Peden Farm's Children's Farm Festival

The Peden family, one of our oldest local farming families, proved again that they are endowed with unsurpassable bravery and stamina--seriously, would YOU invite hundreds of small children onto your property, let them play with your animals and trample your grass, spend two days listening to their noise?

This is my children's favorite field trip of the entire year (in case you're curious, I bring my nookstocked with library books!). Here they are at Peden Farm three years ago:

And here they are last week!

The leaf rubbing is Will's favorite station. She makes a complete set every year.

Syd asked the docent if deer walked on their tiptoes like this leg suggests, and got a lesson on tendons!

I chatted with an entomologist about humane euthanasia of insects (freezer, then killing jar) and got some recommended reading!

That guy dresses exactly like my Pappaw. Exactly. Just substitute a Dixie Cup ball cap.

Don't worry--that poor child has several pairs of pants that fit her now.

They put the big electrician's gloves on the kids and then challenge them to pick up a dime.

pneumatic limestone carving

Will says that she'll stick to hand carving, thank you very much!

One of the interesting things about this festival is that although all children are invited, other than homeschoolers, only the younger grades of schoolchildren and preschoolers generally attend. And yet every year that my kids have attended since they, themselves, were preschoolers, they've remained enthralled by the same exhibits, while bring to each a larger context and coming away with a greater understanding:

This year, the kids were able to solve the nail puzzle.
This year, Will has experience with hand-carving limestone to contrast with pneumatic carving.
This year, a docent on the hayride pointed out to us a cave and former limestone quarry on the property.
This year, we learned how much a round bale of hay weighs (approximately 1,200 pounds!).
This year, Syd didn't just play with the water pump, but asked how it worked--and got an explanation!

Next year, the swarm of other children gathered with mine around each exhibit will likely be even shorter compared to them, but I still don't think that I'll have to worry about my kids being bored, or finding the programming babyish. I'm lucky to have kids who can soak in experiences, all kinds of experiences, and wonder at them, and be enthralled by them, and take something new from them every single time.

Writing the Four-Character Chinese Idioms

Along with memorizing the dates of the development and standardization of the Chinese writing system, I wanted the kids to get a little practice with Chinese calligraphy. They watched several of this animated series of cartoons illustrating Chinese four-character idioms (quite similar to our Aesop's fables and their morals), and then used this Chinese idioms worksheet to practice writing them.

I gave the kids small round paintbrushes and black craft acrylic paint to write with (although how cool would a real calligraphy set be?!?), and had them first use tracing paper to simply trace the four-character idioms, which fortunately are printed very large on the worksheet:

We didn't fuss about the proper order of brush strokes, but I pointed out the varying thicknesses of the strokes, and asked the children to recreate each character as accurately as possible.

I also asked them to set aside the tracing paper at some point and make an effort to copy the characters by themselves:

The kids spent ages doing multiple copies of these four-character idioms (yay!), and were really pleased with how they turned out. I added their best copies to our Ancient China wall display, which I actually have to move somewhere else, on account of our HUGE map of China (Thank you, Red Cross Book Sale Free Morning) won't fit there. 

I seriously thought about ordering silkworms for our lesson on silk next week (did you know that you could do this? Crazy!), but I just do not want to support a population of silkworms indefinitely through the winter, so I think I'll let the kids paint play silks, instead. 

Work Plans for the Week of October 6, 2014: Fall Break (for the other Kids)

Here's the link to this week's work plans.

MONDAY: The public schools in our district have a week-long fall break this week, which means that lots of local places are offering school-age programming. Yay! On this day, I actually sent the kids away to the day camp that our local parks and recreation department offers. It's your pretty basic, run-of-the-mill day camp, but the counselors are all college students who seem to have endless amounts of patience and enthusiasm, and it's based in an elementary school, so the kids eat in the cafeteria and play on the playground, stand in line, wait their turn, etc. They also go on field trips, play group games, complete bizarre craft projects, and do just about a million other things between the hours of 8 and 5. I absolutely count this as a school day.

TUESDAY: Today was a little more hectic than it appears, since we spent much of the morning at the free morning of a HUGE book sale that our local chapter of the Red Cross does ever year. Seriously, it's an Event! And there are so many books there--like, two warehouse's worth--that even on the free morning, there are fabulous books that have just been... overlooked. This morning I found, among many other wonderful treasures, four volumes of the A History of US set that I've been using as a US history spine. I mean, seriously yay!

