Today is Monday

coffee

newspaper

scrambled eggs with spinach and green peppers

Bella Sara web site--approved for now with the understanding that I am NOT purchasing any Bella Sara products. You want some of those magical self-esteem horse trading cards? No problem--go clean the bathroom and I'll give you a buck.

 Midnight Ride of Paul Revere

You Read to Me, I'll Read to You

poetry written from the perspective of a hamster

Moonlight and the Magic Flute

Mother Goose

Eyewitness Skeleton

independent reading--Jane Yolen novel for me, Magic Tree House audiobook for Syd, and some more Bella Sara (from the library--you can still use the code inside to get the magical horseshoes!) for Willow

 Glenn Gould playing Mozard on the record player

Sydney playing Legos on top of the sewing that I'm trying to do

some sewing that Willow is trying to do

 ripping more CDs (my goal is to have a complete mp3 collection of Magic Tree House and Story of the World. I keep the library hopping.)

Go, Diego, Go!

bread, dipping oil, oranges, and a hot dog (made by and for Willow) for lunch

sorting

sliding

 tidying

to the park in the bitter coldness (I'm the only one who's bothered)

home at dusk

reading

onions make you cry

 vegan corned "beef" and cabbage

math (adding up coins! Word problems! Counting!)

tidying

Family Movie=Stomp Live!

sleep

perhaps for me, too, just as soon as I finish that Jane Yolen novel

Homeschool Field Trip: The Fire Station

Our homeschool group has plenty of kids who are the perfect age to enjoy this field trip. Seriously, Sydney and Willow couldn't have been more excited by a field trip to a unicorn farm, or a toy pony factory. When I was a little kid I always seemed to have some sucky thing going on, like pneumonia, or a tonsillectomy, every single time our class took a field trip, so I'd never been to the fire station, either, and when the girls were all, "Do they have real fires there?" "Will we get to use the hose?" "Do they ever take off their fire helmets?", I was all, "I don't know!"

Let's find out, shall we?

We all sat in the firefighter living room while Firefighter Dan talked to us about fire safety:

The girls and I have had our chats about fire safety, sure, but they listened with bated breath as Firefighter Dan coached them in stop, drop, and roll, and not to goof around with matches (thankfully Willow did not volunteer the fact that her occasional evening treat is to light a stick of incense with a cigarette lighter--carefully supervised, of course), etc. All the children thought it was REALLY funny to be quizzed about proper evacuation procedures:

Firefighter Dan: "Do you stop to eat a peanut butter sandwich?"
Children: [insert shouts of laughter] "NO!!!!!"

I learned something new, too: If you're in a building that's on fire, and you can get to a window and open it, but you can't escape out of that window, you should just start throwing stuff out of it. Firefighters walk the perimeter of a building that's on fire, and if they see a bunch of junk out in the yard, then they'll know that there's somebody up above that junk. Another firefighter told the children that if a firefighter is ever in a lot of trouble in the same situation, that firefighter will throw his or her helmet out the window so that the other firefighters know who is trapped and where they are. For some reason, the children all fixated on this piece of information:

Child: "But what if something falls on your head and you don't have your helmet on?"
Firefighter: "It's a risk we have to take if we're in that much trouble, but usually we get down on the floor and cover our head."
Another Child: "What if your helmet lands in the next yard and the other firefighters don't see it?"
Firefighter: "We'd try not to throw it that hard, but the other firefighters look around really well, too, so they could find it."
Another Child: "But what if your helmet got caught in a tree and didn't fall down to the ground?"
Firefighter: "The helmet's heavy, and we'd try not to throw it towards a tree."

There were several more excellent helmet-related questions, but you get the idea.

I was the most excited for the girlies to see the firefighters in their full gear. I've often explained about how loud and smoky and dark a fire would be, and how firefighters wear special clothes to protect their skin and masks to protect their eyes and lungs and that their voices will come from speakers in their masks, and so even though they'll look and sound like monsters they're actually there to rescue you, and you have to run to them if you see them and not hide from them, but it's still something that I've always been nervous about. A few years back a fellow graduate student was a bit incapacitated at the time that his apartment caught fire, and like a child he hid in his closet and was killed there. It just seems like such the instinctive thing to run and hide when there's something scary, especially if there's some strange, faceless giant lumbering about and calling your name in a Darth Vader voice.

These firefighters, of course, were way on top of those concerns. This particular firefighter (Firefighter Jeff? Firefighter Dan?) knelt down at the children's level as he put on all of his gear, telling them why each piece was important as he put it on and continually reminding them that it was just him under all of it, even when it didn't look like him at all:

Even though our tour of the engine bay later on was also very excellent, and even though the girls were thrilled at getting to climb into a real live fire truck, and even though headquarters ran a fire drill for us so that we could hear the alarm in the station and that was also awesome, this photo below, taken after the firefighter invited the children up to examine his gear more closely, remains my favorite moment of our trip:

I don't recall if Willow was specifically invited to knock on this firefighter's head, but I guess that's another way that helmets are useful.

