Three Plus Two

Baking Bread with Children

Well, weekdays are rocketing by with no chance to blog at all.  I have any number of posts I'd like to write, but I'm afraid I'm just going to have to jam what I can into the weekends.  I spent most of today getting all my hair cut off (donated to Locks of Love) and Internet shopping for winter clothes for Katydid, now that I can't ignore the fact that summer is over -- it was a damp 50 degrees today and we had our fist fire in the woodstove.  But I wanted to get this post out before it was old news.  I think I started it on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Way back when we began thinking about homeschooling, I started out by reading the Colfaxes' books (as I'm sure many others did): Homeschooling for Excellenceand Hard Times in Paradise.  I think it was in Hard Times (my favorite of the two) that they use the phrase "practical bookishness" to describe their method of homeschooling.  As our vision of homeschooling (and homesteading) has grown, that phrase has stuck with me as something to be aspired to.  I, too, would like our homeschooling to be characterized by a "practical bookishness", and to the "practical" end this year, I thought we might learn a bit about baking bread. 

Considering the fact that I do not live in an unelectrified homestead in the California mountains, I'm doing this a little less as a necessity and more as an intentional teaching of skills.  (Actually, I don't know a whole lot about baking bread myself, so it's really a family affair.)  In case anyone else is in need of them, I thought I would share some of the resources I've found: 

Making Bread Set, a free download from Montessori For Everyone.  Lori's "Simple Yeast Bread" recipe that comes with the cards is aboslutely fantastic.  Gareth used it to make "dragon bread" for the Feast of the Archangels on Monday, and the boys completely devoured it.  I shouldn't have even made dinner; all they wanted to eat was bread.  After watching Gareth make the bread (independently), Farmerboy wanted to make bread, too, so today I used this recipe, plus the cards, with the little boys.  First we laid out the cards in order and I read them.  Then we gathered our ingredients (each of them taking a particular item to the table) and mixed the dough (each doing a particular job).  I can't say it was relaxing, but it went very well.  In fact, I imagine that we may be eating quite a lot of what is becoming known around here as "dragon bread" in the near future.

***"Dragon Bread" happens to be dough formed in the shape of a dragon and baked on a cookie sheet instead of in a loaf pan.  We let the dough rise, made the shapes on a cookie sheet (using raisins for eyes, etc.), covered the dough and let it rise again.  It rose too much on the second rise, though, and the shapes kind of all melted together.  I think that next time we make this we'll experiment with only one rise, and maybe ten minutes of "resting" before baking.  The kids are already talking about making "Turkey Bread" for Thanksgiving.

Baking Bread with Children.  This is a very Waldorf-y book which not only contains recipes but tips, stories, songs, etc., that have to do with baking bread.  We haven't used any of the recipes yet, and of course it makes the baking-with-children process sound very homey and peaceful, which is often NOT the case in my experience (homey, yes, peaceful, no).  But the recipes do look yummy.

The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book: A Guide to Whole Grain Bread-Making.  This one's on order from Amazon.  It looks like there's lots and lots of information here.

I haven't looked for picture books yet -- Farmerboy went directly from clamoring to bake bread to clamoring to do sink/float experiments with clay boats (something else we did this week) -- but I would like to read a few to the little boys.  If you have any favorite bread books, leave a comment and let me know!

Week in Review: Back to School? (Take 2)

Let's try this again.

Basically, the gist of this week can be summed up as: "Life is not perfect, so we're just going to have to do it anyway."  We all got sick last week, which meant that starting school this week did not go the way I had envisioned.  On the other hand, we just did it anyway, and though accompanied by some chaos, an ear infection or two, and a two year old braining his brother on the head with a log from the stack of firewood, it went well enough.  (Or at least as well as anyone could expect!)

This is a picture of chaos waiting to happen. And yes, he is actually standing inside the cabinet.  But, hey!  There's only one of him!

You can find detailed notes at Show Your Work, but here's the overview:

Faith

Our focus this week happened to be faith.  (Before you think too much of me, this was not what I had planned either.  As I was cooking dinner tonight, my husband asked me what I was making.  "A winter squash pie," I said, "with the leftover squash.  It's kind of an experiment."  To which my husband replied, "If you had said that you knew exactly what you were doing and everything was proceeding exactly according to plan, then I would have been nervous.")

Anyway, I read The Way of the Cross: A Story of Padre Pio to the kids in little bits throughout the week.  St. Pio's feast day was September 23, but the book was too long to read in one day, and too good not to read.  It even kept my five year old interested, and apparently made him think enough that he connected Padre Pio's story of suffering to way back in the spring, when we read St. George and the Dragon and talked about how everyone has a dragon of his or her own to slay.  "Padre Pio had a hard life," he said, thoughtfully, before he wandered away.

We also attempted an observation of the Ember Days of autumn, thanks to my friend Jennifer at Wildflowers and Marbles.  Last spring I'd discovered the Rogation Days too late to make an observance of them, but tucked the information away in my file crate for this year.  This year I found the Church's seasonal days of fasting and thanksgiving particularly meaningful, considering where we live (a poor, rural area of upstate New York) and how we are trying to live (raising more of our own food, eating locally, etc.).  It seemed appropriate to give thanks for our bounty and to contemplate the upcoming season -- that is, winter, particularly this winter, when rising fuel and food prices will increase the hardship of many. 

