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Kara S. Anderson

Homeschool connection, not perfection.

A Poem for Peter and The Snowy Day: A Gentle Winter Unit Study

by Kara S. Anderson 1 Comment

On a winter day 12 years ago, I sat curled with my children on the couch, reading the Caldecott-award-winning book The Snowy Day.

We loved the simple yet impactful illustrations, the charming text, and yet – as an adult, I felt that I was holding something much more complicated.

I looked at the publication date – 1962. Ahhh.

***

It was a few years ago now that I first read Andrea Davis Pinkney’s A Poem for Peter with tears in my eyes. She had put Keats’ amazing story into beautiful, lyrical text.

Keats was born Jacob (Jack) Ezra Katz in New York City in 1916 to Polish immigrant parents who had fled to America for a better, safer life.

As a boy, Keats witnessed poverty, (even before The Depression), racism, and discrimination. But he also witnessed the beauty of so many cultures in his East New York hometown.

An artist’s dream

Keats dreamt of becoming a real artist, even though it seemed almost impossible.

In fact, Keats, who was Jewish, changed his name in order to get a job.

When his almost impossible dream came true, and he had the opportunity to write and illustrate a children’s book on his own, he made the main character a young black boy.

The Snowy Day went on to win a Caldecott award, and Keats would write 6 more books about Peter and Peter’s world – an urban city. At a time when so many children weren’t seeing themselves or their world reflected in stories, Keats was willing to risk his work being rejected, just so young boys and girls could see themselves and their lives in the pages of a book.

I knew none of this when I first met Peter with my kids 12 years ago, but A Poem for Peter brings the story alive through poetry and collage.

For a long time, I’ve wanted to create a gentle unit study around these two books, and of course Keats’ remarkable story.

 

Begin with books

And now it’s ready!

My A Poem for Peter/The Snowy Day Gentle Unit Study is a 12-page guide for learning about these two beautiful books together.

It includes ideas for art projects, history, geography and even a little math.

This truly is an all-ages unit study, but some parts will work best for older children and some parts will appeal to younger kids. I think our recipe for Snowy Day cookies and instructions for a hot chocolate bar will appeal to most, though!

I’ve also included lots of book recommendations.

My own Snowy Day kiddos in 2013.

Spread a feast

The idea of this Gentle Unit Study Guide is to spread a feast of ideas to your children, while also helping them grow in empathy and understanding.

These books will help you discuss discrimination and history and have good conversations about big issues.

If your kids aren’t quite ready for that, it’s OK. I still think these two beautiful books have so much to offer, especially when you read them together while enjoying steaming mugs of cocoa.

Get your GUS Guide

For the month of January, you can purchase my A Poem For Peter/The Snowy Day Gentle Unit Study Guide for just $3.99.

The guide will lead you through several days of learning about Ezra and Peter together. With the included book recommendations, you could find yourself heading down rabbit trails that last a month or more.

Truthfully, I just hope that you’ll read A Poem for Peter and The Snowy Day with your children.

These books carry important messages even today.

I think your kids will love them both and learn so much. So I hope you’ll grab my guide and create warm memories together this winter.

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Product notes: This is a digital product. You will not received any printed materials.
Due to the digital nature of this product, returns are not available.

The Enneagram through pop-culture glasses

by Kara S. Anderson 2 Comments

I am currently sitting on my bed, surrounded by Enneagram books.

I’m especially drawn to this one, which feels like it might hold universal secrets. It has to hold something, because it’s 15 lbs.

The Enneagram absolutely fascinates me. I am a sensitive soul – and when people are mean, or loud or sneaky or bossy, my instinct is to crawl into a ball while they kick me.

But the Enneagram – I’m convinced it’s some medieval magic that helps me understand why people are the way they are.

The mistake, of course, is typing people – this book will tell you that’s a rookie error …

And yet, just being aware that we’re all wired a little differently is helpful.

I’d like to note upfront that I am not an Enneagram expert. But I’m fascinated by it.

I drag this around in the car like a security blanket, anxious to check in when there’s a line at the bank, or a long wait at the orthodontist.

But I have to say what has been helping me wrap my head around the Enneagram most is looking at it though the lens of some of my favorite shows – The Office and Parks and Recreation.

TV characters are naturally exaggerated, of course. But that helps when you are looking for clues that are so much harder to detect in actual people.

