Busy, Busy Spring!

What can I say. It's Spring, and we've been busy!

We finished up our math block by building and exploring multiplication tables with the math board. We traced around our largest mixing bowl, hammered in ten nails, wrote in the numbers, and started wrapping out some number patterns with different colored yarns. Below is counting by 1's, 2's, and 3's. Math is a beautiful, magical thing!



And then we trucked right on into a Saint's and Heroes block. I'm pulling resources for this block from several places-- singular library books (for example The Man Who Loved Books, Brother Sun and Sister Moon, and some Tomie dePaola books,) collections (The Giant at the Ford, and The Lady of Ten Thousand Names) and a bit of curriculum-in-a-box (Christopherus Saints and Heroes.) So far, so good. Rather than just pull these stories out of the air, I decided to ground them with our story heroine Clara. These are the stories Clara treasures, and she wrote them all in a purple book which she carries in her satchel at all times. Right now she's sharing them with Beremiz, and hence, Sunburst as well.

Sunburst has been knee-deep in the embroidery zone since I picked up a charming Japanese book that I saw over at SouleMama's blog. Oh, how easily I can convince myself to spend money when I'm thinking in terms of homeschooling resources! Sunburst hungrily combined two designs from the book, and because she was so smitten with it, as a joke I suggested she embroider her entire Saints and Heroes block rather than making a book. She thought it was a great idea, but still wants to make a book, too. A purple one, of course, just like Clara's! So we're doing both.

Here's how we're doing the embroidery. I tell a story. She tells me what representational picture she would like to embroider. I cut the 6x6 square of linen and freehand the design for her with a #2 pencil. She sticks it in her tambour frame, selects her colors, and goes to work. So far she's just doing plain backstitch. Here are the representational images of St. Francis (the bird singing praises to God) and Elizabeth of the Roses:



I'm thinking at the end we'll sew them all together into a wall hanging. Perhaps a ready reminder of folks who chose a higher path isn't such a bad idea for wall art for a child dipping her feet in the waters of the nine-year-change.

In the last two weeks we've also been throwing belated birthday parties (check out Moonshine's cupcakes, both regular and gluten-free varieties, replete with faux sweetheart roses,) hiking/biking, letterboxing, and trying to suck up every ounce of sunlight we can-- weeding the yard and planting flowerbeds.



We've also been doing a ton of clay modeling and wet-on-wet painting now that I've FINALLY found a resource that speaks to me-- but that's worth another post on its own.

But for now, the vegetable garden needs planting, the grass needs mowing, and the children want to go outside! Ah, busy, busy Spring.

A big attitude and a little math (Part 2)

Our next math story juxtaposed the behavior of two eight-year-old girls named Clara. Our regular Clara, the one that Sunburst readily identifies with, played the compassionate helper. The other Clara was mouthy and rude, though she came around in the end. It was an interesting lesson to create because Sunburst's behavior has dipped into this other Clara category lately, and it was remarkable to watch her listening and sympathizing with both Claras. I think it helped.

In this story, the other Clara mouthed off to the King's son. Luckily, her punishment from the King was merely a challenge. She was to report to the royal palace for some sort of mathematics quiz. Unfortunately, the other Clara didn't really know much math, so we spent some time helping her prepare. -- A welcome chance for me to see exactly how much Sunburst has really retained.

First we timed ourselves using holey cards. This was great for Sunburst to practice her time-telling skills timing me. And I noticed that she uses her fingers more often when adding certain numbers, so I had her make a couple of flash cards with those problems. Next we played around with some Math Wrap-ups, printed out a couple of worksheets, and broached the subject of place value again, because you never know just what the King's quiz was going to entail.

Sunburst, being my bigger-faster-louder child, was thrilled with the prospect that the numbers could just keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger. We learn most things under the guise of "Clara's love of learning" so it was really great when Clara shouted from the rootops, "I can count to ONE BILLION!" It certainly got Sunburst's attention.



Then we had another day of gorgeous weather, and not sure what to do next, I ended up creating a game called "The Human Calculator." I gave her the sums, and Sunburst enjoyed jumping from number to number to create the problems. She even game me a turn on the calculator, though admittedly I'm far from being able to jump just yet. All in all it was great! She replayed the scenario for Einstein, her dad, when he came home.



