The Learning Umbrella

I've Moved!

2006-04-13T20:40:00.000-07:00

I've decided to move my blog over to homeschooljournal.net. The main reason is because I want to support a great homeschool online community, and I like being with more homeschoolers. They also allow categories, and have a very easy interface.
So, please come see me at my new home, and change any links you may have to this blog. Go to:
learningumbrella.homeschooljournal.net

2006-04-12T14:39:00.000-07:00

Carbon was a big help building the worm box.
I gave him a bunch of my yarn scraps, and he cut them up to put out as nesting materials for birds. So far, no birds have come to take some yarn, which is bumming him out. Hopefully they'll find it soon!

Our new "pets"

2006-04-11T11:46:00.000-07:00

We finished the wormbox we've been building, and this weekend we drove out to a worm farm my husband found with an internet search. The farm was about 40 minutes away from our house, and it was an interesting place. They were very happy to show Carbon how the worms were bred and how they compost. It was cool, and I'm glad to support a small business, but these little crawlers are expensive! It was $15/lb for the worms, and then we also had to get some bedding to start the box with. We're following the advice in the book on the subject: Worms Eat My Garbage. I'm not completely thrilled with how much space the box is taking up in my kitchen, and I know I will not be thrilled at all if it causes an infestation of fruit flies this summer, which the book warns can sometimes happen. But, it'll be nice to break down our kitchen waste faster, and the boys are really into this. In fact, we may have to put a lock on the box, because Carbon is very excited about "checking" the worms all the time. His dad is making him a little plexiglass container for a few worms, so he can watch them as they move about and dig. That will be cool, like a window underground.
So, I've got a big box of dirt and worms in my kitchen - the sacrifices we make for the environment and our childrens' education!

If it's Friday, it must be Pizza

2006-04-07T13:00:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to simplify some of the things that make my life crazy. One of those things is deciding what's for dinner - not making dinner, just deciding. Isn't that silly? Don't get me wrong, I love to flip through cookbooks, or surf on over to allrecipes.com, and I love to try new and adventurous recipes and ideas. I love to be in my kitchen, kneading dough or cutting out cookies. But - - - it does get overwhelming to always be trying something new, to never be able to grocery shop without a list of those "special" new ingredients for some exotic new dish. So, I'm taking some of the pressure off myself. I'm just going to make homemade pizza every Friday, unless we're doing something social. It's perfect and easy. I can mix up the dough in the early afternoon while Carbon naps, and let it rise until dinner time. Then, I can prebake the crust and leave it sitting until my husband gets home. Everyone can put what they like on their part of the pizza, and it bakes up in less than 15 minutes after that! Everyone likes it, and it makes decent leftovers for a quick Saturday lunch, if there are any leftovers.

Wheat-Free Pizza Crust

1 1/2 c. gluten free flour mix (or 1/2 cup rice flour, 1/2 tapioca flour, and 1/2 cup corn starch)
1 teaspoon xanthan gum
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vinegar
1 1/2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 cup water, barely warm
2 1/4 teaspoons yeast

1. Measure the water, add 1/2 T of sugar, and drop in the yeast to dissolve.
2. Beat together the egg, oil, vinegar, and the rest of the sugar. Add the yeast water.
3. Stir in the dry ingredients until smooth.
4. Cover and let rise. It may look soupy or like pancake batter - that's OK.
5. Pour onto an oiled cookie sheet, with edges. Spread with a spatula, then bake about 5 minutes at 350F.
6. Top with your favorites, and bake about 10-15 more minutes.

Easter Egg Ideas

2006-04-06T14:08:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year - time to dye some Easter Eggs! It's sad, I'll have to buy some eggs. My chickens all lay brown or blue eggs- not great for dyeing.

I got a cool idea from a magazine in the dentist's office, but I haven't tried it so no personal guarantees!: Tie Dyed Eggs can be made by placing hard boiled eggs in a colander in your sink. Dash a 1/2 cup of vinegar over the eggs. Now take 2 to 3 colors of food coloring and drip them onto the eggs, gently shaking them about to spread the colors around. It was suggested to start with yellow, then do darker colors on top.

Another egg idea, this time using vegetable dyes, comes from My Bountiful Life.

A lot of ideas from Twin Groves School District - I like the marble eggs idea.

Or you can virtually decorate an egg at akidsheart - it's silly.

Yet more ideas for eggs are over at dltk-kids. I'm going to try their stone easter egg technique.

Amazing Moms has some ideas that are very small child friendly - but I'm not going to glue yarn on my egg faces to make hair. Just not my style, sorry. I am intrigued by their idea to wrap eggs in plants, stuff into a nylon, and then boil. I might try that one.

Another idea that I haven't seen on any of the sites I've surfed:
Masked Off Eggs
materials: hardboiled white eggs, masking tape, scissors, hole punches, egg dye (commercial kit is fine). For the hole punches, experiment with some of the cool ones that are sold for scrap booking - I've used a little carrot and a little tulip punch but the bunny one didn't work on masking tape. You'll have to try what you have.
1. set up - boil the eggs, mix the dyes, protect your work surface, etc.
2. cut out shapes from the masking tape, and apply to the egg. The eggs need to be really dry so the masking tape sticks on all the way. Press the edges down firmly. Be creative here - my cousin cut out strips and arranged them to look like the Kiss band logo, and I cut out ovals and arranged them to be a rabbit. Whatever you can think of, or randomly stick on little punched out shapes.
3. Dye the eggs in desired colors, then let dry.
4. peel off the masking tape to reveal your design.

start them early

2006-04-04T13:37:00.000-07:00

Here's Carbon helping paint his Grandma's new house. Get kids started early and they'll be skilled help later!

Women Making the World a Better Place

2006-04-04T09:04:00.000-07:00

It's a beautiful day today, with the sun gracing us with its presence and the clouds gracing us with their absence. I managed to do 45 minutes of yoga uninterrupted, and take a shower by myself (no babe in arms). I've had my coffee and yogurt, and a little phone chat with my mother. I feel like one of the luckiest women in the world today!
So, I think I should turn my attention to ways I can spread the joy:
A Stitch in Time, is a yarn shop that helps at-risk teens
Warming Families sends blankets and other warm items to homeless families
Women for Women International goes all over the world, even to some pretty scary places, and helps women support themselves and their children and live happier lives. I'm impressed they provide counseling services to women who have been raped in war torn areas.
Any other projects or charities I should put on my list?

Grumpy children

2006-04-03T11:18:00.000-07:00

I think Daylight Savings is stupid. Who can explain to me why this is a good idea? My whole day today is an exercise in trying to ease my kids onto a slightly different schedule, and they are grumpy little ones right now. Actually, Carbon has been grumpy a lot since his sister arrived. He's still pretty great with other people, but he can melt down for me. I was feeling like this is a sign that something has gone wrong with my mothering, but I found a great discussion in the book What Mothers Do by Naomi Stadlen: "A cross child trusts his mother and has expectations of her. He asks more of her than of other people because she is close to him and seems to understand him. ... Children's crossness, which can often indicate how much the children trust their mothers, is usually misunderstood". What a reassuring idea! He just trusts me and believes I'll somehow make it all better for him! He doesn't all of a sudden dislike me and prefer his grandma or his dad.
The rest of this book is also very good. It points out that the "work" of mothering is hard to pin down, misunderstood, and easy to fail at but hard to "successfully finish". So true - it's a very vulnerable position for our egos, really! I can't ever point to my children and say, "see what a good job I did today". The work I put into them so easily disappears under hunger, tiredness, or other situations that cause them to "act out" and show me up as a "bad mother". And I'm not "working" when I'm with them - I'm actually doing more conventionally defined work when I ignore them all day! The old complaint of "I got nothing done today" can be heard when you spent the whole day playing, feeding, teaching, interacting, comforting, planning, watching, protecting, and entertaining your kids!

My Date Night

2006-04-02T13:35:00.000-07:00

Last night my husband and I had a date! It's been forever since I got out to do something without the kids, and it was awesome. I had a little difficulty leaving the kids at my mom's house (I was worried about the baby), but they did just fine and Hypatia took a bottle without any problems. We went for Sushi, at one of those conveyor belt places. It wasn't the best sushi ever, but the system was fun. All these little plates just go along in front of everyone, and if you want it you pull it off the belt. The plates are color coded for price, and they add up your plates when you're done. Then we went to a fun concert, with a wide range of local young musicians (a string group, a rock band, a 15 year old rapper, a drum group kind of like Stomp, some singers in various styles) and a visiting guest artist who had put them all together into a show. It was cool - Daniel Bernard Roumain is an awesome electric violinist and I loved it, even if I did have ringing ears for hours afterward. Then we went for a drink, and I had one of those fancy smancy flavored "martini" drinks. I put it in quotes because I've been told those aren't real martinis, they're just served in a martini glass. Whatever it was, it tasted good! I hope we can do something like this about once a month - it's good to get out!

Pacifier Use

2006-03-30T12:34:00.000-08:00

Carbon used a pacifier until quite recently, and I was getting a lot of trouble from people for letting him continue to use it. I lost count of the number of times someone told him to tell me that he didn't need that nasty thing. Excuse me! Keep your opinion to yourself, or at least say it directly to the adult - don't go through the child to critique parenting! Anyway, he's only using a pacifier to sleep with now, and I think that's fine. Is it a health problem? No.
Sucking and the sucking reflex has even been used to treat learning disabilities - leading some to think pacifier use is good for children!

From the Special Needs Kitchen

2006-03-28T07:20:00.000-08:00

My son can't eat wheat, shouldn't have too much dairy (me either), and can't eat apples, grapes, and some other fruits. I'm allergic to pork, tomatoes, and eggplants. We have a special needs kitchen!

Orange Cheesecake I made this weekend (not dairy sensitive friendly):
2 cups gluten free cookie crumbs, I used those Rice Bran ones (not good as a straight graham cracker replacement - too hard, not sweet enough)
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
5 Tablespoons butter, melted
16 onces cream cheese, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 eggs (thank goodness my chickens are laying again)
2 cups sour cream
1 Tablespoon rice flour
1 Tablespoon potato starch
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 Tablespoon orange zest
2 Tablespoons concentrated orange juice (I just squeezed half an orange in there, though)
1. preheat oven to 350 F. Combine crumbs, cinnamon, and melted butter. Press mix into bottom of 9 in springform pan. Bake 5 minutes, then cool completely.
2. Reduce oven temp to 300 F. Beat cream cheese and sugar until smooth. Add eggs one at a time, careful not to overbeat. Blend in sour cream, flour, vanilla, and orange zest and juice. Pour into prepared crust and bake 60-75 minutes. Should be custard like and golden on top.
3. Let cool completely, refrigerate for at least 8 hours before serving.

2006-03-26T20:29:00.000-08:00

Spring Flower Art

2006-03-26T19:16:00.000-08:00

Here's a fun art project. We took one of the many garden catalogs we've received in the mail and Carbon ripped out pictures of flowers he liked. He glued those down and also glued down tissue paper to make 3D flowers. It was a great project for little hands without as much coordination, because he got results he liked without too much frustration.

Spring Outdoor Learning!

2006-03-23T10:18:00.000-08:00

Here are some pictures of us planting Carbon's garden. We're doing container gardening for him, so that he sticks to his own area. He's helping in the big garden too, but with more supervision!

Birdwatching at the Wildlife Refuge. He has a field guide and his birdjournal in that little backpack.

Very Excited About Next Year

2006-03-22T13:39:00.000-08:00

I've just finalized the list of themes for next year for my Thematic Units. For those of you (most of you!) who don't know, I write a little newsletter for subscribers that gives a mini unit study on a different theme each month. Each unit is totally interdisciplinary, with language arts, art and music, science and math, social studies, and "life skills" (aka practical odds and ends). I have a lot of fun researching and writing each of these units - they're just enough to give a little taste of a lot of ideas and still have time for my "regular" work.
This year I've done themes like: altruism, winter, ancestors, and communication. Next year's themes will include: the industrial revolution, light, Australia, and honesty.
It's a fun thing, and different from anything else I've seen out there. I'd love for more people to see what it's all about, and maybe give me some constructive feedback! If you'd like me to mail you a free copy of the current issue (Water), email me with your address.

