School in Kajamas

More Art Classes

2012-02-12T18:58:00.000-08:00

These boys loved the Jackson Pollock lesson. Jack the Dripper forever!

Thing One's final product:

Thing Two's final product:

Salvador Dali-inspired collages were very fun as well.

Maple Sugaring

2012-02-12T18:41:00.000-08:00

We checked out Irvine Nature Center today, and took a nice tour of the grounds.

We learned about spiles and how the sap is removed from the trees into buckets.We learned about evaporators, and how it takes 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of maple syrup.

We learned about how Native Americans cooked the sap into syrup, and the tools they used.

100th Post!

2012-02-12T18:30:00.000-08:00

More fun with chemistry!

We separated mixtures.

solids: rocks and sand

liquids: food coloring from water using coffee filters (chromatography)

These boys would do science every day if I let them!

Art Classes

2011-12-16T12:44:00.000-08:00

Since September, we have had friends join us on Fridays for an afternoon art class. We usually talk an little about a particular artist, then do an art project using similar techniques.First week was Mondrian, when we studied line and primary colors.

We did a Picasso lesson about portraits, "Fractured Friends."

We discussed Michaelangelo and learned how to paint a fresco. We made our own egg tempera paint with ground chalk and egg yolk, and painted like Giotto.We made fruit and veggie portraits a la Arcimboldo.

We made Christmas ornaments with recycled newspaper pulp and cookie cutters.

This week we made gingerbread houses at our annual "Graham Cracker Spectacular."

Catapults!

2011-12-16T12:23:00.000-08:00

My hubby is back on his regular work schedule, after a year-long fellowship on Capitol Hill, so he has every other Friday off of work. Being the awesome dad that he is, he helped the boys build seige weapons this morning while I went to yoga class.We've been studying Roman history, and Thing One is especially interested in military history.He found instructions online here. It only requires popsicle sticks, rubber bands, masking tape, cardstock, and glue or glue. The things used mini-marshmallows for ammunition.Another good reference for building this sort of thing is the book The Art of the Catapult: Build Greek ballistae, Roman onagers, English trebuchets, and more ancient artillery by William Gurstelle.

Here are some building photos.

The battlefield had been cleaned up by the time I got home. I heard the ammo kept disappearing down Thing Two's throat.

Five Things You Never Thought You Would Need in Homeschooling (But you really do)

2011-12-11T17:15:00.001-08:00

If you approach teaching your kids with very hands-on projects like I do, these five tools will prove to be useful.1. Mortar and PestleI have used my mortar and pestle so many times in the 2.5 years I've been homeschooling. My boys crushed berries to make paint in our prehistory unit; they crushed spices in our cooking unit; they made egg tempera paint by crushing chalk and mixing it with egg in our art class. It is indispensable!2. Empty Thread SpoolsYou can make great toy cars, vertabrae, pulleys, the list is endless.3. Digital camera (and video camera)I document almost all of our projects and field trips. The video camera is a go-to tool when I get resistance about studying something "boring." I have my son prepare a report and we videotape his presentation. He is so excited to be on camera, he forgets to be bored.4. Calling CardsHave you ever met a cool mom at a homeschool class or field trip? Has your child ever made an instant new best friend on the playground? You need family calling cards. We make our own at home on the computer and print them using pre-perforated paper.5. LentilsDo you love the idea of sensory tubs but hate the mess of sand or water? Lentils are small enough for that sort of task, but large enough for easy clean-up.What is something you use alot that you never imagined you would need?

Thing Two, the Self-Styled Scientific Genius

2011-11-28T14:28:00.001-08:00

Thing Two just turned five. He is amazing. He just amazes me every day.He obviously has an engineering brain. He is very interested in robots, motors, gears and cogs, how things work. Oh, and alien motherships. But that is a blog entry for another day.Thing Two loves designing and building machines.

He adores legos, k'nex, build and play erector sets, superstructs, and marble race.

His drawings are...amazing. He demonstrates such great fine motor skill and such patience for a barely five year old. I want to wear all of his drawings across my chest everyday so I can brag about them.

Yes,this is a UFO. Again, I must explore this in more detail later.

This is a diagram for how to build a robot. The arrows show you how to assemble the parts.I just can't wait to see this kid grow up and show me what he can really do. Of course, I'm somewhat terrified since he already wants to do chemistry experiments every day and build motors in his room. I'm going to have to do a lot of studying to keep up with this one.

Service Project of the Day

2011-10-27T08:10:00.000-07:00

We belong to a very small UU congregation which cannot afford to hire a cleaning service. So members take turns helping with cleaning efforts.

This morning we met up with another church member to give the place a good clean out. We dusted all the cobwebby corners, rescued about 30 spiders and 20 centipedes and gave them a new outdoor home, swept, mopped and scrubbed. The boys were very good workers.

Afterwards we stopped to have a fast food breakfast treat, which is very rare. The boys chose this instead of being paid $3 off the for-pay chore list.

I will encourage Thing One to write an article about it for the church newsletter, and hopefully we will help encourage other church members to come and pitch in as well.

Genie Unit Study

2011-10-26T08:19:00.000-07:00

Thing One has been reading Dragonball Z books for a while now. After reading about the character Majinn Buu, he was interested to learn more about jinns (or djinn or genies). So I've been putting together a quick unit study.

Books:
The Arabian Nights retold by Neil Philip (I would suggest this for older children 10+, or preview it to see if it is appropriate for your family. It deals frankly with sex, violence and is written from a Muslim perspective.)
Arabian Nights: Three Tales retold by Deborah Nourse Lattimore (more friendly for younger children)
The Unce Upon a Time Map Book: Take a Tour of Six Enchanted Lands by B.G. Hennessy (includes a map of Aladdin's kingdom)
Grandmothers' Stories: Wise Woman Tales from Many Cultures retold by Burleigh Muten (includes a story about a Senegalese Djinn and a midwife)
The Tale of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves by Eric A. Kimmel
Be a Genie in Six Easy Steps by Linda Chapman and Steve Cole (this is a 326 page novel appropriate for older kids)
The Genie in the Book by Cindy Trumbore (118 page novel more appropriate for a read aloud)

Movies:
Here is a very useful list of Aladdin movies on IMDb.
Scooby Doo and the Arabian Nights
There are also tons of versions of Arabian Nights and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves available.

Activities:
Mapwork of Muslim countries
Discussion of Islam, the Koran and what Muslims believe about jinn
After reading many stories about genies, I had Thing One compare and contrast descriptions and make drawings of what he imagines a genie to look like.
If you had three wishes, what would they be?

I think our most fun craft was Meringue Genies (borrowed this idea from Easyfunschool.com)

Ours turned out really cute! I halved the recipe. The recipe doesn't specify how much cream of tartar. I just put in a pinch. We used raisin eyes and red sugar sprinkles (because that is what we had in the pantry).

You could put together a fun notebooking or lapbooking project or even a poster. I am considering expanding this unit study to include Sinbad the Sailor as well.

Chemistry is Fun!

2011-10-12T05:45:00.000-07:00

We have been having an awesome time with our new curriculum, Real Science 4 Kids: Chemistry Pre-Level 1.

I can't say enough good things about this curriculum. It is so easy to do, and so much fun! The text is well written, has colorful, engaging illustrations, and communicates complicated ideas well to young readers.

Some of the experiments require quite a bit of preparation but are well worth it.

Family Newsletter

2011-10-12T05:27:00.000-07:00

We have started doing a monthly family newsletter. It includes short articles about what we are up to as a family, what we are doing in school, and gives the boys a way to publish their artwork and creative writing.

We mailed out our first issue at the end of September, and have received a wonderful response from our family and friends. The things love getting praise for their efforts, and the grandparents love having a brag sheet to share with their friends.

One of the most fun things about the newsletter is that Thing One is including a long story he wrote in serial form. We sent out chapter one in September's newsletter, he's already planning to send a "bonus chapter" in January because that is his birthday month. He is learning so much about how to use a word processing system on the computer, and also how to draft, edit and publish his writing.

We plan on inviting "guest columnists" to write articles for us as well. My uncle is a composer, and the boys want to learn about his creative process. I want to request stories and recipes for the holidays.

I hope this will be a way for our very spread out family and circle of friends to grow closer.

Service Project

2011-10-12T05:21:00.000-07:00

We have started helping out our local food bank twice per month. We go by a local warehouse store and pick up any donations, and drop them off at the food bank. It is a simple task, loading and unloading, and it only takes an hour our of our morning, but we feel like we are really helping people. We all agree is it silly to have all that food go to waste.

I did a year of service in AmeriCorps after I finished my bachelor's degrees. It made a huge impact on my life to so much direct service. I want my kids to experience the challenges and the joys of community service.

Coincidentally, we read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl this week. (I wish I could plan my lessons so well and thoroughly, but sometimes I just rely on synchronicity and luck.) If, like me, you hadn't read this gem in 20 years, consider revisiting it. It discusses hunger and poverty in a very relatable way.

Ancient Greece Unit Study

2011-10-12T05:16:00.000-07:00

With Thing One's interest in Percy Jackson, a study of ancient Greece seemed appropriate this fall. I put together a list of ideas for lessons, using several resources.

Usborne Book of Greek Myths
Story of the World Volume I, text and activity book
Kingfisher Book of the Ancient World
History Pockets Ancient Civilizations
Greek Mythology Activities

Some of my favorite ideas:
Use a compare/contrast chart to compare creation myths.
Go for a nature walk to look at the changing leaves, and talk about the story of Persephone.
Go for a spider hunt and talk about Arachne.
Read about Atlas, and discuss what an atlas is, find some at the library.
Plant narcissus bulbs and read the story of Narcissus.
Read about Daedalus and Icarus, and make candles.
Read about the chimera and make up your own mixed up animals.
Read about sirens and play with sound.
Read about Theseus and the minotaur, and go to a corn maze.
Learn about Greek architecture, and make a gingerbread parthenon.

First Day of School 2011

2011-09-07T15:15:00.000-07:00

We had a really great first day today. I got up early and went for a walk, luckily missing the bad weather that plagued the rest of the day. We had some french toast for breakfast, and I introduced the newest permutation of the chore plan to the boys. I got total buy in, until I told Thing One that he can't get credit for any of the for-pay chores until his regular chores for the day-Including Schoolwork-are done. He didn't think that was fair, so we had a long talk about it. He said he already knows everything. He said he can't do a proper backbend because his head is so heavy with knowledge. I reminded him that there are a lot of things he still has to learn, and that I have a legal obligation to teach him since he is not attending public school. He countered with "I'll be happy to do school as long as I get to pick the subject." We agreed that we would study what he is interested in, but that there will be days that I have to introduce other subjects and ideas to fulfill my obligation.

Both Thing One and Thing Two did their everyday morning chores (straightening room, making bed, getting dressed and brushing teeth)and their Wednesday chores (taking the recyclables to the curb).

Thing One begged to do IXL math (since curricula have not arrived yet) and he did that until I literally had to pull him off the computer to return our rental car. Oh yeah, we just bought a new-to-us car when our old one died. Boy, am I glad that we are mostly back to normal after that ordeal. Meanwhile, Thing Two was experimenting in the back yard with a water balloon, and drawing robots.

After returning from the car rental place, we had lunch and then did our chemistry lesson. We're using a Science Wiz chemistry kit, and a Real Science for Kids Pre-Level One Chemistry curriculum. Thing Two has been begging for a chemistry set. Yes, he is only 4 and a half. But he is my little scientist and engineer. Ironically, he deemed today's experiment "boring," but Thing One, my creative artsy child, loved it.

I stopped "school" at that point so I could get some housework and prep work done. I say "stopped" because Thing One spied one of the books I was looking over, Jason and the Argonauts, yoinked it, and read two chapters over afternoon snack. He just finished the five Percy Jackson books over the summer and he is very interested in Greek mythology right now. We will be using Story of the World Volume I, especially the activity book, History Pockets Ancient Civilizations, Greek Mythology Activities, and the Kingfisher Book of the Ancient World, for our study of ancient Greece. I'm hoping to move on to the Roman Empire in the late fall or spring.

We are continuing Voyages in English this year. Thing One is writing his first book on a word processing program, and he is picking up spelling and grammar rules very quickly as the computer underlines any mistakes in red, which he cannot stand. We will be trying Saxon Math for the first time, and doing some geography terminology and map reading. I have put together an art history and fine art curriculum drawn heavily (see what I did there) from Discovering Great Artists, and some homeschooler friends will be joining us each Friday. Thing One has also requested intensive drawing lessons, so we are trying out an online subscription to Mark Kistler's website Imagination Station. Add a few awesome classes and field trips in the DC, Annapolis and Baltimore areas, weekly gymnastics classes, lego club, and chess club, and I think we'll have a great school year!

The End of Summer Wrap Up

2011-09-05T15:19:00.000-07:00

We had a great summer! We had a ton of fun finishing 10 of 24 Parkquests. We read tons of books, mostly Goosebumps, Animal Ark, Bernie Magruder, and Percy Jackson.

We also entered some things in the Maryland State Fair. Thing One entered a drawing and his cactus garden.

Thing Two entered a drawing and a painting.

I am so proud!! I think they caught the fair bug, and can't wait to exhibit next year.

How to Keep Track of Books

2011-08-13T11:38:00.000-07:00

I have a gazillion books in our house. Fiction, non-fiction, reference, homeschooling, just-for-fun. I go to used book sales on a regular basis and I'm always adding to the collection.

Sometimes it would be really helpful to me to see a list of these books to plan lessons. Or to see if I already own that book before I buy it used off a used homeschooling group.

I did what many wise homeschooling moms do to solve this problem: Assigned it to techno-dad.

Here is his solution.

You're welcome.

Time Machines

2011-08-12T05:49:00.000-07:00

My four year old, Thing Two, has decided to build a time machine. I'm not really sure where this obsession originated. But we have had a lot of fun with the idea.

Here is his latest iteration. He is somewhat disappointed that it *still* doesn't work.

We watched the 1960 version of the movie The Time Machine, a retelling of H.G. Wells classic story. Of course now, he wants to build a machine *just* like that one.

