Three Plus Two

Not quite your average day

The other day I picked up an old favorite that I used to read every year, Homeschooling: A Patchwork of Days: Share a Day With 30 Homeschooling Families.  Reading it reminded me of what homeschooling used to be like before blogs.  It also reminded me that I haven't done a "day in the life" post in a while.  As it happens, on the day I decided to do a day in the life post, it also turns out that it was "Day in the Life Week" at the Not Back to School Blog Hop over at My 3 Boybarians.  But, as usual, it took me a week to actually write this post (because I don't know how to do anything that isn't long and complicated) so I missed the deadline.  However, if any of you, dear readers, would like to share a "Back to School" day at your house, I would love to read it.  Just leave me a comment with the link!

A few notes before I start. 

1) This day was "not quite average" because Andy was home for the morning, and then left around lunchtime to go on a business trip for most of the week.  This happens often enough, though, that it's just not "quite" average.  This is just our second week of school, so we did do school today. 

2) I don't usually work this hard first thing in the morning.  Usually I'm on the computer for a little while.

Monday, August 24

7:15 AM  I wake up, later than I wanted to.  Chipmunk went to bed at 11 last night and I woke up in the middle of the night feeling like I might have a touch of whatever Pip and Farmerboy had this weekend.  Thankfully, I feel decent this morning.  The little boys are getting up, and Andy takes care of them while I take a shower.

8:00 AM: The boys are eating breakfast when I come out.  Gareth is up, too.  I head down to Katydid's room to begin the process of getting her up. (Which sometimes takes a while.)  The little boys finish their breakfast and talk Andy into letting them watch Chased By Dinosaurs: "Most Dangerous Seas of All Time". Andy made me some eggs, and while I eat I switch around some binders so I can organize the originals of some new recordkeeping forms I handwrote over the weekend.  (The USB ports on our desktop are fried, and the software from our printer is incompatible with the Vista on my laptop.  So I have a copier, but no printer right now.)

 

My "desk": tea cup, garden/nature journal, planner, record-keeping book, new Circa notebook for forms, etc.

8:30 AM: Katydid finally comes out. Now everyone is watching Chased By Dinosaurs.  Andy wants to take some food from the garden we (along with our Little Flowers/ Blue Knights group) are growing for the Little Sisters of the Poor.  We have a couple bushels of potatoes to give this time, several pounds of zucchini and patty pan squash, and there's more zucchini out in the garden to pick.  I head out while everyone is occupied and come back with several more pounds of zuchinni.

9:00 AM: Time for prayers.  After prayers, Gareth and Katydid go to brush their teeth and start on their chores, which include feeding and watering all the poultry (turkeys, layers, meat chickens, and bantams).  All together, we have a total of 59 chickens right now, and 6 turkeys.  It takes a little while to get it all done.  The kids dawdle a while, so they're a bit late getting out.  When they come back in, they do their inside chores: collecting and sorting laundry, and wiping out the bathroom sinks for Katydid, and cleaning up the breakfast kitchen for Gareth.  Andy takes the time to take the trash out to the curb so I won't have to do it tomorrow.  Farmerboy is supposed to be picking up the family room, but right now he is involved in a complicated game of "Divers into Dangerous Seas."  Props for this game include all my pots and pans, and cameras, which the boys construct from various toys and tape:

(I help with the tape a little bit.)

9:30 AM: Pop used buttons (like the kind you sew) for his camera, and Chipmunk (who is sitting on the table) is enthralled.  He wants me to identify the colors of all the buttons.  The other three little boys are still involved in their diving game, so I sit down with Chipmunk and help him sort the buttons according to color.  On one of Pop's trips through the dining room, he notices what we are doing and wants to sort, too.  I don't have enough buttons for that, but I set him up with some dyed feathers. Chipmunk soon moves on to pouring the buttons.  He's been occupied for about 30 minutes.

