Work Plans for the Week of February 17, 2014: Birds, Biathlons, and a Biography

Right now, it's 47 minutes past the time that I intended to start school for the day, but the kids are wildly romping together so happily--I believe that one of them is a dog trainer and the other is a disobedient dog--that there's no way I'm going to disturb them. One of the main reasons why I started homeschooling, after all, is that I realized one day, years ago, that even though my kids' Montessori boasted three-year classrooms, so that my kindergartner and my youngest grouper could go to school together every day, the next year would mean that not only would my older kid move up to SEVEN hours of school a day, but also my kids would be in separate classrooms for the next two years.

My six-year-old didn't need seven hours of school every day.

My six-year-old and four-year-old didn't need to spend the majority of every day apart from each other.

I pulled the kids out of private school and into homeschooling for many academic and social and political reasons, but I never let myself forget that among those reasons is the opportunity for these sisters to be together, and so when they're playing together (and miraculously not screaming at or kicking each other!), I let them play.

So here's what we WILL do when they're tired out and their game is through, or when they start screaming at or kicking each other, which is as good a time as any to pause play:

MONDAY: The kids and their father participated in the Great Backyard Bird Count yesterday, and had a marvelous time, so for today they'll be filling out one of these journal pages for a more in-depth study of one of the birds that they spotted. We haven't studied birds (other than chickens, of course!) in a lot of detail yet, so I'm curious to see if the kids would like to learn more. Bird watching is such a rewarding hobby that I'd be happy to see the kids develop a love of it.

The kiddos are still progressing at a rate of one unit a day, three days a week, in Math Mammoth, but I noticed this weekend that Syd seemed to have trouble remembering how to subtract with borrowing, so we'll be playing Clear the Mat for our hands-on math enrichment activity this week. Syd loves to play games over and over and over again, so I foresee plenty of reinforcement in her future!

Will's reluctance to learn her current song prompted me to ask her if she'd lost interest in the recorder, but her replies that she LOOOOOVES the recorder were loud and fervent, so perhaps that will inspire her to finally get that darn song learned! Syd really loves her Youtube keyboard lessons, so much so that figuring out how to progress after they're finished is a constant worry. A piano plus piano lessons is too much of an investment for our budget this year (dinosaur digs and horseback riding lessons are pricey, alas...), so I'll need to figure out a way to soldier on without. Unfortunately, Matt, who is the only one of us who actually took piano lessons as a child, is claiming 100% ignorance and refusing to be of any help whatsoever (Thanks, Matt!), so you may find me teaching myself keyboard so that I can teach my kid. Don't worry, though--I do stuff like that a lot.

The kids are bringing their chicken skeleton into our weekly volunteer gig today, because they're pretty sure that everyone who stops by is really going to want to see it. Will plans to station herself next to the skeleton on display so that she can answer all those eager questions that are sure to come her way. We even did some role-playing, with me playing the curious person asking questions, and Will answering them in her best pedantic tone (She used to come with me sometimes to my classes when I taught freshman comp at the university, and I REALLY hope that she did not pick up that tone from me!). How I hope that someone is genuinely interested and wants to ask her questions!

TUESDAY: We're back to our volunteer gig on this day, since the girls have an actual "meeting" about their Girl Scout service project. I can't wait to see how this is going to go.

We've been casually enjoying the Olympics, mostly watching it streaming online as we go about our daily business, but the Olympic athlete profile and Olympic nation profile in this Olympics unit study will let the kids focus in on it academically one more time before it's over. There's so much curriculum material available that you really could study nothing but the Olympics for the entire two weeks, but I tried to zero in on the activities that required the kids to practice the concrete academic skills that I'm wanting them to practice right now (here, research methods!), and otherwise we're just spectators.

There are a few children's academic contests going on this time of year. Some, such as a local playwriting contest and a poster-making contest, I passed over for this year (although I did start researching and writing a History of the Theater unit study...), but others, such as a local contest asking for a biography of an African-American inventor, and the PBS Kids writer's contest, I'm definitely going to have them enter. Academic research and creative writing? You bet!