Considering that there was also a magic/juggling/ventriloquism show at the library that the kids were practically vibrating with excitement about, I purposefully made the schoolwork for this day more efficient than usual. The older kid is still practicing long division in Math Mammoth--she keeps putting the second digit of the quotient in the wrong place, then shouting "I don't understand this!"--and the younger kid, thanks to the fact that I forced her to memorize her multiplication facts last year since I was already bullying the older kid through them, is breezing through her multiplication unit, also in Math Mammoth.

We didn't have internet at home on Tuesday, so the kids didn't actually do their Spelling City, but they did both do an excellent job copying their spelling words into cursive--the kids practice spelling every day as part of their memory work, but spelling words also make for good cursive practice.

The younger kid worked more on her City of Rocks Junior Ranger badge, and may have finished it. The older kid spent that whole time being pissed off at long division, so she'll work on her Redwoods State and National Parks Junior Ranger badge another time.

The older kid did take a break from long division so that we could all read the farming chapter from Ancient China, then the younger kid set up our mini rice farm in a bucket. That night, we went to our natural foods co-op for their freshest, wholest-looking rice, and then the older kid planted it! The kids are memorizing the dates of early farming in Ancient China (aproximately 8000-2205 BCE, if you're curious), to go along with this. I've really loved this study of Ancient China through the lens of its artifacts, by the way--perfect combo of history, timeline memorization, and hands-on projects!

WEDNESDAY: We woke up at 6:00 am to bundle up, drag a bunch of blankets over to the drive-in, and lay and watch the lunar eclipse--we also saw two meteors, two artificial satellites, and many, many constellations! I've been waiting for years for the kids to show enough interest in astronomy to support a science unit; since we've also got a partial solar eclipse in our area in a couple of weeks, it may be time to finish up paleontology and jump on astronomy while it's hot!

Our current Girl Scout Co-op unit is Dance, and another mom is having the kids over on this morning to learn historical fad dances. Can you imagine anything any more fun than that? I'm pretty excited to see what they'll cover.

We've finished our Oregon Trail/pioneer history unit, but there are still a dozen or so library books on our shelves. It's mostly housecleaning to have the kids look through that remainder, but I know that they'll enjoy the chance to just lounge about and read and call it school.

THURSDAY: For years, I've wanted to show the kids how amazing it is to simply fill a pumpkin with potting soil, water it, and then watch the pumpkin seeds sprout. I don't know if it'll actually work at this time of year, or if I'll just be hosting a moldy, dirt-filled pumpkin on top of my chest freezer, but we'll see, I suppose! It makes a fun little segue so that we can briefly review some botany, anyway--I've got a Girl Scout Co-op unit on Flowers to arrange in just a couple of weeks!

God, I'm starting to hate First Language Lessons. I think I'm just going to skip the rest of the MANY chapters on the uses of adverbs--seriously, the kids get it!--and see if that makes me want to bang my head against the wall a little less.

The university program that I had intended for my children to take language classes through had their funding delayed, and their class schedule is still not up, sigh. I hadn't intended to take this long of a hiatus from foreign language study. I've checked out the other titles in the Song School series from the library, and I've decided that for the time being, we'll review the Song School Latin vocab, and then study Song School Spanish and Song School Greek to learn the same vocabulary in those languages. That, at least, will be an excellent spine for future foreign language study.

I've signed the children up to take the AMC 8 exam next month. It's vastly too advanced for them, but it will be excellent practice for future years, when they'll be more competitive, and it will also be excellent practice for taking standardized exams. Nevertheless, the kids should each be able to handle a problem or two, and make a good stab at some others, so I've set aside a spot each week to go over a couple of problems from past exams with them and demonstrate how to solve them using models. As an aside, I've inter-library loaned much of the Beast Academy series through our university library, and I'm eager to peruse it.

FRIDAY/SATURDAY/SUNDAY: I cherish our free day each week, and I usually try not to have any extracurriculars or outside activities on that day, but this is just a busy week, and this week's free Friday will be broken up by an assessment for the kids' upcoming ice skating classes.

On Saturday, my partner will be taking both kids to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for a Girl Scout event--they're going to get to ride their bikes AROUND THE TRACK! How cool is that!?! I'm torn, because I kind of want to call and see if I can still sign up to attend, too, but I can also get a lot done during an entire day home alone, and I feel better about getting stuff done if I know that the kids are doing something fun and engaging elsewhere. So, yeah... we'll see.