As a last fun thing, I presented Sunburst with a computer game that Einstein came up with using NetLogo. It's actually an Ed/Psych experiment designed to explore learning patterns, but once I saw it I knew it was perfect for our story. He helped me create an interactive Clara at the bottom of the screen that flaps her arms up and down with every correct answer.



As the Royal Quiz approached, everyone in the kingdom fell ill with the same intestinal illness. Everyone except our Clara, that is. The royal well had been contaminated, and our Clara always carts along bottled water wherever she goes. So Clara, with her knowledge of herbs, became the caretaker to everyone in the kingdom, including the king himself. In order to take care of everyone she had to manage her time extremely well. In the end everyone was nursed back to health, including the other Clara. Both Claras were ordered to appear before the King. The other Clara gave a heartfelt, sincere apology and the royal quiz took place. For the quiz I used the Martha and John math story from Path of Discovery Grade 1, which I had meant to use last year but never quite got around to it. Great fun! Then both Claras stayed for the Royal Feast where the King thanked our Clara for her loving heart, hard work, and impeccable ability to manage her time well. As a token of appreciation Clara was given this:



It was a huge surprise for Sunburst, and she has been keeping us apprised of the time every few minutes ever since.

A big attitude and a little math (Part 1)

Do you ever get the urge to flush them down the toilet?*

Sunburst has been driving me crazy! There, I said it. It's true. She's been mouthy and rude and inattentive to oh, everything we say. Her nose is almost constantly plugged into a book. And when it's not she's inadvertently doing something to make Moonshine and Kitty Bill screech! Sunburst has hit this pinching, pushing, tripping, tricking, ignoring, goading, annoying stage... and oh! I'm just at a loss with her. It could be that she's eight, do you think?

With the weather so nice and warm a couple of weeks ago, I made an executive decision to drop our language arts block and forge ahead. I was hoping that giving her some "headier" work would give her that challenge she was constantly looking for. I got the feeling that she needed to control something. Own something. Feel bigger, in a sense. And I think it worked, sort of.

We returned to our math story I was telling back in November just before the car accident. Poor Clara! You see, we had abandoned her at an inn during a terrible storm, where she and Beremiz were playing dice games to pass the time. We revisited that lesson, and then moved on to another dice game they had played in our absence, The Matterhorn. (I love how these story people seem to go on without us sometimes.)

The Matterhorn is a great game for teaching number values. The jist of the game is to get up and down the mountain via rolling three dice. The mountain is comprised of two number lines, 1-12 (which is the peak) and then 12-1. You have to roll each value to climb and then decend the mountain, but luckily you can add the dice values. For example, if your first roll gives you the values 1, 2, and 2, you can make the sums 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Then you would roll again. It's supposed to be a contest between players, but we just played singularly with much shouting and cheering.



Then the weather got really warm. When it's so nice outside the kids are out the door before I've finished my morning coffee, so our next few lessons were totally off the cuff. Standing there on the back walk I eyed the sidewalk chalk and remembered how impressed Sunburst was that her friend The Artist has his own watch and is learning to tell time. Voila! A lesson was born.

I drew a huge circle on the back porch. That alone brought the kids running over with curiosity. As they walked around and around the circle I began the story.

It was finally time for Clara and Beremiz to leave the inn. He told Clara to meet him at 8:00 sharp the next morning so they could eat a quick breakfast and set off. But Clara had a problem. She didn't have a watch. Nor did she know how to tell time. Beremiz loaned her one, and we set to work on the "learning" portion.

First we added the numbers.
Next I handed Sunburst a kiddie-sized rake and set her to working the hour hand.




Once she had that down, then Sunburst set to work marking off the individual minutes.




Then, with a bamboo stake, she worked the minute hand.



The rain washed away our clock and Sunburst drew it back, every minute accounted for. At that point it was clear that Clara was ready to meet Beremiz on time, and we were off. Again. And though I didn't plan for it, a lesson emerged that touched on Sunburst's atrocious behavior. Clara and Beremiz met a bereaved mother on the side of the road. Her eight-year-old daughter had taken her own boasting and rudeness too far. She mouthed off to the King's son, and now the whole family was in hot water over it. Unless the girl would come forward and hear her punishment from the King, the family would lose its farm.

