Because my blog shares look weird on social media if I don't have an image, here's a gratuitous pic of the cat:
That's Gracie, Syd's best friend. Her hobbies are scratching my kitchen chair backs into tatters, meowing pitifully whenever the kids go outside in inclement weather (because they've left her, you see), and sleeping on top of the floor vents when the heat is on. She is the reason why I'm cold.
Anyway...
The emphasis of our brief meteorology unit is on clouds, just because Syd likes them. The first step, of course, is to learn how clouds form (well, perhaps the FIRST first step is to learn about the water cycle, but we've done that many, many times before...).
A cloud is formed when water evaporates, then rises and meets cool air. Cooler air can't hold as much water vapor as warmer air, so some of the water vapor condenses. If there are any particles in the air--pollution, dust particles, salt--then the condensation clings to that, and a cloud is formed.
Don't believe me? Make a cloud for yourself! You will need:
Pour some hot water into the jar, light a match and blow it out inside the jar (we just dropped the match into the water after that, to make the motions quicker), quickly put the lid on the jar, with the cold pack on top of the lid, and watch the magic unfold:
And no, they can't even make a cloud in a jar without fighting, sigh.
Yes, you CAN study the American Revolution with elementary students, and it CAN be exciting! Here's our complete American Revolution unit study, including all the hands-on activities that we did--and all of our travels!
Joy Hakim's History of Us was our spine for this unit, with all of the extra readings, activities, and field trips organized to be relevant to a specific chapter in her text. Although they're roughly in order below, check out her books for the real chronology of what we did.
For each activity, click on the link. If it's an outside link, it'll have the reference that I used. If it's a link to another of my blog posts, it'll have the tutorial, links to any required resources, and links to the other reference materials, readings, and assorted outside resources that we used.
Early America: We listened to/read Joy Hakim's Making Thirteen Colonies for context to the American Revolution, completing just a few field trips and hands-on activities.
Christopher Columbus unit study. He's not a role model, but he does exemplify the Age of Exploration that I wanted the children to understand, and these days there are more accurate resources available to study him. Our Christopher Columbus unit study included a workbook that had acceptable coverage, several readings to provide more detail, a field trip to see recreations of the Nina and Pinta, a hands-on project to make our own recreations, and some live-action role play of their voyages.
model Jamestown. This was a great way for the kids to see what a colony looked like and how it was structured, and it came out so adorable that the kids were thrilled
Mayflower map model. We made a few of the 3D maps from this book, including this one, a map of the early American slave trade, and a map of Paul Revere's ride. They're all wonderful.
The Bloodless Revolution and Parliament. We went to see a copy of the Magna Carta in person, so I wanted the kids to understand the Bloodless Revolution, but it's also important to understand Parliament as a contrast to the US system of government.
Parliament YouTube channel. Not much is super interesting on this channel, but you can surf around and get a good idea of what Parliament looks like and how it operates.
Geography of the 13 Colonies. Got to have this memorized! I bought these maps and made pin flags for them.
War of Jenkins' Ear. From Colonies to Country covers this; here's a more in-depth map to make the divisions clear.
The French and Indian War. Even if you don't do the rest of the build-up to the American Revolution, you HAVE to start here. It's where Washington learned to lead, and where the trouble over land really got started. Use From Colonies to Country as your spine.
lapbook. We don't do lapbooks, per se, but we did do notebooking with this unit, and they put many of these little lapbooks into their notebooks.
Story of the World, v. 3. This offers a broader geo-historical perspective to the French and Indian War. If you also have the activity book, you can use its quizzes and mapwork.
The Intolerable Acts. It started as a series of taxes to make the colonies "repay" Great Britain for the war, but then devolved into more taxes just to punish them. Protests, then riots, then rebellion ensued.
Mission: Crown or Colony?The kids have, over the years, played this role-playing simulation of the build-up to the American Revolution several times. It never seems to get old!
England's Reasons for Taxing the Colonies. This little lapbook is a handy reference to have the kids make and stick in their notebooks.
Skittles Role Play. One morning, I divvied a huge bag of Skittles into three Ziplock baggies. Each kid decorated her baggie as one of the colonies. I decorated mine as Great Britain, and only had a handful of Skittles in mine, whereas each of theirs was stuffed full. I told them that at the end of the schoolday, they could eat all of the Skittles in their bags. And then, I began to tax them. I taxed them for breakfast. I taxed them for paper to do their schoolwork. I taxed them to look over their schoolwork. I taxed them for taking them to the park, and taxed them for taking them home. Every now and then, I would enjoy a handful of Skittles from my bag while they seethed. Even though I taxed them only a Skittle at a time, by the end of the day they each only had about six or so Skittles in their bags, and Syd was so angry that she was crying. They will NEVER forget what it's like to be punitively taxed!
American Revolution: We covered this in a lot of depth, with my goal to paint as vivid picture as possible of the people and places involved, and to really delve into the "why" and "how" of the events. I didn't emphasize the memorization of dates as much as I do in some units, because there was so much else that I wanted the kids to understand about this important event. They can always look up the date of the Shot Heard Round the World, but the reason why it's called that, what happened to instigate it, and what happened after? That's what I want them to know by heart.
American Revolution coloring book. This is a fun review activity to complete as you go; if you color each page as you study it, then in the end you'll have a completed story book of the war!
famous and not-so-famous people. As we went through From Colonies to Country, I had the kids complete one of these little lapbooks for each famous person we read about.
