At the Indianapolis Museum of Art

With temperatures in Indy in the low 40s instead of the forecasted low 50s, it wasn't the best day to explore the Indianapolis Museum of Art and its expansive outdoor park and gardens, but there was a children's tour I wanted to attend and an aerial silks performance art piece (outdoors, of COURSE) that I'd already bought tickets for, so we all just girded our loins and muscled ahead.

It's always, fortunately, a great day to explore the indoor museum:

Matt and I usually practice a man-on-man defense in museums, which is why I only have photos of one kid OR the other, and none of Matt. He was there, just mostly with Will while I was with Syd. We'd pass each other between galleries and I'd say, "There's a Matisse over there!", or we'd find ourselves in the same gallery and spend a minute all together with the Georgia O'Keefes before I had to take Syd to the bathroom, and as a reward for sitting in the foyer with Will (who threw a fit because there were too many babies and toddlers on the children's tour--she disdains babies and toddlers) while I went on the children's tour with Syd, he got to look around all by himself(!) for half an hour or so while I hung out in the hands-on art room with both kids:

They both stay in the same place pretty well when there's art to be made.

We also huddled together as a family--Syd tucked onto Matt's lap with his arms around her, Will squished between the two of us with one of my arms over the top of her--through the performance art piece, which everyone liked, although we all would have liked it a lot better if we hadn't been so uncomfortably cold:

So walking the grounds didn't happen, and the picnic didn't happen, and the portable art set for making art en plein air that I brought didn't leave the car, but we saw the silks, some of us took the tour, the kids now have postcards featuring Georgia O'Keefe paintings on the walls by their beds, and we'll go back again for all the rest when it's actually sunny and springlike and warm.

My Latest over at Crafting a Green World: Eco-Friendly Easter

True story: I thought that Easter was this Sunday. A company actually wanted to host a giveaway over at Crafting a Green World this week, and I deterred their rep because the timing would be too tight. Because I thought Easter was this Sunday.

Even more embarrassing: it took a trip to Wal-mart (where I desperately needed to buy the kids chocolate rabbits for their Easter baskets, since I thought Easter was this Sunday) to teach me the actual date of Easter this year, because they had signs up everywhere. Yep, classy all around, I am.

Anyway, now you at least have plenty of time to check out my roundup of tons of eco-friendly Easter egg tutorials (my favorite are the wooden, felted wool, and papier mache eggs)--

--and my review of Natural Earth Paint's natural egg dye kit, which we LOVED:

Yes, her hands are filthy, but that thumbnail is an injury entitled Willow vs. 20lb Rock.

I actually really like Easter crafting, so I'm excited that we've got a few more weeks to do it! I *think* we're going to decoupage tissue paper onto wooden eggs today, but right now the kids are downstairs building three swords out of PVC pipes, and then they're probably going to want to get started on the catapults, so the sweet little afternoon of decoupaging Easter eggs and listening to the Easter Parade soundtrack may not happen.

Siege warfare and hand-to-hand combat, however? That's looking like a given!

Evil Zoo Tycoon

Will hasn't touched her computer this week, but last week she spent much of her time VERY into her very beloved, very retro copy of Zoo Tycoon. She's long been able to use her long list of cheat codes to make her Zoo Tycoon experience into exactly what she wants it to be (think giant sandbox with unlimited resources), but at some point she discovered the existence of user-created content, so I found a Zoo Tycoon Wiki, and that led me to sign up for a couple of the Zoo Tycoon forums that Will likes to lurk on, and those taught me how to find and download user-created content, so I in turn taught Will, and away she went!

These forums also teach you how to make user-created content yourself, and it would be very cool if Will got interested in doing that, but last week she was mostly interested in downloading and installing all of the most bizarre animals that she could find, and then apparently setting them free to wreak havoc:

One night in particular, Matt took the camera to both photograph Syd helping me watch my *very* interesting MIT OpenCourse lecture on the wave/particle duality of matter--

--and to document Will's most evil Zoo Tycoon machinations, resulting in much loss of life and the probable destruction of civilization as we know it:

I don't know if you can tell, but not only are the aforementioned dragons still there, but also a terrifying wolf/unicorn hybrid, several massive tarantulas, and some mutant bears, all running free out of the broken fences in their habitats. 