Preschool and Kindergarten

Considering that Farmerboy is five this year and that the twins need to learn to use their powers for good and not evil, I wrote a more formal preschool/kindergarten time into our schedule.  I didn't get a great start with the little boys this week but we did start.  Predictably, Farmerboy is having a little trouble with the idea of "this time is required", but I expected that.  Because I wasn't able to get our environment set up in time, our indoor activities were kind of cobbled together.  They sorted and counted plastic fish and transportation counters, did some matching activities with the alphabet matching cards from Montessori for Everyone and MCP Phonics K, and Farmerboy helped me put together our new teen bead hanger.

Required work?

Well, we do use some.  This year I'm experimenting with writing out assignment sheets for Gareth and Katydid.  Gareth's is weekly, but Katydid has requested a daily sheet.  This is also the first year I am making actual reading assignments... although even here I'm giving the kids a few choices to pick from.  Our "theme" this year is mythology and ancient history, so the reading choices I offered the kids reflect that.  Gareth chose to start out with The Children's Homer and Katydid chose D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths.  I also put in some science reading, because the kids enjoy it: I gave Gareth The Story of Science: Aristotle Leads the Way and Katydid was excited to start Apologia's Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day.  (The bird chapters aren't telling her anything she doesn't know when it comes to indentification, but I think it would be a good idea if she learned about classification and the mechanics of flight.)

The kids also started back on the old standard subjects: math, language, spelling, and Latin.  Gareth and Katydid are both using Saxon books (7/6 for Gareth and 5/4 for Katydid) this year, although I'm going to supplement Katydid's with a good dose of Montessori-inspired work whenever warranted, and possibly a dollop of Waldorf-inspired math, too.  (Mainly I just want her to realize that the numbers in her book actually do connect with reality.)  For Latin this year, Gareth is going back to Lively Latin and Katydid is starting Latina Christiana I, which she is excited about.   

Choice Time?

My goal was to start having Choice Time again this week, but with everyone recovering from their colds, I thought sleep was more important.  I did put some choices on the board, though, and Gareth and Katydid made a few choices this week: Gareth checked out some websites on the equinox and read the book About Time: A First Look at Time and Clocks.  Katydid started the "Birds of the World" project we talked about over the summer, in which she is to learn geography by studying the birds of each continent.  African birds were her first pick.

Art, of course

Because there's always art.  See if you can pick out Katydid's picture.  I thought so.  You'll also note what happens when a five year old boy decides to draw a rainbow picture.  And, yes, that is a scorpion beside the knight.  Farmerboy put that in when I asked him if he was going to color the sky or the grass.  ("No, but how about a scorpion?")

FarmSchooling, Nature Study, and Other Seasonal Stuff

We did feel good enough to get outside for a few days this week.  The twins and I collected leaves and crabapples and talked about why trees don't have legs.  We all examined the remains of the tree that fell last year and were all delighted to rip the bark off discover the little mushrooms growing there.  We spent a lot of time watching chickens.  And Chipmunk has developed a keen interest in the pumpkins and tomatoes currently in residence in the dining/learning room.

A few photos, to make a long post even longer:

"The Animal Rescue Society".  The kids found a HUGE dragonfly trapped in the bird netting on the blackberry bush.  They managed to free it, and Gareth was able to hold it perched on his finger while it gathered its strength.  Unfortunately, we didn't have the camera at that point... It was really quite an experience, being able to hold a dragonfly.

I can't begin to tell you how many times I have found tomatoes on the floor with little finger holes in them.  We're past our first frost, so everything but the kale and Gareth's Black Aztec field corn is in the house.

Caterpillar on the blackberry bush...

Pop covered in the blackberries we'd just picked...

Farmerboy holding one of our Dominique hens...

Farmerboy also helped Andy create corn shocks, which we're planning to use to provide some warmth for the chickens this winter.

Now that I do the overview, I can tell we were actually pretty busy.  I'm glad we just jumped in, because the kids were obviously ready!

Week in Review: Bees, Books, and Bronchitis

Other B's this week: brown bat (flying around my house), bugs (the kind that make you sick) and -- Chipmunk's birthday (much nicer than those other two B words). But backing up...

Bees

Katydid and Farmerboy discovered the beeswax I laid in back in July.  The picture turned out a bit blurry, unfortunately, but here you have a tree, a few flowers, and a duck on a pond.

Farmerboy has been enamored of bees all summer, largely because of a beekeeping display at our local Agway.  The display includes the frame for the hive, a hat, and smoker.  Every time we go to Agway, Farmerboy tells me how we're going to keep bees next year, and he's going to get a small hat and a little smoker, sized just for him.  I have no idea if they make kid-sized bee gear, but since my husband has been reading bee books, I have a feeling the Agway display is doing a pretty good job of advertising.

