Mysterious Chimney

 We live on just under three acres. Not a huge amoount of property, but somehow I had never noticed this: what appears to be a chimney poking up out of the ground at the top of a hill! In my defense, this area is covered with undergrowth and blocked by trees much of the year...

Obviously, this is the perfect fun story starter! (Unless you have seen or read "It", in which case it would be a different kind of story.) Here is what the kids came up with.

Shane

One day, I went for a walk with Mom. We saw a chimney in the ground. I looked in and I leaned too far and I fell down, down, down!

When I landed, I saw a whole bunch of kittens that tried to eat me. I climbed the chimney and the followed me. I went up our chimney and then they tried to follow me but they could not because my Dad started a fire in the fireplace. The end.

(Okay, maybe Shane was thinking of It after all.)

Logan

At the top of the hill next to our garden is a chimney. Inside of the chimney are some little gremlins. 

Whenever the gremlins get turned to slime they reappear there in the little gremlin prison. Then the little troll guards yell, “We got another one!” 

Then the troll king comes and says, “Good job, but there are still twenty more. Once we get them we will release them at night time so they can destroy more stuff. Then when they touch light they will come back here and we will do it all over again.”

Sheridan

Up on a hill by our house, there is a chimney that leads down to a house. The house is buried, and only the chimney is above ground.

In the little house that is underground, there is a family of little dwarves. They have a tunnel that leads to our pantry so they can have food. They probably don't think we know about the hole, because they covered it up with a wooden plank, but we know it's there because every time we step there it wobbles, and it isn't like the other boards.

So, yeah...we are neighbors with dwarves who have a secret tunnel to steal food from our pantry. But we are fine with it because we have plenty, and it's not like the dwarves can just go to Walmart and buy food!! So we let them have some of the food.

Mars Perseverance Stories

 From Logan:

When the robot landed on Mars it started to collect rocks. Then an alien kid came up and snatched the rock from the robot and said,” That's my Mom's favorite rock! He walked off and the robot turned around and there was a huge city of aliens flying cars everywhere and the alien was giving the rock back to its mom. 

The people who sent him were still at home sleeping so they had no idea that there was life on Mars. Since he couldn't be told to do anything  he was not taking pictures. 

The robot went after the rock. He climbed into the house and looked around. There were five other robots just like him, but they were acting like puppies. Then the robot fell in through the window. 

Then the boy said, “Feeding time puppies!” and the other robots went over to their bowls. The robot went to a bowl where there were rocks in it. He started to collect them, he looked over and the other robots were eating the rocks he had collected all the rocks in his bowl so he started taking them from the other robots but he did not know they were like robot dogs. The other robot that he was taking rocks from growled but the robot kept going. The robot dog knocked him over and growled the robot got up and ran away until he ran until the city was out of sight. 

The people that sent him there woke up and said it looks like He hasn't found anything yet besides rocks. That is SO boring. 

                                                   THE END

From Sheridan: 

  As the new rover was driving around Mars picking up rocks and recording the scene live to NASA and the world she heard a voice.

  “HEY!!! That’s my mommy’s special rock, give it back!” 

The rover turned to see an alien and a whole city right by him. The alien looked pretty close to a human. 

  “Well…” the little alien said with her arms crossed and tapping her foot. The rover set the rock down and the little alien grabbed it and ran off.  Everyone on earth just stared and stared.

  Then the little alien came back but this time there was a group of other aliens with her. They oohed and aahed and eeked and screamed and went to change their pants… 

  The little girl that had discovered the robot first picked it up and said, “Mommy can I keep it please please please!!!” 

“uh I guess?” said her mom. 

“YAY We are gonna have so much fun!” she said as she ran off carrying the rover in her hands. 

While she was at her house playing with the rover, everyone on earth was still staring, wondering what the heck just happened. The little girl on Mars was dressing up the rover. “You are such a cute little puppy! I am gonna name you Flarfy! BTW my name is Felicia. This city you are in is called Carclosafludose. My mom says it’s a mouthful to say but it would be a lot more than a mouthful if someone tried to eat the sign that says what our city is called, so I don’t know why Mommy said that ''.

Adventures of Mo and Jo and Other Short Stories by Sheridan Jones

One day Mo and Jo were up in the attic right after their mother told them not to go up there. They found their mother's old dress-ups. They put them on and went outside. They knew their mother would kill them, especially because it was muddy and snowy.

After a while of playing they saw their mother with a knife. She chased after them and caught them because they were slow and she slit their throats and ate them for supper and lunch.

