A Parent Library for Your School?

This was the last thing that I had to do:
Because of course the Parent Library that I set up at the girls' school this year must have a crafty sign. My contributions to the sign are the letters, cut from scrapbook paper and cardstock using the Winter Wonderland Cricut cartridge (during which time I also made the girls approximately one thousand dancing reindeer and stylized bunnies, and also several 3D stand-up trees). Willow's contributions include a background of Do-a-Dot marker; button, rhinestone, and googly eye embellishments--

--and her name in pencil, which I TOLD her not to do, but the kid just can't seem to help herself. After three years in school, she writes her name on everything that she does.

I highly recommend the installation of a parent library in your kid's school. The library, which in our case is a very large bookshelf in the school office, consists of parenting books, books about schooling and child development, and books in enrichment areas, but the key is that all of these books are endorsed by the school. Can't figure out which book touting which discipline method you should read? If you trust your kid's teachers, why not check out the one that they like? Without this library, I would have never known that the Montessori teachers at this school, as a group, are ADDICTED to the Positive Discipline series. Between all the head teachers, I think that they own every title. And it's a good series. I like it.

It wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be to come up with a pretty large collection of titles for the library. One month, I attended the early morning head teachers meeting, during which time I explained the concept of what I wanted this parent library to be. I told the teachers that I imagined that they likely found themselves talking about the same issues with parents over and over--ADD, perhaps, or sleep discipline, or cliques. With a Parent Library in the building, the teachers could request that books be added on those issues, particularly their favorite books to recommend, and then whenever they speak to a parent, they can send them over to the library to read a particular book. The teachers were pretty excited, and had LOTS of suggestions for books to include.

To squeeze some extra books into my very small library budget, I also asked the teachers for any books they'd be willing to move from their private collections in their own workrooms to the parent library bookshelf. Each of the teachers, based on their own classroom experiences, had collected a large assortment of books, everything from books on bipolar children to the bullying of girls, and depending, of course, on what ages they taught. If they moved a book from their private shelf to the parent library, they would still have access to that book (although not necessarily immediately, because it could be checked out, but could also easily be recalled), and it would free up some space in their work areas. I received stacks upon stacks of books this way, including that entire Positive Discipline series. And then I didn't have to go back to the teachers to double-check that they endorsed any of these particular books, as I did with the independent purchases--if a teacher has a book in her own collection, it's endorsed.

Here's an example of what the Parent Library now contains:

ABOUT MONTESSORI

• · The Absorbent Mind by Maria Montessori.
• · The Essential Montessori by Elizabeth Hainstock. 1986
• · Maria Montessori: Methods, Schools, Materials. 1978
• · Montessori: A Modern Approach by Paula Polk Lillard. 1972 (2 copies)
• · The Montessori Revolution in Education by E.M. Standing. 1969
• · Our Peaceful Classroom by Aline D. Wolf.
• · The Secret of Childhood by Maria Montessori. 1966
• · To Educate the Human Potential by Maria Montessori. 1985

CHILD DEVELOPMENT

• · All About Attention Deficit Disorder: Symptoms, Diagnosis and Treatment by Thomas W. Phelan. 2000
• · Asperger’s Syndrome: A Guide for Parents and Professionals by Tony Attwood. 2003
• · Awakening Your Child’s Natural Genius by Thomas Armstrong. 1991
• · Baby and Child Care by Benjamin Spock. 1968
• · The Bipolar Child: The Definitive and Reassuring Guide to Childhood’s Most Misunderstood Disorder by Demitri Papolos and Janice Papolos. 2002
• · The Child Under Six by James L. Hymes, Jr. 1963
• · The Difficult Child by Stanley Turecki. 2000
• · The Emotional Life of the Toddler by Alicia F. Lieberman. 1993
• · The First Three Years of Life by Burton L. White. 1975
• · How to Parent by Fitzhugh Dodson.
• · How to Parent so Children will Learn by Sylvia B. Rimm. 1990
• · Living with the Active Alert Child by Linda S. Budd. 1993
• · Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls by Rachel Simmons. 2002
• · Odd Girl Speaks Out by Rachel Simmons. 2004
• · Please Understand Me: Character and Temperament Types by David Keirsey and Marilyn Bates. 1984
• · Raising Self-Reliant Children in a Self-Indulgent World by H. Stephen Glenn and Jane Nelson. 2000
• · Sexual Development in Childhood. 2003
• · Tics and Tourette Syndrome: A Handbook for Parents and Professionals by Uttom Chowdhury. 2004
• · Understanding the Human Being by Silvana Quattrocchi Montanaro. 1991
• · The Wonder of Boys by Michael Gurian. 1997
• · Your Eight-Year-Old: Lively and Outgoing by Ames and Haber. 1990
• · Your Four-Year-Old: Wild and Wonderful by Louise Bates Ames, PhD, and Frances L. Ilg. 1976
• · Your Six-Year-Old: Loving and Defiant by Ames and Ilg. 1976
• · Your Two-Year-Old: Terrible or Tender by Ames and Ilg. 1976