They've clearly already killed all the zoo visitors, and are preparing to jump the walls and destroy everyone in the city outside of the zoo, and NOW the National Organization of Zoos is concerned? About a PANDA?!? And their punishment is that Will can't add anymore monsters until it's happy?!?!

To be fair, though, the panda probably won't be happy until there are no more monsters running rampant in its zoo.

Work Plans for the Week of March 24, 2014: Play

Syd spent much of last week learning how to make and break codes and edit Zoo Tycoon with Will, so whatever we didn't get to last week, I just left in place for this week!

MONDAY: Latin is one of the subjects that Will always chooses to do with Syd--somehow, those workbook pages that were such agony when required don't merit a peep of protest when they're chosen. Syd's keyboard lesson is again from Hoffman Academy, who, I am thrilled to see, has added more video lessons. I'm pretty stoked that we can learn more at home before I have to make a decision about formal classes. Syd also ADORES Mr. Hoffman and his lessons, so she loves keyboard. Will, on the other hand, hasn't picked up the recorder since the day that I stopped giving her work plans; we need to have a conversation about this, to see where she wants to go with music, because I do want her to study some instrument.

We didn't get to the skip counting board last Friday (but Syd did spend a LONG time creating and translating "secret" codes on that day, so there's her math enrichment and logic skill building), so I put it down again for Monday. I also read another Pippi book to Syd, and then had her write a letter to Pippi Longstocking, care of the theater where we saw her play a couple of weeks ago. Syd LOVED this project, and it turned out super cute, too--she asked Pippi what her real name was, told her all the things that she liked to pretend to be, described in detail her favorite part of the play (a scene that didn't actually include Pippi--oops!), and wrote the names of our three cats in every possible order for her ("My cats' names are Ballantine and Gracie and Spots or Ballantine and Spots and Gracie or Gracie and Ballantine and Spots or...). I'm curious to see if the theater passes the letter on to the actress and if she writes back--hopefully she's not *too* overwhelmed with fan mail?

Both kids also seriously worked their butts off at our volunteer gig on Monday--I have NEVER seen them work so hard! They stocked cans and granola bars and frozen meat and milk and yogurt and produce, including a ton of really heavy stuff. They helped repackage pasta (some stuff comes in giant bulk bags, and we split it into smaller portions to serve more people). They organized their bookshelf and stocked more books (someone brought in even more books last week!). Syd read to a little boy. They normally do all that, but with plenty of time spent reading quietly or coloring or playing together, but yesterday they hardly even took a break. It was wonderful to watch them so dedicated and focused, and I felt really proud of them.

TUESDAY: The kids have a playdate for this entire morning (right now they're playing hide-and-seek downstairs, with a gentleman's agreement that no one will hide in the closet where we keep the litterbox), so nothing will get accomplished until afternoon, but then we've got First Language Lessons, which both kids LOVE, and math, which Syd is fine with and Will tolerates much better these days (even though she IS spending the week doing the long-threatened Kumon multiplication drill workbook), and that documentary on natural Indiana that's been on the work plans for weeks--surprising, since the kids usually adore documentaries, and I actually want to add more of them to our days, but they've been so involved in active play and their own busy plans recently that I just don't think they want to sit down long enough to watch this. It's also snowing right now, which means that we're not going to make casts of animal tracks today, either, but on a family hike this weekend--without the supplies to make casts, of COURSE--we saw some good animal tracks, so on the first nice day this week we'll head back there, plaster of Paris in our backpacks, and finally make that project happen.

One thing that I like about homeschooling is that I get to put what are essentially chores on the schoolwork plans, instead of rushing to try to do them after school and extracurriculars, so today I also want the kids to figure out their birthday presents for a buddy's birthday party this weekend. I have kind of strict rules for birthday party presents--You can either make your friend a gift, buy your friend a gift with your own money, or give your friend something of your own--so making/buying/figuring out what to sacrifice does take enough time and effort to justify being a "work" for the day.

WEDNESDAY: Horseback riding lessons begin again! The kids couldn't be more stoked. I also *may* put Will back in aerial silks class, because she says her thumb isn't sore anymore, but I'm terrified that she'll accidentally rip off a big scab or her entire thumbnail during class and cause an "incident," so we'll see...

