Santa's List: The Kids' Favorites

I try to be really thoughtful with the children's Christmas presents--I mainly only buy them new things at Christmas and their birthdays, so I want them to love what they get. I also hate it when I choose wrong, as I did last Christmas, when I thought that Syd would just love this LEGO Life Of George game. She loves the ipad, and she loves LEGOs; what could go wrong? Yeah, Life of George has a timer. She felt judged by it. It made her cry.

So what I did this year was scroll through my family photos from the last several years, back to about 2008 or so, with an eye out for what I'd photographed the children playing with and using. For me to photograph something, I generally have to be liking what I see, so photos should show both what the kids like and what I like them to have. I figured that if a category was big then and still big now, then a purchase in that category is likely to be a winner.

Here's what I came up with:

1. memberships. Zoo memberships, science museum memberships, children's museum memberships, history museum memberships, state and national park memberships--the kids never get tired of visiting these places.

It's been over a year since we've had a zoo membership, so I may buy one for Christmas. Will would be thrilled!

 2. building toys. Building blocks, Kapla blocks, LEGOs, Geomags, train tracks, racetrack building sets--the kids have a knack for incorporating their creations into their pretend play, so everything gets a ton of use.

I'm boosting the kids' Kapla blocks and Geomag sets this Christmas.

3. face paint and makeup. Natural face paint, professional clown makeup, real makeup, fingernail polish--Syd is into this stuff constantly, and Will occasionally shows an interest in making herself up, too:

If I can find it (still haven't unpacked all the way. May never do so), I've got a "tropical colors" set of our favorite Mehron professional clown paints socked away for Santa to put in Syd's stocking.

4. arts enrichment. Cameras, video cameras, musical instruments, oil pastels, fabric markers, and paints of all kinds--anything that allows the kids to express themselves is a bit hit with all of us:

I really want to buy the kids this little pottery wheel that I've heard good reviews of, but it's more than I want to pay. Maybe we can make ourselves a kick wheel this spring.

5. kits. Science kits, art kits, craft kits--the kids will ignore them for months, and then pull one out and become totally immersed in it for an entire day.

I'm actually going to make the kids a chemistry set, hopefully by Christmas.

6. games and puzzles. Board games, computer games, logic games, video games, card games, trivia games, and puzzles, the bigger the better--the kids are doing these daily, and I love the spontaneity of getting pulled into an epic game of Monopoly or a week-long puzzle featuring otters.

I've wanted to buy Will a complete beginner's D&D setup for a while, including an adventure in a box that can really get her going, but again, it's not in the budget this Christmas. I can DM her through some games on my own, and maybe get her really set up for her birthday.

7. tools. Science equipment, physics supplies, rope, shooting equipment, carving knives, power tools, batteries and wires--both kids, but especially Will, are continually engaged in going about their own productive little businesses.

Santa is going to bring Will a gouge for her limestone hand-carving set, and if I can ever find a heavy weight-bearing triple pulley that doesn't cost more than a week's groceries, then I'm going to snap that baby up, pronto!

You'll notice that I don't have books as a category, but the kids just read too much to make getting them from me a treat. They check out armloads at the library a couple of times a week, return them, and gather a new armload the next time we're out. And yet even without deliberately giving them books at holidays, we still all have a million books. Go figure.

I also don't have toys like Barbies, stuffed animals, or little toy people and animals and cars listed, but of course the kids love them. They buy them with their own money (Syd scored big on a Barbie Black Friday sale!), get them at thrift stores and yard sales, and, yes, they'll definitely find a few Hot Wheels and maybe a couple of Schleichs in their stockings on Christmas morning.

Okay, I'm done. Also, every time I talk about Christmas presents I feel like a monster, on account of there are starving people in the world, and here I am, thinking about toys.

Work Plans for the Week of December 1, 2014: The Nutcracker and the Advent

We are going to get through this week, my friends. We are just going to put one foot in front of the other, take one event at a time, one day at a time, and we are going to get through this week.

