Edible Chess: Food for the Mind AND the Tummy

My library copy of Candy Construction is a dangerous book to leave around when there are little readers about. We've already made the Rice Krispy Treat Christmas trees (perfection!) and the edible chocolate play dough (the messiest project that I've ever made, and it didn't even turn out that great, but I'm going to give it a second shot, anyway), and when Willow spied the edible chessboard, it didn't take long before Sydney and I were in the kitchen, mixing up a big batch of made-from-scratch brownies and a big batch of made-from-scratch blondies.

The brownies and blondies are supposed to be cut into perfect squares, then arranged in a chessboard pattern. Willow cut all the treats into (sort of) identical small squares--

--and then Matt helped them arrange the pieces into chessboard formation on our extra-large cutting board.

And then, to play!

 
Often, when Will and I play chess, Sydney wants to play, too. Sydney and I play as a team, and we take turns making the move when it's our turn. This evens out my play with Willow quite a bit, because I can guarantee you that if I have a tricky little trap set up, Sydney will sacrifice my queen or expose my king before I can spring it:

 It took a lot of persuasion to keep the girls from nibbling away the chessboard while we played just one game:

By the second game, we made up a rule that if a square gets eaten, then it no longer exists as part of the chessboard. That's a rule that's sure to liven things up! It has excellent strategic potential:

It probably wouldn't surprise you to discover that there wasn't enough chessboard left for a third game.

Best Friends

 
 
 
 
Life is especially good when you have a kitty to snuggle with on your way off to sleep.

Tutorial: Create a Custom Envelope for a Quirky Card

I have SO many envelopes in my stationery stash, and the real take-home lesson here is that the next time the girls make handmade cards, I will cut down the greeting card blanks that I make for them to the size of envelopes that I already own.

Fortunately, we have many half-used and abandoned handwriting sheets lying around (the children do enjoy copywork, correctly presented--more on that another time), and it is exactly that, or a similar large-format sheet of scrap paper, that will make you the perfect custom envelope for your own quirky card in about one minute.

First, lay the card centered on the paper, but closer to the bottom edge than I have pictured here:

Fold the sides in.

Fold the bottom up:

Fold the top down at first one corner--

 --and then the other:

Now go back and secure all the edges with double-sided tape. Also use double-sided tape to fold the top flap down over the envelope:

Ready to mail on Monday!

Poetry Speaks: "'Twas the Night before Christmas"

I have a mind that latches onto catchy verse and rhythm. Commercial television is hell for me, because I accidentally memorize every jingle--just ask me and I'll sing for you the "Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame-seed bun" song, and the Empire Carpet telephone number song (588-2300, Empiiiiiiiiiire!), and the Alka-Seltzer jingles, both old and new. I memorize every theme song to every television show, and every legible lyric to pretty much every song that I've ever listened to more than four times.

I also like to memorize poetry.

I wanted to share my love of poetry with my girls, and I also wanted them to begin early on to practice memory work as much as possible--an excellent memory is an invaluable ability, and the possession of an excellent memory will aid their lives and give them joy in who knows how many ways.

And so I've started this month with the plan to introduce to the girls one long poem each month. The poem has to be available in a picture book format (which many excellent poems are), because the key component of their memorization is the inclusion of this book every single night as part of their bedtime stories. For the first couple of weeks, Matt or I read the book out loud to the girls together. After the girls seem to start being familiar with it, we begin to do the book with each girl indepedently at bedtime, inviting her to recite the poem while looking at the pictures, and prompting her when necessary.

Driving around in the car is also a good place and time to ask a kid to recite, or to start reciting, myself, and we can all prompt each other. The girls adore this, by the way--it's very fun to show off what you know, don't you think?

With our current poem, "'Twas the Night before Christmas," I've shown the girls a couple of cartoons of the poem, and I downloaded for them an entire "'Twas the Night before Christmas" coloring book to color--both activities were nice, but not really critical. Much better was our visit to the Santa Claus storytime at the public library--one of the librarians recited "'Twas the Night before Christmas" to the auditorium full of children, and my kiddos, mistaking it for another of the sing-alongs that we'd just done to "Jingle Bells," recited the entire poem along with him. Loudly, to the amusement, fortunately, of the other moms around us.