Tsk. Tsk.

Sunburst thought surely there must be something Clara could do to help.



*Larger than life toilet brought to you by Kid's Commons, a children's museum we recently visited. That's me living my dreams as I attempted to flush Sunburst down the toilet. The kids really DO love to climb down inside of it, spurred on by the actual flushing noise it makes, where they enter the bowels of a house and explore all the hidden staircases and so forth. Very cool.

Moonshine is FIVE!

Moonshine is five.
Hair to her knees.
Not really, but she begs it
Please!
Five today. Eyes alight.
She dreams of rescues by a knight
So shining. Shining!
It's such a shame that tomorrow
She'll be seventy-two.
Or Peter Pan.
She has it all memorized anyway.
Every word, every song.
She'll want you to sing along
And you will
drink the chocolate in her eyes
because she's so shining.



Moonshine, my life-is-about-the-details "middlest" child, turned five today. I was up all night sewing the dress just the way she wanted it. And of course the other dress for her doll Ella. It's a small thing, really, catering to her need for all the fancy details. She's still so incredibly dreamy and sweet I can't help myself.

So from sun-up to sundown it was a day fit for a fairy princess. Complete with waffles, wings, fairy books, flower garlands, and a cake that seemed to have grown right out of the ground! Imagine that!

Farewell Wonder Homeschool

Did you see? Have you heard? Did you know?

I just did my daily click over to Wonder Homeschool, and... I'm speechless. Almost everything is gone. Really gone! It's all going away... forever.

I don't know about you, but this shocking realization is like a kidney punch. It's like the abrupt loss of a dear friend that you see every day. Because really, I do go there every single day. Wonder Homeschool has been a huge source of inspiration for me, and I'm sure, countless many others. And now... well, it's going away.

I can't blame Lucie. I'm sure it was a ton of work. I don't know how she found the time and the resolve to keep on it for so many years. And for free, at that. But all the same... its absence will be noticed. In a huge way. Especially in this house.

Farewell Wonder Homeschool, my dear friend. And thank you Lucie. For everything!

The Uniform of Motherhood

Do you ever feel like between homeschooling and housework and trying to meet everyone's needs that you lose sight of your own needs or dreams or passions?

This past weekend I took some time off from all things motherly, housewifey, wifey, and teacherly to nurture myself. It wasn't a planned diversion from the day-to-day around here. First I had to reach my limit, feel overwhelmed and under-appreciated, and pitch a fit. Then, surprisingly, I got some time off. A mental health day, if you will.

First up I did some art journaling ala Visual Chronicles. Just one piece that totally summed up my emotional moment enough that the whole family actually understood. They got the picture way more than my beat-a-dead-horse thousand-word diatribe. I'll have to remember that for next time.

Next I surfed the web, ate chocolate and spent a couple of hours pushing fabric through my sewing machine. It was better than great! I fought the urge to do anything for anyone else. It's so easy to fall back into that sinkhole, made even harder by the fact that I have this huge pile of children's mending and good intentions sitting on my desk. Instead, I concentrated on me. Me. ME! And my needs.

Oh, the irony! I made myself an apron.

I've never owned an apron before. I don't even come from apron folk. But I picked through the mess of fabric in my closet and came out clutching an old bathroom curtain to my chest, completely re-smitten with its feminine flowers and sheer eyelety goodness.

At first glance this apron seems like a big joke. Einstein thought so, too. It's sheer, white fabric. Completely useless for wiping your hands on the edges with wild abandon or catching spills or doing the real work of life. Not exactly a workhorse. But look again, I say. I've been doing that work for years without any barrier whatsoever. Just me and the sludge of life ensconced together in this domesticated dance. Just me and the sludge.

Let's face it. As a stay-at-home, homeschooling mom with three kids, there's not much time for my needs. On good days I get my hair brushed and my clothes remain unscathed by the various body fluids emitted by small children. I'm not particularly resentful of the snot or its liquidy cousins, it's just something I've become accustomed to as an accesory to motherhood. I wear it. Or it wears me. At the end of the day I can't tell. The uniform of motherhood. Be one with the snot.