Review: Time4Learning

2011-08-01T10:54:00.001-07:00

I've been invited to try Time4Learning for one month in exchange for a candid review. Time4Learning can be used for homeschool, afterschool and summer skill sharpening. Be sure to come back and read about my experience.

Cactus garden

2011-06-14T10:51:00.000-07:00

Thing One is very interested in cacti. Or perhaps it's more precise to say he is attracted to them. He likes their interesting shapes and colors. Each time we have been to the home improvement store or nursery this spring, he has bought himself a cactus or two. With his own money. That is how much he likes them.

We talked about planting them all together in a cactus garden. At a recent yard sale, I found a perfect container. It's a copper top from an old birdbath. It has handles on it which make it easy to move around.

So recently Thing One and I spent an hour putting together the garden. It's very simple. We bought special cactus potting soil, and stuck them in there. Eventually we will get some pebbles to put around the top. I sprung for a few small succulents to add to the garden.

Thing One is hopeful that his garden will win a ribbon in our county fair in September.

Moles and Voles

2011-06-14T08:25:00.000-07:00

We discovered a vole in our front yard, eating leavings from our bird feeder. The things were curious about it (as was I) so we decided to do a mini unit on voles and moles.

There are a surprising number of stories featuring moles. Here are the list of resources I used for our unit.

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
Mole Music by David McPhail
Mouse and Mole series by Wong Herbert Yee
Tick-Tock, Drip-Drop by Nicola Moon
The Little Gentleman by Philippa Pearce
Seasons of the Moon: Winter Moon by Jean Craighead George
Why Mole Shouted and Other Stories by Lore Segal
What a Treasure by Jane and Will Hillenbrand
Rose and Riley series by Jane Cutler
The Moles and the Mireuk: A Korean Folktale by Holly H. Kwon
Moon Rope/Un lazo a la luna by Lois Ehlert
Bringing Down the Moon by Jonathan Emmett
Wilfred to the Rescue by Alan MacDonald
The Diggers by Margaret Wise Brown

We learned about the similaries and differences between moles and voles, and learned about Silent E.

Gymnastics Class

2011-04-19T16:54:00.000-07:00

I was too excited to recently find a gymnastics class for homeschoolers offered by my county. Classes for both age groups meet at the same time and place!

The things have really taken to it. The teachers are strict but encouraging (perfect, in my book).

The younger age group mostly does obstacle courses involving somersaults, handstands against a wall, jumping and balancing.

The older class is working on series of movements, like running, jumping from a springboard onto a tall block, landing in a squat, and doing a forward roll down an incline.

Thing Two is excited to learn how to do a handstand (with help), and has been inspired to try to learn to do cartwheels at home.

I get to chat with and network with homeschool moms while they are in class (or read or sew), and I even did a cartwheel one day to help him. Gym class is good for all of us!

Under the Sea

2011-04-19T15:42:00.000-07:00

Look what I came downstairs to find!

Curriculum Fair!

2011-04-16T13:29:00.001-07:00

I went to my first real curriculum fair today. It was about an hour and ten minute drive away. My friend and I went together which made it more fun, like a mom's day out. I spent some time beforehand going through the vendor's list, marking ones I wanted to be sure and see. It didn't help much, since I ended up walking through almost every stall anyway. I got some great bargains, especially on used books, slightly damaged books, buying complete sets and haggling. Well worth the time!

Scheduling our Time

2011-03-09T19:58:00.000-08:00

My husband recently took on a fellowship on Capitol Hill, and he is getting home two hours later each evening. I was starting to feel like I was drowning in housework, behind in schoolwork and frustrated with the bickering between my kids and me at the end of every day. So I ordered Managers of Their Homes scheduling system and have been working through it over the past week.

I have read through the book, and I have made my first trial run schedule.

We have been following the morning part of it for three days and I already feel like I'm accomplishing a ton. I'm caught up on dishes and laundry, I've been able to get school done each day and work on some household organizational tasks.

I like the very visual system. I like that I can spend two weeks adjusting here and there as I see what's working and what's not. Updates soon!

Goodbye chickies!

2011-03-08T04:01:00.000-08:00

We returned our chickens to their farm home on Sunday. In one week they had developed tiny wing and tail feathers. Some had even started growing feathers on their feet.

I will miss their cuteness but not their smell!

Yes, E Day

2011-03-03T09:41:00.000-08:00

My kids are constantly complaining that I Always Say No to Everything Fun. They "never" get to do "anything" they want to do. My four year old had a total meltdown the other afternoon out of such frustration that he *never* gets *his* way.

I read an article several years ago in Wondertime magazine (sadly no longer in print) about having a Yes Day. The mom author of the article promised to say yes to her daughter for a whole day. The idea of a yes day (or hour, week, month, etc) has stuck with me because I think it's great and fun. Kids love to be able to be in charge. But we all know they can't (and should not have to) handle the responsibilities of being in charge all the time.

So I suggested this solution to my sons. A Yes E Day and a Yes H Day. They each penciled in a date on my calendar. We set some guidelines: they each get their own day, so only one boss and less conflict; a budget of what we could spend; rules like I can't say yes to something unsafe or something that would hurt someone.

My friend said her kids would ask "Mommy, can I stay naked all day? Mommy, can I eat off the floor? Mommy, can I eat Daddy's unattended cake?" To these I would reply, "Yes you can stay naked-in our house. If you want to leave our house, you have to get dressed." "Eat away." "No I cannot give you permission to eat someone else's cake. But if you ask Daddy directly, he might let you eat it in the spirit of Yes E Day."

So the day began with seven-year-old E requesting to watch television (an no-no on school mornings) and a special breakfast of French toast and bacon. We skipped the usual academics for playing, writing an email, drawing pictures, pleasure reading. He decided he wanted to go have lunch at the mall. He requested Chik-fil-A but when he saw the ridiculous line, he headed for Five Guys burgers, and got sidetracked by a sample of mall "Cajun" bourbon chicken. He ordered a plate of that with two vegetables on the side (corn and carrots), foregoing the rice/pasta for an extra vegetable. He chose lemonade for a drink. He and his brother shared food peacefully while I got mall sushi, then we headed upstairs to see Gnomeo and Juliet at the movie theater. His budget was gone after lunch and movie tickets, so we skipped treats at the theater.

We headed back toward home and stopped at a local park to meet some friends for a playdate. It had just been renovated (unbeknownst to us) and the kids had a fabulous time. We headed home for a snack break. E wanted to play Wii so he played for about two hours while I read a book to his brother, who passed out in my lap.

For dinner, we had no budget left so E chose from what we already had on our weekly menu. He chose chicken nuggets and salad.

His last request was to stay up a half-hour later than his usual bedtime to watch his favorite television show.

What most surprised me is that he never asked for candy or soda the whole day. I expected he would balk at the usual personal hygeine stuff, or cleaning up toys, or would ask to wear his kajamas all day. But he did those things just like normal routine without fussing. I expected him to be sort of clingy and want my undivided attention...for playing games, reading out loud to him, etc. I had prepared myself mentally to be totally focused on him all day, but that didn't really happen. I had lots of time to read, get a little sewing done, household chores, play with little brother. E was obviously much more interested in getting out of our house and doing fun stuff. This is a good reminder that he is very extroverted, and I am very introverted, and I need to plan "out of our house" time more often.

This coming Tuesday is Yes H Day. With him being the younger of the two boys (he's four) I thought it would be smart to let E go first, so that H would have a better idea of what kind of things he is allowed, and see that Mom says no to the things that are outside our agreed-upon boundaries. Last night as he got in bed, he told Daddy he wanted to change his special day to today! Of course, Mom said no.

Eleven, Eleven Baby Chicks, Aaaah, aaaah, aaah

2011-02-28T07:54:00.000-08:00

We jumped on an opportunity to rent an incubator and raise some chicks from eggs. We have done a whole unit on eggs and chickens.

We started with 18 fertilized eggs. We read all the instructions for the incubator which involved keeping a bottom tray partially filled with water to maintain humidity, maintaining a temperature of about 100 degrees F, and marking and turning the eggs daily.

Chicken eggs take 21 days to hatch. At day 6 we candled the eggs. We candled again at day 20 and removed two eggs that were obviously not fertile. On day 21 we started hearing cheeps from the incubator and saw tiny cracks in a couple of eggs. By the following evening, we had 11 healthy hatched chicks, and one that started hatching but didn't completely hatch.

We are keeping the chicks for a week then returning them and the incubator to the farm from which they came. They are so cute and fuzzy. They are relatively easy to care for. They need a heat lamp, water, and chick starter feed. We borrowed a cage to use as a brooder, and lined the bottom with pine shavings. Our two cats are very curious about them, but don't bother them much.

Our egg unit reading list:
Egg to chick by Millicent E. Selsam This is the most awesome book ever for this project. It shows the development of the chick at many stages. Be forewarned that is deals frankly with sexual reproduction.
The Chicken Book by Garth Williams
Chicks and Chickens by Gail Gibbons
An Extraordinary Egg by Leo Lionni

This is How Homeschooled Kids Start their Day

2011-02-22T06:55:00.001-08:00

Holiday Photos

2010-12-17T09:44:00.001-08:00

Thanks to my friend Alicia for these beautiful photographs.

Update

2010-12-03T05:18:00.000-08:00

I'm so ashamed that I haven't updated this blog since September! It has been such a busy semester.

We have been taking a weekly Spanish class at the home of a local family. The class is great. The teacher uses lots of music and interactive games to get the kids really involved.

We have also been taking a weekly Physical Education class at a gym. The kids have been learning the basics of soccer, basketball and dodgeball. They love this class, even though it's hard for them to keep up with the older kids sometimes.

At home, we've been studying American history. Thing One has been learning about punctuation, alphabetization, addition in columns and place value, and practicing his writing. He has been learning some basic report writing skills, and basic research skills. In his free time, he loves to draw comic books and read, read, read. And his favorite privilege is playing video games on the computer, Wii, or dad's Ipod.

Thing Two has been absorbing alphabet letters and numbers at a rate that is sometimes disturbing (in a good way). He loves to practice writing on paper, and also in the air, making nice little sounds to go along with it. Reminds me of Victor Borge's classic act. Perhaps he's a kinesthetic learner?

We have had many great field trips. The most exciting were St. Mary's City Homeschool Day and Mount Vernon Homeschool Day. We enjoyed an art class at The American Visionary Art Museum, and a science class at The National Aquarium where we met the new octopus.

Type A Homschooling Mom

2010-12-03T04:59:00.000-08:00

Wow, an article that I can totally relate to. This lady and I have a lot in common.

A Pet Problem

2010-09-29T09:39:00.000-07:00

Not a usual school problem...the cat keeps sitting on the workbook! We had a good laugh over this one.

First Day of School

2010-08-16T03:48:00.000-07:00

Wow! Where did the summer go? Trip to Louisiana to see friends and family, and attend my husband's 20th high school reunion. Two weeks of ice skating camp. Lots of long drowsy days reading and playing outside.

I've been working for weeks preparing curriculum for this upcoming school year. I decided on an overarching theme of "America", and we'll be doing units chronologically until January, when we'll start more "fun" units like baseball and apple pie.

New for this year: No TV until 3pm each day. Mom's been getting up at 6am to try and exercise and have a bit of quiet time to prep each day. Thing Two has his own set of four workboxes (he''ll be four in November). We'll be having "Triangle Time" each day (there are three of us so it makes more sense than "cirlce time") which will include some basic calisthenics. I have the day basically scheduled with school in the mornings and free afternoons. There's no more napping in our house, so afternoons are better now for errands, playdates, read aloud time, etc.

I don't know how moms of large families do it. I feel exhausted from prep work, and it's our first day! The kids aren't even awake yet!

End of Year Review

2010-05-03T09:21:00.000-07:00

The purpose of this form is to help you create a record of the year’s learning experiences for each child in preparation for completing the Comar 05 laws. This form will also become part of your child’s confidential MPNL Record. Reviewing the year is a valuable activity that contributes to a family’s sense of pride in their accomplishments.

Child’s Name: Thing One Date: 4/30/10 Grade K

Use the spaces below and highlighting the educational resources, material, and curriculum your child has used throughout out the school year. Include valuable information such as filed trips, lesson plans, unit studies, travels and other experiences. Check your calendar; many dates and experiences it will be marked on you calendar and jog your memory. Feel free to attach your own pages and add to this review form.

'Demonstrated Skills' is just a list with headings on it for each subject they've covered, and as the children do something that comes under one of these heading, you write it down. You can write down knowledge they show about a topic of conversation, math skills they use while buying toys and shopping, 'PE' stuff they do while playing, etc.

'Resources Used' list has the same subject headings as the Demonstrated Skills list. Write down the educational resources used; reading/library books, books on tape, movies, radio programs, field trips, people they have discussions with, web sites, subscriptions, newspaper and computer, and whatever else you come across in life that gives them exposure to learning. You can even make note of the grade level of subject especially different then actual grade.