Another nice benefit is that Willow has asked about the parts of the poem that she didn't understand, and so I got to explain metaphor with "the moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow," and simile with "as dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly."

Now that both girls have the poem almost memorized, they both enjoy reciting it while I videotape them, and then watching themselves. They do this over and over and over. It's at the point now where perhaps I'm secretly getting a little tired of "'Twas the Night before Christmas," but the girls are most definitely still in the groove, so on we go!

I really had meant this project to encourage Willow to memorize each poem, and Sydney, as always, was intended to just go along for the ride. I am deeply surprised, however (and thrilled!), to discover how much Sydney has, in fact, picked up. And so, for your consideration and Christmas cheer, I bring you Sydney's recitation of "'Twas the Night before Christmas":

Next month, I think we're going to do some Robert Frost. Or do you have a suggestion for something else that we'd like?

Three Squares a Day

Breakfast

 Leftover pasta with kale and a little nub of parmesan, perfect for grating over one's plate.

Lunch

 D.I.Y. peanut butter sandwich, with an orange for dessert.

Dinner

Pizza baked from scratch out of Magic Bread (bake the pizza for only 20 minutes, instead of the 30 minutes that a loaf of bread requires), with pesto made from my home-grown basil, more kale, pine nuts, soysage, and a cheese-stuffed crust to please the kiddos.

After dinner, the girlies tend to enjoy a little quiet mental work while the dad and I flip through the newspaper and gossip:

And that's how we are nourished today.

Cuisenaire Rod Computation: Addition and Multiplication

While grabbing arms-full of books at the close-out sale of our local Borders bookstore (RIP, Bloomington Borders), Willow asked me many questions about determining the price of a book at 40% off and at 60% off.

When a child asks questions about a particular topic, I take it as my responsibility to give her the tools to know more about that topic, whether it be peanut butter or Tibet (And guess what's on our to-do list for next week? Homemade peanut butter!). When a child asks a skills-based question, such as Will's questions about percentages, I take it as my responsibility to introduce her to the skills that she needs to solve such problems herself.

And that's why we've been sitting at the living room table lately, using our Cuisenaire rods to learn how to multiply. No, Willow doesn't know how to add or subtract two-digit numbers yet, or graph, or whatever there is on the first-grade institutionalized school curriculum--she's not interested in addition, subtraction, or graphing.

She's interested in multiplication and division, so that's what's up with us.

Cuisenaire rods take a little time to get used to, but they are perfect for all kinds of computational and other math concepts. We always start, when we play with them, by putting them into their stair-steps; this helps the girls remember what color is what length, which is important:

I'd like a second set of Cuisenaire rods to add to our stash, but with the ones that we do own, and with some Montessori manipulatives we own that illustrate the tens, hundreds, and thousands, we are all set.

The idea behind multiplication with the Cuisenaire rods is really pretty easy. First, you have to teach your kid how to read a multiplication problem. I teach Willow that a problem such as 2x2 means, "Two, two times." So then Willow finds the two bar, and lines up two of them. When she sees the rods laid out like that, she can often then work the problem in her head, but if she can't, she then lines up the centimeter cubes to the length of the rod. A two bar is two centimeters long, so you can line up two centimeter cubes to exactly fit each two bar.

Finally, Willow counts the number of centimeter cubes (we call a cube "one unit"). The total number is her answer, which she writes down to solve the equation:

Sydney gets the same work, but her problems are illustrated by arithmetic, not multiplication:

Once the girls have had more practice, I'll introduce skip-counting and mathematical tables, and then Syd can start on subtraction and Will can start on division.

And then Will will be able to calculate sale prices all by herself.

Bazaar Bizarre Cleveland 2010

Whew!

Prepping for Bazaar Bizarre Cleveland added a CRAZY amount of pre-holiday stress to my pre-holiday stress, from trying to craft extra-large multiples of everything to figuring out how to cram all my stuff onto a table display to the 6.5-hour drive late at night, but it was so worth it.

The lights were customizable:

This allowed us to perfectly spotlight everything from the felted wool Christmas trees--

--to the crayon rocket pops:

And all that was left was to get a perfect picture with my sweet, sweetly-smiling little kids:

Oh, well.

