Fall Semester Homeschool Plans for the 6th and 8th Grades

For the 2017-2018 school year, Syd is in the sixth grade and Will is in the eighth grade--and it only took me eight or so years to work out a good system for homeschooling them! I'm still creating most of my own curricula, but I try to have a textbook as a spine for many of the subjects, and then I fill in the syllabus with extra readings and activities. Thankfully, though, I have found some go-to packaged curricula that I like, and that offer several levels, so I don't have to reinvent the wheel for every kid in every subject.

Even though Will is an eighth-grader, I've also decided this year to present her with high school work. She's well able to study at the high school level, and she's made some suggestions that she might want to consider going to public high school next year, so I wanted to give her a preview this year of what homeschooling high school would look like, as well as provide her with a background transcript that will make it clear that she's prepared for high-level academic classes if she does decide to enroll. She might as well reap the benefits of being bookish by nature!

A couple of Will's high school-level courses are year-round, which means that we'll be doing far fewer themed units for science and history. I'm a little bummed, but it's already clear that what we're losing in variety we'll be gaining in depth. The other challenge is leveling the work for Syd, as I am NOT planning two entirely different curricula for each subject. 

Here, then, is our overall course of study for this year:

Service Learning

We'll be continuing to volunteer with the Children's Museum of Indianapolis this year, primarily as tabletop activity facilitators. It's a little tedious, since tabletop activity facilitators generally have to sit for two hours and I prefer activities in which we're up and moving, but I do enjoy interacting with all kinds of children, and the skills that we practice--communication to all kinds of children, teaching/demonstrating an educational activity and a scientific concept, leadership (especially Will, who usually gets to run her own table independently, while Syd works with me), and patience--are terrific for the kids. I also really love the environment of the Children's Museum, a place where learning is eagerly encouraged, and I love that the adult staff members treat my children as equal and valued members of the team, fully capable and respected.

Math

Syd is continuing with Math Mammoth, generally completing one lesson a day. Will went through the same curriculum, so it's old hat to me by now. I often have to help teach the lesson by using hands-on manipulatives--

--but otherwise it's an independent work that she completes and then hands to me to mark. I mark the incorrect answers, hand it back, and she tries those problems again. If she misses a problem for the second time, we go over the solution together.

We are still getting into the groove of Will's brand-new math curriculum, Art of Problem Solving's Introduction to Algebra. It's also written to the student, but the format, in which a kid tries a few problems at the beginning of the lesson, then reads the solutions to to those problems, learning the lesson material along the way, and finally tries a new set of problems to see if she's mastered the lesson, is not yet working well for my kid who deeply desires to do the minimum effort possible. I'm still reminding her that yes, she has to work the problems out, not just write down answers, and yes, she has to read through the solutions to the problem, not just erase her wrong answer and write in the correct one, and yes, she has to work the problems out, and yes, she has to read through the solutions, etc. etc. ETC.!!!!!!! This week I have her working through the AOPS online reinforcement problems to see if that will help her cement the concepts that she's barely learned the past two weeks, but ultimately, she's just going to have to get the hang of doing the work. 

This could be a year-long curriculum, but after she settles into it, it actually shouldn't take the whole year, allowing her to get a head start on another of their Introduction series--I'm looking forward to geometry!

Because neither of the children's math curricula provide much in the way of hands-on reinforcement, I also run a math lab with them every week. Usually, this is a hands-on activity that relates to what at least one of them is currently studying. This week, for instance, both kids are working with exponents, so I had them use poster paper and centimeter graph paper to model the perfect squares up to 400, writing the equations next to each square. It made a giant and lovely Montessori-esque paper tower, and I've already seen Syd referring to it as she did her math work. 

Grammar

Both children are using the Analytical Grammar curriculum, and I'm quite happy with it. Will completed the first third of the Reinforcement and Review book over the summer, and has begun the second season of Analytical Grammar, just as Syd finished Junior Analytical Grammar over the summer and has begun the first season of Analytical Grammar. I'd like Will to get through the remaining two seasons of Analytical Grammar this year, in case she does want to go to public school next year, but after Syd finishes the first season of Analytical Grammar, she'll likely just have a Reinforcement and Review lesson to complete once a week for the remainder of her school year, and then she'll start season two of Analytical Grammar in the seventh grade.

I've toyed with the idea of also having a grammar lab once a week, and we do so sometimes--

--but it's too much work for me to plan to do it consistently, mostly because hands-on grammar activities are thin on the ground and so I have to invent, create, and then plan most of them myself. Perhaps I'll prioritize it when the kids aren't doing Analytical Grammar every single school day.

Music

This is one of the studies that I'm creating as I go this year, and it's my favorite so far. Music study has been very much a failure for our entire time homeschooling--nothing sticks, because I've found nothing that the kids care for and want to invest any effort in. But last semester, almost on a whim, I added a weekly folk song to our work plans. I'd introduce the song on Monday, we'd talk a little about it, and learn it over the week.

