My Latest: A LOT!!!

There's been a lot going on behind the scenes in the past couple of weeks! Here's a brief catch-up of my latest builds and projects, and my tutes and essays from Crafting a Green World:

PVC pipe bow-and-arrow set

This bow-and-arrow set is based on the PVC bow-and-arrow tutorial from Skip to My Lou, with the following build notes:

1. Although my kids are handy with tools, and can build the PVC pipe sword entirely independently, start to finish, they needed an adult to string these bows and cut the slit into the ends of the dowel arrows for them. 
2. Although pipes are generally measured by inside diameter, these pipes need to be 1/2" in TOTAL diameter. Any thicker, and the draw weight will be too heavy for a kid.
3. Have the kid wrap electrical tape around the center of the bow for a hand grip.
4. Instead of cutting a slit into each end of the PVC pipe bow and then closing it with tape, have the kid choose a drill bit that's slightly larger than the sturdy nylon string and drill a hole completely through the bow about an inch from each end. Thread the nylon string through both holes (this is fiddly--roll a piece of duct tape tightly around the end of the string to make it easier to thread), then knot it and glue the knot.
5. Pencil erasers make good arrow points. Choose a dowel whose diameter is the same as a pencil's, then have the kid put a drop of glue into each eraser and push it onto the dowel.
6. That slit in the end of the dowel to fit it onto the bowstring is essential. The kids thought that they'd skip it, because it was too fiddly for them to cut, but without it, the arrow will simply drop to the ground when it's loosed. We thought the entire bow was non-functioning at first, until Will tried it with one of her real arrows and shot it clean across the yard.

2015 Trashion/Refashion Show

It was a great show! Shockingly, I did not take any photos of the kids in their final garments, with hair and make-up done--and the make-up was superhero AWESOME!!! Fortunately, there were a slew of professional and amateur photographers there, and surely someone caught a photo of the finished look.

Matt was sort of able to videotape the kids' runway walk, although he had the camera setting screwy so that he also didn't get a good shot of their makeup, and he was actually sitting too close to be able to get both kids in the same frame the whole time, but nevertheless, this is more or less what it looks like to be a pint-sized superhero on the big stage. Listen for the moment when the crowd begins to cheer so loudly that the emcee has to pause her spiel. That was a good moment:

Crafting a Green World

It's been a couple of weeks since I've caught you up, but here's my latest:

a round-up of DIY plant markers

an essay about seed bombs, and why I don't think that they really work

a review of YOXO, which my kids got for free to play test

a tutorial to make a Cartesian diver out of a soda bottle

an essay about the National Wildlife Federation's Butterfly Hero program

and a round-up of playhouse tutes

As far as projects for this week go... let's see...

I'll have several performance buns to create, as Syd has several rehearsals and then her spring ballet recital to dance in.

I need to get a couple of garden plots tilled and strawberry plants, blackberry starts, and greens of all sorts into the ground.

An enclosed chicken yard really must be built, or Fluffball and Arrow will have to spend our entire Chicago vacation in their coop. 

And, fine, I'm getting three wisdom teeth extracted tomorrow. I suppose that I'll need to rest after that for at least a couple of hours.

Three, max.

The Woods are Lovely, Dark and Deep

Well, they're not dark yet, I suppose, with much of the spring foliage still to come, but they are wonderfully deep, and one of my favorite family activities these days is a nice, long hike through them.

When we hike, we take my camera, a bag for trash, a bag for treasure (there are loads of antique soda bottles and blue Mason jars dumped along with the trash here in these woods), and my machete, for the better hacking down of all greenbriers that I find:

One or more cats inevitably follow us. Always this cat:

She always gets tired halfway through and meows unhappily until Syd picks her up and carries her.

What with our own woods, the meadow of the powerline cut beyond--

--and even more woods after that, there's plenty to explore.

One morning, we found a hill down to a creek studded with giant, mossy limestone boulders, many of which had worn through them by rainwater and shallow little baby caves beneath them:

I have yet to find any morels, but the children and I have become interested in spotting and identifying all of our wildflowers:

I think this is bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis).

 

Not flowers, but dried, translucent birch leaves, I think.

The woods beyond the power line cut (when I say this, I'm discretely telling you that we're trespassing in someone else's woods at this point) is crossed by these dirt lanes that lead nowhere in particular, still drifted with last autumn's fallen leaves:

It's not hard to imagine a wild, romantic provenance for them.

