... but our intrepid trick or treaters went out anyway.
(I was going to take a picture of the twins with their masks off and caption it, "Attack of the Clones." But they stuck those masks on and ran outside far too quickly.
Katydid was Queen Victoria. Which is how you know that a curriculum works.
The kids were pretty wet when they came home. So it was all into dry clothes and onto the couch for the traditional macaroni and cheese Halloween dinner and a movie (or a Penguins of Madagascar episode, as the case may be.)
Chipmunk stayed home with me and ate Reese's Cups and watched John Deere videos.
I asked him if he was a cutie pie, and he said, "No -- a punkin pie!"
Forgive me a "gathering my wits" post, but I need to gather my wits. ;-) We've had a week long break and are supposed to be starting our second quarter this week, but with Halloween and All Saints Day this weekend, and a number of doctor's appointments this week, it's going to be a bit of a wash... I mean, if Monday was any indication, which began with the toaster oven catching on fire and proceeded into eye exams, spending a really obscene amount of money on glasses, and lots and lots of driving. (But we did manage to listen to three hours worth of The Bronze Bow.)
Anyway, I'm just trying to collect some ideas in one place of what we might do if we're not in the van...
Day of the Dead/ Mexican folk art drawings or paintings
P/Pumpkin printouts
carve pumpkins/little ones draw on baby pumpkins
Books from the Halloween basket
G: work on Halloween costume
Work on All Saints costumes
(Some of these we will definitely do, like pumpkin carving and working on costumes, and the rest is just a list for me to pick from. This is sort of how I plan, although I often am just carrying the list around in my head. In the morning I assess the kids' level of interest, hyperactivity level, the weather, how messy the house is, time available, and my energy level. Then I choose one activity to focus on or present to the little boys. The big kids are pretty independent.)
Stuff I need to remember to do:
Ask Andy to buy a new USB cable for the printer to see if we can get it working again
Weeks 8 &9 -- We finished up quarter 1... or at least we decided that we would take a break. Gareth attended a forestry program for Scouts, and earned most of his Forestry badge. It did not snow... much. I chickened out and did not take Farmerboy or Katydid to swim lessons on the day Gareth and Andy were at the Scout program, because taking 2 hyperactive 4 year olds and a 2 year old to any place with a large, deep body of water and no barriers is not my idea of a good time.
Week 10 -- we take a housecleaning "break". Mostly what we do is excavate the long hallway that serves as the playroom for Lego and Playmobil. (It has a door, so we can keep toddlers out.) It also seems to serve as the place where containers full of dirt, rocks, and worms are tipped over, if what I found in there is any indication. We also stripped the wallpaper off the boys' room wall, which was only half-wall papered because we'd stopped last year when it started turning out badly... and prepped it for painting. And we did an intensive clean of the family room, which also needs to be painted. Strangely, the family room doesn't look any better than when we started, but at least I know that the toys are all out from under the couch and the window screen and glass lamp shade are not full of dust and bugs. This is enough.
Weeks 8, 9, and 10 in a nutshell. :-)
A collection of photos from weeks 8, 9, and 10...
The biggest event: Gareth turned 13. I thought about making a big blog post, but... I was worried I might embarass him. So I'll just embarass him slightly here. ;-) 13 on the 13th...
And he even made and frosted his own cake ("Milk Chocolate Cake", from a 1950 Betty Crocker Recipe), by request. The cake turned out great. It didn't even stick in the pans like my cakes so often do.
I cleaned up and rearranged the nature area. From left: basket of river rocks, basket of feathers, basket of pine cones, plant press, tray with paper and pens for drawing, Timeline of Life, wooden trays of fossils. (It doesn't look this anymore, mostly due to use. I need to rearrange it again.)
Apples by Katydid, inspired by a drawing in Museum ABC...
Well, I guess technically except for the juncos they never left. But for some reason they all seemed to be out in the yard today at the same time.
Sitting here trying to get Chipmunk back to sleep I saw...
2 tufted titmice
1 hairy woodpecker
2 downy woodpeckers, male and female
1 red-breasted nuthatch
1 blue jay
2 cardinals, male and female
All kind of hanging around together. Earlier today, Katydid saw a pileated woodpecker in the woods behind the house and nearly broke her leg and my laptop in her haste to get the camera and get outside for a picture. She tripped over the power cord, and both she and the laptop went sailing to the floor. Neither were damaged, thank goodness.