WEDNESDAY: I'm a little afraid, especially with that meeting in the morning, that there might be too much work scheduled for Tuesday, so I'm planning that we can finish any leftovers on Wednesday, along with horseback riding class and aerial silks. Otherwise, there's plenty of time for playing dog trainer and disobedient dog!

THURSDAY: I think the kids will be pleased to discover, on the other hand, that this day is light even for a light day! They're going to enjoy their endangered species art project (part of another contest), which will also segue nicely into the beginning of our study of Indiana, since the endangered animal must be local. I wish, now, though, that I'd put this project off for a couple of weeks--I deleted the kids' independent studies from the schedule to accommodate it, but Syd and I actually really need to keep working on her fashion show garment! This is the last week that we can keep goofing around with thrift stores, and then we have GOT to get sewing, whether Syd finds the perfect green sequined fabric or not.

FRIDAY: We've studied Indiana before, but we're going to refresh our memories about our home state, and add some more context (state history, probably, and definitely Native Americans) before we move on to Arkansas and then the west.

We mostly listen to podcasts just for fun, but since Syd often asks to listen to fairy tales or audiobooks while we work on projects, I finally got the idea to pull up a relevant podcast for us to listen to while we work on a  project. The particular podcast that we'll be listening to while the kids make Sumerian seals (we saw some of these at the Rosicrucian Museum, and I am excited to have the kids try their hands at making their own) is from What You Missed in History Class. It only mentions necrophilia obliquely.

I think the kids will enjoy this winter sports sudoku, and they're eager to write to their grandmother, if perhaps only because they want her to send them more film for the cameras that she gave them for Christmas.

SATURDAY/SUNDAY: This weekend is going to be a busy one! There's a Girl Scout event each day, and Will has both chess club and rehearsal for her Spring Ice Show. But IF the weather warms up like it's supposed to, it should be a wonderful weekend for shuttling kids around and otherwise playing outside in the sun!

Work Plans for the Week of February 3, 2014: Science and Survival Kits

 MONDAY: We're still happily moving through one chapter a week in Song School Latin (I forgot to update our work plans with this week's chapters--oops!), and the kids are retaining the vocabulary well, and although *I'm* ready for them to get some grammar and conjugations/declensions in, as long as they're engaged and absorbing the material and progressing, we'll go at the textbook's pace.

The kids didn't practice their instruments as much as they should have last week, so we may have to repeat those lessons this week, but most of our time and energy today is going into rehearsal for tonight's Science Fair. Completing the re-articulation of the chicken skeleton took so much time that I'm letting the kids do much of their presentations without a written report to refer to, but this might have been a mistake, too, in that it takes, of course, much more practice to get that sort of presentation down pat.

This week, the kids are going to math class just once (I think they found the two days last week a little much), so we've got space in the schedule for a hands-on unit. Although we did pattern blocks in this space for several weeks, the kids are actively (if slowly, ahem) memorizing the multiplication tables currently, so I'll be keeping a hands-on multiplication activity there until the tables are mastered.

We already did our volunteer gig for the day, and tonight is the Science Fair!

TUESDAY: Math Mammoth and First Language Lessons Level 3 are always easy to schedule, and since I spend hours on Sundays creating these lesson plans, it's a relief to be able to have a few things that I can simply pop into place. The survival kit, however, is likely to take up quite a bit more time--the kids have to prioritize their list based on the budget I'm giving them, and then we'll actually have to go shopping for these supplies. Since I try not to run errands with the kids during the day, a mid-morning shopping trip may seem like quite the adventure!

Will still has a little work to do on her World Thinking Day badge, but Syd is finished and can choose another badge to start earning. We're also going to participate, I *think*, in the Great Backyard Bird Count, and so our science unit for a few weeks will concern birds.

WEDNESDAY: This is one of those rare weeks in which Will has to skip aerial silks entirely (although thank goodness their scheduling system is set up so that we don't have to pay for a class we're not going to attend), but both kids are going to be thrilled to learn that their LEGO club is back after its long winter hiatus.

The subject of this month's Magic Tree House Club meeting--Earthquake in the Early Morning--is well-timed with our California study, especially since I'd been considering drawing out that study a little longer to include some earthquake activities.

