My Kid Can Recite All the Countries of Africa: 2012 International Fair

Having done it both ways now, I've decided that I like it much better when my children present a project that they've already been working on for their various homeschool academic fairs, rather than coming up with a particular project especially for each fair. I feel like their projects show more depth, and are completed in a much more relaxed and enjoyable manner when they're presented simply as a chance to show off an area of interest that's already being studied.

With that in mind, our homeschool group's recent International Fair was my favorite one yet--my kiddos have been studying Africa off and on for months now, so they knew right away what areas they wanted to focus their reports and presentations on, and what projects they wanted to elaborate on to display at the fair.  Honestly, the biggest debates centered around what NOT to bring!

We did not bring the girls' salt dough maps of Egypt, but Sydney, who intended to discuss the ecosystems of Africa and their respective animals, created a salt dough grasslands watering hole, and used some carved wooden African animals that my mother gave her for Christmas in the display:

I brought my computer, set it next to the girls' display, and streamed our favorite Africam webcams through it throughout the fair. Matt's special job was to keep a constant eye on the webcam, so that he could turn it off if the elephants that were lounging around the watering hole started to have sex again.

Willow discussed Egypt in her report, and brought a Styrofoam block pyramid that she built:

We did not bring our Montessori Puzzle Map of Africa (I was afraid of losing pricey pieces), nor the pin flag map (I was afraid of toddlers getting ahold of the sharpy-sharp pins); the main display item is our giant map of Africa, which has been so colored on, labeled, pinned upon, and outlined over the months that, while it may be unrecognizable in some aspects, it is certainly kid-owned.

Syd outlined the main ecosystems of Africa in drippy school glue mixed with acrylic paint--I should have laid the map on the ground for her to do this, in retrospect, and then the paint wouldn't have run:

See? DEFINITELY a kid-created project!

After the Biography Fair, when Sydney burst into tears in the middle of reciting Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," I have a horror of asking her to recite, so her oral presentation consisted of telling the audience about the ecosystems of Africa, already drawn onto the map, and some examples of animals that live in those ecosystems, with pictures of the animals already glued next to their ecosystems, and I still thought that she was going to cry for a few seconds there, before she pulled herself together and nailed it.

Willow has yet to cry during an oral presentation, so she prepared a special feat. I purchased the "Countries of Africa" rap from Rhythm Rhyme Results, and she practiced it over and over and over again--

--until she had memorized all of the countries of Africa:

Have I ever told you about my dark history of helping children cheat at their academic fairs? After college but before grad school, I had a job with Score! doing private SAT tutoring. Score! charged outrageous fees for this tutoring (One-on-one in YOUR home! All our tutors have the highest SAT scores!), which meant that all of my tutees were outrageously wealthy. Although you were supposed to arrange all of your tutoring through Score!, all the families knew that while Score! paid their tutors well, they didn't pay us nearly as much as they, themselves, paid Score! (seriously, families paid Score! something like 10x the average tutor's average fee, and I'm telling you, Score! already paid us well), and most families would ask for extra off-the-books tutoring at a price that surpassed our regular salary but also undercut what they'd have to pay Score!.

Of course, helping a kid with their English class is a different animal than helping a kid prep for the SAT, and in most of these families, "tutoring" a kid in a particular subject actually meant that you were supposed to just do the work for them. I tried to at least sneak in some learning, at least for the younger kids whom I tutored, but in one pretty common example, as I was in a child's playroom leading her by the nose through her multiplication homework, her mom walked in to consult with me about the appropriate punctuation on the poem that she was composing for her child to turn in for her next day's English homework.