EDUCATION AND SCHOOLING

• · A.D.D. and Creativity by Lynn Weiss. 1997
• · Beyond A.D.D by Thom Hartmann. 1996
• · Fundamentals of Early Childhood Education by Melodie A. McCarthy and John P. Houston. 1980
• · Marching to Different Drummers by Pat Burke Guild and Stephen Garger. 1985
• · Montessori in the Home: The Preschool Years by Elizabeth G. Hainstock. 1968
• · Positive Discipline: A Teacher’s A-Z Guide by Jane Nelsen. 2001
• · Ready to Learn: A Mandate for the Nation by Ernest L. Boyer. 1992
• · Setting Limits in the Classroom: How to Move Beyond the Dance of Discipline in Today’s Classroom by Robert J. MacKenzie. 2003
• · Skill Streaming the Elementary School Child by McGinnis and Goldstein. 1984
• · Teaching Children with Autism: Strategies to Enhance Communication and Socialization by Kathleen Ann Quill. 1995
• · Wishes, Lies, and Dreams: Teaching Children to Write Poetry by Kenneth Koch. 1971

MONTESSORI LIFESTYLE

• · Chicken Soup for the Kid’s Soul. 1998
• · Children: The Challenge by Rudolf Dreikurs. 1964
• · The Discipline Book by William Sears and Martha Sears. 1995
• · Girl Wars: 12 Strategies that Will End Female Bullying by Cheryl Dellasega. 2003
• · Growing Up Again by Jean Illsley Clarke and Connie Dawson. 1998
• · The New York Times Parents’ Guide to the Best Books for Children by Eden Ross Lipson. 1988
• · P.E.T.: Parent Effectiveness Training by Dr. Thomas Gordon. 1975
• · Peaceful Children, Peaceful World by Aline D. Wolf. 1989
• · Playful Parenting by Lawrence J. Cohen. 2001
• · Positive Discipline A-Z by Jane Nelsen, Lynn Lott, and H. Stephen Glenn. 2007
• · Positive Discipline: The First Three Years by Jane Nelsen, Cheryl Erwin, and Roslyn Ann Duffy. 2007
• · Positive Discipline for Preschoolers by Jane Nelsen, Cheryl Erwin, and Roslyn Ann Duffy. 2007
• · Positive Time-Out: And Over 50 Ways to Avoid Power Struggles in the Home and Classroom by Jane Nelsen. 1999
• Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls by Mary Pipher. 2001

The library still needs some books about tween boys and the rest of the works of Maria Montessori, but for this year, at least, its budget is tapped out.

The gold standard check-out procedure for a library this small is to write the title/author of each book on its own index card, and alphabetize it in a card file. When parents want to check out a book, they print their first and last name and the date they took the book on the card. When they return the book, they note that date, as well. If the school needs a particular book back for any reason, they have all the parent telephone numbers on file, so they can call the parents, or just grab them at pick-up. And I rubber-stamped the school name and address on the inside cover of each book, just in case somebody forgets where their book came from.

Over the long-term (which I won't be around for), I would have liked to have provided a few take-home Montessori materials for the library, and a collection of Montessori-endorsed children's books (they're real big on peace, you know). But for this project for this year, I'm afraid that I'm just going to have to stick a fork in it, and hope that next year's librarian will have some bigger and better ideas.

And perhaps I'll write my name in pencil somewhere, too.

Day at the Park

In the morning, perhaps there are ineptly homemade waffles (perhaps the veganization? Next time, will just use recipe for vegan waffles), lots of amateur guitar playing, some on the computer, books read together and alone, seeds planted, an episode of The Magic School Bus, and the most minimal amount of housework conceivable, but in the afternoon, we pack a backpack with more things than surely anyone needs when their destination is less than a block away, and we spend five hours at the park:
Repeat daily while there's warmth and sunlight, and when there's not, go to the library.