The end.

One day as a lady was walking past a jelly bean shop she went into labor and gave birth to a baby. It was snowing outside so to keep the baby warm she stuffed the baby in her jacket and walked home just like that.

One day a little boy and his grandpa went camping. That night when the grandpa was asleep the little boy took the grandpa's tobacco! He had so much of it that he got very very sick and passed on.

Story Writing: Christopher

After the first attempt, I told Christopher his story needed to be a liitttttle longer than a paragraph! He chose one of my favorite pictures from the file, and must have been thinking about it all day, because he finally sat down at the last minute and wrote this:

Once upon a time, there was a man who loved to paint. Every day he painted and painted. Everyone loved his work.

One day he met a woman. He paused for a second. His heart was pounding hard. He said, "Do you want to get dinner some time?" She said yes. They went out lots of times, then got married.

60 years later his wife got sick. He tried to make her better. One day she gave him a necklace then she died. He was very sad. For months he didn't paint. Nothing made him happy.

One day, a man came to his house. He knocked on the door. He answered it. The man gave him a cat - a pretty cat. He thanked the man, took the cat in, set it down and looked at it and said "Why would he give me a cat?"

The cat looked up at him. The eyes of it made him see her in it. He could see his wife in the cat.

That made him happier than ever. Then a few days later he started to paint again. More pictures than ever.

Then he got old. In time, some of his family had to take cared of him. Then he was dying, but he was happy. He was going. Then it happened: it was dark for a minute, then light started to appear. Then he saw his wife, and they lived happily ever after.

The end.

Today is Brought to You by the Letter A!

Very, very beginning letter studies with Shane and Grace! Once a week Grace's teacher sends home worksheets for her to trace letters. Gosh, that's exciting. And, seriously, homework for preschool?? (No, we don't do them.)

It seems a bit counter-intuitive to have a child with fine motor issues trying to trace letters she can't identify, so we are starting with just recognizing letters - no sounds, no writing, that can come when they are ready. Shane already knows some of his letters, while Grace just guesses "G" for each one (it is the most important after all!), so we are starting at the beginning. These are just some fun activities we did to help cement that first letter in our heads:

These are free printables found at totschool.shannons.org

She has all sorts of fun activities, and you have to love her tagline: "Because I can't handle another episode of Barney." There aren't any posts from the past few years - I hope that doesn't mean Barney came calling - but she still has her old posts up to explore. It occurred to me recently that we haven't used our dot markers in a while, so this was a great way to introduce the letter and practice motor control.

Anything with foamy shapes is a win. I just opened the tub and challenged them to see how many As they could find.

Grace is an all-or-nothing kind of gluer. Some got barely a dot, while others...

While they were working, I did a Google image search for "letter a", and printed out a few pages of results. I cut them into strips and told them to pick out the ones they wanted to cut out and glue on another paper.

The choice seemed to be "all of them", which was great! They are both doing a super job with scissors, and Grace kept running to me to show me "I cut in the lines!"

Ignore coil of wire, I was supposed to be putting up a chicken fence.

They had so much fun, they both wanted to do multiple pages, so I told them to get more paper out of the art drawer. Somebody apparently had already used this one. 

Shane refused to cover it up.

I printed out several "A" coloring pages and we did different things with them. This one was supposed to be colored in one color per space, but they decided at this point they weren't doing what the teacher told them to:

Sheridan helped Shane cut out his (purple) one, while Gracie did her own. Her scissor skills are actually coming along, not too long ago she would have cut right through the middle!

That pretty much signaled we were done for the day, but we will continue later by coloring the other A's in different ways - painting, thumbprints, and gluing cereal on them. Next up: snack time with Scrabble crackers, during which we will eat all the "A"s we can find!

Country Study: South Korea

We got out of the swing of country studies somewhere around Chad and the holidays. Santa had plans, though! We all enjoyed trying snacks from Australia so much, he got us a subscription to Snack Crate a few months ago - but he didn't tell the kids! As the box for each country arrived, I packaged it up with books, games, and crafts from that same country, along with recipes for a full meal.

We opened the three boxes so far (South Korea, Germany and the Philippines - Australia is on its way!) on Christmas day and peeked at the contents, but we saved them then for those days when we needed a little structure. South Korea began the Thursday after Christmas, supplemented with a trip to the library and the grocery store.