Because of the bee interest, I collected some bee books to fill in the time between the summer book basket and the harvest book basket (which I'm planning - hah - to put together this week.)  Of these bee books, Happy Bees is a favorite, mostly for the pictures of the bear who keeps trying to sneak into the hive.  And we all like When the Bees Fly Home, which would be at home in either a bee basket or a harvest basket, and ties in nicely to the use of beeswax: it's about a boy who discovers that his pastime of making small beeswax animals is more help to his family than being able to lift the heavy boxes of honey.  (Actually, I think this book is the best of the bunch.)

Which leads us to the next B of the week...

Books

Katydid and Gareth have been reading a lot, too -- nothing assigned at this point.  Gareth's books this week include The Lighthouse War, the sequel to The Lighthouse Land, which he read not long ago.  He also read the third book in The Edge Chronicles.  Katydid finished St. Dominic and the Rosary and The Penderwicks, and started Francis and Clare: Saints of Assisi and Midnight Rider, an historical novel about a girl, her horse, and Paul Revere. 

Before I go on to Bronchitis (and other Bugs), I should probably mention the Bat.  We had a brown bat in the house one day this week, and I have to admit that even as I was trying to herd toddlers out of the way, I was thinking, I should get a picture of this!  But then I regained my sanity.  So -- alas -- no pictures of the bat, which Andy chased outside with a broom.

I did get pictures of another critter in the yard on the same day, though.

You can click on the picture to try and guess what it is, or I can tell you.

(All right, it's a mole.  Outside in broad daylight.  We watched it for quite a while.)

I did not take pictures of the mouse we caught in the kitchen this week either.  But I bet you probably didn't want to see those pictures anyway.

Aside from critters (and Beans -- 5 pounds of green beans from Gareth's garden, how could I forget?) -- there were Bugs.  I don't think anyone was a hundred percent this week, but whatever I have been grappling with for the past couple weeks finally sent me to the doctor, where I got a nebulizer treatment and an inhaler and was sent home with the directive to come back the next day if I was still having trouble, because "it's good to breathe."

Now I'm doing better, but Andy is recovering from a wicked bug which we are hoping is not related to the undercooked meat we were served at McDonad's this week, on our way home (ironically) from buying a whole bunch of locally raised, grassfed meat.  He seems to be doing much better this afternoon, though... so cross your fingers.  And, if you would, say a prayer that this isn't passed on to anyone else?

Week in Review: Focus on the little ones

This week I'm focusing on the little ones quite a bit.  We started out the week with Chipmunk's baptism:

(Sorry, Grandma, that was the best picture!)

Do not ask why it has taken us this long to have him baptized.  Just know that although we are not the kind of family who have many beautifully posed pictures up on our walls, the event was indeed a faith-filled one.  Two of the priests at our parish are retiring (again) at the end of August, and so we were very happy that one of them was able to baptize Chipmunk.

But can anybody tell me why this child will eat bugs, dirt, old pieces of macaroni, stale Cheerios, and anything else he finds on the floor but refuses to eat anything I give him?  I want to know why a week old french fry is better than a ripe peach.  I don't remember my other kids being quite this bad, but maybe I have a selective memory.  Or maybe we were just able to keep all the small things away better when I was only policing three kids instead of five.  It's a little nervewracking.

Good thing he's cute.  (He's still not sleeping either.)

We've stayed home more this week, which is a good thing, but some of us (me included) have also been sick, so I wouldn't say that we have all been on top of our game.  On the other hand, in thinking about writing this review, I have realized that although pieces of our days have been absolutely nuts, other pieces have worked out fairly well  -- or at least they've given me cause to be optimistic.  I'm trying to find something other than the tired analogy of the glass-half full or half empty here, but my head is half-full (not half-empty) of gunk and my brain is not working that well. 

Moving right along, here are a few more pictures from the week:

Farmerboy has been on a cleaning kick this week, and Pip and Pop have followed him.  I made up a solution of vinegar, lemon juice, and water for them to use.  Whatever proportions I used are not terrific for cleaning windows and our house smells a lot like vinegar, but the boys enjoyed themselves.  The twins apparently require hats to clean properly.

To vacuum, too.  This is Pop.  He did a lot of "vacuuming" with the carpet sweeper this morning.  The handle is a little long, but the amount of pushing needed to go over the rugs was good for him.  I think, in homeschooling circles at least, that all the fine motor Montessori work is emphasized while the gross motor stuff is given short shrift (or is at least something we don't think about as much).  But two year old boys need to use their big muscles and will often demonstrate this to our detriment, as in when they dump out an entire bin full of wooden train tracks all over the floor for no other purpose than to dump them.  The point was driven home to me this week a little more constructively as well.

The boys cooperated to load the wagon with firewood. 

As you can see, it's completely full.

With Gareth's help, they took the wagon down to the driveway and hitched it to the pedal tractor.  Pip was then done; he jumped on top of the wagon with his "fishing pole".  Pop, however, had more work to do.

