Wakefield Walks: A quick glance

Moments ago we discovered more wildlife from the safety of our home. Z came clamoring out of his bedroom, I assumed there was so misguided insect lost in his room.

He cries out, "Mom, Mom, I just saw a fox run past by bedroom window."

Sure enough we look outside and we got a quick glimpse of a red fox running back into the woods across the street. He was gorgeous and I wish he had slowed down so I could get a photo. He was hasty however.

I wonder if that is what Tigger heard the other night, sure beats an alligator. The woods across the street are hunting grounds, but the woods beside our house are not, so perhaps he was seeking safety on our property.

That has been the coolest thing to happen all day.

Wakefield Walks: Wear Your Shoes for This One

Our yard is a never ending adventure of nature. Last week Tigger swore he heard something tromping through the woods. No man can get into the thicket of our side yard so he created a hypothesis that perhaps an alligator was wandering around in there. YIKES!

There was been two alligator sightings in our neighborhood that I know about. One was at the way other end of the circle, near the river, and said alligator was simply sitting on the side of the road. This is the reason I don't walk before the sun has risen. The other incident happened just prior to us moving here. Our next door neighbor woke up to a five foot alligator in their driveway. DOUBLE YIKES!

So we know they are around here and honestly I don't worry too much. So Z and I decided to go out and scope the yard to see if we could see any evidence of the beast. It was daylight and since it was still eighty degrees we slipped on our flip flops. I do not recommend flip flops in the woods generally. I told Z if we spotted anything kick off the flip flops and run. Sage advice from the woman trying to keep her flip flops from sliding off my feet.

We didn't find an alligator but we did find this....



a snake skin. It had been there for a few days at least since pine needles had dropped on top of it. Like a good nature study mommy I picked it up and we brought it inside. Z was a little hesitant to touch it, I thought it was cool.


It was three feet long, which means the snake is now bigger than three feet. Maybe we should switch to closed toe shoes for wandering outside. I also decided we should keep the snake skin, so it is now enclosed in a nice container.

We have not identified the snake, but it is possible it was a rattlesnake. Let's hope he stays in the thickest part of the woods.

Wow, an Award! I am blushing.

My good blogging buddy,Mom #1, thought I deserved this fabulous award. She is the best encourager and leaves wonderful little notes sprinkled throughout my blog. I love getting awards, because you know gifts is my love language.


“This blog invests and believes, in ‘proximity’ [meaning, that blogging makes us 'close' - being close through proxy] "They are all charming blogs, and the majority of them aim to show the marvels of friendship; there are persons who are not interested when we give them a prize, and then they help to cut these bows; do we want that they are cut, or that they propagate?" Then let’s try to give more attention to them!

So with this prize we must deliver it to eight bloggers that in turn must make the same thing and put this text.”

I hereby nominate my blogging buddies: The Ridge School, CuppaDangie, The Other White House, Gardenschooler, H.S. Burrow, Rockermom, Parabola, and Genie. These ladies have seen me on my good days and my bad days and they will still chat with me. :)

The Best of Times

Today was one of those days in school. No, not one of those bad ones, the good ones. The ones you relish and relive.

Z got up late this morning because he stayed up late watching a movie with his dad. I let him sleep. We started school an hour later and took a long lunch hour too. We also finished about an hour later than normal. Quite by surprise I got a hug at the end of the day. I said, "You're a really good student." (which is the truth). He replied, "You're the best teacher." Makes a mother want to cry.

Then instead of plopping down in front of the TV he went outside by himself to play basketball.

I have always made a conscious decision to appreciate each stage of Z's growth. Today I'm really liking eleven.

Happy Anniversary, Baby!

My life sixteen years ago on this date. It was all about the fuchsia and black.


My life a few months ago and today. Has it been sixteen years already? Remember those vows most people say at their wedding? The ones about sickness, health, richer, and poorer? We've been through it all.

Here's a beautiful song that describes marriage just as it is to me. Happy Anniversary, Tigger. I love you.

Warren Barfield's "Love is not a fight" Click for the video.

Wordless Wednesday: Texture

Wakefield Walks: Bringing the outdoors inside

Here is the Professor sampling water from an Elephants Ear plant. It was amazing to see the crystal clear water in the leaf.

