Ready-Reference Zoo Animal Fact Cards for the Louisville Zoo

The Louisville Zoo has created a great set of pdf fact cards for most of their zoo animals. They're excellent for prep work or further research, but for our big trip to the zoo, I wanted to have them handy for ready reference, so Will and I, with a lot of tricky printing, cutting, pasting, and laminating, made them that way!

I printed each zoo animal pdf fact card on cardstock at the setting of four pages to a page; this made each full-page pdf card print at one-quarter of its original size, a good, handy size for carrying around. Of course, you have to click on and print each new animal card separately, which means that your printer will want to use a fresh piece of cardstock for each one, so every now and then I went back to the printer and flipped the printed pages around so that new cards would print on the unused space of the already-printed cards. Saving cardstock is important!

When all the cards were printed I cut them to size with my guillotine paper cutter. Some animals' info extended onto a second page, so I glued those back-to-back with a glue stick so that you can flip the page over to the back side to read the rest of the info. Some animal cards didn't have a photo of the animal included, so for those I put Will to work with Google Images, finding a photo of each animal and printing it onto copy paper to cut out and glue to the back of each card:

She LOVED this job!

After all the cards were prepped, we laminated them, cut them apart, hole punched them, alphabetized them, and put them on a book ring (well, it's actually a shower curtain hook, but it's serving as a book ring):

I could not have been happier with how this ring of fact cards worked at the Louisville Zoo. As the Keeper of the Cards, I had a fabulous time looking up each animal as we came across it, and regaling the family with random facts--"The addax antelope can go months without water!" "Due to global warming, grizzly bears and polar bears are starting to mix their territories, and they're breeding together!" Since I find less entertainment in animal watching than anyone else in the family, this task kept me entertained quite nicely.

The animal card are robust enough that they can be used for our later research and other projects--each card has a partial order of classification, the animal's range and habitat, more information about its reproduction than you'd ever want to know, its diet in the wild and at the zoo, some notes on behavior and other points of interest, and its status in the wild. They'll be good for sorting as we continue our study of the order of classification, and we'll definitely be taking them to other zoos.

Soooo... lot of work, yes, but well worth the effort.

My Kids Got into a Fight on Public Television

The Friday Zone is an excellent children's show that broadcasts from our local PBS station. Occasionally they need local kids to come in and help them with tapings, and it's something that mine have done once a year or so ever since they were first old enough to participate. Will was a "craft kid" in a couple of episodes at the ripe old age of seven, both Will and Syd performed improv comedy in practically an entire season of episodes last year:

Their segment starts at 17:05)


(Their segment starts at 22:05)


(Their segment starts at 6:05)


(Their segment starts at 17:50)


A discerning eye could probably see that Syd, although she enjoys herself mightily during these tapings, isn't exactly... cooperative. The improv comedian who was her partner in this skit was red-faced and breathless after performing with Sydney:

(Their segment starts at 10:30)


But that was a year ago, and when the call came out for participants again this year, and we thought that we'd skip aerial silks that week so that the girls could attend a couple of Friday Zone tapings, it never even occurred to me that Sydney might not behave. She behaved at three years of Trashion/Refashion shows! She behaved at two years of ballet recitals! She behaved (mostly, more or less) at three years of Spring Ice Shows!

Actually, those Spring Ice Shows might have offered a clue or two.

The firefighter episode went fine--

(Their segments are at 11:00 and 26:55)


And the next taping, with my acquaintance Malke's Math in Your Feet program, also started off really well. It's impossible not to be engaged by Math in Your Feet--it's active, whole-body, brain-stretching fun! But then the girls were asked to cooperate together on a simple task.

And Syd? Well, Syd has her own ideas about cooperation:

(Their segments start at 7:30, 15:30, and 26:35)


I'll tell you now that there was nothing that poor Will could have suggested that Syd would have gone for--in Syd's mind, a sister making a suggestion is a sister trying to gain the upper hand, and a full-out battle for dominance must then ensue.