The Weekend

2006-03-20T09:41:00.000-08:00

How much can you pack into a weekend? I'm beginning to feel like my whole week is just preparation and clean up for the weekends. It's not true, but at the moment it feels that way. This is mostly because my husband has time at home on the weekends, so things move faster. With two sets of hands, a lot more living is possible with two small children. And other people also have time off work, so we get more guests/social engagements. But I'm tired after this last weekend!
This last weekend:
Fri. evening: Made a big dinner and had mother-in-law over
Stayed up late watching Netflix with husband
Saturday: Ran assorted errands while husband watched kids
Mom and sister drove down with a load of furniture for us
Rearranged study to accomodate two new desks
Went on birdwatching walk with Mom, sister, and the two kids
Had dinner with Mom and sister
Sunday: Went to Northwest Trek with kids and husband
Helped husband build a wormbox for composting kitchen waste
rearranged furniture in kids' room to accomodate toy kitchen furniture

Achievement versus Mastery

2006-03-17T12:13:00.000-08:00

I had a great conversation with my mom this morning. I was stressing about whether to take Carbon to his kindergym class this morning, because I was up a lot last night with the girl (she had a congested nose and couldn't breath very well). We ended up digressing (as we always do when we talk) and discussing how to keep the extra curricular activities from running our lives. She teaches cello lessons, and she is torn about why most of her students are studying the instrument. Why put in years of daily practice if you aren't going to be a professional player? Should we feel guilty for not "doing anything" with the things we studied in the past? I'm not "doing anything" with either dance or singing, and I studied those very seriously as a child and teen. Should I have my kids do any sort of music lesson or anything?
What it boils down to is why you are doing it. I like the definition of mastery given in the book The Childhood Roots of Adult Happiness. The author says that mastery is the feeling of accomplishment and competency that a person gets from doing something well and to the best of their ability, or from mastering a personal challenge. Achievement, on the other hand, is about meeting an external standard. You could meet a standard and not feel like you had done your best, or you could do your best but still not have reached someone else's standard. But if you do your best, the external standard doesn't matter that much. The author also points out that focusing on mastery sets a child up for a lifetime of happiness while focusing on achievement sets them up for dependency on the opinions of others and unhappiness.
We decided this morning that anything that is done for the enjoyment and the challenge is fine, and that we want the kids to have the chance to find a passion and to feel competent in a variety of ways. But no pushing to attain some outside goal, or just so I can brag about what they are doing. Goals are fine, but I think they should be just enough to stretch you, not so big they take over your life. I had the goal of being a professional ballerina, and it nearly killed me (or caused me to kill myself? I was anorexic.).
I love talking about things with my mom. We can really hash out a problem! She's hoping her students get a feeling of competency and personal mastery from cello, and I'm hoping kindergym class is just for Carbon to have fun and feel competent with his gross motor and social skills.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

2006-03-16T16:59:00.000-08:00

Buying Memberships

2006-03-16T09:41:00.000-08:00

I took Carbon to the Pacific Science Center yesterday when we did our trip to Seattle. It was going to cost about $18 for the two of us to get in, and they convinced me that it was worth it to buy the annual family membership for $75. After all, I just have to go back three times and I'm ahead, plus I'll get the newsletter and special events for members only. This generally makes sense to me, but I'm a bit worried that because I have this membership now, everytime we go to Seattle we'll feel like we have to do the Science Center instead of, say, the aquarium where we don't have a membership. There are a lot of cool places to go with kids, and I don't want to miss some of them because of membership pressure.
On the other hand, repeat visits are probably best for Carbon. He's at an age where he gets more and more out of something the more he looks at it. He watches the same video tapes over and over again, and reads the same books over and over again, so visiting the same museum doesn't bother him any. Some places are good to see as the seasons change, or they have lots of traveling exhibits to keep seeing. In the book And the Skylark Sang With Me, David Albert argued for going back to a zoo or wildlife preserve repeatedly over the course of a year, to see how the animals change with time and the seasons. That's a good idea too!
How to make my educational dollar (and time) stretch and be most useful for Carbon? How to keep my own interest and enthusiasm as he explores things over and over again? The practical parenting aspects of homeschooling that didn't occur to me when I was the kid! It seems like my parents had memberships everywhere, but I must be confused. Surely they couldn't have afforded that all at once. I also remember having season tickets to everything, so the mind of a child is not always the best witness. We may have had different memberships in different years, and the same for the tickets.
Well, I have two memberships right now - the children's museum and the science center. A zoo would probably round it out nicely, and then of course a parks pass for our state parks! Oh, and a trail pass for the National Forests. There are so many cool places to go - why is this called homeschooling again?

Pain may be a hernia

2006-03-15T21:12:00.000-08:00

I've been having very bad attacks of back and chest pain, which I've considered to be mostly strain from carrying the baby. But I went to my Naturopathic doctor today, and he thought it may be a hiatal hernia. He does a manipulation procedure to pull the stomach down, which HURT, but it's feeling very different now. Maybe, fingers crossed, it helped.

2006-03-14T07:07:00.000-08:00

Where is the bird sanctuary?

2006-03-14T06:44:00.000-08:00

This weekend we took the kids to the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge, which is very close to where we live. Carbon came up with a request to go birdwatching with his binoculars, so we thought this would be a fun place to go. It is a lovely preserve, with lots of birds that people go to see with fancy cameras and binoculars. We took our not-so-fancy equipment and a snack, and we headed out. Carbon kept asking when we were going to get to the bird sanctuary, and we kept telling him we were there. Then he said, "no, we're outside!". Ah, confusion. He must have thought it would be like the aviary in the zoo, with an enclosed space. He was pretty upset when he realized what the sanctuary actually was, and he had a little meltdown on the trail crying that he wanted to leave and go to the zoo. We persevered, despite a grumpy child that made the experience less-than-fun. My husband sketched some native plants he was interested in, but Carbon and I couldn't identify any of the birds we saw other than ducks and geese (what experts we are!). Then we finally went back to the car and called it quits. As we're driving away, Carbon says "that was fun, let's go back". Fickle child!

Help Protect Our Forests

2006-03-10T14:24:00.000-08:00

As a hiker, I'm a fan of the outdoors and of our National Forests. But I think the most important reason to keep our forests untouched is to preserve them for future generations, to provide habitat for wildlife, and to protect our watersheds and the "lungs" of our ecosystem.
There is a bill going to the Senate now, The Roadless Area Conservation Act, that would protect our forested wild areas. In effect, it would bring back the roadless area policy that went into effect in the end of the Clinton administration and was almost immediately reversed by Bush. Please support this bill: http://www.cantwell.com/action/roadless/

The Miracle of Life

2006-03-10T09:13:00.000-08:00

In preparation for our vegetable garden, I set up a little experiment with Carbon to show him how a seed sprouts. You've probably seen it before - just putting a tube of black construction paper into a mason jar, then filling the center with wet cotton and "planting" seeds between the paper and the glass. We used some lentils, and at this point they have roots and green sprouts that have grown all the way out the top of the jar. Carbon is interested in watching it grow, but I'm moved to marvel at how much energy is stored in those seeds. All they are getting in that jar is water, nothing else, and yet they have the stored capacity to grow that much! And they've been in my kitchen cupboard for awhile now in a nasty plastic bag- yet they can still grow if given the slightest encouragement! Life is so amazing. Even the simplist organisms are so incredible. That's one of the things I love about biology, discovering the amazing systems at work on so many different levels to make life-as-we-know-it on this planet possible. I don't find physics as marvelous, but I know people who do, and I'm also looking forward to doing some physics with the kids. What a great opportunity we have when working with our kids, to see it all again. Sometimes we just need to step back and look at it all and say "wow".

Staying on Budget

2006-03-09T12:33:00.000-08:00

Carbon isn't the only member of our family struggling with issues with money. We all are working on balancing our spending better. Oprah's recent series "Debt Diet" is a good case in point - a lot of people in this country live outside of their means. It's really easy to do this, because we have such crazy access to credit. I get at least three offers a week for new credit cards, and we can walk into a lot of stores and make a major purchase without putting any cash down. In fact, we drove off the lot with our new car a few years ago without doing anything more than signing the paperwork. No money down, no wait, nothing. That's pretty crazy, when you think about it.
So, I've made budget categories, and I'm trying to reduce debt and stay within the budget. I've got $50 a month to spend on the kids, including their classes, toys, and educational materials. That doesn't count clothing, though, because I have a family clothing budget. So, how best to spend that $50? One impulse trip to Toys R Us and it's gone and then some! Yesterday I took Carbon to Display and Costume, a really fun store full of party supplies, art supplies, and costume parts. His dad gave him $5 in cash out of his personal spending budget, and then I doled out $10 from the kids budget. We went through that store, picking up lots of things and then weighing them against each other and putting things back. There were so many fun options, and I was tempted to go over the planned spending limit several times. But Carbon was great about it, and he finally settled on four costume items to buy. We went up to the register, and he paid in cash and got a little bit of change back. We put the change in his savings jar when we got home.
This is going to be good for all of us, and hopefully the kids will grow up with a better grasp of how these things work. I got my first credit card when I was 17, and I've carried a balance ever since. I've got to get real about money, but I'm not going to beat myself up about this. It's pretty clear to me that I'm not the only person in America who needs to figure out how to balance a budget! Or how to avoid deficit spending! How many kids really understand what deficit spending is?

Learning about money

2006-03-08T17:30:00.000-08:00

Carbon has hit the "I want" stage - I want a new toy, I want to go the zoo, I want to stop for a hot chocolate, etc. So of course this is the perfect time to teach him about money!
To give an allowance or not - the Moores say never give a cash allowance, and instead have them work for money, Martha Stewart's Kids magazine has an article this month that says give them an allowance. I wouldn't choose Martha over the Moores as a child development expert, but I'm leaning that direction on this particular issue. I hate when kids say "what will you pay me?" every time you ask them to do something around the house. My younger siblings did that (some still do!), and I think I even remember doing that myself. It's great to earn money, but I don't want to pay my kids for doing normal chores. And Carbon is way too young to do anything out of the house.
What I settled on is a system that is inspired by a few different sources. I saw some financial "expert" on the Today Show years ago talk about making kids save, and my mom talked about a book called Money Doesn't Grow on Trees, and the aforementioned article in Kids Magazine. We took four jars, and I made pictures for each jar since Carbon is still preliterate. There is a picture of a dollar sign on a jar that is for long-term savings, which we'll eventually put in a savings account for him. There is a picture of the family on a family tax jar, which will go for some family good (a trip?, a new camping tent?). We talked about a bunch of different charities (the library, the parks, Unicef, etc), and Carbon liked "animals" the best, so there is a picture of elephants on a jar that will go to the World Wildlife Fund. And the final jar has a picture of a toy store on it, for actually spending. We're giving Carbon $2 a week, for his age, and he's putting 10% (or .20) into those 3 jars and keeping the rest for spending.
This lesson is for more than just economics - I'm giving him the money in coins and having him count them himself. Money, counting, savings, charity - he's learning a lot.

Struggling to silence an inner voice

2006-03-07T11:28:00.000-08:00

I've been feeling a little less than important, recently. The sermon at my church on Sunday was about Betty Friedan, and what she meant to women's lives. A lot of women stood up to share their experiences and thoughts, and these women struggled so much to be able to have careers and feel independent of men. I wouldn't want to go back to a time before the women's movement - to quote Oprah, women in America today are the luckiest women in the world and all time. Choices are important - and we have choices!
But the problem is that so many of those women in my church used the "just" word a lot. "Just a housewife", "There had to be more to life than just my children and husband". And that one word makes it difficult for me to celebrate their achievements, because it denigrates my life choices so much.
I talked about this with my husband, and he tried to point out to me that no one who knows me or is involved in our lives is at all critical of my life choices. That's not quite true - I'm critical. I have an inner voice that says I haven't "lived up to my potential", or that I'm not as good a person as some career girl is, or that my personal satisfaction in my life isn't enough and what am I doing to improve society?
Clearly, I'm making myself unhappy being this critical of myself. I need to have a good long talk with that inner voice, and come to some agreement here.