Chess club is the only scheduled activity for Sunday, but we've also got to get our chicken coop insulated before the cold weather really hits, so the rest of the day may likely involve much woodwork, some swears, many trips to the hardware store, etc.

You're not going to believe it, but next week is even busier!

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!

My Latest: Dollhouses, Pumpkins, and Pants

a round-up of pumpkin recipes

a round-up of dollhouse projects

and a tutorial for adding knee patches to pants as you're sewing them

These pants were *supposed* to be for the big kid, but as the first pair of pants that I've sewn her since her recent series of growth spurts, I measured only her waist size, NOT her hip size, and therefore the poor kid couldn't actually get them on!

And that's how it's the younger kid here who's showing off what then became HER brand-new pair of pants:

Unfortunately, that plain blue was the only length of flannel that I had in my stash that was somewhat normal, so the five or so pairs of pants that I did eventually manage to sew for the older kid are significantly louder and more chaotic, but fortunately, my kid is pretty loud and chaotic, herself, and she loves them. 

And if anyone in town ever sees a lost kid who's wearing flannel pants that are pink with horses on one leg and grey with butterflies on the other, or are blue with checks on one leg and blue with stripes on the other, then it will immediately be clear who she belongs to!

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!

DIY Junior Ranger Vest

If you've been following along at home, then you know by now that the kids, especially Will, looooooove the Junior Ranger program! Over the summer, they earned Junior Ranger badges at the Badlands, Mount Rushmore, Devils Tower, and Yellowstone, Since then, they've earned their Junior Paleontologist badges (that we mailed in), and currently, Will is working through the badge book for Redwood National and State Parks, and Syd is working through the badge book for City of Rocks--we'll mail those in when they're finished, too.

Used to the Girl Scouts, where she displays every accomplishment on a vest, Will asked me to make her a Junior Ranger vest as a place to display all of her Junior Ranger badges. I used her Girl Scout vest as a template for the basic pattern, but made the actual vest more of a nature vest in style:

On her right shoulder is an American flag, and below that I'd like to put a Junior Ranger patch, when I can actually find one. The pocket below that is large enough to hold a Junior Ranger book--it'll be handy for her to not have to carry that around in her hands!

There's space on the pockets for some of her badges and patches--I know that Will would like to wear them all, but that's going to get clickety-clackety and unwieldy at some point, so when that happens I plan to make her a wall display and have her keep most of her badges there.

The small pocket on the left side is for keeping contained various small treasures--you can't take souvenirs from national parks, of course, but if she wears it elsewhere as a nature vest, she'll want a spot for crinoids and rocks and snail shells and such.

The big pocket on the left side will hold a set of colored pencils, small sketch pad, ruler, etc.

On the inside, even with the bottom hem, I've sewn several loops out of matching webbing. These, with the addition of carabiners, can be used to hold Will's water bottle, flashlight, infrared thermometer (we own this one, the same model that Will was given to use while earning her Yellowstone Young Scientist badge), and whatever else she might need while out on adventures. 

Here's a gratuitous image of Spots supervising my photo shoot:

And here's the kid!

That's a PVC pipe sword that she's holding, made with her own two hands. If you invite her to your birthday party, she'll probably make one for you, too!

I'm already worried that I didn't put enough growth into this vest, because Will has apparently decided to make a habit out of growing like a weed. There's no helping it now, of course, but I won't make the same mistake with Syd's pink Junior Ranger vest, on the list to be made after I finish sewing Will some flannel pants for fall (I also discovered this morning that I have to buy her a new pair of khakis for Girl Scouts, as I was forced to send her to her airplane workshop in black sweats with leopard spots on them--growing like a WEED, this girl!).

Kid Loves Unicorns

I find still lifes like these all over the house, all the time. Mostly I study them for a few minutes and then pass them by, but once in a blue moon I'll happen to have my camera in my hands, and then I'll photograph them:

This kid LOVES unicorns!

Halloween Bean Bags

My kids looooooove bean bags. While we were moving, I uncovered a stash of a few cuts of Halloween-themed fabric, so I made them a set of Halloween bean bags, and another couple of sets for my pumpkin+bear etsy shop.

A major part of making a shop listing is the photo shoot. Fortunately, the kids also enjoy helping with this:

Syd made this set-up look "like a lollipop."

 Of course, with bean bags, you've got to get an action shot!