THURSDAY: What with ice skating with friends and having another friend over for the afternoon, this will be a short school day. We're ditching art for a couple of weeks in favor of Valentine's Day crafting, but the kids' individual studies are still continuing--I hope that Syd will start actually constructing her dress this week, and Will is going to create a manual version of one of the first computer games.

FRIDAY: The kids claim that their teacher is going to bring cookies to math class on this day, so they're pretty excited about it already. WE are not going to be having cookies here at home, but we will be scrapbooking, completing our mapwork activity for our The Story of the World chapter, and finishing that survival kit.

I'm most excited about the Olympics unit that we'll be working on throughout the Winter Olympics. I'm hoping to set up a somewhat elaborate Olympic nations pin flag work for the kids to do on this day, but that involves plenty of prep work for me this week, so it's a good thing that I always plan to be busy!

SATURDAY/SUNDAY: The kids have their all-day nature class this weekend, and we've also got a party at our local YMCA, chess club, and swimming with friends. But with no looming Science Fair presentations to rehearse and no chicken skeletons to re-articulate, we'll also have loads of happy downtime...

...which I need. I am going to be happy to see the backside of that chicken skeleton, I tell you what!

Works Plans for the Week of January 6, 2014: Back in the Game

It's another week when it's easier to be a homeschooler than not--our part of the country is stymied under record, dangerously low temperatures, and our city has basically shut down and ordered everyone to stay home and snuggle up. Public schools are out--and will be out tomorrow, too--but it's probably not so much a novelty for those kiddos coming on the back of their two-week break, and I think they're going to have to make these days up at the end of the year, anyway--yuck (Ooh, I just discovered that Indiana schools are NOT going to make up this snow day, but it will result in them not meeting their flat-out minimum 180 days of instruction this year. Interesting...)! For us, though, it's business as usual (minus our volunteer gig and aerial silks class, both having been cancelled), and the children, having had enough of vacation and staycation in the past two weeks, are happy to get back in the game.

MONDAY: I knew ahead of time that our outside activities would be cancelled today, so I snuck in an extra subject--and the kids didn't notice, whee! Our pattern blocks activity today was focused on square numbers, which ties nicely in to our current memory work of memorizing the multiplication table (Will's late to this, which doesn't bug me, and Syd's early to it... which also doesn't bug me!). In Latin, we're onto animal names, which the kids are finding super easy to memorize--a refreshing change from the struggle to keep those darned tricky words in their heads! I found some good Youtube piano lessons that are making Syd's keyboard time much easier; Will threw a fit over having to practice her recorder piece until she actually got it right, but then was stoked at having gotten it right, so there you go.

Our big project this week has to do with the kiddos' first Girl Scouts badge! We are just at the beginning of this journey, I know, but already we are all so excited about all the opportunities that come with being a Girl Scout. I registered the kids as Juliettes, which means that we can work independently and with our friends who are also Girl Scout Juliettes, but they can still attend all the TONS of Girl Scout activities and workshops and camps and classes in our area. The badge activities are excellent, too--I like that there are choices, and that they're all so cross-curricular, and the kids like that they're all so hands-on and varied.

The first badge that we're working on is the one for World Thinking Day, which is coming up next month. I love this one, as it's focused on the issue of childhood education and access to it. We've already had some great conversations about education as a right and responsibility versus education as a privilege, and how that affects children's attitudes about their education (Ahem!!!). Among other activities, both girls will be comparing girls' educations in other countries (namely India and in Africa) to their own education, and planning and executing the creation of a children's literacy corner in the local food pantry where we volunteer. For this latter project, they'll need to write to the volunteer coordinator and ask permission, design the spot to fit into the cramped area already set aside for children there, source and obtain all the supplies, set it up, and maintain it weekly. Today we talked through some of the planning, and then Will watched a video about a little schoolgirl in India and wrote a rough draft of her comparison/contrast list, and Syd created a storyboard for a photo diary that she's going to create about her typical school day.