The main focus of the week is on supporting Syd as she spends hours upon hours this week rehearsing, and then performing, for our local university's production of The Nutcracker. It's a stellar show, because the university has stellar college and pre-college ballet programs. But, of course, a stellar show requires rigorous rehearsals, and a lot of parental commitment (children whose parents can't supply the commitment simply don't get to participate, I fear). I'm in charge of hair, uniform, and transportation that occurs during the workday. I'm a little stressed about the exacting requirements of the "flat performance bun," but I suppose that's why there are three dress rehearsals prior to the show! If my kid shows up with her hair a mess tonight, I'll probably get a note sent home, and then I'll do better tomorrow.

Matt's in charge of all evening transportation, including picking up Syd and taking her to dinner between afternoon stage rehearsals and evening dress rehearsals. When I've got a conflicting appointment with Will, he's also going to have Syd at work with him, so that he can leave work, drop her off at the proper time, then go back to work.

School, therefore, is highly abridged this week. Syd's Nutcracker experience is exactly the kind of experiential education that I want for my kids, and Will can just have the extra downtime to read and play. We'll be doing Math Mammoth daily through Thursday (even though this means that I have to find time today to buy a fucking protractor, sigh. Why do we not already own a protractor?!?), and I've also given the children the task of completing all Girl Scout badges that they've already begun, also by Thursday. Will just finished up her Digital Photographer badge this morning--yay! Syd's still playing with toys under the Christmas tree, her math worksheets lying forgotten on the floor beside her.

We've also got our regular weekly commitments, still, including our volunteer gig, horseback riding and ice skating classes, and Robotics Club. Will's got aerial silks a couple of times this week, and she can make LEGO Club, even though Syd can't. And then there's a party with our homeschool group and two events with our Girl Scouts Co-op, all of which I've said that we'll attend if Syd seems to be getting enough sleep and isn't run-down or fussed by all the running around. We can't have a puking or weepy Snow Angel, so I've got my eye on that, and super bugs or not, I'm not afraid to use hand sanitizer.

Oh, and, AND, did you know that it's already DECEMBER?!? I've been telling myself that although I dread prepping for the Advent calendar activities, I'm always very happy to have done them. Memory and tradition and all, you know? This year the kids have Advent calendars with little numbered drawers, given to them by their grandmother. Last night I made the list and then Matt cut everything apart and put it all into the drawers:

I like having all the activities planned out ahead of time, so that I know when to buy supplies, and when to resign myself to another showing of freaking Frosty (I'd rather watch all the Doctor Who Christmas specials for our movie time), but I have the master list on my computer, so if I need to, I can switch the activities around. All the stuff this week is easy, most of the stuff next week is prep work that we need to do anyway, and the stuff for the final week is more of the elaborate, fun, *really* Christmassy stuff. It's bugging me that we're not doing any extra charity work for any of our activities, but I'll just have to be on the lookout for additional opportunities, because I was overthinking it way too much last night, trying to figure it out.

So that's our week! We'll have relatives in town through next Tuesday, so in next week's work plans, look for Watch Movies All Day and Don't Bother Momma, Who's Staying in Bed Wednesday!

My Latest: A Very Light Bulb Christmas

a round-up of wedding dress crafts

a round-up of light bulb crafts

and a tutorial to make a light bulb Christmas ornament

There will likely be a lot more ornament tutorials coming your way--we went over to the Christmas tree farm down the road yesterday and brought home a lovely pine, but even after decorating it, it's pretty sparse. You're going to think that I'm a monster, but  I often trashed the kids' handmade ornaments at the end of each season--I know, I know, but we really didn't have much storage space in our old house. 

If it makes you feel better, I promise that I'll hoard EVERYTHING from now on.

The 2015 Butterfly Garden

For her Girl Scouts Animal Habitats Junior badge, Will created plans for a butterfly garden:

We are both VERY novice gardeners, and 2015 will be the first year that we've had a real, sun-filled space on our own property to do so. I'm worried about getting too ambitious so that the whole thing looks like crap, and I'm also pretty sure that Will is trying to get us all stoned with her 18 square feet of poppies, but still, it's going to be very exciting to have a property of our own to play with.

Will also wants a koi pond. Syd wants a sunflower house. I may not have time to grow actual vegetables this coming year.