10:00 AM: The boys decide they want to glue.  I get them set up with collage materials, cardboard trays, scissors, papers, and their choice of glue -- Elmer's in a bottle or Mod Podge in a bowl with a brush.  Chipmunk is soon covered in glue, but does manage to also put some on his tray.  There is some frustration on the twins' part: Pip is gluing natural feathers to a piece of cardstock and unfortunately, most of them are small down feathers which are hard to glue without getting all gummed up and coming apart.  And Pop's scissors are not cooperating with him.  This is pretty typical.  My role is to dart from one kid to another providing help, encouragement, and exhortations for patience.  Andy tells me that there is a special room in heaven reserved for homeschooling mothers. 

Pip sets up his collage as part of our nature area.

10: 45 AM: By this time Katydid and Gareth are involved in their own activities.  We're experimenting with different ways to plan for them... or actually, to help them plan their own work. I asked on the 4real boards about planning with Literature for a Young Lady and Jen helpfully replied with how she helps her eldest plan her own work.  I presented that as an option for the kids, and they decided they would like to give it a shot.  So I wrote out a chart (no printer, remember) with days and times on it, and on Sunday we sat down to figure out what they wanted to do during the week, and also what was required for them to do (like math, Latin, and language). 

I clipped off a bit of the top, but you get the picture. 

When I emerge from helping the boys with their collages (and washing all the glue off Chipmunk), I find Gareth working on his math and Katydid comfortably esconced on the couch with Little Women.  Andy takes a break from working on the computer to get the little boys dressed and play with the transportation counters on the floor -- more sorting. Farmerboy can no longer avoid his chores and must get dressed and pick up the family room.  Because people need me -- often -- it takes a good 45 minutes to clean up the dining room. 

11:15 AM: Gareth is now working on his religion and informs Farmerboy that he's going to be done soon so Farmerboy had better get to work if he wants to go out to the archery range.  Katydid didn't know that Gareth was going to do archery, so she scraps the plans she made yesterday to go out and shoot, too.  She's been reading for about an hour with only a brief break, so it's just about time for her to do something active.

11:30 AM: The dining room is not completely clean, but the little boys are clamoring to be let out of the small fenced yard by the deck, and it would be nice to talk to Andy a while before he goes.  Andy takes the little boys out with him to feed greens to the turkeys, and the three older kids head out to practice some archery.  I pick up the transportation counters for the nth time this morning and follow.

 

(Andy took these pictures.  Gareth told me later he got a bullseye!)

While the big kids shoot, the little boys play "dinosaur hunter" in the sideyard with me.  They're gathering sticks and pretending they're dinosaur bones.

12:15 PM: Everyone is hungry by now, so we head in for lunch.  Someone lets Chipmunk in the bathroom first to wash his hands and is not supervising and Chipmunk dunks his truck in the toilet.  I clean him up (and the truck) and then make cheese quesadillas for the kids.  Andy and I eat leftover steak from the night before (I found a stash in the back of the freezer) and canteloupe. At lunch Andy mentions a book that has been recommended to him called The Ten Commandments of How to Fail at Business.  We have a discussion about that, and also about how a Christian should view or use wealth.  Then Andy loads his luggage and the vegetables for the nuns into his van and heads off to the airport.  The big kids are in charge of cleaning up after lunch.  The little boys and I go outside to play some more dinosaur hunter.

2:00 PM: I'm taking the little boys in for some read alouds and a nap.  Katydid comes in to get the camera, because she says the older three want to "study turkey behavior".  It turns out they just want to make the toms strut.

(Pictures by Katydid)

While I admit that the Naragansett tom is particularly impressive when he struts, banging things and making a lot of noise to get him agitated is probably not a good idea.  So no more "studying turkey behavior".

While the big kids are outside, I read Dinosaurs Big and Small (A Let's Read and Find Out title) , Little Tom Turkey (a book about wild turkeys told from the point of view of a small male poult; the writing is not so great, but it's tough to find picture books about wild/heritage turkeys), and a tractor book to the three little boys.  Then it's to bed for them.

