The Indianapolis Children's Museum and the Perfectly Scary Haunted House

I hadn't planned on taking the children to a haunted house this year--it still sounds crazy to even write that phrase--but Will and Syd are addicted to "This Week's WOW," which of COURSE talked all about the haunted house that the Children's Museum of Indianapolis puts on each year, and so they asked if we could go.

And so we did!

(Nota bene: Although I'm sure they had been hearing about the haunted house for weeks on "This Week's WOW," it's interesting that they didn't ask to go until last weekend. Perhaps they had to get their nerve up!)

The girls wanted to go to the haunted house during frightening hours, but I insisted that we go during friendly hours. You've got your whole life to go to scary haunted houses, after all, but you can only pull off going to friendly haunted houses when you're little. Also, I really didn't want two totally traumatized children waking me up in the middle of the night all winter. And during the friendly hours, you get to trick-or-treat from the costumed characters in each room, showing that when in doubt, or if you think that kids might be afraid of you, bribe them with candy!

Turns out the kids weren't a bit afraid. They LOVED the trick-or-treating, but they also loved checking out all the costumes and props and settings that make a haunted house:

I was actually really into that part, too. You definitely do not know this about me, but I did my undergrad degree at an expensive out-of-state university on scholarship, and I was ALWAYS hustling for dough--I babysat a really weirdo kid (and plenty of conventional ones), I wrote opinion columns for the student newspaper, I slung popcorn at my hometown movie theater on Thanksgiving and Christmas days, and one autumn I held a meat cleaver and a bloody mannequin arm and pretended to vivisect a fellow actor at one of the scariest haunted houses in the state of Texas. It was shockingly hard work, but also so, so satisfying, in a really mean way, of course. I made adults cry, I made a man wet himself, I made someone vomit, I gave a teenager an asthma attack, and I was infamous for causing a ridiculous number of people to safeword me, I was so awesomely scary. And I didn't even last the entire season (I injured myself chasing a loudly weeping woman out of my room, so intent on catching her and strapping her to my table that I ran flat into a painted-black wall in the pitch black maze).

Anyway, I'm REALLY into haunted houses, and I was super stoked that the kids were, too.

Check out this bookshelf by the haunted house's exit. All the book titles are previous years' themes:

It was a pleasant surprise to find that the rest of the children's museum was deliciously, non-spookily themed for Halloween:

Sammy Terry is a local celebrity and campy horror film host. Love him!

The background is an actual still used in Nightmare before Christmas. 

But, of course, since it's been a year or so since we've been to the Children's Museum, it was also wonderful to find much that's remained exactly, happily the same:

I don't know if it's the homeschooling, or their personalities, but in some ways my kids are very "young" for their ages, and I love that about them. They're completely uninterested in tweeny pop music or TV shows or books, they still play with play dough and shaving cream and colored rice and sand, and they can still completely immerse themselves in toy dinosaurs--

--or pretend scuba diving:

We're actually going to start the pyramids and mummies chapter of The Story of the World next week!

But, with all the many levels of the world's largest children's museum at their disposal, I still found evidence that something else was on their minds:

So as we're spending the day at the museum, the kids mention once or twice that they wished that we could go to the haunted house's frightening hours, too, and I kept mulling it over in my head, and we kept hearing kids who looked the same age as or younger than my two talk about how THEY were going in the scary haunted house, so finally, helped in no small part because *I* wanted to go, too, I bought tickets for the frightening hours. I was sort of worried, still, but seriously, there were toddlers in line for this haunted house. One woman had an infant on her hip (I still think that was a seriously bad idea, but still...).

Oh. My. Goodness. Imagine the perfect haunted house for a brave kid--low lights, lots of jump scares, nothing malicious or gory.

This was that haunted house.

It helped, I'm sure, that we'd done the friendly hours earlier, and so the kids were familiar with the layout, but still, it was PERFECT for kids. The lights were down so that you couldn't see what was coming well, but nothing was pitch black. The actors were mainly costumed in black morph suits (I want one of those soooo bad!) with pieces of the environment attached so that they blended in, or in generic "spooky" attire--torn clothes, zombie-ish face paint, etc. No blood. No weapons. Nobody vivisecting anybody else. Their main occupation was jumping out and scaring you, which yes, is startling, but you knew ahead of time that's what would be happening, so you were prepared. After my eyes got used to the lighting, I could sort of see the morph suits, so I'd steer my unsuspecting tots toward them in every single room, and laugh when they shrieked.