THURSDAY: Oh, my goodness, this last Girl Scout Birthday Week project seems like it will never get done! I may have to wave the Birthday Week patches temptingly in front of the children on this day, because I know they want them deeply. To be fair, Will worked on other Girl Scout badges for I can't even tell you how many hours last week--she's simultaneously earning her Animal Tracks, Detective, Inside Government, and Geocaching badges--and Syd worked on her Potter badge, so Girl Scouts is still leading them into some really enriching, engaging learning experiences, but I know that regular sense of completion and accomplishment goes a long way towards making it as fun as they find it to be.

Since we just had a Bible chapter in The Story of the World, and since Easter and Passover are coming up, I thought we'd spend some time in the next few weeks exploring some myths from world religions. We're reading about Creation myths this week, and then we might focus in on Jewish and Christian myths related to the upcoming holidays. I'll tell you one thing about children's religious education: it includes a LOT of crafts! Fortunately, Syd enjoys crafting, so I think this will be a lot of fun for her. Will doesn't always enjoy crafting, so I think she'll appreciate the ability to choose her own level of participation.

FRIDAY: Last Friday was a beautiful day, so the kids just played and played and we didn't get much of our formal schoolwork accomplished. This Friday may end up being just as beautiful, especially after being so chilly earlier in the week, so we'll just see what ends up getting done. I'd like us to begin Indiana history, after spending some time studying natural Indiana, so we're starting A History of US, which I'm pretty excited about. I "think" I'm going to skip around to the chapters that relate directly to Indiana, but if we like the book as much as I hope we're going to, I may just add it wholemeal to our curriculum. Anyway, on this day we begin with the Bering Land Bridge, and we'll be using a cool ipad app that allows us to see historical geography to research what the Bering Land Bridge actually must have looked like.

For our regular history, we'll be doing the mapwork in The Story of the World Activity Book for chapter seven, but we've actually spent so much time exploring Mesopotamia in earlier chapters that I'm already researching for chapter eight. Perhaps this is how we'll eventually begin to move faster through the book--we'll just, at some point, have done all the cool projects that there are to do! Math class is back this week, and the couple of leftover assignments from last Friday should finish off our day... if I can get the kids to come inside long enough to do them, which I'm not counting on.

SATURDAY/SUNDAY: It's going to be a busy Saturday, with an all-day nature class for the kids followed immediately by a birthday party for a buddy. So even though I'd like to plan hiking or rock climbing or some such family adventure on Sunday, we may just goof around and play at home, with a few breaks for enforced yardwork.

Small Town Famous

Even though I made Matt promise to not let me enroll the children in ANY OTHER SUMMER CAMPS this year (sleep-away camp and our big road trip seem like plenty of adventure/expenditure this summer), there are always so many cute and cool and interesting and enriching summer camps on offer--rock climbing camp! horseback riding camp! acting camp! Humane Society camp! archaeology camp! golf camp!--that I nevertheless pored through our local summer camp book that came in the newspaper a few weeks ago, exclaiming over and then having to remind myself not to book every single camp.

As I was carefully reading the entries on one page, trying to decide if maybe I could make an exception for art museum camp, I found my eyes repeatedly drawn to one particular image, and yet it took more than a minute of glancing at it, reading some more, then glancing at it again--

--before I realized, "Oh! We're IN that photo!" It must have been taken in the fall, while Matt was away at a conference. The kids were sad that he'd missed their horseback riding show, so even though I didn't feel like getting out of the house and into the car again, to cheer them up I took them to a children's event at the IU Art Museum.

I had clearly forgotten all about that trip, since I distinctly remember late this winter beating myself up about completely neglecting art history and art appreciation in the children's education. Ah, well... that at least spurred me into redemption; I scheduled what turned out to be a AMAZING field trip for my homeschool group to that very art museum a few weeks ago, and this weekend our whole family is spending the day at the Indianapolis Museum of Art (a place that I have not taken the children since, shockingly, 2009!), including watching an aerial silks show!

With an aerial silks show, make-and-take art projects, a family-friendly tour, and a quick couple of hours spent afterwards at the nearby children's museum, this trip to the art museum will be a raging success.

I may have been gritting my teeth while I wrote that last part.