Oh, my gosh, the kids have LOVED this! I've put more thought into it this semester, seeking out folk songs that have interesting social, geographic, or historical context, and we highlight the important themes and specific elements of each folk song as we discuss it. I find a variety of interpretations of each folk song to present to the kids, and I've become more interested in finding more resources, as well. This week, for instance, we're studying "As I Go Down in the River To Pray," and so in the evenings we've been watching O Brother, Where Art Thou. It never would have occurred to me to show this to the kids before, but they're familiar with The Odyssey, they're now more familiar with folk songs, and so they LOVE it. It's turning out to be a really fun unit.

Foreign Language

This is another subject that we've struggled with, as I keep trying to get the kids invested in learning a language and they keep just. Not. Caring. We are two lessons in, however, to private language classes with a personal tutor through italki, and so far it's successful. Syd is still a little shy with their tutor, who's a native French speaker who Skypes us from her current home in Russia, but it helps that Will is with her, and I'm liking the personal attention, and the personalized homework that the tutor assigns. Maybe it's the fact that there's another adult who's not me that they're accountable to, but they work on French every day without complaint. I've also told them that if they continue to study hard, they'd know enough French that we could take our next big vacation to Canada. They're excited about possibly seeing the Northern Lights, and I want to go to Prince Edward Island!

Science

Will wanted to study biology this year, and Syd didn't object, so biology it is! For our spine, I'm using the CK-12 Biology flexbook, which is written at the 9th/10th grade level, so this will be listed as Honors Biology on Will's transcript. Both children are required to read the chapter assignment, although Will is also required to answer the end-of-chapter questions, and Syd is not. I've been relying a lot on Teachers Pay Teachers resources to flesh out this unit, both for interactive notebook elements that help the children cement the concepts, and for ideas for the labs. I'll be spending a lot of our homeschool budget on this class, as I'm making it very lab-heavy, since that's what both kids are interested in. This week, for instance, we'll be completing a two-day lab to isolate certain organic compounds in food, and I think we'll also be experimenting on spit, urine, and--if I can convince Matt to prick his finger again--blood. I don't have a deadline for this class, and it's already taking longer than I thought it would, as we've been having to wait for some supplies, so I won't mind if it takes us through the entire year.

History

This will be another year-long class, although it does have a deadline--the AP exams take place in Mid-May! I wanted Will to take an AP class this year, so I showed her the list of options, and she chose AP European History. I'm currently in the process of writing a syllabus for this class to send in to the College Board for approval so that I can list it in her transcript as an AP class, and I'll also expect her to sit the exam. This class is, by far, the most work that any of us will have done for homeschool to date--it has a ton of material to cover, a ton of writing that Will needs to do, a ton of facts to memorize, and although I do most of the homeschooling in our family, Matt will assisting me with this class by providing weekly lectures and a weekly art history lesson. It helps that we homeschool, because we can manipulate our environment and our family time to provide more enrichment, from the movies that we watch at night to the podcasts that we listen to while we craft and the audiobooks that we listen to in the car to upcoming field trips like this weekend's Medieval Faire and the monastery that we'll visit later this year.

Since this is a college-level class, it's way too difficult for Syd, so she is going to be keeping up with the time period by listening to Story of the World and participating in the lectures and art history lessons. I also have one catch-up day a week in which I ask Will to also read through the time period in Story of the World, and I've already found that it adds some excellent depth and a lot of interest to the study. 

Spelling/Vocabulary

Syd does NOT enjoy Worldly Wise, so she's allowed to work as slowly as she likes, which means that she's still halfway through Book 4 at the start of sixth grade. What she doesn't know is that when she finally finishes Book 4, I'll just skip Book 5 and put her straight in to Book 6. Since she moves so slowly, this will likely remain a daily work for her for the entire year. Will zips through Wordly Wise at a lesson a week, since she enjoys it, so she'll finish Book 8 well before the year is out. She'll have a little more free time then, as I won't give her Book 9 until ninth grade.

Girl Scouts

This is a large component of our school week, because it's one of the kids' absolute favorite things--and mine! I love that the kids are so invested in it, and that the badges are so cross-curricular, and that they expose them to subjects and activities that they wouldn't usually choose, and encourage them to do things that they wouldn't usually do. For instance, this week alone both kids are planning the activity that they want to do to complete Step 5 of the Outdoor Art Apprentice badge, and then we'll collect and/or buy the materials, and then they'll complete that activity later this week; they're finishing making dog toys and decorating donation jars for a local Humane Society as the last leftover bits of Syd's Bronze Award project; setting up their online stores for the Girl Scout Fall Product Sale (buy magazines from my kid!); and Syd is finishing up one last Junior badge, the retired Art in 3D, before she officially Bridges to Cadette at the end of the month.