TUESDAY: I want to start Science Fair prep as soon as possible--can you believe that it's next month?!?--but until our library books are ready for us to pick up (and the library is closed today AND tomorrow, probably, sigh), we can finish up our acids and bases study with a few more of the experiments from the kids' chemistry set. I'm back to scheduling grammar only once a week, leaving time for more projects, and I think that I'll keep the kids with word ladders for logic until after the Spelling Bee--every minute of practice counts!

WEDNESDAY: I still don't know what the weather will be like on this day, frankly, and if we'll even get out to aerial silks. Free days aren't quite as fun when the temperature is so dangerously low that your friends can't even come over for a playdate, and you can't meet them for sledding.

THURSDAY: Surely we'll be able to go ice skating with friends by then... although it is supposed to snow again on Thursday. Otherwise, we'll keep ourselves busy with chemistry experiments and drawing lessons. Will is going to master the first videogame ever, and Syd is going to sketch out some plans for her Trashion/Refashion Show design. I really hope that she designs something that she can sew for herself this year!

FRIDAY: We didn't finish the California facts during our last week of school last year, so we'll finish them now. We'll probably do a few geography-based projects next week--the vacation scrapbooks, California lapbooks, etc. I also need to remember to do the prep work this week so that we can work on some bigger Ancient Egypt projects next week, but especially after we saw those real-live versions at the Rosicrucian Museum, I think the kids will have a lot of fun creating their own model sarcophogi in cardboard.

Over break, we listened to audiobooks of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, and saw the play and movie versions of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, AND made chocolate from scratch. I wanted to bring the topic back around to our summer studies of Hershey before we moved on, so I've got a documentary on Hershey for us to watch, and then the kids are going to design their own chocolate factories on large-format drawing paper. I wonder if their factories will be more Wonka-esque or Hershey-esque in nature?

SATURDAY/SUNDAY: Nature class, chess club, and lots of playing in the snow and swimming at the Y, is my guess.

If at First You Don't Succeed...

On Recital Day this week, Will was ready to perform "Mary Had a Little Lamb"...nearly:

Take 1

Take 2

Take 3!

The kiddo seems really engaged with her music these days, happily practicing her lesson during our morning Memory Work time, and also goofing around with the recorder, which is sort of my personal hallmark of whether or not one of my kids enjoys something. This week she's learning the rest of the notes to make an entire octave (I print out these soprano recorder fingerings, and have Willow cut out the relevant ones to study and paste them into her school notebook), and then we'll have several other songs to learn before we move into the world of sharps and flats. 

And then, in a couple of months... violin?

Recorder, Take Two

Our DIY music lessons have actually been working out pretty well. The girls dipped into and out of the instruments that we have here at home--recorder, violin, guitar, and keyboard--taking weekly instruction from me in whatever suited their fancy at the time, practicing that lesson for the week, and then holding a "recital" of what they'd learned, before picking again.

The lessons are fulfilling their overall purpose in that Willow has decided that she is quite interested enough in violin that she'd like to take formal lessons. Coincidentally (or not?), this is the instrument that, although I play a little, myself, I have the hardest time teaching, and thus I have a lot of newfound respect for actual violin teachers, and not a bit of a problem shelling out for one.

Just...not right this minute. Currently, our kid activity budget, both time- and money-wise, is full up: horseback riding lessons, softball, ballet, chess club, and, in a couple of months, science camp. And, yes, more of those activities are the younger kid's, but an even division isn't really the way it works around here. You do what you have a passion for, that we have a time for, and that we can afford. Sometimes there's a waiting list for one's passion, hence that year that it took to save up for these horseback riding lessons that are so beloved, and so appreciated, right now.

So after science camp we'll have the cash, and the time, for violin lessons, but until then, I wanted Willow to stay in the habit of regular music practice, and I thought that it would save some time and money during her lessons if she already had skills like reading music and clapping rhythms. Thus we're back to the recorder, the easiest instrument for her to learn and me to teach, and so the easiest instrument to make some real, inspiring musical progress in, and to teach related musical lessons with, until violin lessons begin.