And …

So I give you:

The Enneagram for Beginners Who Also Like Pop Culture

 

Enneagram 1 – The Reformer

How I picture Ones in my head:

Ben Wyatt

Ones sense right and wrong, are ethical and want the world to be a little more orderly than it actually is.

Take our friend Ben, who wants simple courtesy like being notified that his roommates are throwing a giant Halloween party ahead of time. (With “blooood orphaaans.”)

It’s not a coincidence that what Ben gets on Treat Yo’ Self Day is a full Batman costume, because 1s like justice.

When Ben gets stressed, he can get a little perfectionistic and rigid.

But he’s so cute, we forgive him, right?

I also believe Angela from The Office is probably a 1. But a really unhealthy 1, whereas Ben starts out judgy and unyielding and then finds his center (only to lose it temporarily to claymation, calzones and Cones of Dunshire).

Enneagram 2 – The Helper

How I picture Twos in my head:

Pamela Beesly-Halpert

Pam puts out candy every day and just wants everyone to be happy. That includes her fiancé Roy, who takes advantage of her and does not appreciate her at all. (Remember the video iPod/sweater Christmas?)

Pam eventually realizes she is meant to be with Jim, but it takes so much for her to advocate for herself – she doesn’t want anyone to be mad or inconvenienced by her wants or needs.

She literally needs to walk across hot coals to finally get brave enough to share her feelings.

But Pam can be assertive and she wants others to be better. Remember when she tried to help everyone with their New Year’s resolutions? And how she’s constantly trying to get Kelly to run away from Ryan (instead of running away with Ryan. Ugh. Oh Kelly. Is Kelly a 3? Discuss.)

Erin is very well also a 2.

Enneagram 3 – The Achiever

How I picture Threes in my head:

Tom Haverford

Always striving, Tom is an idea man. He is never down for long, and seems to reinvent himself easily.

Tom’s a charmer, but sometimes he gets so caught up in becoming a mogul, that he takes his friends for granted. Other times, he harnesses his charm to help his friends, though, like when he gets sponsors for the Harvest Festival by hanging out with a bunch of old dudes in a steamroom.

When Tom’s business with Jean-Ralphio goes bankrupt, he initially refuses to take back his old job at the parks department. But Tom grows over time and realizes that his friends are at least as important as fame.

Question: Is Michael Scott a 3? He’s certainly a performer.

Enneagram 4 – The Individualist

How I picture Fours in my head:

April Ludgate Macklin Karate Dwyer

April hates everything, right?

Except animals. And Andy.

And, well, Ron and Leslie, and usually Tom and Donna and Ben and Chris.

So basically April hates Jerry (doesn’t everyone) and Ann, but she only hates Ann because Ann used to date Andy, and really she kind of loves Ann secretly, and is even occasionally nice to Jerry.

This sums up Fours for me. Fours don’t hate everything, but they can be moody and a little melancholy. It’s just because they feel different.

But the “different” gives them ideas no one else would think of. Fours are creative. I mean, who helped save all the animals when the shelter closed down? That’s right. April Ludgate Macklin Karate Dwyer.

Let’s talk unhealthy 4s – Ryan??

Enneagram 5 – The Investigator

How I picture Fives in my head:

Ron Swanson

Someone who first met Ron would think he didn’t allow himself to have deep feelings about much of anything. That’s not true at all, of course – he enjoys wood working, meat and brown alcohol.

But Ron doesn’t want people to know that he has deep pursuits – he wants to keep things private, including his past marital exploits, his birthday and his address.

When Tammies return, Ron’s structured world falls apart instantly, and it’s always his friends who help to bring him back to himself.

Without a Tammy in his life, Ron is stable, if not friendly, but he is always taking in the greater details of a situation, and often willing to counsel those who will benefit from his calm mentorship. (i.e. Leslie, Tom, April … Everybody.)

P.S. I am thinking Ron is a 5w6, because he wants to be prepared for everything.

Enneagram 6 – The Loyalist

How I picture Sixes in my head:

Dwight Schrute

Dwight might be the most devoted employee in this history of the world. Definitely in the history of paper.

(By the way, Dwight knows everything about the history of paper.)

Of course he does. Because Dwight is fiercely loyal to Dunder Mifflin, and his boss, Michael Scott. He is loyal to Angela, and willing to lose his job for her.

Dwight sees past Michael’s many goofball tendencies and is willing to help defend the office at any time from perceived threats – remember the fire safety drill, Dwight’s annual updates on the thousand-year-old martial arts, and Dwight even coming to the rescue of his nemesis Jim when Roy shows up ready for a fight?