We opted to bring some of our nature inside. We were inspired by our friends at Cuppa Dangie. Ours is not quite as decorative and we decided to forgo the table and use the hall bathroom counter. As you can see the natural elements really set off the vintage harvest gold countertop. Besides, a table Z would walk by and never look at. At least in the bathroom it will be seen on a daily basis. We added a pine scented candle, some more rustic candlesticks and made a fall theme for this season.
These pods came off of Magnolia trees, you can see one still has the red seed in place.

Tigger does most of the yardwork. We picked up branches for at least a week after hurricane Ike so we are truly a little sick and tired of pine tree debris at this point. I was not surprised when he saw our display and asked, "Why are there pine cones and dead pine needles in my bathroom?"

"It's for school, sweetie."

"Oh, okay." then I got the look.

Why we don't do Lapbooks

I have downloaded some of the freebie ones. I quickly looked through them and realized it would be a waste of our time. This is how part of the conversation would play should we be forced into completing one.

MOM: We are going to do a lapbook.
Z: Why? Do I have to do it on my lap?
MOM: No, it's just a name. It's like a scrapbook for what we are studying.
Z: What are we studying?
MOM: ___________ (fill in the blank)
Z: Can we do one on Pokemon instead?
MOM: No!
Z: Why?
MOM: Would you please cut out these things?
Z: Can you do it, I can't cut the straight lines very well.
MOM: Now we are going to fold the paper
Z: (folds paper) Look, I made a paper airplane.
MOM: We are not studying aviation today. (smiling through gritted teeth)
Z: Can we? Why don't we fly anywhere anymore?
MOM: It's easier to drive most places now. Would you please glue these pictures now.
Z: Should I use the regular glue or the glue stick?
MOM: Either will be fine. (watches as Z now spreads a gallon of glue on each picture)
Z: Can I color his face? (he grins pointing to a picture of some historical figure)
MOM: No.
Z: Is this supposed to go this way?
MOM: Let me look at the instructions.
Z: (zooming sounds are heard as he is now flying his paper airplane around the room)
MOM: Would you focus please.
Z: What? I'm just trying to have some fun?
MOM: This is supposed to be fun! (again through gritted teeth)
Z: I'd rather play with my airplane. Look I accidentally glued my fingers together?
MOM: Would you sit down and finish please.
Z: How much longer until break?
MOM: Once we are finished here.
Z: (now glues one final picture) there done.
MOM: Can you tell me about what we've just studied? (trying to be serious now)
Z: (spouts a few brief sentences about lapbook) Are we done now?
MOM: Yes, after you help me clean up.
Z: Ah, can't you do that, I want to play with my plane.
MOM: (slams head on table, hair landing in the scraps of paper covered in glue. Lifts head now has paper hanging from hair)
Z: Nice hairdo, Mom.

That is why we don't do lapbooks.

Elvis is Alive and Well!

He comes out during our math class. The pained expression of thinking that Z makes while trying to figure each and every step to our problems looks very much like an Elvis sneer. Of course telling him that only brought out more impressions. (rolling eyes)

He kept saying "Take a picture of me." sneer. He quit asking when I threatened to post it here.

I am happy to report that Z has now crossed the first bridge in "Life of Fred: Fractions. " Elvis impressions and all.

Thank you, thank you very much. :)

My Professor, the Language Expert

After discovering that Latin is the root for the romance languages, Z has now stated he wants to learn them all. We've had some Spanish, a tiny bit of French, but none of the others that Latin for Children lists as romance language, Italian, Romanian, and Portugese.

He wants to continue Greek as well, it still at the "fun" stage in the decoding.

So today we discussed his level of interest. I told him that if he were still interested we would start with Spanish toward the end of the school year and continue with it over the summer. I had four years of it in school so it would be fun for me to revive my skills as well.

Besides it is fun to learn a language that Tigger doesn't know, we can talk "code" around him.

Wakefield Walks: The Mystery of the Mailbox

This week as we walked we worked to discover THE MYSTERY OF THE MAILBOX. For months we have periodically discovered a little tree frog in our mailbox. We don't know if there are few or many who enjoy the habitat over our mailbox. There are at least two we can tell from the markings. He is in there at least two to three times per week. A metal mailbox in the heat of Louisiana is dangerous to anything living. It can turn into more of an oven, ugh what a thought. So each time Mr. Frog is in the mailbox we remove him, carry him across our street and place him on some foliage by our ditch. Our ditch is overgrown with all sorts of foliage.