(I think these pictures were actually taken by Gareth after Pop had pushed Pip and the tractor over to the grass, because the tractor clearly isn't moving much here! LOL)

When the boys are doing this kind of work, they are totally engaged.  I think Pop spent almost an hour working like this, resting when he had to.  I know that some mothers would be a little leery of having their two year olds having anything to do with heavy logs, but they weren't being dangerous or silly; I would have stopped them if they were and directed them to some other activity.  On another day, Pop hauled a bunch of scrap lumber over to the tractor and built a "field" (or the outline of one) to plow. 

The challenge is to think of activities for big muscles that can be done inside -- when it's raining or when it's winter. 

Something else the boys like these days is to have me type letters and words on the computer, then print them out.  All my kids have done this, once they figure out what I'm doing when I sit down at the computer.  When I'm typing for little people I type in 72 point, in different colors as requested.  This is Pip, and he has all his papers spread out on one of our learning table benches, which is he is using as a table.

I also presented rolling and unrolling a mat this week.  That process has its own post, though, which I'm not through writing yet.

 

Summer School

A long, long time ago, I posted about why we didn't really break for summer.  Some of the reasons we keep going during the summer still hold true: for instance, nobody really likes to have to relearn their math after two months off, and Gareth still likes to be able to "plan ahead", as he says.  Another benefit of schooling year-round is that we're able to take breaks when we need to as opposed to when the schools have their breaks; schools don't have to change their plans due to morning sickness, or newborn twins, or chronic ear infections, or physical therapy, or moving.  So we keep going through the summer with a summer schedule.

Here in upstate, we don't have to deal with the heat and humidity of points further south, so my kids would live outside if I let them.  Actually, we all want to be outside as much as possible.  So, although we're still doing some school work, we don't have Choice Time.   Instead, I write a list of activities on the white board that the kids can do if they want to, if they're bored, or if it's raining. (Two of the books I'm leaning on heavily are Nature's Art Box and The Kid's Nature Book.) Otherwise, they're free to go outside and swing, ride their bikes, play soccer, build forts, hunt for bugs... etc., etc.

A brief report here... The eye doctor's prediction that most of Farmerboy's physical delays -- such as pedaling a bike -- were the result of his lack of depth perception have proved true.  After we fixed his training wheels, Farmerboy jumped on and started riding in the space of about an hour.

We do, however, continue to start our day with prayer and read aloud time.  For the month of July, we're saying the Offering of the Precious Blood for Souls and reading The First Christians: The Acts of the Apostles for Children. (After we finish this book -- which everyone seems to really enjoy -- we'll be reading St. Patrick's Summer: A Children's Adventure Catechism.)  Then we go on to a chapter book, usually linked to whatever historical period we're studying.  We finished up the modern era in early June -- a bit faster than I had planned, because the kids were begging to start on the ancients.  (This will be Gareth's second time through.)  Our read alouds this year will focus heavily on mythology (that's the plan, anyway), and we've started out with Gilgamesh, the Hero. 

I really, really like this book.  The author does a mostly great job of handling the more inappropriate sections of the Epic of Gilgamesh discreetly.  (There was about a paragraph I glossed over when Hatti, the dancing girl, tempts Enkidu, the Wild Man, out of the woods, but to be honest, that part might not even bother some people.)  It's easy to see why the Epic of Gilgamesh continues to be read; sometimes when I look down while reading this book, all I see is a row of faces (age 11, 9, and 5) turned up at me (because I'm usually walking Chipmunk around by this point), eyes huge and round, while they wait in silence -- that's right, silence  -- for me to finish.  Farmerboy thinks it's a little scary, though, so if you have little guys, be advised.

While we read, the kids usually draw.  While searching for coloring pages for Farmerboy, I happened on this site, which has coloring sheets for practically every subject under the sun, including Ancient Mesopotamia.  (So what if most of the captions are in Arabic?) 

Nature study, of course, is not neglected, but it is very (very) informal, mostly centering on the garden.  Gareth planted a Three Sisters Garden this year, but after a major infestation of cucumber beetles, it's more like a Two Sisters garden; they demolished all the pumpkins.  I also signed us up for Firefly Watch, which also functions like "brown bat watch" for us, as the kids get to go out in the field right around the time that all the bats come out.  I never knew we had so many.   

Basic skills-wise, Gareth and Katydid are both continuing to work on math daily.  Gareth is using Saxon 7/6, and Katydid is back to straight Montessori-based math.  I'm using the Math 1 and 2 albums from NAMC.  They're pricey, but standard math curricula do not work for Katydid, and I needed the visuals.  Katydid tends to forget a lot of math if we have any sort of break, and because of her headaches, she did not do much math in May and June.  Having learned a little bit from past experience, I deciced to start Katydid off back at the decimal system, with a review of place value.  Math will be at Katydid's pace this summer and as slowly as she wants to go.

We're also trying to work on spelling.  Gareth really, really, REALLY needs to work on spelling, but I have been frustrated with some aspect of every single program we've tried.  I ordered Natural Speller, but I haven't had a chance to really get into it yet.  I'm pretty sure this is the very last spelling curriculum I could possibly try.  So we'll see.