Write with a quill pen. This is one of those fun activities that gets a kid into the mindset of a person living at the time. We also love dressing up in period costumes and playing the games and eating the food appropriate to the time.
The Shot Heard Round the World. It's so important to really understand this one.
"Paul Revere's Ride."It's not completely accurate, but it makes for great Memory Work.
Animated Map. This makes it easier to see what was going on with the Battles of Lexington and Concord.
Minute Men National Historic Park. Here's our visit there, as well as the Schoolhouse Rock song that I sang incessantly.
Declaration of Independence. It's the pivotal event of the American Revolution, and of the history of our country. If you can, go see it before it's too faded to make anything out of it at all.
George Rogers Clark. He led an exciting series of raids against British forts, and that National Historic Site is right here in Indiana! We visited it, the kids earned Junior Ranger badges, and they put brochures and postcards from the site into their American Revolution notebooks.
battle sites. We didn't spend a ton of time on battle sites that I knew we weren't going to visit, because battles are really just a lot of running here and there and shooting, etc. I did have the kids complete this battle map to use as a reference, however, whenever we read about one or planned to visit it.
Valley Forge. We visited there and the kids earned their Junior Ranger badges.
The kids used Draw Write Now to help them create a portrait of George Washington. Instead of copying the text from the book, though, they had to write their own information about him.
Mount Vernon. Although this is where Washington lived when he wasn't at war, the museum includes an excellent summary of his wartime actions. We went there, and even off-season, it was a LOT of fun!
Washington Crossing the Delaware. We visitedWashington Crossing State Park, but the most interesting activity, I thought, was downloading and printing the largest-scale painting of Washington Crossing the Delaware that I could find, and then doing some guided viewing and discussion of it with the kids.
Battle of Trenton. This is an important battle! We didn't go there, but we did explore this interactive map.
The Articles of Confederation. This is how America was governed before the Constitution was written, so it's important to understand it. We used From Colonies to Country.
The Constitutional Convention and the Constitution: We did most of our learning about the Constitution on our road trip to see it, and learning about the Constitutional Convention completed this unit study.
Germantown White House Junior Ranger badge. Although George Washington did live in this house twice, it was occupied by the British during the American Revolution, and is a great example of a wealthy house during the time period. I put it with our Constitution studies because it's in Philadelphia, and we'd hoped to see it when we went there (alas, we didn't, because it was closed).
That pretty much covers it, although I'm sure there are tons of books and videos that I've forgotten, and, of course, we thought about the American Revolution a lot, talked about it a lot, and contextualized it with our other studies in the ten months that we spent on it. It took a ton of time, and I'm happy to admit that we're taking a bit of a break from intensive history study after that, but it was so worth it, and so do-able, even with upper elementary kids!
Other than bearing witness to that travesty, the kids and I had a great week of school. The older kid, especially, zipped through her requirements in record time, with, alas, as little effort as possible. I do like that the kids can work independently, but they're still more passionate and engaged when Mom is right there learning with them.
It's fortunate that this week, then, we just happen to have loads more hands-on assignments. There's a lot of interesting math, in particular, that we have time to get to this week, and I'm looking forward to the map coloring (it's mathematical, I promise!), decanomial square modeling, and Base 60 calculating that we've got going on.
Have I told you that we're possibly going to Greece this summer? We're still running the numbers and looking for flights that would be in our budget, so I can't tell yet if we can afford it this year or not. Darn our tendency to make a budget and only do what we can afford!
Speaking of Greece... Memory Work this week is Greek and Roman deities, reviewing Sonnet 116, and the names of regular polygons. Other daily work consists of typing for both kids, a word ladder for the younger kid, and for the older kid, progress in Wordly Wise 7, Khan Academy's SAT Prep, and an online Red Cross First Aid class. The younger kid completes the daily story starter or journal entry, but the older kid just flat-out won't do creative writing or journaling, so I've been giving her a long passage from our Memory Work to copy in cursive every day.
We're trying something a little different for music. As I've mentioned each Monday for the past couple of weeks, our keyboard is mysteriously broken, and I haven't even tried to fix it or replace it yet--Girl Scout cookie season is upon us, and I'm busy! It so happens, though, that this weekend I was meandering through a Charlotte Mason homeschool site... you know, as you do... and saw their recommendation for memorizing and singing folk songs.
Why, folk songs are music! We've got memory work, we've got singing, we've got the geo-historical context of each song, and for many songs, I'm sure we can find the sheet music so that we can practice reading it. And best of all, the children actually seem enthusiastic about this plan! The older kid requested "something British" for our first song, I remembered how much I love "Froggy Went a-Courtin'" and looked it up, and wouldn't you know? It's British! The kids and I listened to loads of versions (my personal favorite: Bob Dylan's), but decided that Elizabeth Mitchell's would be the easiest to learn. So that's what we're doing.
And here's what we're doing for the rest of our week!
MONDAY: Neither kid seems to be much troubled by her Math Mammoth for this week--more fractions for the younger kid and more integers for the older kid--which is awesome, but the younger kid may never forgive me for subjecting her to the Base 60 system of the math of Ancient Babylon. It was mentioned in last week's Story of Science, so excuse me for thinking that it would be appropriate fare for a child. And it IS sooo interesting! They only had 59 gliphs, because they hadn't figured out 0 yet, and to record numbers with positional notation you have to use powers of 60. So, you know how with the number 324, say, the digit 4 is 4x1, and the digit 2 is 2x10, and the digit 3 is 3x100, or 3x10x10, or 3x10 squared? Well, if you had written that number in Ancient Babylon, you'd still have 4x1, but the 2 would be 2x60, and the 3 would be 3x60x60, or 3x3,600 or 3x60 squared. How cool is that?!?