This apron, by contrast, is not a sludge-catcher. Oh no! It's counter to how I feel on a day-to-day basis. It's the Anti-snot. I tie it on and my whole mood changes. It wraps its little flowers around my aura and softens my edges. And when my edges are soft... well, that transfers to the entire household, you know?

Now I'm singing, "I feel pretty," while I sling mash and wipe butts. Who's the workhorse now?

Mama said there'd be days like this

© Schooling from the Heart

Treasure in the woods

Earlier this week, homeschooling took us on a whirlwind tour of a local park nature trail where we followed clues and found our very first letterbox! Go us!

We carved up our own stamps that morning, threw some books together and bound them with crochet cotton, and hit the trail. It was FABULOUS! I'm totally smitten with the idea of mixing artistry, cognition, nature, and mystery. Not only is it good for the brain, it's good for the soul.

I had Sunburst read the clue outloud, and she and Moonshine worked hard at sleuthing it out. We made wrong turns and back-tracked and read the clues again and again.

Sunburst: "You will come to a T intersection... Oh, look! This is sort of like a 'T.'"
Mom: "Here's a huge, fallen tree, but is it the right one?"
Moonshine: "I don't see a footbridge."
Sunburst: "The clue says, 'Don't blink or you'll miss it.'"
Moonshine: "I think we must have blinked."

We finally found the treasure, a small plastic container, hidden in the wet leaves under a footbridge. We had to really dig around for it, but there it was, as promised. We carried the box over to a fallen tree and sat there admiring the logbook entries and hand-carved stamp. We stamped the logbook, added a message, stamped our own books, and carefully sealed the box back up and placed it back into hiding. It felt grand and lovely and extremely satisfying, and the woods smelled so good.



Einstein caught up with us on our way back to the car, and to not leave him out of the fun, we turned around and did it all again, only letting him sleuth out the clues. The girls were very cute about it-- helping him make the same wrong turns we did. It was fun for the whole family! And we got outside, in the thick of nature, which doesn't happen as much as I'd like.

On the way home we started plotting to place our own letterboxes. There are only four in our county. Only four! In the spirit of the game, we've got to do our part. Einstein and I have been out scouting around for the perfect places and staying up late designing stamps. We crack ourselves up.

A huge part of the draw is the artistry of hand-carved stamps-- that personal touch. Leaving a hand-crafted treasure out in the woods speaks to me of trust, faith, and human connection. Someone made this, and in sharing the stamp, they are sharing a bit of themselves. With complete strangers. With all the crazy things that go on in our world, how cool is that? And how important! It speaks volumes. Not just to me, but to our children as well. It's a message I want them to hear loud and clear.

Initially, I thought this stamp carving business sounded crazy hard. But it's not. Hand-carved stamps are not hard to make. We're no experts, but here's what we did:

At the craft store I bought a small block of Mastercarve and an X-acto knife. I made a pencil image on paper and pressed the Mastercarve onto it to transfer the image. Then I carefully, gingerly cut out the white areas, about 1/16 - 1/8 inch deep with the X-acto knife. My depth wasn't precise or even, I just tried to mimic what most stamps look like. My first attempt was crude and fell into pieces after a few stampings. But I used the same drawing and more carefully tried again. This time it was better.



Originally, I read online that kids can make stamps with Artgum erasers and table knives. This did NOT work out for us. It was way too crumbly. Instead, they drew images and I cut them out from the Mastercarve. The more simple the images, the easier it is to cut them. And I love how they all have a different feel to them.

If it helps, Atlas-Quest has a simple stamp-carving tutorial.

Rather than purchase them, we made small logbooks for the trail with leftover cardstock scraps and acid-free copy paper. Our books measured 4 1/4" x 5 1/2". I used a tiny hole punch to make four holes along one side, about 1/4" from the edges. Then I had the girls sew them up using the Japanese stab binding technique. Again, here's another great tutorial.

For more information on letterboxing, be sure to check out:
The Letterboxer's Companion by Randy Hall
http://www.letterboxing.org/
http://www.letterboxing.org/kids/
http://www.letterboxing.info/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letterboxing

M is for Michigan

M is for mango.
And Michigan, apparently.

Carschooling... who knew?

Hit the road, Jack!