Random tip: If you enter a room and the actors are already out and acting spooky, then you're going too fast for them to get set back up for you. Slow down, so that the actors in the next room can jump out and scare you!

Seriously, this has to be the only kid-friendly haunted house in the world. It was brilliant. The kids and I had a freakin' ball. They're bragging their butts off about it to everyone they see.

I wonder how many years til I can take them with me to the Dungeon of Doom?

Trick-or-Treating with IU Basketball: Haunted Hoops!

It's another Halloween tradition! Every year IU Basketball holds a free Halloween event for families, with a basketball scrimmage, games, crafts, trick-or-treating, and a costume parade. Although both Will and Syd worked hard on their respective costumes (witch and cat) for the Big Day, I did manage to convince one of them to wear the IU cheerleading dress that I scored at Goodwill a few years ago just to this one event:

The cat insisted on remaining a cat:

Thank goodness the IU campus is so nice for frolicking--lets some of us get all that sugar energy out!

That makes for *slightly* fewer wiggles and whines during the scrimmage:

But after the scrimmage, it's time for candy! And a parade! And candy! And a photo with the IU basketball team! Check out who the girls got to sit next to during the group photo:

Coach Crean is a big-time local celebrity, so even Syd, who was unimpressed enough with the random man sitting next to her for the photo that when he said, "Thanks for sitting next to me!" nicely to her afterwards she stared at him blankly (obviously, we have gone over and over and OVER appropriate responses to kind small talk, sigh), became star-struck as soon as we'd walked away and a few people said to her, "Wow! You sat next to Coach Crean!". She kept wanting to tell people that she'd sat with this famous person, but she kept forgetting the name of that famous person, so she'd start off, "Guess what? I sat next to..." and then look at us for help.

Since the girls also participated in another Halloween event at the IU dorms, that makes TWO trick-or-treating events that they've done pre-Halloween, and I also could have taken them trick-or-treating at the mall, any of our several state parks, one of our local museums, and most of several retirement homes around town. Mind you, I love the fact that our community is so community-minded that it eagerly holds these activities for children, but I would love it even more if they spread it out a bit, you know? I don't even care about the sugar rush, because my girls don't have allergies and I let them eat it all and then it's gone, but we hate being over-scheduled and/or missing fun stuff, and our weekend was INSANE and we still missed a ton of stuff that the girls would have loved. We missed the Day of the Dead event at the Mathers Museum! We missed decorating mini pumpkins at Lake Monroe! Wouldn't it be fun if some place had a Thanksgiving event, and some other place had a Valentine's Day event, and some other place had an Independence Day event, etc.?

I'll totally run the salt dough cornucopia/construction paper Valentine/2014 calendar station!

Work Plans for the Week of October 28, 2013

Our break was good for mind and soul, but I'm also very happy to be back in business. We've got so many exciting things to learn and do and see and explore!

Here are Syd's work plans for the week.
Here are Will's work plans for the week.

MONDAY: I'm trying out a new method of getting the memory work practiced regularly. It's a learning curve, though, since Will and Syd both found the concept of checking off the correct assignment on the correct day on this chart absolutely baffling at first. It's funny what random things kids don't know!

I'm trying to strike a balance between hands-on math and computation skills, so both girls are testing out a different pattern blocks skills book today (I didn't like the one we tested the other week, sigh). I'm also trying to incorporate more living books and movies into our days, since the girls always seem to remember that content so well, so I'm adding that to subjects throughout the week whenever it seems relevant. I've been downloading videos from Discovery Education Streaming and creating themed DVDs for various units--the recorder, Ancient Egypt, our 50 states study, etc.--and this makes having the kids access those videos a LOT more handy!

You might notice that Syd no longer has Reading as a daily subject! She's at about a Level 2 reader, so instead of making it a curriculum subject, I'm including in her other daily subjects something that she can read to me, and something that I can read to her.