English: Demonstrated Skills: reads aloud and silently (both well above grade level), copies words, alphabetizes by first letter of a word; very good verbal descriptive skills and very good vocabulary; tells stories; word search puzzles
Resources Used: Moving Beyond the Page curriculum; reading websites, poems, library books, audio books, personal library
audio books

Mathematics: Demonstrated Skills: counting to 1000, adds and subtracts small numbers, skip counts by fives and tens, reads simple charts and graphs, recognizes shapes, draws shapes, finds the odd one out, matches, decodes simple codes from a key, recognizes hours and half hours on a clock, recognizes coins
Resources Used: Moving Beyond the Page, Calvert Math K and 1st, counting rods, Anno’s Math Games, jigsaw puzzles, mazes, Sudoku puzzles, code puzzles, geoboards, parquetry blocks, tangrams

Science: Demonstrated Skills: simple experiments, gardening, pronounces and memorizes complicated names (dinosaurs, etc), observation, compare and contrast, classification
Resources used: Moving Beyond the Page, nature study, videos, magnifying glass, rock collection, library books for unit studies: sharks and rays, early life, dinosaurs, panda bears, scorpions, ocean life, Chesapeake Bay, rocks, plants, airplanes, ships, Earth day, human body, fish, simple machines, spring, fungi, science songs music cd

Social Studies/History/Culture: Demonstrated skills: identifies some continents on map, identifies some states on US map, identifies hometown, identifies our street, simple map skills, identifies community helpers
Resources used: playdates, field trips, Moving Beyond the Page, Story of the World, Vols. 1-2 including activity books, Maps, globe, atlases, landmark flashcards, library books for Unit studies: Egypt, Knights, Samurai, China and Japan, Nomads, Early Humans, Africa, holidays

Art/Music: Demonstrated skills: drawing, painting, cutting, gluing, drawing from observation, sewing straight line on striped fabric with sewing machine with supervision
Resources used: lapbook templates, crayons, markers, chalks, paint, clay, play-doh, sewing machine, craft supplies

Music: Demonstrated skills: keeping rhythm, identifying songs or musicians or composers by listening, singing, memorizing song lyrics, play Mary Had a Little Lamb on the piano, find middle C on the piano
Resources used: piano, guitar, keyboard, Usborne First Book of Piano, music CDs as part of unit studies, Classical Kids story/music CDs, Wii Guitar Hero

Physical Education/Health: Demonstrated skills: running, standing on one foot, skipping, jumping, climbing, riding a scooter, riding a bicycle, roller skating, hyper-dash game, dancing, swimming, nature hikes, Wii sports, Wii Fit, yoga

Foreign Language: Demonstrated Skills: counts to ten in Spanish, recognizes a few colors in Spanish, recites a few Spanish vocabulary words
Resources Used: Dora and Diego books and videos, Spanish matching card game, Spanish Bingo, websites

Field trips educational outings: College Park Aviation Museum, Patuxent National Wildlife Refuge Visitor’s Center, National Gallery of Art, Belair Mansion Museum, Belair Stable Museum, Patuxent River Naval Air Museum, Goddard Space Flight Center, Smithsonian Natural History Museum, Smithsonian American History Museum, The Nutcracker ballet, Marching Through Time Living History, Baltimore Aquarium, circus, Chesapeake Childrens’ Museum, Watkins Park nature center, Clearwater Nature Center Anne Arundel County Fair, Prince George’s County Fair, Sheep and Wool Festival

Please use any of the next spaces for subject headings not listed or a separate sheet of paper if you feel the need to add additional related information about your homeschooling. (Special Needs, Technology Classes, Community Colleges, apprenticeship classes, awards, honors, merits, certificates, trophies, community service etc.)

2 First place ribbons at Prince George’s County Fair for a papier mache sculpture and a painting.

Summer Plans

2010-04-26T15:28:00.000-07:00

If you are a homeschooling family, do you continue to do school year-round? Last year, we did school through the summer. Until about a week ago, I'd been assuming I would be doing it again this summer. But I'm starting to think we will take a break, starting with our week long trip to Louisiana, and starting up again sometime in August when we're all bored out of our minds.

I'm sure we'll still do lots of interesting things with educational value. It just won't be so structured. To be honest, our structure has been slipping toward the end of the school year, so it won't be much of a transition. Here are some things I want to pursue over the summer.

Nature Study with Journals
Geocaching
Local Travel
Cooking Lessons
Sewing Lessons
Video Animation
Scrapbooking (this past year of school)
Sports, especially bicycle riding
piano
Gardening

The usual things will be laying around the house for free use:
Art and Craft Supplies
Games
Books
Puzzles
Music
Toys

I still feel the need to limit screen time. It's my big roadblock to unschooling. I have this kneejerk reaction to letting my kids have unlimited screen (tv/video games/computer) time. I have definitely seen the advantages. Thing One learned to read on the Wii because he got tired of having to depend on us to read the instructions to him. He has learned a lot of his basic arithmetic from Leapster games. But his attitude gets very disrespectful, his behavior toward other kids gets more aggressive the more time he spends in front of a screen. So I'm thinking I'll give Thing One (age 6.5) 2 hours per day for total screen time. Thing Two (age 3.5) will get 1 hour. At least, that's the plan.

I love our neighborhood when the weather outside is nice. All the neighborhood kids come outside and play together. Thing One is relating to the older kids (ages 8+) in new ways and I have the feeling this summer will be alot about forming new relationships for him.

How to Make a Lightbox

2010-04-22T18:30:00.000-07:00

Do you have a drop-leaf dining table? If so, you can easily make it into a temporary light table.

1. Remove the leaf.

2. Place a piece of glass or plexiglass where the leaf was. If you are going to be using it alot, consider getting a piece of plexiglass cut to the size of your leaf.

3. Place a lamp under the glass or plexi, with the bulb pointing up toward the ceiling.

4. Trace away!

5. For a smaller project, you can tape your items to a well-lit window for the same effect.

I heard this tip from another quilter. I used my lightbox to trace patterns onto black background fabric for an appliqued quilt.

Quilting Tattoos

2010-04-11T20:08:00.000-07:00

I have seen these popping up alot lately. I'm not really a tattoo kind of gal, but even I'm starting to think a smallish one would be neat and fun.

I love Karen McTavish's feathers.

Here's a whole batch on flickr.

But here's my favorite, one I could actually see myself getting.

Today I...

2010-04-05T19:13:00.000-07:00

Made two books for the boys to make "cookbooks"
Prepared breakfast, lunch and two snacks for three of us
Washed the rugs
Cleaned the upstairs bathroom
Did a half-hour workout video that involved JOGGING and it felt good
showered
got myself and two kids dressed and teeth brushed
went to the library
balanced the checkbook
paid the bills
remembered the vitamins
washed the dishes
swept the kitchen floor
closed a credit card account and cut up the card (that felt really good)
read at least 50 pages aloud
made a bed
dusted while talking to my mom on the phone
put away six dirty socks that weren't even mine
helped a six year old with some school worksheets and helped him make a smoothie(he's obsessed with a blender cookbook)
watched tv
played horsie
gave about a zillion hugs and kisses
played a bit of bejeweled
checked email
researched toilets
found some ham recipes for leftovers
read my book

...and I even blogged!

Classical Music Week

2010-03-17T15:42:00.000-07:00

Thing One picked the theme "Tchaikovsky", and momma expanded it a bit to cover classical music in general. We are learning about orchestral instruments and a bit about the science of sound.

We found a neat book at the library. It's a great survey of classical music in general. It covers each era, then each instrument in the orchestra. The accompanying CD has nice, short, well-chosen samples for each era and each instrument. It's called The Story of the Orchestra by Robert Levine.

We listened to tons of music of course. Our favorite fun cds are Beethoven's Wig I and II. I found some great online lessons at the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's website.

Here are some other neat online music links.

Sphinx Kids

Creating Music

Funschool's Boomthang

We practiced clapping rhythm along with simple songs. It's also fun to make up verses to songs like Old MacDonald had a Farm, and Down by the Bay. We also found the echo spot in our stairwell.

Africa Week

2010-03-07T16:26:00.000-08:00

Thing One and I made a list of topics he wants to study more so I could put together some unit studies. One of the things he chose at random was "South Africa." I broadened this to include all of Africa and it ended up being a really fun weekly theme!

We studied African animals, focusing on elephants, lions, and giraffes. We talked a bit about primates, too. Movies we watched were The Lion King and Elephant Tales. We made some foam animals from a kit I had (elephant and lion). We learned "elephant breath" and a "lion stretch" during yoga time. Our yoga pretzels deck was helpful with this. My kids aren't too interested in the kids' yoga videos we have, but they adore these cards!

We listened to a ton of African music cds from the library. We also listened to Uncle Remus (Brer Rabbit) stories. We discussed what makes a folk tale special, and we read a bunch of African folk tales. The Anansi tales were the favorites.

We discussed basic African geography, and talked about the seven continents. We considered how different parts of Africa are from each other. We revisisted the savannah, desert and forest habitats. We read a book about students in different parts of Africa, and how they are similar to us in some ways and different in others.

We looked at some African art and some masks. We practiced drawing faces and masks. We made a mancala game with an egg carton and some beads.

We ate chicken peanut stew, and couscous with almonds and currants (both big hits).

Mushroom Week!

2010-02-24T04:41:00.001-08:00

I really wanted to blog about our mushroom theme this week because, in preparation, I had a hard time finding ideas for the theme online. I'm happy to share what I prepared!

We are reading tons of books about mushrooms and fungi and mold and yeast.

We are also studying scientific classification (taxonomy) this week. I highly recommend the book Tree of Life: The Incredible Biodiversity of Life on Earth by Rochelle Strauss. I presents these ideas in an easy to understand way, with beautiful illustrations. We played a classification game. I had Thing One collect ten random things from around the house. We observed each one, then discussed all the different ways we could categorize them (size, color, what they're made from, their use, etc). We discussed the five kingdoms, and then specifically the fungi kingdom.

We went on a mushroom hunt. Because there is a ton of snow on the ground here, and no mushrooms to be found on a walk in the woods this time of year here, we hunted at our grocery store. We bought button mushrooms, baby and large portabellos, dried chanterelles, oysters, and shiitakes. We examined one of each kind of mushrooms, discussing their structure. We touched, smelled and tasted. We made drawings in our science journal. We looked at them through a magnifying glass and also our bionic eye. Thing One had fun watching the chanterelles rehydrate. Then we made crockpot mushroom soup. Our menu this week also contains beef stroganoff with mushrooms, mushroom pizza, and stuffed button mushroom caps.

For the three year old Thing Two, he colored a "M is for mushroom" page, and then made mushroom prints. We cut a button mushroom in half, dipped it in paint and pressed it onto paper. We may try making spore prints later this week.

We started our mold experiment by placing several food items and a damp paper towel in a plastic lidded container to see what grows in the next few days.

We will be baking bread to discuss yeast, and also doing the classic yeast and sugar water in a bottle with a balloon on top experiment later this week.

We are discussing all the helpful aspects of kingdom fungi, and all the not so helpful aspects.

We're watching Alice in Wonderland and Fantasia, since both feature mushrooms prominently.

We are going to discuss fairy rings and do an accompanying coloring page.

For fun, we're reading The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet, and Stowaway to the Mushroom Planet by Eleanor Cameron. We're also reading Mushroom in the Rain by Mirra Ginsburg, a great book for the preschool set.

Winter Olympics Theme

2010-02-24T04:34:00.000-08:00

Last week we did a simple Olympics theme. I cobbled together enough lapbook resources from various free websites, including the Olympic symbol and oath, a chart for tracking medals and some coloring pages of sports that Thing One was unfamiliar with. He chose Poland as his country to focus on. We looked at its geography, he colored its flag, and we are tracking their medals on our chart. We even ate pierogies and polish sausage last week!

We also studied the origins of the Olympics. We used Story of the World Vol. 1 and the accompanying activity book to learn about the ancient Greeks. We located Greece on the map. We wrote our names with Greek letters.

Knights Week

2010-01-20T16:32:00.000-08:00

We have been studying knights for a couple of weeks. It has been a ton of fun! We played lots of dress up.

We played with some knight and castle toys.

We made a knight lapbook with resources from www.homeschoolshare.com.

For thing two, who is three, we have been talking a lot about heroes. He's been dressing up a lot, especially as batman, spiderman, and a knight. I made him some simple masks out of a sheet of foam with some holes poked in the sides, and some elastic string. He wears a mask, a cape (his blankie secured with a clothespin), and his "leg guards" (kneepads) everywhere. And I do mean everywhere.

We talked about the code of chivalry, and why knights fight. We talked about how they start training at a very young age so they could be good fighters, and why boys nowadays don't train in fighting in the same way. We talked about why mom and dad don't encourage the fighting behaviors that used to be so important.

Recent Work

2010-01-20T13:43:00.000-08:00

These are two quilt tops I put together from two large panda bear panels, to donate to charity through my quilting guild. They sat around for months because I couldn't quite figure out how to put them together. With some input from a friend, and determination to get them done and out of my house, they are finished! They will go to the community quilts committee for quilting and binding.

Winter Bulbs

2010-01-20T06:25:00.000-08:00

One of my most favorite things to do in the fall is to plant indoor winter bulbs like narcissus (paperwhites) and amaryllis. They are great for kids to help with because they are super simple to plant, and they grow really quickly. Within four to eight weeks they will be in full bloom! And you can stick them in a closet for a few months of dark, then replant them in fresh soil and they will come up again!

Crossing a Bridge

2009-12-10T17:52:00.000-08:00

Thing One came home from the library with dad today at 5:45. He immediately picked up a book, a Franny K. Stein book. He read straight thru dinner, paying more attention to his book than to the chicken and green beans, and finished the 102 page book at 6:45. He's not even six years old yet. I'm so proud!!!

Wordless Wednesday: Dance Party!

2009-11-23T17:48:00.000-08:00

see more wordless wednesday here.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

2009-11-23T16:45:00.000-08:00

I did an online challenge with my friend Rachel and finished it yesterday. I try to do something new in each quilt I make, or practice a skill that needs work. On this quilt, I did a stripey binding, cut on the bias.

It was a challenge to figure out how to piece it so that the seams were camouflaged in the red stripes. I love the way it turned out. I used up tons of Christmas scraps, including The Night Before Christmas panels which were supposed to be made to make a book. You can actually read the whole story on the top of the quilt (which Thing One loves).

The back uses up a ton of Christmas fabric too. (No, all those little squares on the back are not pieced, it's printed on the fabric.)

I also made pepper jelly yesterday. A friend had given me a baggie full of jalapenos, and I didn't know what to do with them until my sister told me of her pepper jelly-making and I got the envies. She sent me this recipe. It was surprisingly easy and fun. It made me feel like Betty Crocker!

The peppers look so Christmasy in their jars.

And an added bonus: I found a bottle of mead hidden in the cabinet with my canning jars! Sweet!

My new scheme

2009-11-22T20:30:00.000-08:00

I just finished working on my guild's annual challenge. The assignment we received several months ago, was to choose one word out of the pot, and make a quilt that embodied that word, using only two colors.

I picked "Scheme."