Peanut Butter Sailboat and the Blueberry Girls

The indulgences of children are often the sweetest to satisfy.

Her Bi-Weekly Book Collection

We go to the public library usually twice a week. Before we leave, I ask Willow to sort through her chapter books and stack the ones that she's read by the door. Here's her stack for today, about the same size as usual:

Will does read many books cover to cover in one sitting, but she also has an assortment of half-read books all over the house, picked up and reshelved by any passing parent, and she doesn't seem to mind losing track of and then re-finding and re-finding her place in books, either, so any particular book in the stack may have been read in hours or weeks.

Returning books to the library is generally one of Matt's homeschool chores, as is picking up held items from the library's drive-up window. You can go online and request that any library item be held for you to pick up at the library drive-up, so this is generally how I choose all of our non-fiction and homeschool books, from dinosaurs to Pompeii to how peanut butter is made, as well as related software programs and audiobooks and music CDs and DVDS, as well as my own novels and cookbooks and craft books and parenting books and homeschooling idea books, as well as all of Matt's stuff. Just this morning I taught Willow how to use the online catalogue, too, sooooo.... Yeah, it's Matt's chore.

At the library, Syd picks her own picture books, and she's permitted to choose one DVD, too, and I might check out some of the magazines that I've grabbed to read while the girls play, and Will and I both work to choose her next huge stack of books. She looks through the shelves of first chapter books while I look in the regular juvenile fiction section for longer books. It's a challenge, often, to find regular juvenile fiction that's appropriate for a six-year-old--just because she can read a more sophisticated book doesn't mean that she's interested in (or ready for!) more sophisticated themes. We've had good luck with Nancy Drew so far, and the Black Stallion series, and the Misty of Chincoteague series, and the Little House series, and the Moffetts series, and sometimes the Boxcar Children books, although those get a bit repetitive (the number of times that the children speak the word "boxcar" really gets on my nerves). So far Roald Dahl, Beverly Cleary, and E.B. White are no-gos. Someday soon, we'll all have the pleasure of their company, I hope.



Right this second, Sydney is already in bed, listening to a Magic Tree House audiobook. It's later than usual, so it sounds like Matt skipped the night-night books and poetry in favor of just getting the kids in bed with their eyes closed, but she and I had an extra-long time this morning with Magic School Bus and That's Good! That's Bad! and Robert Frost and Eyewitness Skeleton, not to mention the Readable Feasts program at the library this evening in which Ms. Janet read books about Alaska to the children and then they all made baked Alaska together, so Syd's happy to simply lie down for a change. As I write this, Matt's telling Willow, for the fifth time, to put down her book and get into bed, and his voice just got lower, which means that firm speaking is afoot.

After the girls are in bed I'll sew for a while (I'd like to get Will's pants patched with their heart appliques tonight, because I know she'd like to wear them to our tour of the fire station tomorrow morning), and then I'll close up shop, turn out the lights in the study, hop into bed, and read for a while.

Runs in the family, this book thing.

Painted Ceramic Tile Coasters

For Christmas, my mother gave me a set of markers to use on ceramics. Combined with a bunch of white ceramic tiles that I bought back in the spring as a possible craft project for Sydney's rainbow birthday party, the girls and I had a little ceramics painting party of our own:

 
I didn't know what to expect from the project, as I'd never used ceramics markers before and didn't recognize the name-brand of these particular markers, but they turned out to be pretty fabulous. The colors are really bright, and although the ink doesn't run or bleed, it seems to be liquid enough that it smooths out after it's drawn on and looks more like paint than marker:

After our paint party, I let the tiles dry overnight, then I baked them as recommnended in a 150 degree oven for 40 minutes. The result is a pretty nifty set of coasters that, although not particularly necessary on any of our battered furniture, adds just that much more ambience to our evening incense:

Decoupage on ceramic tiles is what I'm really curious about--guaranteed that it requires a much more sturdy varnish than mere heat-setting, but I'm pleased that I'll have these ceramics markers to add to my decoupage project, once I do figure out how to do it.

D.I.Y. Dinosaurs

For kiddos like mine, who love realistically-molded plastic animal models (especially dinosaurs and horses), I think that the paint-your-own model kits that some companies sell now are just great. They're basically the exact same realistic toy animals, only unpainted.

No worries about lead paint? Score.

Kids get to exercise their artistic and creative muscles? Score.

Kids get to take ownership over the look of their toy? Score.

Kids get to use the same toy in more open-ended ways? Score and score.

These dinos that I bought the girls for Christmas are pricey, so I can't say that paint-your-own animal toys are going to be a constant in our homeschool stash (I need to buy a big set of labeled slides first, for one thing), but I can see a new set making its appearance at a variety of gift-giving occasions. The dinos that we do have, however, have been thoroughly enjoyed thus far.