This book gave us a brief history of North and South Korea (our ancient globe only shows one Korea!) and how the government and culture of each has evolved differently in the past 60-70 years:

978-1590-842065

Available used through Amazon

It is a little old (2003), but served our history needs. We talked a little bit about current events, trying to balance the line between being aware of world tensions and not scaring everyone!

This title is more recent (2012), and more accessible to our age grouping:

978-1600-146244

$22.95

If you are just looking at South Korea, this is perfect, but I did want to contrast it with North Korea and talk about how different factors can influence so many parts of our lives. 

Enough serious stuff! Let's fly kites!

Or, at least decorate some to fly when the weather changes:

You can find these from any number of online sources. We will try flying them around the Lunar New Year - but I don't think I will tell them about kite fighting!

We love cooking together, so the meals were a lot of fun. The first night, Sheridan helped me start the kimchi, then Logan helped me make mandu (pork dumplings, made here with won ton wrappers):

I have chopper that would have worked faster than scissors, but it kept him happily busy.

Just a start - we made a LOT more than this - but I was very pleased that, unlike my varenyiki, these didn't fall apart immediately!

I ended up folding the corners in like won tons, because I didn't trust them to stay together otherwise!

A little fried rice with egg strips,

and some ho bak jon (veggie pancake). I tried to make one big pancake that I could cut into wedges like my favorite restaurant, but I way overestimated both the evenness of my old pan and my flipping abilities. I'll just use a before shot as it started cooking.

Then we dug into the Snack Crate offerings. For tonight we tried the Kancho biscuits, which were little round cookies with fudgy middles. Yum! They had fun little pictures printed on the outside of each. 

We read descriptions of each, and decided to save the pushu pushu for big sister Mykela, because a) she likes raw Ramen, and b) they say they are spicy, and if even Koreans think they are spicy, we probably don't want to touch them.

I bought some plastic stones for a game called Gonggi. Think Jacks without the jacks. Or the ball. It can be played with any old stones, but after seeing how many times they bounced off of Sheridan's head, I am glad I sprang for the plastic!

It's harder than it looks! She was getting really frustrated at first - especially after I caught a couple - but so excited when she finally succeeded!

For a second meal we had tak nalgae t'wigim (a glazed chicken) over rice, and a very mild cabbage kimchi. The chicken was a hit, the kimchi: not so much.

It really wasn't THAT spicy.

Seriously, guys.

Gracie said she liked it, but Gracie likes anything she is allowed to eat.

Logan liked it!

Shane was very diplomatic (and blurry - dangit!). He pronounced it "good but spicy", and when asked if he wanted more, said "No, thank-you."

I like Korean food myself, so we are probably going to continue working in more foods even after we move on to the next country. In the meantime, friends and relatives who have spent time in Korea (and who are there now) are filling us in with all sorts of fun tidbits and photos!

Finally, a little more reading:

978-080-483-5916
$18.95

We are reading a story a day (except for Sheridan who is going ahead), looking at the artwork along with talking about what types of lessons Korean parents want to impart to their children.

Loads if fun, I think it will be a while before we move on to the next country!

Around the World - Bhutan

We got stuck on Australia for a couple weeks, partly because we got busy and partly because we were waiting for snacks to arrive! 

We finally moved over to Bhutan, though, and that was definitely a cultural switch. The family in our book is made up of 13 people living in one home. We had to draw up a family tree to get straight in our heads how everyone was related:

Most Bhutanese have two names, but there are no last, or "family" names, and children are often named by a local monk. Few names are gender specific, hence Sangay being married to Sangay!

We picked up a second book by the same authors of "What the World Eats":

and the kids were excited to recognize 'our' family on the front cover! This book gives a much clearer picture of their home. It sounds reasonable to say 13 people live in a 3 story house - until you see that the house is made of dirt, the top floor is for storing food, and the bottom floor is for the livestock. The family's prayer room is a beautiful, ornately decorated area, but the rest of the living space is bare wood.

There were so many differences in how we live, the kids were almost at a loss to decide what to write down.

While they noted on the poster that there is no fast food (as in, in the whole COUNTRY - as of when the book was written, anyway), what really has Sheridan aghast is, no bacon! Animals are only killed for food for special ceremonies, so the diet is largely vegetarian. For our "Bhutan meal", I accordingly found some red rice and chopped up some carrots and onions we had on hand.

It went over better than I expected, though! I cheated and put salt on mine when they weren't looking, but the kids all ate theirs without it.

The weekly budget for that family of 13 for beverages is 76 cents. So, if you buy a soda from the machine at the library, you have just spent two weeks' budget for drinks for a family of 13. Dwell in that for a minute.