2:45-3:00 ish: I've gotten the boys to sleep. When I come into the kitchen, I notice that the cleaning job done after lunch was not all that great.  But now it's time to do some concentrated book work with the older 3 kids.  Since the twins and Chipmunk require most (if not all) of my attention in the morning, the bigger kids have to save anything that needs my attention until the afternoon.  This is not my preferred way of doing things -- nor, to be honest, always the preferred way for my kids either.  But it's what we have to do.  It turns out that they have come in at 2:30 just like they were supposed to and gotten to work.  We've had this basic template schedule for a long time now, but this is only the start of our second week after being "off" for summer.  So I'm pleased that they're readjusting to our school schedule so quickly.  Katydid is working on the first lesson of Lingua Mater 6, and Gareth has finished his lesson for the day in Lingua Mater 7 and is on the couch reading Fellowship of the Ring.  Farmerboy has already done his handwriting (Handwriting Without Tears, My Printing Book) so I take him into the dining room to work on some phonics.  First I need to see what letter sounds he remembers from earlier in the summer, so we do a short "quiz".  Turns out he's forgotten about half his letter sounds.  He wants me to write some words for him to read, though, so I compose a variety of silly sentences using mainly -at words. (Sample: "I sat on the cat.")  He enjoys this and runs to show Katydid and Gareth how silly the sentences are after we're done.

3:30 PM: Katydid is done with her language, so we move on to Latin.  We're redoing the lesson we ended with in June, Review Lesson III from Latina Christiana I.  For some reason we only got through half the book last year.  I'm hoping to do better this year.  Farmerboy wants to get a board game out of the closet and "pretend to play it himself". Ok... he actually chooses the Rush Hour puzzle, which I mentally chalk up to math for the day.  I'm still trying to figure out math for him. I bought Making Math Meaningful Level I for him in the spring, but it turns out I don't really like it at that level. 

4:00 PM: When we're done with our chants and reviewing the vocabulary, Katydid switches to math, which she is able to do independently for the day.  (She is using Making Math Meaningful Level 4, which I do like at least for Katydid, as it seems to be sticking... no small feat for her.  Sometimes it requires me to make presentations, but I think she's finally gotten the concept of multiplying two digits by two digits... albeit in the non-traditional way taught by this curriculum.)  Gareth has written on his chart that he is going to work on a book "response" to Out of the Silent Planet, which he read last week.  He can either work on a graphic novel/comic book version of the book or he can write a book report.  I expect him to choose the comic book, but he surprises me by choosing the book report.  We spend a little over a half an hour discussing the book, how to write a book report, and then planning it out. 

4:45 PM: The kids are done with their work for the day, and Chipmunk is up, but not up, and is dozing on my shoulder.  I check email and the kids have their computer time.  Katydid heads back to her room when it is not her turn to practice her violin and say a rosary.

5:15 PM: Chipmunk is now up and playing with the Rush Hour cars that Farmerboy neglected to put away.  The twins are up and clamoring for their computer time, too. I go to start dinner and realize that I can not make a Dutch Baby because I do not have enough eggs.  What?  Right -- we gave away a dozen eggs on Friday and I made scrambled eggs and ratatouille one night for dinner.  Now we have to wait for the hens to build the supply again.  I remember that I have some frozen spaghetti sauce downstairs in the freezer, though, so I can still make dinner!

I also have to work on the mess left over from lunch.

Chipmunk keeps me company with the pots and pans.

6:00 PM: It took forever to defrost the spaghetti sauce. Dinner is going to be late.  The little boys are clamoring to be let out of the gate (again), so I take my record book and head outside with them while I wait on dinner.

7:00 PM: Dinner's finally ready.  I cave and let the kids eat in front of the TV.  I'd like to say they watched something educational, but no, it was SpongeBob.  And I eat in front of the computer, starting this post. Then Andy calls to let me know he's in Chicago and will be departing for Iowa shortly and also that the Little Sisters would like pictures of us planting the garden for their newsletter.  I am embarassed to say that I have no pictures.  We'll have to take some pictures of harvest instead.

7:30ish: Time for after dinner chores.  Usually I clean the kitchen, Katydid picks up the dining room and kitchen and sweeps both rooms, Farmerboy picks up the family room and vacuums the rug, and Gareth has the living room/entryway area, picking up and sweeping.  This makes it sound as if everything ought to be clean, but this doesn't account for stacks of books and other things on tables and counters, or the disorganization of the toy shelves.  Plus tonight the kids will have to knock off early to do all the chicken/turkey chores that Andy usually does (with Chipmunk and the little boys tagging along).