Thank goodness for Malke's calming hand on Will's shoulder, because I didn't even see Syd punch Will from where I was sitting on the other side of the room, but I know from experience that when Will is punched, she generally punches back hard. Two seconds later, and they'd have been rolling on the floor in a cloud of dust.

And now I'm going to have to get them practicing trust falls, or send them both to Leadership Camp, or have them doing icebreakers and team-building exercises every morning before chores, if I want them to ever be able to be on any more TV shows other than reality shows or wrestling.

Work Plans for the Week of September 23, 2013

After spending much of the summer with work hours, and the last few weeks with a daily checklist, I am EXCITED to get back to weekly work plans!

Here's what the girls have got going on this week:


Work hours and daily checklists are more flexible than weekly work plans, but Will's been feeling rather bossed around lately, I think, and weekly work plans are VERY empowering for the independent-minded child. She likes to do what she wants when she wants, and she doesn't mind chores and other responsibilities, but she doesn't want them to interfere with her big plans for the day, all of which consist of reading books in various spots around the house, yard, local park, and library.

So unlike work hours, during which I'm chaining her to her responsibilities for two hours, or even daily checklists, which must be completed even if one is feeling quite unmotivated, or has just come home with a giant stack of new library books that day, a weekly checklist lets a kiddo read for half the day, and work for half, or read all day, and work extra-hard the next day, and still complete all her responsibilities. Wednesday and the weekends are "relaxed" homeschool days, there for a kid to catch up on any procrastinated work or to spend her time as she chooses if she's kept up. These are the days that I also entice a kid into trying out the latest educational video game that I've checked out of the library, or watching a documentary that I think she might like, by adding it to her checklist.

This week, in particular, should be a good one. We had bathroom remodeling all last week, and we'll have two giant field trips next week, but hopefully, HOPEFULLY, the bathroom will be finished on Tuesday this week, letting us have some chaos-free at-home time for the rest of those days. I'm gambling on it, too, since I put some more intensive, hands-on activities into our schedule--the kids have been great about park school and library school and Barnes & Noble school, but they're ready to put the pencil down and get their hands dirty!

I think the kids will also like that chance to earn some extra cash that I snuck in there--normally I ask them to pick up after themselves in the bathroom, as well (so many wet towels and dirty clothes abandoned on the floor, so many bath toys...), but since we don't really *have* a bathroom right now, they can instead earn some candy money in that chore spot and I can get some extra chores done. Still won't get us completely caught up on chores or result in a sparkling house inside of which a nourishing dinner has been prepared, but I might get them to clean the deck. Or scrub the downstairs bathroom. Who knows what someone will do for a quarter?

Monday: I'm trying to get us back into Latin, which we skivved off of for the summer, so we'll be reviewing for a couple more weeks, I think. Math Mammoth is still going great, so both girls will keep working through their material every day this week, but hopefully next week this bathroom will absolutely be finished so I can put some hands-on activities that reinforce their Math Mammoth material into the work plan, as well. Will's scissors skills are deplorable, bless her poor left-handed heart, so she's going to have to start really practicing that every week now, which is going to result in a flurry of gripes, I know, but the fact that we'll be biking over to the public library first thing in the morning for her to do some research on her biography fair subject, as well as to see if there are any other books on dragons that she *hasn't* read yet (there aren't), should cheer her up. The girls will probably be working on their school later into the afternoon than we usually do, because our volunteer shift takes up two full hours in the middle of the day, but I've got the supplies to make pizza, and I'm sure there's something on Netflix that we can turn into a family pizza + movie night afterwards.

