Work Plans for the Week of August 31, 2015: Field Trips!

The kids and I had a fabulous Project Week last week--they read and drew and played outside and rediscovered their racetrack sets, and we went to parks and playgroups and out for ice cream and to the Children's Museum:

We attended the preview of the museum's newest exhibit, Sacred Journeys, which explores the sacred sites of the world's religions. It was a wonderful exhibit! The Children's Museum especially loves to host exhibits that unpack the STEM and liberal arts enrichment behind children's pop culture interests--their next exhibit is on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles--but *I* love these types of exhibits, the ones that allow children to explore a complicated subject in a child-friendly way, the best.

My Master's in Library Science includes an emphasis in Special Collections, and I worked for years in a special collections library on campus, so I dragged the children all around this exhibit to show them how to tell the difference between vellum, handmade paper, and factory-made paper.

DIY stained glass--the kids were fascinated by this, and we have everything that we need to make our own version here at home. Something else for my to-do list!

Little did the children know, but the museum's Anne Frank exhibit was actually part of our World War 2 unit study lesson plans--mwa-ha-ha!

Typical homeschoolers, the kids really only like interactive exhibits when they're otherwise empty, as ScienceWorks was on this afternoon. They played contentedly for ages here.

Although we're back to our regular school day this week, it'll be pretty well broken up by two full-day field trips, leaving us with only three days for work plans, and a short week next week, as well!

Memory work for this week includes more Mango Languages Hawaiian, 1940 events of World War 2, and facts about Christopher Columbus. Books of the Day include non-fiction picture books about caves (we watched an EPIC documentary on cave diving last week!), a random picture book history of Vikings, and a couple more books about butterflies--we finally saw a monarch yesterday, fluttering around Syd's Mexican sunflower in Will's butterfly garden. A homeschool win!

And here's the rest of our week!

MONDAY: In Math Mammoth this week, Will is continuing her study of line graphs, which she likes and finds easy, and Syd is applying her study of place value to a review of adding and subtracting with large numbers--she can do it, but she's going to hate it. Math may be very tantrum-filled this week.

In preparation for our field trip to Louisville tomorrow to tour replicas of the Nina and Pinta with one of our homeschool groups, I found a workbook for the children that provides a good overview of Christopher Columbus--it's lengthy, though, so for our fourth schoolwork slot I'm only asking the children to play a couple of games of Battleship. It's always good to stay familiar with coordinate grids!

We've got our weekly volunteer gig with the food pantry this afternoon, and then an afternoon trip to the library.

TUESDAY: Field trip to Louisville! We'll tour the Nina and Pinta replicas in the morning, have a picnic lunch, and then spend a few hours at the Kentucky Science Center before we have to head back home for Robotics Club.

WEDNESDAY: We're on to 1940 in our World War 2 unit study; the kids will put these timeline figures on the timeline that they're building in their World War 2 notebooks, and then later this week Matt will give us a more detailed lecture on the events of 1940. The kids will have their monthly Magic Tree House Club meeting (this month's book is Leprechaun in Late Winter), and then we'll hustle into the car to take Syd to her first ballet class of the semester--she's advanced enough now to have classes TWO times a week! I imagine that this is the year that less-dedicated students will begin to drop the program, and so I'm interested to see if Syd's interest will continue as the commitment increases.

THURSDAY: I've actually got a few more badge activities set up for the kids to do, but I just finished getting all their badge books and checklists printed out for them, so I thought I'd give them a chance to organize everything to their liking, record what they've already completed in their new checklists, and see if anything else strikes their interest. Next week, however, we'll still likely find ourselves working with how-to-draw books and stamping metal dog tags for our Girl Scout activity.

I printed out a very extensive tadpole identification guide for our home library, and I'll be giving the children the job of using it to identify the species of tadpole that we're currently hosting. Most of them have finished their metamorphosis into frogs and been duly deposited at our creek by now, and I sure wish that the rest of these tadpoles would just hurry up so I can have that counter space back! I need to put jars of decomposing fruit for the children to sketch there!

Although Will would prefer being dropped at the library to doing a project with me during Syd's ballet classes, Syd loves nothing more than to do something together while Will's at her horseback riding lesson. We might work on a plaque for her room, or on a birthday present for her father.

FRIDAY: Field trip to the Indianapolis Zoo! The kids LOVE zoos, and it's been a while since we've been to this one, so it's going to be a great day.

As for my week, I need to make some reservations for our Hawaii vacation this week (Mauna Kea is open again, so our tour is back on!), buy LEGO plates for a DIY project, hang the curtains that Syd's been longing for around her bunk bed, get the fall garden going, and get our Girl Scout troop set up for the new year, among other tasks. I think that we'll all have plenty to do to fill our days!