Betsy McCall, My Paper Doll

Sydney has a new passion these days. She has always been extremely into character-driven imaginary play, leading her not only into a love of media figures such as Land Before Time or My Little Pony, but also into a far bigger enjoyment of things like dolls, little animal figures, and princess/fairy/unicorns than her sister ever exhibited. I have seen this child, when no other toys were available, play a pretend game, conversations and all, with her fingers, for Pete's sake.

But also? Sydney loves paper dolls.

We did a lot of paper doll play after Thanksgiving, when I bought a paper doll cartridge for my Cricut, and she loved them just fine then, but now that her manual dexterity is just this much more advanced, and after I happened upon some awesome old paper doll high-quality scans on the internet and printed them out for her, we have hit a paper doll renaissance. I'm talking, every day there are new paper dolls to cut out and play with. Every moment there are paper dolls on the child's mind. There are paper doll parts everywhere, including the car.

At the moment, the paper doll crush is deeply tied up with the Betsy McCall paper dolls from the 1950s. I print the pages in color (on a laser printer, not an inkjet) and cut them out for Sydney, and back the doll itself with adhesive-backed cardstock. The outfits can stay on plain copier-weight paper. Paper dolls are fiddly with their smallness and their tiny little tabs, so Sydney really just now has the manual dexterity to dress them up without getting too frustrated:
See?
Not frustrating at all!

And then she carries them around and plays games with them, and changes their clothes, and plays some more:Willow is NOT into paper dolls, and I didn't play with them as a child, either, so I'm actually surprised at how cool I think they are. And they have a lot of educational value, as well, beyond just the sheer enjoyment of them. The whole point of the paper doll is the outfit, see, and so many creators have taken a lot of care to make up some very detailed, and very specific period pieces for the dolls. For Sydney, at least, this could be a great way to teach history.

Sydney and I have also found PLENTY of awesome high-quality paper doll scans online. Our very favorite is Teri's Paper Doll Scans; I've printed out, all ready to cut out, some Easter paper dolls, and some 1940s paper dolls (Sydney will appreciate the ballet outfit, in particular, but I really like these because they remind me of old photos of my Mama, whom I miss), and I am just waiting on the merest excuse to jump into the whole world of 1940s film stars.

While Sydney plays paper dolls, Willow and I indulge her newest passion--vibrating electric football. Our house is just full of awesomeness this week.

But How Do You Feel?

Last week's post-storytime craft at the public library was this odd little guy:You were supposed to take a paper plate (I'm horrified, by the way, at the HUGE number of paper plate crafts in the world) and draw a face on it. Then you get a bunch of pictures that show different feelings and you glue them around the edges of the paper plate. Then you punch a hole in the arrow, put a brad through the hole, attach the brad to the paper plate, and fasted it on the back side. THEN you punch two holes in the edge of the paper plate and tie a string on it so that you can wear the whole contraption around your neck.

I am still not in love with these gimmicky children's craft activities, despite your resounding assurances of their developmental solidity. But wow, the girlies adore them. Sydney actually wore her plate around her neck for part of the day, and Willow plays with her plate nearly daily, moving the arrow around to the different feelings and then saying, "I'm angry!" in an angry voice or "I'm sad!" in a sad voice, etc.

It does have me rather interested each week, though, in what that week's craft will be, and in what new and specific way it might horrify me. Today my guess is that we'll do something with pipe cleaners, toilet paper tubes, markers, and circle stickers...

Dinosaur Dreams Tonight

It took a lot of sewing and over a year longer than I thought it would, but one little kid's dinosaur dreams came true today:

Phew! Nine dinosaur T-shirt panels--some from outgrown or ripped/stained shirts that my own kids wore, and some bought straight from thrift shops for this project--surrounded by a Courthouse Steps log cabin design in both dino and traditional prints quilting cotton--

and backed and with a back-to-front binding made from a handmade dino-print quilted blanket scored from the Goodwill Outlet Store (stuff is $1.39 a pound there, so definitely under a buck):

I think this little one likes it!