I earned buckets of money with that family, "helping" their younger daughter with her History Fair project (I designed a display board that had a giant cardboard cut-out of an original-style Coca-Cola bottle on one side and a contemporary Coca-Cola bottle on the other side, and in the middle had a wheel you could turn so that one window would pop up a year, and the other window would pop up a trivia fact about Coca-Cola from that year. At least the kid helped me with the construction!) and their older son with his Science Fair project (I designed a giant poster with cut-outs from magazines of popular icons and images, he did an experiment at school in which he timed kids looking at the poster and then recorded what they remembered, and then we did this big 3D bar graph out of spray painted Styrofoam rods to represent the results of the experiment). I spent entire weekend days with these children, eating restaurant take-out lunches with them, taking breaks to watch "Full House" re-runs with them, driving them to the big-box crafts store for more spray paint and Styrofoam, getting paid by the hour. They went to a fancy-pants private school in Ft. Worth, Texas, and I kid you not, out of an entire gymnasium full of elementary school projects, there was not a single one that looked like a child had even been allowed to touch it.

And that's why I can tell you that my absolute favorite thing about our homeschool academic fairs is that it's perfectly clear from looking at the displays--

--listening to the presentations--

--and watching the confidence of the children as they talk about their areas of expertise, and the pride on their faces as they show off their work, that these are kid-owned, kid-created projects.

And that's so much more empowering for the kiddos.

A TARDIS on My Laptop Sleeve

I'm not going to show you a tutorial for the creation of my laptop sleeve, on account of I did it wrong. I was so afraid of sewing the laptop sleeve too snug that I accidentally sewed it too roomy, and so now I'm pretending like I did it on purpose so that I can also sew our family ipad a protective sleeve, and then I can store the ipad in its sleeve inside the laptop sleeve with the laptop--it's that roomy!

Fortunately, nothing can salvage a poorly-sewn laptop sleeve like a freezer paper stenciled TARDIS.

the TARDIS stencil, originally a BBC freeware image, most recently and easily located at Crafty Lil' Thing

the finished TARDIS, with BLAIDD DRWG ("Bad Wolf" in Welsh, because I'm THAT big of a nerdy fangirl) cut out and ironed on, ready to paint

painted and drying--I had to hit the crafts store for TARDIS-blue Jaquard fabric paint, just so you know how far I'll go

...aaaaaaaaaaaand FINISHED!!! 

There you go--an homage to my current most favorite TV show, my most favorite character and plot line on that show, and a laptop sleeve that I like a lot now, even though it's secretly way too roomy for my laptop.

And in the Blink of an Eye...

...she's six!

We celebrated our girl with homemade rolled beeswax birthday candles--

--on top of Momma-made blue birthday bundt cake with chocolate frosting and heart-shaped sprinkles (love those post-Valentine's Day sales!):

Life, indeed, is sweet.

Homeschool Field Trip: Conner Prairie

Conner Prairie is an interactive living history museum in Indiana, near Indianapolis. William Conner lived there in the early 1800s, getting stinking rich off of fur trading with the Lenape Indians who lived near there for a time. Conner Prairie includes his house and homestead, a recreated Lenape Indian village, a recreated pioneer-era prairie village, a recreated Indiana village in the process of being raided by Confederate soldiers, and the recreation of an 1859 lighter than air balloon flight, and last week we all went to see it with one of our local homeschool groups.

The barn at the Conner homestead, with sheep and their lambs, goats and their kids, miniature horses and their foals, a few cats, and a calf or two just walking around and waiting to be petted

chopping wood at the prairie village--as a souvenir, the younger kid tried to haul away a chunk of wood as big as her head

playing games

doing chores

lots of stuff to look at

the older kid's two favorite exhibits were the general store, where she spent ages playing with a scale, some weights, and some nails, and the telegraph station, where she spent ages with a telegraph machine and a computer program on Morse code

experimenting with models of helium balloons

and, why yes indeed, riding in a giant helium balloon ourselves

As you can see, it was VERY exciting while the balloon lifted off. Once we were fully aloft, everybody got a good chance to look all around and the ride was quite peaceful:

with, of course, a lovely view

Interesting fact: the original 1859 balloon flight after which this attraction is modeled was not done using helium, nor hot air, but a lighter-than-air gas made from coal byproducts. I also learned that the Conner family sent away to South America for the spices that they used to dye their wool, and that the schoolchildren in that area used soapstone instead of chalk on their tablets, since soapstone was readily available and chalk was not, and when we happened upon a woman who had just finished making a salve good for cuts and burns, I called the older kid over and forced her to let the woman rub it on the knee she had just skinned, and the older kid didn't complain about that knee again for the rest of the day, either because it didn't hurt anymore after the salve or because she was afraid that if she did complain, I'd let another stranger rub weird-smelling crap on it.

the Lenape Indians were happy to let the younger kid use their mortar and pestle

and to let the whole family set off in their dugout canoe

back at the edge of the Conner homestead, the girls were rendered simply giddy at the sight of all that space!