8:00 PM: The kids are out putting the chickens in for the night and I am trying to hurriedly wash the last pans and sweep the dining room and kitchen floors and switch the laundry before the little boys rev up too much.  (My kids never look tired because they just wind up more and more as they get tired.)

8:30 PM: I didn't make it.  There are still pans in the sink but it's time to get the little boys in their pajamas.  When the big kids come in from doing their outside chores, I ask Katydid to read to the little boys while I put on my pajamas.  Pop has been fascinated by the weather lately, so we also check the weather on the Weather Channel.  Then Katydid reads Keep the Lights Burning, Abbie! while I change for the night. 

9:00 PM: The boys still want books.  Katydid reads a couple of tractor books to Chipmunk, Little Tom Turkey (again), and Where Do Chicks Come From?  I take this opportunity to rotate the books in the book display, which sorely needs it.

9:30 PM: Time for bed.  Gareth and Katydid head back to their rooms and bathroom to take showers and read until who knows when.  The little boys want to know if I will read Farmer Boy while they're in bed like Daddy does.  I tell them that since it's Daddy's favorite book, we'll save it for him.  But I will read the next story from Egermeir's Story Bible.  Chipmunk is not having it, though.  I tell the boys I can't read because I need to nurse Chipmunk.  Pip starts complaining.  I attempt to balance the heavy book precariously past Chipmunk while I nurse him and read the story of "The Great Flood."  It begins with Enoch being taken up to God.  Pop wants to know how people get to heaven, and once you're there, how you can get back home.  Farmerboy tells him you can't get back home.  Pop starts to cry.  Farmerboy tells him that heaven is a wonderful place where you'll know everything, including what happened to the dinosaurs.  Pop says he wants our home to be his home forever.  Farmerboy says, well, his soul will go to heaven after he dies.  Pip says he doesn't want to go to heaven if souls are there.  Farmerboy says everybody has a soul.  Pip is furious because he thought souls were bad things! I'm sure he's confusing them with ghosts.  I would just really like to go to sleep.  But no.  As soon as I get them calmed down, Chipmunk starts fussing because this isn't our usual routine.  I try to take him into my bedroom, and Pip starts crying because he wants Daddy.  I sit back down in the rocking chair, and Pip stops crying but Chipmunk starts.  Finally, I have to take Chipmunk into my room and just let Pip cry for a while.  It's keeping Pop and Farmerboy awake, but I have to get one of the two fussing kids to sleep. 

10:30 PM: Chipmunk is finally asleep and I go back in to sit with Pip.  I bring my book and read a little in the hall light.

11:00 PM: Pip is finally asleep.  I add the last few things to the dishwasher and turn it on.  Then I head back to my bed, where Chipmunk is sleeping for the moment.  I try to write down a few notes, but apparently the scratching of the pen wakes Chipmunk up again.

11:30 PM: Everything is finally quiet.  Andy won't be home till Thursday, and I'm not sure I can survive that long. (But obviously, I do! :-)

 

Country Diary: Pick a Peck of Peppers

Weather: upper 70's today, cloudy, off and on showers which prevented me from picking beans today...I picked cucumbers (most notably) in the rain.  Chipmunk, who was out in the garden with Andy and me at the time, was not amused.  This surprised me, because he will cheerfully dunk his head in a mud puddle.  All last week it felt like summer with highs in the 80's.  We even had to use fans.  But this week it looks like temps will slump into the 60's, with overnight lows dipping into the 40's.  Fall, I guess.

In bloom: Well, my rosebush is still going, which is hard for me to believe.  It likes the chickens.  Otherwise, the field is full of goldenrod, black-eyed susans (Pip calls them "black-eyes"), and the first asters.

Photo by Katydid

In the Barnyard: It's been a while since I posted a Country Diary.  About a week and a half ago, we lost two of our turkeys to what we think must have been raccoons.  (Only raccoons tear off the head and leave most of the meat untouched.)  So Andy spent one very long Sunday converting the the frame of a larger chicken coop he'd been working on into a turkey coop.  It looks a lot like an aviary.