I'm making extra use of this year, as it's the ONLY year for the kids' entire Girl Scout career (until they both Bridge to Adult) that they're in the SAME LEVEL!!! And can earn the SAME BADGES!!! SQUEEEEEE!!!!! So although I do ask the kids to choose most of their own badges to work on, and to plan how to earn them, I'll be planning several badges that I want to do with the both of them, while I've got them both at the same level. I'm also incorporating some badges, mostly Council's Own or Retired ones, into our biology study--one council has a badge for wildflowers, another for bats, and another for manatees! To complicate the matter, Will decided very recently that she wants to earn the Summit Award, which means that she needs to complete two more Journeys this year, and Journeys are a lot more work to plan and complete. AND Will wants to earn her Silver Award, so that's another huge project that she needs to plan and complete. Squeee? 

Literature

We read a lot, as a family and as individuals, and I'd thought that I would have a separate literature study this year, but honestly, I think Will is going to be doing enough essay writing for her biology and AP European History studies. Syd is still working through the MENSA reading list for her grade, so we'll continue to have our casual discussions of those books, and I've added to Will's history study the MENSA books for her level that apply. It's turning out that we're also doing a lot of critical analysis in our folk study unit, so it's seeming that a separate literature unit is a no-go for this semester, at least for Will. I might let a few more school weeks settle in, and then consider adding book reports to Syd's plans.

SAT Prep

This is just for Will, obviously. She's going to sit the SAT in early November, and to that end has completed the Khan Academy SAT Prep unit, and is doing daily prep work in the Barron's SAT manual, supplemented with LOTS of example problems from actual SAT exams. I expect her to do extremely well in the Verbal section, and to perform at her grade level in the Math section. And when the exam is over, so is this study! Well... until next year, at least...

History of Fashion

This is a unit just for me and Syd! We use this history of fashion book as a spine, with some supplemental readings and YouTube videos, but the meat of the study is that for every time period, we do some actual fashion projects for that period. We spend more time on some periods than others--for prehistory, we decorated shells and wove on a loom and worked with leather, and for Ancient Egypt Syd learned how to put on their eye makeup, but for Greece Syd just made a laurel wreath and for Rome she simply learned how to put on a chiton. For the barbarians, though, we're making soap together AND I'm teaching Syd how to sew leggings. If you want to know how that applies to barbarians, you should read the book! This is another unit that will take as long as it takes, with no particular deadline.

Geography

This is another simple, easy to plan, and not very challenging unit for the kids. They both adore earning Junior Ranger badges, and many national parks encourage children to complete their Junior Ranger badges by mail--so that's what we do, every single week! I pick out the badge book for them to complete, after previewing it to make sure that the work can be done at home or through internet research and that the site accepts badge books by mail, the kids do the work, I mail it in, and a few weeks later, here come the badges! Just yesterday, the kids received their Junior Ranger badges for Hot Springs National Park, which was actually one of Will's favorite national parks to do this badge work for, and it is now on our must-see list solely for that fact. We also plan to visit Jimmy Carter's birthplace one day, also because she was so inspired by him thanks to her badge work.

It's not terribly relevant to a geography study, but I do require that the kids know where each place is that they're studying, and I do try to find a couple of relevant secondary resources for us to peruse for each place. Two nights ago, we were watching a very dry documentary that covered several national parks, including Glen Canyon, which the kids had just completed the Junior Ranger badge for. I was confused by it, and I asked out loud, "How did they choose what parks they're covering?" Will immediately answered, "Mom, it's because these are all on the Colorado River," and then Syd began going on and on about dams, so they're getting more out of it than just plastic badges!

Art

Matt is the children's art professor, and every Sunday, just after breakfast, he holds art class. Sometimes he teaches them a new technique--this weekend, they used our light table to trace images to make a more elaborate piece of art--and sometimes a new media--a couple of weeks ago, he showed them how to use Photoshop, and the kids had a fabulous time making very ridiculous Photoshopped images--but it's always something hands-on and creative.

Extracurriculars

Horseback riding. Pony Club. Ballet. Ice skating. Girl Scouts. Homeschool playgroup. Mommy is a chauffeur! 

Other Daily Work

Every school day, the children also have to watch CNN10 for current events, do a 10-minute workout with me (we did take turns leading the workout, but that caused a lot of fighting, so now we take turns choosing a 10-minute workout video from YouTube) for physical training, and spend 30-minutes doing chores (mostly they're just asked to clean, but they have to come to me first and ask me what their priorities should be--I might really need for them to empty the dishwasher first, or clean the kitchen table, or sweep the back deck). 

And that's our planned school year! Some studies will last into summer, some will only go through this semester, we'll have an entire month during Nutcracker season and another during Girl Scout cookie season when we have a light schedule, and I'll add in extra units before and after our planned travels, and follow the children's interests for other studies. 

What are YOU studying this year?

String Art: The Easiest Woodworking Project That You'll Ever Meet

The Cadette Woodworker badge is one of my favorite Girl Scout badges. It's a real skill-building badge, and a great way to encourage kids to get a little outside of their comfort zone. Sometimes kids have never built with tools before, and sometimes they don't feel capable, or they feel like woodworking is a boy thing.

