Trick-or-Treating with IU Basketball: Haunted Hoops!

It's another Halloween tradition! Every year IU Basketball holds a free Halloween event for families, with a basketball scrimmage, games, crafts, trick-or-treating, and a costume parade. Although both Will and Syd worked hard on their respective costumes (witch and cat) for the Big Day, I did manage to convince one of them to wear the IU cheerleading dress that I scored at Goodwill a few years ago just to this one event:

The cat insisted on remaining a cat:

Thank goodness the IU campus is so nice for frolicking--lets some of us get all that sugar energy out!

That makes for *slightly* fewer wiggles and whines during the scrimmage:

But after the scrimmage, it's time for candy! And a parade! And candy! And a photo with the IU basketball team! Check out who the girls got to sit next to during the group photo:

Coach Crean is a big-time local celebrity, so even Syd, who was unimpressed enough with the random man sitting next to her for the photo that when he said, "Thanks for sitting next to me!" nicely to her afterwards she stared at him blankly (obviously, we have gone over and over and OVER appropriate responses to kind small talk, sigh), became star-struck as soon as we'd walked away and a few people said to her, "Wow! You sat next to Coach Crean!". She kept wanting to tell people that she'd sat with this famous person, but she kept forgetting the name of that famous person, so she'd start off, "Guess what? I sat next to..." and then look at us for help.

Since the girls also participated in another Halloween event at the IU dorms, that makes TWO trick-or-treating events that they've done pre-Halloween, and I also could have taken them trick-or-treating at the mall, any of our several state parks, one of our local museums, and most of several retirement homes around town. Mind you, I love the fact that our community is so community-minded that it eagerly holds these activities for children, but I would love it even more if they spread it out a bit, you know? I don't even care about the sugar rush, because my girls don't have allergies and I let them eat it all and then it's gone, but we hate being over-scheduled and/or missing fun stuff, and our weekend was INSANE and we still missed a ton of stuff that the girls would have loved. We missed the Day of the Dead event at the Mathers Museum! We missed decorating mini pumpkins at Lake Monroe! Wouldn't it be fun if some place had a Thanksgiving event, and some other place had a Valentine's Day event, and some other place had an Independence Day event, etc.?

I'll totally run the salt dough cornucopia/construction paper Valentine/2014 calendar station!

Work Plans for the Week of October 28, 2013

Our break was good for mind and soul, but I'm also very happy to be back in business. We've got so many exciting things to learn and do and see and explore!

Here are Syd's work plans for the week.
Here are Will's work plans for the week.

MONDAY: I'm trying out a new method of getting the memory work practiced regularly. It's a learning curve, though, since Will and Syd both found the concept of checking off the correct assignment on the correct day on this chart absolutely baffling at first. It's funny what random things kids don't know!

I'm trying to strike a balance between hands-on math and computation skills, so both girls are testing out a different pattern blocks skills book today (I didn't like the one we tested the other week, sigh). I'm also trying to incorporate more living books and movies into our days, since the girls always seem to remember that content so well, so I'm adding that to subjects throughout the week whenever it seems relevant. I've been downloading videos from Discovery Education Streaming and creating themed DVDs for various units--the recorder, Ancient Egypt, our 50 states study, etc.--and this makes having the kids access those videos a LOT more handy!

You might notice that Syd no longer has Reading as a daily subject! She's at about a Level 2 reader, so instead of making it a curriculum subject, I'm including in her other daily subjects something that she can read to me, and something that I can read to her.

In Latin we've moved on to commands, and in music Will is still reviewing some of her recorder songs that she forgot over our hiatus from the instrument, while I'm trying out having Syd, who has no interest in learning an instrument but who does enjoy singing, learn and practice a song this week.

TUESDAY: Over the weekend, we went to the Physics, Geology, and Chemistry open houses on campus--always a BIG hit!!!--and so I wasn't super surprised when Will said that she'd rather study chemistry now than continue with human biology. We hadn't gone far into human biology, fortunately, and have finished our animal biology unit, AND own a really nice chemistry set that comes with a series of graduated experiments and demonstrations, so I'm actually pretty excited to make the shift. It will release me from a TON of prep work, too!