With the maple season over, I was itching to get as far away from my house and trees as humanly possible. So last week our family hit the road for a couple of days and headed where else but the land of great enchantment: Missouri.

Bear with me... you'll see why.

The whole thing was very 'lax.' We left home at Kitty Bill's naptime, and by dark we found ourselves where the Mississippi River meets the stunning display of architecture known as the Gateway Arch.



We gaped and drove around it a few times before heading off to a hotel with an indoor pool. There's nothing like a before bed swim for kids who have been trapped in the car for hours. Worth every penny!

Next morning we piled back in the car and headed south. By lunchtime we had arrived.



The Laura Ingalls Wilder Home and Museum in Mansfield, Missouri. Sunburst was beside herself. We've been living and breathing Laura Ingalls for the past five years, ever since Sunburst picked out a few Little House picture books at the library. When we moved to Texas the following year, the girls and I volunteered as costumed interpreters for one season at a living pioneer history museum. To enrich our experience I began reading Sunburst the Little House series. Since then she's read the books at least three more times, and although we've moved on to other Little House character books (Martha, Charlotte, Caroline...) Sunburst still totes one or another of the original books around with her. I regularly find them wedged in the couch cushions, on the bathroom counter, and splayed in the backseat of the car. The covers are all coming off and some of the pages are even missing. They're that good.

When she's not reading, Sunburst regularly dons a sunbonnet and apron and pretends to be a Little House character. In the beginning she was always Mary. Even after she understood Mary's blindness, she continued pretending to be Mary-- trying her hand at rag rugs, stumbling around the house, and even knitting with a blindfold on. For years she would pretend our vegan dinners were bear meat and call us Pa and Ma at the table. Moonshine was Laura, on account of the dark hair. And when Kitty Bill came along they were delighted to finally have someone to play the role of "Baby Carrie." (He'll probably resent that someday, you think?)

So Missouri. Now you know. We spent about two hours in the museum checking out old artifacts from the books like Mary's first patchwork quilt, Pa's fiddle, and Laura's little porcelain tea cup jewelry box. We read old postcards and letters exchanged between Laura and Ma, and Grace's letter informing Laura that Mary had a stroke and the end was near. We saw pictures, and drafts from the books and old handwork and so many, many things. And then we toured the Rose Wilder Lane section of the museum...



They kicked us out at that point so we could join the tour of the house. We walked through the house at Rocky Ridge-- Laura's house with Almanzo. It was small and quaint and, as we were told, left exactly as Laura kept it before she died. Later on we drove down the street and toured the Rock House, a house comissioned by Rose for her parents. It was modern and lovely, but not as cozy and warm as the farmhouse. We could understand why they gave it up after a few years and moved back to the original home.



The kids all ran down the hill from the Rock House and played in the field before we loaded back up and headed towards the cemetary to see the gravesites.



The next day we were startled by a surprise snowstorm. Who predicted this weather?



Despite the flurries, we pulled back into St. Louis at lunchtime and were greeted by the same miraculous spectacle. At the first sight of the Arch, Sunburst was unrelenting. She begged and pleaded until we agreed to go up. All the way. To the top.



There is nothing like the sense of adventure of an 8-year-old. Personally, I'm a tad bit afraid of heights. When we first moved to Salt Lake City they had an old, dilapidated library. It was servicable and fine-- just give me books and I'm happy. But somewhere around the winter Olympics and the new electric city tram they also built a new library. When I say new, I mean more than just state-of-the-art. I mean crazy new. Fancy, fantastical, open and airy, hanging sculptures, shops, fountains, caves in the wall, billowing fabric, walls of glass, eye candy kind of place. If you've been there then you know what I'm talking about. The whole place freaks me out. The stairs? I can't walk on those stairs. They jut out over several floors of open space with glass railings. But don't take my word for it. Go look for yourself! Here's another. It's a stunning library, don't get me wrong. But in the old one I didn't lose my lunch.

The Gateway Arch, by contrast, is just like a really high stairwell that reaches into the clouds. Well, not quite. The sign from the top reads "630 feet." I think my understanding of height isn't so great because it seems so much higher than that when you're up there.