To the Creek!

I like to take a day trip with the kids at least once a week. It breaks the school week up, gives us a chance to explore and exercise and discover new interests, and, of course, it's fun!

Last week, after a late start and a food truck lunch with Matt, we went to a state park just outside of town, because that park has what may be the kids' favorite thing ever: a creek. There are loads of hiking trails at this state park, but all we ever do there is hike down to the creek, play until the children are filthy, wet, and exhausted, and then hike back.

It's ample fun for a field trip day:

The kids brought their butterfly nets and a large Mason jar, and this day's fun activity was pestering minnows.

And pestering a few snails, too...

This was an especially restful field trip after an especially stressful week that I'd had, and I benefited greatly from turning my phone off, forcing myself to breathe deeply and untense my shoulders, and then pulling a book out of my pack and lying like a lizard on a flat rock all day, reading and taking photos and watching my kids play.

This week's day trip to the Children's Museum won't be quite like that, as I'll instead come home with a headache after a noisy day in the museum and an hour's worth of traffic on the way home, but the kids will love it just as much, of course, just as they'll love next week's TWO day trips to Louisville (to see Nina and Pinta replicas!) and the Indianapolis Zoo.

But after that, the week after next, we're 100% spending another day in the woods. Lizard Momma needs her clean air and flat rock!

Bee and Butterflies

We finally found a bee! Without even searching, Will happened upon it at the playground behind the police station after our field trip last week. I was busy chatting with friends, but when I heard her shout for me I immediately darted away without explanation, then spent several minutes with Will running after the bee, dropping to my knees to photograph it whenever it found a lovely flower, then running after it again as Will helped me spot its new location.

The friends were all homeschoolers, as well, of course, so nobody thought that this was weird.

The kids think that this is a bombus impatiens, or Common Eastern Bumblebee.

Its identification was impaired, unfortunately, since I did not realize that the best way to photograph a bee for identification is to photograph it from the top. You get a clear view of the coloring of its head, abdomen, and thorax that way. Ah, well... an identification that pins it as part of the most common of our bumblebee species is probably not incorrect.

This photo and all the accompanying information are now at Bumble Bee Watch, waiting for an identification to be confirmed by an expert. So exciting!

Will tried her best at prepping and pinning a butterfly, but unfortunately it did not go well.

This is possibly a Northwestern Fritillary.

We watched a video tutorial together, one that I think explained the process pretty well, but the reality is that, like many things, it's very, very difficult to do without practice. Will also forgot to use paper strips to hold down the wings, instead using more pins, but of course without the paper strips the wings curled up and the pins tore them.

I really, really, really do not want to pin a butterfly, but I think I'm going to have to learn how to do this for myself, so that I can better teach her. Sigh...

I only permit Will to catch and euthanize (we're quite satisfied with the freezer method) butterflies that are common in our neighborhood, so she didn't catch this next one; instead I again chased after it like a loon, and it led me a merry chase! At one point it actually flew OVER THE HOUSE, so that I had to run around the entire house like a maniac, screaming to everyone else "Where is it? Where is it?!?"

Matt was all, "It's back at the same flower that it started at! Can you just stop chasing it and let it settle?"

Well, fine.

This, the kids think, is a male Eastern Tiger Swallowtail:

They're apparently, at least according to the information that the kids found, more common than the Northern Fritillary, but we see loads of Fritillaries, and this is the first Eastern Tiger Swallowtail that I have ever seen in our yard.

For all the work that we put into our gardens this year, the number of things growing in them is pitifully small--several strawberry plants that I didn't get a single strawberry from, a pumpkin plant that's currently growing one pumpkin, a couple of basil, three tomato plants, and three peppers. This butterfly garden of Will's sports only two milkweed, a prairie something-or-other, and this beautiful plant that the swallowtail loves--a friend gave the seedling to Syd for her birthday, and told her that it was a Mexican sunflower.

It makes me very happy, though, that even this one flowering plant is enough to bring in butterflies for us to enjoy. Next year, I WILL have more flowers, and I WILL have more bees and butterflies!

Work Plans for the Week of August 24: Project Week!

Our last school week went well--math flowed easily for both children, thankfully, with Syd acing Math Mammoth's unit on place value and Will genuinely enjoying her own unit on graphing coordinates. Decoder wheels were made and played with-- 

--World War 2 leaders were researched and memorized, spelling words were reviewed, grammar pages were completed, many comic strips were created--


--butterflies were fed, and we even found that elusive honeybee for our Citizen Scientist project! As always, Monday's tidy workspace looked like this by Friday:

Nevertheless, by the end of the week both kids were notably less enthusiastic about our work than they've been in the past three weeks, so I decided to shake things up by declaring this week a Project Week.