I've still got Craft as a subject for Tuesdays, since it's great for fine motor and problem solving skills, and although Syd's pretty crafty in her free time, Will rarely chooses such activities. I've still got Will doing some grammar, too--although my long-term plan is to put her into the third level of First Language Lessons with Syd later this year, Will already has such an excellent inherent grasp of English grammar that it's easy for her to memorize parts of speech.

We have to remember to bring gloves to horseback riding this week. It's getting cold!!!

WEDNESDAY: I've given up on "fun school," keeping just memory work and the math packet in what's otherwise a free day. We've gotten out of the habit of doing big day trips during the week, but aerial silks, our usual Wednesday activity, is actually easy to shift to another day, so there might be a field trip renaissance in our future. First up: the girls are making noise about visiting the Children's Museum of Indianapolis' Haunted House. Do we dare?

THURSDAY: Yes, I really did schedule a full day's work on Halloween. What was I thinking? Actually, it may storm on Halloween, so it's a good thing that we did all those trick-or-treating events and parties all weekend, even though they made me miserable. Otherwise, the girls are continuing their special units, with Syd making more raisin bread (I'm trying to choose recipes that she can potentially memorize, and definitely master) and Will working more on a real-live working pinball game. I bought a clock kit, and I'm really excited to set them up with the supplies to make their own clock--you can't not know how to tell time after doing THAT!--and there will also be our homeschool group's play group, perhaps ice skating with friends, perhaps dinner with friends, perhaps trick-or-treating with friends...

It can't REALLY storm on Halloween, right?!?

FRIDAY: Math with Math Mammoth is still going great. Will's still zipping through the cumulative reviews, stopping occasionally to complete the odd unit, but Syd's found a good place to settle midway through the second grade level. She's still moving very quickly, though, so I won't be surprised if she eventually reaches the point where she can't complete a unit a day.

Scrapbooking our summer vacation is also a BIG hit. I'll share the girls' scrapbooks with you some other time, but they're having a ball gluing down photos and souvenirs and writing captions, and the scrapbooks are going to be lovely mementos for them when they're done. I'm curious to see if the papyrus paintings that we'll be doing for history will also turn out cute--it's the last project before we move on to the mummy chapter!

SATURDAY/SUNDAY: Oh, let's see... There's our university's homecoming parade. Evening activities at our local hands-on science museum. Read to a Dog at the library. A hockey skills workshop. Some work that needs to be done on the chicken coop. Maybe mountain biking?

I think we'll stay busy!

Teeny-Tiny Dictionary Page Envelopes

I make these dictionary page mini envelopes all the time, for my own stuff and to package pinback buttons from my Pumpkin+Bear etsy shop, so I finally decided to list them!

I've made these out of comic book pages before, and scrapbook paper, and even plain notebook paper, but I always come back to the dictionary pages. You've got to love an envelope that increases your vocabulary!

Kentucky Horse Park, Summer 2013

There's a LOT to be said about a week of school vacation! I was actually kind of bummed about it the first day, when my rotten little monsters basically just watched videos all day (the weather has NOT been as nice as I'd hoped, sigh...), but ipad issues aside, I am getting a ton of work done while the kids... rest their brains, is what I'm going to call it.

And that's how I'm *finally* getting around to editing the photos that I took during our family visit to the Kentucky Horse Park back in June, yikes!

Horses of the World show

SO much petting!

Horse evolution in the kids' barn!

Kiddo jump course

Hall of Champions show, featuring retired winning racehorses

You gotta double-fence the fields to keep the stallions from killing each other.

Sydney and I LOVE doing dorky statue mimicry.

Love. IT!

Sometimes random horses and riders in costume just go riding by.