Yesterday we discovered how Mr. Frog is getting in the mailbox. Z thought it was a conspiracy from the postal service, free frog with every delivery. Not so mysterious, there is a gap under the bottom on the door. When it is closed a frog could easily creep inside. I wonder if he will be in there today?

We also discovered some vine type flowers in our forest overgrowth. Part of our yard is so thick with undergrowth you can not venture inside. It's a work in progress to remove it all, and progress has been s-l-o-w. We believe these to be some type of Clematis, but can not pinpoint the correct type.


The soft puffy part of the blow feels like birds feathers. It also helped to realize what I have seen blowing around the yard this week. Riding on the wind they look like tiny clouds floating along. My first thought was I wonder if my dog is allergic to these too? She has more allergies than us, poor dog.

Our walk was a nice break in the day. We plan on keeping an eye on the flowers to see how they bloom.

Redecorating for Fall

I have updated for fall. Thanks to Angie for the idea to use the pine cone photo for a fall theme.

I have also updated our photos. You only get half of me for now (grin). It's amazing to see how much Z is starting to look like Tigger. They walk the same and have the same mannerisms, it's creepy sometimes. Gives a whole new meaning to them walking in your footsteps.

I was also a little sad looking at our beach photos every time I logged on. We still aren't sure how our little beach fared during hurricane Ike. I know there are plenty of people who have more important things to concern themselves with than if their favorite "happy spot" survived the storm.

May fall bring colors into your life that make you cheerful and happy.

The Science Saga Continues

I thought I had chemistry figured out, well that is what I get for thinking! I looked through the physical science book referenced in the below post and realized it was quite boring. It's a textbook, duh, which makes it very textbook like.

Z loves science, would do it every day, wants experiments every week, and looked at me strangely when I told him we were going to switch books again.

I'm in research mode again. I found one book to try, the first chapter is available free online. I printed it off and we are going to go through it today. I'll not list the name yet, until I've determined that is going to be "The One".

Tigger gave me the look when I told him I needed some more money to order more curriculum. He has not seen my amazon shopping cart. Unfortunately amazon does not carry this book or I could order it without a credit card. Coinstar does amazon gift certificates, did you know that? It's awesome!

So I'm hoping that after this go round with chemistry I'll have everything settled for the year. Because you know six weeks into the school year is the perfect time to start planning for the next one, two, or seven in our case.

Week Six and a Few Modifications

We had an amazing eleven days off of school due to hurricanes. Hopefully they are over for the season. Our thoughts and prayers are with those who were deeply affected by the storms.

So due to the interruption of nature we only on week six of school. We have modified a two subjects already and I feel that is all we shall need to do. Our core subjects of Latin, composition, and math are working splendidly. I posted a review of LFC below. We are using Classical Writing Aesop B for composition and Singapore's Primary Math 4 for math. I shall give my reviews for those products in upcoming posts.

The two subjects we have tweaked are religion and science. For religion we had been doing an Old Testament study that is recommended by LCC for 6th grade. One reason we chose to do that was we plan on utilizing the 5th grade recommendations next year to align with our history studies. We started using MOH (Mystery of History) 1 this year for history and it is full of biblical history as well. It created too much redundancy between religion and history. I also feel Z was not fully engaged in the subject. It may be that he has heard these stories so many times, and is not yet at a level to study them in depth. In layman's terms, he was bored.

We opted to switch to Memoria Press Christian Studies 3. I was biting my nails over asking Tigger for more money for school when I found it used for less than half price. Divine Intervention?? We started today and I already feel it is a better fit. We have previously spent a lot of time in the Old Testament but not so much on the life of Christ.

The other subject we tweaked was science. We had started on God's Design for Chemistry this year. I felt the material was too basic and short for my science-oriented Z. He's not called the Professor for nothing. I opted to change to Prentice Hall Physical Science. This is technically a middle school book, one I found at a great deal too. We plan on utilizing the chemistry only portion of the book. I may keep the God's Design to add in some experiments. We also have Van Cleave's chemistry experiment book. We will take it slowly and tweak as necessary but he totally understands the concepts we have covered in the last two weeks.

I am pleased to say that our LCC schedule is the greatest thing this year. I don't feel the stress about jumping from subject to subject. I only wish I had discovered this way sooner. But I guess it is never too late.