The younger kid, sobbing angrily, assures me that it is not cool at all. Also, I am mean.
Art is back on our weekly work plans for a while. My partner had been giving the children art lessons during the weekends, but that's also our relaxation time, family time, grown-up time, chore time, errand time, and Girl Scout cookie-selling time, and for the past couple of months, art lesson time had just been seeming like one more thing to get stressed out about on the schedule, to not get to and then feel guilty about. Well, nobody needs that! I may not be qualified to teach drawing or painting to my children, but there are plenty of process-oriented, experiential and creative art activities that we can do together during our school week, such as this book, Once Upon a Piece of Paper, which I most conveniently received for free from a publicist and which teaches the art of collage. On this day, the kids and I did the background painting on small panels, and when that's dry we can complete the first exercise on small, combined compositions.
Bacchus isn't actually going to be on the National Mythology Exam (perhaps because he's the god of wine, hmm?), but we're including him, of course, in our comprehensive study of all of the Greek and Roman deities, which we'll actually finish up this week. Then it's on to Hercules and then some specific myths from other cultures. And then it will be time for the exam!
The younger kid and my partner thankfully remade all of the paper polygons that somehow must have gotten recycled after the last time we made them, sigh:
I highly recommend this book. Making the polygons was a great exercise in following directions, as well as a comprehensive review of terms associated with lines and angles, and unfolding each piece at the end and finding a perfect regular polygon?
Magic!
On this day, the kids took those regular polygons, ordered them, mounted them onto poster board, and labeled them. We'll keep the posters on display in our hallway into they start looking ragged and I can recycle them, and we'll add the names to our daily Memory Work until the kids have got them down.
TUESDAY: We've proved the Pythagorean theorem using our decanomial square materials before, but on this day I want to show the kids how you can use the theorem to calculate one of the sides of a right triangle. My partner helped me mount our printable decanomial square to foam core, so I'm pretty excited that we'll have a lovely set of manipulatives to work with.
We're beginning Hercules today; he's an entire separate exam on the National Mythology Exam. Most of the study will consist simply of close reading, but I'll also put the 12 labors into our Memory Work.
I have suspicions that the children still didn't do great work on the first part of their unit-long assignment in our Animal Behavior MOOC, but it's almost impossible to look over their shoulders to check work done independently, on their own time. They may be sad kids, then, when they have to show me their work today, mwa-ha-ha! The second part of the assignment will consist of more regular observation and more note-taking.
Girl Scout cookie season is about to ramp up even further, with our cookie pick-up this weekend, delivery of pre-orders next week, and then cookie booths beginning next weekend and running all through February. It's worth the expenditure in time, both to witness the kids' visible progression of skills in talking to people, managing money, budgeting and planning and marketing, and, frankly, to have those profits at the end. The kids plan marvelous things to do with that money! On this day, however, they have just one cookie business job (although the younger kid will surely get my partner to take her out to do more door-to-door selling while the older kid and I are at fencing tonight...): decorating donation cans for Operation Cookie Drop and our troop. Last year, one of our troop's Girl Scouts discovered that when someone pays for their cookies in cash, if she asks them if they'd like to donate some change to Operation Cookie Drop or our troop, they often do! Just between us, donations to our troop are even better than cookie sales, because the council and the bakery don't get a cut of troop donations--that money is all for the kids! This year, I asked that our donation boxes be changed from shoeboxes to oatmeal canisters, because table space is just that important, and between all of the families, I do believe that we've scrounged up enough oatmeal canisters for there to be three complete sets, allowing us to run two simultaneous booths and to have one in another parent's car ready for a third.
And yes, I really can go on just that long about the art and science of selling Girl Scout cookies. Sorry!
WEDNESDAY: Mapping Hercules' journey is an activity suggested by Greek Mythology Activities, and one that I think the kids will enjoy. It involves close reading and research to determine where each of Hercules' labors was said to have taken place, then more research and map skills to place each one on an actual map.
The older kid is working through the cookie business badges in her Cadette book this month (she's currently working on the Budgeting badge--it's already led to some VERY interesting conversations!), but I want the younger kid to finish the Power of One award in her Agent of Change Journey before she starts the cookie business badges, mainly so that she can complete this day's assignment, which piggybacks so well on the Black History Month essay that she just finished a couple of weeks ago. Since she wrote a research-based essay on Mary McLeod Bethune for that, I'm hoping that she chooses a more creative response for this assignment.
Math Lab for Kids is another book that I received for free from a publicist, and I'm super excited to get into it, especially this map coloring lab. Did YOU know that there's an entire mathematical theorem about map coloring? There is, and it's utterly fascinating.
THURSDAY: You may have noticed, but I purposely make our Thursdays and Fridays lighter. We're a little more tired at the end of the week, a little less enthusiastic, and sometimes we still have the odd project or two from earlier in the week to finish up. So on this day, the special work consists only of having the kids review, refine, and edit their Greek mythology family trees (I'm hoping that they'll be interested in decorating or otherwise embellishing them, as well), and beginning a short unit on meteorology by modeling cloud formation. The demonstration involves hair spray. We'll see how it goes.