The Two-Paragraph Essay

Will has written several of these for her Minecraft Homeschool class, and they're pretty brilliant. She's a reluctant typer/handwriter (her fine motor skills ARE improving, so I no longer *despair*, exactly, but nevertheless... sigh), but that two-paragraph limit is somehow short enough that she will willingly do the work without complaint.

Two paragraphs are also plenty of space to create some pretty sophisticated compositions. Here's an example from her first week of class:

The instructor generally gives them the topic for each paragraph (for this one, obviously, they were to write facts about their Wonder in the first paragraph, and then explain why they chose that Wonder in the second paragraph), but all of the information, of course, as well as the structure, transitions, and authorial voice, are crafted by the student.

The class also provides its own resources, via a written lesson and links to documentaries on Youtube, and Will has become quite adept at looking back at these references as she writes, rewatching specific scenes from the documentaries and rereading specific paragraphs from the lessons to find the information that she wants. It's not note-taking, but nevertheless, that kind of recall ability is a great research skill to have.

Although these short essays don't require Will to practice introductions and conclusions--there simply isn't enough room--I'm finding that I quite like the way that they're structured, regardless. It gives Will a chance to practice a few very specific research and composition skills, so that when she does write longer essays for me--well, that's a little less that she'll have to work on then!

Work Plans for the Week of November 24, 2014: Visual Organizers and Thanksgiving

We're all excited about the short week ahead of us, and I'm using that enthusiasm as my wedge to pack in a good bit of productive work before our break.

MONDAY: We've got Math Mammoth today (Will's last week of long division; Syd's second-to-last week, I think, in telling time), our usual volunteer gig, and First Language Lessons, but we had to return Song School Spanish to the public library, so we'll have a couple of weeks of hiatus from Spanish before we can get the book back and return to our lessons there.

Will begins another week of Minecraft Homeschool today; her class is six weeks long, and Syd has already informed me that she'd like to take the class when it resumes in January. We only have one Minecraft log-in, so taking turns at the class seems fair.

Our endangered animal study is still going REALLY well! I'm happy to continue it for as long as the children remain interested, because they're doing some great researching and reporting. I've become quite enthusiastic about visual organizers--posters, infographics, timelines, etc.--lately, since they still involve the same research and reference skills, but the kids are happier to produce them.

TUESDAY: The kids are still enjoying their Hoffman Academy keyboard lessons, and I'm still enjoying their independence in completing them. I know that for an instrument to be successful, I really need to get involved, but... baby steps. I'm already handling about all I can handle right this second.

Next week the kids have a brunch with our Girl Scout Co-op, in which they're going to receive the badges they've earned this semester, so I need to sit down soon and look at what they've done, and encourage them to finish up the last bits on their own, but for now we'll continue the First Aid badge work that I'm guiding them through. Mind you, this biography and report on Florence Nightingale is a requirement that I've added to the official badge work, but my additions are designed to turn each badge into more of a unit study, and I think that it gives the activities, overall, more of an impact.

Will has a Robotics Workshop on this night, so she'll be having fun programming LEGO Mindstorms, and Syd has a playdate that overlaps the workshop, so she'll be having fun, too!

WEDNESDAY: Syd pitched a giant fit during last week's spelling test, so I don't think that Matt was even able to establish then which words she knew and which she didn't know, sigh. Perhaps he'll have better luck this week...

We're going to complete a quick Nutcracker unit study this winter, just to help the children put Syd's peformance in it into context. The revised Hoffman book is our current bedtime read-aloud, and this activity, in which we'll watch George Balanchine's version of the ballet and then the kids will create a timeline with that, a coloring book that we own, and a short performance summary as their references, will nail down their understanding of the ballet's events and its "plot."

The kids are still working very hard at aerial silks. Matt and I are working hard behind the scenes to figure out an at-home rig that we can all play on--any advice is welcome!

THURSDAY/FRIDAY/SATURDAY/SUNDAY: Hello, long weekend! We're not traveling for Thanksgiving this year, because next week is just going to be incredibly busy and stressful. Instead, we're going to focus on relaxing our hearts out this long holiday weekend. On Thanksgiving, each person is going to prepare two favorite dishes for our feast--almost all sweets so far, but oh, well. Life is tough. On Friday, I imagine that we will do some shopping, because there are things that we need and if Black Friday can bring them to us at a discount, then so be it. Friday night is a huge celebration downtown. Saturday is aerial silks rehearsal. Sunday is a children's show at the public library.