I thought of two ideas almost immediately. I sketched them out when I got home that night, then got involved with other things.

Last night, three nights before the quilt has to be shown completed, I sat down again with my sketch book to decide which of the two ideas I would pursue. I thought of a third idea, spent a couple of hours sketching it out. I bounced it (and the two originals) off my husband when he got home from fire station duty around 11pm. He said that one idea is much more accessible to a universal audience, and he's right, even though it meant the last few hours of work were wasted. I had found the perfect quote so it wasn't a total waste. Jean Jacques Rousseau said "There are two things to be considered with regard to any scheme. In the first place, Is it good in itself? In the second, Can it be easily put into practice?" It ended up tacked onto the "refrigerator" with some buttons in the finished product.

I must interject here that I am so lucky to have a husband who will listen to my midnight ramblings and not only understand them, but give me honest and sound advice. He has inspired so many ideas, or come up with great ideas, or helped me work through my own ideas.

The idea was to show the boys looking up at a cookie jar on top of the refrigerator, scheming about how to get at the treats.

It's hard to think that those angelic faces could ever do anything naughty. The other morning, upon waking, I found the boys sitting at the table, merrily eating their respective bowls of cereal with milk. This was somewhat unusual. The cereal is in a very high cabinet over the stove.

"Did daddy fix you cereal before he left?"

"No, Mama, we got it ourselves."

"How?"

"With two stepstools stacked up, and the kitchen tongs."

Egads. No mother needs a heart attack before her first cup of coffee!

So, today, I started working in earnest. I started by photographing the boys. This required a tiny bribe of Halloween candy to get them to pose and repose.

Thing One is thinking about wings, since he is obsessed with bugs and airplanes. Thing Two, my little engineer, is thinking about building stairs.
This is the finished quilt.

I had a ton of fun doing the "thread painting" around the cookie jar.

I also did some fun free motion of quilting of wing shapes and traditional "feather" shapes in the black background, although you can't see them unless you are really close. I got lots of positive feedback at the guild challenge meeting. This will go in the spring quilt show with all the other (21) challenge quilts.

Generosity

2009-11-08T05:28:00.000-08:00

Thing One helped a neighbor bag leaves yesterday. Just because he wanted to. The neighbor gave him a $2.00 "tip". He was so thrilled. He said, "Mom, are you proud of me for making this money?" Of course, I told him I was proud of him for helping our neighbor, and reminded him that he didn't do the work in order to make money.

After thinking about what he wanted to do with his new-found treasure for a while, he gave the money to his dad, saying "I think you and Mom could use a little extra money." My heart just leaped at his generosity.

I've been a snail or a slug!

2009-10-28T10:32:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it's been almost a month since I blogged last. It has been a busy couple of months for us. I did some traveling, my dh did some traveling, my kids did some traveling. We're all back for a few weeks then dh is off to Europe for ten days. Then the holidays hit! Where does the time go?

So, I can't think about all I haven't blogged about in the past 6 weeks. What is going on in our lives now?

I just made a bluebird Halloween costume for Thing One. He wants to say "Trick or Tweet"! I took some of his falling apart onesie pajamas, cut them up to use as a pattern and turned a couple of yards of blue felt that I bought for another unfinished project into a costume. I made some simple "wings" that I attached to the back of the arms, and I attached a simple tail to the back below the zipper. I used a helmet pattern from a knight costume to make a hat. I sewed a blue feather boa onto the helmet and onto the edges of the wings.

Thing Two is either going to be a pumpkin (borrowed costume) or a ghost (hand-me-down from Thing One).

DH and I? who knows. We usually throw something silly together at the last second.

School is going fairly well, although it has been somewhat inconsistent with all our traveling lately. I have workboxes out in the classroom, and downstairs as well. They are varying complexity, so some are good for each child, and some are good cooperative activities and games for all of us to do together. I've been letting the boys pick when they're ready.

I also ordered a new curriculum that arrived yesterday. I will have to report on it later, but the one lesson we've done from it today went well and was engaging, except for the "practice writing letter B" page. It's called Moving Beyond the Page. I ordered one unit (environment) to see how we like it.

We've been doing lots of Halloween activities. We did a cool painting technique called watercolor and ink resist. It made a nice Jack-o-lantern painting.

I have tons of beautiful photos from my trip to Santa Fe, and our trip to Ocean City while the kids were with their grandparents. That will have to wait for another day!

Snail and Slug Week

2009-10-01T07:01:00.000-07:00

Thing One has developed a fascination with slugs. We have found some real doozies around our house lately. He asked to learn more about them. Unfortunately it's hard to find much about just slugs for young kids, so we broadened our topic to include snails (and we touched briefly on mollusks in general).

We read:
Snails, Clams and Their Relatives by Blaxland
The End of the Beginning: Being the Adventures of a Small Snail (and an Even Smaller Ant) by Avi
The Snail and the Whale by Donaldson
The Snail House by Ahlberg
Mr. Carey's Garden by Cutler
Some Smug Slug by Edwards
My Buddy, Slug by Krosoczka

We tried a couple of experiments at attracting slugs. Several friends made suggestions and we tried most of them. We set out canned catfood (and attracted nothing, that we saw anyway). We set out a dish of beer (again, nothing). I also heard that wet sisal mats attract them but we didn't try that. We had the best luck just looking under big rocks or bricks, and checking the sidewalks early in the morning and after rain.

Plant week

2009-10-01T06:58:00.000-07:00

So I've gotten a little behind in blogging! We've been out enjoying the gorgeous weather.

A few weeks ago, we studied plants. We did several science experiments. We did the classic cut a stalk of celery and put it in water colored with food coloring, and watch the leaves turn colors. we did this with white carnations too. Oddly, the blue worked well with the carnations, but we noticed almost no difference in the red carnations.

We put some damp paper towels and lima beans in an empty jar and set it near the window for a few days. When some of them had swelled up and split open, we looked at the inside of the beans and named the parts. When they started sprouting, we planted a couple of them.

We also put some grass seed in an old pizza box. I cut half the lid off the box. Then I closed the box lid. Supposedly, the grass seed would come up on the side where it was exposed to the sun. Actually, it all grew on the side that was covered. I often have luck like this with our science experiments!

We went on a nature walk and tried to find as many different kinds of seeds as we could. Then we took them home and examined them closely, and compared and contrasted them. We talked about how each of them served a purpose in helping the plant grow new plants.

We read:
A Parade of Plants by Stewart
From Seed to Plant by Gibbons
A Seed is Sleepy by Aston
Plants by the Ontario Science Centre
Plants Grow! by Wade
How a Seed Grows by Jordan
A Tree is a Plant by Bulla
Ten Seeds by Brown
Oh Say Can You Seed? by Worth
Plant Life Cycles by Ganeri
Flip, Float, Fly: Seeds on the Move by Macken

Autumn is in the Air

2009-09-07T12:00:00.000-07:00

Last week, the weather was crisp, cool and perfect. We turned off the air conditioner, opened up all the windows, and had long leisurely play days and picnics outside.

We spent a day at our favorite park, and lucked into a long, leisurely lunchtime hayride.

We made apple pie with the first tart apples of the season from the farmers' market. This may be the best apple pie I've ever made. The crust was perfect. I'm drooling just remembering that pie.

Mama's dreaming of planting fall bulbs and what beautiful blooms they will bring in the spring. She's also envisioning big bouquets of chrysanthemums in front of the house. She's planning Halloween parties and costumes, ordering corduroy jackets off the internet, and remembering cool weather treats like constant comment hot tea, and oatmeal with buttered toast. She dug out her slippers, and moved a quilt to the sofa downstairs for cuddling under.

All from a bit of a chill in the air.

Pre-History Week

2009-09-05T13:20:00.000-07:00

We had another really laid back week this week. I feel extremely guilty because I didn't prepare workboxes, but we still did a lot of learnin' 'round here. I'm trying to get past that guilty feeling. It helps to blog because then I remember all the fun educational things we did all week!

We discussed more from Story of the World about nomads. We pretended to be nomads this week, and went around the neighborhood pretending to hunt for food. We also talked about how nomads would gather food. We gathered some figs off a neighbor's tree.

We made cave paintings.

This idea is from the Story of the World Activity Book. You crumple up a brown paper bag, then draw your painting in charcoal, then paint the image if desired with brown, beige and black paint.

Then we gathered some long sticks, and some "animal hide" (fabric out of mom's stash). We built a hut in the back yard.

We made clay pinch pots. We studied prehistoric mammals, like mastodons, mammoths and saber-toothed tigers. And a lot of other ones with names like platybeladon. Thing One reads this stuff for fun. That's my boy!

The boys "camped out" in the back yard. This was a private party, no parents allowed. Even daddy's storytime was rejected. Thing One took care of it and read to Thing Two instead.

You can imagine how long they actually lasted. There was no actual sleeping accomplished.

We read:

A Wooly Mammoth Journey by Miller

Choose Your Own Adventure: Indian Trail by Montgomery

Will's Mammoth by Putnam

Outside and Inside: Wooly Mammoths by Markle

The Mammoth Academy by Layton

The Legend of the Cranberry: A Paleo-Indian Tale by Greene

Wiley and Grampa #10: Jurassic Grampa by Scroggs

We watched:

Ice Age

We listened to:

Sunset of the Sabertooth by Mary Pope Osborne audiobook

Then, we did our usual, after-hours aimless learnin'. Thing One found a new pet, a tomato hornworm. He has cared for it very gently, feeding it fresh leaves at least twice per day.

Thing One loves to draw. Today, he tried to draw the United States from memory.

See you next week for Plants and Seeds!

18 Days and Counting

2009-09-05T09:31:00.000-07:00

My sister and I are attending a yoga, art and hiking retreat in New Mexico in a few weeks. I'm getting SOOOO excited! I've never been to that part of the country. I've never been in a desert. Our agenda includes yoga every day, plus exciting day trips.

Places we’ll be visiting:
Downtown Santa Fe www.santafe.org
Tent Rocks www.explorenm.com/hikes/TentRocks
Ojo Caliente www.ojocalientesprings.com
Georgia O’Keefe www.okeeffemuseum.org
Taos www.taoschamber.com
Kakawa Chocolates www.kakawachocolates.com

I'm a bit nervous about the elevation. Hopefully it won't affect me too much.

The trip organizer is my former yoga teacher who moved from Maryland to New Mexico last year. She still comes to Maryland regularly to teach various trainings. She is someone I try to emulate. She has such a profound aura of peace and joy about her that I envy.

Wordless Wednesday: Obscene Mushrooms

2009-09-02T16:40:00.000-07:00

We found this mushroom in our back yard today. I've never seen one before. I think it's a mutinus elegans.

These are from across the road.

Who knew you could find so many interesting fungi in a densely populated suburban neighborhood?

Home Sweet Homeschool

2009-09-01T04:45:00.000-07:00

I'm making a little quilted wall hanging for our front door. Ever since I heard that some homeschooling families get turned into Child Protective Services occasionally by their neighbors because they think they kids are truant, I have been on a mission to tell all my neighbors we're homeschoolers. I want a sign so that even the mailman, UPS guys, etc know I'm not a neglectful parent even though my dirty kids are running around shoeless in the front yard on a school day.

I need some help, though. I need to decide exactly what words to put on my quilt.

Home Sweet Home School?

Home is Where the School Is?

Homeschoolers Live Here

Homeschooling Family

Cole Family Homeschool

What's your vote?

Family Week

2009-08-29T16:49:00.000-07:00

I'm so behind on blogging. I'm so behind on everything right now.

A lot of bloggable things happened this week, they just weren't really directly related to our theme.

There was problem solving. It's so amusing to me to say, I won't do it for you, figure out how to do it yourselves.

How to get a ball from under the car.

How to get magnetix out of a 2 liter bottle. The eventual solution was scissors.

After our recent rains, we found giant toadstools.

We played with lots of bugs. Our favorite is a preying mantis that lives in our ferns in our front yard. Thing One was braver than me. He really wanted to hold him and he did!
Did you know they can fly? And when they get scared and threatened, they take the most interesting stance where they spread their wings and put their front legs out?

For schoolwork, we mostly read books and played games. Thing One is fascinated by two things right now. The first is the book Anno's Math Games by Mitsumaso Anna. It is really difficult to even describe. It's an introduction to beginning math concepts.

The second is a game I ordered on sale. It's a puzzle game called Cat and Mouse. It has nine tiles and a booklet with many different puzzles of different difficulty levels. The player tries to place the tiles to fulfill the requirements of the puzzle. I love it because it's a one-player game which is often hard to find, and because all the pieces fit inside! It's great for travel or waiting for food at a restaurant.

Thing One went to his first real sporting event this week, a minor league baseball game. Thing Two got his first bicycle (yard sale, $3). We need to get him some training wheels and a helmet.

Here's our list of family books:
The Family Book by Parr
Jesse Bear Climbs the Family Tree by Carlstrom
Henry and Mudge in the Family Trees by Rylant
Fathers, Mothers, Sisters, Brothers: A Collection of Family Poems by Hoberman
Chicken of the Family by Amato
My Family Plays Music by Cox

Hope you all are having fun with your families this week!

Back to School

2009-08-24T09:53:00.000-07:00

Today would have been Thing One's first day of kindergarten, if he would have gone to public school. I've had a strange, bittersweet feeling all day. But I know in my heart we made the right decision for our family.

So, instead, we started back to homeschooling after a two week break. He's so happy to be back. I can tell, even if he hadn't told his daddy this morning that he is excited.

We put together our new wall calendar. Thing Two wanted to "play", too. Then we read the introduction in Story of the World Vol. 1, and talked about Thing One's "personal history." We looked at his baby book, his baby pictures, watched videos of him as a baby, and made a timeline of his life.

We put a big piece of brown paper on our classroom door and made a family tree. Things One and Two decorated it with flowers and butterflies.

We're sending out some questionnaires to family members about their lives.

Then we headed to the library. I love that it is a two minute walk from our house. We loaded up on books about sharks and manta rays, and family. I got some reference books about homeschooling to look over as well. We found a cicada to play with on the walk home.