I've given each kid a log for each day this week, with entries that challenge them to find their own math activity, to read something interesting and to watch something interesting, to create or build or engineer something, to do something outside, to independently choose a helpful chore, and to write down something that they've learned. I'll be on hand, of course, to assist with projects and offer options when asked, but I'm curious to see how each kid will design her own school day within these parameters. 

Combined with our usual extracurriculars, a playdate or two, and a day at the Children's Museum, I think it'll be a great week!

And whether the week turns into a fabulously-enriching curriculum of each child's choice, or a simple week's vacation, I think it'll be just the break that we need to look at next Monday's schoolwork with refreshed minds that are ready to focus.

Last of the Line: My Little Pony--and the Police!

This last of the American Girl doll wrap skirts that I've listed on my etsy shop is actually the first style that I made for Syd, based on her current absolute favorite cartoon: My Little Pony.

I've got a ton more American Girl doll patterns that I want to try out--pants, shirts, doctor's scrubs, a party dress--but I've also got some commissioned pieces and etsy orders that I need to be working on, so more American Girl doll crafting may need to go on the back burner for a bit.

In other news, I have to tell you about the AMAZING field trip that my Girl Scout troop went on yesterday! I was so engrossed in the trip that I didn't take a single photo, so you'll have to bear with my wall of words instead:

When we first got to the police station, the receptionist looked a little surprised to see this large gang of children and assorted adults in attendance, and we had to wait for a really long time before an officer came to get us--I imagine that the conversation in the back went something like "Oh, crap! who forgot to put a FIELD TRIP on the calendar?!? Okay, everyone, short straw has to lead the tour."

I was also a little leery when a parent who was dropping her kids off with me asked the officer, "How long do you think this will take?" and he answered, "Oh, about 15 or 20 minutes." At that point, I figured, "At least there's a playground behind the police station!" A twenty-minute tour followed by an hour on the playground--that could work, I guess.

I like to prep my Scouts well for our activities, so I'd asked each child to bring a notebook and pencil, and to write two questions for the police officers in that notebook. Our tour guide, Sgt. Forston, led us to the briefing room, sat us down, gave us a little lecture on what a briefing looks like, then said something like, "Okay, before I show you the rest of the station, does anybody have any questions?"

Little hands rose into the air! Sgt. Forston, in what is surely the greatest display of patience ever seen by humankind, answered question after question after question. Are you in charge? (No.) Who IS in charge? (The chief of police.) What kind of crimes are most common? (Theft.) What kind of things do people steal? (Money, bikes, electronics, really anything.) If someone stole a computer but it has a password on it, what would they do? (Throw it away.) Have you ever been shot at? (No.) Do you ever feel like you're in danger? (Yes.) Do people call you on the phone here? (Yes.) What do they call you about? (They want to report a crime, they're not happy with something a police officer has done, they have a question about a law.) Do they call other people on the phone here? (Yes.) Is 911 here? (No.) Where is 911? (At the central bus station.) Do people ever fight you? (Yes.) What happens if you think that someone committed a crime but you don't know for sure? (We keep looking for evidence.) Do they get to go free while you look? (It depends on what kind of evidence we have already.) Is there a police dog here? (Yes.) What's his name? (Ike.) What kind of dog is he? (German Shepherd.) Can we see him? (Maybe. I'll call his handler and ask.)

For each of these answers, also imagine a thoughtful explanation. Every time Sgt. Forston came to terminology that he thought that the children wouldn't understand, such as "bond" or "chain of command" or whatever, he would reword it so that the children understood. It was perfectly suited to an audience of children.

By the time this flurry of questions had calmed enough that we could keep moving, we were already well past the twenty-minute estimate of the entire trip, but Sgt. Forston seemed totally in the groove, and never hinted that we were taking up too much of his time or that it was time to finish up. In fact, he kept thinking of even more awesome things for us to see and do! We saw an interrogation room, where children and adults were both kind of thrilled to see the chain that attaches to a suspect's handcuffs. We saw the room with the breathalyzer and a line painted on the floor for people to walk; everything in these two rooms is videotaped. We saw the evidence lockers, which are actually just lockers! They are literally evidence lockers!

A guy came by as we were standing in front of the evidence technician's door, and Sgt. Forston was basically like, "Look! The evidence technician! Show the kids your light!" So after the technician put away all the evidence that he was bringing back from the lab (Sgt. Forston gave us an excellent lecture about this and a lecture and demonstration about how to properly handle evidence), he showed us how his black light showed up hairs and such from clothing and other surfaces.