Cake and Ice Cream and Calorie Expenditure

Last week, we celebrated the 102nd anniversary of the Girl Scouts by making cake and ice cream from scratch. The kids and I made our go-to, super easy, mix-in-the-pan chocolate sheetcake (for icing, Will took the blogger's advice to scatter chocolate chips over the warm cake, let them melt, then spread them--YUM!). The kids and Matt made ice cream in our ice cream ball--


--and then we all sat down in a circle for 20 minutes or so and rolled it back and forth to each other:

It weighs something like a medicine ball when it's filled with the ice cream ingredients, salt, and ice, and I guess rolling it around is a pretty good workout for a kid, because later, after the kids had eaten some cake and ice cream, and before I put them to bed, I found Will like this:

All tuckered out, the little lamb.

I also, because it's too chilly to climb onto my house and shout it from the rooftop, am going to tell you that I weighed myself yesterday, and after eleven months of studiously working to change the way I exercise and eat (I use a BodyMedia armband to keep track of my activity, and My Fitness Pal to keep track of my calories and nutrients), I now weigh what I weighed when I got pregnant with Syd, for the first time since that particular weigh-in. That's 35 pounds that I've lost since the middle of last April. I can also run a mile without stopping, for the first time EVER. I run the slowest mile ever, but I'm gradually ramping up my speed, and right now my slowest mile ever is almost three full minutes faster than I ran it when I accomplished my first mile run. 

Here are the other activities that I'm also working on:

• I want to keep increasing the speed at which I run my mile. I want to run with other adult humans one day, and they're not going to want to run this slowly.
• I'm teaching myself how to pogo using Will's stunt pogo stick. When I first began working to change the way I exercised and ate, I was heavier than the stick's maximum weight allowance. Now I'm fifteen pounds under it!
• I'm teaching myself how to shoot a basket. Matt teases me because I only shoot granny style, and only from the free throw line, but I'm convinced that eventually my muscle memory will let me shoot flawlessly from that exact spot, and then I'll pick another spot to work on.
• I'm working on doing a pull-up. We bought a pull-up bar for our kitchen doorway a few weeks ago, and now everybody practices on it off and on all day, every day. Will's the most dedicated, and she's improved massively!

Anybody got any other good zero-cost, zero-pressure, active challenges I could take on? 

My Latest over at Crafting a Green World: Cool Math Games

We are all multiplication tables all the time lately. I am ready for this multiplication table memorization to happen already, so I've taken the kids to full immersion learning.

Want to know what we've got for breakfast? Well, what's 4x8?

Going somewhere in the car? Let's recite multiplication tables the whole way there!

Lied to me about brushing your teeth? That's a 6x table offense, kiddo.

We play multiplication games, such as Roll 'n Multiply, multiplication dominoes, and this awesome-fun DIY Multiplication Touch game that you can make yourself (I've also got a round-up of other DIY math games and manipulatives this week):

We've completed art projects, such as the entire village of "multiplication houses" that Syd and I made on Monday, and dot marker arrays.

The kids each wrote a full, loooooooong factor chart on butcher paper.

I've yet to finish making the hands-on decanomial square for them to assemble, but mat board is 30% off at Hobby Lobby this week!

I've yet to wield flash cards at them, but I have an entire set printed and waiting to be cut out. They're coming!

And if Will's not fully adept by next week, when her math curriculum moves into a place in which she must be adept in order to continue (she can calculate in her head so quickly and easily that she's never bothered with memorizing the multiplication tables, but that extra couple of seconds to figure out 6x8=48 is going to start to seriously add up now that she's moving into more complicated, multi-step calculations), then I'm going to make her do Kumon multiplication drills every day instead of Math Mammoth; it's very much the stick rather than carrot, but I bet it'll get it done!

But for today, at least, math, other than my random questions and forced recitations, is finished. Will has since played Zoo Tycoon, and built a real-life Zoo Tycoon out of building blocks in the middle of our main walking path, and is currently immersed in Day #2 of the observational training required for her Girl Scout Detective badge. Syd got drawn into zoo play for a while, and is now sitting down in front of a stellar late breakfast of an orange, strawberry yogurt, and tapioca pudding. After that I need to corral her for the grammar that Will and I did yesterday while she was in the bathroom making an aquarium for her toy animals. After that, the park if it's not raining (it's going to rain). After that, fingerprinting. After that, Stage Fright on a Summer Night. After that, homemade pizza!

It's looking to be another wonderful day!