Or sometimes a kid has built with tools all her life, but she forgets that she enjoys working with her hands because she enjoys reading so much more and only wants to read, read, read her whole life through.

****cough, Will, cough****

Woodworking can also look intimidating, because there are so many elaborate, sophisticated woodworking projects out there in the world to see, and if a kid isn't confident even using a hammer, how on earth is she going to get inspired to follow the instructions to make an entire bookshelf right away?

But just hammering nails into scrap wood? That's not product-oriented enough for a kid who wants to BUILD something.

So that's why string art? Is the best. You don't even need a tutorial for it, because it's just that easy.

You just get yourself a piece of wood, cut it to size, paint or stain it if you want (I tried to encourage Will to do this, because I'm working on getting her to have higher standards in what she creates, but I didn't push the issue when she didn't want to, because it's her string art, not mine, sigh...), draw or trace a template, hammer nails with a wide head along the pattern--

and yes, you can even do this on my family room floor

--and then tie on embroidery floss and wrap it around the nails to create a pretty picture:

I love that even my kid who's not as detail-oriented can create something this cute; I think that's really encouraging for a kid, and will help her be even more detail-oriented in the future.

P.S. Psst, want to know what I'm doing all day? Follow my Craft Knife Facebook page and you'll find out!

Pumpkin+Bear Etsy Shop Update: Christmas-Themed Blocks and LOTS of Play Dough

Check me out, actually working on what I said I'd work on! In my breaks from novel writing, syllabus building (oh, my, that AP European History syllabus is a bear to build! And Honors Biology is just barely better!), creating posts for Crafting a Green World (my first post for the new owners should be up later today), trying to my daily 10,000 steps even though my treadmill is broken AGAIN, planning Girl Scout meetings (Bridging and the Breathe TAP, even though everyone is going on vacation at different times in the next month), and, you know, living my best life by eating leftover carrot cake while reading Harry Potter fanfiction, I got some new and improved pretty things listed in my Pumpkin+Bear etsy shop.

Here's my first holiday listing--decoupaged decorative building blocks!

I first saw little blocks decoupaged with pretty papers at a Renegade Fair in Chicago several years ago (I bought two of them), and I was really into making my own versions for a while:

• decoupaged comic book blocks
• alphabet blocks decoupaged with scrapbook paper

I really love how they're a way that you can upcycle the building blocks that your children loved to play with after the kids have grown up, but you CAN still play with them after they're decoupaged. Honestly, I think they're even more fun afterwards--at least, every time I do this project in a different way, it inspires a renewal of the kids' interest in playing with their blocks.

Another thing that my big kids still enjoy? Play dough, so I put some different varieties of our favorite homemade play dough in my shop. You can now buy one full pound of any single color--

--or you can buy my rainbow set, but now with a full pound of every single color, making it a seven-pound set:

That particular listing makes me particularly happy. 

I'm feeling more inspired to make things by hand this autumn, as I've made a personal goal to make most of my family's holiday gifts this year. I'll go more into that decision another time, but I'm pretty excited about it, and I've been having a lot of fun coming up with actual plans to make all of the actual things that I've always wanted to make my family someday, whenever I have the time. 

Turns out that time is now!

History of Fashion: How to Put on a Doric Chiton in Ancient Greece

In our History of Fashion study, Syd and I have:

worked with leather, embellished shells, and woven on a loom in Prehistory.
put on the eye makeup of Ancient Egypt.

and now here we are in Ancient Greece!

We've done a LOT of studying on the subject of Ancient Greece, including dressing the part--doesn't Syd make an adorable Spartan?

--so we didn't spend a lot of time on this particular unit in the study. Syd read the chapter on Ancient Greece in The Complete Book of Fashion History, found a rectangle of fabric (it just happened to be the My Little Pony blanket that I gave her for Christmas last year), and I helped her assemble her chiton.

It's really very simple. The fabric gets wrapped under one armpit, and the edges are pinned at the opposite shoulder--don't pin them right at the corners, which will make the neckline gape, but at a comfortable spot for a nice boatneck. Pin up the other side at the shoulder, as well, and there you have your chiton!



We have neither made the decorative overfold nor added the belt--if your fabric is too wide, either or both of those will take care of the excess, but that My Little Pony blanket was made to be this kid's chiton!



For extra embellishment, the clips that hold the fabric at the shoulders can also be fancy. And if you were male, your chiton could be knee-length.

Here are some more hands-on projects for studying Ancient Greece:

• make a cookie and Jello map of Ancient Greece
• make a felt olive leaf garland (modify it from this tute, though, because this isn't what they looked like)
• DIY a set of Spartan armor out of cardboard and duct tape
• make Athena's shield (or any hoplite shield) out of a pizza pan, spray paint, and clay
• make paper Greek tragedy and comedy masks
• make papier mache Greek vases
• draw blackline on terra cotta pots
• construct a temple out of a giant box
• make a clepsydra

P.S. If you like hands-on homeschooling projects, check out my Craft Knife Facebook page, where I share all the awesome homeschooling and hands-on resources that I come across.