Imagine, of course, that all through this children are just peppering Sgt. Forston with questions. Does each locker have its own key? (No, they all use the same key that the evidence technician has.) What goes in the little locked refrigerator? (Blood. Long pause. Just blood. Good editing for a child audience, Sgt. Forston!). What's in that jug? (Distilled water.) What's the distilled water for? (If you flush a syringe with it, you may get dried blood that you can then get DNA from.)

We covered DNA swabs and how to bag evidence, and then Sgt. Forston set the children up with plastic CD cases that he'd touched, fingerprint powder, and brushes, and he let the children actually dust for fingerprints! It was the coolest. Thing. EVER! He talked the kids through gently tapping the brush into the powder, and then just sort of gently swirling the brush along the surface. You still have to really look to be able to see the fingerprint, but if you hold it up to the light, there it is! It was so great, and the kids were really into it. I mean, of course! We also saw how to use a piece of tape to lift the fingerprint off the surface, although apparently it's preferred now to take a digital picture of the print, rather than lifting it.

We saw the undercover police officers' office and where the detectives work, the conference room where those in charge talk strategy, and then Sgt. Forston got ahold of the K-9 officer and found that although he was in the middle of a training session across town, he could leave then and be with us in 10-15 minutes. Sgt. Forston looked at me and asked how we should pass the time. "Tell the children all about first aid!" I said.

And so he did. Bless that man.

On the way outside to meet the police dog, I got the children's attention and said, "Now, Children, when the police dog shows up, I want you to..."

"Remain calm," many children finished for me. They know me so well!

Officer Keaton pulled up to the parking lot where we were, and he gave us a little lecture on police dogs and how and why they're used, and got to experience his own flurry of questions, himself. How old is Ike? (I don't remember the answer to this one--I'll have to ask my troop!) What happens to Ike when you go on vacation? (He goes to a special kennel in Indianapolis where they're used to police dogs.) Does he ever go inside the police station? (Not usually, because he's trained to defend Officer Ike, and could bite an officer who was just roughhousing with him.) Why isn't he neutered? (Because he's never out of his officer's supervision.) Do your kids get to play with him? (No, but sometimes they're allowed to pet his back.) We found out that Officer Keaton gives his dog, Ike, commands in German, we passed around his special remote control that shows him what the temperature is inside his car and has a panic button that he can press when he needs Ike to come rescue him. It opens the door on the right, which Ike only uses when he needs to chase down somebody.

We got to examine the special police car that Ike rides in, and then we sat in the grass while Officer Keaton showed us how Ike finds drugs. He'd hidden a little magnetic box inside the wheel well of a car, and as we watched, Ike sniffed all around, then sniffed back and forth in the same area over and over again, then got low and sniffed, and then finally scratched at the exact spot where the drugs were. As a reward, he got a tennis ball on a rope, and he was so happy!

At exactly two hours and 17 minutes after we first arrived at the police station, Sgt. Forston asked, "Anymore questions?" and for the first time, nobody raised their hands. I told him, "I don't think that ANYBODY has ever run them out of questions before!" And then we thanked the officers VERY wholeheartedly and all the children ran off to the playground.

Seriously, this was service WAY above and beyond the call of duty. Can you imagine the patience of someone who had originally intended to spend 20 minutes with a group of children, and then went on to indulge them for a full two hours, never hurrying them, never saying "Just one more question," going out of his way to find them interesting things to look at and do? It was one of the most impressive adult-child interactions that I have ever seen.

I know a certain couple of police officers who are going to get handmade thank-you letters and a big delivery of bagels and doughnuts sometime soon!

Caramel Apple Monsters

You may ask how "Make caramel apples" appeared on our summer to-do list in the first place, but the truth is that I. Do. Not. Know. 

I swear that the children understand the concept of seasons; they apparently just choose not to be ruled by that reality.

Anyway, perhaps your own kids will want to do this in the fall, after a day at the apple orchard. My two did this on a summer Saturday, after a morning spent playing outside and working on the chicken coop and an afternoon spent at a friend's birthday party, with a DIY slip-n-slide that they ignored--perhaps they're just really, really ready for autumn?

To make caramel apple monsters, you will need:

• apples
• lemon juice
• caramel sauce recipe--Syd used the one on a bag of caramels. She got it a little too brown, but it still stuck fine and tasted fine.
• paper towels
• skewers, popsicle sticks, lollipop sticks, etc. We used lollipop sticks leftover from a lollipop-making kit that a sweet friend gave Syd for her birthday--yum!
• decorations--we've got mini marshmallows, chocolate chips, raisins, and googly eyes. Those googly eyes are a must! Sprinkles and white chocolate or peanut butter chips would also be cute, as well as any other candy that you happened to have around the house.
• non-stick surface--we're out of waxed paper, which we should have used. Aluminum foil worked only okay.