Only much later do we learn that Dwight has anxiety. But he learns how to treat it, and through time, he reaches Perfectenschlag, which makes him the perfect choice for new branch manager.

Enneagram 7 – The Enthusiast

How I picture Sevens in my head:

Chris Traeger

Chris is “lit-rally” thrilled just to be alive. So it’s nothing for him to run 17 miles in the morning, and then cook everyone turkey burgers for lunch, all while managing an entire city government.

You really think that nothing can bring Chris down until he has to confront something painful or scary, like disciplining Leslie and Ben for their relationship, or, you know, his own mortality.

Chris would never be negative when helping his pals through a crisis, but the idea of not living to be 130 is terrifying for him, and he has to go through a lot of counseling with Dr. Richard Nygard to get back to a place of optimism and zeal.

There’s a reason Ben and Chris get paired up as Butch Countsidy and the Sumdance Kid.

Chris tends to be very passionate.

“Is there anything we can do about that, Ben?”

Ben: “No.”

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Enneagram 8 – The Challenger

How I picture Eights in my head:

Nellie Bertram

When Nellie shows up in Scranton, she finds an empty desk in Andy’s office, and takes it.

Why not? Andy’s off trying to woo Erin – and “if the seat is open, the job is open.”

Nellie is ambitious, but we soon find out that she doesn’t have a lot of control in other aspects of her life. She got her heart broken by a magician, she has a shopping addiction, and she wants a baby more than anything, but isn’t having much luck with adoption.

Nellie can be confrontational – even subtly – she dresses up as “Sexy Toby” for Halloween.

But she finds a role that fits as Special Projects Manager, and she eventually has the guts to become a mother in a very unorthodox kind of way … Nellie has kindness at her core and an inner strength that helps her overcome obstacles. Nellie is going to be OK.

Is Donna an 8? She can be confrontational. She’s also a cat – so she’s a tough one to type.

Enneagram 9 – The Peacemaker

How I picture Nines in my head:

Ann Perkins!

Guess which Enneagram number was hardest for me to find an example of? That’s right – Nines.

But then I thought about how 9s so often merge with others …

Remember Ann’s boxes of boyfriend stuff? Her Andy phase, her Chris phase …? One might even argue that she goes through a years-long “Leslie’s BFF phase.”

Because Ann is a little scared to just be herself.

She also wants people to like her (so she shares gruesome medical stories with Ron and April, even though April basically has a hobby of torturing Ann), and she works as a nurse, so I bet she could easily get mistyped as a 2.

But I think what defines Ann is her initial spongy-ness. She is so go-with-the-flow that she’s ended up a little lonely.

It’s her friendships and messy relationships that help her finally go against the grain, deciding to get pregnant as a single woman. With that decision, we begin to see Ann grow into herself – not-marrying Chris but committing to him, moving to Michigan, and spreading her beautiful chestnut-haired sunfish wings. Um, fins.

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Bringing hygge to your homeschool

by Kara S. Anderson 7 Comments

For many years, winter and I were not friends.

I would get terrible winter blues and struggled with the cold. It made me cranky.

Our windy old Victorian was so architecturally interesting and so, so terribly drafty and miserable.

It was built in 1905, and remodeled many times. The last time, right before we bought it, some genius put the bathroom right by the back door, so all was OK unless anyone opened or closed the door at any point – then the bathroom became frigid for 4 hours and there was nothing you could do about it.

And a cold tush is enough to make anyone grumpy.

I was so Waldorfy then you guys – my kids wore woolen hats and long underwear all day … and I knew the cold and dark were getting to me every minute, but I always got through it until one day when the snow would thaw and I’d spot green again.

Eventually we moved, and I started to notice right away that first winter that I didn’t want to hit things anymore, and it was like the beginning of something.

And then around that time I started learning about hygge.

If you aren’t familiar with the idea of hygge, my favorite definition is from hyggehouse.com:

“The Danish word hygge (pronounced hue-gah) is a feeling or mood that comes from taking genuine pleasure in making ordinary everyday things simply extraordinary; whether it’s making coffee a verb by lingering over a cup, to a cosy evening in with friends to lighting a candle with every meal … Words like cosiness, security, familiarity, comfort, reassurance, fellowship, simpleness and living well are often used to describe the idea of Hygge.”

Cosiness.

Security.

