The Horse, the Princess, and the Unicorn. Oh, and the Mule

Even though it's Monday, I'm not sharing our work plans for the week.

Gasp, I know! Has the Earth stopped turning? Do pigs finally fly?

The truth is that my fiercely independent, self-determined Will needs a break from being told what to do for half the day, and I need a break from fighting her to the death for every single task that I'd like her to accomplish. Her non-compliance has been gradually ramping up for a while to this untenable extreme, so I'm hoping that a complete break will refresh her attitude.

And the house is, at least, more peaceful since the break. Will puttered outside for the entirety of one day, then played Tokyo Jungle for eight hours the next day, followed by reading the entire Gregor the Overlander series within the next 24 hours, followed by playing outside with her sister for another half of a day. She skipped two family hikes and her Syd's gymnastics meet, BUT participated in family dinner conversation without any bad attitude, talked me into ordering FIFTEEN chicks for her to raise, and listened to me lay down the rules for the usage of her Nook (recently returned from its embargo due to her lying about its usage) without a single sigh or glare or protest.

Will's generally a pretty nerdy kid who can do things like tell you the world's percentage of coffee consumption or the difference between Fahrenheit and Celsius without a blink, so there's no danger of her "falling behind," whatever she chooses to do for however long she chooses to do it. My plan is simply to give her the freedom to make her own choices, and watch her for signs that she might be ready have a little more structure--sixth-grade Math Mammoth will be waiting for her whenever she wants it. Of course, I'm also not ruling out the possibility that she'll want to determine her own courses of study from here on out; perhaps the puttering and the video games and the novels will recalibrate themselves between some other, larger projects or areas of interest. Wait and see, I suppose...

Anyway, the big bonus to this is that it gives me a way to focus school time solely on the kid who can never have enough attention. Every school day after breakfast, she and I sit down together (I always invite Will to join us, of course. One day she might!) and I write while she does her Math Mammoth, then we do First Language Lessons together, then she does spelling/handwriting, and then she reads me a book. In the afternoon, after lunch and outdoor play, I invite both kids--generally just Syd accepts--to join me in a project. Last week it was starting seeds one day, painting another day, and transplanting bulbs, which Will DID join us in, on another day. This week's projects will likely consist of making bottle cap jewelry, brainstorming Syd's upcoming birthday party, creating Mandarin vocabulary flash cards, and helping me construct and install a rain chain. It's a good active thinking, problem solving sort of time.

All that being said, here's something totally unrelated to any of that! I wanted to show you why, so often on our work plans, I ask Syd to "write a story." It's because this is what it looks like when she does:

She gets so focused on her work, and makes such elaborate compositions and illustrations, and the results are always so cute--

How could I not assign that every single week?

I made a note in my planner that while we were out and about last week (just coming from the library, of COURSE), Syd asked for my help in finding some "How to Draw" books for her. We couldn't do it while we were in the car, so I wrote it down so that I wouldn't forget it, and then I forgot it.

Until now! I guess that's what we'll do for our afternoon project today!

My Latest over at Crafting a Green World: Crayons and Eggs

tips for dyeing brown eggs

We used our Pysanky dyes.

tips for painting with melted crayon

and tips for painting with Easter egg dye

Next week, I'll be writing about rain chains (and perhaps creating my own?), working on a rain barrel, trying not to kill the seeds that I've started, and attempting to spew out a scholarly essay on Margery Kempe as fanart. 

Bonus points if I can work in a reference to my own Harry/Draco fanfiction.

2015 Spring Ice Show: Momma's Little Gangsta

Once upon a time, I had a little tot in pink snowpants (and also one in a blue stocking cap who keeps falling on her booty):


 Five years later, I have a big kid in a blue tie-dyed T-shirt (which I have just remembered that I still need to return to the friend from whom I borrowed it--sorry, Tris!!!), skating to "Gangsta Blues" from Slumdog Millionaire:

An aside--I originally misread the title of the song in the parents' email, and from then on I could not get out of my head how much MORE awesome it would be if the kids were actually skating to "Gangsta's Paradise," as I'd originally thought.

Although Will is happy to rest on her laurels at this season's end--

I am told that next season she would like to both sign up for the figure skating club and perhaps try hockey. If this is the case, I'll be one of those parents with the permanent seat in the lobby, schoolwork spread everywhere, a full dinner on the cafe table.