1. Core and quarter apples. This way, you can eat your caramel apple without getting caramel all over your face!

2. Dip the cut surfaces of the apples in lemon juice. This will keep them from browning, and you can't taste the lemon.

3. Lay out all your decorating supplies. You won't have time when the caramel is ready!

4. Skewer your apple slices. 

5. Make the caramel sauce. Syd could make this sauce independently, although I should have helped her keep an eye on it--when it's done, it's done!

6. Decorate your apple slices. Bring the pot over to the table, and give everyone a big spoon. Take an apple slice, pat it dry with a paper towel (this helps the caramel stick), then spread the top half with caramel:

 

While the caramel is still warm and sticky, decorate it super cute--

--and then set it on a non-stick surface to cool while you decorate more apple slices.

These are best served immediately, but I'd say that they remain okay in the refrigerator for 24 hours or so. After that, the apples still weren't brown, but I thought that they were a little soft.

I actually like candy apples better than I like caramel apples--I wonder if you can do that by the slice, as well?

Work Plans for the Week of August 17: Police!

Last week's school week went well. Big hits included the introduction of a bug collection, which it turned out Will still really, really, really wants to do--there are three butterflies in the freezer right now, waiting for her to take them out later today and set them to dry on the spreading board. The mapwork for World War 2 countries was also super fun, even though I made the process more troublesome by using a modern map instead of a World War 2-era map, meaning that we had to draw our own country borders for the USSR, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia, etc. The process turned into a fabulous exercise in ready-reference, however, as Will constantly kept my fingers flying over the keyboard to look up her questions--"What did South America do in the war? What did Canada do in the war? Why is Norway's literacy rate 100%?" Syd loved making invisible ink from lemon juice, as I knew she would, and flipped through this secret formula recipe book to find instructions to make a pinata, which is now drying on our coffee table.

I have never seen a more convoluted recipe for papier mache paste than in that book (Sugar? Alum?!?), but she cooked up the entire thing herself, so whatever.

I woke up the kids at 3:30 on Thursday morning to hike over to the drive-in and watch the peak of the Perseids--beautiful! The kids claimed that they saw some meteors, as well, although every time I looked over at them they were rolled up in their blankets in a fetal position, dozing. They must have spent some time awake, however, because this one fell asleep in the aerial silks rig:

Will also liked the manipulative that I made her for multiplying and dividing by powers of ten ("Hey, it makes sense now!"), but HATED the manipulative that I made her for multiplying by decimals ("Do I have to do this? Why can't I just multiply it?!?"). For that one, I finally just let her model the answer, instead of using the model to work out the problem. Sigh...

Another project that didn't work out last week was the Bee Citizen Scientist Project. I didn't get many flowers into our summer garden this year, and so the children didn't find any bees to photograph. We'll be spending a day at a state park this week, however, and another afternoon at our local hands-on science museum, which has a beehive, so I'm hoping it'll happen this week. Regardless, Will LOVED the bees of the world book that she read as part of this assignment:

There are so many great species of bees in the world!

For memory work this week, I am going to have to require that Will finish memorizing her World War 1-era poem, "Anthem for Doomed Youth," as she has dragged it out long enough. The children will also have more daily practice on Mango Languages (where I also need to spend some time, to catch them up in Hawaiian!), a spelling list of "wh" and "w" words to memorize and define, and the list of World War 2 leaders and their countries.

The Book of the Day assignments for this week consist of living histories and books on bees, butterflies, cartooning, and Hawaii. We're eclectic readers!

And here is the rest of our week!


MONDAY: For Math Mammoth this week, Syd is working entirely with place value--she's mastered this concept, so I'm hoping for a week free from (math-related) tantrums! Will has a review on decimals, and is then moving on to graphing, which I think she'll also enjoy.

Will completed the requirements for her Girl Scout Cadette Comic Artist badge, but since both kids have written comics before, I didn't think that the badge requirements asked enough of her. I'll fix that! For today, I printed out tons of different comic panel formats, and I'll be asking the children to create comic strips from a variety of them. I think they'll discover for themselves in the process that bigger panels ask for bigger moments, and that the different formats ask for different pacing and storylines.

We've got our weekly volunteer gig at the local food pantry today, as well--if nothing else, I have to return the electric tiller that I borrowed from them last Monday. Mental note to go outside in an hour or so and clean the dirt off the tines!