Pumpkin+Bear Etsy Shop Update: September

One of my goals this autumn is to spend some time sprucing up my Pumpkin+Bear etsy shop. Etsy recently doubled the number of photos that we're allowed to include with a listing, which means that now none of my listings have the maximum number of photos in them. It will be nice, because I can add more examples of the options that I offer for each item, but still... can YOU add six more hours to the day so that I can get all of my listings reshot?

It's also, of course, the beginning of the build-up to the holiday season, so if I want people to, you know, actually buy some stuff for me so that I, in turn, can buy some stuff for my kids, I should probably beg/barter/steal/scam those six hours somewhere...

Just in case you haven't visited my Pumpkin+Bear shop recently (which is silly, because I know you click over there every day so you can moon over all my pretty things), here's what I'm currently making to order:

American Girl Doll Reversible Skirt: Pink and Skulls

This is one of the last of some obsessive American Girl doll clothing sewing that I did a while ago for Syd. I don't expect to make anymore of these skirts, so this one and the one below are likely the last that you'll see in my etsy shop:

American Girl Doll Skirt: My Little Pony and Purple

Syd still LOVES My Little Pony (did you know that they've got a movie coming out next month?!? Syd is beside herself), so it's possible that more pretty things in My Little Pony fabric might be arriving in the shop later. First, though, I promised to make Syd a pair of MLP leggings. Ooh, I bet I could make matching doll leggings from the same fabric!

8" Taper Candle

These are the largest candles that I offer--full-size tapers that work well in conventional candle holders. I've got the ones above that I sell individually,  and the ones below that I sell in a rainbow set of seven:

Rainbow 8" Taper Candles

Set of Six 8" Taper Candles

And if you're not into rainbows, I also sell a set of six!

8" Rainbow Taper Candle

I came up with this candle when I was brainstorming different ways to add more rainbow candles to my shop--Syd was big into rainbows that year, and my line of candles was selling well. I really like this one because it has all the colors of the rainbow in one candle.

6" Rainbow Taper Candle

I added the six-inch version of the rainbow taper candle at the request of a customer who wanted a lower price point. I don't love this one as much, because with the way my beeswax sheets are sized, cutting it out makes more waste than with the eight-inch version. But it does tend to sell better than the eight-inch rainbow taper, so I keep making it.

Rainbow Birthday Candles

These are the birthday candles that we use for all of our family birthdays! I think the rainbow set is the cutest, but Syd, at least, usually wants to choose the exact color scheme for her birthday cake--hence the assorted set, below, for fellow picky party hosts:

Set of Six Beeswax Birthday Candles

I have a lot of people who use this option to get all pink and purple candles, say, or all white ones. I'm thinking of setting up a special holiday listing, so that people can see right away how cool black/orange/purple would look for Halloween, or orange/brown for Thanksgiving, or red/white/green for Christmas.

One Rolled Beeswax Birthday Candle

One single candle is so small and delicate that shipping isn't really efficient for this, but a customer who really did want just one candle requested it, so I keep it around as an option. Sometimes people will use it to add one or two candles to one of the larger sets, and that makes the shipping a lot more reasonable.

Dye- and Fragrance-Free Play Dough

This is the go-to play dough recipe that I still make for the kids on occasion. When I first set up my etsy shop, my philosophy was that if I was making something for my own kids, I could also make it for other kids, and that's how pretty much everything in my shop came to be.

Rainbow Play Dough

This, though, is the version that my own kids want--the colorful version! I sell this particular pound of play dough in one container, although I do have another listing mostly photographed, in the queue to be listed whenever you get me that extra six hours that I asked for. The new listing will offer any of the colors, including non-rainbow colors (I know--gasp!), in one-pound containers, with a separate listing for seven pounds of rainbow play dough or six pounds of assorted colors. It will be a bounty of play dough for a lucky kid!

Breastfeeding Symbol 1" Pinback Button

I used to sell a bunch more varieties of pinback buttons, but gradually I got tired of making them, and so this one is the last type that I offer. Syd's been drawing me some super cute stuff lately, though, so it's possible that she could be interested in making some button designs and starting her own little side hustle in my shop one of these days.

Rainbow Bean Bags

The bean bag sets take by far more work than anything else in my shop, but they're so cute that I can't stop making them. This set of seven is a little less work than the stenciled set below.

Set of Ten Number Bean Bags

This set of ten bean bags is a RIDICULOUS amount of work, because the numbers have to be stenciled on every single one of them before I sew them--stenciled on both sides!!! I long to offer a complete alphabet set, or even a complete Greek alphabet set, or maybe a periodic table of the elements set, but I can't fathom where I'd find the time to make such large sets--maybe you'll find me an extra twelve hours a day, rather than just six?