The baby backache

2006-03-06T12:52:00.000-08:00

Since the baby arrived, I've been battling some pretty horrible back pain. All of this holding and nursing is pulling my shoulders forward, giving me horrible posture, and making life not as much fun! I went and saw my doctor, who diagnosed "thoracic spasm" and gave me a referral for massage and a recommendation to get a few better bras. That massage is going to be great, as soon as the insurance referral comes through. In the mean time, I'm stuck with hot water bottles and the five minutes of shoulder rubbing my husband can manage before his hands are tired. (No ill feelings toward my husband - he's still willing to do it and that's wonderful). So, I'm going to try doing this workout tape every other day for awhile. This workout helped me when I developed "nurse's shoulder" from carrying Carbon around on my left side all the time. It's a wonderful blend of yoga and pilates, done on a fitness ball. It has some challenging moves that can keep you working after you've become pretty fit, and it also has lots of good stretches and simple moves that can build up strength or just keep you healthily limber. I did the workout today, skipping all of the push-ups and only doing half the sit-ups. I'll do it again on Wednesday, trying to do a few push-ups perhaps. Hopefully, this will help. Getting stronger and more fit never hurts, anyway.
Note: this tape is produced by Gaiam, a great company. If you're interested, I've got a button on my sidebar.

This Week's Library Bag, with a recipe!

2006-03-03T10:06:00.000-08:00

This book is classified as a voluntary simplicity book, and it fits that bill. But it is also a counter-culture political book, calling for major restructuring of the way government and business are structured as well as how ordinary people live. There were many good and interesting points in the book, but the author's voice was annoying to me personally. Why are so many voluntary simplicity books written by men? And not working type men - intellectuals and artists, "wannabe-Thoreau's"? It annoys me when they suggest growing and making from scratch all your own food, and then talk about extra time to have great intellectual discussions and to just sit and think. Who is making their food for them? Let's hear that person's perspective too!
A great way to get new recipes without being stuck with an overflowing shelf of cookbooks is to check them out from the library! This book is organized with menu plans for a whole year, and the major conceit of the book is to give all the recipes cutsey names and have themed dinners. That makes it a little difficult to search the book, but browsing it is fun too.
Here's what I've made out of it, and it was yummy:

Bronco Beef:
2 small onions
bell pepper
1/4 cup fresh parsley
1 can pineapple chunks
1 1/2 lb. ground beef (or turkey, which is what I used)
2 eggs
1/2 plain breadcrumbs
1 cup water
1 teaspoon dry mustard
seasoning to taste
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons corn starch

1. peel and chop up one onion and the parsley. Combine with the meat, eggs, bread, water, and mustard. Season to taste, and then form into meatballs.
2. Heat oil in a large skillet, and saute the meatballs until brown and cooked through (12-15 min). Remove and drain on a paper towel.
3. Peel and slice the other onion and chop up the pepper, then saute in the skillet. Pour in pineapple liquid, soy sauce, vinegar, brown sugar, and cornstarch. Bring to a boil and cook until sauce slightly thickens.
4. Return the meatballs to the skillet, add pineapple, and reduce heat. Cover and simmer 5 minutes more.

serve with rice

The author of this book is a cartoonist, and this is his first effort in children's books. It's a series of poems with funny illustrations, about "scary things". These poems are pretty witty, and I think it would appeal even to older kids (or juvenile adults, like me and my husband). Carbon loves it too, and I'm getting sick of reading it to him. The robots are after coffee, and they go crazy perking up extra fuel. It's cute. These books are out of print, and difficult to get from the library. I was lucky this week, because this is a great book about birdwatching. It goes really well with our continuing bird watching project.

Some Days - !

2006-03-02T11:35:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was one of those days.
It wasn't all bad, there was some fun, some rest. But it was still one of those days.
1. I had let Carbon have a mason jar when he was pretending to catch bugs. He broke that mason jar, and so we had broken glass to clean up.
2. I started using cloth diapers with Hypatia, so she went through four outfits with blowouts.
3. Carbon didn't get to the toilet on time, so I had to clean the rug in the living room.
4. Carbon cut his foot (presumably on a piece of glass I missed), and walked all over until he announced "mommy, I'm making foot prints". When I said that was blood, he freaked out and started screaming - could it really hurt if it didn't bother him until I said it was blood? Anyway, more biological waste to clean off the floor.
5. The cat knocked over an end table, spilling a glass of water (but the glass didn't break, so it could have been worse).
6. I spilled coffee all over a library book.
7. Carbon decided a toy dump truck could be a skateboard, and used it for that up and down the hallway. I stopped that before an accident occured - maybe it's a fine skateboard, but we will still not be doing that in the house.
The accident cloud was hovering over the house. There was a very strong wind this morning, so hopefully the air is cleared!

The Way We Teach History

2006-03-01T10:35:00.000-08:00

I just read a very good article in Utne, called Hope, History, and the Holocaust: How much do we really learn from evil? It is unfortunately not available online for free, but you can download it for a fee. Anyway, the point of the article is that we focus so much on the evil of the holocaust, on the horrors, on the "gory details with a zeal that borders on moral pornography" (Smith). The author would rather that we look at how Germany got like that, and look at causes and beginnings instead of just sensational headlines and cases.
This reminded me of something else I had just read, in the book A Reasonable Life by Ferenc Mate. He called for a focus on the history of ordinary people and how they had lived, rather than on the rulers and leaders who had lead very unusual lives.
And that reminded of yet another thing I had noticed, awhile back, when I was reading A Well-Disciplined Mind. Those authors had a list of "great men and women" that every student should study. Marie Antoinette was on that list. Ok, she's a notorious, maybe even important historically, person - but a "great" person? What did she do that was so "great"? That's like calling Paris Hilton a "Great American", in my opinion. Notoriety and celebrity does not equal greatness.
Where does all of this leave the study of history? I think it points to a need to look at real stories and real big pictures, rather than the tabloid version, or even the headline news version of the past. How did people really live? What were the big trends - culturally, economically, etc?
There's my soapbox for the day, now I'll get down off it and go change some diapers!

Happy St David's Day

2006-03-01T10:17:00.000-08:00

Today is St. David's Day, which is mostly just celebrated in Wales. But I'm part Welsh (at least my last name is Welsh!), and I'm tired of the Valentine's art we've got up around the house. So Carbon and I are making spring flowers, especially daffodils, and decorating with that. I found some St. David's day coloring pages for him to do today, and I'll play some Welsh songs on the piano. I won't make lamb for dinner, though. I just don't like it!

Carbon's Movie Reviews

2006-02-28T07:01:00.000-08:00

As a special treat, my husband recently took Carbon to see Curious George in the movie theater. N. didn't like the movie, and said that Carbon had been barely interested in it. I asked Carbon what his favorite part of the movie was, and the answer was: "it's over!". Not a good commentary on how much he liked it! And even more telling is the fact that he has not played any Curious George games since he saw the movie. Curious George has not appeared in any of his original stories he makes up, or in his creative play. He has not asked for any Curious George toys. He still likes the books, but the movie was clearly not a favorite.
On the other hand, we rented Zathura the other night, and Carbon was enthralled. It was a bit exciting for him, but he climbed onto the sofa with his dad and "hid" under a blanket in the parts that were a little scary. They weren't too scary, based on his utter lack of trouble sleeping that night. He watched the movie again the next day, with almost as much interest. And today he asked to watch it again, and was a little bit bummed that I'd already returned it to the store. He checked out all the robot books he could find in the library, and he says he wants a robot toy.
So, Carbon gives two thumbs down for Curious George
and two thumbs way up for Zathura.

And Now There Are Two

2006-02-24T16:20:00.000-08:00

It's different with two kids. Most of you will say - Duh! What were you expecting, girl?
I grew up in a large family, and I couldn't imagine being an only child. So I always knew I was going to have two kids. But it is definitely different being a mom of two. With only one chick to fuss over, there was rarely a dilemma about what to do - I did what Carbon needed me to do. I came second, my husband came second, the whole world came second to what Carbon needed.
Now I do have a dilemma, in that I sometimes have to choose which child will wait for a few minutes while I tend to the other one. This is probably good - Carbon is learning to wait and be less demanding (I didn't realize how demanding he was until I couldn't meet those demands instantly!), and I'm becoming slightly less sensitive to their slightest discomfort or unhappiness.
Growing up in a daycare, I was used to letting kids fuss - we couldn't take care of all ten at the same time, so sometimes they fussed in a swing or a crib. I am not used to that as a mom! Knowing that that goes on in even the best daycares is part of the reason I feel I should stay home with my kids. I'll get used to this, but it is an adjustment. I'm so exhausted right now, that no doubt I'm feeling even more incapable of meeting everyone's needs, and it will get better as I get into the swing and get my energy back.

A Craft Experiment that didn't turn out so well

2006-02-23T08:10:00.000-08:00

I was flipping through a kids craft book I got for Christmas, and I found this weird recipe for dryer lint clay. The book said it made a "unique clay with an interesting and different texture". What the heck - what else was I going to do with my dryer lint? So I tried it.
Yuck.
It was so slimy that Carbon didn't really want to touch it. He made "cookies" out of it on a cookie sheet and decorated them with bottle caps, but he wanted to use a spoon to handle the stuff. I don't blame him - it was gross.
Then I dried it, as per the directions. It never really got solid, and it looked like little balls of, well, it looked like something my cat would spit up. I threw all the "cookies" away, with Carbon's blessing. He said "gross" when he saw them!
Not everything we try works out, and maybe it's the recipe, or maybe I did something wrong. But I won't bother trying again - there's always another idea to try, so why obsess about the ones that don't work out?

Lessons I Didn't Want to Teach Right Now

2006-02-21T15:02:00.000-08:00

There are some harsh facts to life that my kids will have to learn at some point. Things like death, deforestation, extinction, cruelty, etc. But I'd really like them to learn to love life and the world before they become afraid of those things, so I try to shelter them from things I don't think they're ready for. This week though, I've had to talk to Carbon about death and hunting. We checked out the video Babar: King of the Elephants, and I didn't realize that Babar's mother is killed by a hunter at the beginning. I didn't remember that from any Babar book or movie I'd seen as a kid. So Carbon kept asking "where's mama?" and I kept explaining. Then he's been saying for a couple days now that he doesn't like hunters. We've also had a large crow stalking the little birds that come to our bird feeder, and I had to explain to the boy why the crow attacked a little chickadee. Luckily, we did not see it actually catch or kill the smaller bird. Up until now, the most violent thing he's seen has been Walking with Dinosaurs, which is plenty gory, but somehow dinosaurs are less upsetting (probably a whole lot less real seeming). In Carbon's make-believe play, death is a temporary state very much like just taking a break or a nap. But it is one of the hard lessons, and he will learn it. We've been lucky enough not to lose any pets or livestock while he's been old enough to realize it, but that will inevitably happen at some point.

The Week's Book Bag

2006-02-20T19:03:00.000-08:00

This week's library picks included a fun video that Carbon has already watched four times! The host is an animated lizard, and he learns all about slimy animals. Carbon loves to yell "gross" and "icky" at the closeups of slimy slugs, fish, frogs, etc.
Carbon has loved trucks for quite some time now, so of course he had to check this book out when he noticed it. It's not bad, and it packs in a lot of information about snowplows without losing a narrative style. And the snowplow is driven by a woman.

So far, a lovely novel. The language is beautiful, with lots of interesting imagery. It's not a fast read though, definitely not a page turner. I'm reading it in little bites, sort of like I would eat really rich chocolate.
Phat Mommy talked about this book, so I put it on hold from my library. It's interesting, with a basic premise that women can, and should, be happy at home as moms and housewives. The author seems a bit overly privileged, and dyes her hair and wears make up, but otherwise I'm liking the book. But I've only gotten to Step 3 of her "Ten Step Plan".
Margaret Wise Brown has so many books that seem so very different to me! This one doesn't seem like Goodnight Moon at all, other than it also has some awkward rhyming. Of course, there are different illustrators, and Goodnight Moon is really all about the illustrations. This book is only OK, but Carbon likes it.

Structure versus freedom - what's right for your child?

