lump of butter floating in the buttermilk! We poured it into a (non-metal) bowl, then poured off the buttermilk. We worked the butter with a wooden spoon (metal makes the butter taste funny) under cold water, until the water ran clear (it takes a little while). Any milk left will turn the butter rancid. We worked some salt in to help preserve it. By the way, shaking the cream breaks the protein casing on the fat, allowing it to form a lump, i.e. butter!

Image (cc)

Visit our Poetry Teatime website!

Posted in Poetry Teatime | 1 Comment »

Purchase the Arrow and Boomerang novels

Arrows 2014-15 Original

You can now buy the novels for the 2014-15 Arrows and Boomerangs at our new

Amazon store!

Nitty Gritty Grammar and Winston Grammar are available, as well.

When you purchase anything through our page it benefits Brave Writer at no extra cost to you.

Thank you for your support and happy reading!

Posted in Arrow, Boomerang | 1 Comment »

Inhabit your happiness

Julie Flowers - surprise of happy quote

A strange thing happened to me. Two of my adult kids shared essentially the same thought with me. Liam shared that he appreciates college and that he has to remind himself to “inhabit this happiness” rather than continuing to feel as though he is still working to arrive somewhere happier. He’s arrived. Time to be happy.

Then just this morning Johannah talked about how she’s considering the truth of the idea that there is no other moment to get to. What we need to feel content exists already within us. What prevents us from feeling the happiness is our belief that there is some other space to go to before we can allow ourselves the feeling of contentment.

I was struck by the similarity of these ideas. We all have objectives and goals. We all want to see evidence of growth in our children. We are looking for signs of happiness and beauty in our children.

What if today we simply chose to be glad about where we all are? What if it were okay to not know the times tables and to have to do visual processing therapies with the middle child and to skip naps and to make sandwiches for dinner?

What if we could exercise the “happy muscle” for a few minutes today? Not gratitude necessarily (though gratitude can be a good place to start). More like this:

“I’m going to choose to find genuine happiness in a moment today. I’m going to let that moment surprise me. I am hereby on alert for a surprise of happy.”

During the darkest year of my life, this is one of the ways I got through each day. I couldn’t feel happy, but I chose to stay open to a surprise of happy and then to inhabit it, even for a moment.

Let me know how it goes for you!

Cross-posted on facebook.

Posted in Julie's Life | 2 Comments »

Friday Freewrite: Airborne

Jumping Jack

What happens next?

Image by Wayne Silver (cc)

New to freewriting? Check out our online guide.

Posted in Friday Freewrite | Comments Off on Friday Freewrite: Airborne

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