Those little $1 recorders work great for the basic notes, but are pretty faulty in the lower register, so I upgraded to a nicer soprano recorder (still cheap enough that I can buy a second one later for duets!). I check out songbooks for the recorder from the library, or I figure out the simple tunes myself ("Hot Cross Buns" isn't rocket science, thank goodness!), and then I pass them on to the next generation:


This week, Willow is practicing a scale that includes all the notes she'll need to learn "Mary Had a Little Lamb" next week. When she knows an entire octave of notes, I plan to add reading music to her studies. We've also been researching woodwinds, in general, and this week in my free time (ha!), I've been working on a set of flash cards to identify members of the woodwind family, from the clarinet to the pungi.

Want to know what a pungi is? Ask Willow!

For our recorder study, we've been using--
 

--as well as the ideas from my Homeschool: Recorder pinboard. I've found some good fingering transcriptions from the links there, and I think that Willow will enjoy that kid-made recorder case project.

But don't worry...I've got plenty of violin projects planned out, too!

A Slow and Informal Keyboard Study Progresses Apace

Ever since October, when I finally decided to stop fretting about figuring out formal music lessons and just have us all learn our collection of instruments as we liked, we've actually been doing well with our music study. There's nothing like the sense of accomplishment that comes from exchanging worry for action!

On the weekends, when I'm finalizing the girls' lesson plans for the following week, I ask them which of our instruments they'd like a "lesson" on. I figure out the next logical skill that we should be working on for that instrument and how to present it, and we have our lesson for it on Monday, so that the girls can practice that skill for the rest of the week.

And yes, you may practice your keyboard balanced on the back of the couch!

This is our most recent keyboard skill:


We've all previously learned how to find C, and how to find middle C, so this lesson involved starting each hand on C and playing a scale with both hands at the same time. Tricky!

When they've got that mastered, the C Major chord is next, and then, perhaps, a first melody?

Music "Class"

I'm embarrassed to tell you how long I've held off on my deeply-desired music lessons for the girls (although if you can remember the guitar recital that signaled the end of Willow's formal lessons at the age of five, you'll know exactly how long I've held off, sigh).

For one, Willow is fiddly with adults, and I wasn't convinced that it was worth paying for lessons that she might loathe. For another, the kiddos' schedules are always my version of "packed," in that I simply don't like them to do more than one or two activities per season, combined with playgroups and playdates and our weekly volunteer gig; I like our at-home time! And for a third, music lessons are pricey! Worth the money, absolutely, but also easy to put off when finances are perennially tightly budgeted.

It took me a silly long time, and more than one conversation with a dear mom friend, a hard-core DIYer who has never put her kids in a scheduled activity but instead gives them things like karate DVDs to do at home (I'm waving at you, Betsy!), to realize that, you know, we could teach ourselves our instruments at home!

Bad habits? Who cares! The "proper" way to play an instrument was invented by somebody at some point, and I simply watched Youtube videos of people playing amazing music by using conventional instruments in unconventional ways until I felt better about the fact that we won't be learning piano on a keyboard with weighted keys (ours is from Goodwill!), and that the kids' violin (also second-hand) probably isn't perfectly sized to each of them.

Instead, we're going to have fun!



I've set the kids to practicing strumming on the guitar (when they can manage to pluck only one string at at time, we'll try a song), and while Sydney asks every day to do bowing on my adult-sized violin (their small violin needs a new bridge--oops!), Willow has taken off on the recorder, which is so satisfyingly easy to teach and to learn.

And she loves it. Doesn't fight me about it. Comes to me to teach her new things on it.

And yes, I do know how we sound in this video that Matt took of us playing and singing together. But again... who cares? We're having fun!

Seeing Strange Fruit

Every year I vow that next year I will take my girls to the Lotus Festival of World Music.

Think of the cultural stimulation! The excitement! How it will deepen their understanding of the world, and increase their love of all music! Besides, I really want to go, and we don't do babysitters.

Then that next year rolls around, and I look at the ticket prices compared to the short attention spans of my babes, and the fact that each of them STILL throws the occasional tantrum when over-stimulated and denied their way, and I think...next year. I will definitely take my girls to the Lotus Festival next year, when they're a little older, can appreciate the expensive music, and can be certain not to embarrass me and/or ruin the performances for everybody.