2006-02-19T14:42:00.000-08:00

I am a bit of a neat freak, an organization freak, and a workaholic. I'm trying to loosen up, and I'm not that bad now (my husband says I'm too nice to be a real neat freak - I let other people make a mess), but how will this affect my children? How will I homeschool; where will I fall on the spectrum of unschooling to school at home; will my home be chaotic or too much like a military boot camp?
As with most of life, I suspect that parenting and homeschooling are best approached in moderation. I like the philosophy of unschooling, but I've seen it go wrong in real life. I am personally comfortable with highly structured schooling, but I've seen that go wrong in real life also! I've known families that did things to extremes, and I didn't like the results I saw. Achieving the best of every approach seems tricky - how do you "give them roots and wings" as the saying goes?
I found a bit of encouragement that this is possible in the book The Childhood Roots of Adult Happiness by Edward Hallowell, MD. In discussing discipline and work, he says "children actually do love structure ... so there is a measure of discipline ... that has to come from the top down" (p. 128). Going on, he says: "but at the same time, I urge parents to realize that structure is but a part of the larger tool of practice and discipline and that not all hard work is drudgery. Indeed, most disciplined work that lasts for very long derives from a love of that work, which motivates the individual to make the sacrifices and endure the pain" (p. 129). The balance that is called for here is to lay down some rules and structures, for instance insist that teeth are brushed and rooms cleaned and they learn their multiplication tables, but to not approach all work as being serious and remember that the best reward for practice and discipline is the feeling of mastery that is accomplished.
Of course, this jives wonderfully with the infant and toddler development books I like the best. I worked hard to break myself of the habit of saying "good job" everytime Carbon did anything such as crawl or walk or jump. His "reward" for doing those things was the feeling he got from doing them. This lack of praise has not caused him to develop at a slower pace, and I doubt prodding would have sped it up either.
Structure versus freedom - a false choice! I'll try to give them structure and freedom. Didn't somebody or other say "no man is free who cannot control himself" or some such quote?

February Freeze

2006-02-18T08:57:00.000-08:00

The weather is just messing with us! We had some very warm weather, and most of our plants thought it was spring. Stuff is budding, or even in bloom, all over our garden. Our chickens molted, and started laying eggs again. Then we got a forcast of cold air coming down from the arctic, so last weekend my husband was out mulching everything in the yard and filling the chicken coop with fresh straw. It took a bit longer than predicted, but yesterday the cold air finally hit. We also had a big windstorm that knocked out power and took down trees all over the area, but luckily our neighborhood stayed unaffected. It was all feeling so springlike! I really hope my plants survive - I just planted some new blueberry and raspberry bushes a couple weeks ago, and we also just planted two new dwarf cherry trees. And then my husband has been working on a native species garden, and some of his plants were seriously thinking it was spring. This year has been weird, weatherwise.

No more lists

2006-02-15T17:49:00.000-08:00

One of the things I find difficult about being a stay-at-home is finding a balance and structure to my days. It's too easy to get distracted, to be purely reactionary, and to lose track of how much I'm actually doing. I used to solve this problem by creating elaborate To Do Lists, and crossing everything off as I did it during the day. This did encourage me to get a lot of "work" done - but things that were harder to delineate as discrete "tasks" got short changed. These were things like playing with the kids, goofing off, hanging out with my husband, or even just thinking. I was scrubbing toilets and sewing clothes, but not sitting down to build Lego towers or toss balls or make up silly stories.
I recently checked out the book Seven Times the Sun by Shea Darian, which is a book full of ideas for simple rituals to guide children through the day in a rhythm and routine. This idea seems so simple, and yet it's revolutionary for me - no schedule or huge list, just a pattern that you follow consistently. I wrote out a simple routine:
Breakfast/PBS tv time
play/my exercise time
morning snack
projects/lessons/errands/classes
lunch time
naptime/my business time
chores
dinner prep
family dinner time
bedtime for kids
adult time

Doing this has made a big difference with Carbon. He knows the order of the routine, and he likes to stick to it. He'll say he's done with lunch, so now he's ready for his nap. And he just goes in and lies down! I can tell him "it's not project time", and he'll say OK, and wait to do whatever it is. Perhaps I'm not getting as much "work" done, but I'm spending a lot more time with the kids, and isn't that the point of staying home with them? And I'm still doing quite a bit of my own projects and work - I'm just doing it as it fits in to the day, rather than letting the "workload" dictate the day for everyone. We'll see if I can break my addiction to lists and learn to go with the flow. It's definitely easier to go with a flow that has pattern and rhythm to it, rather than crazy, random, or disorganized mayhem that is simply called "the flow".

My first day on my own

2006-02-14T11:38:00.000-08:00

Today is the first day that everyone has left and my husband is back at work. So far, I'm doing really well. Hypatia is a wonderful and calm baby (so far, fingers crossed!), and Carbon is handling his big brother status pretty well. The day is half done, and everyone is dressed, well fed, and happy. I've done some light housework, and I've done a post-natal yoga workout. I'm about to sit down and help Carbon make some more Valentine's hearts, and decorate the sugar cookies I baked yesterday. Then it's nap time, but I'm sure she'll wake up as soon as he goes to sleep - that's just the way it works, right? Anyhoo, I'm just easing back into our routine, and figuring out how to integrate the little one. So far, so good!

Business Week discusses homeschooling

2006-02-13T10:05:00.000-08:00

This article seems more balanced than I expected, and it's interesting to find homeschooling discussed as part of an economic trend. The article looks at the "creative class" or the "educated elite" and why more of them are homeschooling rather than sending their kids to elite private schools.

Lessons in Anatomy

2006-02-10T12:18:00.000-08:00

With a new baby sister in the house, there are some interesting lessons for Carbon to learn. Besides the obvious, we've also had some good discussions about milk. He announced today that "Mommy is a cow" because "she has milk". His father had a discussion with him about why boys and men have nipples - does anyone have a good answer for that? "Just Because" or go into sex differentiation in development? Too dismissive and too complicated - where's the good middle ground? Anyway, the best part was when Carbon said that he and daddy "had milk". His dad said "no, boys can't make milk". Carbon repeated that they had milk. His dad repeated that they couldn't make milk - "there's no milk in our chest". Carbon looked at his dad like he was SO silly - "no, in our stomachs!". Now, it would just complicate things way too much to tell Carbon that the milk he drinks is actually made from soy beans!

The 6th Carnival of Homeschooling

2006-02-07T14:12:00.000-08:00

The Carnival is up - I'm in the Divided Highway section.

Finally!

2006-02-07T14:07:00.000-08:00

My baby has finally arrived! She was born Sunday night, with a great birth with no complications. I got to come home Monday around lunch time, and since then I've been forced to rest by my mother and husband. I think I can stand it for a couple more days!
The hospital does an Online Nursery - isn't that kind of cool?

Finger Paint Print

2006-02-03T16:36:00.000-08:00

We recently did an interesting thing while fingerpainting - Carbon had waaaayyy too much paint on one piece of paper, so we took another clean piece and pressed it down over the top, lifting it off to reveal - this. It made a very interesting swirly print. That was so much fun, we did it again.

Homemade fingerpaints:
4 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup cornstarch
2 cups cold water
food coloring

1. In a stovepot, stir sugar into cornstarch, add water.
2. Heat over medium heat, stir occasionally until mixture thickens. (It will get even thicker as it cools).
3. Divide into containers, such as small mason jars or heat tolerant rubbermaids, and add desired colors. Stir thoroughly. Allow to cool.
4. Paint!

My Word Cloud for this Blog

2006-02-02T10:17:00.000-08:00

This is pretty cool, and you can make your own and order it on a T-shirt if you want. Here's where to go.

Is Homeschooling Undemocratic?

2006-02-01T15:50:00.000-08:00

There was a recent discussion thread on the UUHomeschoolers email group that dealt with the issue of whether "pulling out" of the public schools is against the principles of social justice for all people. I followed that discussion with much interest, and the whole issue came up again for me when I and my husband decided how to vote on a local school bond issue. Can we be accused of hypocrisy or elitism for keeping our kids at home? We believe in social services, and in education. We believe in our diverse culture and in the rights of the dis-enfranchised.
I went to graduate school thinking that I would become a teacher, and work in the public schools. My professors found me a very exotic and strange specimen - a homeschooled child going into the public schools as a teacher?! They, and my classmates as well, made assumptions about me such as: I must have been sheltered, I wouldn't know how to deal with "normal" teens, my family must be conservative and elitist, etc. There was a great deal of emphasis in that graduate program on experience with diversity and multiculturalism - which it was assumed I would not have because I had been homeschooled.

So, the arguments for why homeschooling is undemocratic fell into two categories:
1. It takes funding, support, and involved parents out of the system and leaves only the most needy students with fewer resources.
2. It does not allow for enough contact among all the diverse parts of our society, and promotes separatism and elitism.

I have wrestled with these issues. My gut feeling has always been that these arguments are wrong, but it has been more of a defense of my own family and childhood than a well-articulated counter argument. What do you mean I've been sheltered? I went into the US Army and was just fine dealing with people from all over the country and of different races, etc!
My reasoning is a bit more worked out at this point. My basic debate points are:
1. In my experience student-teaching, the schools did not really want or welcome the kind of intense personal involvement that homeschooling parents would bring to their childrens' education. It was the very rare school or classroom that actually sought out parental involvement.
2. Obviously not every parent can or will homeschool their children, obviously we do need some kind of free education in our society - but other social service programs function without me having to personally go and use them. I can support and fund the public health department, but it's never been suggested I should go use it if I have other health care options.
3. Diversity does not really exist in our public schools just because they are theoretically open to all students. Different neighborhoods have different types of students in them - and then the school ends up internally divided onto different "tracks" and into different "cliques". Going to public school does not guarantee that you have "rubbed shoulders" with people different from yourself and your family in any meaningful way.
4. Public school programs have a long history of being used to "Americanize" different populations - look at the forced boarding schools for Native American children, the banning of native languages in schools since before the Revolutionary War (german, spanish, etc. - anything but english pretty much has been banned at some point), and the early efforts to force Protestant religious teachings that drove Catholics to form their own school system. For more on any of this, read The American School by Joel Spring, which is a comprehensive history of American schooling. How is this process of systematically wiping out other cultures really a support of diversity? What about your family's right to pass on their own culture and values?
5. If we accept the need for free public education, and we accept the need for an open and accepting but still diverse society, there are ways to support those goals and still homeschool. I can volunteer as a tutor, either within the schools or within one of the many programs for at-risk kids. I can be sure that my kids see a wide spectrum of ways to live and types of people, and that they learn how to communicate with people that are different from themselves.

I don't claim to have thought of all the possible arguments, but I feel strong in my position. Homeschooling is not undemocratic, it is not elitist or hypocritical. I never went to public school, but I have served my country, in the National Guard, as a volunteer, and as a politically active and aware citizen. I never went to public school, but I have met, worked with, and become friends with people from very different backgrounds in the course of my life, and had no problems doing this. I never went to public school, and my kids will not go either. But I can, and I will, support the educational needs of more than "just my own kids". Now - whether the public schools as they stand are really doing the best thing for those "other kids" - that's another argument to get into at a later time!

Check out the Carnival

2006-01-31T15:07:00.000-08:00

I'm really enjoying these Carnival of Homeschooling posts. It's so easy to find cool new blogs to read! This week is hosted by PalmTree Pundit - check it out.

Is there a doctor in the house?

2006-01-31T14:31:00.000-08:00

Carbon has been obsessed with doctors for awhile now. All of his stuffed animals have been sick at some point, with one black panther in particular going to the hospital and having all sorts of problems.
For Christmas, N. and I got him a doctor's briefcase kit. Since he has that, people now have to let him "check" them. Here's a picture of him checking my younger sister's blood pressure with his toy bp cuff. It's meant for little kids, so big people can only get it around their wrists. This is a fun game, most of the time, but it does get old! Oh well - no one can accuse him of having a short attention span.
He and I went to the midwife's office today (still no baby!, but I'm sooooo ready) and he was really mad that we didn't go to the hospital right across the street. He said he wanted the baby to come out NOW. Me too, little guy, me too.