And then Monday through Sunday is hours and hours and hours of Nutcracker. Performance hair. Tech week. Dress rehearsals. And five shows in four days. But we're not going to think about that on this long holiday weekend, are we?

My Latest: Light Bulbs and Origami

a write-up of the Fold the Flock origami project

including just a little of the antics of these ridiculous chickens. Here's what else happened backstage:

the chickens approach

they investigate

they give me a look that I cannot interpret 

they destroy!!!

destroy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11!!!!!!!

Who knew that the domestic chicken is the mortal enemy of the passenger pigeon?

a round-up of other easy origami projects

and a tutorial for hollowing out an incandescent light bulb

I have been doing this a TON since we moved here, and setting the bulbs aside, because I know that at some point (very soon, actually--incandescent light bulbs do NOT last long!), we'll have finished replacing all the bulbs in the house with LEDs, and then I may never see an incandescent light bulb again.

The children have been enjoying these bulbs, as well. We actually have a light bulb Christmas ornament craft that will be posting on Crafting a Green World tomorrow; the kids had to get an early start on their Christmas crafting, since they were creating an ornament for the Indiana Statehouse Christmas tree. Just between you and me, the ornaments that they made will probably be hung in the back of the tree, against the wall, but it matters not, because they had a fabulous time, and they crafted an extra ornament of the same type for our own tree.

...yay...

Play Update: October and November

I've never been one to track my children's play. Even when they were toddlers, their time of happy engagement in play was my time to get my own work done. Bad mom ignoring my kids, I know, but I've always been reluctant to distract their concentration or break the flow of their immersion in an activity--I'll even stay out of a room if I can hear them playing together with full concentration, because I know that my presence will bring them out of it.

I don't, therefore, collect many photos of the children at play, or what they're playing with, but if I happen to have my camera as I pass by I'll snap a photo, if I can do so without calling their attention to me, and sometimes I'm asked to photograph a completed project or film a skit in action. Here, then, is what I've happened to gather in the past month or so:

This is the Temple of Artemis. It's technically a project for Will's Minecraft Homeschool class, but if you saw her fussily trimming the plants in the Garden of Babylon that she built, or creating a Redstone-powered trap in the Pyramid of Ghiza that she also built, you'd know it's as much play as work.

Lately, both kids have been VERY invested in building the tallest tower possible with their Kapla blocks.

She's done it! She's used up all the Kapla blocks, but both kids have been reluctant to add our large stores of other building blocks into this play. If this keeps up, it's possible that Santa might bring the kids another BIG set of Kapla blocks for Christmas...

I believe this slime and dino set is a souvenir from La Brea Tar Pits gift shop? I've found it all over the house, including once IN. MY. BED.

Syd plays with her dolls every day. Most often she'll make outfits for them (sticky-backed Velcro is WONDERFUL as a kid-made doll-clothing fastener, in case you're interested), but on this day I found these dolls dressed in the, like, two actual Barbie outfits that we own, but matched to our color viewers. I never did find out what the game had involved.

 Will made this plaster of Paris volcano FOUR YEARS ago, and they still play with it often. On this day I'd just taken a delivery of some liquid watercolors that I'd ordered, and the kids immediately commandeered the neon red, fetched all the baking soda and vinegar volcano supplies, and happily made neon red volcano messes at the kitchen counter all morning. At some point I was called in to film this skit they'd been repeating, and finding super hilarious, for many, many rounds of play:

When I unpacked this room, I had Matt move in that shallow set of shelves from the garage, and I've been using it as open storage for the children's toy animals. The whole set is filled when they're all properly put away, so you can see at a glance how many animals the kids had scattered around in play in this room! I don't know how the Geomags were involved--animal cages, perhaps? Zoo?

For Christmas this year, my primary gifts to the children are going to be expansions to some of the open-ended toys that they love the most (this set of Kapla blocks, I think, and theseand these Geomags). Matt, I think, plans to buy them an actual decent computer, because their lack of one, and the resultant difficulty that they've been having connecting to online classes and Minecraft Homeschool servers, and using online reference sources, and working with graphic design and composition programs, is affecting the efficiency of our school days.