You may also have noticed that we do a lot of science in our homeschool. We've got, what, three simultaneous science units going on right now? We have to have an animal unit at all times, because that's both children's main area of interest, our Story of Science unit is also this semester's history spine, and then I tend to throw in a unit on whatever else I think the kids need to know. Sometime before summer, that will be astronomy, because the total solar eclipse won't be fun unless we study for it!
FRIDAY: With the way the weather has been all year so far, it's wildly optimistic to think that it won't be pouring freezing rain on Friday for our cloud walk, but where there's life, there's hope! My partner designed some super-cool cloud identification windows that I can't wait to get the kids outside to use.
Now that the older kid is twelve (and a half!), she's on the verge of aging out of some Junior Ranger programs, which sucks, because she loves them SO deeply. In my "free" time, I've been browsing National Park sites that we're unlikely to visit before she's thirteen or fourteen, to see if she'll have aged out of the Junior Ranger program by then and, if so, if they offer Junior Ranger badges by mail. Our results have been pretty spotty when we mail in Junior Ranger books; we often haven't received responses even from sites that claim to offer Junior Ranger badges by mail, but it means a lot to the kid, it makes her happy, and it's educational, so why not give it a shot.
SATURDAY/SUNDAY: The big event of the week is Girl Scout cookie delivery! Our entire troop will meet up on Saturday to help pick up, unload, sort, inventory, and distribute the cookies to all of our girls, and then I imagine that much of the rest of the weekend will consist of delivering pre-orders. I promise you, the kids are crazy into it. It sounds insane, but I think it's one of those things that you simply don't understand unless you're in the thick of it.
And then cookie season will begin for freaking real.
What are YOU doing this week, other than getting ready for cookie season?
P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to weird old cemeteries, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!
Even with a full school-day on Friday, we still made time for this:
Frankly, I'm surprised at how many people have said that they boycotted the inauguration, or purposefully kept it from their children. Do as you wish, but I think it's a mistake to abdicate your responsibility to serve as a witness to current events. Not only do the unbiased news sources (here, we're watching the inauguration on PBS, although we listened to the pre-inauguration pomp and circumstance on NPR) need us to rely on them, lest Trump use our inattention as one more piece of evidence when he pretends that all of the news media that criticize him are unreliable, but whenever possible, we need to see these events for ourselves, unfiltered. That's how you learn your critical thinking skills. You listen and you watch.
So yes, we listened to and watched the inauguration, and then we listened to and watched Trump's horrifying speech immediately afterwards. Well, I listened in horror; the kids lost interest and mostly played with the dog:
Watching the speech, I was reminded of a conversation that I had with a friend years ago, about her partner's experience with Alcoholics Anonymous. "Everyone has their own bottom," she said, as she explained that each person's lowest point, the point at which they finally decide that they have to make a change, is personal to them. Only they know when they've suffered enough from their struggle that struggling, instead, to make a change is worth it.
America's struggle is with civil rights. You'd think that its bottom would have been just before the Civil War, but I'd argue that instead it was after. Perhaps it was when Americans witnessed their fellow citizens having to send black children to school with soldiers to guard them, to get them to class safely as crowds of Americans screamed death threats at those children, day after day after day. Watching their fellow citizens terrorize children on their way to school would, I hope, be the bottom that people would need to see to know that the struggle for change is worth it.
I've been so happy with the social rights and freedoms that have been steadily increasing over the decades. I want consenting adults to be free to marry the other consenting adult of their choice, regardless of the race, religion, sexual identity, or gender identity of these adults. I want children to be free to identify themselves outside of contemporary social constructs of gender and sexuality. I want everyone to be free to worship, or not worship, as their conscience dictates to them. I want everyone to have health care sufficient to allow them to keep their bodies healthy, and I want that health care not to be a financial burden to anyone.
I don't want more factories, unless people really, really want to work in them. I want everyone to have gainful employment in a field that interests them, not just in a factory because that's the work they can get. I don't want factories to stay in America OR go overseas--I want robots to do all of the factory work, and let people do something more interesting.
I don't necessarily want more bridges and roads and tunnels. I want more nature. I want more protected species. I want a clean environment, and industry that's non-polluting, and I want someone to finally start figuring out how to build a rocket ship big enough to get us all off the planet in 5 billion years when our sun begins to die. And I want to keep our planet as nice as possible until then.
I don't want to put America first. I want to put people first, then all the other living creatures, then the health of the planet as a whole. I want to put the babies dying in Syria before the adult Americans who just want their own particular moral compass to dictate how other Americans act. I want all of the children in group homes and overseas orphanages and the sex trade and in situations where they're being abused to be thriving in happy families, to have healthy bodies with ample health care, to have clean water to drink and nourishing food to eat, and to have bright futures before we even think about criticizing women with unwanted pregnancies who choose abortion.
I do want to make America great, but not "again," because I don't think that it's lost anything by outlawing slavery, establishing freedom of speech and religion, and increasing the social and political freedoms of its citizens. I want America to be great in the sense that I want the world to be great, as in a great place for everyone to live, no matter where they live. In that sense, I am hopeful after listening to Trump's negative, fearful inauguration speech, not because I'm happy to think that this is the direction that America is turning towards, because I am NOT, but in the sense that maybe America has to hit bottom again in the next four years. Maybe Americans have to experience having civil rights threatened, having the rich get even richer and the poor get even poorer, having racism and sexism and religious bigotry become daily facts for most, having those factories and bridges and roads and having to deal with the economic and environmental ramifications of them, before we can realize once again that the struggle to make real changes that make everyone's lives really better is worth it.