Now that the weather is warming (at least, not bitterly cold, not always...) and I've spent I don't know how many hours hacking greenbrier into a semblance of submission in many places, our woods has become a lovely place to pass the time. The kids spend hours there, doing who knows what, coming back filthy and happy and with things in hand--yesterday, Will found a large piece of... quartz, probably, probably from a geode, that inspired us to dig out the rock tumbler (and discover that it doesn't work anymore, and tinker with it, and set it aside to get my father-in-law to tinker with when he visits in a couple of days), and Syd came back with a pinch pot that she'd made from clay that she'd found down by the creek.

And flowers. Always the flowers, except for Jack in the pulpit, which I've forbidden the children to pick.

We're coming close to an entire year spent in this new house, and yet I feel as if we're really only beginning to fully enjoy it--the first summer was filled with unpacking and repairing and buying things like lawnmowers and dishwashers, but this summer will have gardening, and a woods that's actually accessible thanks to me and my machete, and 17 chickens, and a meadow that we can enjoy as soon as I finish fixing the lawnmower, and maybe a playhouse, if my father-in-law is feeling especially motivated next week.

And perhaps a functional rock tumbler, if luck is with us and tinkering successful.

Blowing Bubbles with Geometric Figures

The kids found a big jug of bubble solution in their Easter baskets this year, and this set off a surprisingly long run of daily bubble-blowing (ooh, that's an example of the open-ended invitations that I was talking about! I still have the Perler beads out this week, because I keep forgetting to ask if I can clean up one kid's half-finished butterfly. Hopefully, I can remember to do that today, and then set out... moon sand, maybe).

Since bubble blowing was in vogue, I took advantage of that interest by turning it into an afternoon enrichment project, with a twist. First, the kids and I built some geometric figures out of our big set of Zometools, and then we took them outside and made bubbles with them:

We didn't label or study them other than observation and admiration, but it's certainly possible to, as very interesting mathematical things happen in that space inside a three-dimensional figure:

This is one way that bubbles can form inside a cube.

And this is another. See my reflection in the bubble?

Here's a tetrahedron, also one of the Platonic solids.

And here's a rectangular prism. It's not a Platonic solid.

 And of course, along with that, there was also lots of this:

I had a lot of trouble getting sharp photos of bubbles being blown in my college photography class, so I'm pleased that I can do it now! The trick is to accept the fact that my eyesight is crap, even with glasses, and rely on automatic focus.

I'm normally a little picky about my our Zometools, since they were VERY expensive (it's a good thing, then, that they came from Santa! Sigh...), but in accession to the bubble fever, I left these figures out on the back deck with the other bubble blowing supplies. And yes, they've fallen on the ground, they've been dragged all over the yard, they've been neglected and lost and found again later (usually by me, seconds before I would have mown them over), but they've also been explored and played with quite a bit, which is the point, so yay.

A Passion for Perler Beads

Well, the kid finally did it.

As I've been telling you, Syd has been longing to make Perler bead My Little Pony figures ever since Comic Con, when we saw Perler bead My Little Pony figures in the exhibit hall (and did not purchase them). We actually had a wee stash of beads and some plates from a few years ago, when I thought the kids might like them (they did not), so all I had to do was order the packs that contain the colors that pattern-makers have been using for their My Little Pony templates (Why u come unsorted, Perler Beads?!?), and we were off!

Syd is making Rainbow Dash's cutie mark.

Even Will likes Perler beads, although she has less patience for fussy patterns, and most likes to fill in a pre-shaped board. I've promised to buy her this dolphin plate at my earliest convenience. 

One of my promises to myself as we shift around how we do school these days is that I will work *with* the children whenever possible--I'd gotten into the habit of shifting off the kids' schoolwork to them to do independently, and while they're certainly capable of that, I of course know that it's far more tiresome to work that way. And so as the kids made Perler bead flowers and fish and ponies and cutie marks, I made cupcakes!

Syd caught my enthusiasm, and made some cupcakes and "ice cream scoops," as well:

Ironing them is the worst part of the process--tedious, fiddly, and nearly impossible to get even with my admittedly pretty crap iron--so now that I've somewhat gotten the hang of it, myself, I plan to show the kids how to iron and let them fuss with it themselves.

I have reserved my cupcakes to make a charm bracelet for Syd, but her cupcakes, lollipops, and wrapped candy pieces (she created the patterns for the latter two herself) will become party favors for her candy-themed birthday party next month:

My favorites of my own Perler bead creations:

I modified this star pattern a little.