Now we're eating dinosaur-shaped turkey sandwiches while we watch the Magic School Bus video we checked out. Thing Two's headed for nap time next, while Thing One tries out afternoon center time. It has been a great "first day of school."

Try Angles

2009-08-21T20:23:00.000-07:00

A friend and I are doing a round robin together. We each started a quilt center, then passed it to the other person, who does something to the quilt, then we switch again, until we deem the quilts "done." We each put a box of fabric together that we wish to be in the quilt, and decided on rules (she and I are very relaxed about the rules--for this, basically anything goes. But some round robins are quite strict as to time frames, size, what fabrics you can use, etc.).

I got mine back last week. It looked like this.

Isn't the embroidery pretty?

I stared at it for a week. I didn't know what to do next! I looked online at border treatments everyday and debated, and sketched.

I knew I'd be seeing some quilting friends at Bunco tonight, so this afternoon I took it out to put it with my bag so I could ask their opinions about how to proceed. Well, inspiration struck, right there in the midst of my scrap piles and laundry baskets.

I had just seen an easy method for making a dogtooth border. The focus fabric I chose has a dogtooth-type border on it.

But I was a bit afraid of it. Like many beginning quilters, I have a fear of triangles. Templates. All those bias edges. Terrifying.

But after reading through the directions, I decided it didn't sound too difficult and it was worth a try. I had to make my template three times. But I finally got it right!

I'm so glad I tried! I made a small inner border to bring my measurements up to what they needed to be to fit, then added the dogtooth border.

My corners are lousy, but I don't care. I learned something new today!

Bunco Night

2009-08-21T20:02:00.000-07:00

I went to a quilting friend's home tonight and played Bunco. With eleven other women. It was fabulous! I learned a new game, met some new people and had child-free time to chat with my quilting friends. All for the low, low price of $10 cold, hard cash. I didn't win any prizes but I think $10 is a very fair price for good company, fun, and yummy snacks. And my other friend even picked me up and dropped me off!
This is me, wearing the pink scarf, which was the "traveler" for the night. (I don't know what's up with my lip. I think my camera lens must need a good cleaning!)

You can learn how to play here, and even print off free score cards. We had a great time!

While I'm Sitting Here

2009-08-20T11:14:00.000-07:00

I might as well tell you about what's going on around here, while I'm sitting in this beautiful puddle of sunshine with my laptop. Thing Two is napping (yay! he skipped the last two days and fought me today but he needed it). Thing One is playing some complicated imaginary game quietly. I'm breathing deeply and staying hydrated. Life is good.

We have taken the last two weeks off school to get reorganized and renerergized. We've cleared out so much stuff we're having a yard sale Saturday. I love that my boys don't get too attached to things. They are always willing to part with some books, videos, toys when it's time to purge.

We added some things, too. I rearranged the classroom a bit to free up one big wall. I hung up our new magnetic wipe-off board to use with All About Spelling. I found a great wall calendar on clearance for $7, so Thing One will be helping me put that together when we start back up with school. I hung up a big bulletin board downstairs in our dining room, which will house Math on the Wall activities.

I needed a way to keep our daily supplies organized and off the middle of our desk. I wanted something to hang on the wall but couldn't find just the right thing, til I found a small shower caddy with two hooks on it. The caddy holds our glue, paintbrushes, pencils and pens, the hooks hold two pairs of kids' scissors. Perfect.

We may take another week off if I don't feel ready to start Monday. Or maybe we'll start Wednesday. Isn't homeschooling great?

Wordless Wednesday

2009-08-19T04:59:00.000-07:00

For more Wordless Wednesdays, go here and here!

Pinwheels and Prairie Points

2009-08-16T16:09:00.000-07:00

A while back, I gave you a sneak preview of my latest quilt. It is yet another baby quilt! So many babies on the way.

I found this pattern online and altered it slightly. I did not use a charm pack, I just cut scraps into five inch blocks, and I added more blocks. I used 18 blocks, 16 on front, and 2 on the back. Eighteen is a good luck number. A good explanation of its significance can be found here.

Those mysterious 2.5 inch squares were for prairie points! I've never made them before so this was a fun new project.

So here it is! I love the way quilts look hanging on our fence. It brings a touch of country to these city suburbs!

I still have to finish the binding, then on to the next project!

Chore Bingo

2009-08-14T18:23:00.000-07:00

I've been searching for some ideas for encouraging the boys to do chores. I'm going to try chore bingo. I am going to make cards for all four of us (nine squares for the boys and 25 for the adults) and put them on the fridge, and as we finish a chore we can put a magnet on that square. First one to get a Bingo wins some kind of special prize. The boys are so competitive, hopefully this will motivate them to help out around the house.

I'm a big believer in kids doing chores. When I was reading all about unschooling, I found most of the parents were on a big "anti-coercive parenting" kick. Don't force your kids to do chores. Or clean up after themselves or be responsible for their own things. I thought a lot about what they had to say. I decided I don’t agree with that philosophy at all.

I don't know why this rubs me the wrong way so much. I guess it hearkens back to my childhood. I come from an extremely rural part of Louisiana. We had a huge garden. I had to get up at 6am every day during the summer and on Saturdays and Sundays during the school year to help in the garden. We planted, watered, harvested, shucked, and preserved about 80% of the food we ate during the year. We were also expected to help with all the household chores, every day, on top of our homework.

I think chores have great value for a child. It helps a child learn basic life skills. It helps a child learn to appreciate what he has. It helps a child learn responsibility, and that other people are relying on him. It can help a child learn cooperation skills. It gives child a sense of accomplishment and worth. How great do you feel when you finish a job completely, especially when it was challenging? It helps the child feel that he has a real role in his family. He feels that his contribution is important.

How do you feel about chores? Do you have a trick or two that you use to encourage your kids?

Row, Row, Row your Quilt

2009-08-14T17:39:00.000-07:00

I was recently introduced to the idea of a row quilt through my quilting guild. We are hosting a quilt bingo in October, and if you aren't able to donate a finished quilt for a prize, you were asked to donate rows for a few quilts. Here are some examples. I spent one day this week sewing some rows.

The two french braid rows are the same set of fabrics, just put together differently. These were my first braid quilting, and my first attempt at separating fabric solely on value.

The other three are strip-pieced and cut into eight inch sections. On two, I rotated every other block; on the last one, I just pieced them all the same direction.

I can't wait to see the quilt bingo row quilts put together! They are all autumn colors and will be truly stunning based on the rows I have seen at guild so far!

What's Thing Two Been Up To?

2009-08-14T17:00:00.000-07:00

Looking Cool

Sticker backgrounds

Glue and glitter art

Poingo books

Perfecting his golf game

Milk lid letters

Stamping

Playing King of the Mountain
Riding his scooter

Sticking things in styrofoam

Swimming

Birthday parties

Looking cool!

We're Official!

2009-08-14T16:35:00.000-07:00

I got notification from the county today that they have received our forms. You're gonna love this, I know I did. The form on the internet had the incorrect address on it as to where to send it, and I'm so surprised it still got to the right person. My name was spelled wrong on the envelope, but correctly on the letter.

We took the week off of school this week. We had planned a whale week, and we did a few whale themed activities. I was planning a break next week, but Monday we just couldn't get started and it became obvious we'd start our break early. So mostly we just hung out.

You would think the kids would love a break from school, right? Thing One has been horribly whiny and fussy all week. He kept complaining that he was bored, and wanted to do something fun. Then he had a total meltdown on Thursday. It was triggered by my saying no to a computer game he wanted to play. But after a half hour tantrum followed by a twenty minute calming down period, we talked. He admitted he was having a hard time with our schedule being all messed up and not doing school like we've been doing all summer. And with not getting as much attention from mommy, who has been busy organizing the classroom, and even *gasp* taking some time to do things she likes to do for herself. This is why, as much as I like the idea of unschooling, it does not work for our family. Despite me having to twist arms to get the boys, especially Thing One, to do anything, even things he enjoys, we have to have the structure of at least a routine. I don't stick to a strict schedule but we do the same routine every day. Even weekends cause stress at our house, because Dad's home which changes the whole dynamic, and because we don't stick to our usual routine.

So I think we're going to take one more week off then get back into it. I've spent this whole week doing physical organization, and I need next week to do the mental organization and some prep. I know we're going to stick with workboxes. I'm going to set up three for Thing Two (he's been asking for them), and probably take away three from Thing One, leaving him nine. That's how many we actually get through on a normal day. I'm going to begin some more structured lessons instead of just working on a unit study/theme. We're going to start doing activities to go along with Story of the World Vol. 1 (the activity book is on the way). We've already listened to all of the CDs from vol. 1 in the car, while running errands, etc. and the boys love them. We're also going to start All About Spelling and Miquon Math.

I want to address our "problem time" during the day. We have been doing school only until lunchtime each day. So Thing Two's naptime, and then after Thing Two wakes up until dinner time is wide open. That's when I want a break, but Thing One still wants my undivided attention if he isn't allowed to play computer games, play Wii, or watch a video. I'm thinking I will set up some centers (probably aim for 10/month) and he will be allowed to choose one per day. They would almost be like "afternoon workboxes" but call them something different to interest him. He had centers in his preschool and liked them, and it will be a chance perhaps to explore an idea more in depth. Thing One likes to plan his own workboxes on Saturday so I may enlist his help on planning these. It may not work but it is worth a try.

Summer Swaps

2009-08-09T17:09:00.000-07:00

We signed up for a great summer swap here a couple of months ago.

Last Sunday evening, in a frenzy that can only be brought on by a looming deadline, I finished packing up all the lovelies we had been collecting for our swap friends. Monday morning we made a beeline for the post office and sent them off.

Thing One received his package the same day. It was full of goodies from Iowa, sent from Toby. Mama loved their list of things and why they included them.

Thing One loved the geode, because he got to smash it with a hammer and see what was inside. We had just studied rocks and beginning geology the week before so that was great timing!
And the giant paperclip got tons of oohs and aahs!

There were so many other awesome things in this package: popcorn, a coloring book, a prairie sounds cd, a homemade bag full of homemade crayons shaped like cars, a state pencil, an Iowa flag, a drawing and family photos.

Daniel in Ohio sent Thing Two an awesome package as well! He received a (very professional looking) book All About Daniel, a handmade bead bracelet, and a handmade mini-feltboard with three bears and a tree inside.

We could tell he worked really hard on making such a cool book!

Thanks so much to both families, and to the host sites! We had a great time learning about new friends and places.

Bug Week

2009-08-09T12:00:00.000-07:00

We're going on a bug hunt.

We're going to catch a big one.

What a beautiful day!

We're not scared!

Uh, oh, a creek. A cold, shady creek. We can't go over it, we can't go under it. Oh No, we have to go thru it! Splish, splash, splish, splash!

We're going on a bug hunt again tomorrow!

I gathered up all our shiny collage paper and glitter and we made shiny beetles.

We made coffee filter butterflies. We made these cool flowers with bugs that rotate around them.
We read:

In the Tall, Tall Grass by Fleming

Beetle Bop by Fleming

Bean Thirteen by McElligott

The Lion's Share by McElligott

Ant, Ant, Ant (An Insect Chant) by Sayre

Thelonius Monster's Sky-High Fly Pie by Sierra

Bird, Butterfly, Eel by Prosek

Bright Beetle by Chrustowski

Bubble Gum, Bubble Gum by Wheeler (BIG hit)

Bugs Are Insects by Rockwell (great introduction; my two year old asked me all week "is a cricket really an insect?")

Have You Seen Bugs? by Oppenheim

I Saw an Ant on the Railroad Track by Prince (BIG hit)

DK Big Book of Bugs

A neat reference for adults is Play and Find Out about Bugs: Easy Experiments for Young Children by Janice VanCleave. It has some really neat, easy ideas.

We listened to:

Pete Seeger, Birds Beasts, Bugs and Fishes

Jane Murphy, Songs About Insects, Bugs and Squiggly Things

Bugs, Bugs, Bugs (Vol 3 of 8 theme based Music CDS)

We watched:

The Jeff Corwin Experience: Insects and Arachnids (We all loved this video. After some boring ones the last few weeks, this has reassured Thing One of the value of science videos. Just the right combination of scary and gross.)

DK Eyewitness DVD: Insect

A Bug's Life

We concentrated on what makes an insect an insect, and how they are useful in the big scheme of things. I told the boys that if they were kind to insects all week, they would earn a "Bug Buddy" certificate. I had Thing One tell me some ways that bugs are helpful in order to get his. When they got them on Friday, they were so proud! You can find your own here.

Use it Up, Wear it Out, Make Do or Do Without

2009-08-05T16:41:00.000-07:00

I've been doing without a lot lately.

I had to do without my laptop for a couple of days when the hard drive mysteriously died and it had to be repaired. (I suspect it was dropped but no one will admit it.) The stairs to the desktop upstairs never seemed so tall. I only got it last Christmas. I didn't realize I had become so addicted to its convenience. I've been doing without my night bejeweled blitz game and facebook and blogs.

I've been doing without ice cream. (OK, truth be told, I caved and bought some at the grocery store tonight. I'm weak!) I have gained back a few pounds and don't want to backslide too far. I need to tighten the belt, so to speak. The weight gain mysteriously coincides with the laptop acquisition.

I've been doing without the family car. My husband of 8 years just got his first driver's license. We're having to share the car, which is new. And it's often inconvenient for one of us. Luckily we live within easy walking distance of almost everything, and walking more helps with the weight gain. Unless I walk to the store to buy more ice cream.

I've been doing without television. We haven't had cable tv since we moved into this house five years ago. Since the digital switchover, despite having the magical box and an antenna, we get terrible reception. So we just haven't been watching television. We watch dvds. We keep visiting the idea of paying for cable, or satellite, or FIOS. But we keep coming back to the idea that we can do without just fine.

Since I became Mom, I have done without personal time or any semblance of privacy. (I get a hug from Thing Two every time I go to the toilet. Is that because he is getting praise for going potty?) I do without time alone with my husband.