A wonderful book

2006-01-30T12:38:00.000-08:00

I just read Buddha Mom by Jacqueline Kramer. The book is organized around Buddhist themes, such as meditation, simplicity, service, and unconditional love, but all of these practices are discussed through the lense of motherhood and how to make motherhood a spiritual practice. Regardless of your religion, this is an amazing level of integration between everyday life and the pursuit of your own spiritual growth. I was really inspired to see how my everyday life could be made so much richer and more meaningful. For instance, I am now inspired to view my time spent slowly exploring with Carbon as a chance to practice patience and receptivity. And her discussions of attachment struck a cord with me, since I know that loving my children also means letting them go. This book is yet another reminder to me that I don't have to accept the dominant values of materialism, production/consumption, speed, etc. that I'm surrounded by in our culture. It's hard to be a stay-at-home mom and think that you are "not contributing to society" or whatever other message you get from other people.
Here are some quotes I loved:
"By seeing ideals as a path rather than a destination, I could relax and enjoy the journey" (page 36).
"I sometimes think there is a real conspiracy in our culture against the enjoyment of housework or of any menial work for that matter. Somewhere the assumption has been made that menial work is an unworthy occupation of our time and must be finished as quickly as possible so that real life can resume. The tragedy of this assumption is that it makes a large portion of our lives seem meaningless" (p. 103).
"The giving of joyful service is like a well-nourished rosebush offering two roses where one is cut. The joyful server comes from a place of abundance and overflow; that's the only way selflessness can be genuine. If the server is needy she is bound to become burnt out by serving, and all her good intentions will get washed away by the current" (p. 117).

A Fun Idea I Had

2006-01-29T10:22:00.000-08:00

My son is probably a bit too young for this still, but I had an idea for a gift/educational project that I really would like to do. We were watching a "Dora the Explorer" video together, and then he got up and found his binoculars and flashlight and went off to explore the house. It occured to me that it would be fun to get a little backpack and stock it with things to make an "explorer's kit". A journal, field guides, specimen jars, etc. would be the mainstay of the backpack. But I'd also print out some maps for places that we could go, and provide mapmaking materials for him to make his own maps also. Lots of State Parks have simple maps on their websites, showing the trails and other features in the park. Maybe he'll be ready for this by the summer. Or maybe I'll just hold onto this idea for later.

The Wilderness is Calling Me

2006-01-26T10:48:00.000-08:00

I really can't go hiking or camping right now - what with being due to have a baby at any time! :) But maybe it's that restriction/cabin fever that is really driving me to think a lot about all the outdoors stuff I want to do this year. Last summer I was feeling sick with early pregnancy, so it's been forever since I could really get in shape and get out there. I want to get in my personal peak athletic condition this year (I'm going to refit my garage with a little fenced-off child-safe area and a home gym area for me), and I want to get out and hit the trails. My mother and I have entered into a contest with each other to see who can hike the most miles before the next New Year, and I'm aiming for at least 300 miles. She has a head start, since I won't be hiking for at least a month and a half. And she doesn't have to carry kids with her, which makes every hike a backpacking trip (Carbon weighs almost 40 lbs). But I have the advantage of more youthfullness and natural athletic ability, and I'm far more competitive. So I will win - you hear that Mom?
My other personal goal is to do at least one weekend backpacking trip this year without the kids. I think I'll do the Enchanted Valley, which I hear is a great two day hike. I've never done it before. I'm spending my time right now sitting here on the floor, surrounded by a Lego contruction site, waiting for a baby to be born, and browsing through a stack of hiking guides looking at trail descriptions.

Used Books on the Web

2006-01-25T11:25:00.000-08:00

On a different note from my baby waiting -
I decided to try selling some old textbooks on Amazon and I've already made about $70 in 2 days by selling 5 things. These were literally just collecting dust or about to be given to Goodwill, so the slight inconvenience of wrapping them up and taking them to the post office seems totally worth it. You can't ask much for paperbacks, but if you have any text books lying around, you can make some reasonable money selling them used.
And then you can buy more books used! It's a never ending cycle! One of my favorite sites is AddAll because it searches all the online booksellers and gives you a comparison price list (usually including shipping costs too). You can find the lowest price out there without much effort.
Other than using the library, and garage sales, these are the best ways I've found to save money on books.

Thank you all - still waiting

2006-01-24T05:01:00.000-08:00

It's the wee hours of the morning - I've been up since 3 am. I just can't sleep. Carbon woke me up, but he's gone back to sleep and I'm still sitting up in a dark and quiet house.
Thank you to everyone who has posted in the last few days. It's hard to wait for this to get going. Maybe it will be today! (maybe, maybe not - who can tell?, here's wishing).
In the meantime, do you want to know why I picked the name Hypatia Rosalind? Click on the links to see the women who inspired my daughter's name.

When?!

2006-01-23T14:46:00.000-08:00

Still waiting - the weekend looked promising, but everything slowed down and I feel "peppy" again. I've never been so unhappy about feeling peppy before! Carbon keeps checking the cradle to see if the baby is in it yet.

Probably going to be offline for awhile

2006-01-21T18:43:00.000-08:00

I don't know when it will happen, exactly, but I'm going to be having a baby really soon now. So if there are no posts for a few days/a week or so, that's what's happening. I keep thinking it's getting started, but I'm still waiting. I'd like to get this over with!

I feel like a genius!

2006-01-20T13:19:00.000-08:00

My little sister just called me to ask for a word definition. She was reading poetry in the car, and didn't have access to a dictionary. The word was perspicacious, and I was pretty sure it meant having insight or understanding. But just to be sure, I looked it up in the dictionary for her and Voila! I was pretty darn close. I'm hurting myself patting my own back here!

The Moore Formula

2006-01-19T12:48:00.002-08:00

I just read The Successful Homeschool Family Handbook by Dr. Raymond and Dorothy Moore. My mom has been suggesting that I read something by the Moores, and this was the only title available in my library system. Although I don't agree with everything they say, they seem like really practical and down-to-earth homeschoolers, and I will (gasp of horror) actually buy (as in spend $ on) some of their other books. One of the main points they make about education is that formal education can, and should, wait until a child is ready for it. They don't recommend starting anything until around 8 years old, or maybe even older depending on the individual child. I know I won't be able to do that - I'm just too excited about projects and learning myself to not do stuff with my kids until they are that old! Witness my bird watching project - once I get started I don't leave it at "look at the birds, Carbon". But I am getting the idea from this book and from Reclaiming Childhood (see earlier posting) that I should try and concentrate on relaxed and natural childhood activities and let the academics fold themselves in. I'm so eager to "get going", but I don't want to burn out myself or my kids.
The "formula" in the book refers to the authors' idea that hands-on, real work is what kids need to develop character and skills. They say that for every bit of time spent on academics, a child should spend equal time in some sort of work (cottage industry, a job, homesteading chores, etc.). And then they want kids to spend a decent amount of time doing unpaid service, at home and for the needy in their community. I like this idea a lot, mostly because home and family business participation was a big part of my childhood and I think it set me up with a good work ethic for life. It also taught me many valuable skills (childcare, record keeping, etc). The Moores have an entire other book about running a business as part of homeschooling, which I'm going to get and will most likely comment on later!

Related Post:
Joy of Childhood

An inexpensive display board

2006-01-18T17:08:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I made a felt board for Carbon. All we did was take a large sheet of white felt and wrap it around a collapsed cardboard box and tape it with duct tape. Then I taped it to his door.
So far all I've made to go on the board was a capital letter A and a lower case a, cut out of red felt. I'll make some pictures of "A" words to go on there too. Anything too fancy for me to cut out by hand can be printed and glued onto felt backing. And I'm going to cut out a face and some mix and match features (smiles, frowns, silly hair, ears, etc) for him to just play with. The felt sticks to itself really well.
The best part is how versatile and cheap this was. Costs:
large piece of felt: $3.10
Cardboard: free
duct tape: <$.50 (depends how much you use, I guess)
other felts: $.20 a sheet for different colors, some fancy ones can be $.50 a sheet

The Great Northwest

2006-01-17T12:21:00.000-08:00

For those who are following the rainy days streak: Seattle had one day without rain so no record breaking for them. But Olympia (my home) has had 30 straight days! We're shooting for a new record! As some random guy said on the news last night - "I love the challenge (um, what challenge, dude? Are we responsible for the weather?). Let's do 100 days!"

Carbon's Favorite Books

2006-01-17T12:08:00.000-08:00

Sometimes the books that Carbon loves are not the ones I can also appreciate. We went through our My Big Book of Trucks phase and I just barely survived with my sanity intact. How many times can a poor mother be expected to read these things out loud?
I also cannot appreciate Goodnight Moon the way he does - a bowl of mush? Just to rhyme with "hush"? Please.
And then there is Olivia - does she have to be such a brat? I try to avoid reading Olivia and the Missing Toy, but Carbon still brings it out at story time. Last night he went to the window and said: "It's a dark and stormy night. I hear a strange noise. It's the dog". I was flabbergasted - for a minute I thought he was a dramatic genius in the budding. Then my husband reminded me that it's a quote from Olivia. I guess I cannot judge all of his books based on my own literary taste. And I'd rather he was quoting books (even ones I don't like) than cartoons or something.

In Memoriam

2006-01-16T18:25:00.000-08:00

My grandfather passed away this weekend. I can't travel right now, so there was no question of going down to California to see him. My father got down there, and he said the end was very peaceful. Grandpa was 82 years old, and had smoked since he was 11 years old. Emphesema and heart failure got him in the end, but I remember him still smoking as he pulled an oxygen tank around. It was a pretty amazing thing that he did so well for so long. I've been thinking about him a lot this weekend - how he would race me when I was little, and somehow I thought I really could run faster than Grandpa. He would sing old songs in his deep bass voice, and I'd ask for I've Been Working on the Railroad or Do Your Ears Hang Low? over and over again. He told stories of waking up with a huge snake in his sleeping bag with him when he was stationed in North Africa during WWII. It's a strange feeling when someone dies that you knew was on the way - in some ways I'm relieved that he won't suffer or deteriorate anymore. But I also regret every missed opportunity when I didn't visit or call often enough.

Dreaming of Spring

2006-01-11T10:28:00.000-08:00

Maybe it's the fact that we've had 24 straight days of rain here in the lovely Puget Sound Region, or maybe it's that I'm about ready to give birth to this baby, or maybe it's all the seed catalogs I keep getting in the mail. I just can't wait for Spring! I want to get out of the house without getting soaking wet! I want to wear just a sweater, without a raincoat! I want to get my hands dirty in my garden, go on a hike, go on a bike ride, open the back door and let Carbon go outside to play, and go camping.
I'm planning some activities/"lessons" for Carbon for the spring. We'll build him his very own raised bed in the garden this year - he says he wants to grow a tree in it. We'll have to work on that, because veggies would be better! We're also building some different birdhouses, hoping to get some nesting birds. Carbon got a book about fishing, and now he says he wants to go fishing. We might go do catch and release - I'm delegating this one to his dad. I don't like fishing (or cleaning fish). We'll be getting some baby chicks soon - to raise for meat. But that will mostly happen on my mom's acreage, so Carbon won't really participate. And of course there will be more opportunities for nature walks and studies in parks.

Is it a vegetable or an accident?

2006-01-10T18:00:00.000-08:00

I normally try to avoid the "guess what my kid said today - it was soooo cute" kind of post. I like reading those on other people's blogs, but I worry that once I get started I'll just never stop quoting the boy.

That said, I just can't resist this one. We're in our local co-op produce section, and I say that we need to find some leeks. Carbon pipes up with a comment: "I wearing a diaper, no leaks!" at the top of his lungs. This really cracked up the people standing near by.

Recent Projects

2006-01-10T12:42:00.000-08:00

Carbon got a bird feeder kit for Christmas - he couldn't really do much on the project himself but he enjoyed "helping" his father with the hammering.

This is a solar system model kit that I bought at Joanne Fabrics. It was all these styrofoam balls, and Carbon painted them. I assembled the wires for him, but he did all the painting and feels like it's his project. He learned some of the names of the planets in the process of making it, and he points them out each night before bed.