Fortunately, the Lotus Festival does so much community outreach that we do still get quite a bit of cultural stimulation and excitement and global understanding and world music, generally in outdoor locations with lots of other families with small children around and plenty of playground equipment or fountains or trees with falling acorns to entertain those with short attention spans.

Campus is a lovely hike from our house, so one afternoon this week we had a lovely hike there, stopping to gather acorns and black walnuts and pinecones and interesting sticks, to watch Strange Fruit perform on the lawn of the IU Art Museum.

It was the perfect performance. It was the middle of the day on a weekday, so while there was a good crowd of college students and families and a few grade school groups, it wasn't overwhelmingly packed. It was a nice day, so everyone was able to lounge on the grass, enabling even the littles to see everything. And, because it's a small town, we found a few friends to sit with:


Do you know Strange Fruit? They're Australian dancers who climb tall flexible metal poles, strap themselves to the tops of the poles, costume themselves, then use the poles as extensions of their bodies to perform gigantically swaying, twirling, bending choreographed dances:

It's really something that you have to see to believe:


Yep, that's my kid. SUPER immersed. Good thing I didn't pay thirty bucks for her to happily dig in the grass while women dance high overhead. Actually, she did engage when the dancers began to really show off how they could bend--

--so much so that she asked for my camera, and these next few photos are hers:

In the end, both girls agreed that the performance was wonderful, and they behaved excellently and were proud to be there:

Next year, I'm definitely going to take them to the full Lotus Festival.

Definitely.

Dancing to Dvorak with Daddy

Or, How One Man Wins the Household Father of the Year Contest. Every. Single. Year.

A Mother's Day Miracle

If you happen to know anything about my Willow, my talented, incredible, painfully shy Willow, a child who refused to participate in her school's kindergarten ritual of Reader's Chair, a child who weekly declines to participate with her classmates in their class ritual of Speaker's Rug, a child who didn't even want to stand in front of the class on her birthday to be sung to, then you will likely be as amazed as I am at what I am about to tell you.

Willow played in her first guitar recital today.

I am amazed. Awe-struck. Astonished.

Much of the credit goes to Willow's sweet guitar teacher. On the way to her latest lesson, Willow said to me, "I decided that I don't want to do the recital." I said, "Oh, that's fine, sweetie. Just tell Maja that when we get there." We walk in the door to Maja's house, Maja greets Willow and then asks, "Are you excited about your guitar recital?" Willow pauses for a couple of seconds, then quietly answers, "Yes."

Much of the credit also goes to the IU Pre-College Program in Guitar, which I cannot recommend highly enough. If you've ever been the victim of a preschool teacher who treats a class concert with all the solemnity and pomp of a major Broadway opening, leaving a path of weeping children with stress ulcers in her wake (and I have been the victim of this, OFTEN), then you, too, would appreciate the calmness and matter-of-factness in which the director of this guitar program ran the recital: small, well-lit concert hall; children who sit with their parents until their turn and then return to their parents immediately afterward; ample applause both before and after; no microphones; and duets with their teachers for all the youngest players. The only telling point that this small concert was actually taking place in a venue of great importance was the niceness of the outside scenery--

--which was perfect for some pre-concert romping:

Ample pre-concert romping is absolutely essential:

Before the concert began, I gave Willow my camera to keep her entertained. This is how she saw her own first guitar recital:

Guitar Music (Willow performed "Little Bunny," as translated from Serbian

and transcribed by her Serbian guitar teacher)

Guitar (held by Daddy)

When Willow's name was called she marched right up to her smiling teacher on stage, played her (terribly dischordant, out of tune, and off-beat, but who cares?) song in duet with her, and marched right back to us again.

It was a miracle.

Fortunately, I am well versed in miracles:

I've made a couple of my own, you know.