While I sold my butt off and gossiped with my neighbor, JukeBoxArt, Matty and the kids hung out at the Great Lakes Science Center and the Children's Museum of Cleveland, and did a lot of swimming. They came back to Bizarre Bazaar to do a little shopping, since I had taken great care to instruct the children to tell their daddy that they really, really, REALLY wanted to buy a Christmas present for me at Bazaar Bizarre. Having kids is so great!

One thing that I love about big indie craft fairs is how awesome EVERYTHING is. Whenever Matt drops by, he'll watch the booth for a while so that I can stretch my legs, look around, and visit a little, and I swear, at every single table that I pass, I want to buy everything on that table. At one point, the organizer got on the intercom to announce that an item had been found in the women's restroom.

"If anyone lost a glass bracelet with the Seven Deadly Sins on it, please come to the information table," she said. And I swear, every single person at the craft fair (including me) stopped and was all, "Ooh! Seven Deadly Sins! Did she buy that here?"

I still want that bracelet, actually...

Bound for Cleveland

I have been crafting my butt off, in what often seems like ten-second intervals, to get a ton of stuff and all my infrastructure prepped for Bazaar Bizarre Cleveland tomorrow. Ten-second intervals, of course, is what I get between helping make Rice Crispy Christmas trees, baking bread, setting up science experiments (and cleaning up after them), setting up art projects (and cleaning up after them), reading books out loud, setting up the telescope (and putting it away), chilling at the playground, chilling at the library, taking the girls Christmas shopping, taking the girls to playdates, taking the girls to ballet class and ice skating class, etc., etc., etc.

I never get nearly as much done as I want to, and not quite as much done as I need to, but here's what I did get done. I've got--

Rocket Pop Crayons 

Felted Wool Sweater Trees

--and travel felt playmats, six different felt playsets, comic book pinback buttons, dictionary cut-out pinback buttons, record bowls, coffee cup chia kits, colored pencil roll-ups, tutus, I Spy quilts, blue jean quilts, and T-shirt quilts.

Think I have enough? Well, it has to be enough, because we're leaving in two hours, and I still have to pack, pack the girls' stuff, pack the craft fair stuff, write another CAGW blog post, make lunch (and clean up after it), laminate some signs, find my favorite hoodie...

Etc., etc., etc.

Field Trip to Tibet

You might not know that Bloomington, our hometown, has a special place in its heart for Tibet. The brother and some other family of His Holiness the Dalai Lama live here, which means that not only does he visit pretty often and we get to see him, but we have a kick-ass Tibetan Mongolian Buddhist Cultural Center. The other day, a group of Gomang monks visited the cultural center, on a teaching and fund-raising tour from their own monastery in South India, and homeschoolers were invited to spend the day with them.

Does that sound amazing? It was.

When you meet someone who genuinely loves and understands children, you know it, and your children know it. My girls LOVED the monks, and the monks seemed to love them, too. Sydney was not at all taken aback the first time that a monk scooped her up into his arms--she understands that being the center of one's attention is her rightful place in this world. Nobody attempted to scoop up Willow, who's a little more of a handful, but the monks, not many of whom could share many words in conversation with her, seemed to appreciate how seriously she took each of the projects that they all did together.

They made little prayer flags together:

Sydney ended up wearing hers, and this was acceptable:

The sand art was a huge hit. This one monk in particular took Willow aside and spent the longest time focusing with her on the technique involved in the practice, and my usually VERY prickly around strangers little girl just soaked it all in contentedly:

My most favorite part of this day, however, is checking back in with Willow several minutes later and finding her, lesson concluded, studiously drawing away with her sand tools and her instructor, like any proud mamma, snapping photo after photo:

Sydney also got the hang of sand art:

The girls also got to try "butter sculpture" with the monks, although thankfully they used play dough instead of butter.

Guess who made these?

Not us! Although the monk who created the horse, above, did give his creation to Willow at the end of the day. She was THRILLED. Of course, I like the horse that she created even more:

After the exciting morning, there was a break for lunch, after which the monks intended to do some chanting and dancing and other performances for us. I contemplated leaving at lunch, because chanting and ceremonial dance can sometimes be a little, um...slow.