This was a VERY patient pony.

a very, VERY patient pony

The park's museum is EXCELLENT, with, again, an extensive section on horse evolution--right in our sweet spot!

Of course, now that our free week is halfway through, the girls are (somewhat) over their Netflix Instant frenzy, and there's the imaginative play that I'd hoped they'd spend the day with, the fort building, the playing with chickens, the baking of delicious foods, and the heady anticipation of Halloween. We've had playdates and swimming dates, the invention of cinnamon/butter/salt popcorn, some time at the office with Matt, and ice skating to look forward to after they clean out the chicken coop later this morning. During all of this, I deep-cleaned the house, finished a set of chair covers for our janky old living room table chairs, planned a Harry Potter book club for Syd and some of her friends, finished the chore for pay magnets that I've been wanting for, like, a year now, and now that I've gotten these Kentucky Horse Park photos edited, well, I might as well plan the rest of the Kentucky unit for our 50 States Project!

My Latest over at Crafting a Green World: The Backpack and the Biography Fair

I LOVED both of the projects behind this week's Crafting a Green World posts. These vintage medal zipper pulls are one of my favorite finished projects EVER, I think:

First place in the district History Day in eighth grade!

Third place in the State History Day!

Silver medal in the National Latin Association exam in twelfth grade!

In other academic pursuits, the kiddos and I created display boards out of recycled cardboard for their Biography Fair projects:

Poor Syd was frozen with terror, basically only able to stand up in front of the other children, squeak "Harry Potter!", and then sit back down, but Will gamely read her report out loud--more quietly than we'd discussed, but at least the other kids could hear her, I was in the second row, and nobody else would care:

Matt's still reading The Mysterious Island out loud to us at bedtime, and I can't recommend the practice of reading "big" novels out loud to children highly enough--sure, I've read them "kid" novels like Little House in the Big Woods before, and we've listened to novels on audiobook, and goodness knows that Will has read a small library's worth of grown-up books, but this has turned into something different. Matt pauses his reading all the time so that we can discuss the Civil War, or bemoan Verne's racist depiction of Ned, or make fun of how all the characters hero-worship Cyrus Harding ("Oh, Cyrus! If anyone can build us a fire out of nothing it's YOU!!!"). The second that it takes to pause an audiobook is just enough to make us not bother with many of these discussions when we're listening together in the car, and I'm sure that the girls simply skip over the more sophisticated stuff in their own reading.

Together, though, we're finding that everyone has a lot to say about... well, everything! So Matt reads, I braid tiny braids into the girls' hair, and we interrupt him constantly to talk. It's perfect family time.

The Ladies Laid Some Eggs

Finally, weeks after I had taken to simply telling anyone who asked about them that our hens were barren, we have eggs!!!

And perfectly, there was one for each kid! They ate them with their lunch, and never were two eggs declared to be lovelier, tastier, or more satisfying than these first two eggs from our own Fluffball and Arrow.

I have to say that our chickens are more rewarding pets than even I thought they'd be, and I was hoping that they'd be pretty great. We all adore them, and the girls take complete care of them--actual, genuine, kid-chosen responsibility! They're gentle, and funny, and if they're out of food they holler at the girls so they can come and feed them. If you let them out of their tractor a bit before sunset, they'll play for a few minutes in the backyard, eat mosquitoes for us, and then walk to their coop and put themselves to bed. I now keep a jar of stale bread on the kitchen counter just because it's blissfully fun to feed them treats. Sometimes, when the girls are outside, I'll walk by an open window and spy one of them with a chicken next to her, both of them deep in conversation with each other.

We've got some chicken-related DIY projects coming up--I'd like to have the girls help me build this automatic chicken feeder, and this automatic chicken waterer, and I'd like to get the heat lamp re-installed on a timer before it starts getting super cold at night, and I'd like to finish our months-long chicken yard project before it snows, and I'm wondering if I should buy some hay bales to insulate the coop some from the wind, and I want to start the girls raising mealworms and sprouting grains for chicken feed...

