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.

Turn up the heat!

We had a bit of a freeze here.

On Tuesday we lost our power around noon while I was cooking lunch. We kept waiting for it to come back on, anticipating that it wouldn't be out for long. But it didn't.

All day long we watched the freezing rain come down. We huddled in front of the gas fireplace, boiled kettles of water for tea and spaghetti, and bit by bit started putting on extra sweaters, hats, scarves, gloves... and still the power didn't come back on.

We urged the kids to run around in circles to keep warm. We snuggled and read by firelight and candlelight, until our eyes hurt and we finally gave up. It was dark. It was cold. And the kids, fully dressed, climbed into sleeping bags and went to sleep. Early. Very, very early.

And so did we.

The cold woke us up earlier than usual. We couldn't boil water fast enough for tea. Outside, the world outside had turned into a blanket of ice. Inside the house, we could see our breath. We were all shivering and teeth chattering and heaped up together to stay warm. Or trying to stay warm. With coats on and everything, it was still ridiculously unbearable. Einstein and I weighed the thickness of the chill against the obviously treacherous icy roads, and it wasn't a hard choice. As we were herding the kids toward the open door it happened. In our moment of desperation the power came back on.

Our rejoicing was great, to say the least. It's amazing how much we take for granted. Light at the end of a switch. Heat at the push of a button. Dry roads most of the year. I find I don't think about those things until they're not there. It inspired a lot of talk about the olden days, and how even our gas fireplace was a gift of modern technology.

Twenty-two hours without electricity isn't much when you really think about all those who have gone before. We've been reading through the Little House series: Martha, Charlotte... Laura-- none of them had electricity. And yet they managed extremely well.

That cold day gave us a lot to think about, and despite our uncomfortableness, it was a really fun time. We tend to not spend that much time pressed up against one another, snuggled into each other's warmth, encroaching on each other's space. It was so nice and calm that just for a moment we pondered turning the electricity off every night. That was until we noticed the mess left behind from the freezer defrosting...

A Week's Food

Milk is nice for Monday,
Milk begins with M;
Treacle tarts for Tuesday,
I'm rather fond of them;
Walnuts do for Wednesday;
Thursday, toast and tea;
Friday figs; and Saturday soup;
And Sunday--
Wait and see!

- E.C. Brereton
from A Little Book of Rhymes New and Old, c. 1940

Full bellies, full days

Birthday week is finally over! Thanks for all the well wishes.

On Tuesday we had a little family celebration with a very small cake that was completely overwhelmed with plastic horses. Then on Saturday we filled our house with the laughter and shrieking of three lovely families and their children in what amassed in a five hour birthday party bonanza with even more cake. To say the least, Sunburst was thrilled! So thrilled in fact, that she made us a family of "Thank You" cards to commemorate the loveliness of her birthday.

We inadvertently created a new birthday tradition in this house when I realized that I completely forgot to purchase birthday candles until the afternoon of Sunburst's birthday. Rather than brave the snow, we decided to melt a bit of beeswax in a small bean can and add in a bit of candle coloring wax. Sunburst was overjoyed to labor away dipping her own birthday candles, two at a time, on lengths of crochet cotton I cut for the task. They worked beautifully! And she managed to count and make enough to outfit her party cake as well.



As for me, I kept busy teaching myself to make icing roses, per Sunburst's request. Luckily, I wasn't completely on my own in this, as I discovered that there are a slew of cake decorating videos online.

That alone would have made for a full week, but other things happened as well:

At our bi-monthly co-op my favorite camp counselor, Aleisha, taught us some new songs and drama games that have kept the kids entertained for several days now. Even Kitty Bill is captivated by "Tony Chestnut," so it looks like we'll be adding it to our pre-lessons warm-up over here. I've noticed that, although we can't manage a full circle time each day, things go a lot smoother if we warm up a bit with a couple of movement songs and hand-clapping.

Kitty Bill is no longer living up to the passivity of his blog name. He's a mischievous little sprite! He's into everything these days, including all the kitchen drawers and the kitchen counters. Nothing is safe. Nothing is sacred. He has even demolished our sturdy easel chalkboard. And naps? Forget about it. He says he's too old for that nonsense anymore. So a new name for him is in the works... and an all-new naptime scheme.

In other news, I met with a new doctor on Friday who pronounced my heel to be suffering from nerve damage. It has been 12 weeks since our car accident, and I'm still limping along. Every time I try to put just a bit more weight on that heel my progress moves backwards. So how long is it going to take? The doctor told me that it could be another 3 months. I was so taken aback by this news that I didn't even know what to say to him. He can't be serious, right? Could it really take six months (or more?) until I can walk normally again?

Until then, I continue with physical therapy. Though I'd much rather be pain-free, truth be told, there are worse ways to spend 45 minutes a week than getting a foot massage.

Anticipation

When I have said my evening prayer,
And my clothes are folded on the chair,
And Mother switches off the light,
I'll still be seven years old to-night.

