It may not have been much...

...but, you know how exciting that first snowfall is!!

Here are some photos from our Nature time.

 It was coming down in huge wet flakes.

That tasted really good.

We were all bundled up for fun.

And a little bit of school too.

(we never get tired of looking at snowflakes under a magnifying lens)

Goodbye strawberry bed.

Hello pretty snow.

They pulled out their pretend box houses and made a Wendys drive thru.

Can I have your order please?

And snow always puts you in the mood to decorate with Christmas lights!

This year has been a tough year for our family.  And from listening and talking around, seems this is a common thread among many, many families.  Each in their own ways have been struggling more than usual throughout the last year.  Perhaps it's the poor economy, perhaps it's the stress of changing times, or perhaps it's that the enemy is on the move.  Oh, there is no doubt that something is going on.  This has been troubling my heart, weighing upon it for quite some time now.  I've heard far too many stories of good Christian families being poked at, tormented, and even torn asunder.  I've spent many nights laying in bed tossing and turning thinking and praying about it all into the morning hours.

My blog tends to be a place that I mostly choose for joyful, pleasant thoughts; focusing the the happy things going on in our lives.  However, sometimes it's necessary to call it what it is....and that's HARD.  Sometimes, it calls for a "call for intense prayer"; for the prayer warriors to put on their full armor and courageously go into battle.

There is a family in our church who has a son who was severely injured in the war this past year.  This soldier has spent the last several months in a hospital enduring a long and VERY painful recovery.  Praise the Lord, he is recovering step by step.  He recently told a family member what his desires were...he wants to remain in the Army.  This is a warrior who isn't afraid to stand on God's promises and fight the battle, at all costs.  He believes in the mission.

We are fighting a different kind of battle, one that requires untraditional weapons, two of which are extreme passion and unrelenting prayer.  It requires a lot of courage to stand and fight this kind of war too.  It requires a passion for the mission.  For the enemy will attack back with just as much fervor and intensity, and these times are used to strengthen our character and faith in our Lord.  For we know the Truth, the war has already been won, and God is everlasting, the battles will only last so long.

And if we endure these difficult times, putting on His armor, fighting with passion, covering it with a constant blanket of prayer, in due time there shall be rejoicing heard all around the earth.

Could I be so bold as to ask you for your vote? My blog has been nominated for the "Best Homeschooling Methods Blog"!  The prizes are pretty great and I'd love to win! SO, if you think my blog is worthy and you like what I do here, click on the button below, then on the side bar click on the VOTE button, scroll down and click on #24 "Best Homeschooling Methods Blog", and vote for "In the Sparrows Nest"!   THANKS so much!!

"The crocus, like the snowdrop, cannot wait for the snow to be off the ground

before it pushes up it's gay blossoms, and it has thus earned the gratitude

of those who are winter weary."

~ Anna Botsford Comstock, Handbook of Nature Study

Just as Autumn is taking it's last breaths, and as the artic air is beginning to settle in for the Winter, our thoughts are already turning towards Spring.  Why you ask?  Because we have been planting Crocus!

While I love all the changes of seasons, and Winter has it's place in my heart too, by the time Winter is drawing to a close, I'm longing for Spring.  And the Crocus is one of the first flowers to bloom at the end of Winter, even being known to bloom in the snow.

Yes, their promise of Spring to come is priceless to me and my family at that time of year.

So, recently on one of our last warm days, we set about planting Crocus bulbs all around our backyard.

All ages can be involved in this, and it opens up great opportunities for discussions on the seasons and why the bulbs will not grow until the first of Spring.  And why I see them as a promise from God that warmer weather will return.  And there's always hope.

Last Spring we did a study on the Crocus, you can find that lesson HERE.

About a week and a half ago I posted an entry entitled A Divine Duty.  I thought this video was a great compliment to that post.  For I know first hand that upholding this Divine Duty is not for the faint hearted.  Whether we are becoming overwhelmed in the struggle with our children, our husbands, or our family life in general, this is a great reminder of why we do what we do.  We do not work for them, we work for Him.

What a beautiful Autumn day we've had today!!  Sunny and temps in the low 70's made for a great day to take a Nature walk and bring a little Math into Nature and Autumn.   Using a form I found from a fabulous resource, The Busy Life of a Leaf, I had the kids go on a Nature walk and collect information on the colors of the leaves on the trees.

For each color they placed a tally mark on their sheet and then bar graphed them when they were finished.

Hannah had her friend Grace join in with her on the hunt!  They found that yellow and green were the most popular colors of leaves.

Tomorrow I plan to have them try to convert the bar graph into a colorful pie chart.  And by my friend Jennifer's suggestion, I'll first have them try to guess what the pie chart would look like and draw it on their own.  And then teach them how to input the data into Microsoft Excel to make a pie chart, and compare to see just how close they got it!

"We have considered the wisdom and duty of 'a wise passiveness,' 'a masterly inactivity,' in the bringing up of children. It remains to glance in detail at the various points in a child's life, where this principle should govern us. And, first, as regards children's play. There is a little danger in these days of much educational effort that children's play should be crowded out, or, what is from our present point of view the same thing, should be prescribed for and arranged until there is no more freedom of choice about play than that about work." - Charlotte Mason, Vol. 3, pg. 36

Why is it that we feel guilty if we allow our children to play with Legos instead of doing their structured schoolwork for a day?  Why is it that we feel we have to rush to and fro from activity to activity every day, never having a moment to just relax and play.  Because I have found that when this time is allowed, amazing things happen....like...

Daytime highs in the 40's get you in the mood to cozy up by the warm fire with a hot cup of tea.  We just celebrated having our first fire of the season.  I say celebrate because the kids always see it as that, they get so excited!  I suppose it's the simple things really.