We do half-birthdays in our family. It's not a big deal, but it's something the kids have looked forward to every year since they were toddlers--what kid *wouldn't* want to know the exact day on which they can officially add that "and a half" to their age?
For me, it's my yearly preview of being shocked at how old they are. Two AND A HALF?!? She's practically grown! Five AND A HALF?!? She'll be driving before I know it! Nine AND A HALF?!? She's over halfway to leaving me forever!!!
Twelve and a half. How did she get so big, so old, so smart? I was right there the whole time, and yet to me she's still that fussy not quite two-year-old in footie dinosaur pajamas, rubbing her eyes and grumpily insisting that she's not tired.
One of the tenets of the half-birthday, of course, is that you get your very own half-cake. I've written about how to make a half-cake here, but it's also not rocket surgery. I'm sure you can figure it out. This year, Syd was thrilled to have the responsibility to make Will's half-cake, and had it planned out to the hour, even casually suggesting to Will that she might want to be dropped off at the library after playgroup that day. I picked her up from there just before fencing, and therefore the sneaky younger sister had an entire afternoon and evening to make the perfect from-scratch chocolate cake, let it cool, frost it with homemade frosting artfully dripped down the side, and decorate it with peppermint candy melts that she'd piped into the numbers 1, 2, and 1/2.
She watches a LOT of baking videos on YouTube, Y'all.
The cake was a hit:
How could it not be, when it was created with such love?
A half-birthday: a bonus, mid-year opportunity to marvel at how big, how old, how smart, how generous, how loving these two are getting to be:
She's a lucky twelve-and-a-half-year-old to have a sister like that.
We did this project months ago, but I didn't post it because I was waiting for 1) a lovely, sunny day or 2) the spontaneous appearance of a light box to re-shoot the slightly blurry, slightly dark shark tooth photos.
That day may or may not ever come, Friends. But going into the umpeenth rainy day in a row, today, I've decided that I'm no longer going to wait for it. So my shark tooth photos are slightly blurry and slightly dark. I'll live.
Our shark tooth identification project came after our trip to Bay Front Park, in Maryland. This was one of the big treats of our sharks unit study, and after spending so long learning about sharks, Will and I, especially, were super stoked about finding ALL THE SHARK TEETH!
And after you find them, of course, you can identify them!
This was another project in itself, requiring discernment, organizational skills, and, let's face it, some imagination. I'm sure there MUST be a definitive fossil shark tooth identification guide out there somewhere, but we satisfied ourselves with the best one that we could find online, and we managed to get everything sorted-ish using it:
I'm not confident in all of our identifications, but I'm confident in many of them. A future project is to label them and mount them in our specimen boxes.
I'm just waiting for that one magical, sunny day so I can get good photos of them first!
Don't you feel like there should be a three-day weekend in every month? Give you something to always be looking forward to?
I say this as I visualize the yawning maw of the rest of January, all of February, and half of March before the kids and I go on our next big adventure (I currently have nascent Spring Break road trip plans!). Between now and then we have the National Mythology Exam, a Science Fair, almost another month of Girl Scout cookie season (which is practically a 20-hour-a-week job for the girls AND me), and ideally lots of non-stressful events, as well.
We thoroughly enjoyed our last three-day weekend for a while. This was the first year in forever that we didn't do community service on Martin Luther King, Jr Day (I hate that we didn't, but both Matt and I were feeling kind of puny this weekend, and I was really feeling the call to just have family time), but we did watch, as we have done forever, his speech at the March on Washington. Will and I made brownies--
--we watched the season finale of Sherlock (with help from Luna)--
--we inexplicably watched many Youtube videos of milkshake recipes and then even more inexplicably chose this one to recreate (no, we didn't put on the French fries. Yes, we DID put on the bagel bites. I have no reasonable explanation for this. Oh, and this channel actually isn't kid-friendly, as they swear and flip things off. I watch it with my kids anyway), Syd logged at least seven more hours walking the streets and selling Girl Scout cookies, leading to this Monday-night victory dance--
--because even if you don't feel well you still have to help your kid meet her goal, and Will and I spent an evening at fencing class, because even if you don't feel well you still have to fence (Matt tells me that this is very much untrue, but hey, I felt better after fencing than I did before, so there you go).
Now that we're in the zone of our four-day schoolweek, I'm just gonna mainline Dayquil to keep going, as today alone I've got a webinar about shopping mall cookie booths, another fencing class, and another Girl Scout cookie selling neighborhood walk to take Syd on, in addition to Math Mammoth and Analytical Grammar and Greek mythology.
Our daily work this week consists of regular progress in Analytical Grammar (for Will) and Junior Analytical Grammar (for Syd), the next chapter of Wordly Wise (for Will) and a daily word ladder (for Syd), journaling or writing to a prompt, typing practice, and, for Will, progress in both her online SAT prep through Khan Academy and her online Red Cross first aid class.