About most things, I'm fine to do without, especially if it's only temporary. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. I don't mind when my husband travels for business, or the week my kids spend at their grandparents' house. I love food but I can give it up if need be. I can give up convenience and comfort. Part of me thinks deprivation builds character. Silent retreats. Fasting. Simple Living. Walden.

One of the most interesting experiments I've ever done was part of The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron: a week of reading deprivation. It was so ridiculously difficult for me. No reading books, magazines, newspapers, online, cereal boxes while you eat breakfast, pamphlets at the doctor's office waiting room, nothing. Only necessary reading for work/school and situations like menus was allowed. The idea was that you can spend that time and energy in creative pursuits, like thinking and planning and sketching your next art project, or actually working on it! It was excruciating. It did make me realize how much time I waste distracting myself with reading. I read to escape. I read to escape boredom, to avoid conversations I don't want to have with my spouse, to block out external sensory input that I want to ignore (like loud annoying kids, my own, by the way. I'm rereading this blog entry right now while I try to ignore their loudness). I read to procrastinate.

There are some things I cannot do without. Like my meds (you think I'm joking, don't you?). I've tried to go without them. I could make it work before I had kids. I could function. With all the stress and overstimulation that comes with small children, I can't do it. At least not yet. I really don't like being on meds. It makes me feel weak for needing help. It makes me feel dulled. It makes me feel like my essential me-ness is shrouded in a fog. But it enables me to function on a daily basis. It allows me to get out of bed, get myself together, deal with stubborn mule-brained boys all day, do the same boring thankless tasks I do to keep our household running again, and be mostly nice to people. I feel like the trade-off is that much of my creativity is shoved to the back burner for now. I guess that comes with parenting.

I've been doing without my family and alot of friends for way too long. We live 1000 miles away from them now. And I miss them. Some things, like television and ice cream, I don't mind doing without. But I don't like having to do without the people I love.

Wordless Wednesday

2009-08-05T15:37:00.001-07:00

For more Wordless Wednesdays, click here.

My Quilting Space(s)

2009-08-03T15:16:00.000-07:00

I've spent the last several months getting my sewing supplies and fabric stash organized. After setting up our homeschool classroom, we have a big chunk of our bedroom back because we moved the huge computer desk into the classroom.

My darling hubby installed some shelves in a hall closet that was drastically under-utilized. I organized all my fabric by color/style.

I have all my supplies sorted in bins in the closet in our bedroom where I sew.

I also have two bins of garment fabric, two big boxes of scraps, and my old (now emergency backup) sewing machine in this closet.

Here is my updated sewing space.

It has nice afternoon light, which is when I do most of my sewing these days. I have a small three drawer bin with thread and basic supplies on the sewing table. I may get another folding table and form a corner there so I don't have to move stuff on the sewing table to use my cutting board. It's not huge or fancy, but it's so important to me to have a devoted space so I can sit down and sew whenever I have a few minutes.

A Teaser

2009-08-03T15:08:00.000-07:00

Here are the beginnings of my next baby quilt:

My only suggestions for color were "neutrals like light green." So I pulled all my light greens and some of my neutrals and got busy cutting.

Nothing says "baby quilt" to me like the pinwheel block. But this one has a fun twist! It's something I've never tried before. It involves those stacks of 2.5 inch squares up there. Stay tuned!

Volcano Week

2009-07-31T07:37:00.000-07:00

We studied volcanoes in school this week. We touched on beginning geology. We talked about how volcanoes form, the types of volcanoes and where they are found. We talked about the structure of the earth, and about the three main types of rocks.

Our list of books this week:

Hill of Fire by Lewis (We used some activities from the unit study here and lapbook activities here)

Volcanoes by Branley

The Adventures of Polo by Faller

Eyewitness Books: Volcanoes and Earthquakes

Magic School Bus Chapter Book: Voyage to the Volcano by Judith Stamper

Magic Tree House: Earthquake in the Early Morning by Osborne

Magic Tree House: Vacation Under the Volcano by Osborne

Volcano! by Nicolson (I like this one because it lists easy science experiments inside)

Braving Volcanoes: Volcanologists by PetersonThat Crazy Eddie and the Science Project of Doom by Cox

Into the Volcano by O'Meara

That Crazy Eddie and the Science Project of Doom by Cox

We examined some rocks closely and talked about their texture, color, and about how shale will flake off in layers. Thing One asked to smash the slate, which led to me learning a secret of little boy happiness. I gave him the hammer and permission to smash any rocks he wanted. He loved this so much, he even asked to do it the next day as well.Of course, we had to make a baking soda and vinegar volcano. We took an small empty bottle and wrapped it in crumpled aluminum foil, and put the whole shebang into an old roasting pan. Add a few teaspoons of baking soda into the bottle, mix your food coloring into a small pitcher of vinegar, and pour the vinegar into the bottle. Do you see the joy on his face? It was worth getting everything in my dining room stained red.

We got a really nice intense red color from food coloring paste (versus liquid).Friday afternoon, I pulled out my nice acrylic paints and some small canvases and let the boys paint real paintings. Here's Thing Two who insisted on having the biggest paintbrush. These are Thing One's:

And Thing Two's:

I'm so proud. I think they are fantastic. They are going on the wall as soon as they're dry!

See you next week, when we explore BUGS!

Maverick Stars

2009-07-31T05:12:00.001-07:00

I've been working with Bonnie Hunter's Maverick Stars pattern on a baby quilt. I finished this little gem at craft night last night. I'm quite happy with it. I think the only thing I'd change is that next time I'd make it larger.

I added white sashing between the blocks to space out the stars a bit. I looked for multi-colored fabric in my stash of novelty fabrics for a border but just didn't like any one enough, or didn't have enough of any one. So I decided to piece a border with leftover 2.5 inch squares.

For the backing, I used up a piece of fabric I have never liked but I thought went well with this quilt. It has little kids' faces on it.
My next decision was how to bind the quilt. I didn't want white, or black, or any solid color. I wanted multi colored to blend with the scrappy border. So I found a chunk of pretty obnoxious teddy bear fabric that had the right colors and made binding from that. I think it turned out nicely!
And this came 100% out of my existing stash! I love it when I can finish a project without buying anything new.

Wordless Wednesday

2009-07-29T04:58:00.000-07:00

You can see more Wordless Wednesdays here.

Airplane Week

2009-07-25T08:30:00.000-07:00

We had kind of a lazy airplane week. I feel bad because I just didn't put the effort into filling workboxes that I usually do. I did a good job on Monday but was lazy the rest of the week. I'm starting to think that a good homeschool schedule for us might be three weeks on, one week off, year round.

Thing One has been saying for a year that he wants to be a pilot when he grows up. Specifically, a fighter pilot. Monday, I researched what it takes to become a pilot, and what a pilot does in his job, and I made workboxes about each of those steps.

Overview of a pilot's training and job duties, why it's a stressful job

School-I asked a few questions of each boy like what's 2+2, sing the ABC song, etc. You could present them with a diploma and a graduation hat, if desired.

Pilot Training School-They sat in their chairs and pretended to fly a plane as I narrated what to do.

Health Check-up- I was the doctor and used the play doctor kit to certify them able to fly.
Pilot License-I printed out a photo of each child, their name, address, etc on the back, and put them together back to back and put contact paper over each one. You could also use an old badge holder. I also gave them "pilot's hats" which were just two hats out of our dress up bin.

Checking the Weather and Aircraft-We pointed to today's weather on a chart, and then pretended to check the outside of the aircraft (our chair) and fuel it up.

Planning Routes-I made a Departure/Arrival Chart on a piece of posterboard. Thing One looked at our US map and decided what city he wanted to leave from, and where he wanted to land. We wrote these on our chart, plotted the cities on a dry-erase US map and he drew lines between them. We compared which routes which were longer, shorter, etc. We also wrote times on our chart, and discussed AM and PM, noon and midnight.Seating Chart-I made a very simple plane diagram with four rows (A, B, C, D) and four columns (1, 2, 3, 4). I made up silly passenger names like Angry Alice, Bald Bart, Perky Pam, etc and wrote them on index cards cut to fit inside the boxes on the chart. On the back of each card, I wrote a letter and number (4D) and Thing One had to put these on the right place on the chart. He also had fun reading the names. I also made pilot, copilot, and flight attendant cards to put in the Cockpit and Flight Attendant sections of the chart. I think this would be fun to do with stuffed animals, too, on a large sheet of paper or a sheet or just mark the floor. Just tape the chart coordinates on the bottom of each animal. Payday-I put some play money in the workbox for their salaries

We also made some simple styrofoam prints of some of Thing One's airplane drawings. I cut cardstock to postcard size so we could mail these for our postcrossing project. These turned out really cute. The only step added to my basic directions are that I taped Thing One's drawing onto the styrofoam, and he traced over it with a dull pencil, pushing hard into the styrofoam.

Our airplane reading list this week was:

Miss Mouse Takes Off by Ormerod

Cam Jansen #12 The Mystery of Flight 54 by Adler

Airport by Barton

Eyewitness Books Flying Machine by Nahum

Strange and Wonderful Aircraft by Weiss

Feathers, Flaps and Flops by Zaunders

Moon Plane by McCarty

DK Experience Flight by Platt

Goosebumps How I Learned to Fly by Stine

We listened to:

Most Amazing Truck, Train and Plane Songs (Music for Little People)

My Green Kite CD by Peter Himmelman

We watched:

Bill Nye the Science Guy's video about Flight

Reading Rainbow Bored with Nothing to Do

We made several paper airplanes. I have to admit that none of them flew worth a darn, but Thing One had fun with them. We had fun experimenting with how to improve their flight. Paw Paw sent Thing One a neat book of paper airplanes recently called Pocket Flyers by Ken Blackburn & Jeff Lammers. They are pre-printed sheets that you fold into tiny paper planes. I love that there are multiple sheets of each plane.

We wrote a few interview questions for Paw Paw because he used to be an air traffic controller, drew him a nice picture of airplanes, and stuck it in the mail.

We learned about an early aviator from Brazil called Alberto Santos-Dumont. You can learn more about him here. There are some nice links and activities on this site. This was a nice opportunity to learn about Brazil and do a bit of geography with our globe and map.

Friday we went to the College Park Aviation Museum. We had been there several times before. I made a scavenger hunt for Thing One to do while we were there, based on things I knew were there (map, model plane, goggles, etc).
Daddy let Thing One play "Flight Control" on his ipod. This is his new obsession!

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

That's all til next week, when we learn more about volcanoes!

Self Portrait

2009-07-24T06:51:00.000-07:00

"My challenge to you, should you choose to accept it, is to post of picture of yourself without makeup and without your hair styled." See more here.

I like the laundry basket in the background. Completely unintentional but very representative of my life right now.

I've got a wierd poofy hair thing happening this morning, due to wearing a headband all day yesterday. No concealer to cover up those big purple bags under my eyes. That's the makeup I don't usually let myself be seen without. My youngest has inherited my slightly crooked eyes. I am now finding gray hairs in my eyebrows on a regular basis. I have no idea how much gray is on my head, I haven't had my natural color since high school. I'm in the process of growing it out and am sooooo in hate with it right now. I'm about one bad hair day away from cutting it all off again. I need someone to talk me down from the precipice.

Yes, folks, at 36, it's not pretty. But it's beautiful.

Wordless Wednesday

2009-07-21T06:00:00.001-07:00

Find more wordless wednesdays here.

Current Quilting Projects

2009-07-20T11:55:00.000-07:00

I finished two quilts last week. The first was a baby gift for our new nephew.

I realized halfway thru piecing that all my blue and white four patches were turned 90 degrees. But there was no way in heck I was going to rip all those seams and re do it. I don't think the baby will notice. The scrappy border was fun to make.

The second is a quilt for my youngest. This was a block of the month at my guild, and I actually sat down and made a bunch of them at the same time. This is the first quilt I quilted on a longarm sewing machine. It was a good first quilt for that, since I practiced making a different design in each jar, and in each lid. This week, I'm trying to finish another baby quilt. It is made of Maverick Stars from Bonnie Hunter's website. She gives excellent directions. (Before you click on that link, think twice....I promise you will spend hours there. Don't say I didn't warn you.) These are so great for using up scraps, especially 2.5 inch squares, and smallish triangles.

Aren't they cute? They are so fun to make. I get very bored making the same block over and over. These are each different, even though they are made the same way.

I think I will put sashing between each blocks, to space them out a bit. Give they eye a place to rest. There's a lot going on in this quilt.

I saw Bonnie Hunter speak at my guild meeting last year. She is amazing. I like her scrap system. She preaches that you pay the same amount of money per yard for those scraps, so use them up! I spent an entire week last year, about two hours per day, cutting my scraps into strips and squares. I used many of those squares in these stars.

Styrofoam Prints

2009-07-19T13:46:00.000-07:00

I needed to make a bunch of baby cards for upcoming births, so I decided to try a technique I've been wanting to experiment with to streamline the process. Of course, you don't have to limit this technique to card-making, you could use it for a kids' craft, or fabric printing or any other kind of surface design.

To make these prints, you will need a clean styrofoam meat or vegetable tray, acrylic craft paint, a paintbrush, a palette (I use a paper plate), some paper or blank cards to print on, and a mark-making tool or two. You can use about anything to make marks. I have here a toothpick, a pencil, a chopstick, some ceramic and printmaking tools, a corn holder, and a nut pick.
Start by cutting your tray into a piece that is the same size as your card, or smaller. Make sure you have cut off any pieces with marks on them, like a recycle symbol or manufacturer's mark (these will show up in your printed image). After your styrofoam is all trimmed, you'll have a nice piece that is flat on both sides. You can use each side to make a separate design if desired.

Use one of your mark-making tools to draw a simple picture. Don't get too complicated. Don't forget to reverse any writing!You'll end up with something like this:

Cover the styrofoam with fairly thick paint. You may want to go back over the lines quickly with your mark-making tool at this point, just don't let the paint dry.

