Our Giant Multi-Colored Play Silk Canopy

I of course didn't want to mess up the hand-dyed, multi-colored play silk canopy that I was preparing to list in my pumpkinbear etsy shop, so I let the girls' own copy, as identical as two handmade pieces can be, stand in for the official version:

And yep, that's pretty much a typical day for the play silks!

A Basketball-Sized Gameboard Made of Chalk

I've told you before, I believe, that Willow creates giant chalkboard games across the entire basketball court at our neighborhood park, games large enough that we can be our own game pieces.

Not to belabor my two favorite points to make from this or anything, but:

1) My kids are enchanting and awesome and clever.
2) Homeschool, itself, is also pretty enchanting and awesome and clever, because let me tell you, by 3:30 pm every weekday, that basketball court is full up with the big kids. All day until then, it's ours!

It's also enchanting (and awesome and clever, yes) for me to see how Will's reading and other informal studies of  her personal interests inform her games. We've studied Ancient Egypt extensively, Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece less so, and all of these giant chalk games of Will's seem to be about the journeys of ancient soldiers, and the quirky way that she's internalized them.

You're always a soldier, headed to the battlefield, which is at the finish line. On the way, however, you land on objects that other help or hinder you. Here Will's explaining the rules to Sydney, and you can see in the spaces in front of me some money, a turkey leg, a river to cross, a packed lunch, a blank square, and then another river:

Syd's passed the river, and the water horse (have you read The Water Horse? It's enchanting, awesome, and clever):

Then there's a dog, a bow, an arrow, a deer, and a river that's three spaces long:

Sometimes you can only take advantage of an item that you land on if you've landed on certain previous items. For instance, you lose a turn if you land on a river that's more than one space long, unless you've already landed on the water horse or the water dog, both of whom will take you across. Similarly, you cannot hunt the deer in this space unless you've already landed on EITHER the bow and arrow (separate spaces!) or the hunting dog (NOT the water dog).

Will likes to land on the dog, because she likes dogs:

Near the end of the game there are various arenas in spaces, and if you've got the right items--the dog for the animal show arena, the spear or bow and arrow for the hunting arena--you can win and get more money.

Of course, none of this actually matters, ultimately, since the end goal is to get to the finish line first. And so, while Willow and I take our time, throwing our sticks just a space or two to grab up all the treasure, a certain other enchanting, amazing, and clever little thing barrels up ahead and, treasureless, wins the game every single time:

And when you win, you run back to the beginning and play again!

My homemade sidewalk chalk tutorial lives over at Crafting a Green World.

A Pink, Purple, and Cream Twirly Girly Skirt

The weather has already taken a turn--a small turn, but a turn--and the younger girl is anxiously awaiting something special of her own, so I put aside my shorts experimentation (dreaming of Spring...) and turned myself, as well...

To skirts.

To be specific, to the Twirly Girly Skirt in Little Girls, Big Style, which may be Sydney's favorite book ever, and from which she wants what seems to be every single garment except for the peasant frocks.

We began, however, with the skirt, which has, I think, the best use for scraps and pieces of stash fabric, and doesn't require a pattern, to boot. Sydney chose, all independently and all, the pieces from my stash--a purple, two pinks, and a cream--and I fiddled and pieced each piece until I had the right length.

I definitely got my feet wet learning to gather, let me tell you--that bottom tier is a doozie! And yet...I now know how to gather!

Fortunately after all that gathering, the hem is a simple hem, and the waist is a simple elastic waist. The fashion show/photo shoot, is, OF COURSE, not a simple photo shoot, however, because the young miss has ideas. We couldn't just walk across to the park, nope--we had to head back to the library, where I had done Willow's first photo shoot for her Oliver + S shorts. Of course.

And then a nice stranger walked by, saw me snapping photo after photo of my babes, and asked if I'd like him to take a photo of all of us. And that's how we got a bit of a family photo shoot in, too:

They love those bear sculptures outside the public library:

They've cracked their heads there many times, but fortunately not on this day:

And then...well, we ARE at the library. Might as well go in for a while, grab a few books, maybe a computer game, before we head home:

Syd declared it the perfect skirt, and a perfect day.

We used:

Paratrooper!

Because the girls have always loved their parachute activity, ever since they were babies, and because I had a coupon, I bought us a little paratrooper from the Wonderlab gift shop:

We take her everywhere with us (and we go lots of places!), looking for new and exciting launches.

Will this work?

Kind of!

This didn't work, either:

But this will!

And then there's just some tearing around and screaming:

One of the pleasures of the homeschooled is a mid-morning basketball court all to ourselves, because the big kids are all at school.

Tutorial: Ice Treasures

I've seen these all over the blog world this summer, probably because it's just been so dang hot everywhere. Too be honest, I thought that this ice treasures activity would be a bit babyish even for Syd, but still, it looked so neat that really I'm the one who wanted to try it.