TUESDAY: In Math Mammoth this week, Will is moving into more integer work, and Syd is deep into fractions. Syd needs more hands-on help with her work (mostly because she likes to stubbornly argue for the correctness of incorrect answers, sigh...), so fortunately Will's work is pretty cut-and-dry. It's hard to handle two stubborn whiners at once!
I'm fast-tracking our mythology study from now until the kids take the National Mythology Exam. We can expect to cover mythology every school day now, and as part of our ten minutes of memory work that we do on the first car ride of every day.
I'm also fast-tracking our Animal Behavior MOOC. I've been breaking my brain trying to come up with hands-on extensions for these lessons every week, but I've finally decided that if I'm going to have them take an outside class, then I should just let them take it, you know? We do plenty of hands-on activities every day, so I'm going to stop treating our MOOCs as a spine, at least for the rest of this one, and treat it as the complete science unit that it's meant to be. That will work well with Will, and I'll just see how it goes for Syd.
It's the same with Story of Science. I bought the Quest Guide, which comes with extension activities that the kids can do mostly independently, so I'm going to stop fretting that I'm not doing more with it. In general terms, I have got to chill. OUT.
Really, the kids should be working on their business badges, since those are the ones that go best with cookie season, but the first award in Syd's Agent of Change Journey actually asks her to research a heroine, so we're going through that award, at least, to enable her to piggyback onto her essay assignment earlier this month. Will is independently working through the Bookbinding Badge (also, how cool is that?!?), but I might ask her to take a look at the business badges today and see if she's interested in starting one of those, as well.
We've got our homeschool playgroup today, cookie selling this afternoon, and fencing for me and Will this evening!
FRIDAY: Now that I've stopped adding extra activities to perfectly good curricula, the rest of the week is really just more progress on that curricula. I'll be there to mentor and assist, of course, but I'm happily anticipating seeing how the week will progress with so few mom-led activities.
One of my main mom activities is apparently playing chauffeur, with daily door-to-door cookie selling for both kids and horseback riding and ice skating lessons for Will. At least we're listening to an excellent audiobook in the car this week!
On this day, we WILL be doing one more mom-led activity: re-making the paper and scissors polygons that Syd and Matt and I made over winter break, but that somebody has clearly put into the recycling bin since then. Either that, or they hid them so well that I can't find them.
We will also be watching the inauguration on Friday, sigh--I still can't believe that this is happening--and then probably attending a protest to the inauguration that evening. Possibly the first of MANY protests to come. I know of one mom who is so certain that this is the first of many protests to come that she's actually started a protest scrapbook for her child. We're not going that far, but I'm trying very hard to have handmade pussyhats for everyone by that day.
SATURDAY/SUNDAY: We'll miss the Women's March in Indy on Saturday, as Syd's ballet is starting back up again. I'm sure we'll do more door-to-door cookie selling. Despite my New Year's Resolution we haven't hiked since New Year's Day, primarily because it hasn't stopped raining since New Year's Day. I'm pretty sure the lack of fresh air is at least partly behind my feeling kinda run-down and puny lately (it's also partly Trump's fault, because his very existence gives me anxiety), so I may need to insist that we all put on hip waders and slop through the three feet of mud covering everything non-concrete, regardless of the fact that doing so puts us all at the risk of slipping through a sinkhole.
Or I may spend another weekend lying in bed, watching movies, and eating impractical milkshakes. As a post-inauguration activity, that sounds fine, too.
A note from Syd: Hello! Would you like to buy some Girl Scout cookies? With every package bought, my troop gets to do something fun. Cookie money can be used on volunteering or it can be used for fun stuff like spending the night at the zoo. You can buy Girl Scout cookies from my Digital Cookie Shop by asking my mom for the link, and you can donate to Operation Cookie Drop by clicking this link [Mom note: Every $4 buys one box of cookies for Operation Cookie Drop]. Thank you!
I've had the idea for this post in my head for quite a while, as my kids get older (upper elementary and middle school--yikes!) and I see that although we've used some manipulatives just a time or two, or a month or two, or even a year or two, other manipulatives have been part of our regular rotation since the children were in preschool.
There are even a couple of manipulatives that I never purchased or spent the time making, thinking they'd be used only sporadically, and have simply wished that I owned several times a year since the kids were young. Silly me!
You probably know by now that these and Base Ten blocks are my FAVORITE math manipulatives. We have used them endlessly. The kids have less patience for them now that they know that whenever I whip them out, there's generally a much quicker algorithm waiting for them as soon as I'm done, but nevertheless, they're vastly useful when a kid is having trouble understanding a concept. Two days ago I used them to help Syd understand decimal multiplication--let the ten bar equal one, and you've got several decimal options available to model. And seven years ago, I used them to help Syd understand addition within 5!
Here are some other ways that we've used them over the years:
As with most of the other manipulatives that I'll show you, I've occasionally expanded our collection over the years, as we've needed them for more and more advanced work. In a perfect world, I'd have enough to build an entire decanomial square from them, but we're at the point now where we have enough to do most of what we want to do.
This is the other math manipulative that I do not know what I would do without. I consider them indispensable, and again, I have expanded our collection several times, especially with more thousand cubes. These blocks, which consist of a 1cm cube, a 10 cm bar, a 100 cm flat, and a 1,000 cm cube, are brilliant for leading a kid into an intrinsic, whole-body understanding of the Base Ten system. You have to have them to understand what you're truly doing when you add or subtract multi-digit numbers. You have to have them simply to model numbers. We use Base Ten blocks and Cuisenaire rods as a single tool, with the Base Ten blocks representing all the powers of ten and the Cuisenaire rods often (although not always--for borrowing and carrying, you should only use Base Ten blocks) to represent all the numbers in between.