Homeschool organizational tools

2006-01-09T09:22:00.000-08:00

I know some people who just like to go by the seat of their pants, but most parents seem to want a bit of organization for educating their children at home. It can be a really good idea to keep records:
1. if you are ever challenged about homeschooling you have evidence to show you were not neglectful
2. you can track long term trends with your kids
3. you can see what you are accomplishing - it's frequently more than it feels like at the time!
4. your kids will have something to look back on and remember
5. it can help build a portfolio or transcript for later college or contest submissions or resumes

And your records can take many forms, so you don't have to go out and buy one of those annoying teacher record books with all the little tiny boxes to fill in. You don't have to keep attendance or grades for every workbook page.
I like the portfolio method, where you keep samples and pictures of student work either in a three ring binder, a file cabinet, or in scrap books. Don't keep everything - just samples. For me personally, this is easy since preschool doesn't generate as much paperwork. For my siblings, obviously every math exercise page doesn't go into the portfolio. A timed test at the end of a section might go into the portfolio.
In the book The Successful Homeschool Family Handbook by Dr. Raymond and Dorothy Moore, they suggest a journal. In their journal method, you write a loose plan for the day in the far left of the page, and at the end of the day flesh it in with details about what was actually accomplished. This seems like a good way to combine lesson planning with record keeping in a low stress way.
I also like keeping weekly and monthly To Do lists, which lets me see trends. I check off each item that gets accomplished and put a big X through it if it was neglected. For instance, I'm toilet training Carbon. Looking back over my lists I might note that we didn't get out of diapers for four days in a row, because of various distractions. It's good to know when you are getting off course like that.
Another great method is the learning log. I used those in the alternative college I attended, and came to love how they made me think about my learning. This is good for older kids who can reflect on their own progress and start making their own goals. There was a good article about learning logs in the most recent issue of Home Education Magazine.

What other methods do you use? I'd love to hear how you do it, and add to my pile of ideas!

Bird Watching Fun

2006-01-08T18:51:00.000-08:00

Today, when I got out of my shower, my husband and son were sitting at the big picture window watching birds in our yard. They were completely content just watching all of these little chickadees and a few crows. Then a flock of European Starlings came in, and that was very exciting for awhile as they were very busy and aggressive. Some stellar jays were digging something to eat out of the ground, and then a large bird we had never seen before came to the bird feeder. We looked it up in our field guide, and it turned out we had a male and female pair of red-shafted flickers. They were really cool looking, being a large bird with flashes of orange under their wings and tails. They are a kind of woodpecker. Carbon wasn't too interested in the details of identification, but my husband and I have really become interested in it. Carbon is just happy watching birds! It's amazing how much fun can be had just because we hung a bird feeder in our front yard!

Websites about the Northern Flicker:
Birdweb
Cornell
USGS
Related Posts:
Bird Watching Journal
Little Brown Birds

Late Pregnancy Fatigue

2006-01-05T15:02:00.000-08:00

I cannot seem to get myself going at full speed right now. My To Do List is deliberately reduced, but I'm still not getting it all done. Carbon watched far more tv today than I normally allow, and I'm drinking more coffee just trying to stay awake here. I've even had a nap today - and I'm still tired! Baby #2 is really draining me. I'm still battling anemia, taking more iron, folic acid, B12, chlorophyll, and drinking fresh beet juice every morning. My mom says she ate liver, but I'm totally grossed out by organ meats and there's no way I can do that. We still have approximately three weeks to my due date, and I may sleep through them all. My reading is even slowing down, as I get more tired.

A Sample Page out of Carbon's Bird Watching Journal

2006-01-04T14:49:00.000-08:00

We scanned pictures and text out of some field guides, and then stuck them into the journal to help describe what we've seen. Carbon has colored on some pages, but he hasn't gotten to this one yet.

Related Posts:
Keeping Homeschool Records

Putting New Life into Old Baby Clothes

2006-01-04T10:47:00.000-08:00

Right now I'm tie-dying some of Carbon's old white onsies. I think they were actually hand-me-downs to Carbon, and then he wore them - bottom line is that they have those nasty yellow ring-around-the-collar baby vomit stains that will not come out from washing. I got some purple and pink dye at the fabric store, and I've dyed most of them now. I like the effect, and it makes them look completely different. Almost like getting new clothes for the new baby! A note - pink covers vomit stains better than purple does. I saved four of them, and I'm thinking orange would really look cool and cover those stains very well. Carbon helped some with wrapping the rubber bands on them, and now he wants to dye some of his own clothes. I looked through his drawers, though, and there's not really anything appropriate. We'll get some white T-shirts, or maybe some plain white underwear and dye that. I've also decided that it would be a fun project to dye some plain muslin and then make place mats with it after. Or maybe pillow cases? A little embroidery on top of the dye might really add some personal pizzazz.

We Love the First Discovery book series

2006-01-03T14:14:00.000-08:00

Carbon recently became interested in Dinosaurs - we happened to see part of Walking with Dinosaurs on The Discovery Channel, and I think that fueled his interest. I've been looking for good library books for him, and we stumbled across Bernard Most. For little kids interested in dinosaurs, Bernard Most has a whole series of funny picture books. He really knows his dinos, and they are drawn in situations that make their size more understandable for little kids. I like his books, and Carbon has had me read Whatever Happened to the Dinosaurs to him at least fifty times. He can recite a lot of it from memory. The only problem I have with these books is that it's hard to make the conceptual leap to the fact that dinosaurs are all extinct, you WILL NOT see them walking around anywhere, and that we know about them because of fossils - bones. Carbon was confused when he saw dino skeletons in The Big Book of Dinosaurs, and a few picture books we got that showed the skeletons walking, talking, or dancing made the whole thing even more confusing. That's when I found Dinosaurs by Claude Delafosse, part of the "First Discovery" series. It is the only book to make a good connection between scientists finding and putting together the skeleton and the picture of the living dino. It's a sturdy little book with lots of clear plastic pages that Carbon finds fascinating. I highly recommend it and the others in the series (so far we've read Birds as well).

Little Sis starts something new

2006-01-02T19:44:00.000-08:00

My youngest sister is just turning 12, and today was the first day of her new structured homeschool program. Up until now she's been mostly unschooled, except in mathematics. Now she's starting with assignments and a daily schedule - a big change! She's organizing things mostly through geography, so she'll be studying the history, literature, current events, and geography of each continent as a unit study. She decided to start with Australia, and mom added Antarctica and the Pacific Islands to that. She's also doing a writing program, a Spanish language program, a drawing program, and the science unit studies that I write. Then she's taking piano lessons, dance classes, is a girl scout, and is starting a new fitness and nutrition program. Of course, she'll keep on with her math program as usual. I'm excited to see where she goes with this - most of the motivation for the change was hers. She's keeping a portfolio of her work and looking ahead to college - she currently thinks she wants to major in mathematics. I kind of wish I had kids old enough to be doing this kind of work - I like this stuff. Soon enough, in the big picture.

Happy New Year!

2006-01-01T14:25:00.000-08:00

It's 2006!
I had a good New Year's - my mother and sister drove down yesterday and we all tried to do a marathon viewing of all of the Star Wars movies. We only made it through #4, but that's okay. We were also doing a jigsaw puzzle, which is also not done (it was evil - Monet's painting of sunflowers in 1000 pieces!). Carbon crashed well before midnight, and we were surprised by the arrival of my husband's step-dad, just flown back in from their Mexico house. We played a fun game of Apples to Apples - if you don't know the game, it's great for diverse groups and for some silly fun. We tried to go online for the countdown, but so many people were on the official time website that it wasn't working properly. So we had to turn on the TV and watch the countdown in Seattle. Champagne toasts and some sparklers waved around on the front porch finished it off for us.
I tried to make resolutions, but my mom shot most of them down as being impractical. For example, I said I'd conquer my fear of water by taking a kayaking class. She pointed out that I'll be carting an infant around this year, and it's not the best time to kayak. I said I'd stop using fossil fuels - she said Good Luck with That! Ok, I can't think of anything good. So no resolutions for me this year.

Cool Embroidery Patterns

2005-12-30T13:16:00.000-08:00

I did some fun embroidery projects as Christmas gifts this year. The patterns were all from Sublime Stitching, and they have several cool sets. Things like pirates, monkeys, tattoo art, or retro.

Bedtime Reading

2005-12-29T20:24:00.000-08:00

The perfect way to incorporate lots of reading into Carbon's life is to use it for winding down time right before bed. Then we leave him alone with a stack of books, and we'll hear him in there repeating the stories to his stuffed animals and talking about the stories. He loves to hear the same stories over and over again, as well as new books from the library. He's also recently developed an interest in non-fiction books with lots of technical illustrations - books like the My First Encyclopedia of ... series and The Big Book of ... series.

Related Posts:
Literacy Efforts

Magnetic Poetry

2005-12-29T13:10:00.000-08:00

Currently to be seen on my magnetic poetry board: (authors not always known)

Every Lovable Female is Beautiful

Tiny child
in You I sense My Reflection

Safe Warm Full Belly
Caring for a Life
Trust Mother nurture
Lullaby in the Womb

The Joy of Childhood

2005-12-29T13:05:00.000-08:00

I'm currently reading Reclaiming Childhood: Letting Children Be Children in Our Achievement-Oriented Society by William Crain. The basic premise is that we look too much to the future, and fail to acknowledge just how important and wonderful childhood is for its own sake. He discusses the child as a dramatist, naturalist, artist, and poet, and encourages parents to follow their children's lead and just let them be children rather than trying to improve and accelerate them. I like the book quite a bit, and it reminds me of the spirit of things like Winnie the Pooh or Puff the Magic Dragon. I'm reminded that they will grow up all too fast in the end, and now is the time to enjoy their childhoods. The world is a wonderful and magical place to a small child like my son, and I should watch that and celebrate it.

Beating the Post Holiday Blues and Keeping Homeschooling Records

2005-12-28T12:12:00.000-08:00

Now that the main push of Christmas is over, I feel a bit lost and down. It's hard to make that transition - and usually my house is full of wrapping paper and packaging and lots of new stuff that doesn't have homes yet. It all feels very messy and uncomfortable to me. So, I'm trying to sort and clean and tidy, and look ahead to the new year and what I need/want to accomplish for it. I have a huge event coming up - the birth of my baby. So there are plenty of projects I could be doing to get ready. But I still feel sad that Christmas is over.
One project I'm starting is a set of little scrap books for Carbon. I'm just using spiral bound sketch books, one for each exploration or topic we're studying together. For instance, right now we're doing Birds and Stories. The bird journal has a list of resources for the first couple pages, then books read for a couple of pages, then we'll be putting in observations we make and notes about what sort of birds we can identify. Eventually he can start drawing pictures of the birds. In his story journal, I'm writing down the stories he tells me, with dates. Eventually, he can illustrate them and then start writing them out himself. These journal/scrapbooks may take years to fill, but in the end I envision having something cool for him to look back on and having a record of what we were doing for schooling. For me, this is more fun than just keeping a log or stuffing a few things in a file cabinet.

I Finished it in Time!

2005-12-23T16:19:00.000-08:00

One of my big worries was not getting Carbon's stocking finished before Christmas. Whew - I just finished it! I'll be able to spend the rest of the evening working on some finishing work for a couple gifts, then tomorrow baking cakes and cookies.
These felt kits are cool - but way more time consuming than I expected! All those little sequins to sew on, etc. I've got three more to make - and my husband wants his pattern altered to have a Santa wearing a pirate outfit. I'll be working on Christmas stockings all year until next Christmas!

Lots of "Little Brown Birds"

2005-12-22T21:05:00.000-08:00

We've hung a suet basket in the tree outside our house, to replace the feeder Carbon made that was destroyed by a squirrel. It's interesting how different feeders attract totally different birds. No more sightings of the jay - today we had about 15 little brown birds in the yard. It was great for Carbon, because there was plenty to watch and as soon as he settled down quietly at the window, they ignored him. He looked at them through his binoculars, and was generally very intrigued. I was asked to say "what birds they is?", and so I turned to the bird guide. There were house sparrows, of course. And I was chagrined to learn that a small bird I'd been calling a sparrow for years was actually the black capped chickadee - a clear case of learning along with your children! There was something else, that was really small. I thought it might be a wren, but the books say the wrens tail stands up, and this had a tail that pointed down. More research and hopefully further sightings, are called for. Carbon still is interested in the birds, and he loves for me to read him picture books about birds. We'll have to put up some more feeders, and maybe build a birdhouse too.