In Latin we've moved on to commands, and in music Will is still reviewing some of her recorder songs that she forgot over our hiatus from the instrument, while I'm trying out having Syd, who has no interest in learning an instrument but who does enjoy singing, learn and practice a song this week.

TUESDAY: Over the weekend, we went to the Physics, Geology, and Chemistry open houses on campus--always a BIG hit!!!--and so I wasn't super surprised when Will said that she'd rather study chemistry now than continue with human biology. We hadn't gone far into human biology, fortunately, and have finished our animal biology unit, AND own a really nice chemistry set that comes with a series of graduated experiments and demonstrations, so I'm actually pretty excited to make the shift. It will release me from a TON of prep work, too!

I've still got Craft as a subject for Tuesdays, since it's great for fine motor and problem solving skills, and although Syd's pretty crafty in her free time, Will rarely chooses such activities. I've still got Will doing some grammar, too--although my long-term plan is to put her into the third level of First Language Lessons with Syd later this year, Will already has such an excellent inherent grasp of English grammar that it's easy for her to memorize parts of speech.

We have to remember to bring gloves to horseback riding this week. It's getting cold!!!

WEDNESDAY: I've given up on "fun school," keeping just memory work and the math packet in what's otherwise a free day. We've gotten out of the habit of doing big day trips during the week, but aerial silks, our usual Wednesday activity, is actually easy to shift to another day, so there might be a field trip renaissance in our future. First up: the girls are making noise about visiting the Children's Museum of Indianapolis' Haunted House. Do we dare?

THURSDAY: Yes, I really did schedule a full day's work on Halloween. What was I thinking? Actually, it may storm on Halloween, so it's a good thing that we did all those trick-or-treating events and parties all weekend, even though they made me miserable. Otherwise, the girls are continuing their special units, with Syd making more raisin bread (I'm trying to choose recipes that she can potentially memorize, and definitely master) and Will working more on a real-live working pinball game. I bought a clock kit, and I'm really excited to set them up with the supplies to make their own clock--you can't not know how to tell time after doing THAT!--and there will also be our homeschool group's play group, perhaps ice skating with friends, perhaps dinner with friends, perhaps trick-or-treating with friends...

It can't REALLY storm on Halloween, right?!?

FRIDAY: Math with Math Mammoth is still going great. Will's still zipping through the cumulative reviews, stopping occasionally to complete the odd unit, but Syd's found a good place to settle midway through the second grade level. She's still moving very quickly, though, so I won't be surprised if she eventually reaches the point where she can't complete a unit a day.

Scrapbooking our summer vacation is also a BIG hit. I'll share the girls' scrapbooks with you some other time, but they're having a ball gluing down photos and souvenirs and writing captions, and the scrapbooks are going to be lovely mementos for them when they're done. I'm curious to see if the papyrus paintings that we'll be doing for history will also turn out cute--it's the last project before we move on to the mummy chapter!

SATURDAY/SUNDAY: Oh, let's see... There's our university's homecoming parade. Evening activities at our local hands-on science museum. Read to a Dog at the library. A hockey skills workshop. Some work that needs to be done on the chicken coop. Maybe mountain biking?

I think we'll stay busy!

Teeny-Tiny Dictionary Page Envelopes

I make these dictionary page mini envelopes all the time, for my own stuff and to package pinback buttons from my Pumpkin+Bear etsy shop, so I finally decided to list them!

I've made these out of comic book pages before, and scrapbook paper, and even plain notebook paper, but I always come back to the dictionary pages. You've got to love an envelope that increases your vocabulary!

Kentucky Horse Park, Summer 2013

There's a LOT to be said about a week of school vacation! I was actually kind of bummed about it the first day, when my rotten little monsters basically just watched videos all day (the weather has NOT been as nice as I'd hoped, sigh...), but ipad issues aside, I am getting a ton of work done while the kids... rest their brains, is what I'm going to call it.

And that's how I'm *finally* getting around to editing the photos that I took during our family visit to the Kentucky Horse Park back in June, yikes!

Horses of the World show

SO much petting!

Horse evolution in the kids' barn!

Kiddo jump course

Hall of Champions show, featuring retired winning racehorses

You gotta double-fence the fields to keep the stallions from killing each other.