We came to the game a little late on this one, as it took me literally years to decide that I wasn't going to find exactly the decanomial square that I wanted. Instead, I had Matt make one for me.
Anyway, you can start using this one as soon as your kid starts learning the multiplication table (or before, of course, as a puzzle or to model repeat addition as area), because it works quite well as a visual multiplication table of area models. However, it's also great for all kinds of area and perimeter studies, as well as how to form equations, and is an easy demonstration of the Pythagorean theorem.
You can use the decanomial square with Base Ten blocks and Cuisenaire rods, and I am constantly in search of a cheap Montessori-style pink tower so that I can also use it to demonstrate cubes.
These are the priciest of our manipulatives, a cost that I absorbed by making this the kids' big combined Christmas present one year when I'd had a good winter in my pumpkin+bear etsy shop. Although we started using these just for free play to build for fun--which we still do!--these building materials should see the kids through high school, and they're used in universities, and even grad programs, to model some amazingly sophisticated concepts.
This, on the other hand, is easily handmade (here's how to make the grid, and here's how to make the tiles), although we do have a set of number tiles made for an overhead projector that we use on our light table. You can use the hundred grid and number tiles from the time a kid is wee, simply for naming numbers, ordering them, and counting on. You can use them for skip counting. You can use them for multiplying. If you make a second set of number tiles to match a multiplication table, you can use them for memorizing the table and for playing various multiplication games.
We haven't used the hundred grid lately, although I won't rule out finding another use for it in a later unit. Even if we don't, though, using it from the age of three through the fifth grade is a good amount of use!
Pattern Blocks
We used pattern blocks a ton in preschool and lower elementary, but it's actually only recently that it's occurred to me how useful they can be in upper elementary and the middle grades. We recently used them in Will's lesson on congruent and similar figures, and considering the fact that they've been using these same simple shapes since they were wee, that's a pretty darn good run!
Everybody has a different capacity for helping out with different kid activities, you know? Like, I am deeply involved in Girl Scouts and our town's inclusive homeschool group, I'm willing to pitch in practically full-time during Syd's performance rehearsals, I do fencing with Will, I'm occasionally on volunteer duty at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis, but I'm that mom who just drops off her kid for horseback riding lessons and Pony Club meetings. I have no presence to give there. It's the kid's social time and horse time, anyway--I have no desire to be there to distract her from the very few hours a week that she's willing to look away from her books and be out in the world.
I'm telling you all that so that I can tell you that when the leader of Pony Club sent out an email with a list of parent volunteer positions that she needed help with, I did not choose co-leader or accountant or hostess or any of the other duties that are what she really probably *actually* needs help with, but rather, I snapped up the volunteer position of Snack Mom.
I, who hate to cook, whose husband will sometimes bring home pizza for dinner without even calling me first, because he rightly assumes that of course I didn't cook, who, when I do have to cook, will half the time "cook" by simply heating up leftovers for the children and then hours later make myself Ramen, or a microwaved baked potato, volunteered for Snack Mom.
It was the job on the list that looked like the least work.
The job also appealed to me because I sensed in it the potential to create adorable, horse-themed snacks, and that's exactly what I did for my Snack Mom debut, the Pony Club Christmas party.
Normally, I wouldn't throw sugar at a bunch of overexcited, horse-loving little girls, but the Pony Club party included a pizza dinner, so I volunteered to bring both a healthy fruit salad (my "I'm too lazy to cook for your potluck" specialty!) and the dessert.
I'm really going to be in business once I make or buy a horse-shaped cookie cutter, but until then... well, I don't know how people made adorable things before Pinterest, but I'm sure glad that I have it now!
1. Matt's one job was to buy the Nutter Butters before he left for his business trip, and I don't know how he possibly managed to screw up buying a cookie whose main claim to fame is that it's nut-shaped, but he somehow purchased the ONE package of Nutter Butters that weren't nut-shaped, but round.
???
I was already stressed that day, and when I opened the package and saw those round cookies I just blinked at them for several seconds, then thought, "Well, now what?" We only had an hour, tops, to get the dang cupcakes and the fruit salad and the gift that I'd JUST learned Will had to bring ready, so I couldn't drive ten minutes to the store, spend ten minutes buying the perfect cookies, and drive ten minutes back.
As Tim Gunn might say, however, desperation is the mother of making it freaking WORK, so I chopped a bit off of one side of each cookie, stuck them together with frosting, and called it adequate:
It probably would have looked better if I'd used the transparent gel that the original tute calls for, or if I'd covered the seam with a licorice bridle as this tute for no-bake horse cookies does, but I don't own either of those things, and ten minutes to the store. Ten minutes in the store. Ten minutes home. We're making it work.
We did have candy eyes and black icing (I have never been able to find a food coloring that does a good black for me), so at least the other essentials were covered.
The kids were so excited to decorate these cookies like horses that the cookies had to be strictly divvied out. I showed them the photos of the finished cupcakes from the tute, but didn't give them any other instructions, so they happily made the project their own:
And here are the finished cupcakes!