Tuesday: Syd might be done with the whole Sight Word Caterpillar business by the end of October; her reading exploded this summer, and since we work on it every day, I think it's safe to say she could be through the third grade sight words--which is where our caterpillar is going to end--by then. Spelling, now... wow, if you want to watch a perfectionist child throw a fit, give them a spelling word that they don't know. Syd's still doing Spelling City every day for her spelling list, because it's all fun and games (literally), but Will's participating in the Scripps Spelling Bee this year, and has a LOT more words to get through to be competitive, so we've been mixing up her spelling memory work some--some Spelling City, some drills, some videotaping herself, etc. First Language Lessons is still taking FOREVER to get through, because although the lessons are short, Syd refuses to complete more than one per day, so I'm trying to work that into more days, because I'd like to have both girls together in Level 3 of that program by summer. The animal biology portfolios are also still incomplete, mostly because we've been so uprooted by this bathroom remodeling project that we simply haven't had the time to sit and stare at critters under the microscope, or research hamster birth, etc., lately, but at this rate, with all the time that we've spent on them, they are going to be absolutely stunning when completed.

Wednesday: In the afternoon, Will has a meeting with the Magic Tree House Club, and then I take her to aerial silks class so I can gossip with my friends there while Syd spends the last hour or so of Matt's work day with him. Before that, though, I'm eager to see what documentary the girls will choose and what computer game or ipad app they'll want to play--and if they'll let me, play, too!

Thursday: We nearly always have leftover work to make up from this day, because sometimes our Park Day meet-up with friends really does take all day, but it's almost always stuff that's fun for the girls to do with Matt on the weekends, if it comes to that, so it's not really a chore. We finally got around to taking our Drawing With Children diagnostics and I'm looking forward to incorporating these lessons into our week and hoping that they go well--Syd was NOT happy with the diagnostic, but since its purpose is to contain elements that are too difficult, in order to determine your correct starting point, it's understandable. Here's hoping for a tantrum-free Lesson 1! I want to get back into our regular Story of the World study, which we took a break from for the entire summer so that we could study the Civil War instead, so we're working through the couple of random Ancient Egypt library books that we've still got on our bookshelves to get us focused back on the time period. Will's non-systematic, games and puzzles logic study is still going REALLY well; she came home complaining that her lesson at chess club this afternoon was "boring and easy", so we're doing chess as our logic this week to maybe boost her confidence enough for her to ask her coach if she can attend the advanced lesson at the next chess club, instead of the one for little kids.

Friday: I *might* cancel most of the work on this day and take the girls to the apple orchard if the weather is nice. If it's gross out, though, it'll still be great weather inside for continuing our slow-as-molasses states study, and for doing some music enrichment. Will and I are going to get back into studying the recorder pretty soon, and I'll try to persuade Syd into joining us, so I'm not sure if I'll continue this musician study, but if the girls like it, then it'll be a keeper.

Saturday and Sunday: I DO require that the girls do some schoolwork even on the weekends, and they've got a Saturday morning science enrichment program that they love, but other plans include watching rugby, attending a picnic hosted by the food pantry where we volunteer, baking carrot cake for Matt's do-over birthday (long story), and possibly getting dragged to the loathsome indoor inflatables place that the girls adore and we hate.

And then they'll head off to campus to watch football on the campus cable TVs, and I'll make another week's lesson plans!

My Latest over at Crafting a Green World: T-shirts and a Contest (and Math)

the UncommonGoods Upcycling Design Contest

and a round-up of wearable T-shirt upcycling projects

In other news, our bathroom remodeling is taking a really, really, REALLY long time! Fortunately, our contractor for this project seems to be honest, and appears to be doing the work that he told us he'd do with the quality and skill that he told us he'd do it at (far unlike the kitchen remodeling debacle AND the basement finishing debacle of the past), but he is also possibly the slowest-working contractor on the planet. 

We are hopeless at this contractor-contracting thing. We clearly need more home DIY skills.