The biggest part of the summer, though, is the extracurricular.  The kids are playing summer soccer this year, and hopefully taking some art classes in Cooperstown (if I can remember to make their reservations).  Summer soccer is three nights a week for the month of July.  With kids in two different age groups, we're there for three and a half hours every night.  (And let me tell you, chasing a couple of toddlers around a soccer field for three and a half hours three nights a week is good for the postpartum weight loss.) 

So that's basically what we're doing... oh, and building a chicken coop -- and then there's the firewood shed Andy wants to build --and --

I think I better stop here before I wear myself out. ;-)

May So Far: Uncategorized Learning

In April, I was trying to get us back into a routine that would carry us to the end of May, when we would break for getting the garden in.  I forgot, of course, that May -- if it's cold and rainy, the way this May has been -- is often one of our sick months.  Sick month = little, if any routine.  We've been spending a lot of time at the doctor's office.  And very little time reading aloud or having Choice Time.  (If you could spare a few prayers for Katydid, I would appreciate it.  She has been through strep and may or may not have mono or Lyme or a really bad sinus infection.  We're waiting on test results.)

But I have been pleased at the amount and variety of learning activities that have gone on anyway.  Some of them have been my suggestion, or the result of a suggestion I made a long time ago, or an idea that I exposed the kids to on purpose.  And other things have been completely child-initiated.  The reason I titled this post "Uncategorized Learning" is because, as the years go by, I realize how we fit in no boxes.  I think this is how homeschooling is supposed to be -- tailor-made to the family, to the individual.  I'm sure that our style of learning probably wouldn't work wholesale at your house, but I also think that is a good thing.  When we're not running off to doctor's offices and labs, I've been reading to the kids from the Golden Children's Bible about the epistles of Paul.  I read to them what Paul had to say about the Church needing a diversity of gifts in order to function, just as the body needs all its different parts.  They laughed at the image of a body made up entirely of ears or eyes.  Sometimes I think that even homeschoolers succumb to the prevalent undercurrent in educational philosophy that this philosophy (whatever brand is being espoused at the time) is the best way to educate -- the implication being, the best way to educate everyone.  I've always had to scratch my head at this attitude among homeschoolers, because aren't we homeschooling because we wanted to get away from cookie cutter education? Unschooling or Montessori, applied to everyone without thought, would simply be more cookie cutter philosophy. 

Well, no cookie cutters here.  Just a sampling of what's been going on lately:

 

This looks like Farmerboy is playing Star Wars, right?  He's hiding with his light saber in a messy living room.  But actually, this is a photo from "World War I Day".  I had nothing to do with World War I Day -- or, more correctly, I was only tangentially involved.  I read them books about WWI a few months ago, I provided Katydid recently with a copy of The Mary Frances Cookbook (because I want to teach the kids to cook and she wants to learn), which has a recipe for milk toast in it that the kids connected to a book called Hero Over Here about the 1918 flu epidemic, I let them make trenches in the living room for their mock battle, and I watched the battle as it unfolded (with lots of very dramatic death scenes). Then Katydid made milk toast for a bedtime snack.

Katydid hasn't been feeling too well lately, but she's still been practicing with the camera and keeping tabs on the woods when she can.  I picked out a few of her photos to show you:

A dragonfly, resting on a blade of grass...

Blue-eyed grass (we think)...

Pansy in the front planter.

She's also been reading quite a bit, but I think books are going to have to wait for another post.

Everyone has been keeping tabs on the tadpoles, too, and Katydid and Farmerboy are reading together through the pond books linked on the sidebar.  Here, Gareth was sketching what he saw in the pond water, which was a Choice Time activity.  We've been adding rain water to the bowl and the tadpoles seem to be reasonably happy.  They eat the duckweed still growing on the surface of the water.

Gareth finished his math book (Saxon 6/5), but decided he wanted to just keep right on going into the next book.  So he started Saxon 7/6 this week.  "Hey, here's an algebra activity!"  I'm pretty sure my jaw actually dropped.

I've seen little clues lately that Pip and Pop are getting older.  I don't have many activities on the shelves because I haven't been able to keep up with them, but I do still have out a couple of puzzles which were being ignored due to our topsy-turvy routine.  A few times lately I have been surprised by Pop calmly working in various rooms on this animal puzzle.  (He's in gray here; Pip is in orange.)

Pip has discovered the sandpaper letters, which I keep in an unlocked cabinet.  Both boys have been very interested in letters lately, but Pip probably a bit more than Pop.  (Pip is a huge fan of SuperWhy, too.)  I had too many letters out for the twins, so I sorted through them and only kept the beginning letters of all our names plus the letters I was pretty sure they could already recognize. 

Of course, after this bit of hope, the boys have been getting up at the crack (and I do mean the crack) of dawn, which means they're not getting enough sleep.  And when my kids don't get enough sleep, they end up not tired and cranky so much as absolutely wired.  Last night, the twins found their way into my bathroom and completely destroyed it.  They dumped the shampoo bottles and all my makeup in the toilet.  They turned on the bathtub and dumped water, soap, and shampoo all over the floor. They threw the toilet brush and plunger in the bathtub. 