That 76 cents is mainly for butter tea. We had to try it, of course, but with some modifications, as Walmart does not appear to sell yak butter.

1. Boil 4 cups of water and add 4-5 tea bags - the darker the better (we used Earl Grey). Let it steep for a while, then take the tea bags out and add a pinch of salt.

2. Put 1/2 cup of milk and 2T butter in a blender. Reheat the tea, and pour that in. Blend until well mixed, and drink hot.

Again, the kids liked this more than I thought they would - three of the five had seconds! After the first tastes, I let them add a spoonful of sugar. I did that with mine and found I suddenly tasted the salt, whereas I hadn't before.

Once they finished, they asked for dessert as usual, and I told them, "There is no dessert." They reminded me of the ice cream in the fridge and the cookies on the counter, and I reminded them of the weekly budget for the family - were there cookies and ice cream in there anywhere? Besides, no electricity certainly means no frozen food.  

And then they were still hungry, so I told them there was more rice. Christopher ate it all, and then, being Christopher, was still starving. We decided that while this meal was good once, we wouldn't want it every night, and that we have it pretty darn good being able to just find different things to eat until we aren't hungry any more! My pantry suddenly seems like an obscenity.

I don't pretend to think any of that sunk in and made a lasting impression that will cause my kids to stop wasting food and appreciate everything they have, but it's a start - a seed planted in their minds. I think we all respond better to tiny nudges along the way than we do to being brow beaten.

A little more reading,

and then we will be 'traveling' to Bosnia!

Around the World - Australia

So much of my time and energy goes into the summer reading program at work, my own kids sometimes get less of my attention right when they are most at loose ends. Grandma, who has them during the day, does a lot of great activities with them, but I want to have some fun, too!

Several years back, I picked this book up for the library, and liked it so much I got my own copy:

978-158-246-2462

Sitting down to a daily family meal has long been a tradition for billions of people. But in every corner of the world this age-old custom is rapidly changing. From increased trade between countries to the expansion of global food corporations like Kraft and Nestlé, current events are having a tremendous impact on our eating habits. Chances are your supermarket is stocking a variety of international foods, and American fast food chains like McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken are popping up all over the planet.

For the first time in history, more people are overfed than underfed. And while some people still have barely enough to eat, others overeat to the point of illness. To find out how mealtime is changing in real homes, authors Peter Menzel and Faith D’Aluisio visited families around the world to observe and photograph what they eat during the course of one week. They joined parents while they shopped at mega grocery stores and outdoor markets, and participated in a feast where a single goat was shared among many families. They watched moms making dinner in kitchens and over cooking fires, and they sat down to eat with twenty-five families in twenty-one countries—if you’re keeping track, that’s about 525 meals!

The foods dished up ranged from hunted seal and spit-roasted guinea pig to U.N.-rationed grains and gallons of Coca-Cola. As Peter and Faith ate and talked with families, they learned firsthand about food consumption around the world and its corresponding causes and effects. The resulting family portraits offer a fascinating glimpse into the cultural similarities and differences served on dinner plates around the globe.

This book is an absolutely FABULOUS way to gently introduce some of the differences in culture and living conditions around the world - something I have really needed to do with my kids. Our plan is to spend a week or two through the summer and fall on each country, learning what we can and trying out some of the food, crafts, music, etc.

Since the countries are in alphabetical order throughout the book, we started off with Australia. I brought home:

- an adult travel video (boring, but we got an idea of the landscape, and they recognized the Sydney Opera House from Finding Nemo!)

- two Jeff Corwin videos (MUCH more interesting, and then we went to a reptile show with The Island of Misfit Morphs, and we recognized some of the critters!)

- Crocodile Dundee (ancient, but they loved it, and since we watched it last they were calling out "boomerang!" and "didgeridoo!", so I knew they had picked something up along the way).

- lots of books! Anything on the country or its animals,

and of course you can't do Australia without a healthy dose of Mem Fox!

The Pumpkin Runner is one of my old favorites, so I was pleased when the kids started reading it over and over to each other. They even decided all on their own to act it out!

(Logan is being Yellow Dog)

Fun is absolutely the key, here - for all of us. I don't have a curriculum, we are just exploring as things sound interesting. Today when we came across the term "Down Under", we grabbed the globe and looked at where Australia is in relation to the equator, which led to talking about hemispheres, poles, climates, etc.