When the kids were small, I used to make things for my pumpkin+bear etsy shop that were copies of things that I made for them. I still do this, of course, but I'm pleased at how much more helpful they are now with these listings, and I'm looking forward to a time when, hopefully, the kids will be creating their own handicrafts to list.

Work Plans for the Week of September 29, 2014: Out and About

I got to feeling burned out with homeschooling last week, and thought that I might make this week either a "Project Week" or simply a math, cursive, and journal week, but then I actually looked at my planner, and saw how many outside activities the kids are going to be engaged in--homeschooling around those made lesson planning dead simple this weekend, and should make for a school week that gives us all lots of breaks between the work for extracurriculars.

MONDAY: Right now, for instance, the kiddos are downstairs at one of our community centers having a folk dancing class; this is part of our Girl Scout co-op, and will count towards Syd's Dancer badge. Yay, PE! After their workshop, we'll read and play board games here for a bit, and then go straight over to our volunteer gig. Then there's more horse breed and horse breed geography research (the kids use this Smithsonian horse encyclopedia and CultureGrams for this research, and then we search Youtube together for relevant videos), and for cursive, spelling word copywork. I'd wanted to delete spelling as a discrete subject and move it to our daily memory work, but I almost immediately discovered that memory work works best in the car, and so that dang cursive is back. If the spelling word copywork works well, however, perhaps I can at least combine spelling/cursive into the same slot.

Lapbooks have never worked well for us, but I've been wanting, for a while now, to introduce the idea of a math notebook that the kids would make themselves and then could consult for reference about, say, Roman numerals, or how exactly one borrows across zeros when subtracting. This weekend, looking for a way to have Will review simple division and Syd review simple multiplication, I found lapbooks for both multiplication and division. I copied them and set them aside, with blank notebooks, into their Monday drawer, and voila! We have math notebooks!

TUESDAY: The kids have a horse show next month, so preparation for that is occupying much of their weekly horseback riding lessons. We'll do more spiral form drawing for art, and this week's Math Mammoth is more simple multiplication for Syd and more long division for Will, so no review day needed--I'm sure we'll have to go back to review days after Will moves on to the next unit, though, so they're not gone for good.

Choosing a Junior Ranger badge to earn is one subject that just did not happen last week--that was the day, I think, that both kids piddled around contentedly at the table and made half an hour of math take more like three hours; seriously, I lost my patience with schoolwork that day loooong before they did. We'll try it this week, instead, because I do think that they're going to like it, and it's going to be a valuable way to study geography.

Will has Robotics Workshop on alternate Tuesdays (they're using LEGO Mindstorms, which I'm pretty sure that someone needs to buy ME to play with, too!), so I planned to have Syd and I do a special craft project together during that time; she sometimes has a playdate then, but if so, this marshmallow pop project will be easy to move to our free day, or even the weekend.

WEDNESDAY: A field trip to a local farm that hosts a children's farm festival will occupy this day until mid-afternoon; there should be lots of active, outdoor free play during that time, so I don't feel *too* badly about the kids going home and then having their online Magic Tree House Club meeting just a couple of hours later, and then being fed dinner and shipped off to their LEGO Club meeting.

THURSDAY: I only managed to schedule one First Language Lessons unit this week, but we continue our study of Ancient China through the lens of its artifacts by watching Chinese folktales, and then practicing the four-character Chinese idioms based on those tales. I'd like the kids to be able to recreate one idiom from memory, and I'll be adding some significant dates for Ancient China's development of their writing system to our daily memory work.

Will is ready to start a new Girl Scout badge (I've got a few extra things that I'd like her to do relating to her Inside Government badge, but I didn't want to start them this week--we just don't have enough at-home time for an extensive seat-work project), but I've planned for Syd to hike around the woods behind our house and complete a "bug census" on the woods' inhabitants.

FRIDAY: Free day!!!

SATURDAY/SUNDAY: Syd has ballet, and then Matt will be taking both kids directly from there to Indianapolis, where they have an afternoon Girl Scout workshop about aircraft engineering; they're going to get some hands-on experience with small planes at the actual airport, culminating in an actual flight! I am really, really, really excited for them.

Our weekdays were already so busy that I moved the kids' aerial silks class to Sunday, which means that Matt will get to take them and actually watch their class for a change; I think he's going to be quite impressed!

Now, next week is another week busy with activities--it's the public schools' fall break, so there's lots of school-age programming at the library, and a day camp, etc.--so that week might actually BE a math, journal, and cursive week. I'm already looking forward to it!