The stockings will need to be stuffed, however, and probably with a few more small things than the alarm clock and stock certificates and flash card sets and tools that are already set aside for them. If you've got any good ideas for small, open-ended playthings suitable for upper elementary kids who absolutely are not tweens and absolutely do still play like mad, I'd love to hear them!

Mandalas of Circles and Hexagons

This week I'm part of an online mandala-making class from Julie Gibbons Creative. I've found that mandalas suit me quite well as something that I enjoy drawing enough to really sit down and spend the time practicing/improving my very eensy drawing skills. It helps that this particular lesson, drawing circles and hexagons within them, uses a compass and ruler, so that I don't have to rely on my own spatial reasoning skills to make pleasing, regular patterns.

And who doesn't love playing with a compass?

Here's mine. The lesson included instruction on placing the adjacent circles, so I could use their intersections to make my hexagons and rectangles.

This was actually Syd's first time really playing with a compass. She got the hang of it quickly, and also enjoyed placing the circles and making patterns.

The lesson also included tips on how to paint with watercolors without having the colors bleed into each other. This was new information to me (I also learned how to correctly use bobby pins this week; it's been a good one for learning new skills!), and Syd and I both found that the technique worked perfectly.

Ravenclaw colors, on account of I'm a nerd.

I'm not so into the "magical" power of the mandala (this is shallow of me, but I tend to veer far away from self-reflection and all other emoting of the feels), but I'm finding it really, really fun to doodle them, so yay for a new hobby!

Ooh, and it's just occurred to me that I could pretend that mandala-doodling IS me doing the magical self-reflecting on the feels! When people begin to talk about their meditating and guided reflection and other weird stuff that I don't understand why I'm always around when people talk about, I'll just say, self-importantly, "Hmm? Oh, I have a practice drawing mandalas. It's quite powerful actually. Very circular... and... hexagonal. Yes, very self-reflective, don't you know?

And that's me just nailed down conversation at all of this year's holiday parties, so double yay.

Pumpkin+Bear: Beeswax Manipulatives

I've been trying to pay more attention to my Pumpkin+Bear etsy shop this autumn (or is it winter now? It's 19 degrees outside, and there's snow on the ground. That's probably winter, right? But I'm still in denial, so I'm going to say it's autumn still), since my goal is to buy Matt's and the children's Christmas presents solely from my earnings, so I finally made myself get around to squatting out in the snow with my camera to prep something that the kids and I have had around forever: these beeswax alphabet and number manipulatives:

If you like to work with beeswax and you've got children the right ages for moveable alphabets and numbers, these would actually be a great choice to DIY--they're non-toxic, waterproof, absolutely perfect for tactile and sensory learning, and although they're breakable, you can simply recast the broken ones.

And when you're done with moveable alphabets and numbers (we finally are--can you believe it? Where did my little preschoolers GO?!?), you can recast the whole lot into something new rather than having to throw anything away. 

I use these silicone alphabet and number molds, and I love them. I've used them to mold in beeswax, crayon, and plaster of Paris so far. Any other ideas for a molding material? I'll do it!

Work Plans for the Week of November 17, 2014: Minecraft, Math, and SNOW!!!

MONDAY: We woke up to SNOW this morning! It should stick around through Tuesday, so there's plenty of time to explore all the good sledding spots, and play in the snowy woods, and build a family of snowmen. Fortunately, the roads are all clear, so we'll have no problem making our volunteer gig later today--I'm holding off on deciding on aerial silks for today, though; Will said she wanted the extra classes this week after struggling during her Saturday rehearsal (so much to learn!), but when it comes down to it, the kids might rather fly on the sled than the silks this afternoon. We'll see...

Math is also extra exciting this week, because the AMC 8 math exam is tomorrow! My expectations for Syd are that she'll be able to answer the first couple of questions, and then should spend her time working on strategies for the other problems, but after all the review that Will and I have done, I wouldn't be surprised if Will was able to solve several problems correctly. Either way, the children are sitting the exam primarily for the practice at sitting exams--it's the first formal exam for both--so the results are less important than the experience of working hard, remaining focused, and conforming to proper test-taking behavior.