Waldorf Ring Candle

The Waldorf ring candles are probably my favorite item in the shop--they're such a good size, and less fiddly to make than the birthday candles, and they look so pretty lined up altogether!

Rainbow Waldorf Ring Candles

As with most of my other items, I've learned that it's best to offer a lot of varieties, and at different price points. I've got the single Waldorf ring candle, this rainbow set of seven, and a much larger set, below.

Set of Twelve Waldorf Ring Candles

People don't often ask for larger sets of the birthday candles, but they do sometimes want larger sets of these Waldorf ring candles. One of my dreams is to start making and selling the special holders for these. They're so sweet and festive at the holidays!

Make-Your-Own Set of Waldorf Ring Candles

This is another listing that I set up at a customer's request. It's all the materials needed to create four Waldorf ring candles. It's nice for customers, because you can't really buy the supplies to make just a few rolled beeswax candles from a regular store, and it's nice for me, because putting together one of these sets is quick and easy!

Rainbow Doll Candles

I'm a little annoyed with myself, because I've had all the photographs that I need to rework this listing for ages, and just haven't done the work. But seriously--those six extra hours! I need them! Right now they're still listed as fairy candles, because when I first made them, my kids used them in their small world play. I had the revelation a few months ago, however, that these are actually the perfect size to be real, working doll candles for 18" dolls, and so now I just need to edit my photos and remake the listing to reflect my genius revelation.

An etsy shop is one of those things that is never perfect, never quite done. There's always something else that needs to be re-shot because the photos were weirdly lit, or a shipping calculation that needs to be recalculated, or a new variety of something that I want to make and list. There's always a holiday coming up that I could be adding special items for. Always something that could be altered and listed at a different price point. Always some viral marketing to be done. 

Get me those six extra hours a day, though, Friends, and I bet I could have my shop just the way I wanted it in a week!

I mean, it would be just the way I wanted it for a few minutes, at least, before I thought of some new thing that needed to be changed up...

Sun and the Solar Eclipse Study: Solar Power

For the month before the solar eclipse, the kids and I completed an intensive science unit on the sun and the solar eclipse, and it was awesome! Even though I LOVED astronomy as a kid, I'd been having trouble interesting the kids in the study (they are very much attached to the life sciences...), but this event turned out to be the perfect incentive to interest them, and they picked up a lot more than we'd started out intending to.

We used the NASA Eclipse Activity Guide as a spine--I used their main science activity and instructor's information for each lesson, but I added readings from library books, videos from YouTube, and arts and crafts activities for the little kid. I had to buy a few special supplies, such as our first spectroscope and a digital outdoor thermometer, but most of the required materials were readily available.

We completed most of the units in the order suggested by the Eclipse Activity Guide, or at least we intended to... the sun has its own agenda, so it was actually a Saturday when we did some of this particular unit on Solar Power; it had been overcast for most of the week, so when the sun rose bright and shining that day, I was not going to waste its power!

The kids and I read and discussed part of this non-fiction children's book on solar power, then watched this TED-Ed video that shows how solar panels work, and Bill Nye's simpler explanation of the same subject. We've never lived in a house that got enough sun to be worth putting solar panels on it, so I'm always impressed to see solar panels in action. And after watching the TED-Ed video, I now actually understand how they work!

The activity that goes with this lesson in the NASA Eclipse Activity Guide is making and using a solar oven. The kids actually did this for a couple of days, re-engineering their first efforts when they didn't get great results with their first solar ovens. The basic model that the activity guide instructs them to build is a not incredibly efficient compilation of pizza box, aluminum foil, and plastic wrap:





These didn't really heat up the quesadillas and s'mores well, so the next day the kids reworked them with some stash mirrors (managing to break fully half of them, so I guess that's some more junk out of my storage space!). The second versions worked a little better, but if I had this unit to do again, I'd take the time to pull up some hardcore solar oven plans, get out the woodworking tools, and make a "real" solar oven with the kids, one that we could use over and over again to ACTUALLY cook our food...

Oh, well. I'm sure the subject will come up again some other time!

To make this study more suitable for the older kid, I added selections from Khan Academy to her requirements, wherever they applied. For this solar power unit, she also completed the Energy lab, which covers solar power and other energy sources, with an emphasis on sustainability.

To make the study more suitable for the younger kid, I added hands-on activities to her requirements, although they were tempting enough that the older kid often joined in. And when we made sun prints for this unit, the whole family joined in!





We are absolutely going to put building blocks on sun print paper again for math one day--I can't believe that I didn't get a good photo of the finished print, but the dark print where the bottom of the block sat, plus the lighter print made from its shadow, formed a beautiful and realistic-looking cube on the sun print paper. It was astonishing.