What the World Eats includes a recipe for each country, and for Australia we had quandong pie. Not finding quandongs at the local grocery store, we settled for peaches, fresh from a friend's backyard (thanks Lisanne!) We are considering also making Lamingtons, because who doesn't like cake dipped in more sugar?! Vegemite seems to be unavailable here, so we had to order some, and it will be a while - I will update with their reactions.

We have also made a poster with things we have learned about so far:

They are having fun with the slang (although for some reason "G'day mate" has not popped up yet), thrilled that Daddy is cooking on the barbie, and happily calling each other yobbos. Ah well, it could be a LOT worse!

I think Bhutan will have to be put off for another week - that's going to be a shocker for them! We're having too much fun with Oz - and besides, we haven't quite convinced Daddy we need a pet wombat yet.

***Update: Still waiting on Vegemite, but some snacks came in. 

I liked the Crunchies the best:

But the kids favored the Cherry Chews and Freddo Frogs:

Shane chose a Caramel Koala, but had a major meltdown when its head fell off.

Fortunately, there was another in the box (and then Mommy ate the decapitated one.) The kids even agreed to save one of each for a Kiwi friend, who used to get Freddo Frogs as a reward for doing her homework ;)

New Blog!

Because I do such a great job at keeping this blog updated (ha), I am adding a second blog.

Homeschooling by the Holidays

is scheduled to go live February 28. I hope to have the first month's posts in place by then, which is the main reason for the wait. The goal of this new blog is to give home schoolers, teachers, or parents who just want to have a little extra fun at home, ideas for making each day both fun and educational. 

Did you know that there are a multitude of strange and unusual holidays for pretty much every day of the year? Onion Ring Day...It's My Party Day...Bubble Bath Day... The goal of Homeschooling by the Holidays will be to share cross-curricular lesson and activity ideas for each of those (how do you figure the diameter of said onion ring?) We all know we learn best when we are interested and engaged, right? And, did I mention onion rings? (There may or may not be a large number of food-related holidays.)

During this first year, I will just focus on one holiday (or birthday or historical event) for each day, and most activities will be geared towards younger children. I will also only be using holidays that are on a fixed date - in other words, nothing that falls on "the first Tuesday after the third Friday in the full moon after Valentine's Day".

In the second year, I plan to add ideas for older children, as well as monthly and weekly celebrations, and those with more fluid dates. Throughout, however, I will be happy to take suggestions - more songs? More art? More science? Let me know what you are looking for in your home, and I will try to assist! And as always, feel free to add your own suggestions for each holiday in the comments!

Ooh - I will also include lots of links to useful web pages: like 7 Sisters, where I found the above meme! In the meantime, click over to the new blog and bookmark it, then don't forget to check back February 28!

Review: The School of Art by Teal Triggs, illustrated by Daniel Frost

Yesterday I mentioned Quentin Blake's book, Tell Me a Picture, and said it would be a fun way to talk about art with kids. Today I came across another one I will be passing on to our home school group:

9781847807007

In fact, if I was home schooling right now, I might just use this book as my entire curriculum.

Here you will learn how to make great art with this fully-illustrated collection of fun and informative lessons. Follow the five professors as they work together to deliver 40 demonstrations - each one accompanied by a guided activity for you to try at home - to help you to understand the basics of art and design, including composition, color, line, shape, and perspective.

Art is NOT my thing. I like to 'make stuff', and I find some things more aesthetically pleasing than others, but I'm mostly a wabi sabi kind of person. I have never seen a painting I would actually care to spend money on, and as far as teaching the basic concepts of art, I would be lost. This book, I think, would give me enough of a structure while still having fun that I might actually attempt it!

The five professors mentioned have their own titles - the Professor of Ideas, encouraging imagination; the Professor of Form, who helps get that imagination down in something concrete; the Professor of Senses, who feels art should be an experience; the Professor of Making, who carries out the Professor of Form's plans with a variety of materials; and the Professor of the Planet, who asks how art can make people's lives better.

Lessons are short (1 or 2 pages), simple and entertaining. There are quick activities to do around the house, and bigger art projects (a couple are supposed to be done in the book, but can just as easily be done on your own paper - please don't do them in the library book.) Throughout the lessons, the professors' personalities come out quite nicely, making this read almost like a fiction book in places. I think even a child who was resistant to the very idea of art lessons would find it quite palatable.

This one is offered by Wide Eyed Editions, a somewhat smaller publisher I have been coming to enjoy (see yesterday's Creaturepedia).