White Belt with a Gold Stripe

Strawberry had her first Little Dragons Test a few weeks ago. It is fun teaching her class and being her Sensei. I love getting to present belts to my family, but this is the first time I got to have a picture of the new belt with sensei and be the sensei in the picture!

Glorious Homeschool Day

One of the things I want my children to experience is theater. On Tuesday I took the kids to see Pinocchio. It was a new take on the show- we arrived and the set looked like a painters workshop. Knowing the theater we were in, I was a bit surprised to see such an off set. I had expected a woodworker’s shop! The premise was a bunch of painters telling the audience who won’t leave the story of Pinocchio. The use whatever painter materials they have on hand to tell the store. It was so well done. It was especially fun because our play last week had the children playing children playing other characters. I thought I had a picture of the set but maybe I only thought about taking the picture and never got around to it. Anyway, we went with some friends. So fun.

Then, one family joined us on an expedition to the spice store. We started out by riding the monorail. It was raining and really cold. Even though there was a roof over us, all the kids were gathering under the umbrella.

 

Once we got to the other end of the route, we ran down several blocks in the rain to the spice store. Then we ran back to the monorail. The kids loved it, even the running in the rain. Butterfly was kind enough to share the inside jacket with her brother who forgot his jacket at home.

Then, we went to the Science Center.

Tiger took Little One to play in the tot area for a little bit and then ran off to explore other areas himself. Meanwhile, Pumpkin Pie and Butterfly explored the tide pools and learned all about the animals that they were touching. The docent was fabulous.

Little One’s walking abilities meant he wasn’t content to hang out in the carrier. He wanted to play too! Thankfully there is a little tots area. He loved the water table. Silly boy hates baths but likes splashing in puddles.  He also had fun climbing on the play structure.  Finally a place where he could climb without being taken down or stopped.

After we got home, B helped Strawberry and Pumpkin Pie sort the spices and sort our jars.

Know we would be gone all day, Tiger took his books he was reading for class in the car with us and did almost all his readings on the way to the theater and back. Way to use your time Tiger!

Breathing a Sigh of Relief

My regularly scheduled Make It Monday was interrupted this week with the home stretch play production. On Saturday the kids performed with their co-op in our annual play. We performed a story about children shipwrecked on an island. While they wait for rescue, they tell each other Greek Myths. It was a great success. I am so proud of all the kids. They worked hard. I am so grateful for all the moms who helped out back stage from set and prop design to cueing lines to helping kids get on and off stage. There is no way that this play could have come together without all their help. 7 weeks of intense prep…

One great thing about our play is that we structure it so that all the kids, even our PreK/K kids can do something. They didn’t get added until the dress rehearsal, but they got to play a part in it too.

Isn’t that cave fabulous! Our set director named it Catawampus Cave.

Now that our play is over, I will be teaching a class at Relief Society on making lip balms and lotion bars- look for that in a future Make it Monday. I will also be teaching another class on making herbal products as well as a time management class to the middle school age students at co-op. 

Gates, Doors, and Boxes- Welcome to 11 months

Little One is now 11 months old. He has 4 little teeth and is starting to enjoy frozen peas, potato chunks, avocado chunks, tomato chunks, beans, apple pieces, red peppers, and he loves some mango kale applesauce squeezers from Costco.Little One should have a different name- Busy One! He is BUSY. He has been walking now for a month and a half and is quite steady now, although he does tend to bonk his head frequently still. Usually because he tries to stand up under a table or something. He is also extremely curious and loves to open doors, cupboards, drawers, boxes, and anything else he can get into. He will dump the contents of any container given the chance.

He also likes to explore and frequently will be doing something near me and then wander into another room. TROUBLE. I have taken to closing doors, barricading certain areas of the house, and I created a fence across one room to contain him at least part time while we are downstairs. The worst problem we have is when children don’t close the bathroom door… He hates bath time but finds the toilet incredibly fascinating and will play in it any chance he gets…

When we get our produce box each week, he attempts to unpack it for me. Usually he ends up grasping some oranges and sucking on them!

Little One loves to grab glasses too.

He is so full of grins and makes everyone smile. He is still struggling to sleep sometimes. He is doing better than he was though. I am trying to figure out if it is a food sensitivity.

Words- Family Lexicon and Bonus Recipe!

One of my favorite classes in college was linguistics. I found studying the origins of words and the history of words fascinating. I also loved the change of pronunciations and the change of meaning interesting too.

For example, it really isn’t very kind to call someone “nice.” (Did you notice I chose the word kind instead of nice?) Most people use the word “nice” to refer to kind or good. That isn’t the root of the word though! Think about it, when someone is set up on a blind date and they ask about the person and with a slight hesitation and whine the other person says, “Well, he is nice…” What does that convey? I thought so! Historically, the word “nice” referred to delicate, over scrupulous, fastidious, week, foolish, easily injured, or “perceiving accurately the smallest faults, errors or irregularities.” (There are many more definitions in the Webster’s 1828 dictionary, but these are just a few.