TUESDAY: If Will is going to be freezing and mounting a selection of butterflies, the least that we can do is also feed them, so I'm going to show the children how to make butterfly nectar on this day. I'm hoping to impress upon them that science always goes with stewardship.

Our World War 2 study this week focuses on the leaders of the major countries involved in the war. For this assignment, the children will merely need to match each leader with his/her country, then research a photo of each leader to add to their page in their World War 2 notebook. Later in the week, however, likely on the weekend, Matt will give us a lecture on each leader, including the most important moves and decisions that each one made. In these ways, we're approaching the same main events of the war over and over through different lenses, which I hope will allow the children to see these events through a larger context, not just as straight facts to memorize (which I also ask them to do).

The construction of a decoder wheel is actually an activity for the Girl Scout Junior Detective badge, and so both kids have already done it last year, when Will was a Junior working on this badge. We lost those wheels in the move, however (or I tossed them... whichever), and they were really fun to have around, so I'm asking them to make new ones as part of Syd's badge work.

WEDNESDAY: I'll be asking each child to ask at least one question to our tour guide during our field trip to the police station on Thursday, so we'll take the time on this day for the children to research the law enforcement field, look through their Girl Scout handbooks to see what badges might ask for an interview with a police officer (off-hand, I know that at least Detective and First Aid do, and perhaps Animal Helper, as well?), and then write down their questions in the notebooks that they'll take on our field trip. I can't emphasize enough the benefits of having kids conduct interviews, and letting them ask their very own questions during these interviews--their interview of their great-grandfather about his experiences in World War 2 were WONDERFUL.

This fruit observation is yet another activity from a Girl Scout badge--Detective, again--but, as with many Girl Scout badge activities, it's wonderfully academic. Basically, we'll be putting a selection of fruit into jars (the badge book suggested peanut butter jars, but I don't have enough empties to spare, so we'll be using glass canisters), then the children will be observing them over the course of their decomposition, sketching them and taking notes. How cool is that?!? Now I just need to find a place in the house to display several glass jars of rotten fruit...

One of our family goals this summer is to "eat at every ice cream place in town." To that end, I'll be giving the children a giant map of our hometown and the phone book. They'll need to look up the ice cream shops, find those addresses on the map, and then mark each one. Finally, they'll of COURSE choose one for us to visit that evening. Yay for map skills!

THURSDAY: With our homeschool group's playgroup and our field trip to the police station on this day, the only other work that the children have is their math and an assignment to find and watch some examples of hula dancing on YouTube. There are hula competitions, so there are some really fine examples to find. There are also many instructional videos, so we're going to give it a whirl for ourselves, as well.

FRIDAY: Neither kid has ever actually worked ahead to have Friday free, but I still keep independent assignments on this day, just in case they do, and to give myself a bit of a break--the big messy projects that we do each day are rewarding, for sure, but they take a lot of mental and emotional energy out of this introvert! On this day, then, the kids have three more pages to do in their grammar books (we use library copies Exploring Grammar and Mastering Grammar, worked with a plastic sleeve over each page and a dry-erase marker), their Friday Math Mammoth assignment, more fossil prep (Will is also studying a college-level intro to paleontology text--it's dense, but she knows enough of the material already to make her way through, if we go slowly and discuss it often), and an educational ipad app--the children NEVER choose to play these apps in their free time, so at the least I'm asking them to play and review each one, then tell me if we should keep it for further use or delete it.

While the kids are doing all of this, I'll be spending my week researching hands-on activities for graphing, completing my writing assignments, and working on several projects in-progress--a dollhouse remodel with Syd, a building blocks remodel for a writing assignment, how to turn a static comic into an animated comic, our fall garden, and much, much more.

It's going to be a great week!

American Girl Goes a Little Bit Goth: A Pink Skulls Reversible Skirt

Here's the latest listing in my Pumpkin+Bear etsy shop: a pink skulls American Girl doll skirt!

I started off by making one for Syd, of course, and then made a second one for my shop.

I LOVE this reversible wrap skirt because the Velcro makes it super simple for the kid to use.

On the reverse side the skirt is plain pink, because you don't always want to wear skulls.

My next project is to see how this skirt works with jersey knit, because I'd love to upcycle T-shirts into doll skirts.

Here are the couple of doll skirt types that I've made so far:

• Doctor Who reversible wrap skirt
• postage stamp quilt reversible wrap skirt

Sense a pattern?

Perler Bead Business Cards

I had been procrastinating on making business cards so shamefully that I was actually sending packages out without business cards in them.

Rookie move, Pumpkin+Bear!

