A Pinback for the Holidays

King Kong Donkey Kong

Florida

Texas

Missouri

BLUE FISH

Indiana

And now I'm gonna go watch Fringe.

Family Tree

One of my favorite things about homeschooling is that the girls have the opportunity to explore whatever they want.

Think about it. Think about having the opportunity to explore anything. Would you learn vegan baking? Car maintenance? Yoga? Embroidery?

Perhaps, like my daughter, you'd get really, really good at Zoo Tycoon. Perhaps, also like her, you'd read every single Nancy Drew novel ever printed. Perhaps you and she could spend some time together studying another of her interests...

human evolution.

I did predict this somewhat--years ago I drew a learning map trying to discover where Willow's passion for dinosaurs would take her, although I didn't know about Zoo Tycoon: Dinosaur Digs then, either--but I'm confident that it, along with Nancy Drew and zoo engineering/animal husbandry, does not appear on many standard first-grade curriculums.

But it's apparently what first-graders do in our homeschool. We've had human evolution books, human evolution documentaries, human evolution web sites, and we spent a morning last week putting human evolution on our big basement timeline:

All the info comes from the Smithsonian web site, printed in color, cut out by me and the Sydmeister, and glued straight onto our wall:
 
 And then, of course, the Very Important Signpost:

If you'd like to add human evolution to your first-grade curriculum, here are some of our favorite resources...so far:

Books



Film

• Ape to Man from the History Channel
• Becoming Human from Nova
• The Human Family Tree from National Geographic
• Walking with Cavemen from the BBC

Web Site

• Interactive Human Evolution Timeline from the Smithsonian

And if I ever found a hundred dollars lying on the street, I'd get Willow's mitochondrial DNA tested to determine the migration paths that our ancestors took.

Look Up!

I'm pretty stoked about my roomy new linkbar. I'm adding permalinks to the appropriate categories as I happen upon them, and new categories whenever I get a minute to add them (About Me? Recipes? Top 10 Most Embarrassing Blog Posts?).

Feel free to suggest something that needs a permalink. You know how much I love you busybodies, you.

Pinback Photos Go Kaput

I'm still learning all about my new-to-me garage sale light tent. I tell you this to explain the following photo shoot:

Forty-nine photos, none of them usable, all because of the stinkin' glare. I didn't have that problem at all when I shot my previous pirate pinbacks, so more thinking and practice and thinking again is clearly required.

I hope it's nice weather again tomorrow...

Log Cabin

It's not a quilt. I haven't made a log cabin quilt in a coon's age. My goal is to make a log cabin denim quilt big enough to cover me and Matt in our nice warm bed, but considering that I haven't even found the time to photograph and list pinbacks, or my HALLOWEEN stuff, to my pumpkinbear etsy shop, much less sew the girls some nightgowns and myself some T-shirt panties and do the crazy thrifting required to finish collecting the Star Wars T-shirts that I need for Matt's quilt...

Yeah, enough about me. Last weekend, Willow mentioned that she wanted to make a "real" log cabin out of twigs. Syd and I gathered some fallen sticks around the yard, and then I sat down on the porch and broke the sticks into a big pile of roughly 6" pieces, and then promptly forgot about it. Don't worry--I can totally forget all about something even if I have to practically step over it to get in the house.

And yet, forgotten by me, there it still sat, apparently remembered by my daughter, and convenient enough for her to carry into the house one day after a bike ride, pile onto the living room table, and, using the glue gun already sitting there and ready to plug in (ahem...we use a lot of hot glue?), a log cabin came together:

 
 
 
 
Mid-way through, she stopped so that I could use the cut-off wheel on my Dremel to cut a door into the cabin, but I have no final shot to show you, as apparently the cabin still requires mud walls and, I'm not sure for what, but also "leaves."

How are the New Kittens Working out, Julie?

I'd say that they've made themselves quite at home.

Miniature Pillow, Proud Momma

Sydney was listening to an audiobook, and I was catching up on emails, requesting Ohio travel guides from the library, googling high-quality pdf images of the Titanic, uploading photos, reading a blog or two--you know, important stuff-when Willow appeared suddenly at my elbow and said that she wanted to make a little pillow.

Would I help her sew it?

WOULD I?!?

This is what every sewing parent waits for, isn't it? The day that your child appears at your elbow and desires to learn your skill? She doesn't want to spend her morning reading Nancy Drew! She wants ME to teach her how to sew!

I set Will loose among my fabric stash while I finished up a last email or two, and by the time she had decided on two 6.5" squares of novelty cotton (meant to be incorporated into a DIY I Spy Quilt Kit for Bazaar Bizarre, but oh, well...), we were ready to roll.

First, I had Willow arrange the squares right sides together, lined up perfectly, then I pinned them well inside the sewing path (anticipating some meanderings), and I drew Willow a sewing guide around the perimeter of the square, in a light blue fat marker:

For the first time, Willow sat in my sewing chair not on my lap, but all by herself. For the first time, she put her foot on the pedal. I showed her how to guide the fabric, how to backstitch, how to lower the needle and lift the presser foot to turn corners.

And off she went:

 
 
 
 
Thankfully, it was an excellent experience, with a pleasing result. I think that there's only one person prouder than I am of Willow's miniature pillow:

May everything she sews throughout her long, long life make her at least that happy.