They wreaked all this havoc in ten minutes or less.  And you do not want to know what they are like at the doctor's office.

So -- still toddlers.  Definitely.  But with brief glimmers of non-destructiveness peeping through.

As when they discuss their truck magazines...

And (ahem) play priests.  (Which is when you begin to understand what Mass sounds like to a two year old: "Aaaaheeeeeummmmmumblemumble, Deesus, Mawee, Dod... Amen!")

And Chipmunk is being his normal, happy, hair-pulling and completely attached to Mama self.  Nobody really wants him to grow up.  But I would like him to take a nap.

Valentine's Week in Review

This was a slow week, and not entirely because we were starting to prepare for our upcoming trip.  Call it "low tide" or whatever you want, but I think this is our version of a break.  Nothing stops completely, I am still reading to the kids most mornings, Gareth and Katydid continue to do some book work in the afternoons, and Farmerboy continues with his own projects, but nothing involved is attempted and I end up saying, "Just do the next thing," a lot more than usual.  Happily, Gareth and Katydid have seemed to handle "the next thing" rather well lately.  Gareth is on track in Saxon 6/5 with a miniscule amount of help from me -- and he likes it that way.  I have to admit, I am still amazed that Saxon would be the best fit for him, but it is.  This kid needs self-teaching resources, and when provided with the right ones, flies through them.

Because we are in slow mode, and preparing for our trip, Valentine's day was also low-key.  Pip and Pop happily wielded glue and stickers as well.  They might have been constructively occupied for, oh, half an hour.  Then it was back to boring old normal everyday wreaking havoc.  (Pip keeps telling me he's "cwimbing wadders".  Apparently everything in our house looks like a ladder to him, which is why Andy bought Walmart out of anchor brackets yesterday.  We're attaching anything big and heavy to the walls.)

Of course, reading continues apace, even when we are in slow mode.  Gareth is finally finishing Redwall, having been inspired to pick it back up by Sword Bird, which was passed on to him by Katydid (of course.)  Both kids enjoyed Sword Bird a great deal, if the games and stories inspired by it are any indication.  Katydid has been reading quite a bit lately; this week she finished Anne of Avonlea and Plain Girl, and is currently reading (or maybe just finished) The Year of Miss Agnes.  She passed Anne of Avonlea on to me, but I am saving it for our trip.  (Trying to catch up on all the girl books I missed when I was a kid and staunchly refused to read them.)  As for read alouds, we're reading two from Sonlight's Core 4: Gone-Away Lake and A Letter to Mrs. Roosevelt.  Gone-Away Lake is full of gorgeous descriptions -- a book right up my alley.  I am really enjoying reading it to the kids and have dog-eared lots of pages so I can come back to passages I particularly liked.  (Er, and the kids like it, too.)

Last but not least: we have more therapy again.  Chipmunk is the fifth of our children to be born with torticollis, a condition in which the neck muscles are too tight and won't let the baby hold his head straight.  After therapy, by around a year or so (longer for Katydid, whose torticollis was the worst), you can't tell there was ever anything wrong.  Chipmunk has the added bonus of low muscle tone in his trunk, so not only are we doing neck stretches, he's working out for strength, too.  He is accompanied to therapy by Farmerboy, whose issues are fairly mild but echo those that Gareth dealt with at about the age of 4 or 5, as well: flat feet, too-tight hamstrings, poor motor planning, and bilateral difficulties.  (Farmerboy is also a leftie, which adds to the confusion a little.)  While Chipmunk and Farmerboy do their exercises, Pip and Pop tear around the therapy room, attempting to injure themselves and each other on various therapeutic apparatus.  Then we spend more time driving than we do at therapy.  I'm not sure this makes much sense, but it's what we're doing.  And now we have to determine whether or not we'd like to add Gareth to this mix, which would mean 1.5 hours of therapy time between the three of them.

So that was our week in a nutshell.  This weekend we're participating in the Great Backyard Birdcount and hopefully Andy, Gareth, and Katydid will be participating in a "Winter Ecology Walk" at a local arboretum this afternoon... if the winds don't kick up.  Right now it's 15 degrees, but sunny.

You know, walking weather in upstate New York. ;-)

Chinese New Year (and a little bit about "Choice Time")

Today marks the beginning of the Chinese New Year, which (according to Wikipedia) can be celebrated for fifteen days.  I think I could probably eat Chinese food for fifteen days.  (Actually, freshman and sophomore year in college, I worked for a hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant with terrific food.  Andy and I lived in an extremely run down efficiency apartment on campus, and the owners of the restaurant pretty much kept us alive on free chicken fried rice and moo goo gai pain.)