I can't decide if they legitimately look like horses, or if they only look like horses if you know that they're supposed to be horses. I was supposed to add cashew halves for ears, and probably shouldn't have let Syd color the frosting pink, but that's what she wanted, and she's the one who made the frosting from scratch AND frosted all the cupcakes that she baked herself, so there you go.
Anyway, if these showed up at your Pony Club party, even if you couldn't tell that they were horses, at least you could tell that they were homemade!
P.S. A message from Syd: "Hello. Last year, I used the cookie money I earned from selling cookies to spend the night at the zoo with my troop. We spent the night at the dolphin tank, and we got to see the zoo before anyone else got to see it that day. Then we spent the whole day at the zoo! Here is a picture of me being groomed by a flamingo:
This year, I hope to use my cookie money to buy toys for the pets at the animal shelter. You can help me reach this goal by buying Girl Scout cookies on my Digital Cookie by asking Mom for the link. If you want to donate cookies to the soldiers [Mom note: through Operation Cookie Drop], then here's the link. Thank you!"
These test tubes covered with polymer clay didn't turn out perfectly, but they did well enough that I know what to do differently next time, and they're super cute.
You will need:
glass test tubes. I have quite a collection for our homeschool, although they often find themselves diverted to other uses, often to propagate our wandering jews and lavender (random aside: I took a half-dozen cuttings from my lavender plants this fall to propagate, and for the first time ever, all six failed! I can't imagine what I did wrong. Had the plants already gone dormant, do you think, and that caused it? Were the cuttings that I took too woody? Is it possible to have too much rooting hormone on a cutting? If you have any insight, please let me know!)
Sculpey. My kids both LOVE super-soft polymer clay, and we've had a lot of luck with Sculpey. In fact, Syd has requested that I again purchase this exact set the next time I'm in a craft store and have a coupon burning a hole in my pocket. I will, but first I'm going to make her use the luster dust and food flavoring that I've already bought her. Y'all, my kid might be a craft supplies hoarder.
Sculpey tools. You can get by with an x-acto knife and a toothpick, although over the year or so that the kids have gotten into Sculpey, I've collected a few tools recommended for working with polymer clay--this cutting set, some dental picks, a plastic rolling pin, etc.
glaze. This is optional, but it really does make a world of difference in the look of your finished piece, and it's supposed to strengthen it some, too.
*I use Amazon Affiliates for these product links, which means that I get a small commission from purchases made through clicking them. I use my Affiliate commissions to buy kid stuff, craft supplies, and fencing lessons!*
1. Clean and dry the outside of your test tube, so that the polymer clay will adhere well. Use rubbing alcohol or vinegar, although if you use alcohol, make sure that you dry it completely, as rubbing alcohol will dissolve the polymer clay.
2. Roll out a very thin sheet of clay, then wrap it around the test tube. Cut off the excess, then use your fingers to smooth the clay and rub away the seams.
3. Use more clay to embellish the clay-covered test tube. Have fun with it!
I really like how Syd sculpted a flat bottom as a stand for her test tube. It worked perfectly!
4. Bake the clay-covered test tube. Follow the instructions on the package of clay. Don't worry about the test tube--it's made to be heated!
5. Let cool, then glaze. Both of the mistakes that I made with this project came after the clay was heated and then cooled. With Syd's creation, I cracked the top of her test tube by trying to force a clay stopper that she'd made onto the test tube. I guess the clay expands a small bit when it's baked? Lesson: if you want a stopper, cut down a wine cork. With my creation, I'd sculpted a groove around the rim of the test tube to make a place to put a wire noose, so that I can hang it. Again, I used too much force twisting the wire tight, and I cracked off the clay above that groove. Lesson: be SUPER gentle with the finished project. Clay is brittle! Hemp twine would have been a better choice.
I don't totally know what to do with these pretty test tubes. Syd is using hers as a bud vase, and right now I've got mine hanging from my desk lamp, as it's the perfect size to hold the black pen that I like to use for check writing and envelope addressing, but I'm very, very open to more ideas for how to use them, if you've got any!
The next thing that I want to make is this octopus tentacle, although I want to glue the tentacle to the cork, glue the cork to the bottle, add an eye pin, and wear it as a pendant. I wonder if it would look even more awesome if I poured resin around the tentacle, as well?
P.S. A message from Syd: "Hello. My name is Sydney. I'm a Girl Scout. Do you like cookies? So do I! You can buy some Girl Scout cookies for you, your friends, and family by asking my Mom for my Digital Cookie Shop link. This year, there is a new cookie called S'mores. It is a graham cracker cookie with marshmallow filling and chocolate. It is all-natural ingredients. If you would like to donate that cookie or the seven other types we sell to Operation Cookie Drop, which donates those cookies to the soldiers, click this link (Mom note: Every $4 donation buys one box of Girl Scout cookies for active and retired American soldiers, and patients in military hospitals)."
Additional Mom Note: Throughout Girl Scout cookie season, I'll be offering the bottom of each blog post to my kids to craft a sales pitch. They don't call Girl Scout cookies the world's largest girl-led business for nothing! Especially after last year, when the girls in my troop got to experience what amazing things they could do with their cookie profits (more on that in a future cookie pitch, I'm sure), they are on fire this year. They've got big goals, they know exactly what they want to do with their profits, and my challenge is to continually find opportunities for them to stretch their marketing, budgeting, goal-setting, communication, visual design, and math abilities. Just as I did in the past two years, I'm looking forward to watching them visibly mature in so many different ways in the next two months.