Yes, I did go up. Luckily for me and my bum foot you don't have to climb the 1,076 steps to the top. They have a tram that teeters up the inside railing in a mere four minutes, and you can't see out as you climb. Well, you can see the stairwell and a handful of the 105 landings, but you can't see outside, outside. Otherwise, our little tram car would have been a freakshow.

The tram car itself was endearing. Each car is a little pod and made me feel a bit like I was on set in a 1960's Sci Fi movie. I almost expected to be handed a Barbarella suit, though admittedly, I'm no Jane Fonda. It was great though. It was exactly like sitting inside a dryer. Small, hot, round, and a little tilty as it climbed and corrected itself. Ridiculously fun.



I don't know who these people are. Sorry people, but I needed to capture the moment and you were easy and friendly targets.

Once up at the top it wasn't bad. The minimal sway did funny things to our stomachs, but overall the view was spectacular. The windows were small. Very small, and it felt surprisingly safe to be up there suspended over nothing. The kids were all jumping up and down. Not just mine. It seemed to be the theme. Woo hoo! We're really high up!





On the way out of town we stopped in at Eternity and gorged ourselves on outrageously tasty vegetarian soul food. A perfect ending to a sweet trip!

Play on words

"I'm the boss.
I boss people around--
In a circle."

--Moonshine, almost 5 yrs

Geography Fair

Last week we nearly drowned in sap. During the height of our overflow the girls put together and gave a little presentation on Ghana for our local homeschooling geography fair. Sunburst did the left two panels of the board, while Moonshine did the far right (including the writing there, because she wanted to.)

As you can see, Moonshine was able to touch upon all her current interests: fancy clothing, hairdos, and jewelry. She threw the priestess on her side because she was beautiful, and that counts as an interest. Sunburst included the more general information like food, climate, and folklore, but she was pleased as punch to be able to include some wild animal photos and share her dad's "You need to buy a live chicken if you want to see the crocodiles" story with the crowd.

They chose Ghana not only because their dad, Einstein, lived there when he was in the Peace Corps, but because that darned spider Anansi comes from there. We read all of the Anansi stories we could get our hands on this year, and Sunburst was quite taken with them. Especially "Anansi and the Moss-Covered Rock," which we read over and over and over again, and it was even funnier still when Moxy Jane read it out loud when she came to see us. This is Sunburst's rendition of the book cover:



To round out the show the girls brought some food to share. As Sunburst told them, "We were going to make giant forest snail stew with fufu, but we couldn't find any giant forest snails and (boxed) fufu tastes like bellybuttons smell, so we just brought African cookies instead."

Flowing

The trees are going crazy! The last few days we were getting only 3 gallons of sap per day. Today we had to change out the collection jugs twice. Our sap production tripled. NINE gallons of sap!

If it takes five hours to boil down 3 gallons of sap... well, you do the math. We have WAY more sap than we can manage today.

I'm not complaining. No. I'm still excited about the whole endeavor. So what if I'm tied to the house at the mercy of my propane cooker. What's better than spending time out in the moonlight basking in the sweet vapors of maple broth?

As the flow has increased, so has our syrup production and our astonishment of nature's bounty. We've been singing our own mapley version of the song "Johnny Appleseed":

Oh, God is good to us.
And so we thank our God.
For giving us the things we need:
The sun, and the rain, and the maple seed;
Oh, God is good to us.

And every seed we sow
Will grow into a tree.
And there will be syrup there
For everyone in the world to share.
Oh, God is good to us.

Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen, maple syrup, Amen!

Makin' Syrup

Last week at our bi-monthly coop we learned how to tap maple trees, collect sap, and cook it down into maple syrup. Sunburst and I have been intrigued by this idea for years, and wow! It turns out that it's a fairly simple process.

In our excitement, we went straight out and collected our equipment:

• Hand drill, 7/16" drill bit
  
• Taps and hooks
• Empty gallon water jugs for collection
  
• Turkey Fryer cooking base
• Propane tank
  
• Large enamel pot
• Ball pint jars

Since we live in the city we had to opt for a legal outdoor heat source like propane. According to the literature, it takes anywhere from 32 -50 gallons of sap to make ONE gallon of syrup, depending on the kind of maple tree you tap and the sugar content of your sap. That's a lot of water to cook out, so you boil sap for several hours every day during maple season. We have seven taps running right now on three maple trees, and that gives us about 3 gallons of sap per day. That's as much as will fit in my pot, leaving the tiniest bit of room in hopes that it doesn't boil over. A two-day accumulation of boiled sap gives me just one pint of syrup.