Rainbow Project #3: Rainbow Party Playlist

Rainy weekend! Instead of a lot of gardening, I did a lot of sewing:

Notice that the dinosaur quilt has finally reached the binding stage--what has it been...a month now? And after MUCH swearing, I broke out my newer sewing machine (thanks, Grandma Bangle!) to sew some buttonholes, acknowledging that the presser foot plate on my older, and constantly used, sewing machine is too thrashed to do a zigzag stitch without fraying up the thread. I totally got Matt up in there to see if he could rig some sort of repair, but after HE swore a few swores, I have made peace in my head with the fact that I will just use two sewing machines from now on. Nothing wrong with that.

Instead of a lot of goofing around outside and going to the park to goof around and maybe taking the two-wheeler pedal bike out for a spin, Willow did a lot of computer games and painting and puzzles:

I really, really, REALLY love this puzzle, scored from the Montessori Garage Sale, entitled "Industries of Europe." I have a serious weakness for geography puzzles in which the pieces are shaped by geographic boundaries. That, and it cracks me up to watch Willow trying to fit France all sorts of places--Soviet Union, Egypt, Iceland...hmmn.

The biggest weekend project, however, has been to create the most crucial component of Sydney's upcoming rainbow party---The Rainbow Party Playlist. I love a good party playlist, ask anyone. Seriously, anyone.

The playlist's theme is, of course, the rainbow, and all the songs are about rainbows, or at least prominently feature a rainbow metaphor. I have some jiggering to do--there are a LOT of sappy rainbow songs out there, which is bringing down the middle of my playlist, and I still have to score the original Judy Garland "Somewhere over the Rainbow" and an unmixed version of that Hawaiian dude's cover of the same, but here it is in essence:

1. "The Colors of the Rainbow in English" from Color Wheel Cartwheel

2. "Rainbow" by Colbie Caillat, from Breakthrough

3. "Rainbow Colors" by The Wiggles, from Racing to the Rainbow. Have you ever read the Wikipedia entry on the Wiggles? Fascinating.

4. "She's a Rainbow" by The Rolling Stones. I'm gambling that the young partygoers, who will range in age from infancy to six years or so, aren't going to get the metaphor in this one, so it's cool.

5. "Arco Iris" by Sol Y Canto, from El Doble De Amigos

6. "The Colors of the Rainbow in Spanish" from Color Wheel Cartwheel

7. "True Colors," from...ahem...Glee, the Music, Volume 2 (thanks, Kimberly!!!)

8. "The Colors of the Rainbow in Dutch" from Color Wheel Cartwheel

9. "Rainbow" by Paul Lippert, from Rainbow in the Sky

10. "The Colors of the Rainbow in Japanese" from Color Wheel Cartwheel

11. "Look to the Rainbow" from Finian's Rainbow

12. "The Colors of the Rainbow in French" from Color Wheel Cartwheel

13. "Rainbow Connection" covered by Willie Nelson

14. "That Terrific Rainbow" from Pal Joey

15. "The Colors of the Rainbow in Italian" from Color Wheel Cartwheel

16. "Roy G. Biv" by They Might be Giants from Here Come Science

17. "The Colors of the Rainbow in German" from Color Wheel Cartwheel

18. "Eat Like a Rainbow" by Jay Mankita from Putumayo Kids

19. "Rainbow Connection" covered by Jason Mraz from For the Kids Too

20. "The Colors of the Rainbow in Farsi" from Color Wheel Cartwheel

21. "Rainbow Connection" by Kermit the Frog

Later this week, I suppose, I'll deal with the less important details of the upcoming party--plates, silverware, napkins, mowing the lawn--you know, the minor details.

P.S. Check out my review of Making Waldorf Dolls over at Crafting a Green World. As soon as local, happy sheeps get sheared, I'm making myself--I mean, the girls, ahem--a hard-core, true-to-life Waldorf doll.

The Third Member of the Band

I never really liked that movie August Rush as much as everyone else did, I think. I hate films in which characters don't make all the pertinent information clear to each other. I mean, why didn't Felicity just TELL the social worker that her father had forged her signature on the adoption papers? Instead, the social worker was all, "You're a bad mom!" and Felicity was all, "I know, right?"

Anyway, Sydney's latest composition, her interest intrigued by my and Willow's interest in the guitar, reminds me of that film:

It's wrong, I know, but I'm already imagining them both on the main stage at Lollapalooza.