The problem is that making business cards can be a little (lot) boring, so every time I have to make a new batch I try to do something different with them, to make the process more fun. I've done plain business cards on the backs of old record albums, fabric-backed business cards, vintage paper-backed business cards, business cards with stitching on them, business cards with beads dangling from them, photo business cards...

Inspiration was a little hard to come by.

As I was cleaning out one of my desk drawers (my desk is woefully messy, by the way. Sharing space with my laptop at this moment are a couple of packages to be checked, several books to review, schoolwork to be collated, shipping supplies, lots of pleasure reading, my morning coffee, a list of library books that need to be read and returned, the children's letter from Santa from TWO YEARS AGO, etc. Sigh...), I found all the little Perler bead candies that Syd had made, originally for her candy-themed birthday party, but, of course, she made about three times the amount that she actually needed for favors. I had tossed them into my desk drawer, not knowing what else to do with them.

And just like that--inspiration!

I used a little piece of double-sided tape to stick each one on, so that you can take it off and use it as a charm for something else.

Perler bead sweets aren't terribly thematically appropriate for my etsy shop, but, oh, well--they're cute and they were fun to make and they used up some bits and bobs that I didn't know what else to do with.

And they'll only last me for about a month or so, so if you've got any cute ideas for handmade business cards, send them my way!

Work Plans for the Week of August 10, 2015: Math, Maps, and Many Animals

We had a great week last week! Mind you, a day in our house is never what you'd call tantrum-free, but the majority of each day contained content children who worked hard on their responsibilities, played together, played outside, and didn't give me too much of a hard time.

This chalkboard helps, I think:

I've been compiling it on Sundays, as I'm finishing up the next week's lesson plans, and then during the week, I really only have to update the daily chore list and erase the special events as they pass and the memory work as it's successfully memorized.

For memory work, daily practice on Mango Languages is a constant, as daily guitar practice for Syd will be when I can sort out her lessons. Mango Languages can be a little frustrating, as it's designed for adults and therefore moves quickly, but I continue to explain to the children that I do not expect perfection, or speedy progress, just the consistency that will allow their brains to master the material. And they do seem to have settled into their daily practice:


I'm studying Hawaiian, too, as I've never learned an Austronesian language before. Will does some Hawaiian, but also likes to explore the other languages, but after trying Mandarin Chinese, Syd seems happy to stay with Hawaiian for now. Here's she is comparing her pronunciation to the native Hawaiian speaker's:

Written work also went well last week, and has tended to go much better since I made the commitment to myself that when the children were working at our school table, I would be working there, as well, generally on my computer, which allows me to answer the random ready-reference questions that always come my way, but also with a white board and dry-erase marker at hand, tools that are essential for easily demonstrating math calculations. By these ages the children ought to be able to do their written work independently, but if working in companionable silence with me helps them focus, then I'm not going to protest--especially as I always have plenty of my own work to do!

Having a chick at the table to assist is also essential, apparently:

Anyway, this week's memory work includes Mango Languages, Will's World War 1 poem (Syd has mastered hers, but Will's is more challenging), the countries involved in World War 2, spelling words, and Hawaii state symbols. Spelling words and the poem can be knocked off the list by proving to me that they've been mastered, and we'll move on from World War 2 countries to World War 2 leaders next week, whether or not the kids have the countries down--this won't be the last time that we study World War 2, so I really just want the children to be familiar with these facts, not necessarily have them memorized cold.

The children also have an assigned book to read each day, and this week's books include picture books of butterfly and frog metamorphosis, living books on Hawaii and World War 2, a biography of Marie Curie, and some titles for STEM enrichment or that are related to the kids' current Girl Scout badges in progress.

Here's our week!


MONDAY: We're starting the week with some hands-on math enrichment. Syd loves fractions, so on this day she'll be exploring a set of fraction blocks and activity cards that I checked out for her from our local university's education library. For Will, I put together this model for multiplying and dividing by powers of ten, and printed out a multiplication by powers of ten worksheet for her to complete using the model. I laminated the strips that you pull through the model, so with a dry-erase marker, she can write each problem down on the strip, physically manipulate it to show the process, then erase it and begin again with the new problem. I think this will make the process very clear very quickly, as Will is excellent with patterns.

We don't follow a formal spelling curriculum; I prefer to keep an ear out for any words that a child needs help spelling, then create a list that contains that word and words that are spelled following similar rules or that have similar sounds. This week, for instance, the spelling list contains "oo, ue, ueue, ew" words. Next week's list, I already know, will contain "wh, w" words. Some weeks I use the spelling word list as cursive copywork, but this week I've created a word search; when finished, the children will keep the page in their binders as a study sheet.

