by Alisha | Jan 4, 2018 | Uncategorized
Baby, it’s cold outside, but I have compiled a small collection of winter poetry for your literary pleasure! I invite you to put the kettle on, then sit down with your kids and a pot of tea in front of a roaring fire and indulge yourselves in the enchantment of winter. (Please click on the title or picture of the poet to read each poem.)
To Winter, by William Blake
Spellbound, by Emily Brontë
Winter Stores, by Charlotte Bronte
Winter, A Dirge, by Robert Burns
Frost At Midnight, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The Sky Is Low, by Emily Dickinson
Stopping By Woods On a Snowy Evening, by Robert Frost
Winter in Durnover Field, by Thomas Hardy
In Drear-Nighted December, by John Keats
Snow-Flakes, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind, by William Shakespeare
Winter-Time, by Robert Louis Stephenson
Grab our Winter Poetry & Copywork Pack to supplement your language arts curriculum. We’ve curated this collection of poems to be used to reinforce memorization of beautiful lines as well as for practicing handwriting.
After each poem, you will find Zaner-Bloser style handwriting sheets for all ages (primary, elementary, and cursive, as well as college-ruled for older students &/or moms) to be used for copywork. Click on the image for more info.
by Alisha | Sep 21, 2017 | Uncategorized
Autumn is upon us (though it’s still hot and steamy here in the South). Thankfully, the winds will begin to blow in cooler temperatures soon and we’ll get to wear our hoodies and other warm clothing. But until then, I thought you might enjoy some of the quotes I compiled for various art journaling and mixed media projects for my art course, Art of Fall: Mixed Media Workshop for Kids.
(Find my Collection of Autumn Poetry here.)
These quotes would be wonderful to have your children write out for copywork, add to their nature journals or use for your own art or scrapbooking projects.
So without further ado, here is my collection of Autumn quotes in no particular order:
“I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house. So I have spent almost all the daylight hours in the open air.” ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne
“Autumn, the year’s last, loveliest smile.” ~ William Cullen Bryant
“Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.” ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald
“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.” ~ L.M. Montgomery
“Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.” ~ George Eliot
“Listen! The wind is rising, and the air is wild with leaves, we have had our summer evenings, now for October eves!” ~ Humbert Wolfe
“Autumn carries more gold in its pocket than all the other seasons.” ~ Jim Bishop
“The tints of autumn…a mighty flower garden blossoming under the spell of the enchanter, frost.” ~ John Greenleaf Whittier
“Anyone who thinks fallen leaves are dead has never watched them dancing on a windy day.” ~ Shira Tamir
“Steam rising underneath a canopy of whispering, changing aspens; starlight in the clear, dark night, and wondrous beauty in every direction. If only all could feel this way, to be so captured and enthralled with autumn.” ~ Donna Lynn Hope
“I would rather sit on a pumpkin, and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.” ~ Albert Camus
“No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of spring.” ~ Samuel Johnson
“There is a harmony in autumn, and a luster in its sky, which through the summer is not heard or seen, as if it could not be, as if it had not been!” ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley
“My sorrow, when she’s here with me, thinks these dark days of autumn rain are beautiful as days can be; she loves the bare, the withered tree; she walks the sodden pasture lane.” ~ Robert Frost
“Autumn’s the mellow time.” ~ William Allingham
“I know the lands are lit, with all the autumn blaze of Goldenrod.” ~ Helen Hunt Jackson
“Every leaf speaks bliss to me when fluttering from the autumn tree.” ~ Emily Bronte
“Then came October, full of merry glee.” ~ Edmund Spenser
“A second blow of many flowers appears, flowers faintly tinged and breathing no perfume; but fruits, not blossoms, form the woodland wreath that circles Autumn’s brow.” ~ James Grahame
Don’t forget to sign your kids (your tweens, teens, & yourself) up for my mixed media art workshop, The Art of Fall. Click on the image for more info.
by Alisha | Sep 2, 2017 | Uncategorized
In honor of the first day of Fall, I have compiled a small collection of autumn poetry for your literary pleasure! Please click on the title or picture of the poet to read each poem.