Pets AND pet-related DIY projects?!? It's like my own personal crafty fantasyland!

Work Plans for the Week of October 21

...

There aren't any!!! It occurs to me that we haven't had a week completely off of school since our wonderful vacation back in June (We miss you, Mac!), so I am taking that week right now. The weather, though brisk, should be nice, so I'm anticipating a lot of outdoor play, a lot of time hanging out with the chickens, daily visits to the park, and maybe another mountain biking excursion like the one that we just tried out--and survived!--today.

We've got our volunteer gig at the food bank, horseback riding lessons, aerial silks class, a playdate, another Friday Zone taping for Will (Good LORD, not Syd!), a park day with our homeschool group, the first ice skating class of the season, a science department open house over at the university, and a workshop with a Girl Scout LEGO League that sounds *quite* intriguing.

As for me, I might actually get a chance to update my etsy shop for the holidays (autumn and Christmas candles, yes?), burn some home videos and school videos, finish compiling the girls' animal biology portfolios, clean out the basement, and plan a Harry Potter book club.

And maybe tempt the girls with some tasty little paint sets and science kits and craft supplies and broken appliances and unfinished wooden beads and interesting library books that I've been sitting on, hmmm?

BOLOGNA?!?

In case I ever forget that I live in a college town...

Tutorial: Teeny-Tiny Tooth Fairy Pockets

I used the exact same technique for these tiny tooth fairy pillows that I use for my envelope pillowcases, cut way, waaaaaaay down:

The big fun, however, came in personalizing them! I replaced Will's old tooth fairy pocket, too, so that the girls could match, and for hers I used the same tooth fairy stencil that I used for the original pocket (although I should have replicated the monogram, too--I LOVED how it turned out that first time!):

For Syd's tooth fairy pocket, however, which I made just as her very first loose tooth was getting pretty darn loose, I had Matt draw a diagram of the primary teeth (using a diagram from Google Images as a model), then when Syd finally lost that tooth, I let her color it on the diagram and I wrote in the date:

Neither kid has ever been interested in having the Tooth Fairy take her teeth, and the pockets are also a good place to simply keep those shed teeth between visits. The Tooth Fairy does, of COURSE, take the letters that the children write to her. She gives them back to me later, though, because she knows that I'm making a collection of the children's correspondence with all fairies and Santa and imaginary beings.

Because Syd often writes to unicorns and asks them to send her candy. I don't really know why. They never do. But they do write back with silly messages, so that's fun, too.

Tutorial: Roll-up Felt Hundred Mat

We have a laminated cardstock hundred grid that works with our number tiles, and I've recently realized that I can make some sturdy yet disposable hundred grids pretty easily from cardboard record album covers, but I was also wanting a hundred grid that would look nicer longer, and be easier to toss in my backpack for trips to the library or park to do schoolwork.

So I made one!

You make this hundred mat around the number tiles that you already own, so first you've got to make them. We have a set of clear one-inch number tiles that were great for matching to a printed hundred grid when the kids were littler, but now that they're older (AND have lost a couple of those tiles, sigh), I've made them a couple of sets of upcycled cardboard number tiles that are the same size, so they can be interchangeable. I've long wanted to make a set of number tiles out of Scrabble tiles, but I think their inevitable loss might break my heart, so...

Measure out the grid AROUND the tiles, so that when your kiddo puts a number tile on the grid, they'll still be able to see the border around the tile. A little extra space is always good for those fumbly kid fingers, anyway. For me, this meant measuring at one inch + 1 centimeter, and I still did a lot of double-checking:

Notice that I measured and drew this grid in chalk. I didn't end up making a mistake in my measuring, but if I did--chalk equals second chances!

When you've got the grid drawn out, get out a tiny paintbrush and some fabric paint, and carefully paint over your grid:

And that's it! You can roll up your mat, you can wash it, and you can play with it on the carpet:

I remember when Syd was first learning how to find numbers on the hundred grid, and now we're using it for multiplication and division. Ah, time...