I suppose this is a sign that we're late in stocking our feeders. Project Feederwatch starts next month; Katydid has cleaned the feeders and we have a 20 lb. bag of black oil sunflower seeds sitting in the back of the van, awaiting a squirrel proof container. A little red squirrel who lives in our woodpile gnawed a hole in the plastic can we used to keep it in, and had herself a very well-fed summer. Every time we walked into the little sheltered area on the outside of our garage where we keep wood, straw for the chickens, and chicken feed in big metal trash cans, we got a good scolding. Funny how the animals think they own the place after a while. Whenever I walk into my garden a chorus of crows starts squawking at me as I'm the trespasser. Not to mention Tom Turkey, who does not approve of little boys who run around yelling at the top of their lungs and waving sticks.
As a (relatively) quiet two year old in a big family, Chipmunk often gets left out of the weekly reviews. That doesn't mean he's not doing anything, though.
There are his collages, of course, but he has other favorite activities that he concentrates on as he moves through the week. For instance, as I write this, he is sitting in a chair by the art cabinet using safety scissors to cut tape so he can cover his truck with it.
(Don't worry; I'm sitting right next to him to make sure he doesn't hurt himself.)
I don't know why he likes to cover his trucks with tape -- last night it was a tractor decorated entirely in masking tape -- but I suspect that it has something to do with practicing fine motor skills. He can't get his fingers inside the scissors handles yet, so he's just working on opening and shutting the scissors once. And then there's the control involved in getting the sticky tape off your fingers and onto the exact right place on the truck. Very satisfying. I would not have set this activity out for him, but I noticed that whenever his older brothers got out the tape and scissors to build something (tape is the connecting material of favor around here), he would get into the scissors and tape, too. At first I took the scissors away, but then I noticed that he really was trying to cut. So I just make sure he has the safest ones.
When he's not cutting, he likes to pour:
Fish and truck counters here, from one container to another. (I haven't really set him up with beans or rice because he does still put things in his mouth from time to time. And because I can be frequently called away, I am afraid of the mess potential :-/).
He also likes to line them up, but I'm not going to show you that picture because apparently someone (not saying who) had changed his clothes in the family room and left all his dirty laundry sitting on the couch, where it was caught forever on film.
Anyway... more activities that Chipmunk likes right now?
Chipmunk is two now, and eager to join in with his big brothers -- whether it's playing knights, Jedi, or making art. Over the past few weeks, the boys have done some collage here and there -- usually to decorate a box they want to use as a ship (space or pirate). Chipmunk's approach to collage is a little different than the other boys', though.
When the other kids do art, we often talk about "filling up the page." That isn't a problem for Chipmunk.
Chipmunk's method is generally to dig out big handfuls of collage materials and dump them on the paper. This often gives good results, with a little adult spreading-out:
(I had an idea to try to draw the twins with their egg-interest into an activity using an egg-frame drawn on paper. I set out a whole bunch of materials, drawing pens, and oil pastels. The twins didn't want anything to do with it. But Chipmunk climbed up on the bench and got right to work.)
While we worked here -- Chipmunk scattering sequin shapes and me wielding a bottle of Elmer's glue -- I tried to emphasize that he needed to put the shapes on the glue or they wouldn't stick. I'm not sure how well that lesson "stuck", but we're working on it. What I will often do is to pour some glue (Mod-Podge is the glue I like best) into a bowl and give him a brush. He gets glue all over himself, but it washes off. And that way his "stuff" is almost guaranteed to stick. He can't use a bottle of glue yet, but he does like to have one if the other boys' are using bottles, too. If that's the case, I often squeeze out big loops of glue for him, and he just focuses on putting the materials onto it.
In the case of his "shiny egg", I have been thinking that maybe I could set out another one for him to make. Then I could cut them out and glue them together, back to back. Then I thought I might punch a hole in the top and hang it from the ceiling in the dining/learning room, where it could catch the light. We'll see if it pans out :-).