Previous Posts on this topic:
Early Gift
In Our Backyard
Birding Fever
The Jay

Last Few Days Holiday Panic

2005-12-22T08:17:00.000-08:00

Ok, I can get this all done. I just need to do a few things, really. I've tried so hard this year to simplify my holidays, after I read Unplug the Christmas Machine by Jo Robinson and Jean Coppock Staeheli. I was especially trying to avoid the role of "Christmas Magician" that the authors point out a lot of women take on. I don't need to go crazy trying to make the "perfect" and "magical" holiday for my family. So far we're having a good holiday - lights up on the house, a tree, an advent calendar going (and I haven't missed a day on it), lots of holiday music, we went on a lights walk in town, etc.
A few things are left to do, and I'm a tad stressed about the list. Here it is:
1. little gifts for my husband's coworkers, dropped off with him at lunch today.
2. something for the mailman, put in the box tomorrow.
3. Finish making a homemade gift for my father, needs to be done by Christmas.
4. Finish making the felt stocking for Carbon that I'm almost done with
5. Finish sewing a tree skirt before everything gets put away for the season.
6. Make more wheat free cookies to give as a gift to my dad
7. Make two wheat free cakes to take to Christmas dinner
8. Finish some embroidered gifts for my in-laws - needs to be done by 12th Night.

Ok, it's actually not that bad! I'll just get cracking on it.

Feel Free To Say Hi!

2005-12-21T12:28:00.000-08:00

I know I've been getting visitors here to my blog - don't be shy! Leave a comment, I'd like to hear from you.

Happy Winter Solstice (The Shortest Day of the Year)

2005-12-21T12:05:00.000-08:00

Today could be a depressing day. It's dark, cold, short - just not very much fun! So people around the world, and especially up far north, have ways of marking this season and this day with lights, warmth, and merriment. Traditionally in my family we had a time on this evening when we raced around and briefly turned on every light we owned and lit all the candles in the house. A giant burning ball of illumination was the goal! As a kid I loved that. Now I usually just light one candle and think happy light thoughts. Of course, as an adult I'm responsible for paying the electricity bill!
The phenomenon of seasons and different lengths of day is really quite interesting. The reason for the seasons is one of the most commonly misunderstood scientific concepts. Most people surveyed will tell you it's because of the earth's orbit around the sun being like an egg or an oval, and that we are farther away from the sun in winter. Not the case! It's the earth's tilt.

Some good websites for kids to learn about the winter solstice:
National Geographic
Enchanted Learning
The Weather Dude

Intelligent Design Statement

2005-12-20T14:27:00.000-08:00

I probably shouldn't dip my toes into this issue, because it is a very delicate and controversial issue right now. Intelligent design proponents are certainly not happy with the judge who ruled today against the reading of a statement in biology classrooms - and maybe they are right that their views should be heard in school. I personally think kids should be given as much information as possible about as many viewpoints as possible, although some viewpoints should be presented as philosophical or religious rather than scientific. That said, I'm glad the judge ruled against a requirement for teachers to read a specific statement. I'm uncomfortable with that kind of requirement, because I think it could lead to all sorts of "special interest" groups lobbying for statements to be read in classrooms. It also could lead to government required statements even being applied to homeschoolers or private schools, creating a huge door for propoganda.

For those interested in multiple views about intelligent design, check out religioustolerance.org, which has a page about the issue.

Portrait of a tired mother, and one of the reasons for her fatigue

2005-12-19T20:37:00.000-08:00

Volunteering Madness

2005-12-19T14:21:00.000-08:00

I volunteered to take part in my church's Giving Tree this year. There were (are?) three volunteers, but I'm the only volunteer who doesn't "work". I don't mind doing more than others, because my schedule is more flexible. Keeping score on these kinds of things seems silly to me. But it did get a little irritating this weekend, as the final push for this project hit me all of a sudden. A fellow volunteer kept quizzing me to see if I "had enough help" and suggesting general calls for more help - but never offering more help herself! And of course some people had not turned in their gift donations, so there was last minute scurrying to be done to get toys and food certificates and what not purchased, wrapped, and sorted. I felt like a very silly big pregnant woman, making many many trips from the church out to my car with everything. And then I got to feel like Santa, driving along with a station wagon stuffed with goodies.
Carbon handled having an influx of presents that were not for him, in what I thought was a very mature manner. There were a few items peeking out of gift bags that he was excited about, and he spent some time "checking on" a stuffed panda bear that was going to a little boy. But he didn't try to open anything or make a fuss about "wanting" it. It was almost sweet enough to make me go out and buy him a new stuffed animal - until I go into his room and remind myself of how many he already has!

Monday before Christmas - whatever madness we are all engaged in (don't go to the post office - the line for a parking place looked awful!), I hope it goes well and brings joy.

Gender Segregated Classrooms

2005-12-17T10:37:00.000-08:00

I finished reading Raising Boys by Steve Biddulph yesterday. For the most part, it was pretty obvious stuff, but well written. Fathers should be involved - yep. Boys need help developing healthy views toward sexuality - just spend some time with adolescent boys and you'll notice that! Sports can be good or bad, depending on the adults running them - yep. Mothers help their sons have healthy self-esteem - or too much of it! One really interesting thing was the chapter on schooling. The author cited a school in England that decided to divide up their English and Drama classes by gender, and the scores for the boys came up dramatically! I find that intriguing, because when I was writing my Master's paper on gender equity in math and science, I found studies that showed girls do better in gender segregated math and science classrooms. Can it be that we should abandon coed schooling? There are pitfalls - it becomes easier to fall back on gender stereotypes and teach completely different curricula. There is less opportunity for the sexes to mingle and learn to work together (although that feels a bit to me like the arguments about socialization and homeschooling - adults learn to work with people they never encountered in childhood all the time). It's a tricky subject. Of course, homeschoolers and progressive schools with more one-on-one instruction don't have to worry as much about this. One-on-one is already tailored to each child's needs, regardless of their gender!

A Fortuitous Early Gift

2005-12-16T16:43:00.000-08:00

We are spreading the gifts out this year, so as not to overwhelm the little guy. This way he can enjoy them a lot more than he could if he openned them all in one big crazy whirlwind. We just exchanged presents with my mother and siblings, and Carbon got some cool stuff for his birdwatching. He got some binoculars that are supposed to be "wide angle, no need to focus", made by National Geographic. They aren't great binoculars, but they are pretty easy to use and he can see through them. He also got a kit to build a wooden birdfeeder and a pre-made bird feeder. Those are great, because yesterday the squirrels finally discovered our little bird feeder. He watched from the house, fascinated by their acrobatics, but he was not happy when they finally broke the whole thing and sent it falling to the ground. I've had to promise him that this coming weekend we'll get another feeder up in the tree.
I found a good birding book for little kids, too. It's called What's That Bird by Joseph Choinierre, and it only covers the most common birds. Because it's simplified, Carbon can find birds in it, and the information it gives about each bird is fine for him. I'm thinking I'll scan the pictures of the birds into the computer and we can start a little birding journal, and paste the pictures in when we see the bird somewhere.

Wikipedia comes close to Britannica for accuracy in science

2005-12-15T18:58:00.000-08:00

I got this article through the UU Homeschooler email list. Thanks to "uuterri" for the heads up! I really like Wikipedia, and I like not having to pay for it. I've never spotted any inaccuracies, and the articles do present different viewpoints rather than take partisan stances. Check it out.

Gender Differences

2005-12-15T11:54:00.000-08:00

I currently have a son, and I'm expecting a baby girl (in about 4 weeks now!). I love the idea of rasing my children completely equally, and of treating them just the same. But I'm also aware that this rarely comes true, even for parents who are trying very hard. It's also up for debate whether you should treat them just the same. There are differences, and it's so very hard to pin those differences on "nurture" or "nature". I've read recently that mothers talk and read to their sons less than their daughters, starting at a very young age. Could this explain why so many boys read later than girls, and have poorer language skills? Or is it that brain research shows there are fewer connections in the corpus collusum of boys (the part that connects the left side to the right side of the brain). Or are there fewer connections because there was less stimulation to make those connections? It's almost a chicken and the egg kind of thing.
I've settled for the idea that I want to do my very best for each of my children, recognizing their unique needs and keeping gender issues in mind as part of those unique needs. For my son, I've started making more of his clothes. After he graduated out of "baby" and "toddler" sizes, we found the clothing options in the store really boring. Why can't boys express themselves a bit more through their clothing? So I take him to the fabric store and let him pick out fabric, then I make it into little flannel shirts and what not. But the other day he requested this pink fleece for a hoodie sweatshirt, and I found myself telling him NO! I just pictured how much teasing and questioning we would both get when we were out and about, and I caved to that. Should I let him wear pink if he wants to? It's so hard!
I read in the magazine Living Without that boys are more likely than girls to be referred for medical intervention if they are short. That's funny, because that's exactly how we realized Carbon had celiac disease - he fell off his growth curve after he started eating solid food. I think I would have done exactly the same thing for a girl, but I know families who are having growth problems with their little girls and they just say "well, she'll be petite". That's great, if we're not ignoring a disease that will cause her to have bowel cancer later!
Gender issues are never easy to sort out. We have trouble even in households that want to promote gender equality. And it's not just for our daughters - our sons have special gender issues too. I'm reading Raising Boys by Steve Biddulph, and I'd recommend it to anyone raising sons. I'm still thinking about some of the issues that book has raised in my mind - probably more on that later.

Before it all gets recycled

2005-12-14T10:59:00.000-08:00

2005-12-14T10:48:00.000-08:00

I'm cleaning up some of Carbon's art projects today, to make room for new ones. The leaf poster was created using leaves we gathered on nature walks, then pressed. As a whole family we drew the tree trunk and glued the leaves on the poster board, then painted over them. It had to come down off the mantle to make room for Christmas decorations. The fish are all construction paper cut-outs, some cut by me and some by me step-mother-in-law when she was here visiting. Carbon and the adults painted on the fish after they were cut out, then they were hung from the ceiling above his bed, along with blue streamer paper. It was a long term project, spanning several months and having fish added a few at a time. The final result was an "under-the-sea" effect over his bed. We'll miss these projects, but we can't keep everything! We've made a solar system model out of styrofoam balls, and it's time to hang that from the ceiling now.

The Classical Method, Posting #2

2005-12-13T18:03:00.000-08:00

In the elementary school years, the classical method assumes the child cannot/should not engage in analysis or logic work - no "higher order thinking skills" are required. I disagree with this, and this colors my entire perception of the classical curriculum. In general, I think even young children need to be encouraged to interact with what they are learning, not just regurgitate a "narration" of what they read. Creativity should be encouraged, and interwoven into a variety of "tell backs" or ways to check on what your child has learned. My other general critique is that the emphasis on written language as the only way to learn is a disservice to all the children out there who have different learning styles or learning disabilities. They have a chapter in The Well-Trained Mind that states that computer software and videos should not be used as part of schoolwork, because they are passive methods of learning and make the mind lazy. I learned with many wonderful software programs as a child, and for my brothers they are invaluable as tools to overcome their learning disabilities. It's short-sighted to categorically denigrate these mediums.

In language arts, I disagree strongly with the phonics first approach, and with requiring students to do reading "work". The argument that the authors put forth is that following the child's interest would be like letting them pick all of their own food - a road to nutritional disaster! The simile is false, because most nutritional experts now recommend that you do not force a child to eat anything, else they will always hate it. Instead you put it in front of them and then model enjoyment of it. The same should be done with books and reading. In writing, the authors recommend having the student copy good writing more than work on their own original writing. Some copying is fine, I suppose, but creative narratives should also be created and writing for real life purposes should be employed. For instance, I would rather see a child write a letter to the author of the book they just read than write a narrative summary of what the books was about. And the discussions you have with your children about what they've read should include opinions and original ideas, not just "what happened when ..." fact recollection.