I wanted the children to be able to recognize a few specialized terms in our brief mosaics unit, mostly to help them remember that there is a science even to artworks. I won't have them memorize these terms, but I do want them to practice their infographic-making skills to create a reference sheet that we can display.

We have our weekly volunteer gig at our local food pantry today; while I stock the pantry and assist customers, the kids can be found weeding and harvesting in the garden, repackaging bulk food, rinsing storage bins, snacking, helping themselves to seed packages to plant in our home gardens, or reading or playing quietly. They keep themselves entertained!

TUESDAY: Math is back to Math Mammoth today; Syd has a lesson on estimation, and then some review, and Will has word problems. She will be SO excited to move away from decimals next week!

Time spent outside on lovely summer days has allowed the children to become interested, again, in insects, so I have a few activities that we can build on if they seem to enjoy them. One is this BumbleBee Citizen Scientist Program, which will involve the children hunting down a bumblebee to photograph, and will give them the opportunity to research an identification for it, and to have that identification confirmed by an expert in the field. We'll see how it goes.

For our World War 2 study this week, the children will be labeling a world map with the countries that participated in World War 2, using these World War 2 notebooking pages. This lesson won't have a lecture component, but will simply be a useful reference for the rest of the unit.

Syd has a playdate planned for this day, and you might remember that I count even playdates as part of our scheduled day, since playdates aren't exactly the same thing as free time, and preserving the children's free time is very important to me.

WEDNESDAY: Syd has Math Mammoth again on this day, but for Will I created worksheets to teach her how to use this model to multiply decimals. Her worksheets simply consist of decimal multiplication problems, each followed by enough clip art hundred flats (you can also use a blank hundred grid) to model the problem, and space below to write the answer.

Syd is currently working on her Girl Scout Detective badge, so she and I will be making invisible ink using lemon juice, and playing with invisible ink pens that require a black light to reveal their writing--lots of good science there! Will is working on the Comic Artist badge, so she'll be studying comic strips and creating her own, for lots of good visual arts and creative writing practice. See why I love the Girl Scouts so much?

I've been sitting on this book that I need to review, and since Mango Languages has recently gotten the children interested in the variety of world languages that exist, I thought we'd give reading a chapter out loud a go. We'll read it together, looking up the pronunciation of the French words that we encounter using an online dictionary. We'll continue that next week if the kids seem to enjoy it, and if they don't seem to, I'll just pass it to them to finish reading on their own. Regardless, it's a nice little intro to the French language.

Will has often expressed interest in creating a butterfly collection, and I finally feel confident that I've done enough research to choose the most humane way to go about it. I've found some Youtube videos that provide a good overview of the process of collecting, euthanizing, preparing, and displaying insects, and I've purchased all the relevant supplies, so I'll have the kids watch these videos on this day, and if they're still enthusiastic about it, we can begin!

THURSDAY: Syd has her Math Mammoth, but Will has a review of multiplying and dividing by powers of ten and multiplying by decimals. If she doesn't have the process down cold by this day, then we're just going to move on anyway and revisit it in several months.

Our geography assignment for this week is simply a coloring page of Hawaii state symbols and facts, which the children can color while listening to traditional Hawaiian music streaming on Spotify. These facts will then be added to their memory work to review until they've mastered them.

Our homeschool group's playgroup is on this day, and that tends to take up most of the afternoon. Will has her horseback riding lesson following it (we've switched stables recently, and I think it was a good decision), and while she's in her lesson, Syd and I do a project together. Last week, we started a blog for her, and this week, I think we're going to work on some decorations for her bedroom.

FRIDAY: I purposefully stock Friday with work that the children can do independently; throughout the week I encourage them to work ahead on Friday's work so that they can have that day off, and even if they don't do it, assigning work that doesn't require my input still gives me a bit of a break on this day. Their grammar comes from library copies of Exploring Grammar (Syd) and Mastering Grammar (Will), with laminating pages over the workbook pages so that the children can complete them using dry-erase markers.

Froguts is a frog dissection ipad app that's realistic and humane--yay!

We now have a decent approximation of many of the basic fossil cleaning tools used in a paleontology lab--x-acto knife, dental pick, test tube brush, paintbrush--although I still need to buy some super glue, and as I recently also bought several specimen boxes, we've been able to get some good work done on cleaning and preparing our fossil finds from our 2014 dinosaur dig. Fossil prep is a LOT of work, however, and I anticipate that it'll be a long time before our specimen boxes are complete. In addition to this work, Will is studying a college-level intro to paleontology textbook, and then discussing each chapter with me.

We've got some other fun plans this week, of course--the Perseid meteor shower, an afternoon at the splash park, perhaps weekend swimming at the YMCA, and definitely the drive-in movie--but that encompasses our work week!