Sydney and I LOVE doing dorky statue mimicry.

Love. IT!

Sometimes random horses and riders in costume just go riding by.

This was a VERY patient pony.

a very, VERY patient pony

The park's museum is EXCELLENT, with, again, an extensive section on horse evolution--right in our sweet spot!

Of course, now that our free week is halfway through, the girls are (somewhat) over their Netflix Instant frenzy, and there's the imaginative play that I'd hoped they'd spend the day with, the fort building, the playing with chickens, the baking of delicious foods, and the heady anticipation of Halloween. We've had playdates and swimming dates, the invention of cinnamon/butter/salt popcorn, some time at the office with Matt, and ice skating to look forward to after they clean out the chicken coop later this morning. During all of this, I deep-cleaned the house, finished a set of chair covers for our janky old living room table chairs, planned a Harry Potter book club for Syd and some of her friends, finished the chore for pay magnets that I've been wanting for, like, a year now, and now that I've gotten these Kentucky Horse Park photos edited, well, I might as well plan the rest of the Kentucky unit for our 50 States Project!

My Latest over at Crafting a Green World: The Backpack and the Biography Fair

I LOVED both of the projects behind this week's Crafting a Green World posts. These vintage medal zipper pulls are one of my favorite finished projects EVER, I think:

First place in the district History Day in eighth grade!

Third place in the State History Day!

Silver medal in the National Latin Association exam in twelfth grade!

In other academic pursuits, the kiddos and I created display boards out of recycled cardboard for their Biography Fair projects:

Poor Syd was frozen with terror, basically only able to stand up in front of the other children, squeak "Harry Potter!", and then sit back down, but Will gamely read her report out loud--more quietly than we'd discussed, but at least the other kids could hear her, I was in the second row, and nobody else would care:

Matt's still reading The Mysterious Island out loud to us at bedtime, and I can't recommend the practice of reading "big" novels out loud to children highly enough--sure, I've read them "kid" novels like Little House in the Big Woods before, and we've listened to novels on audiobook, and goodness knows that Will has read a small library's worth of grown-up books, but this has turned into something different. Matt pauses his reading all the time so that we can discuss the Civil War, or bemoan Verne's racist depiction of Ned, or make fun of how all the characters hero-worship Cyrus Harding ("Oh, Cyrus! If anyone can build us a fire out of nothing it's YOU!!!"). The second that it takes to pause an audiobook is just enough to make us not bother with many of these discussions when we're listening together in the car, and I'm sure that the girls simply skip over the more sophisticated stuff in their own reading.

Together, though, we're finding that everyone has a lot to say about... well, everything! So Matt reads, I braid tiny braids into the girls' hair, and we interrupt him constantly to talk. It's perfect family time.

The Ladies Laid Some Eggs

Finally, weeks after I had taken to simply telling anyone who asked about them that our hens were barren, we have eggs!!!

And perfectly, there was one for each kid! They ate them with their lunch, and never were two eggs declared to be lovelier, tastier, or more satisfying than these first two eggs from our own Fluffball and Arrow.

I have to say that our chickens are more rewarding pets than even I thought they'd be, and I was hoping that they'd be pretty great. We all adore them, and the girls take complete care of them--actual, genuine, kid-chosen responsibility! They're gentle, and funny, and if they're out of food they holler at the girls so they can come and feed them. If you let them out of their tractor a bit before sunset, they'll play for a few minutes in the backyard, eat mosquitoes for us, and then walk to their coop and put themselves to bed. I now keep a jar of stale bread on the kitchen counter just because it's blissfully fun to feed them treats. Sometimes, when the girls are outside, I'll walk by an open window and spy one of them with a chicken next to her, both of them deep in conversation with each other.

We've got some chicken-related DIY projects coming up--I'd like to have the girls help me build this automatic chicken feeder, and this automatic chicken waterer, and I'd like to get the heat lamp re-installed on a timer before it starts getting super cold at night, and I'd like to finish our months-long chicken yard project before it snows, and I'm wondering if I should buy some hay bales to insulate the coop some from the wind, and I want to start the girls raising mealworms and sprouting grains for chicken feed...

Pets AND pet-related DIY projects?!? It's like my own personal crafty fantasyland!