In mathematics, I actually agree with what the authors advise. They call for using manipulatives to introduce each new concept, then memorizing math facts after the child has something concrete to relate the symbols to. They also advise against calculator use, which I also agree with. In my own tutoring experience, memorizing the math facts makes an amazing difference with struggling math students. And my mother (A Kumon math instructor) finds that frequently that is what is missing when students come to her failing their math classes. Math should also be practiced daily, and follow a structured pattern. That's all fine with me. During our unschooling years, the only subject I "had" to do daily was math, and I'm very thankful now for that structure.

Ok, so history is next. I agree with the authors that history is a story, and should be told like a story. I worry that the resources they've listed are too Eurocentric and leave out too much of "herstory", but their list isn't as bad as some I've seen. What I really disagree with is their method of interacting with the story. They once again call for "narrations" or simple fact based tell-backs, then an illustration or coloring page, then further reading/investigating. That's ok sometimes, and at least they have the illustration in there, but history can be explored in so many dynamic ways - re-enactments, plays, creative writing (what would Washington say to the current President?, etc.), murals, etc. Why limit yourself to dry fact recitals?

Science is treated as a secondary subject in the Classical method. Of course I disagree with that! I think science is more than knowing a body of knowledge about the way the world works - it's really a way of thinking that needs to be developed and can be used in all areas of life. It's much more important to be learning observation, measurement, recording, researching, analysis, prediction, and reporting skills than to be memorizing the constellations. Ideally, science lessons should follow the child's interests and teach them to be active investigators of their worlds. The classical method goes through biology, earth/space, chemistry, then physics, in order to correspond more closely with the order of history. That's ok, since it does move from most concrete to most abstract. But in reality, "subjects" are artificial because there is so much overlap between the sciences.

Language - they require Latin. I studied latin, exactly like this method recommends (I even used the curriculum they recommend). I can't say it's done anything for me, and I didn't even find it helpful when I took college Spanish. I know it's hard for a homeschooling family to provide foreign language instruction, and a "dead" language that you don't actually have to speak seems easier than one that requires conversation. Ideally, you should find a native-speaker language tutor for your children in their elementary years. If you can't find one, or can't afford one, study just the grammar of a language. Really, any language would do. The argument that studying language disciplines the mind is fine - but the language could be Klingon or Elvish in that case! (My brother actually did study Klingon for awhile, and anecdotally that did him as much good as my Latin did me).

Finally, they throw "an hour or so a week" of the arts in to the mix. Once again, I point out that not all children learn best through language. And I'd also point to all the research about how much good music study does - it's just another foreign language, really. I grew up immersed in the arts (my mom plays cello and piano, my dad plays the violin and sings and acts, I studied Ballet seriously and then Opera), and I would hate to see them pushed aside. By making the tell-backs more creative in the other subjects, you can bring more of the arts into the curriculum without having to spend that much additional time on them. By playing music while you do your math drills, you can expose your child to lots of great music. And drawing is a basic skill everyone should study. In my own family, studying drawing helped my brother immensely with his difficulty with grapho-motor issues.

These are my thoughts on their elementary curriculum. I don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water, and I'm not opposed to structured or orderly homeschooling. Structure is something that works for some families and children and not for others. I know that for me personally, I'll have a fair amount of structure in my homeschooling. I like schedules and "To Do" lists. That's not why I have problems with this curriculum. If you like this curriculum, go ahead and use it. But think about what I've said - can you be more creative and still accomplish these academics? And is it working for your child? Do you have a visual or kinesthetic learner on your hands? Do you have learning disabilities to accomodate?

My Critique of the Classical Method

2005-12-13T14:06:00.000-08:00

I've noticed that a lot of people online are talking about the Classical Method. My mother used a similar method when she was homeschooling, but it didn't work out very well. I was curious if the new version was any better, so I started reading the most often quoted book, The Well Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise. Yep, this is the same method my mom tried with us. I can see the appeal of the method, because it is very systematic and lays everything out for the parent. It also has measurable goals and promises results that everyone can see (as opposed to something nebulous like a "happy, well-adjusted person"). Personally, I know that the method can work very well for academically minded kids who learn well through language. I was that kid. Of course, for those kids, just about anything you do will result in sucessful academics. The method did not work well for my brother, who is a visual/hands-on learner and has some mild to moderate learning disabilities.
My other critiques of the method are specific issues I have with their schema for child-development. They describe children as "sponges soaking up knowledge" and say that "there is nothing wrong with a child accumulating information that he doesn't yet understand. It all goes in the storehouse for use later on" (page 24). This idea of just filling little kids with bits of information and then organizing it later is completely counter to what research is showing about the way kids really learn. Kids are constantly building models in their heads to explain the information they have, and frequently they build incorrect models or explanations that can actually end up being held onto as misconceptions into adult life if they are not brought out and discussed. To treat the elementary school years as simply a time to memorize facts that will be useful later is to invite confusion as the child tries to make up their own sense out of these bits and pieces.

Homeschool hand-me-downs, non-participation in class, and a great recipe

2005-12-12T15:29:00.000-08:00

One of the great advantages of being a second generation homeschooler is that I get hand-me-down educational materials. My youngest sister is twelve, so there is plenty of stuff that she's too old for that Carbon can use. This weekend we drove up to see my mom, and we came home with a microscope and slides, a storage box full of children's picture books, and two file sorters full of "animal fact" cards. I want the telescope, but they aren't quite done with that yet!
The kindergym class that I'm taking Carbon to is almost done for the year. There is a two week Winter Break, and we're not going to sign up for January or February. I'll be busy having another baby sometime in there! I'm really happy that I took Carbon to this class, even though it looked for awhile like he just didn't want to be there. He still seems to be a "non-participant" a lot of the time, preferring to go play by himself instead of do songs during "circle time". However, he sings all those songs at home now, so he's been soaking them up even if he didn't want to sing them with the group. The social lessons of sharing toys, what to do when someone treats you badly, and following simple directions, are all good lessons. In moderation of course, and that's exactly what three hours a week gives him. He's playing with other children much more now, and he seems to finally understand the concept of taking turns.
I also have been baking cookies with him. We made a batch of candy cane cookies that was so much fun to work on together, because the dough is shaped a bit like playdo, and then baked. You can make all sorts of fun shapes this way, like candy canes, wreaths, or even turtles (that was what Carbon made).

Candy Cane Cookies
1/4 cup vegetable shortening
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
1 tsp flavor extract of your choice
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg
2 cups flour
(For those with wheat allergies, these cookies worked fine with 1 cup rice flour, 1 cup tapioca flour, and 1 tsp Xanthan gum)

1. Beat the shortening, butter, sugar, flavor, and salt until fluffy. Beat in egg. Stir in flour, 1/2 cup at a time.
2. Divide the dough in half, and add food coloring to one half while leaving the other white.
3. Refrigerate at least one hour, or up to one week.
4. Form into interesting shapes, and bake at 325 degrees F. Baking time will vary depending on what shapes you made and how big the cookies are. Try to keep a tray all similar sizes so that the little ones don't burn waiting for the big ones to be done.

In Our Own Backyard

2005-12-08T14:15:00.000-08:00

The weather out here in the Great Northwest can be a little odd at times. Last week I was exploring snow with Carbon, today I was out in the sun planting the last of my bulbs in the ground. I know it's late - what can I say? Better late than never? They'll still come up, just maybe a bit late. We put in more tulips, daffodils, irises, crocuses, and anemones. We also planted something weird - a cyclamen bulb. It looks like a giant mushroom top, and the directions said to plant it "smooth side down" which looked upside down to me. That's going to be interesting, if it survives.
In other yard news, the blue jay continues to come to Carbon's bird feeder. He's a very aggressive fellow, and I think he's keeping all the other birds away. Carbon really enjoys watching him, though. I've put a whole bunch of books about birds and bird watching on hold from the library, so we should be getting those soon.
And this morning my husband, Noel, was discussing his plans for our front yard again. This year he's really become interested in gardening with native plants, and he's been reading all he can find about it. A side effect of that is that he's becoming good at identifying our native plants, and he can p0int things out when we go on family nature walks. Another side effect is that he's going to design some features of the landscaping to attract little animals and birds, which will be great for Carbon to see. This type of gardening seems like a great educational activity! Winter is the right time to transplant stuff, so he's been bringing salvaged plants home and arranging them. Carbon keeps talking about ferns, because that's what we've planted recently.
There's so much to learn and do right outside your door!

Art Lessons are Messy

2005-12-07T14:37:00.000-08:00

Getting Ready for Baby and Living with Love

2005-12-06T10:43:00.000-08:00

Noel and I are trying to prepare Carbon for the upcoming upheaval in his life. He knows we're having a baby, and he goes with me to every midwife appointment, but does he really understand what this is all about? Of course there's no way that he can understand the full impact of having a baby in the house until we actually have the baby. But still, we try to find books and things to prepare him. I remembered reading a book when I was a little kid, called Mom and Dad and I are Having a Baby! by Maryann Malecki, R.N. It's a totally hippie natural birth look at childbirth, with graphic drawings of the baby's head crowning and everything. I was sure it was out of print, but I asked my mom to look around her house and see if she still had it. Then, we were helping my mother-in-law clean out her garage, and we found a copy of the book there! Noel only sort of remembers reading it as a boy, but it's definitely the one I was remembering. Looking it over again, however, I see that it's too complicated and advanced for a child Carbon's age. And it is pretty dated, clearly belonging in the hippie era. A library book that I found that is good for kids around 2-4 years old is Hello Baby! by Lizzy Rockwell. Carbon really likes this one, and it has just enough detail about umbilical cords, development in the womb, and so forth. It also talks about how much the baby will sleep, and how it won't be able to play for a long while after it first comes home. Any other recommendations?
On a totally different topic, I'm reading Guerrilla Learning by Grace Llewellyn and Amy Silver, and I was really struck by a passage from the book today. Here's the passage:
"Perhaps our pressure on our children to grow, to learn, and to achieve is a reflection of our own way of being, as we hurry ourselves from task to task, from job to home, and through each moment, absorbed in our thoughts and anxieties, reacting rather than responding, acting from fear rather than love. Allowing our children the freedom to develop their own interests, to respond authentically to opportunities, and to grow and learn at their own pace is nothing less than refusing to indulge our fears and anxieties about the future and instead taking a courageous stand on behalf of love. The rhythm of the authentic, soul-based, inner-grounded life is slow and unworried. In it, we step outside of time, outside of the panicked cravings to achieve, to overcome, and to win, and outside of the desire to control ourselves and others. Here there is time for real learning" (p 106).
Isn't that profound? It really resonated with me, and I find myself completely drawn to that description of life. We do worry and hurry far too much, and in reality life doesn't need to be so rushed or so harried. I want that "authentic, soul-based, inner-grounded life". And I want that for my family as well.

The Giving Tree Project

2005-12-05T14:11:00.000-08:00

I've volunteered to help run the Giving Tree at my church this year. The project is through the Salvation Army, to supply gifts to needy families in our area. My church adopted five families, and I went through the list of wished for items from each family and made little gift tags that people in the congregation could take shopping with them. Yesterday was the first day I had the display at church, and I was overwhelmed trying to help people find the gift they wanted to provide. I hadn't anticipated that people would want to shop for certain types of items, or that they would want a child similar in age to their own so that their kids could pick something out. Of course, it makes sense now. I feel so humbled by the wish lists from these families. When kids are wishing for sheets for Christmas, I realize how lucky my family is. We try to embrace a simpler way of life, but it's by choice, because that's what we believe in.
I wish Carbon was old enough to really help me with this project, but I will continue to find ways to involve us in the community as he gets older. It's so good for kids to see the importance of involvement and community work. I write a theme based homeschool ideas newsletter each month, and December's theme was altruism. In researching ideas for the theme, I found lots of good books about kids and volunteering. One of the best was The Busy Family's Guide to Volunteering by Jenny Friedman. The book is full of ideas, big and little, for family and child activities to make a difference. I would recommend the book to all homeschoolers as part of their curriculum, and to all families who want to "do good, have fun, make a difference as a family!".