Press the painted side onto your paper, trying to get even pressure all over. When you lift it off, try to lift straight up and off so you don't smudge the image. I like to make a test print on scrap paper first. Now go and rinse the paint off in the sink. You can totally re-use these! Here are some of my printed cards:I took my paintbrush and touched up that line by the letter "Y" so it wasn't so distracting from the word. I left all the other imperfections, though. I like that handmade look. I plan on fancying them up with some bits of ribbon, and writing "Congratulations on Your New Bundle of Joy" on the inside.

I hope you try some of these prints! I made a set of eight cards, four pink and four blue, in half an hour! Can't beat that for a fast, fun and cheap craft.

Wordless Wednesday

2009-07-15T10:34:00.000-07:00

Why I Love Our Town

2009-07-15T08:18:00.000-07:00

We are sooooo lucky to have a farmers' market that meets a two minute walk from our house on Sunday mornings from Memorial Day to mid-October.

It is the home of:

Fresh fruits and veggies
Live plants
Occasional treats like pastries or artisan bread
Visiting dogs
Live music
Civic events, like a day when firetrucks, ambulances and police cars come out for the kids to see
Community events like corn roasts, build a scarecrow, free snowcones
Knowledgeable local growers

Right now, there are cherries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, cantaloupe, peaches (REAL peaches), corn, squash, cucumbers, eggplant, onions, herb plants, potted and cut flowers, fair trade coffee, honey, salsa, preserves and jellies. Non food items for sale include rain barrels, gourmet doggie treats, and green cleansers.

Often, my husband and I will take turns taking the kids to the market to give the other spouse some quiet time alone. As much as I love those days, I love the days we all go together even more. It's so fun to walk over, all of us hand in hand, and explore the sights, sounds, smells and textures of the market.

Parrot Week

2009-07-15T07:49:00.000-07:00

What the heck do you plan for a whole week of parrot themed activities? Well, I'll tell you what we did.

I asked Thing One what it is about parrots that interest him and that helped me figure out where to go with our studies. He wanted to know more about talking birds.

Our book list:

Princess Penelope's Parrot by Lester

Beastly Feast by Goldstone

Talking Birds by Flanagan

Parrots by Altman

We listened to Nonsense Poems and Stories on CD by Edward Lear

We had a pirate day. We read pirate books and dressed up like a pirate.

Our pirate book list:

Pirates Eat Porridge by Morgan

Tough Boris by Fox
Pirates by Lamm

For crafts, we stuck feathers in a styrofoam ball and glued googly eyes on it for a parrot head. We printed out some parrot bookmarks, colored them, and laminated them.

We looked at and felt real feathers, looked at a picture of different sizes and shapes of feathers, and learned the parts of a feather. We talked about the different ways that feathers help birds, and the different ways that people use feathers. We talked about types of beaks and why different birds have different kinds of beaks.

We watched silly videos of birds talking and playing and bathing in the sink on youtube.com. We watched volume one of David Attenborough's Life of Birds but Thing One declared it "boring." I think he doesn't have quite the attention span for it yet. I thought it was fascinating.

We played a parrot game, where one person was the bird owner and one person was the parrot and repeated everything the owner said.

And I saved the best for last. We got to visit a friend who owns a 12 year old African Meyer parrot named Oscar. The boys got to pet and hold him. He knows how to shake hands which they thought was soooo cooool. They fed him tortilla chips.

We tried a new kind of puzzle for our treasure hunt this week. I put a clue into code that had five letters in it "Mom's room" (five counting the apostrophe). Each day after finishing his first workbox puzzle, he got the key to one letter in the week-long puzzle (?=M for example). By the end of the week he had the puzzle solved and found the treasure chest. I gave him a "Canadian Oreo", a maple cream cookie that daddy brought back from Canada this week.

We also found a venus fly trap at the local garden center and Thing One is so excited about his new "pet." He is thinking up a name for it, and chasing house flies to feed it.

Summer Post Projects

2009-07-15T06:50:00.000-07:00

We recently discovered the postcrossing project and signed up immediately. I was the kid who had five foreign pen pals growing up and looked forward to every letter. I hope that my kids have the same passion about correspondence, but for now, I think I am living vicariously through them! So far we have sent postcards all over the world and have received about ten really nice postcards from all over the world. It's so exciting when we get a new card in the mail, and read it together. It's a great chance to discuss geography, so we always look up the country on our world map and globe.

Being five years old, Thing One doesn't write very well yet and certainly not well enough to write tiny letters on a postcard. So in order to expedite the process, and give him a way to participate, we have collected postcards from our town and region, and he gets to pick the card. I try to help based on the recipient's requests (certain people want certain kinds of cards). I print out the addresses with the post code attached and he pastes them onto the cards. Then he narrates what he wants to say and I write it for him. We usually wait until we can request three or four addresses at a time then prepare them all as one workbox, then make a trip to the post office to purchase stamps as another workbox.

We have also been doing a project called Making Friends. This site has cute paper dolls that you can customize to look like yourself and reflect your interests and hobbies. Through their Friends Across America program, you can send yours off to someone else and get someone else's in return. We do about two of these as a workbox per week, and then when we have ten completed, we stick them in an envelope and send it off to the address on the site. We received our first packet of friends last week, from a Brownie troupe. Thing One liked reading about each girl's interests.

We are also doing some package exchanges. One is with a friend's child, with the theme My Town. Thing One has a set of world landmark flash cards that he really likes, and dad came up with the idea of making landmark cards for our town. Thing One really wants to laminate them! It's so funny what makes them excited. We will probably include some brochures, a city map, maybe some regional snacks.

I also signed up each of my boys to participate in an online exchange with kids their own age. These packages can contain anything you think your partner might like to receive. These will contain more fun things, but I am considering some regional or city-specific items too, and information about our family since these are strangers.

Our Postage Stamp Garden

2009-07-10T17:44:00.000-07:00

We live in a suburban townhome and we have a tiny yard. But I am determined to make the most of what we have. This is the first house we have owned and the first place I've ever had any bit of land we can call our own.

The first year we moved in, we ripped up the existing brick patio, and relaid it to a much smaller size, giving us about ten more square feet of grass. Our intention was to sod this bit that used to be patio, but since Thing One liked to dig in it so much, we just sort of let it turn into a digging hole. I'm so glad we decided to let the hole stay. He (and now Thing Two as well) loves it soooo much. They have spent endless hours playing with their trucks and digging tools.

The next year, We added a flower bed down the length of the yard on one side, and a small flower bed on the other side of the yard. We only planted a few herbs and some sunflowers that first year. We discovered that the sunflowers grew great, and all faced into our neighbors' yard. So the next year we planted them on the opposite side of the yard and were actually able to enjoy looking at the blooms! Thing One helped me plant a bunch of tulip, daffodil, iris and hyacinth bulbs. Bulbs are suck an easy gardening project for little ones. They bloom fairly well and have come back each year. It is such a joy to see those shoots come up when the spring starts thawing the ground. And I do love having vases full of flowers I grew myself!

We planted lots of flowering vines like Morning Glory and Clematis, to make the most of our vertical space. I stapled up a plastic net along the length of the fence that the vines cling to. I also planted a jasmine but it has yet to bloom. DH planted a rosebush but it only lasted one season.

I have planted a few vegetables here and there. Cherry tomatoes flourish, and I had a gargantuan bell pepper one year. My regular tomatoes never seem to do well and our okra and cantaloupes never made much to speak of. My herbs do well each year.

We put up a simple compost bin. It is four wooden stakes with a strong plastic net wrapped around it. We love watching the birds, and the occasional chipmunk, rifle through the compost. Sometimes seeds we throw in there germinate and we get mystery plants. This year's mystery plant is looking like a zucchini. This is what the zucchini looked like last week:

This is what it looks like today!

We eventually took on our front yard. It was a simple slope when we moved in, with an azalea bush and a dogwood tree, both in pretty sad shape. When the dogwood tree fell over and crushed what was left of the azalea tree, we knew it was time to decide how to proceed. We debated about what to do with it for at least a year.

We eventually decided to do three tiers. The top will hold a bench eventually, and was planted with ferns. The middle tier is the smallest and holds a few miscellaneous plants. Perhaps next year I will actually plan what I want to plant on this tier. The bottom tier is just grass so we have a bit of front yard space to sit upon.

The best thing about our yard is all the wildlife. We keep bird feeders full in the winter, sometimes right outside our front window, sometimes in the back yard at the patio door. The squirrels and chipmunks always find them, too. In the spring, we start seeing tiny bunnies in our clover in the back yard. They often eat our plants too, but they are so darned cute. Right now, a chipmunk is burrowing tunnels all underneath our patio, and the bricks are collapsing in random places all over. It's very aggravating!

Next year, I am considering putting in a small bed on the outside of our back fence. It's a sunny south facing spot that would be great for veggies or flowers. My husband usually does the hard labor of building the bed, so I'm not sure he's thrilled at the idea, but he sure does like fresh veggies and herbs, so I think I can sweet talk him into a little bit of sweat equity with promises of tomato bread salad and fresh pesto.

Chesapeake Bay Week

2009-07-10T11:00:00.000-07:00

Thing One actually let me choose the theme, and I went with one that Daddy suggested, the Chesapeake Bay. We started the week by looking at maps of the area, and discussing definitions of a bay, saltwater, freshwater, brackish water, estuary, marsh, tributary, watershed, and pollution.

We talked about animals and birds that live in or near the bay, and fishes and shellfish. Our book list this week:

Olly the Oyster Cleans the Bayby Allen

Chadwick the Crab and his Chesapeake Bay Friends by Cummings

Chadwick the Crab and the Garplegrungen by Cummings

Awesome Chesapeake, a Guide for Kids by Bell

Chesapeake ABC by Cummings

Chesapeake Rainbow by Cummings

Life in an Estuary by Walker

Finding Birds in the Chesapeake by Aiken

Bella Baxter and the Lighthouse Mystery by Mason

What the Sea Saw by St Pierre

My Grandpa and the Sea by Orr

We listened to some new music. Of course, I played "Sitting on the Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding, and we checked these cds out of the library:

Ratatouille soundtrack (I love this cd, think we'll be buying it, it's just fun, all the songs are about food, one of my favorite things)

Come and Make a Circle, Susan Salidor

Wiggles, Wiggle Bay

Nickel Creek, self titled (I picked this for the Lighthouse song, and because it has a cover of one of our favorites, The Fox)

We talked about the Bay Bridge and watched a dvd about how it was designed and built (Modern Marvels Vol. 13). The same dvd had an episode about lighthouses, so we watched that one, too.

We visited the National Wildlife Refuge Visitor's Center, which was recently renovated. I was disappointed to see all the same exhibits we have seen before, but it's been several years since we visited and it was all new to Things One and Two. The big hits there were the touch tables (animal pelts, bones, and antlers), the kids' area with puzzles and books, and the tram ride. The tram ride was a forty minute long tour of some of the refuge. I learned a lot and I think the boys did too. Thing One said the tram ride was his favorite thing we did this week.

We made a wave jar with oil and water colored blue. This is from the book Simple Nature Experiments with Everyday Materials by Anthony D. Fredericks. I used an old empty plastic mayonnaise jar that I had been saving to use as an estimation jar. We also grew some magic crystals.

We examined some seashells closely. When Thing One saw this one, he exclaimed, "It's just like the wand of Dianthus!" (from The Magic Tree House books). We made several fish crafts. We made a little mini-aquarium with the cutout that came out of a fish stencil, and part of the packaging from something or another I saved that looked like an aquarium.

We made a fish puppet from a kit we had. We did an anatomical puzzle of a horseshoe crab and read a story about how horseshoe crabs are harmless.

We walked a friends' dog this week, and there is a little pond in her neighborhood. It's a mess of a pond full of algae and litter, but it turned out to be a great week to hang out there. We were discussing algae as part of the food chain, so it was nice to be able to show it to Thing One. We also spied frogs, turtles, red winged blackbirds, dragonflies, and tons of cattails and a few blackberries.

I had hoped to actually go to the bay this week, perhaps take a boat tour or go to the beach. I have to admit that I don't like the beach. I have never really cared for all that sand everywhere. I'm more of a mountain hiker and forest explorer kind of person. But it feels selfish to live this close to the bay, study it for a week, and not go see it.

Wordless Wednesday

2009-07-08T11:05:00.000-07:00

Fruit Week

2009-07-04T16:13:00.000-07:00

We had a really fun week studying fruit! We took a walking tour of our neighborhood to visit a crabapple tree, a fig tree, blackberry and mulberry bushes, and a plum tree. We examined our strawberry bushes in the back garden, which are making fruit for a second time this season.

We had a fruit scavenger hunt at the grocery store. I glued some pictures of fruits onto a sheet of paper, put it on a clipboard with a pen, and Thing One marked off each fruit as we found it.

Some of the books we read include:

Apples to Oregon by Hopkinson (very cute, this was a big hit)

Yes We Have Bananas by Hughes

The Apple Pie Tree by Hall

Beautiful Bananas by Laird (Thing Two really likes this one)

How Do Apples Grow? by Maestro

Jam and Jelly by Holly and Nelly by Whelan

Peach Heaven by Choi

Children's Book of Virtues (George Washington and the Cherry Tree) by Bennett

The Fox and the Grapes, Aesop's Fables

The Story of Adam and Eve and the Serpent

James and the Giant Peach by Dahl (the runaway hit by a mile. Friday we rented the movie.)

We checked out two CDs as well and really liked both of them. As in, I want to buy them. Billy Jonas What Kind of Cat are You? and Cajun for Kids! by Papillion.

We played a file folder sorting game called Fruits and Vegetables from http://www.filefolderfun.com/. I was able to fit this one onto half a file folder folded in half.

After learning about fruit grows and what makes a fruit a fruit, we examined some fruits closely with a magnifying glass, then our EyeClops Bionic Eye television plug-in microscope.

We made bread machine jam. This is one of those things I've been meaning to do since we got the machine eight years ago and never have done. So that was a fun experiment for me! We made biscuits Friday morning and ate them with our strawberry jam.

We tried a few new fruits and fruit products, including red bananas (very starchy like a plantain), plantain chips, pomegranate juice, and mangosteen juice. After the kids were in bed, I tried some Haagen Das passion fruit ice cream.