Fortunately, with a contractor who often doesn't show up until 11 am, and then who often leaves at 2 pm, or who shows up at 9 am and leaves at 11 am, or who doesn't show up until 4 pm and then leaves at 7 pm, the girls and I have been able to get more schoolwork done at home than I thought we would (of course, I thought we'd be long done with having to rearrange our schedule around the bathroom contractor, too...), but we're still spending loads of time at the park and the library focusing in on cursive and Math Mammoth. I'm actually really liking Math Mammoth a lot more than I thought I'd like a packaged curriculum--and I'd probably appreciate the hands-on components that suddenly require a child to wield a hot glue gun to create geometric solids--

--or measure household items with rulers if we were more easily at home to do them, but with LOTS of supplementation of my own activities, I'm actually strongly considering continuing Math Mammoth through this year. So far it's serving as an easy way to accelerate them on their grade-level basics so we can focus on STEM enrichment projects that may be working different mathematical skills.

Because, you know, that pinball pendulum and sound effects recording studio and mounted butterfly collection and DIY aerial silks rig won't build themselves!

Zoo Tour: Butterflies at the Indianapolis Zoo

This year is the Year of Zoo. I was reminded, back in the summer, of how much fun it is to visit new zoos, and since the big kid, in particular, passionately loves animals of all sorts, AND since there are some really great zoos that we've never visited just a few hours' drive from our house, I decided that this is the year to see them all.

A couple of weeks ago, we squeezed in one last visit to the Indianapolis Zoo just before our membership ran out. Of course, we saw ALL our favorite, good animals--

--but we were really there to immerse ourselves in the zoo's seasonal butterfly exhibit. We've been studying butterflies, doncha know, and also?

They're just awesome:

We've got some great butterfly identification guides, so my plan is to make copies of these photos and then have the kids identify them. The big kid also really, really wants to create an old-school butterfly collection, the kind with the straight pins and cotton batting and dead butterflies, and though I, myself, am profoundly horrified by this plan, I understand that it is a legitimate scientific activity, and so I'm committed to helping her at least research it. Yuck!

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!

Will Found a Typo in the Dover Publishing Catalogue

Shame, shame, Dover...

My Latest over at Crafting a Green World: T-shirts!

a tutorial for altering a T-shirt to make it smaller

and a tutorial for altering the neckline of a T-shirt

After a long winter in which I felt particularly unwell much of the time, I started, this spring, to work towards getting healthier. Most of my efforts have involve getting more exercise and losing weight; I'm not particularly vain, nor am I size-conscious, but I just wasn't feeling good, and it's not rocket surgery to blame the 50 pounds that I've gained since my first pregnancy.

I've been tracking my food using MyFitnessPal and my exercise using BodyMedia, because I don't do well with guesswork, and I've been able to lose 23 pounds so far without actually that much stress or fuss; I wonder if I would have started getting healthier sooner if I'd known how different the options are from that first crash diet that I was put on back in the sixth grade. That first experience is the one that makes me feel kind of panicky and upset still if I get too hungry 25 years later, so there's absolutely none of that nonsense now. No tiny little kitchen scale, no tuna, no English muffins--Weight Watchers in the 1980s was a piece of work, I'll tell you that.

My major focus, though, is the amount of healthy exercise that I'm trying to get each day. I wear a BodyMedia armband that tracks it, which is often the main thing that gets me back on the treadmill for another fifteen minutes after dinner, because I want to meet my activity goals, or gets me to that Wednesday morning cardio class, because my armband reads it as "vigorous" activity. I'm teaching myself to run, even though I don't love it and I am definitely the slowest runner on the planet, and I've finally gotten the girls used to the idea that every trip to the park must also include the .8-mile trek AROUND the park, as well.

And so now I have a bunch of clothes that don't fit! I actually am not in love with that fact, because I don't like to shop, and when I do shop, I like to shop second-hand. And second-hand is NOT the way to go when you need a new wardrobe of pants right this minute. I actually had to go to Target last weekend to buy a pair of pants. I am looking forward to altering, modding, and reworking all my T-shirts, though.

But the big question... Yes, I feel SO much better today than I did six months ago. Just in general, I feel so much better! How great is that?

Star Wars at the Indiana State Museum

A few weeks ago, we trekked up to the Indiana State Museum in Indianapolis to get our nerd on at their traveling exhibit, Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination:

It featured actual props and costumes used in the films.