But Andy says not to give Katydid ideas.

The poor turkeys... they are really not meant to be cooped up like this.  What we've discovered is that heritage turkeys are excellent flyers and, unlike chickens, they don't particularly care if they make it home to roost or not.  When we let them out of the coop to forage on grass, they will fly up about twenty feet into the tree behind the woodpile on the right.  I guess raccoons can't get them there, but still.  Another worry we have is that there has been a wild turkey hen hanging around with her poults since we put the turkeys out.  The other day I looked out the window to see the wild hen having a bit of an alteraction with our Bourbon Red hen, who might have been trying to tag along. 

The wild hen is becoming increasingly less afraid of us, though.  The boys and I came upon her and the poults in the garden a couple of days ago and were able to come quite close before they all flew away.

The turkeys do have interesting personalities, though, and if you ignore the bald heads, the rest is beautiful and graceful.

Our Naragansett tom...

Blue Slate hen in the left background and Bourbon Red hen in foreground...

Close-up of one of the Blue Slates...

In the Garden:

It's not a banner year.  There's very little to freeze or can, and the blackberry bush seems bent on ripening only a pint of berries at a time.  I put away 2 qt. of beans and 2 1/2 qts of squash last week, and that was the first all season.  I had to use farm stand tomatoes to make freezer salsa with my peppers.

Of which there have been quite a few.  The peppers have actually surprised me this year.  Usually our pepper production is not good.

The tomatoes are such a disappointment that I'm not even going to show you a picture.  They started out beautiful and lush.  And then -- late blight struck.  It's epidemic in the Northeast this year.  I couldn't even go into the garden for days.  Some of our tomatoes seem to be pulling through okay, but most aren't.  I can't can the green tomatoes (as pickles or whatever) because canning potentially diseased produce doesn't sound smart to me.  If you pick the tomatoes green and leave them in the windowsill to ripen, most rot anyway.

I have to tell you, it's heartbreaking.

Here's what our late August harvest looks like, sans tomatoes:

That's what I picked in the rain today, along with a bunch of okra Andy picked last night.  Apparently we had forgotten about the okra patch for a few days.  Those long purple things are eggplants.

A funny curlicue one using my garden journal as background...

A comparison of cucumbers... Marketmore slicer on top, Homemade Pickles on the bottom.  Homemade Pickles is a producer.  Even in a wet, mostly cool summer, it will give me more cucumbers than any other variety.  I sliced up the pile of cucumbers I picked this morning for refrigerator sweet pickles.

And some homemade salsa, using all home-grown ingredients except for the lime juice. 

Now I just have to figure out what to do with all the rest of those peppers and that giant striped zucchini!

Designing a Vision for Teens: Our Basic Principles (part 3 in a series)

This post is the third in a series about Montessori-inspired education for teens.  You might want to go back and read posts 1 and 2 in the series, Designing a Vision for Teens and Montessori Erdkinder Curriculum, before you get started on this one.

I spent many weeks wracking my brain over what it would mean to have a Montessori-ish farmschool at home.  In our particular circumstances -- considering that we live on 15 acres and already have the garden and the chickens -- I didn't think it would be too difficult to give my kids practical experience; those experiences are a natural part of our day anyway.  The change was how I thought of them and kept track of them.  Instead of thinking of feeding the chickens as just a chore to be done every day, along the lines of loading the dishwasher, I decided that caring for the chickens and turkeys would count as "school".  I already knew it was a learning experience, a thing that builds who you become as an adult, but here in New York I have to write IHIPs (Individualized Home Instruction Plans) and quarterly reports and keep track of hours.  Deciding to include regular chicken chores as "practical arts" felt a bit revolutionary.  Or at least it did require an attitude shift on my part.

But the problem I kept chewing over was this.  What if you live in the suburbs or the city? Would you not be able to apply Montessori's insights for the education of teens?  What if your front yard was the size of a postage stamp? What if you didn't even have a front yard? What if you didn't want to send your child away to boarding school or you couldn't afford the massive tuition?  Which aspects of Montessori adolescent education would be most important to keep? 