Spoiler alert: The girls LOVED it. Both girls. LOVEDDDDDDDDD!!! IT!

First thing, you have to go all around the house and collect a bunch of little things. We call this "cleaning" in our house. Syd collected orphaned game pieces, little rubber balls, ribbons, pompoms, marbles, dominoes, rubber bands, small toy animals, LEGOs, stickers, buttons and beads, and a million other things.

Two caveats: I'd thought that the fabric things, like the ribbons and pompoms, wouldn't be very cool to have in the ice treasures, but I was wrong. They were VERY cool.

On the other hand, the little things that had thin and narrow parts, like the Sorry game pieces and the teeny toy ponies, didn't always survive the excavation. Syd brought me one of each to glue back together. I was all, "Sure, baby!" and then threw them away after she'd left.

Next, get out a couple of small mixing bowls and let the kid fuss over placing every single small thing in the bowl exactly as she wants it:

Then pour water to cover the small things:

I know, I know--Syd's in a totally different outfit. I know that the girls went off to play between those two steps, but not THAT much time passed! I have a feeling that if I paid more attention to my younger daughter's wardrobe changes, I might get a better handle on our laundry situation.

When the bowls are full of water, carefully wedge them into the freezer overnight. The next day, run a little water over the bottom of each bowl, and a gorgeous ice treasure will pop right out into your waiting hands:

You totally want to take a crack at that baby yourself, don't you?

Have the kiddos walk around the house again and gather up anything that they think would make a good excavation tool. Since we're having our kitchen re-done (SUCH a nightmare, don't ask, it was a big mistake, it's going to ruin us), the kids can't get around to all the good tools, so they gathered up a drumstick, a few pieces of plastic cutlery (getting our kitchen re-done! It's been nearly two weeks! The contractor's estimate was for THREE DAYS, and we're already a thousand dollars over his original total cost estimate, just with materials alone, not even counting the per-hour fee for the guy who's taking three days to do the tile, or the two guys who just came and stood around the kitchen for two solid days and then went out and goofed around in the garage for a while, and I don't care what they say, I am not getting all the plumbing in the house replaced just to install a damn dishwasher), some scissors, and my secret hammer that I usually keep hidden from the rest of the family so that they won't take it and put it somewhere where I can't find it.

Then, you just gotta put the babies outside and let them go to town:

Seriously, both kids, big and little, LOVED this activity. They've both always had long attention spans, but they spent over an hour with all the various ice treasures that we made, and then once they'd recovered all the treasure, they spent the rest of the afternoon playing gigantic imaginative games, ranging all over the yard and the house, with all the little things that they'd excavated.

And then I called them inside to feed them microwaved instant oatmeal with frozen blueberries for dinner, using the refrigerator and the microwave which are both in my tiny living room. And then there was some kind of countertop emergency, because we don't have any, and special ordering new ones would take too long, but all the in-stock new ones are ugly, but I picked out the least ugly one anyway, but somehow the contractor wants to add on an extra 900 bucks  to those 40-buck ugly countertops to cut them to size or something, so for that money we might as well special-order the custom-cut nice ones, but then we won't have a kitchen for, like, another six weeks, and we can't afford another 900 bucks, anyway, which is over half the original total cost estimate for the entire project, which, have I mentioned, was supposed to be completely finished over a week ago, and now has absolutely no end in sight.

And don't even get me started about the fucking toekicks.

I Made Her a Shark Tooth Necklace

And she loves it!

You can check out my wire wrapped shark tooth necklace tutorial over at Crafting a Green World if you, too, have a bucket of old shark teeth just lying around, waiting to be made into jewelry.

The Egg in Vinegar Experiment Mastermind

Syd felt inspired to repeat our old favorite, the egg in vinegar experiment. After I reminded her of the simple steps, she found a glass jar, hauled the vinegar up from the basement laundry area, got an egg out of the refrigerator, carefully put it into the bottom of the glass jar, poured vinegar into the jar to cover the egg, then put all the extra stuff away--completely independently. I wasn't even in the room!

The girls kept an eye on it all afternoon and evening and the next morning--they love to watch the bubbles that signify that a chemical reaction is taking place, and they love to poke the egg in its jar and watch the shell slough off under their fingers.

The next afternoon, however, when it was time to pour off the vinegar and experience the egg in all its uncalcified glory, Syd decided that she was no way, no how going to touch that freaky-looking raw egg.

What's a hands-off scientist to do?

Delegate, that's what!

Willow, who loves textures and substances and the feel of all sorts of oddities on her skin, was happy to pour off the vinegar and caress the shell-less egg:

I know, her fingernails are filthy--you won't be surprised to learn of Willow's affinity for mud, I presume.

Syd even permitted Will to take the egg outside and perform their favorite part of the experiment:

Toss it in the grass and watch it splatter.

Then, of course, it's time to get out the hose to wash it away, and with the hose out...well, there's the rest of your afternoon, all planned out.