Gift shop purchases=two new quill pen sets (I was supposed to ask my uncle to set aside some feathers for me during pheasant hunting season, but I forgot), one McGuffey's spelling book to add to the McGuffey's Eclectic Readers that my grandmother bought for me as a child, three sticks of candy (Matt ALWAYS buys candy in gift shops!), and one set of Melissa and Doug fuzzy horses.

I handled this field trip differently from most previous ones--instead of having the kids do a lot of prep work beforehand to establish context, we just...went! Although I'd still rather have done some reading and writing about the time period first (for some reason, this long-planned field trip snuck up on me!), I was pleased to see that the kids were so absorbed by the material on offer that I think that they'll be able to draw on it during our summer-long pioneer unit, which we'll begin bright and early next week.

This week, it's all about the International Fair, and the kids' project covering the continent of Africa. And then...a little break!

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, dog-walking mishaps, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!

Dolphin-Shaped Birthday Cake

Her daddy made her a dolphin cake for her birthday:

The cake is based on this dolphin-shaped cake, in that I baked the two 9" cakes that the tutorial calls for, then froze them overnight per my aunt's instructions that this would make them easier to carve (it did!), and attempted to show the tutorial to my partner so that he could duplicate it, but he had his own vision by that time, and the little kid adored his dolphin cake just as well, even if he didn't frost the sides. 

In the future, however, unless I have an actual template to trace, I'll likely just bake this kind of cake giant-sized in that giant cake pan right there, and then let my partner carve it out--easier, and we'll just have to deal with having all that extra cake, poor us.

Since the cake was irregularly shaped, it was quite amusing to cut:

And it fully met the approval of the birthday kid!

I've got our other dolphin birthday party ideas organized in my Dolphin Party Pinboard. Next up for July: Pirate Party!!!

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!

A Finished Waldorf Doll

A purchased pattern.

Lots of wool.

SO much hand-sewing (don't look too closely!).

The consultation of a very many Waldorf doll web tutorials and walk-throughs.

Another purchase:

Hair that already needs to be mended (sigh...).

Hallelujah, a massive wardrobe taken entirely from a collection of doll clothes previously owned (and sewn?) by the children's great-grandmother.

And the day before her birthday, her Waldorf doll was finished:

Sydney really, really loves her, in that kind of love that makes you carefully pack away the extras of the fabric and yarn that you used, because you know there are going to be some serious repair jobs coming your way one day soon.

Willow Has Discovered--

--softball!!!

And that's going to be our summer, I do believe.

Reading and "Writing"

Have I mentioned that my girl is learning to read? She's very phonetically inclined, so much so that she can spell MUCH better than her sister ("I think you left out the 'n' in 'January', Willow," she says), even if she can only read the phonograms that I've explicitly taught her:


However, although her code-breaking skills are still very limited, my girl is already a writer like her Momma (with a better imagination and better sense of pacing, too). Here's the epic work that she spent the better part of a week creating, staying up late and then sneaking it into bed with her after Dadda's patience finally collapsed of an evening, being excused from schoolwork to work on it by decree of the Momma, taking it with her in the car to get a few more pages done while running errands:


I'm sorry that her voice isn't as clear as it could be, but to be fair, that was probably the tenth time that she'd read that particular nine-minute book out loud that day. I'm also sorry that it's recited so down-tempo, with Willow falling asleep next to her, but it was also, for various reasons unrelated to our current story, vastly past the children's bedtime.

And, of course, the story isn't written down--the child can't write all those words, nor spell them, nor read them once written, quite yet. Instead, her work is relayed through the oral tradition, just as some of my favorite Anglo-Saxon and North tales were, so many millions of years ago when I studied them in grad school. As well, when I listen to her read her creation, my nerd-mind goes, quietly inside my head, "Oooh, a hero myth! Oooh, the archetype of the wanderer! OOOOH, a QUEST!!!"