If we'd completed this study over a longer period of time, it would have been interesting to try to arrange a field trip to a solar park, or a lecture from a member of one of our local non-profits that try to encourage people to use solar power. We could have made a more elaborate solar oven, and experimented with sun printing onto fabric. The kids could have measured our house's energy expenditure, and done some problem-solving to reduce our usage. I could have bought them some solar panel kits and let them make themselves some solar-powered toys and gizmos.

But for our brief look, we now know about solar power, solar panels, and some uses for solar energy. And now I know how a solar panel works!

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to weird old cemeteries, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!

History of Fashion: Wear the Eye Makeup of Ancient Egypt

In our History of Fashion study so far, Syd and I have:

worked with leather, embellished shells, and woven on a loom in Prehistory.

And now it's time to travel to Ancient Egypt!

Our spine for this study is The Complete Book of Fashion History, which is already well-thumbed by everyone in the family. For this unit, Syd and I re-read the pages for Ancient Egypt, and while there are loads of cross-curricular activities that you could do here--you could use the Story of the World chapters and activity book resources for Ancient Egypt, read biographies of Cleopatra and Nefertiti, study mummification, make a pharoah's costume or models of their elaborate jewelry--we've actually spent a LOT of time on Ancient Egypt over the years, so I zoomed in on the one thing that we haven't played around with yet: their eye makeup.

Eye makeup was a big deal for the Ancient Egyptians, and not just for cosmetic reasons. Just like football players do now, putting on dark eyeliner reduced glare on the eyes of the Ancient Egyptians in the bright sunlight, and the fact that the eye makeup contained lead, while it was terrible for their long-term health, did protect them from loads of eye diseases and infections.

Why would Ancient Egyptians get so many eye infections, you ask? It's because of all that freaking sand! It got everywhere, including in their eyes and into all of their food. Ancient Egyptians also had terrible teeth, because they ate so much sand that got into their meals that it wore down the enamel on their teeth.

Syd and I watched this video that shows images of Ancient Egyptian artwork, focusing on their eyes to provide the evidence that yes, indeed, dark eye makeup was a thing (at least on the artwork!)--



--and then we watched this video of a makeup artist recreating the look on her own eyes:



And then Syd tried it for herself!

Eyes open.

Eyes closed!

This was a fun activity for Syd, and inspired a whole week's worth of makeup play. It has never occurred to me for a single moment to ever want to put on even a smidge of makeup, but honestly, looking at Syd sitting across the table from me at 10 in the morning, sulking over finding the percent of difference between two numbers... I think she's wearing a little makeup right now, actually.

Here are some other ways that we've studied Ancient Egypt over the years:

• We took a class at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis.
• The kids made sugar cube pyramids.
• We made giant (and small) cookie maps of Egypt.
• The kids made and painted salt dough maps of Ancient Egypt.
• We made and labelled poster-size maps of Egypt.
• The kids each made a model sarcophagus.
• We visited the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum in San Jose, California.

Apparently, we like mapmaking!

Total Eclipse of the Sun

Are you guys still getting over the total eclipse, too? Is it just me?

Y'all, I had been so pent up with excitement over the eclipse that by Sunday afternoon, I'm surprised that my partner didn't just drug me like a dog about to go on a plane trip. Studying the eclipse intensely with the kids for a month just got me even more worked up--I've been revved up about this eclipse for a year. My partner got us our hotel room 50 minutes from Carbondale, Illinois, Eclipse Capital, almost a year ago. Heck, I have had our eclipse glasses since MARCH!

Plan A was to leave our house on Sunday, stay the night at our hotel 50 minutes from Carbondale, then drive the next morning to Crab Orchard National Wildlife Preserve, just outside Carbondale's city limits, and watch the eclipse there. Plan B, if Crab Orchard was too busy or the traffic on the highway into Carbondale was too heavy, was to head a little further away and watch the eclipse from Cedar Lake, a reservoir more to the east. Plans C and D, if Carbondale was overcast, were to drive either towards Nashville or St. Joseph, Missouri, until we were free of cloud cover, and then find a suitable spot to watch.

To that end, we left the house on Sunday morning, just in case the traffic was already heavy. Since it wasn't, though, we ended up with plenty of time to spend the afternoon in Evansville, Indiana. We played at a local playground, found a Krispy Kreme so that the little kid can continue to live her dreams of eating ALL THE DOUGHNUTS, and then tag-teamed the kids around Angel Mounds, on account of I'm not used to planning vacations that include dogs and I didn't notice that dogs weren't allowed in the archaeological area until after we'd paid our admission:

Three Sisters Garden, with the addition of sunflowers

Here's a partial reconstruction of the wattle and daub stockade that surrounded the community.

This is what the inside of the stockade would have looked like, absent kids trying to look up the Native American's skirt.

This is Mound A, the Central Mound. The chief probably lived on the highest point, with some other community members living on the lower platform.

Even the lower platform is high, especially considering that it was built using basket-fulls of dirt, probably carried by hand.