(I guess this might seem academic for us -- and maybe it is -- but if I have learned anything in the past 15 years it's that life can change at a moment's notice.  Rigid educational methods that can't adapt to changing circumstances and changing needs don't last too long around here without undergoing major overhauls... or being scrapped completely. )

And, well, I guess there were other problems, too, but they didn't seem as big.  For instance, the standard Montessori Erdkinder model is light on books.  Not just textbooks, but books.  Period.  We're a family of readers, and there is no way my twelve year old will scrap the enjoyment of sitting down with a good book for digging an irrigation ditch.  (Although he might want to help dig the ditch later.)  Another thing that Montessori curriculums have always seemed to flounder with is art.  Maria Montessori was a brilliant, creative scientist, with a brilliant, creative, orderly mind that was nevertheless completely capable of making vast, intuitive leaps that no one had ever made before.  But she was not an artist.  And if you look at the basics of what she thought ought to be included as "art", it's actually more like geometry.

In itself this is not a bad thing, and for many children, maybe it's all right through the years -- to make abstract art from shape templates, to learn color mixing by squeezing food dye into glasses of water, to make collages from a few trays of already prepared shapes, to paint a little, to work a little with clay.  Actually, all these things are good in and of themselves.  But it has always felt to me that art was an area where Maria Montessori felt at a bit of a loss.  Compared to the extensive language and math activities she developed, her ideas for art have always seemed to me sort of.. I don't know... anemic?  I imagine that in a Montessori school, if a child seemed very artistic, that child would be supported in his efforts.  But for the majority of children, I don't think the art curriculum goes far enough, or deep enough.  Reading about various Montessori farm schools for teens, that impression didn't change.  Somewhere I read something along the lines of, "and assigned art projects will be done using the products our animals produce, for instance dying fibers from our sheep..."

Hmmm.  I completely agree that dying fibers from your own sheep is a wonderful thing, and to be honest, it would be the kind of thing I would get into.  But it's not art.  Maybe the textiles woven from that wool would be art. (I personally think that a lot of clothes knitted or crocheted from that wool could also be classified as "art", but I think that perhaps more people would say knitting and crocheting was a "handcraft.")  And assigned projects make me turn up my nose a little.  But I digress.  The point is that any curriculum -- for any age -- that has any chance of making it in my house needs a more sophisticated view of the importance of art.  And by that, I mean doing art, not just appreciating it.

So, after thinking about it for a while, and considering the other influences to our educational philosophy, and what my husband also thought important, these are some of the basic principles we hashed out for a teen's education :

• It should contain opportunities for practical, real, physical work.  Not necessarily heavy manual labor, but at the very least work with one's hands.
• Academic subjects should not be textbook based, but contain lots of opportunities for real, experiential work.  (Math is probably an exception to this, as I'm not mathematical enough to dig a lot of the math out of projects like building chicken coops. But when possible math should be experienced, too.  This is actually my husband's area now, and I'm happy to leave it to him! ;-)
• Living books should be used whenever possible.
• Projects should be encouraged.  (And by that I mean, if a teen develops an interest in something, that interest should be supported in a myriad of ways, including through art or hands-on work, reading, apprenticeships, community involvement, whatever.)
• Teenagers need to do art, too.  My teenager needs to do lots of art.
• Education should not be limited to the "practical", but should include the purely "beautiful" as well.
• Education is not about going to college or getting a job.  It is about growing into the person God intended this child to become.

I have to admit that we extend what counts as "practical" a bit, too.  For instance, after reading through a number of resources I thought Gareth might use for evolutionary biology this year, I decided that the classical curriculum's emphasis on Logic was eminently practical, and that he needed it to be able to do what he wants to do.  I had not planned for Gareth to do Logic this year -- he really does need to work heavily on his spelling, and it is not my goal to fill up all his time with book work -- but I went ahead and added it into his plans.  I think flexibility is key here.