Oooh, a monster with eleven eyes and two claws and it lives in a cave and wants to eat unicorns!

Waldorf Doll WIP: Second Round

Nope, I'm not counting how many hours it's taking to create my first Waldorf doll. But...let's just say I've been making a lot of progress on my Hulu queue.

Yep, Syd is watching me work. Her opinions change by the hour about the prospective length of her doll's hair (no matter what she eventually "decides", the doll's hair is going to be down to its feet, to commemorate Sydney's greatest wish to have the longest hair in the world).

Nope, I'm not pleased with how it's turning out; my hand-sewing is SO amateur-ish! But it does help that every time Sydney pops by to check in on my progress and spies her doll, her eye light up, she smiles a huge smile, and she exclaims in happiness and excitement. SHE doesn't think my hand-sewing is ugly.

beginning to embroider the eyes and mouth

finished face, with features both embroidered and drawn with beeswax crayons

machine-stitching to form the arms

arms sewn across the back of the shoulders

tracing the pattern for the body and legs

the torso pinned into place, ready to hand-sew

I'm hoping that it looks less like it wants to eat my face off after I add a full head of humanoid hair and put it into a homemade dress.

Waldorf Doll WIP

For the girls' birthdays this year, they are each going to receive (hopefully) one Momma-made Waldorf doll.

I could have made the same claim three years ago, because that's how long this project has been in my head, but I mean it this year. If I procrastinate much longer, I'll have lost the chance entirely to give Willow the doll during the period of her childhood when it can be a real playmate to her, and for Sydney, I think this is going to be a magical present.

If I get them made, of course.

The project, which I would have told you up until I actually began it was prohibitively difficult, is actually not so bad. It's complicated, yes, and my results are clearly far from perfect so far, but it's do-able, and the doll is turning out, if not perfect, quite acceptable.

I'm using the Magic Cabin doll pattern, but Cotton Waldorf Doll Skin Fabric from Weir Crafts--

--although if I want to make more Waldorf dolls beyond the three that I currently have the materials for, I'm hoping that I can source the fabric locally. This first time, it was just too hard to figure out exactly what to buy, so I bought the stuff specifically labeled for Waldorf dollmaking.

Using the pattern and a huge variety of online Waldorf dollmaking tutorials, my first doll has been coming together!

gathering the top of the head 

tucking it in

laying out a piece of wool to wrap the wool head stuffing in

forming a wool ball to stuff the head

head and shoulders ready to tie off

skin fabric stitched over the head, and pins to mark the features

skin fabric stitched over the top and back of the head (it will be covered by the hair)

Now all I have to do is sew the body, piece it together, stitch the details, embroider the facial features, construct the hair and sew it on, sew a dress, and ideally dye Sydney a pink play silk (one of the few colors she doesn't already have!) to wrap it in.

Oh, and her birthday is on Sunday.

P.S. I do have a Waldorf dollmaking pinboard, where I've been trying to collect all the good tips and tricks and tutorials and ideas that I come across, if you'd like to check it out.

Before the Ballet Recital

Here's my baby ballerina, just practically almost six years old, all costumed and ready to perform her role as a flower petal in our university's pre-college program ballet recital:

This is the same child who, on the way home from her sister's gymnastics class this evening, got so mad at me for taking away the ipad before she'd finished her drawing that she began to kick the back of my seat really hard over and over again, so I pulled into the parking lot of the nearest grocery store and told her that she had to get out of the car if she couldn't ride safely, so she jumped out of the car, barefoot, ran across the (empty, whew!) parking lot, in the rain, and hid behind a dumpster.

Fortunately, this type of behavior does not faze me, because I am from the South, y'all, so I, too, jumped out of the car, chased her down, hauled her back in, lectured her mightily, and drove her back home before she could, I don't know, attempt to throw herself out of the moving minivan or something.

I swear, that kid's TEMPER! I just don't know where she gets it from!

(ahem.)