Anyway, this means that if you'd like to mark Chinese New Year in your own home today, tomorrow, or next week, feel free!  We don't have a decent Chinese restaurant near us, so we'll be making dumplings and lo mein ourselves (I hope) for tonight's dinner.  You might eat some noodles for longevity and some oranges for good luck.  Or order in some moo goo gai pan. :-)

This is what our whiteboard looked like today:

Now, a note is probably in order here.  This is the list for choice time.  That means that I will be happy with any of the activities listed here, but not all of them (or even most of them) will probably be done.  Having a list this long just gives the kids a fair amount of freedom in what they're doing... but it also gives them enough structure to keep them from drifting all over the place, or even shutting down due to too many choices.  It also helps me, because I usually at least think I'm prepared for all of these choices, even if I do generally invent them on the spur of the moment.  Unfortunately, sometimes I think I'm prepared for something I write on the board when the kids have actually used up a key ingredient in the activity.  That happened today, actually; I had envisioned the dragon puppets made with paper bags -- easy -- but the kids had used up all the paper bags here.  So we dug up some old socks instead.

Andrea asked me a long time ago how I kept track of my choice time ideas, and I was embarrassed to answer that I didn't actually keep track of them.  (Remember Seinfeld's "Tomorrow Guy" routine?  Remembering the choices is for Tomorrow Guy.  Ahem.)  What I am thinking now is that it is super easy to take photos of the whiteboard whenever I write down new choices (sometimes our choices last all week, sometimes only for a day).  So I'm thinking that I will post the pictures of the whiteboards over at my learning notes blog (and if you visit there right now, you won't come away very inspired; it's been a rough week, but thankfully today has been better, so maybe you ought to wait a day or so until I put up a new, more positive entry). 

Back to my original intention, though, which was to post some photos of the day:

Katydid and Farmerboy trying out chopsticks.  I bought a set of "cheater" chopsticks and a set of real chopsticks in fabric rolls at Target over the summer; they were in the bargain bin for $1 a pack.  (What you don't see in this picture is that after Farmerboy moved on to a different activity, Pip helpfully pulled all the cheater chopsticks apart, making them into real chopsticks after all.)

After Farmerboy used the chopsticks for a while, he wanted to pour something, so I set up a tray for him with a saki set, also purchased at Target for the low, low price of $1.  He loved this.  In fact, that's the first thing he said to me: "Mommy, I love doing this!"  After he practiced pouring water, he poured juice and milk for himself and for all of us, and even drank out of a saki cup for lunch.  (He also ate his lunch on the tray.)  This is why I stick with Montessori even though the twins stole the sponge a little later and squeezed water all over the table.  And the floor.  And almost all over Gareth's drawing.  I just wish I was more consistent.  But I'll be working on it (again) when we get home from our Tennessee trip.

Gareth and Katydid also chose to investigate the Chinese zodiac.  Katydid started work on a birthday banner for herself, and Gareth started working on a New Year banner... but he had a heck of a time finding a picture of a rat to draw from.  I'll post pictures when they're finished, but they were both distracted by the opportunity to make dragon puppets.

Gareth's is the big one with antlers and whiskers.  Katydid's is the one with pink feathers.  (Could you guess?)  Farmerboy also made one, but he, ah, got a little upset when the mouth fell off, and after that his puppet suffered a small accident.  (Or an "on-purpose", as a friend of mine once made the distinction.)

I now have a crowd around my chair, which means my computer time is up... and it's time to defrost the beef for lo mein and check the dumpling recipe.  Happy New Year!

In Praise of Cardboard

And paper bags.  And aluminum foil.  And construction paper.  And Scotch tape.

I can't imagine how we'd homeschool without them. 

We've had a craft explosion around here lately.  But I haven't had anything to do with it.  I mean, occasionally I'll suggest a craft to the kids, or write one down on the whiteboard at choice time, or we'll make one together, but my most important role is simply to put the materials out (along with a few instructional or idea books), try to keep them organized, and allow them to be used.  The current craft explosion can be traced to Farmerboy, who is my builder.  Farmerboy sees a box and thinks, That would make a good tank.  And then he finds the tape himself (lots and lots of tape) and starts working on his vision.  When his older brother and sister hear or see what he is doing, they usually want to join in.  Then we have a beeline to the basement, where all the Amazon cardboard boxes reside while awaiting recycling.  Even if it is 9 PM.  Because your mother is a pushover when imagination is involved.

(Here the kids were building tanks.  Unfortunately, I can't show you the finished products because the twins have already ripped off the cardboard tube turrets and the boxes have mostly been repurposed as robots.  Which have also already been dismantled by Wonder Twin Power.)

My second most important role in supporting the sacrifice of hundreds of rolls of Scotch tape to the altar of imagination is to not buy any fancy costumes or realistic looking armor.  Every Christmas Santa considers those wooden sword and shield sets that you can find in most of the Waldorf-ish/natural toy catalogs.  And every Christmas Santa discards that idea, for two reasons.  The first reason is that cardboard, foam and plastic swords do not cause brain damage when delivering mortal blows to your brother, but wooden swords contain many hidden emergency room costs not figured into the sale price.  The other reason is that deprived of such toys, the kids often make their own -- using copious amounts of aluminum foil, of course, to simulate plate armor. 