Here's what the village might have looked like:





I'm always the most fascinated by the artifacts that are uncovered in a particular place. The architecture or other physical features are one thing, but these are items that regular people used as part of their everyday lives.



And look! The perfect complement to the weeks that the little kid and I spent studying prehistoric fashion as part of her History of Fashion study!

See the holes drilled into those teeth? It's like the holes that we drilled into shells!

We had an early night at our hotel (why does my quest to order from independent pizza places wherever we stay mostly result in us eating a lot of highly mediocre pizza?), with me checking the radar hourly and fretting over all the traffic reports, and an even earlier morning. The good news is we passed the north-south biscuit and gravy line in our travels, so there was a crock pot of sausage gravy waiting for me, along with cold biscuits, microwaveable cheese "omelets," and bad coffee down in the hotel's breakfast buffet. Every single other person on the planet was also shoving breakfast into their faces and bolting out the door, too--we'd booked our hotel so early that it was a normal price, but the night before, on our way down to the pool, I'd heard the check-in clerk telling some guys that they were full, but she'd heard there were still a couple of rooms at the Fairfield Inn down the road that were going for 900 bucks apiece.

We were on the road by 6:30 am for a 50-minute drive, with little traffic to speak of, and were pulling into an only quarter-filled parking lot at the Crab Orchard National Wildlife Preserve an hour later. There was an air-conditioned visitor center across the lot, with working bathrooms and flushing toilets, and a lovely wooded hike that led to a lovely lake, but honestly, we spent most of the morning like this--



--and like this--

--yep, hanging out in the shade right off of the parking lot. The dog was content, we had plenty of books, and the car was right there whenever we wanted a snack or a drink--it was perfect! The parking lot filled within the hour, and then we were also treated to the sight of cars coming in and circling hopelessly before driving on--ahh, the satisfaction of sitting snugly in our spots in the face of the desperation of others!

Around mid-morning, rangers even came out and closed off the entrance to our lot entirely, so we could move our lawn chairs out of the shade and onto the asphalt, to better watch the show:



Even before you could really tell a difference in the day without your eclipse glasses on, things started to get weird. Just as we'd been told, the dappled light under our tree began showing us the crescent images of the sun:

Just as we'd been told, our shadows on the sidewalk had crisper, sharper edges:

This is because the light is coming from a smaller and smaller point, not diffused as it is when it comes from the entire body of the sun.

The crickets began to sing. The ambient light began to seem oddly dim, but not like sunset, when the light is leaving from the side; this was dimness like a room with the light bulb on low. It grew noticeably colder, as 99% of the photons normally striking us through sunlight were now being deflected. A breeze blew, as the air pressure became affected. We could see that it was visibly darker to our west. And still we watched:

And then there was this:



I was peeping at the sky when the last light left, so I saw the diamond ring with my naked eyes. I turned to make sure the children were watching, and saw the little kid still with her eclipse glasses on, so I ripped them off her face--I wasn't even thinking about damaged eyesight; I just wanted her to see that spectacular beam of light for the second that it was visible.

I'm not even going to try to describe the total eclipse, itself, to you. My photo doesn't really look like it, but I haven't seen any photos that do. I can't think of the words to say that would make it clear to you what it was like, if you didn't see it for yourself. Just... it was beautiful. It was the best thing that I've ever seen in my entire life, and yes, I know that I'm supposed to say that my first look at my children is the best thing that I've ever seen, but I was half out of my mind both times I gave birth, completely terrified both times, both times in pain. This was nothing like that. This was just beautiful, just this ephemeral, beautiful thing that you had to experience right that second for all that you could, because you couldn't rewind the experience to play it again, couldn't watch it on TV later and get the same effect, couldn't come out the next weekend and see it again. It lasted 2 minutes and 40 seconds, all of which are impressed on my memory, and yet when the diamond ring appeared again on the other side of the sun, it felt like surely it hadn't been that long. Surely it had just been a couple of seconds.

As the totality passed, someone began to play The Beatles' "Here Comes the Sun" from their car stereo, and people were already packing their cars back up. The kids were beaming. My hands were shaking so hard that I had trouble taking a drink of water. We hit ALL the eclipse traffic on the way back that we missed on the way there--we only saw one car crash happen right in front of us, but the drive that had taken 3.5 hours the day before took more like 7+ on the way home, bumper-to-bumper traffic the whole way.

I don't know what mood I'd be in if I didn't know that there's another total solar eclipse coming in seven years, but there is one coming, and I am buoyant. Better yet, Friends, my town is in the path of totality. 

Lemme just repeat that: MY TOWN IS IN THE PATH OF TOTALITY. MY HOUSE WILL SEE AN ECLIPSE!!!

You can come stay in a tent in my backyard, and I'll haul out the lounge chairs. The little kid, who will be graduating from high school the next month, will decorate us eclipse-themed doughnuts. The big kid, home from college for the weekend, will read and ignore us. And we'll have another powerful encounter that's beyond belief, in just seven years.

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to weird old cemeteries, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!