How to Decoupage Pencils

Didn't they turn out cute? I wasn't sure how they'd work out, if the tissue paper would stick or if they'd sharpen okay, but they're perfect!

I wanted special pencils to go with the special notebooks that I made for the kids in my Girl Scout troop, but I didn't want to buy them, of COURSE. Instead, I experimented with our stash of plain old #2 pencils until I found a way to create the specialness that I wanted all by myself.

Well, Syd helped, too.

You will need:

1. #2 pencils.
2. tissue paper. I bought a set of tissue paper squares years ago, and we love them. Use them all the freakin' time.
3. Mod Podge and paintbrush.

In some ways, this project is uber-easy. All you have to do is paint your pencil in Mod Podge, and wrap a square of tissue paper around it, smoothing it as you go. When you reach the point where the tissue paper begins to overlap itself, paint another layer of Mod Podge, then continue wrapping and smoothing:

Repeat, overlapping the tissue paper to increase color saturation or to layer colors:

The project is a little fiddly, however, so it may not be great for those with fumbly fingers. For one thing, the tissue paper is quite delicate, especially when it's saturated with Mod Podge, and rips and wrinkles very easily.

For another, no matter what they say when you buy it, tissue paper bleeds like crazy! You must be very mindful not to paint glue with a heavy hand over the top of the tissue paper, or you'll get the color on your brush and it'll show on the other colors that you're painting. Easy to wipe off, but a pain to have to keep cleaning your brush.

That being said, Syd was able to help me make several of the decoupaged pencils, although she's pretty good with fiddly projects and does not have fumbly fingers.

The pencils will sharpen and write normally once decoupaged, although I do have to adjust our old-school, wall-mounted, manual pencil sharpener two holes larger for these pencils.

With Syd's help, I was able to decoupage enough pencils for each of the Girl Scouts (and one brother), to have their own to go with the notebooks that I made each of them. Each notebook also had some little surprises in it, such as any photos that I'd taken of that kid, and her sixth-part of the ribbons that the troop earned for their World Thinking Day display and presentation:

Syd also created a scavenger hunt for Fair Trade products in the grocery store that we had a field trip to on Monday, so the notebooks were a handy place to glue them, all ready for each kid to play!

I was happy to see many of the kids taking notes during that field trip, using their brand-new notebooks and pencils, and I'm hoping that if each kid can manage to bring the notebook to each meeting and field trip, that it will be a handy place to keep notes, glue more activities, and work on projects for quite a while!

Until next Girl Scout cookie season, of course, when I'll make them each another notebook.

Work Plans for the Week of March 30, 2015: SCIENCE!!!!!!!!!!11!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am ready to have a Project Week here, so I can take a break from writing lesson plans and the kids and I can take a break from doing formal lessons, BUT our homeschool group's Science Fair is on Wednesday, so if we've got Science Fair prep to do for three days out of four, then we might as well do our other subjects, and the kids have so many extracurriculars on Thursday that I might as well just add in the extra couple of subjects that complete their schedule and make it a full school day, and then that's a full school week!

But we're definitely having a Project Week next week. We might even have two!

This week, though, is all about the science:

MONDAY: Our day began bright and early with a field trip with our Girl Scout troop to a local co-op grocery store to learn about Fair Trade. We went straight from there to our volunteer gig at a local food pantry, and then FINALLY got home around 2:30 and segued immediately into a late lunch and then outside playtime.

Whenever the kids come in sweaty and tired, that's the time to mellow down with afternoon schoolwork. They both have badges that they want to complete before they Bridge to their next Girl Scout levels, they both have Science Fair work to complete, and Syd has Math Mammoth (temperature measurement, a review, and then division) while Will, whose Math Mammoth was unable to be printed because my printer crapped out and needs a new part, has Kumon fifth-grade word problems this week.

TUESDAY: Hopefully, the kids will completely finish their Science Fair projects today, so that they only have to rehearse on Wednesday.

Hoffman Academy and First Language Lessons lessons are easy to knock out, and then the kids will spend the evening at Science Club and Matt and I will spend it at a Mexican restaurant. Yay!

WEDNESDAY: Will has horseback riding, and the required homework to complete before that class, although, as she was thoroughly informed, she put up enough guff about that homework last week to seriously threaten the possibility of me signing her up for another session after this one. Will she straighten up this week, or am I on the verge of saving a LOT of money this summer? Time will tell...