We cut an apple sideways to see the star. We were a bit disappointed that our apple star only had four arms! Our apple prints also turned out pretty poor. We could never get a good print.

The other big hit with the boys were two interactive games. The first was a poem about shaking an apple tree. I had Thing One hold two pretend apples in his hands and pretend to be a tree, and when I shook him, the apples fell down. The second was a poem about a worm crawling through an apple, and the boys took turns being the apple and the worm. The apple stood up with legs spread, and the worm got to crawl through the apple's legs. Of course, I took a turn as the apple too. The loved learning the song "Down by the Bay." They made up their own verses for the rest of the week.

Thing Two's activities this week included a big stack of cups. We stacked these, and I introduced Thing One to the "hide the toy under one of three cups and try to find the toy" game. Thing One also played a lot with our big bin of toy food, and our set of Melissa and Doug food cutting game.

We also made a fruit pizza for our Independence Day BBQ. It looks pretty here but the crust stuck terribly to the pan! I recommend lots of grease on the pan with this recipe!

Thing One is allowing me to choose next week's theme. I'm thinking about the Chesapeake Bay.

Penguin Week

2009-06-27T16:32:00.000-07:00

It was a long but good week at our house. Dad was in a class every weekday evening for two weeks, so it was long days for Mom. But we are done with that, thankfully. Some of the week's highlights follow.

We took a field trip to a museum in our hometown. They hosted a kids' open house with story time, crafts and a tour.

Some of our favorite activities this week were parquetry blocks from and some Magnetix we bought at a yard sale ($2 for a bin full).

Thing One played with cuisinaire rods for the first time this week. They are a math manipulative to go along with Miquon Math in the fall. The instructions suggest allowing some free play time with them before beginning lessons. Thing One liked making patterns and seeing if I could copy them.

Thing Two enjoyed playing with buttons. I was recently gifted with 13 pounds of buttons by a friend at my quilting guild. The possibilities for these are endless! Sorting by size, shape, color, making jewelry and crafts....Today he just loaded them into his toy trucks and carted them around.

Another favorite was this balancing game (I don't know what it's called, it was a gift):

I also read a nice idea to "Paint with Popsicles." The original idea was to put a bit of powdered tempera paint onto paper, and give the kids popsicles, which will melt and mix with the paint. I pulled out our Aquadoodle pad and we went outside as a lower-mess version. I used colored craft sticks. If I do this again, I will use plain popsicle sticks. The craft sticks turned them nice colors, but Thing Two wanted to eat his as much as draw with it, and I wasn't sure if they were food-safe. And they dyed our hands colors. I used a popsicle mold, but you could use ice cube trays as well.

We made a penguin lapbook. Thing One did about two of the little activities each day. I grabbed these from about ten different websites. His favorite, much to my surprise, were the penguin puppets. He performed a "puppet show" for Thing Two and Daddy while I read a poem, then he made up several scripts for them himself while I cooked dinner. We sang some penguin songs, played some computer games and an interactive tour of Antarctica.

We watched March of the Penguins and Happy Feet. We read tons of books, many non-fiction about penguins. The favorites were a series of books about Tacky the Penguin by Helen Lester, and Gon: Volume 2 (graphic novel) by Masashi Tanaka. Thing One made some nice drawings of penguins because "coloring pages are boring." Thing Two enjoyed the watercolor/crayon resist art activity I had planned instead.

Another big (surprise) hit were some Landmark flashcards I picked up at Target for $1 in the dollar bin. Thing One knew quite a few (White House, pyramids, Statue of Liberty) and enjoyed learning about some new ones (so did I!).

We played lots of Lego (I'm told the plural is Lego with no "s" by someone whose name starts with John). Even one of our worthless cats got into the act, I mean box.

I even had time to sketch this week! What a pleasure to just sit and draw a while.

We spent lots of time outside enjoying the beautiful sunny yet not-too-hot weather. I threw 20 pennies into the digging hole one afternoon, and the boys enjoyed sifting through the dirt to find them. We planted a few new seeds, watched our mystery plant grow out of our compost pile, and investigated a moth caught in a butterfly net and a beetle found on the patio.

We also encouraged Thing Two in his potty training endeavors. He's doing so awesome!

Ideas?

2009-06-27T11:25:00.001-07:00

Thing One picked "fruit" for his theme for next week. Any clever ideas?

Butting Heads

2009-06-23T09:47:00.000-07:00

Are you also blessed with a stubborn child? A hard-headed, bull-headed, stalwart child? A perfectionistic child who won't do anything unless he can do it perfectly the first time? An independent child? A fearless child. A natural leader.

I am blessed with two such sons. Today, workbox #3, Field Trip, was replaced with "Fight with Mom for One hour and Ten Minutes over Assigned Chore."

I'm sure the fight wouldn't have lasted so long if I weren't just as bull-headed as he is. I am slowly learning which fights are worth fighting and when it's time to drop the rope, or even not pick it up at all and avoid the tug of war altogether.

You see, over the weekend we had several problems with Thing One not wanting to hang up his clothes in his room. Instead of hanging up two shirts as asked, he hid them under a shelf in the classroom. When I found them, I informed him that he would be helping Mom do all the household laundry this week.

So yesterday he helped me carry them all downstairs, sort them, and load each load into the washer, then the dryer.

Today, I asked him to hang up all his own clothes, and put his underwear and socks away in his drawer. Reasonable, right? He is perfectly capable of doing this job. It is not easy for him, it is a challenge, but well within his capabilities.

Oh, the fits that ensued. Mom, I need your help. I can't do this by myself. It's too hard. It's too much.

It doesn't have to be perfect, I say. It just has to be completed. If you do not finish before this time, we will not be able to go on our field trip, you will not be allowed to come downstairs and visit with the person who is stopping by (for my extrovert son, this is torturous).

For an hour, this continued. Whining, excuses, pleading, begging. I stayed strong but calm. No, I said, I will not do your work for you. To myself I was saying, am I being too harsh on him? Am I just being too stubborn? Am I asking him to do something he's not able to do independently?

Why is this important? I kept asking myself. What do I want him to learn from this experience?I want him to learn to take care of his own things. I want him to appreciate when others do something for him. I want him to learn to be persistent when things are not easy, when he's doing a task he doesn't want to do. I want him to have a sense of accomplishment from finishing a job. By himself.

Then, on the monitor, I heard him say over and over to himself, "It doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to get done. It doesn't have to be perfect!"

He's got it! I thought. By george, he's really got it. In five minutes he was done, downstairs having a snack and visiting with our friend.

I envy parents who just know they are doing the right thing all the time. Who have this inner compass, or a set of cultural or religious rules that clearly define how one should approach each and every parenting decision. I struggle constantly with these decisions. Perhaps it's because my experiences with a special needs child in public preschools have made me doubt my parenting skills. I second guess myself constantly, and struggle with consistency. I know we will repeat this scenario in another week or two, with a different chore or school assignment. But by george, today he got it.

I Love Mondays!

2009-06-22T17:08:00.000-07:00

I understand why most folks in the workaday world hate Mondays. I used to have the boring 9 to 5 job that I dreaded returning to on Mondays.

Nowadays, I love Mondays! Our weekends are always full and fun, and usually exhausting. Monday is our slow down day in a way. It's our get-back-into-the-routine day. It's usually my catch-up-on-chores day. I always have a lot of energy on Monday mornings. I always seem to get a ton of stuff done. And I love that feeling of accomplishment when I get a lot of stuff done.

Last night I prepared a few activities for Thing Two (who happens to be two years old). He has seemed content enough to be included in a few of our school activities (if we do a crafty simple workbox I prepare enough supplies for two, and I've been planning at least cooperative play activity per day that all three of us can do together). He likes to play by himself downstairs most of the time. But I felt a bit neglectful and I want to offer him more structured activities. He may refuse them but I feel like I at least need to have some prepared in case he wants to do something. So I made him a mailbox out of empty oatmeal canisters and a shoebox, and a packet of empty junk mail envelopes, play "stamps" (stickers), old postcards, and a small shoebox that he can make into a "package" to send or receive. This turned into our daily cooperative game before 7:30am! Both boys loved it. I remember Thing One loving it at this age.

I also prepared some cut up straw segments and a couple of pipe cleaners to thread them on. He mostly filled up his dumptruck with them and said they were pipes. I bought a bag of multicolored popsicle sticks and he liked building roads for his trains and cars with those. We also laid them out in shapes for a few minutes. I made some animal matching cards, and a new shape puzzle. He wasn't too interested in those today.

Thing One's first workbox is the weekly treasure hunt box. We've been doing a treasure hunt each week. Upon completion of a "puzzle" (usually a worksheet or physical puzzle), he gets one word in a five-word sentence clue. For example, last week's clues were "The opposite of wetter is" and he had to figure out "dryer." His wooden treasure chest was hidden in the clothes dryer with a whole dollar bill inside!

Today he had to complete a new puzzle of a world map. He's been bugging me for one for months and I found one in the Target dollar bin.

Our theme for the week is Penguins. He chooses each week's theme. We did a couple of small lapbook activities from http://www.homeschoolshare.com/. I've printed out a couple of games from http://www.filefolderfun.com/ for later in the week. We usually do one or two lapbook activities Monday thru Thursday, then put it all together on Friday.

We also did a file folder game of the sign language alphabet. Thing One has become very interested in learning sign language. I think because some of our friends at church know it and use it as a family. He also likes to make up his own secret signs, and often chooses to communicate with me in strange gestures that he assumes I can understand. He likes making up all sorts of things like this. Stories, yoga poses. He's always inventing.

We played a rousing game of Scrabble Junior, on the difficult side of the board today. Thing One was learning how to play his new words onto the existing words.

Then we played the generic version of Jenga (Jumbling Blocks $4.99 at Target). I picked this up because Thing One has been playing a Wii game called Boomblox, and it has a Jenga-inspired section. He didn't really understand the mechanics and physics of it. So I thought playing the real game would be fun and would help him understand. It certainly did, and he loved building towers and playing the game. Thing Two loved lining up and stacking up the blocks as well.

At lunch break while the boys played, I finished up the laundry for the day, and then started baking. I set out two loaves of bread to rise. DH is playing around with a recipe from mother earth news that says you can have freshly baked bread in five minutes per day. You mix up a big batch on the weekend and leave the dough to sit in the fridge for up to two weeks. You take a chunk, let it come to room temp then bake it. It turned out pretty well. I forgot to slash the top so it busted open and isn't pretty to look at but it tastes yummy. It develops a sourdough flavor the longer it's been in the fridge. This one is about 8 days old.

While two the loaf pans were rising I made blueberry cornmeal muffins from a recipe I got from Family Fun magazine. My kids love blueberries, and love corn muffins so I thought I'd give this a try. I've been looking for good easy breakfasts. We each had one at lunch. I love them. Thing One picked out the blueberries. He says he doesn't like them cooked. Thing Two didn't really eat any of his. On to the next muffin recipe, I guess!

While Thing Two napped, we watched March of the Penguins, read Tacky the Penguin, Gor Vol. 2, and played a simple animal classification file folder game. I made it from a worksheet I got from http://www.montessoriforeveryone.com/.

Then we played outside, blew bubbles, dug in the dirt, ate dinner, took daddy to class, had a bath and story time, and I put the boys to bed. Whew! It's been a great Monday.

Homeschooling 101

2009-06-17T17:29:00.000-07:00

I'm Misty. I homeschool my two sons, ages 5 and 2. Perhaps one day I will blog about how we came to decide upon homeschooling. It was a long, twisty journey. I am not surprised that we have ended up here. It seems quite comfortable, like I was supposed to be doing this from the start, only I didn't trust myself enough to choose homeschooling from the beginning.

I don't know if I am a "stereotypical" homeschooling mom. I have a Fine Art degree and a French degree. I worked lousy jobs until our first son was born, at which point my dh's job allowed me to stay home with our son. I have no plans to rejoin the workforce anytime soon. I can't imagine doing any other job than managing our household, educating our kids, and enjoying seeing them grow up. So that makes me "conservative" in a strange way. But I am very politically liberal. I voted for Obama. I'm pro-choice. My dh and I belong to a UU church and choose mostly secular curricula and books. But I am comfortable teaching my kids Bible stories because I want them to be literate about Christianity. I teach them Buddhist and Hindu and Muslim stories for the same reason...I want them to be literate about all world religions.

We live in a suburban area outside of Washington DC, which is a fabulous place to homeschool. We are close to Baltimore, DC, and Annapolis. We are within easy driving distance of NYC, Philadelphia, Richmond, tons of historical sites and great museums. There are tons of co-ops, playgroups, support groups, and umbrella groups in this area.

Some of our homeschool challenges are living in a very small townhouse. Our boys share a room so that we can have a small classroom and office space. We are always cramped for space. Our oldest son is extremely bright but is a handful...He is already reading quite well, can add and subtract numbers up to fifteen, is extremely creative and imaginative, can memorize anything especially if it's set to music. But he is often very oppositional, and has a very difficult time transitioning. Getting him motivated to do anything is a fight. Often every step of our day, from getting dressed to doing a workbox to eating dinner is a battle. It's a little early to tell but it appears that our younger son has a very similar temperament. It's hard to tell if he's just mimicking big brother. There are days I want to run away, or even *gasp* put them in public school and go back to work. I miss my private time. I miss having time to make my own art and quilts and crafts, not just file folder games and lapbooks. But I do some yoga, play some bejeweled blitz, plan some workboxes, and start over again the next day with an open mind and heart.

I am decidely eclectic in my hs approach. I recently discovered the "workbox" system and have set up 12 boxes per day for Thing One as he is affectionately called around here. It is working extremely well for us so far (four weeks in). I'm doing unit study so far. He is choosing the unit theme. We have done dogs, cats, monsters and ships. I will slowly be incorporating Five in a Row, All About Spelling, Miquon Math and Story of the World. All in good time, Thing One's just starting Kindergarten in the fall.

I have a fabulous dh, who is totally supportive of homeschooling. He is the type of dad that is home each day at 5pm to help cook dinner, bathe the kids and read them stories, and take off during the week for a field trip. I could not do this without his loving help and support.