To Autumn by William Blake
Fall, Leaves, Fall by Emily Brontë
The Autumn by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Autumn by John Clare
Autumn by Emily Dickinson
To Autumn by John Keats
Autumn Song by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Sonnet 73 by William Shakespeare
Ode to the West Wind by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Autumn Fires by Robert Louis Stevenson
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Don’t forget to sign your kids (your tweens, teens, & yourself) up for my mixed media art workshop, The Art of Fall. Click on the image for more info.
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by Alisha | Aug 9, 2017 | Uncategorized
Are there areas in your life that you have had difficulties with on a regular basis? Are there things you’ve failed at or habits you’ve struggled with over and over? If so, then let me assure you that you are not alone.
As humans, we often fail, fall short and come up lacking in our own strength. We are incomplete. We are insufficient. But thank God for His love, His mercy and the beautiful gift of His grace!
2 Corinthians 12:9 (NKJ) says, And He (Jesus) said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you…”
The Message Bible translates this verse as: My grace is enough; it’s all you need.
What exactly is grace? The Greek word for grace is charis, which means “gift, favor, benefit,” (Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance). And it is used to imply “pleasure, delight, favorable regard, beauty, friendly disposition, kindness, or goodwill,” (Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words).
The Greek root of “grace” implies “a superior stooping, bending or reaching down in kindness to an inferior.” This is a picture of God.
I like the way one minister explains it: “Grace is a kindness. It’s a gift – not something earned, deserved or merited. The grace of God is His favor, His anointing, His ability, His support, His wisdom, and His help.”
Isn’t that wonderful?
James 4:6 (AMP) says, But He gives us more and more grace (power of the Holy Spirit, to meet this evil tendency and all others fully)…
and
Hebrews 4: 16 (KJV) says, Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.
Grace is more than a little prayer we say before our meals. It is the power of the Holy Spirit to meet our needs and solve our problems. It is help in our time of need. It is enough – it’s all you need. God’s grace is sufficient for you!
God has given His grace to us. That grace is a supernatural gift of inner strength, ability, understanding, favor and more. As we learn to receive His grace, He will supernaturally help us to succeed in whatever situation we face.
John 1:16 (AMP) says, For out of His fullness (abundance) we have all received…one grace after another and spiritual blessing upon spiritual blessing and even favor upon favor and gift [heaped] upon gift.
The Lord has given us one grace after another, but just like any other gift, we have to receive it. We have to tap into this supernatural power. It won’t just fall upon us – we have to choose to accept it and walk in it.
If you choose not to receive and walk in God’s grace, then life will be a struggle – difficult and draining. You will have to do it on your own. Life will be hard. You will feel as if you’re walking around in a fog, and you will experience a sense of detachment from life and from the things of God.
But if you will learn to receive God’s precious gift of grace, there will be a supernatural flow to your life – a supernatural ease and ability to do what He has called you to do. Areas that you have had difficulty in will become easy. Things that you have failed to do, with enough grace, you now can do. Bad habits or addictions you have struggled with for years will be broken as you draw upon His grace.
With God’s grace, you will find that you make it through tests, trials and tribulations that might destroy someone else. God’s grace will empower you to stand through every circumstance or situation.
Let’s look at 2 Corinthians 12:9 again, but this time in the Amplified Bible:
But He said to me, My grace (My favor and loving-kindness and mercy) is enough for you [sufficient against any danger and enables you to bear the trouble manfully]; for My strength and power are made perfect (fulfilled and completed) and show themselves most effective in [your] weakness.
Without His grace, we are insufficient and incomplete. We come up lacking every time. But His amazing gift of grace is sufficient for us. It is enough. It is all we need.
Embrace God’s grace. Draw upon the strength and power of His grace. It’s a free gift – underserved and unearned, but it’s yours if you’ll just receive it!
Prayer:
Father, I thank You for the free gift of Your amazing grace. Today, I receive Your grace – Your power, Your ability, Your help – to accomplish all that I need to accomplish. Your grace strengthens me to stand no matter what comes my way. Your grace is sufficient. It is all that I need. It is enough. I embrace Your grace. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
by Alisha | Jun 12, 2017 | Uncategorized
While I was planning for the Celebrate Summer: Mixed Media Workshop a couple years ago, I began collecting poetry and quotes to add to the art pieces and journals. And I wanted to make this collection of summer quotes available to you, my blog reader. I have compiled them for various art journaling and mixed media projects. (There are thirty in all.)