In any case, once we distilled our basic principles, it was easier to see that while 15 acres would come in handy, practical projects can also be done in a garage or on a balcony (you need more bookshelves, don't you?); in the kitchen (canning pickles made from cucumbers bought at the farmer's market; making candles; baking bread); or with a modest amount of yard (chickens do not take up much space, bantams even less, if your laws will allow them).  And while the purpose of a farmschool was both to give teens responsibility and exercise and also to feed them well, an in depth study of nutrition, frequent trips to the farmer's market, buying your meat from local farms, and learning to make or preserve your own food -- letting your teen have a lot of responsibility for this -- will probably suffice, in my opinion.

I've been working on this post for a while, but I wanted to publish it before I posted Gareth's plans so you could see that a) we're not purists but b) we have borrowed some Montessori ideas along the way.  I also hope to post some ideas for urban/suburban homesteading.  Hope does spring eternal! ;-) 

Ice Cube Necklaces

Yesterday was a tough day, and hot.  But there was a bright spot.  A cool spot?  The little boys and I made ice cube necklaces. 

I got the idea from More Mudpies to Magnets: Science for Young Children.  This is a book I have thought about buying for years.  This year I have a bunch (as in 3) experimentally oriented young children, so I bought the book. 

Ice cube necklaces are super simple.  All you need are a couple of ice cube trays, yarn or string, and a collection of smallish objects that will fit in each cube.  I took the boys on a walk around the yard and garden, and they collected flowers, leaves, sticks, rocks, and a small piece of sidewalk chalk.  I held the ice cube trays, and the boys just put their objects in wherever they wanted.  We insured that one row did not hold rocks or other small chokable objects so that Chipmunk could have a necklace, too, and the boys were warned repeatedly that they weren't to eat these ice cubes since we weren't using food to make them.  (Actually we did use some edibles -- dandelion leaves, rose petals, lemon balm -- but exceptions are too complicated.)

After you fill the trays with objects and water, lay strands of yarn or string across each row of cubes, making sure that the yarn dips down into the water in each cube.  Here's what our trays looked like when I put them in the freezer:

As you can see the most difficult part was ensuring that the yarn stay in the water.  It kept bobbing up and needed a little re-arranging.

The twins were not sure what would happen.  Farmerboy knew the cubes would freeze, but he didn't know how long it would take, so he kept checking until the big kids went outside to play in the hose.  It actually took about 4 hours for them to freeze.

The boys melted the ice in their hands, banged it on the deck to chip it into pieces, refroze parts of it, and tried to wear it... but it was too cold!  We talked about solids and liquids and states of matter, and how you could freeze grapes into ice cubes and then you could actually eat your necklace.  Later that night we read What Is the World Made Of? All About Solids, Liquids, and Gases (Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science, Stage 2) and looked through more experiment books.

Simple. Fun. Cold. A satisfying bit of summer science. 

Our summer in pictures

Today will be our first day of school (i.e., doing math again).  The kids are ready to start again, I think, although I'm not.  I'm still trying to reorganize books, art supplies, and Montessori materials.  This past week and next week are also supposed to be the warmest of the summer -- highs in the mid-80s, which does get a bit warm when there's no air conditioning.  Anyway, the point is: by now I've learned that nothing will ever be perfect and it's better to be flexible and just start when you can. This is actually  the very first time ever that we've ever started a new school year on the day I planned to start it. As it is, we'll be easing into morning work... and continuing with the daily afternoon hours of playing in the hose.  These warm days won't last long.

I imagine Grandma will want to see some pictures before the maples change entirely.

  

Nature walks around the yard, observing the changes in our "mini pond" beneath the stone where the water gathers and duckweed grows and frogs hide...

Playing "army"...

A little chaos on the soccer sidelines...

Farmerboy played a lot of goal.

Katydid and Farmerboy both caught crayfish from the creek behind the soccer field and brought them home to observe.  Both crayfish molted and were safely returned to the creek at the end of the season, in spite of some accidental habitat spillage in the van on the way there.

Katydid named her crayfish "Bobby". 

Katydid's bantams have been interesting to watch, as they're more like little birds than chickens...

Farmers sometimes work inside, too, "buttering corn for horses".

We strung a tent on the deck.

Gareth and Andy learned how to prepare and cook fish the kids caught. (Gareth earned his Fishing badge.)

We visited Ft. William Henry in Lake George (more on that trip later - I hope!)