Familiarity.

Comfort.

Reassurance.

Fellowship.

Simpleness.

Living well.

Sounds pretty good, right?

It sounds a lot like how I want our homeschool to feel, which is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I even wrote about it this week at Simple Homeschool.

Things are different now, friends. Sure – winter days are still hard some times, but I know what to do. We make cocoa and pull out library books and we turn on all the twinkle lights.

That reminds me – a few things that make me feel all hygge-ish:

  • Baking bread. I’ve recently learned to use the dough function on our bread maker, and pretty much every day I make some time of warm, fresh bread.
  • Rice pudding. My Swedish aunt used to make rice pudding and it makes me feel so cozy. It’s perfect for breakfast, lunch, snacks and right before bedtime. I’m mastering it in my Instant Pot.
  • My tea collection. My tea collection is a little out of control. I love our happy little tea kettle, and my favorite varieties for winter at Trader Joe’s Cinnamon Vanilla, Republic of Tea Vanilla Almond (they have a decaf version too), and Republic of Tea’s Downton Abbey Christmas blend – happy-happy.
  • Beeswax candles. No scent except melting beeswax. Bright. Warm.
  • Battery lights – you can put these in any window, any little table, any little holder and you don’t have to worry about the cat lighting himself on fire.
  • Twinkle lights everywhere.
  • Warm socks.
  • Cozy blankets.
  • Good books.
  • Chocolate.
  • Two cats.
  • My people.

The End.

Oh – except two quick book resources for you if you want to learn more:

This post contains affiliate links. For more information, please see my disclosure statement. Thank you!

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How I know when it’s time to wrap-up homeschooling

by Kara S. Anderson 14 Comments

How I know when it's time to wrap-up homeschooling

Last week it happened – I started to get that feeling …

It’s a wonderful feeling. The weather has changed here and it’s finally spring-like.

Everything feels a little lighter and the pressure has eased.

And so I know it’s time to wrap-up homeschooling for the year very soon.

Not that we won’t continue to learn all summer long, but the way we will learn will slowly change over the next few weeks, and we’ll spend even more time at the library, more time outside …

time4

I’ve come to see this as a shift in rhythm, which was something I used to think didn’t shift. I mean, isn’t the very idea of rhythm that you have something to count on — an established set of expectations?

But during the past couple of years, I’ve considered rhythm quite a bit, and I feel like in my family, we need to reassess every few months, usually right around when the seasons change.

I was so comforted when I heard Melissa Wiley tell Pam about Tidal Schooling – finally, it felt like this thing we’ve been doing for a while had a name, and an actual legit homeschooler was doing it, so I wasn’t just a mess who couldn’t stay on track.

Whew.

time2

Because last year I took a bit of a leap. It was the first year that I just left some of the things undone.

We had been reading D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths, and all enjoying it thoroughly, but I knew there was absolutely no way we were going to finish it by the end of May.

And I knew that if we tried, the enjoyment would be sucked out of it entirely.

And so instead, I packed it up with a bookmark still in it. I put it in our school basket, and I think I had intentions to pull it out again on a rainy day sometime during the summer, but guess what? It sat there and waited patiently for us.

We finally wrapped it up in gray February, I think? Maybe March.

Who’s counting.

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This year we’ll leave some things undone too. We’ll probably get through our most recent Life of Fred, and the second Bedtime Math book. We might finish Where the Sidewalk Ends.

This week, we’ll close the cover on James and the Giant Peach and watch the movie together.

We definitely won’t get through everything, and I’ve decided that’s OK, because just like with our D’Aulaires, anything we leave behind will wait for us. And if it turns out that we don’t want to return to it after a break–  well, then that sort of says something, doesn’t it?

I’ve already started a section in my Bullet Journal called “Big Picture Homeschool Planning,” so this summer, as ideas come up, I’ll write them down there, and I’ll probably still get that wonderful frantic rush in August to PLAN!

But this summer, we’re going to switch things up and not feel bad about it – I think we’re going to dive into Shakespeare and try for weekly poetry teas, and hike more and see friends more, and read a lot of books just for the fun of it.

I mean, there’s a new Harry Potter coming – let’s not overplan.

time3

Learning isn’t really a race, and I don’t feel like worrying about finish lines. There are vegetables to plant and flowers to grow, and butterflies to hatch and life to live.

I can feel it.

It’s time.

THIS POST CONTAINS AFFILIATE LINKS.

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