All this talk brings me to the definition of two words in my home: Sawdust, and Trash soup.

First, Sawdust. Most people think of sawdust and think of the left over bits of wood that are created when cutting with a saw. In our home, it refers to a non-dairy parmesan cheese substitute we make. It is made with nutritional yeast, almonds, and sea salt. It tastes an awful lot like parmesan cheese and makes a great addition to pasta and Caesar dressing (non-dairy of course). The etymology of sawdust: A couple of years ago, I made some “sawdust” and placed it on the table. One of the children asked what it was and my husband answered, “sawdust,” since it resembles sawdust in color and appearance. It has stuck ever since.

Trash Soup refers to vegetable broth.  Etymology: Last Thanksgiving, before I went to bed the night before, I realized I had forgotten to buy veggie broth for the various dishes I was making. I remembered the peels and stems I had in the freezer so I ran downstairs and threw them in the crockpot with water. The next morning, Tiger came downstairs and asked what I was making. I told him I was making, “trash soup.” He was absolutely horrified and asked me to be serious. I then re-stated, “trash soup!” Once I showed him, he thought I had lost my marbles until I explained that really it was veggie broth. Then he had fun asking for some trash soup for the various recipes.

So, in honor of Make-It Monday, Here is the recipe for Sawdust!

Coarsely grind up 1/3 cup almonds. Blend with 2 tsp nutritional yeast flakes (I like to grind the yeast flakes at the same time I am grinding my almonds so it mixes well and the yeast flakes get powdered) and 1/4 tsp sea salt. Serve as you would parmesan cheese.

Freezing Bubbles

A few months ago someone posted a really cool picture of frozen bubbles. The story was that a mom grabbed her son and blew bubbles outside in below freezing weather. The bubbles froze and look what happened next. The pictures were beautiful. I wondered if it were possible to duplicate so the girls and I headed outside to try it out. It was 32 degrees with a wind chill making it feel like the teens. It was COLD and we only lasted about 2 minutes in the driveway before cold forced us inside again- that and our bubbles didn’t freeze…yet.

At first, the bubbles just behaved the same. We were so cold we ran back inside, but we decided to leave the solution on the porch to chill it, since it had been a balmy 68 degrees inside. A few hours later, I went out to try again. Unfortunately, it was already dark outside and my camera has gone AWOL, so I was only able to capture some iPod pictures. Sorry about the quality, but it sure was fun to do this! The bubbles did indeed begin to freeze. We watched crystals form inside the solution. Way cool. Then, we watched the bubbles shrink slightly as they cooled. We also watched them solidify and crack, even leaving a hard shell with a large hole on top. When we blew them, the frozen popped bubble pieces looked like floating clear pieces of rigid plastic wrap or maybe clear egg shells! I am going to keep looking for that camera and hopefully try this again in the morning with the girls. This bubble had frozen and popped. It truly was angular!

This picture is of the ice crystals forming. When I held the bubble up to the light, I could see ice patterns like snowflakes forming one by one in the bubble wall. It was neat to watch the bubbles freeze and then watch them unfreeze as I walked inside the house with them.

Butterfly tried to provide a background so the popped missing top of this bubble could be seen.

Making an Inspirations Folder

I recently was listening to a fabulous talk from Mary Ann Johnson on creating a learning closet. The learning closet it a place where you put resources for children to explore. These don’t need to be expensive or complicated, in fact simplicity is probably better. Even before listening to her lecture, I was pondering this very idea and working on creating a space with learning sparks. She mentioned a resource I had never heard of in all of my years of homeschooling. So, for this week’s Make-It Monday, I am sharing that resource as well as how to make that folder of inspirational helps.

Over the years, I have used Dover Publishing coloring books and resources. The illustrations are beautiful and the books are not expensive. The resource that she mentioned was Dover Publishing Samples! You can sign up on their website for their samples newsletter (as well as other newsletters if you desire).

Once a week, samples of approximately 12 of their many books are compiled. Then you can save each image. 

In the past, I have downloaded resources and then I promptly forgot about them or their location. I now have a dedicated location for these resources and I am breaking them down into folders. Here is my Inspirations Resources folder. If a sample comes that doesn’t fit into a category I already have, I create a new one. Each image I save, I assign a name describing the image so I can find it easily again.

Here is the inside of one folder- coloring pages:

Tomorrow, when I am reading to the children, I can easily come and print a picture for coloring easily. Or, when we study Rome, I can go to the appropriate folder and pull out a related activity.