The Perler beads have stayed out on the table for the past two weeks, never unused enough to be put away, although I think that the enthusiasm may be waning enough now to give them a bit of a break. It reminds me of when the kids were a little younger, and one of my weekly homeschool plans involved setting out an open-ended project like this as an "invitation" that would stay for a week or so, being picked up and put down and explored and enjoyed during that time. This is something that I certainly think that I should again include in our days. 

With that in mind, my goals for both kids for our school week include math, grammar, spelling, and reading aloud every day; handmade gifts for a birthday party this weekend; a lesson on the causes of World War II at some point during the week; our regular extra-curriculars of volunteering, robotics class, horseback riding class, playgroup, and math class, and extra ballet recital rehearsals for Syd and the Trashion/Refashion Show this Sunday for all of us; and for Syd, with Will invited to participate if she'd like, a daily hands-on project, including a "DIY ocean" based on our aquatics class last week, more seed starting with me, experimenting with dyeing play silks, and upcycling spaghetti jars into vases in preparation for a Girl Scout troop meeting on flower arranging next week.

AND an open-ended invitation set out somewhere accessible. Snap circuits, perhaps? Clay? 

Ooh, maybe sketching supplies and a still life!

April at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis

We were on the road early on this morning, due at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis for a homeschool class on aquatic ecosystems at the crack of 10 am. YAWN!

When we're out for the day (or the weekend, or the week...), I always pack food for our trip. I noticed, on this morning, that our lunches have grown since the days when I was toting a toddler and a baby to the Children's Museum for the day!

There's grocery store sushi for each of the kids, a big green apple and a knife to cut it with, crackers, salami, goat cheese, and a clementine to share. And everyone had a banana and a giant nut butter and jelly sandwich in the car for breakfast. 

Our aquatic ecosystems class was fabulous. The kids learned about watersheds, then went between stations to perform a natural water filtration experiment, create art with oil pastels and watercolors, perform another experiment on showerhead design (finally I understand how low-flow showerheads work!), look at pond water through a microscope, and perform yet another experiment on water run-off. 

The highlight of the class, however, was building their very own aquatic ecosystem, with a vase, some glass marbles, a plant (we actually didn't take the plants that they gave us into the house, because they were peace lilies, which are toxic to cats. Yikes! We plan to buy spider plants, instead), and a betta fish! 

The kids. Were. Thrilled.

We came away with our ecosystems and a list of books and activities to continue the fun, and were off to the rest of the museum.

I'm always a little dubious about the museum's tendency to run pop culture-themed exhibits-- 

--but I do get they use them to integrate educational enrichment into the theme. This Transformers exhibit included lots of storytelling and pretend play, of course, but also emphasized product design:

Add "Make toy prototypes" to my list of reasons why I SUPER want a MakerBot!

Also, when I travel with the kids, NOBODY takes my photo so that the 3D works correctly!

Sigh.

We zipped through the new exhibit on TV and film production--

--then went down to our volunteer gig in the Paleo Prep Lab of Dinosphere. Will finished preparing, all but the air abrading, a lovely example of an edmontosaurus annectens chevron:

The full chevron is forked, with the two branches ending in a bulbous piece and the other end extending out a great distance. Will had a nice portion of one of the upper branches. These chevrons run along the bottom of the edmontosaurus' tail.

Syd, coincidentally, had a piece of neural spine:

These are pointed shingle-shaped pieces that run along the TOP of the edmontosaurus' tail!

Unfortunately, this neural spine was part of a great mess of a piece, because the paleontologist who discovered it (Max, I'm looking directly at YOU here!!!) did NOT Paleobond it in the field. Friends, when you do not Paleobond the fossils in the field, they crumble all to hell by the time you get them home. Syd prepped her nice neural spine piece--

and then began to Paleobond and attempt to prep some of the remaining fragments (only Paleobonding herself to the fossil once), while I chipped through some more of the matrix to see what else was in there: 

You're not going to believe it, but it was another freaking tendon. I am the tendon queen. If only tendons were at all rare or even scientifically interesting!

The prep lab tends to have a couple of other volunteers and staff members whenever we're there, but on this day, for some reason at one point all of them had run off, leaving at the Paleo Lab Window (the connection between the lab and the museum exhibit. People can come to the open window and touch fossils and ask questions) a single paleontologist, who needed to run back to his office for a minute. But he couldn't, because he also couldn't leave the window unattended--kids would be licking the Paleobond, and teenagers would be leaving the exhibit with backpacks bulging with T-rex bones.