Ultimately, I opted to stay, which was a VERY smart choice, because among the performances that the monks wanted to show us was something called The Snow Lion Dance. First, a monk enchanted the children with a description of the mythical snow lion. Then, from out of another room and into the performance space, danced--

--The Snow Lion!!! All the children were absolutely hysterical with delight (I thought it was pretty awesome, too). The Snow Lion danced around to the music of the drum and cymbal, then as the music slowed down it lay down and was about to fall asleep. Just as its eyes drifted shut, the music hit another crescendo, and the snow lion shot awake and bounded up to dance some more. The children laughed so hard at this that the snow lion repeated these moves several times.

All the children were sitting in a large group on the floor of the hall, with adults around the perimeter. In the next part of the dance, all of a sudden the Snow Lion leapt and danced right into the middle of the group of children. The children scattered, shrieking and laughing and tumbling all over each other, only to race right back when the Snow Lion settled down amongst them and almost fell asleep again:

The children patted the Snow Lion as it drifted off, but then the music hit another crescendo, and the Snow Lion leapt to its feet and scattered the children again. The children all shrieked and ran around as the Snow Lion danced blissfully in their midst. At one point Willow couldn't get away in time and I watched the Snow Lion turn in a circle, Willow directly underneath it doing her best duck-and-cover between its front and back legs.

It was basically the best time that they'd ever had in their lives.

We don't do as much "peace work" together as the girls did at Montessori, and I'm not a good peaceful role model: I scream, I blame other people for my own faults, I don't give money to beggars on the street, I rarely make eye contact with those with whom I am not intimate. But I want the girls to be peaceful, and to want peace for others. I want the girls to hate war, to fight injustice, to love peacemakers. I want them to be able to find Tibet on the map:

On this day, I did a good job with that.

Cookie Solar System

Most days, the girls and I do a project together at some point in the day. The girls have numerous ongoing pursuits--Magic Tree House, dinosaurs, ballet, space, the desert biome, Tibet, etc.--and I usually have a few projects relating to these subjects, or to stuff that I'd like them to do (nature activities, art projects, science experiments), or to stuff that needs to be done (bread baking, pumpkin preserving, holiday prep) already figured out, with materials obtained and instructions at the ready, for whenever the mood hits.

Some days, the mood never hits. Some days, Willow reads all day, and Sydney plays JumpStart all day. Some days, they just play all day. Some days, we all decide to have a Land of the Lost marathon.

Other days, however, we just may do something extraordinary.

Like this day, when we made a cookie solar system.

The idea for our cookie solar system came from the article "Cosmic Cuisine" in the July-August 2010 issue of Home Education Magazine, which I read at the library. The article was handy because I was able to copy all the pertinent numbers from it into my planner (where most extraordinary ideas reside until their time comes for fruition), but really, it wouldn't be hard to recreate: let the diameter of the Earth=1", then adjust the diameter of all the other planets accordingly. Give each planet the correct number of moons, but do not attempt to measure distance from each other or from the sun, and don't attempt to recreate the sun. If Earth=1", then the sun is as big as your kitchen. It's bigger than my kitchen.

The girls and I used our favorite vegan sugar cookie recipe from Vegan Cookies Take Over Your Cookie Jar (I actually just got this book for free from Amazon thanks to my swagbucks, so the library can FINALLY have its copy back), and I made the vegan icing from John & Kristie again. Srsly, that is THE best icing to use with this, on account of it dries so nice and firm.

I divided the icing into four parts, and used professional-quality food coloring to do each of the primary colors, and I left one part white. With that, we can do EVERY color that we'll need!

Yes, you can see cookie Jupiter in that photo. Yes, it is over 11" in diameter. 'Nough said about how cool this project is?

With their research books and vividly-colored illustrations at their sides, the girls got to work:

 Syd did Neptune while Will worked on Jupiter, and Jupiter took so long that Syd got to do Saturn, too:

Since it was afternoon by the time we finished decorating the cookies, I decided that we'd use the afternoon sun shining through our living room window as The Sun. One by one, Willow read the entry for each planet out loud from her research guide--

--and then we place it in its spot:

Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars (and a little of the asteroid belt)



Jupiter, with its Many Moons and its Cookie-Crumb Ring

Saturn, Also with Lots of Moons and an Even Better Ring

 Uranus and Neptune

 It was such a beautiful art installation, there on the table in the evening sun--

--that it was almost half an hour before we could bring ourselves to eat it.

Most delicious solar system EVER!

P.S. We're doing weird stuff like this ALL the time. Want to follow along? Follow me on Facebook!