Here's another of his collages that I particularly like, and that I enjoyed watching him make:
You can see that I put down a little extra glue -- a bit ahead of where he was, I guess. Pop was using the beads for something else at the time -- gluing them on a box, I think, as "buttons". I started out by giving Chipmunk the long beads since he was insistent on having some. (He does still sometimes put things in his mouth, so while he's doing this work, I have to sit or stand beside him all the time. If he starts to put something in his mouth, I know he's done because he's not concentrating on his work anymore... he's beginning to just goof off. He knows he's not supposed to put the art materials in his mouth.) He began carefully putting the long beads together in a train. If there wasn't any glue beneath them, I moved them over just slightly -- trying not to disturb his concentration -- and squeezed out a bit of glue underneath it. He had to work very hard to put the beads down just so. It was good work for him, and he had that happy, fulfilled manner that Montessori talks about when he was done.
Our winter has started early here. Snow is in the forecast for tonight and tomorrow, and varying combinations of illness, rain, and wind have kept us inside much of the past few weeks. Yesterday wasn't a great day, weather-wise, but it wasn't raining and we didn't have a wind chill, so out we went. It was the first time I'd had a chance to walk through the garden in at least 2 (or more) weeks. We picked the last of the fall raspberries, noted that there were still cherry tomatoes on the vine (albeit squishy ones, destined for the turkeys), took a look at the kale (doing nicely in this cold weather), and had a walk through the brussel sprouts. Prior to the first frost, the brussel sprouts didn't look like much. This is the first year we've grown brussel sprouts, and we've had such lackluster performance in the garden this year that we weren't expecting a lot.
You can imagine my surprise when I found that all of the brussel sprout plants looked healthy, robust, and quite full. And by all of them, I mean all 20 of them.
Andy and I like brussel sprouts, but the kids aren't too enthused. (But then the kids aren't too enthused about many vegetables.) Andy likes them best sauteed in garlic butter. I must confess, however, that when I realized I had approximately 20 dinners worth of brussel sprouts I was a little daunted. Who decided to plant all these brussel sprouts anyway?
Oh, yeah. That would be me.
I was the one who loaded all those plants onto the cart at the farm -- banking on my past experience that you ought to plant more than you think you'll need because there is always some sort of garden disaster skulking around. I remember that Andy asked me, "What are all those?" And I said, "Brussel sprouts," and he said, "O-kaaay," and I said, "Well, the very first year we were here, I tried to grow brussel sprouts twice and they didn't work. So I'm getting a bunch this year."
Well.
In any case, when I came in from our walk yesterday, I immediately pulled Carla Emery's Encyclopedia of Country Living off the shelf and looked up brussel sprouts. Carla Emery says that you can harvest brussel sprouts through snow, probably "until January". Apparently, you can freeze them, but "most people" just leave them in the garden. The stalks will (supposedly) grow new sprouts, so that each stalk can produce "as much as 100 sprouts!"
Quick calculations indicate that 20 plants -- theoretically -- could produce as many as 2000 actual sprouts.
That's a lot of brussel sprouts.
I'm not sure what I would do with 2000 brussel sprouts. So I guess I'm not that upset that when I asked Andy to bring me some brussel sprouts for dinner, he cut the whole stalk instead.
Of course, the busy weekend could be coloring my perceptions of the whole week. Swim lessons began (for Gareth, Katydid, and Farmerboy), violin lessons continued (for Katydid), there was a trip to the library, and the rain held off long enough for our Little Flowers and Blue Knights groups to meet at the Shrine of the North American Martyrs in Auriesville.
The shrine is built on the site of the martyrdom of St. Isaac Jogues and his companions. Bl. Kateri Tekakwitha was later born here, and baptized just a few miles away. We had a picnic lunch with one of the priests and the kids played soccer in the field by the gift shop.
Another important event this week...
The twins turned 4! Four years ago I could not imagine surviving to this point. And yet -- here we are. :-)
So those were the special occasions. The boys had to unwrap presents early on Saturday morning as fast as they could, because Andy had to take Farmerboy to his swim lesson by 8 AM. I don't think it bothered them much, though. ;-)
Other highlights of week 7...
The boys rediscovered stamping. Here, Farmerboy is experimenting with thumprints.
Inspired by a project in The Usborne Complete Book of Art Ideas, Gareth cut up an eraser to make his own stamps. He found that stamp ink worked better than the black tempera paint he started out with.
Gareth and Farmerboy also messed around with acrylics a bit...