"I can stand there for a minute," I offered.

My offer was met with an ambiguous combination of Hopeful Eyes and Horror at What is to Come. It's never been overtly stated, but I'm pretty certain that we rank amateurs are never to interact with paying guests in an official capacity. We have not had our interpersonal or guest relations training, and there is no telling what might come out of our mouths. It's the way I feel observing Syd's ballet class, where the teacher likes to ask them all what they had for breakfast while they're stretching; Syd inevitable answers something humiliating, like "cheese," or "leftover French fries," or "my Mommy didn't feed me breakfast today" (the lying little rat! I offered her peanut butter and a spoon to eat it with, and she turned up her nose at it!).

The brave paleontologist took a breath, and dubiously asked me, "Can you talk about this T-rex bone?"

I confidently bullshitted, "Dude, I can TALK about this T-rex bone! How hard can it be, right? 'Hey, Kids, do you like dinosaurs?' and 'Want to touch a real one?'"

I should have stopped talking after that first exclamation point, because the look on the paleontologist's face told me that there is a LOT more to sitting at the Paleo Lab Window than "Hey, Kids do you like dinosaurs?" but he clearly figured, "What the hell?" and left me there, speed-walking away determinedly.

Immediately, a little girl and her mom tentatively walked over to the window, where a big T-rex bone temptingly sits. "Hey!" I said to her enthusiastically, "Do you like dinosaurs?"

"Yes." YES!!!

"Do you want to touch a real one?"

"No." NOOOOOO!!!!

"Well," I said, "Touching a real dinosaur bone doesn't happen every single day. I mean, did you touch a dinosaur bone yesterday?"

"No."

"Uh-huh. And did you touch a dinosaur bone the day before yesterday?"

"No." Ooh, she's smiling now. I've got her!

"Well, do you want to touch a dinosaur bone today?"

"No." Damn it to hell!!!

I change tactics. "Do you know where your knee is?"

"Yes," and she touches it.

"The T-rex's knee is right here," and I point to it. "Now, do you know where your hip is?"

She doesn't, but her mom helps her.

"There's a long bone called the femur that connects your knee to your hip. This bone is the T-rex's femur, and it runs from his knee to his hip." I enticingly run my hand all the way from the T-rex's knee to his hip. The kid reaches out her right hand slowly, almost touches the bone, and then hesitates and pulls it back. No. Freakin'. Deal.

I get distracted from my mission, then, as I continue to tell the kid about femurs and T-rexes--I point out the complete skeleton across the way, where she can look for the T-rex's femur, and I get her mom to hike her leg up on the windowsill, so that we can all compare our femurs to the T-rex's. It's not until I turn away a couple of minutes later, the kid having wandered off, see that I now seem to have TWO paleontologists hovering nervously behind me, waiting to reclaim the Window, and go back to my work (where Will teased me, saying "You sounded like a KINDERGARTEN teacher, Mom!" "Child," I replied, "I was talking to a KINDERGARTENER!"), that I suddenly scan my memory and realize that yes, YES, at some point during our conversation, THAT KID TOTALLY TOUCHED THE T-REX BONE!!!!!

Mission accomplished.

I could fuss around in the prep lab all day, but an hour and a half of hard work is about all that the eight-year-old can stand, so off we went.

Back to the world of the dinosaurs. Of COURSE: 

In the paleo art lab, Will sketches a bust of Dracorex Hogwartsis.

 The upper level of Dinosphere (here you're looking down from it into the lower level. This used to be an IMAX theatre!)--

--is focused on paleo art, which is really cool. Sometimes one of the docents will sketch there, asking kids to describe an animal that they're thinking of for him to draw--the drawing always turns out ridiculous, of course. But there are lots of activities that show the kids how to make models and draw figures, etc. The kids' favorite one has loads of bronze-colored Silly Putty and metal skulls of different dinosaurs; the kids can sculpt the musculature and skin onto the bust. Syd was working on her sculpture of Dracorex Hogwartsis for ages, when all of a sudden Will exclaimed to her, "Oh, you've kneaded your hair in!"

And indeed, the child, intent on her work, head bent down so as to almost touch her sculpture, had absent-mindedly kneaded a chunk of her hair into the Silly Putty skin.

And that's how I can tell you that Silly Putty works exactly like bubble gum in hair. I had to finally just cut it out the next morning, bless the poor kid's heart.