This year we are toning down on Christmas even more. For the last few years we have minimised on the commercial aspects of the Season and we never did the santa thing (though we've taught DD about St Nicholas) anyway.
For the past two years we have followed the Season of the Year and matched our homeschooling and lifestyle activities to them. Down here on the South Coast we get four definite Seasons which makes it easy really.
So, as Spring is coming to an end I've pulled out our books, Seven Times the Sun by Shea Darian and Earthwise by Carol Petrash, which I picked up from http://www.spiralgarden.com.au I also find Sunwyse by Roxanne T. Bodsworth and Circle Round by Starhawk, Diane Baker and Ann Hill, useful resources.
For us Summer is about the beach, harvesting stonefruit and berries, eating and playing with friends and family. We get clear sunny days and spend most of our daylight hours outside in the garden.
We will collect shells, flowers and interesting rocks for our Seasonal Table. We have already planted a heap of seeds, which we will watch grow to maturity, including sunflowers of course. The image of Summer.
We made a batch of strawberry jam yesterday and preserving and drying will continue right through to Autumn.
DragonGirl would like to try some basket weaving and make a wigwam. I would like to make a wreath woven with grasses and vines from the yard and decorated with flowers and ribbons. And we'll get the clay out and make some Sun images.
We've picked a tree to decorate out in the yard and we'll make the decorations from things we find over the next couple of weeks. I thought we might try again for the Garden Party and perhaps decorating the tree would be a good activity for the kids to do.