Syd doesn't currently take horseback riding, so she has an extra school slot to fill on Wednesdays, as Will does on Thursdays since she isn't taking gymnastics with Syd. Syd's been longing for Perler bead My Little Pony figures like we saw at Comic Con a few weeks ago, so I bought the beads, we painstakingly sorted them (WHY do they not come sorted?!? I know good and well that they make them in single colors in the factory! GRRR!!!!!), and on this day she can try her hand at the craft. Just between you and me, I anticipate plenty of tears spilled doing this--Perler beads are fiddly!

This day is already crazy science-heavy, what with the Science Fair and its prep, but the kids LOVE Zoology for Kids, they can do it independently, and it'll be a nice day for the outdoor activity that I've assigned them from the book, so might as well!

THURSDAY: We've got our regular homeschool playgroup at a local park on this day, and Syd has gymnastics, but we're also going to try something new this week. Our local animal shelter has a volunteer program in which children are asked to read out loud to shelter cats. The kids will love this, and they've been dying for more volunteer hours (they're trying to earn the Presidential Volunteer Service Award), and I've been wanting a way to get Syd to read something besides Foxtrot and Calvin and Hobbes comics, so win/win/win!

The kids also love the Magic Tree House Club that they attend through Currclick, but I've never encouraged them to explore the club's web site before, even though there are additional resources and activities linked there. I wanted one more academic experience on this day, but I knew that we'd likely all be tired out after all the work of the Science Fair, so having the kids explore that site seemed to be just the perfect thing. I've also given Will a falconry web site to explore; she's been interested in falconry for a while, so I think she'll be pleased to have a source of new information on the subject.

FRIDAY: Our math class is off for the day, which would normally mean that we'd be heading out of town for some adventure or other, BUT Syd's gymnastics class is having a "mock meet," whatever the hell that is. This is her last week of gymnastics for the session, and she loved it a lot. We'll have to skip the next session, because her two straight weeks of ballet recital rehearsals later this month will overlap it, but fortunately these sessions are short, so if she'd like to, we can pick it back up in May.

SATURDAY/SUNDAY: Ballet class, and then Chinese language class on Saturday, and nothing on Sunday but egg hunts and chocolate!

My Latest: Flowers, Cats, and Lunch

a round-up of 27 projects to make with dried flowers

a review of the knitting/crochet book Cats in Hats

and a tutorial for decoupaging an old lunch box to make it more awesome

This coming week, I need to start seeds, finish decoupaging pencils for my Girl Scouts, and figure out how to sew a sheer blue dance skirt for Syd's Spring ballet recital (she's a bluebird!).

Searching for Salamanders

The kids have been excited about salamanders lately. Our property has shady woods and teensy creeks, which are great places to find salamanders, pop them in a Mason jar habitat, name them, keep them for a bit, and then return them from whence they came.

All of the salamanders have S names, of course. Steve. Speed. Sally. Stuart. Sunshine.

The Hoosier Herpetological Society had an entire salamander-themed day at a local state park last weekend, and since it was also happily one of the Spring Break weekends that the children had off from extracurriculars, we all spent the entire day there, watching a presentation on amphibians and their identification, creating salamander crafts (the docent taught the children beading using Pony beads and flat cord; it was VERY intriguing...), eating a buffet dinner at the inn that mostly consisted of pie (oh, the pie!!!), and in between all that, going on hikes to search for salamanders and get lots of wet:

The children were lent deli containers to catch and examine the salamanders. One mustn't touch salamanders, because their skin is very porous and very sensitive to toxins, even ones that don't bother people and thus that we might accidentally have on our hands:

Salamander! The kids found lots of northern two-lined salamanders.

This kid and her animals...

and THIS kid! They're pretty great.

Although I do not know how this one eats. That's FOUR bottom teeth that she's missing, my little rabbit girl.

Our area was formerly under the sea, don't you know, so one must also always be on the lookout for interesting fossils--

 --and, of COURSE, heart-shaped rocks:

I haven't turned the salamander into a study beyond this, but I have checked out many salamander-related resources from the library to strew temptingly for pleasure reading and, if that doesn't take, then for future Books of the Day:

Don't tell the children, but I secretly counted this day as a school day in my planner. Salamanders are science!!!