The children have a more sophisticated research problem with the Appaloosa today, as their riding instructors would like them to be able to differentiate the Appaloosa from other, similar horses. Piktochart is working well for creating infographics, and I expect that's what they'll use to display the results of their research.

We were so busy with extracurriculars last week that we neglected both Spanish and music; hopefully, I won't have to do that again, because otherwise, they're progressing well.

Will has settled into her Minecraft Homeschool class, and Syd has already asked if SHE can take the class next session!

TUESDAY: Dialing 911 and providing relevant, accurate information are skills for the Brownie First Aid badge, but the kids are mainly studying emergency and medical personnel as our focus for this and the Junior First Aid badge, so they'll be reading a couple of books about EMTs and paramedics, as well, to make their memory work relevant. There are a couple of tricky parts of the memory work, though--you should try to give the operator the number of the phone from which you're calling, even if it's not your own phone, and you should try to give the operator your exact location, even if you don't know the street address. It's a good thing that everyone in our town mostly uses landmarks for navigation, anyway!

Hoffman Academy is still going well, as well. I like that these lessons are mainly self-directed--I need to make sure that the kids are practicing, of course, but it's Mr. Hoffman who's teaching them, not me!

I suspect that the kids' horseback riding lesson will be cancelled on this day due to cold weather. Maybe this is the day for the extra aerial silks class, if Monday is too busy with snowmen and sledding.

WEDNESDAY: Aerial silks and play. Lots of play.

THURSDAY: It's kind of crazy that this is our only Math Mammoth day this week, but it's a busy week for math enrichment. More time telling, more long division.

We're not doing a formal "Thanksgiving" this year (I think we may have a Feast of Pie and Much Lounging, instead), but nevertheless, this is the month for Thanksgiving crafts! The kids are going to read an online article about what the first Thanksgiving feast may have looked like, then they're going to cook--each of them, I think--a corn pudding to have with our dinner.

Will LOVED this endangered animals project last week! She researched the Hispaniolan Solenidon, spent hours raving about how cute it is and its venomous teeth and those awful feral dogs, and then we all watched some Youtube videos of it waddling around looking adorable. I can't wait to see what animals the kids choose this week!

This might be the better day for our extra aerial silks class. Gym Day with our homeschool group, library for a couple of hours, then aerial silks class? Negotiating extracurriculars is so tiresome, sigh.

FRIDAY: The kids love their weekly math class, and I love the time that I spend working in the library while they're there.

Spelling has been going quite well since I've moved its practice to our daily memory work time in the car. This day is to test what words we can remove from regular study, and to give the kids some extra handwriting practice.

We're not doing well with First Language Lessons, frankly. I am so bad about making an excuse for why we can't get to it during our busy day, and all our days are busy, so there's always an excuse. I want the kids to know the content, however, so I keep trying to tell myself that if I just muscle through it, one day it will be done.

The kids ran out of enthusiasm halfway during their ice skating classes last week. I'm curious to stay observant and see if they were just having an off day (we fought colds ALL last week) or if they're reached skill levels where they're simply happy to be where they are. We do a lot of extracurriculars, I know, but I'm very firm about the kids only doing an extracurricular as long as they're committed to working hard at it. Ice skating classes will only happen as long as the kids really want to improve their skating. If they're no longer interested in improving, well, that's what the public skating hours are for.

SATURDAY/SUNDAY: Hallelujah for the start of Thanksgiving break! Our local university has a week-long break, which means TWO WEEKENDS with no ballet for Syd--she needs this breather, poor kid. I had to remind her yesterday that all these rehearsals are just for a short time, just through performance weekend. She's still really excited about performing, of course, but she's definitely feeling the pressure--costume fittings, regular classes, long rehearsals, and practicing on her own every day. She's very aware of her responsibility, and being a perfectionist the way that she is, it's stressing her out. It's good for her, though, and helping her build a great work ethic.

Without ballet, then, our only weekend activities are Will's--aerial silks rehearsal on Saturday,and chess club on Sunday. And then a short week. And then a long weekend!