The kids built "huts".  (This one is Farmerboy's. I hope to do a longer post about the huts before the weather turns cold.)

Lots of running around with sticks... er, swords... er, guns... um, lasers? (I like this photo because Katydid caught Pop running right out of his boot.  Oh, and the white thing in the grass is a small chicken.)

Boys.

Katydid raised a Mourning Cloak butterfly from a caterpillar and let it go.  This was our first successful attempt at raising a butterfly. (Actually, the little boys raised lots of moths from Eastern Tent Caterpillars this year, too.  Our caterpillars usually don't do anything after we catch them -- except die (cough) -- so this was an interesting year.  I wonder what was different?)

And, of course, we spent a lot of time with the turkeys. A lot of time.

May he rest in peace

This is very sad news.  We will continue to pray for the peaceful respose of Ryan Barrett's soul, and for the Barrett family in their sorrow. And I'm going to hug my kids a little tighter this afternoon. 

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord.    And may perpetual light shine upon him.  May the soul of Ryan Barrett and all the souls of the faithfully departed, through the mercy of God rest in peace.

Urgent Prayers - Missing Child!

On Tales of the Bonny Blue House this morning:

This is Mary Ellen's friend, Chris posting.  We are asking for urgent prayers for her son, Ryan.  He left on a father /son campout on Thurs. morning and as of Thursday evening at 5:00 PM he has been missing. An extensive search is being conducted and Mary Ellen was driven to the site three hours away by a dear friend. 
PLEASE, anyone reading this, join your prayers with all who love Mary Ellen for the safe and speedy return of Ryan.  Mary Ellen is hoping for Ryan to be covered in a massive prayer chain.  Please post this request on any blogs or  online groups you can.
Updates have been sporadic, but I will post news as I hear.  Thank you for your prayers.

Where have I been?

Well, mostly I've been writing plans for my two oldest.  This is something new for me, writing things down in an organized fashion, and I am hopeful that it will work well this year.  I guess I've still been planning a little differently than most people; the kids' plans are mostly based on lists of interests they gave me last month. Jen ever so kindly sent me some editable tables in Word which she and Elizabeth used to plan their Literature for a Young Lady curriculum, and I used them to plan A Bunch of Stuff I Think My Young Man Will Like.  I'm not sure it hangs together enough to give it a title, but I borrowed the idea of using a guide by Father Lasance -- in this case, The Young Man's Guide -- to be a sort of organizing thread.  Katydid will be following along with the Serendipity plans this year, by request, although I am altering them for a slightly younger girl.  (Katydid is only 10.  I guess technically she's in fifth grade, although for some reason I keep forgetting and thinking she's in sixth.  Oh well.)

If anyone's curious, I'll post my plans for Gareth, who will be in 7th grade this year. (I mean, for real, and not just as pictures.) But I have to warn you, they're a bit individual.

I mean, I doubt that every 7th grader will want to start with prehistoric people before moving on to a study of the Middle Ages.  But, to be honest, the subjects he wanted to study -- prehistoric people and evolutionary biology -- are just the sort of things you want to study with a "shield of faith" in hand.  I gave him the plans today and he seemed to think they were decent... He has the kind of personality that needs both choice and structure.  Using the table I was able to list a whole bunch of choices as far as projects go, which will hopefully solve the problem of the whiteboard.  We'll see how it goes. 

While I was working on the plans, I had to mostly go offline.  Which is okay because I have been in one of those funks where I'm not sure I have anything of worth to say anyway and the blogosphere left me largely feeling inadequate.  It occurred to me that since we usually go on vacation this time of year and I get enforced (and therapeutic) time away from all computers, I usually get a retreat that I wasn't planning on getting this year, with so much poultry to care for.  So maybe it wasn't really that I'm inadequate,  just that I needed some time off.  Then Andy sent me an email asking whether I thought we could make a family trip to New Hampshire with him when he visits there on business, so maybe I will get a brief retreat anyway.

(Actually, what Andy said was, do you think we could stock the chickens, etc. up on water and food for a few days and just have the kid down the street come by a couple times, and what I replied was, do you think we could put the kids in the coop, too?  Okay, so yesterday was a little tough.)