Painting them is an all-consuming pastime, as you can see:

 
 
 
 
  

After the paint dries, I put a coat of the provided varnish on each dino and let it dry again. Often, when the girls receive a kit with paints, I substitute my own craft acrylics for the cheap kit paint. However, the paint sets that came with these dinos is really nice--Willow, who at first declared that she was going to paint all of her dinosaurs realistically, was quickly wooed away from that intention by the numerous metallic paints that came in the kit. So far there's still plenty of paint left for the rest of the dinos, but I can't imagine that there will be enough for every single dinosaur to be as generously covered as my girls have done so far, so I'm just planning to add in my craft acrylics as needed, and I can already tell that there's going to be nowhere near enough varnish in the kit to coat all the finished dinos. The varnish I will have to make a special trip to the craft store to look for the next time I have a little disposable income (HA!).

My favorite part of this toy, however, is that the fun doesn't stop when the painting does. For my little girls, it's just the beginning:

 
 
 
 
I'd say that these painted dinosaurs are ALMOST the kiddos' favorite plaything of late:

But that competition for first place in the babies' hearts? Really not a competition at all.

Tutorial: Painted Peace Flags for the New Year

Here's an homage to Tibetan prayer flags that my girlies and I put together over the last couple of weeks. It involved several pleasurable Project Mornings and Project Afternoons in our homeschool, some more reading about Tibet, some more reminiscing about the snow lion, and some happy sewing for me while Matt had the girls out watching football on TV somewhere in the city (one of the nice things about not having TV channels is that must-see football games equal alone time for the Momma).

You can do this project a couple of different ways, either by freehand painting or by freezer paper stenciling--I did the same project both ways, because that's how I roll, so I'm happy to show you both options. The colorway is meant to invoke the color order of the Tibetan prayer flag: blue, white, red, green, yellow. It's your flag, though, so do what you like.

To paint the flags, iron flat some nice, plain, white fabric--

 --and cut it into identical rectangles. Ours are approximately 8"x10".

To stabilize the flags for painting, iron them onto freezer paper. Then, with your favorite fabric markers or paints, go to town!

For this particular project, the girls and I spent some more time talking about peace, what it means to be a peaceful person, and how to keep peace in our hearts and our words and our deeds (my, I'd like them to embrace that one!). Then I asked them to each draw a picture of something that reminded them to be peaceful or that represented peace to them. Willow drew a scene of the Peace Pole outside her former Montessori school--she has many happy memories of the children's peace ceremonies there.

Sydney drew a picture of a beautiful bunch of flowers growing in the dirt. She says that looking at pretty things makes her feel peaceful:

We used Tee Juice markers that I bought in a limited color palette at 70% off on a Joann's Black Friday sale, just to try out. We liked them so much that I bought some more colors and widths last weekend. I think we'll get a lot of use out of them.

The girls wanted to use the remaining fabric that we'd cut out to draw pictures of dinosaurs, and unicorns battling other unicorns, so I made do with the three rectangles that we had painted, and so here's where you get to learn about freezer paper stenciling peace flags, too!

I knew that I wanted the Tibetan prayer flag color order of blue, white, red, green, and yellow, so I pulled printed cottons in those colors from my fabric stash and layed them out to see how I liked the look of them:

Pretty well indeed, I say! Three of the flags have a peace painting on one side and a printed cotton on the other side, and two of the flags are made from printed cotton alone.

To cut out a printed cotton peace flag, cut your fabric at your desired width + two seam allowances and twice your desired length + one seam allowance. Fold it in half with right sides together, sew up the two sides--

--and turn, then fold and press the top edges inside and sew closed. You can insert a ribbon loop in the middle of this top seam, if you wish.

Your painted peace flags will be backed with printed cotton, and finished with a back-to-front mock binding. Pin the painted fabric to the printed cotton, wrong sides together, and cut the printed cotton a half-inch wider than the painted fabric on all sides:

Turn twice and edge stitch on all sides:

Add ribbon loops to the top edge, if you wish.

The printed cotton can easily be freezer paper stenciled even after you've sewn it. I know that you're worried that the paint will bleed through, but it won't. Simply iron your stencil cut from freezer paper to your fabric--

--and then paint!

My best advice for fabric painting is to use the best fabric paints that you can afford. When in doubt, I choose a limited palette of high-quality paint over a large assortment of the cheap stuff. The paint that I used above is Jacquard Lumiere in bronze--this is the current go-to color for pretty much all our projects these days, but one little bottle does last a looooong time.

Heat-set your fabric paint according to the manufacturer's instructions:

Then thread a nice, long piece of twine or ribbon through the hanging loops:

Our peace flags are double-sided. One side faces the front yard and the street, and on that side reads the message that our family would like say to the world at large, and what we would like to have said by others when thinking about our family:

The other side of the flag faces our house, and can best be seen from inside it:

This side is more personal, I think, to be seen just by us and the loved ones who visit us (and our mailman). Here are our personal visions of peace, and some gentle reminders to us to be peaceful as we leave our home and venture out on our daily business.

And if the girls can somehow internalize that peace means that you shouldn't just walk up and smack your sister and then run away, well...that would be so great.