Road Trip Checklist

Approximately 17 hours after we officially graduate into homeschooling, the girls and I are going to do one of the things that I've been most looking forward to doing as a homeschooling family.

 

ROAD TRIP!!!

 

The kiddos and I are going to tootle on over to St. Louis for a day, then spend a few days with my folks down in Arkansas, then hop over to Tennessee, and we'll meander our way up to Kentucky and back up to Indiana eventually.

 

This is going to be our first road trip EVER without my Matt, and here are just a few of the many changes that will have to be made:

• I'll have to actually figure out the GPS, because Matt's the only one who knows how to get anyplace.
• Bathroom visits will be strictly enforced, because when one person gets out of the car, EVERYONE has to get out of the car.
• Must find the wheely suitcases in the basement, because that huge duffle bag is something that only Matt can carry.
• Children's entertainment must be able to be completely child-operated, because no adult hands will be free to fetch ponies or open baggies of granola.
• Unlike in previous trips, most of the driving can't be done late at night, when little people are snoring instead of screaming, because I can't figure out the logistics of dragging two soundly sleeping children and our luggage into a hotel all at the same time. Maybe one of those wheely carts?

Long gone are the days when a week-long road trip meant throwing fresh underwear and a couple dozen paperbacks into my backpack on the way out the door. The logistics of this trip are...well, welcome to my life:

• Must move car seats over from minivan to smaller car that is slightly less likely to break down on the road. A roadside breakdown remains quite likely, however.
• The girls' unit studies on Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Kentucky (more on this later) are organized and ready to be collated:

These kits include my latest masterpiece--a Cricut-cut set of matboard state stencils:

 

I'm VERY excited that I figured out how to make these, because large, sturdy, thick stencils (usually made of metal) are extremely important in Montessori young child work--absolutely more on that later.

• Necessary groceries include one jar of peanut butter, one loaf of bread, two boxes of cereal, and a batch of vegan carob chip brownies. 
• Willow successfully edited the stack of Hank the Cowdog books that she was insisting on taking down from about 30 to about six. Sydney, however, is taking every single toy pony that she owns, and the toy stable, and will brook no argument.
• The milk crate of picture books that they're allowed to bring is chock full, and the arguments over its selection have turned physical.
• For the first time ever, I'm letting the girls have full access to the portable DVD player (garage sale, ONE DOLLAR!). I plan to catch up on my podcast listening while I drive.
• Am waiting for the inspiration that I need to write all my Crafting a Green World posts ahead of time. Waiting...Waiting...
• Am also waiting with bated breath for the Elvis CD box set to be held for me at the library. Of COURSE the girls' unit studies include a downloadable activity book about Graceland.

And I haven't even gotten to the clothes packing. We'll probably just throw some fresh underwear into our backpacks on our way out the door.

P.S. Check out these free(ish) wooden building blocks that I bought the other day, over at Crafting a Green World.

Do Not Eat This Cake

Have you seen my new felt cake playset?

It's inspired by Sydney's rainbow birthday, and by the Montessori pink tower, which Sydney also loves--she dreams about the pink tower sometimes, and draws pictures of the pink tower in which it is surrounded by rainbows. I wanted something colorful, that could be played with creatively, but that could also be used as a mathematical activity. Stacking the cake layers teaches the order of smallest to biggest, and each of the trims will match only with the layer that fits its length exactly.

The cake stand is just for cuteness.

WIPs: These are for the Babies

Some WIPS currently being worrisome in my brain:

• a roadtrip to plan (Arkansas+Tennessee-Nashville+Kentucky+the kids-my partner=yikes!)
• a book proposal to finish, which is spiraling OUT OF CONTROL!!!
• a timeline to draw on the basement walls--sort of like the roll of paper timeline, but on the walls
• unit studies on Arkansas and Tennesse and Kentucky (and Elvis) to create
• children's swim lessons to schedule
• etsy products to list
• Crafting a Green World posts to write in advance of beforementioned road trip
• laundry to do
• etc., etc., etc.

However, I've put much of that aside for the short term to focus on a project that's been on my to-do list since the last Goodwill 50%-off Storewide Sale:

Baby bags!!!

T-shirts I'm transforming into bags for Barefoot Kids include Velvet Revolver, Wolverine--

--and Jimmy Hendrix, hell YEAH:

I've decided to use my jersey knit binding method for the neckline hem on ALL the bags, now, because I think it looks terrific in the same pattern that I use for the contrasting sleeves, and no, I canNOT get Electric Ladyland out of my head while I'm sewing.