A lot:

The slightly smaller wall quilt, also dino-themed, is on its way to my Dinosaur swap partner, but I somehow managed to totally screw up the wall quilt that I was making for my pumpkinbear etsy shop, AND the kids, in a completely unauthorized activity, spilled smoothie all over the piles of fabric that I was using for the quilt, so that little project is on hold for a bit while some fabric goes through the wash and I take several deep breaths. I may use the time to re-make my idea from a wall quilt into another kid-sized lap quilt, anyway, because I LOVE how this quilt turned out.

And don't worry about the little kid. She's getting an I Spy quilt next, which she will probably be unhappy about because she really wants a pony quilt, but a pony quilt?

So now I'm on the look-out for pony T-shirts.

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Hopscotch

It's no lifesize dinosaurs drawn on the basketball court or anything, but hopscotch is as sweet a way as anything to welcome Spring:
Have you ever read the rules for hopscotch? It's really not that fun. So we just threw stuff--
--and hopped:
And it turned out that THAT was fun.

Tutorial: Felted Wool Easter Eggs While You Wait

I must tell you that Willow and I are getting QUITE good at the guitar. We can do walking fingers, and Easter Bunny Gets Depressed After Easter, and tomorrow we are going to the music shop to buy music notebooks so that Will can do the rest of her guitar homework, which is to draw some quarter notes.

Will woke us up early this morning with her guitar practice, and it's a good thing that she got it done, too, for she has been sick AGAIN today. Thank goodness no barfing, because I don't think my nerves could handle another stomach bug so soon, but I am firmly against medicating a non-severe fever, and guess whose child of course gets hysterical every time she has a fever?

Fortunately, the child was placated with an endless supply of Mythbusters and Magic School Bus, and so I still had time to sew, and do laundry, and draw pictures with the baby, and cook a veggie chili that I distractedly made far too salty, and straighten the house, and read , and felt up some Easter eggs.

Felting with wool roving is one of the very few crafts that I do using new materials, and one of the very few activities of any sort that I do using animal products, and it's still not my favorite thing, frankly, but in a child's Easter basket it's non-plastic, non-sugary, non-factory-farmed chicken egg...and also colorful and soft and fun and suitable to be handed down to future generations of guitar-playing little girls, so there you go.

To felt your own Easter eggs, you will need:

• egg forms. After Easter, when I can pick them up for free at the Recycling Center, likely, I have plans to make felted wool shaker eggs with those awful plastic Easter eggs, but for these particular eggs, which I intend to be heirloom-quality for my children, I'm using wooden eggs from Casey's Wood Products. I also have a fondness for their wood dinosaur cut-outs, if you must know.
• wool roving. I buy my roving from The Arts at Eagle's Find, where I am assured that the shop owner knows the happy sheep from which the wool came.
• hot water
• dish soap
• aluminum foil and a clothes dryer--just go with me on this for a bit

1. Cut off a goodly amount of roving--anywhere from twice to three times the size of your object, depending on how bulky it is: I always try to get by with a smaller amount of roving than I really need, but don't be like me--give yourself a generous amount of roving to work with.

2. Roll up your egg in your roving, trying not to have a bunch of the edges of the roving meet in the same place.

3. Get your roving-wrapped egg nice and saturated in the hot water and dish soap, and just sort of pat it down for a while. Pat, pat, pat all around the egg, gently working the roving into an even layer all over the egg. You don't want any spots that are too bulky, and you don't want any thin spots where the wood will peek through:
4. Keep doing this for a while, perhaps ten minutes or so, until the roving feels somewhat felted and holds itself around the egg. You can also rub, agitate, or roll the egg around in your hands--all that friction helps the roving felt.

5. When the roving is pretty well felted around the egg--it doesn't have to be perfect by any means--rinse out all of the dish soap, and then, while the egg is still soaking wet, wrap it snugly in some aluminum foil:I'm not a big fan of aluminum foil, either, but parchment paper and wax paper just didn't work. Aluminum foil works.

6. Throw the foil-wrapped eggs into your dryer along with a load of clothes, and dry everything on hot. The heat and agitation in the dryer will do an excellent job of completing the felting on your eggs, while you go do something else.

When you're done, your eggs will look something like this:
Aren't they cool? I think that I'm going to felt around most of the smaller eggs in our collection, and save the larger ones for decorating in other ways. Easter is coming up, after all, and we haven't gotten out the Sharpies or hot glue even once!

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