At this point, I would show you the clever gauntlets Gareth and Farmerboy made out of paper lunch bags covered with aluminum foil strips, but, er, the twins got those, too.  (Are you sensing a pattern here?)  So instead I will show you what occupied the kids this afternoon.  They made crowns -- at the suggestion of Farmerboy, who was leafing through his Usborne I Can Cut and Stick book.  Katydid did a lot of the cutting and stapling.

They also made crowns for Pip and Pop, who did not rip them up, choosing instead to nap with them on.  (Which is where they are now. :-) 

I couldn't resist including this picture of the boys, mostly because of Pop's expression.  (He's in green with the blue crown.)  Only Pop furrows his eyebrows like that, so now you'll be able to tell them apart.  In this case, his expression can be interpreted: "Why is that crazy lady taking pictures of us again???"

Lately the costuming bug has extended to stuffed animals.  Here is the cast of a WWI drama, as played by paper bags -- or, er, stuffed dogs and cats:

I recently reorganized our art cabinet (at least the open shelving), which was in desperate need of a good clearing out.  In its present state, it is much easier for the kids to use.

Here's a picture:

(Just ignore the stuff at the top, please.  I don't have anywhere to put my laminator or the roll of easel paper, and there's also a hammering activity I stuck up there in desperation one day to get it away from certain small people.) 

On the top shelf: Do a Dots, Prismacolor markers, collage bin, and a Far Side mug of Sharpies and scissors.  (Obviously, the stuff likely to do the most damage in the hands of a toddler resides on the top shelf.  They can't reach it even if they climb up on a chair.)

On the second shelf: Tissue paper, oil pastels, Prismacolor pencils in a tin, manual pencil sharpener, basket of stickers, art and craft books.

On the third shelf: Farmerboy's art books (including the Tractors and Trucks Stencil Book and titles from the Usborne Playtime series), a zippered plastic carrier of playdough and playdough tools, a container of crayons (we use Lyra), a container of stamps and stamp pads (Farmerboy can open it, but the twins can't), a small cabinet containing watercolor pans and brushes, colored pencils, and Sculpey, and various kinds of paper.

The collage bin contains glue sticks, Mod Podge, glue brushes, glitter, sequins, chenille stems, feathers, gems, buttons, pom poms, colored pasta... and about a million felt and paper shapes which I had to pick up off the floor the other day, after the bin was "accidentally" left out and Pip discovered it. 

While picking up the millions of bits of paper and felt, I had a lot of time to think.  And one of the things I was thinking about was what Farmerboy's kindergarten should be like next year (ie., after July 1.)  I know it's a bit out there right now, but I did have a lot of time to think, remember?  Considering the child's need to create, I started thinking about a "crafty kindergarten".  I'm not generally one for cute phrases, but this one does seem to sum up what I think the bottom line will be for Farmerboy's first "official" homeschool year.

More on that as I have a chance to think it through a little more.  Right now the hour is getting late and Chipmunk will be up from his nap any minute.  But the crafting continues:

Scenes From a Day

Andy was home yesterday, so school was out.  Instead...

We cleaned out this bathroom... er, closet.  It used to be a bathroom, but the former owners took out the sink and toilet and stored extra carpet and wallpaper in it.  Then we moved in, and... well, you will note the moving boxes still stacked up on that shelf?  We'd like to turn this into usuable space -- a pantry maybe.  Your pantry has mint green tile and yellowed pink wallpaper, too, doesn't it?

The contents coming out and available for plunder. 

I ended up throwing out a lot of stuff.  When we moved, the movers packed everything, including the contents of some of our trash cans.  Those cardboard boxes in the picture above were mostly full of stuff that should have been thrown away before we moved.  The problem with that was, I was 10 weeks pregnant with twins at the time, and my body did not want to cooperate with me.

I did find a few interesting things in the closet, like all the candles shaped like actual "things": pineapples, apples, water lilies... I guess I used to have a "thing" for those, myself. 

And I found this:

... which I took a picture of for posterity.  I'm not sure what to do with it.  I actually made this out of old greeting cards, lo, these many years ago.  I used to put it out for Easter.

After the mad decluttering of the morning, Andy took Gareth and Katydid to get their hair cut and to run a few errands, while the little boys -- still recovering slowly from their colds -- stayed home with me.  Farmerboy was bored out of his mind without his big brother and sister.  He watched Reading Rainbow while I finished up the quarterly reports, and then we made this:

A mitten tree!  Farmerboy's idea, after reading The Missing Mitten Mystery, which is all about a boy who loses his mitten and imagines everything that might have happened to it.  At one point, he imagines what it would be like if mittens grew on trees.  Voila -- the mitten tree.  With lots of glitter for snow.  (The red line is a ladder to harvest the mittens.)

When Andy got home, he decided to try his hand at a no-bake maple cheesecake.  (I would put up a picture, but he didn't want me to take one of him cooking. :P)

The cheesecake didn't actually set and it was incredibly sweet, but in small bits it was like eating candy soup with graham crackers!  And pretty good for a guy whose prior cooking experience has mostly consisted of boxed macaroni and cheese.  (Thank you, dear, and I'm sure I can find you some willing volunteers for your next maple cheesecake experiment.)

And that was our day.  Now to get started on another one!