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!

Birthday in Blocks

I know a certain father-in-law who is VERY loved by a certain couple of little girls whom I also happen to know:

Happy Birthday, Charlie! The girls often use the many swears that you've taught them.

Our Little Clay Moveable Alphabet

Rain, rain, RAIN!!!

We had a nice (though temporary) break from the rain this morning, so the older child and I spent some good hours scrubbing the deck and deck furniture and trimming down the shrubbery (my little kid is a hard worker when she puts her mind to it, and made the deck table and all four chairs sparkle with a scrub brush, dishwashing detergent, and the garden hose), but much of our time lately has been spent occupying ourselves while it rains, with coloring, puzzles, Berenstain Bears cartoons, the Wonderlab, and various little projects that I squirrel away until the time is right.

Yesterday morning, the time was right for FIMO. I've collected the odd little block of this polymer clay off and on whenever it's been on big sale, but I hadn't yet presented it to the girls. FIMO clay probably isn't the absolute bestest product in the world--I really ought to be using its US-made clone, Sculpey, since I try to buy American whenever practical, and even though FIMO is technically non-toxic, it IS a plastic and does contain PVC, so don't eat it or inhale it or sculpt with it every day for hours--but I love this stuff anyhow. I have a bit of a thing for bad boys.

The girlies, of course, went to town sculpting their own awesome little pretties--

--but I have been dying for a while now to do my own little project with these:

I made a moveable alphabet for the kiddos!

A moveable alphabet is a very big deal in the Montessori world, because it disassociates the cognitive practices of reading and composing from the physical practice of writing. Isolating a particular cognitive OR physical skill allows a child to focus, and better achieve mastery according to her own internal clock.

These letters are a little wonky, because I made them while kneading clay and mediating the girls, etc. Next time--and there will be a next time, and a time after, because a moveable alphabet requires numerous duplicates of every letter--I'll roll out the clay nicely onto parchment paper, and cut the alphabet and bake it without moving it around, so that the letters will look neater. The important thing, however, is that they're sturdy, being oven-baked, and fun--

--oh, and also educational:

And the letters get to play with their new pet tree, which Sydney created for them:

Or that might be the dog that she made. Definitely not the unicorn, because that one had an orange head.

P.S. Check out my latest posts over at Crafting a Green World--a tutorial for spraypaint reverse-stenciling on an EZ-Up, and a round-up of DIY options for price tags.

One of the MANY Reasons Why I Fear Clowns

He looks enough like a serial killer already--he couldn't even muster up a smile? Seriously, he looks like he's about to snatch me and screech off in his windowless van:

In other news, however, I LOVE that little top that I'm wearing. I wish that I still had it.

After the Cereal Bar: Cereal Box Matching Game Tutorial

One thing about buying a LOT of cereal when it's on big sale is that you then eat a lot of cereal. And when you eat a lot of cereal, you accumulate a lot of cereal boxes. Cereal boxes, like toilet paper tubes, are one of those things that I just can't throw in the recycling bin. I KNOW I'll need them sometime.

And that's how my house accumulates a lot of cereal boxes and toilet paper tubes.

The shelf in my study held one too many empty Cascadian Farms Cinnamon Crunch box yesterday, and so the girls and I took some time off from goofing off and reading books and watching Clifford's frakking Puppy Days to first, of course, do the activities on the backs of all the boxes:

A board game played with dinosaur avatars is fun.

Some of the boxes didn't have stuff so elaborate on the back, but instead word searches and riddles and picture puzzles, etc., so I cut those backs off to save as a quiet car activity for Willow. A QUIET car activity--wouldn't that be nice?

I've seen cereal box matching game projects off and on all over the interweb--plumpudding's cereal box matching game is the one that I can most readily recall--and my matching game isn't much different. Since all my cereal boxes are Cascadian Farms boxes, all with a big bowl of whatever cereal it is on the front, I made my matching pairs from that big bowl of cereal. I cut two large circles out of each bowl--

--until I had enough for a good game. The nice thing about using boxes that are all from the same brand is that the insides of the boxes are all from exactly the same kind of carboard, and so match exactly.

This is a good matching game for Sydney, especially--

--because although the pairs clearly belong together, they don't match exactly. This requires pattern recognition and sorting skills to make a positive match, and these are good skills for little children to practice.

I still have more cereal boxes left--can you believe it? I may make a cereal box puzzle next...