Gareth's gas giants inside a nebula. As he was painting, he realized he had very little black paint. I provided him with a very cool book I bought off a bargain table several years ago, a collection of Hubble photos called The Universe. Since some regions of space are full of colored dust, Gareth decided that might work for his background. He tried to fill in some black in the gaps. This was basically a painting to experiment with the qualities of acrylic. Since I know very little about painting myself, I will need to do some research and experimentation to figure out how to extend his explorations. I find that this is the area in which I often fall down. I do a fair job at introducing the kids to novel materials and projects, but not such a good job at deepening skills.
Farmerboy was inspired by Gareth's painting, so he decided to paint his own planet:
The red circle is the planet, surrounded by purple atmosphere, streaming off into space.
Katydid and I fooled around with oil pastels this week. I sat down one day when the boys were stamping to experiment with blending oil pastels.
I was just laying down patches of color to figure out how oil pastels work (on black paper).
Katydid drew a landscape instead:
On another day, she copied down this poem she wrote and illustrated it with oil pastels:
I often forget to mention Farmerboy's academics, which are a little different (obviously) from the big kids'. This is what we're using:
Modern Curriculum Press Phonics A , spending a longer time working on consonant sounds, as he has some trouble remembering them
Handwriting Without Tears , the 1st grade book
A mish-mash of reading materials, including silly sentences I write for him, word cards I cut out from cardstock he can use to make his own silly sentences (silly is a big draw here), and Sonlight's I Can Read It! series (Book 1). I find the Sonlight stories a little weird in some places, but it's nice having them all together in a few books.
Mainly Montessori math materials... the 100 chain is what he has been interested in most since we began our school year in August. He's learned to lay out the tens cards and count the beads one-to-one to 100. He also counts on the 100 board, counts piano keys, counts lots of stuff spontaneously. When we first began, he would often skip numbers, had trouble remembering the -9 to -ty (29, 30, etc) transition, but he's got them down now. Last year I tried to use Singapore's kindergarten workbook with him, which was a disaster. He learned to write his numbers, but that was about it. (In my defense, I had to be able to do something with him while also rocking a baby for 2 hours every afternoon.) This year, since we've switched back to Montessori, is going much, much better. I've done presentations of the decimal system using base 10 blocks, and he is keen to be able to go on to the 1000 chain now that he can do the 100 chain.
A few words about the assortment of books here... on Sept. 29, the Feast of St. Michael and the Archangels, the kids reminisced about the year we made shields. So Farmerboy got off on a bit of a knight tangent. He made himself a cardboard and aluminum foil suit of armor, and shields for himself and his little brothers. The boys then added their own coats of arms. Why don't I have pictures? I have no idea.
And then... the duck and chick books. On and off for months, the twins have made it evident that they are fascinated with eggs. They pretend to be flood monsters hatching out of their eggs (they lie on their backs and put pillows on their bellies for "eggs"). They pretend to be gigantic plum-plums hatching of their eggs. (Pip's invention.) They pretend that they are chicks and I am the Mommy and they hatch out of their eggs and then go on the road. ("Chicks on the road!" they call just like we do when the chickens wander into the street.) Their dearest wish is that we would get a rooster so instead of eating our eggs, we would let some hatch. And then they became enamored of Daisy. So I have been canvasing the library shelves for chick/duck/egg picture books. I think I have found all of them by now, and will probably need to hunt through the rest of the library system.
(Ack! How could I forget? We also read Five Little Ducks about a million times this week!)
Read this week
Gareth: Peter and the Starcatchers, Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson; Fellowship of the Ring; St. Dominic and the Rosary (Vision Books); various Dig!, Muse, and Faces issues re: prehistory
Katydid: Little Women; Dealing with Dragons, Patricia Wrede; Louisa May Alcott issues of Cobblestone; Queen Victoria issues of Calliope; Dig! Neandertals
Read-alouds this week: The Hobbit (everyone); Farmerboy (little boys); Once Upon a Time Saints: Around the Year (appropriate pages)
Listened to this week: Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, CDs 3&4 (mostly)
Watched this week: The Planets: Formation of the Solar System; Ken Burn's National Parks: Episode 3 (I have no idea why #2 was skipped)
(Lest you think I require really odd academics, let me assure you that Gareth requested this!) 
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