Squee.

Darth Vader is choking them with his mind, you see.

 

There were also detailed models that were filmed super-close-up as the real, giant ships:

Sydney is bigger than a Jawa!

I am NOT as big as a sand person:

Shudder.

I'm also not as big as a Wookie--

--but that's okay. They like me anyway.

Yoda likes me a lot, too:

The science aspects of the exhibit came through a series of hands-on stations, from stuff that we'd done before but were happy to do again, such as traveling on compressed air--

--("It's pneumatic!" she said!), to amazing experiences that we had never before had. I'm a hands-on museum aficionado, I tell you, and these activities floored me. The kids interacted with computers and real-life manipulatives to create virtual spaces:

They compiled robots from parts and put them through various scenarios to evaluate their performances. They built models to succeed in challenging structural conditions. And, coolest of all, they used LEGOs to build electromagnetically powered hover cars:

Remember how museums never stock what I want to buy? I'd have bought myself one of those hovercar kits, that's for damn sure.

I've been really thinking about encouraging the maths and hard sciences with my girls this year, thanks in no small part to this exhibit. Now that Syd's older, I think that this would be a great year to accelerate their math and get them going on some engineering, physics, and programming projects.

Perhaps we WILL be making electromagnetic hovercars...

Pill Bugs under the Microscope

Did you know that pill bugs aren't insects?

I didn't know that, not until we covered pill bug anatomy for the kids' summer animal portfolio unit.

Say what you will about pill bugs, they're an easy, accessible, sturdy critter to catch and study and release. Butterflies are so much lovelier, but you've got to be so gentle with them, or take their tattered wings upon your soul. You've got to be gentle with pill bugs, too, of course, but anything that will roll up into a ball and let you roll it around in the palm of your hand is alright by me!

To study pill bug anatomy, I printed out an anatomical diagram of pill bugs from Enchanted Learning for the kids to color--

--and then I sent them outside to collect some lucky pill bugs, so that we could match the diagram to their real, live anatomy. I swear, this Brock Magiscope is one of my absolute favorite homeschool supplies:

The Magiscope works really well with both flat and 3D specimens, so we can just set a pill bug up on top of a slide, and let it hang out and crawl around while we find its jointed legs and uropods and cephalothorax and all that good stuff:

This pill bug is fine--a kid tipped it upside-down to get a look at its jointed legs.

No pill bugs were harmed during this science project, although a great many were annoyed.

P.S. Want to know more about my adventures in life, and my looming mid-life crisis? Check out my Craft Knife Facebook page!

The Recent Lack of Posts is Due to...

...this:

It had to be done. The bathroom sink was duct taped to the wall, duct tape also covered the many broken and missing tiles behind the bathtub, the floor was just sad, and as I write, our contractor is cutting out and replacing most of those boards in the lower half of the bathroom, since they're apparently waterlogged and rotted, sigh.

See that spot in the middle, though? We're going to put a window back in that spot where a window clearly originally was. I'm pretty excited, because I like a bathroom with a window, and I like anything that gets a little more natural light into our dungeon-esque home. 

In the meantime, the girls and I have been doing library school, park school, Barnes & Noble school, and school basically anywhere that we can't hear hammering and thudding and rotten boards being ripped away from their foundation. It's actually working out well, though--we're focusing on pencil-and-paper work, which is easily transported, and so the girls have been really concentrating on learning cursive, using printed lessons from my StartWrite program, and catching up to grade level on the odd neglected math subject, using print-outs from my pdf copies of Math Mammoth. I'm using the chapter reviews as pre-tests, which allows me to assign just the necessary chapters, and so we've been having an interesting time with geometric solids, areas of rectangles, types of triangles, and polygons. 

I've got some fun hands-on enrichment activities for these subjects, though, which normally I would be interspersing with the pencil-and-paper work, but that will have to wait until we're doing school back at home, back at our big table, back with endless shelves of school supplies and art materials and reference works.

I mean, this bathroom will be done sometime soon.

Right?