It doesn't sound like much, does it? But that one little bit of syrup makes my heart sing! I don't think I've been this excited about anything in a long time!

There is a wealth of information out there on tapping trees in your own backyard. I can't recommend it enough! If you try this at home, please remember to thank your trees!



Be sure to check out Aleisha's great photos of our co-op tree-tapping event.

Online resources:
How to Tap Maple Trees and Make Maple Syrup (pdf)
Make Your Own

STOP telling your kids they're smart!

Apparently, telling your kids they're smart sets them up to be underachieving failures. Fascinating!

http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/

Word Family Village

We've been having a blast lately making up words.

This is Sunburst's own Word Family Village. It's not finished yet, but she has been working on it steadily, and with great gusto, for the last three weeks. And not only is it fun, it's accomplishing exactly what I had hoped that it would: Sunburst is learning to spell.

As any unschooler will tell you, the best way to learn to spell is by reading. That argument makes perfect sense to me. But for some reason, despite the fact that Sunburst readily and greedily reads over 200 pages a day now, she still can't spell. Maybe this is something that comes with time? Or maybe, I think, Sunburst has always been a FAST sort of person. Despite her reading ability and comprehension, she doesn't slow down to think about how words are constructed. So when it comes time for her to write words, they fumble upon the page in strange configurations.

So I thought we'd slow things down a bit and work on basic word construction. Word Families. You know what I'm talking about - -it, -in, -an, -on, -up, -un, -en, -et.... that sort of thing.



I started out by drawing a house on the chalkboard and telling a simple story, which went something like:

Once upon a time there was a family called the In Family. They lived in a very small house with a red door that that had their name written right upon it: In. That way the mail carrier never got confused and delivered them someone else's mail.

Well, one day, even though their house was small, they decided to have a big party. Their relatives started arriving in an orange bus. b, d, t, g, w... All of them came, and they were having a great time. They cooked up a mess of yummy food, and laughed, and hugged, and talked all day long . But as the night wore on, they got louder and louder and louder. No one at the In house could sleep with all this noise, so they decided to stay up all night long. They cooked more food, laughed at each other's jokes, and cranked up the music and had a dance party. It was great, except for one thing. The noise coming from the In house was so loud that it woke up the neighbors.

One by one the neighbors came over and knocked on the door asking them to quiet down. Finally, the sheriff came, and that got their attention. "Shhhhhhhhh!" Said the sheriff, "Your neighbors are trying to sleep!"

So one by one, the Ins settled down to a whisper, and as the sun started peeking over the horizon, the last In had fallen fast asleep.

Sunburst liked the story, and so then I showed her that all the folks that had come over to the In house actually made words. We sounded them out together, and then she drew the house in her book with all the -in words. Then I asked her if she could use the -in words to make a poem. She happily dictated, I wrote it on the board, and then she copied it into her book. (Rin is place from the Rowan of Rin book series she's crazy about.)



Then Sunburst asked for another story. But first I handed her a pad of construction paper, scissors, and a glue stick and asked her to make the In house. While she was doing this, I took a few wooden shapes (spoons, popsicle sticks, and teardrops) and began to make consonant people. Sunburst helped dress them. The small ones are singular consonants. The larger ones are consonant blends. She took her In house and glued it onto a presentation board and started drawing roads and grass, and before we knew it, it started to look like a village. She even drew a town square with a fountain! We attached the people with a loop of masking tape on the back, and one by one we started moving families in. The Ut house looks like a hut. The Up house is on stilts. The Ub house, well, it's actually an elitist pizza parlor. You have to make an -ub word to eat there... otherwise, they deliver.





Sunburst even got Moonshine involved by having her color in all the roads.



All this was well and fun, but the question was still there. Is Sunburst learning to spell?

To answer that query, we decided to host a spelling bee. It was actually Sunburst's idea to have an oral test. Three of our favorite characters came: Martha, Charlotte, and Rosemary. Sunburst represented for each of them, of course. They all did an outstanding job spelling words from a few different families. And rumor has it, they can't wait to do it again.