These quotes would be wonderful to have your children write out for copywork, add to their nature journals or to use for your own art or scrapbooking projects.
So without further ado, here is my collection of summer quotes in no particular order:
“I almost wish we were butterflies and liv’d but three summer days – three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.” ~ John Keats
“Summer afternoon—summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.” ~ Henry James
“Then followed that beautiful season, Summer. Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape lay as if new-created in all the freshness of childhood.” ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Let us dance in the sun, wearing wild flowers in our hair…” ~ Susan Polis Schutz
“All in all, it was a never-to-be-forgotten summer — one of those summers which come seldom into any life, but leave a rich heritage of beautiful memories in their going — one of those summers which, in a fortunate combination of delightful weather, delightful friends and delightful doing, come as near to perfection as anything can come in this world.” ~ L.M. Montgomery
“Summertime is always the best of what might be.” ~ Charles Bowden
“Summer’s lease hath all too short a date.” ~ William Shakespeare,
“It was June, and the world smelled of roses. The sunshine was like powdered gold over the grassy hillside.” ~ Maud Hart Lovelace
“Gimmerton chapel bells were still ringing and the full, mellow flow of the beck in the valley came soothingly on the ear. It was a sweet substitute for the yet absent murmur of the summer foliage, which drowned that music about the Grange when the trees were in leaf.” ~ Emily Brontë
“Early summer days are a jubilee time for birds. In the fields, around the house, in the barn, in the woods, in the swamp – everywhere love and songs and nests and eggs.” ~ E.B. White
“To see the summer sky is poetry, though never in a book it lie – true poems flee.” ~ Emily Dickinson
“What is one to say about June, the time of perfect young summer, the fulfillment of the promise of the earlier months, and with as yet no sign to remind one that its fresh young beauty will ever fade.” ~ Gertrude Jekyll
“In summer, the song sings itself.” ~ William Carlos Williams
“A life without love is like a year without summer.” ~ Swedish Proverb
“Do what we can, summer will have its flies.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Each fairy breath of summer, as it blows with loveliness, inspires the blushing rose.” ~ Author Unknown
“Spring flew swiftly by, and summer came; and if the village had been beautiful at first, it was now in the full glow and luxuriance of its richness. The great trees, which had looked shrunken and bare in the earlier months, had now burst into strong life and health; and stretching forth their green arms over the thirsty ground, converted open and naked spots into choice nooks, where was a deep and pleasant shade from which to look upon the wide prospect, steeped in sunshine, which lay stretched out beyond. The earth had donned her mantle of brightest green; and shed her richest perfumes abroad. It was the prime and vigour of the year; all things were glad and flourishing.” ~ Charles Dickens
“What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.” ~ John Steinbeck
“Bend low again, night of summer stars. So near you are, sky of summer stars.” ~ Carl Sandburg
“Oh, bring again my heart’s content, Thou Spirit of the Summer-time!” ~ William Allingham
“Summer is delicious.” ~ John Ruskin
“The dandelions and buttercups gild all the lawn: the drowsy bee stumbles among the clover tops, and summer sweetens all to me.” ~ James Russell Lowell
“What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance.” ~ Jane Austen
“What is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days.” ~ James Russell Lowell
“Yellow butterflies look like flowers flying through the warm summer air.” ~ Andrea Willis
“There shall be eternal summer in the grateful heart.” ~ Celia Thaxter
“The summer night is like a perfection of thought.” ~ Wallace Stevens
“The steady buzzzzzzz of the Katydid chorus, and the bass solo of the croaking Frog – a summer night’s serenade.” ~ Michael P. Garofalo
“Summer has now thrown open her emerald doors. Every part of the landscape is profuse in leaves and flowers, and “green-robed senators of mighty woods” are clothed in their most elegant array.” ~ Author Unknown
“Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability.” ~ Sam Keen
Don’t forget to sign your kids (your tweens, teens, & yourself) up for my mixed media art workshop, Celebrate Summer. Click on the image for more info.
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