How to Make a Lightbox

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

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...

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

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

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!

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

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.