But from the very break of day,
Before the children rise and play,
Before the greyness turns to gold,
To-morrow I'll be eight years old.

Eight kisses when I wake,
Eight candles on my cake!

-Lucy Betty McRaye
from A Little Book of Rhymes New and Old, circa 1940

Sunburst has not been able to contain herself all day. Tomorrow she'll be turning eight. EIGHT!? It seems so old... how on earth did she get to be eight already?!

Let the Good Times Roll

Blessings that are bright.
May our hearts always be light.
Blessings on our bread.
May we all be healthy fed.
Blessings on this day.
May Spring not be so far away.





Today was a great day. We're really back in the flow, and boy, does it feel good.

Yesterday Sunburst and I sat down and had a talk about how things are going. She's been lost in a reading zone lately-- just completely obsessed with two different series she's working through (The Fairy Realm and Rowan of Rin.) It has been really hard to capture her attention, and I get it. Who wants to put down a good book? Or in her case, a good pile of books? She hasn't seemed all that interested in anything I suggest lately, namely, our Waldorf lessons.

So I asked her if she wanted to continue with them or not. She looked at me like I asked her if she wanted to eat a porcupine. Stop. Doing. Lessons? So we came up with a plan to fit in lessons AND reading time, and today's execution went off without a hitch. We got so much accomplished, both in work and play, that I just want to bronze this day and hang it on the wall.

We even managed to sneak in some Saints work, recalling a story of St. Brigid's Cloak, that we read over the holidays. Plus a couple more St. Brigit stories from this site.

We had a good mix of Groundhog's Day, Candelmas, and St. Brigid's Day revelry, and even whipped up an Irish soda bread in the shape of a cross for afternoon snack.

St. Brigid's Bread
2 1/2 c flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
2 T sugar
1/2 t sea salt
1/4 c raisins
1/4 c dried cranberries
handful of nuts or seeds (we used pumpkin seeds)
1 c soy milk
1 T apple cider vinegar

Preheat oven to 350. Mix all dry ingredients. Add milk and vinegar and stir gently until mixed. Spoon mixture onto a greased cookie sheet in the shape of a cross. Bake for about 30 minutes.

Paper Friends

Yesterday the girls spent all morning playing with their tiny Ghanaian friends.

I printed them out from this site HERE, and the girls are having a blast. It's our warm-up to a project they're doing on Ghana for our local homeschool International Fair in March. They were so excited to start the project, and who am I to hold them back. Their enthusiasm is contagious.

Each doll has been named a traditional Ghanaian day name, which seems to have everything to do with the day of the week you are born, using this site HERE. We may decide to adopt our own Ghanaian names for a day. I've been checking out my options, and apparently as a Thursday child, I'm something akin to "a big rock in one's pocket." Is that a good thing?

We also spent some time crafting our own Flat Stanley dolls. Flat Sunburst and Flat Rosemary! are packed up and ready to travel. First stop: Moxy Jane's kids in Austin, Texas. I can hear them giggling in their envelope, giddy with anticipation.

Perspective

Last night I tripped over the baby gate in our hallway. It was one of those teetery falls, where there's time enough to work up a surge of adrenaline trying to right your balance. In the end I didn't go down, but I banged my leg on the gate pretty hard. Luckily though, it was an all new part of my leg, and not the pre-injured portions.

It still hurt though, and my heart was pounding, and my breathing was shallow and fast. Just imagining the pain I could have been in, for a split second the idea of reinjuring my injuries, freaked me out. And I crouched on the floor in the hallway panting.

Moonshine saw everything and ran to me, showering me with a dozen kisses. "Are you okay, Mommy? Did you get hurt?"

"Yes, I'm okay, just a little scared," I told her. "The kisses really help."

She looked between me and the gate and back again, and in her matter of fact voice informed me, "Well, it's not badder than a car accident or anything."

Talk about perspective! Get over it Mom. This too shall pass....

a side order of sleep

As you know things have been a little kooky over here, and we've been really struggling trying to get our rhythms back in place. Everything depends upon that rhythm- our ability to function in the world, stay focused on tasks, and communicate clearly and humanely with one another.

Clearly and humanely. I always had assumed that would be the easy part... but when our rhythms are out of whack, nothing is easy. Nothing is clear. And I find myself suddenly at the end of the day wondering how did we get here?

Rhythm, to me, depends primarily on two things: food and sleep. Regular and consistent mealtimes are easy. I watched my kids to see when they get hungry, and I began to anticipate that hunger. We eat every 2-3 hours. I don't know if that's normal or not. But that's when we're hungry. You can set the clock by it. 9, 12, 3, 5:30, and 7:30.

Sleep, on the other hand, is less easy. When Sunburst was a wild and energetic one-year-old who fought sleep with an iron fist, it astounded me how our neighbor's same age child would easily nap twice a day and be back in her room for a 6:30 bedtime. We struggled with sleep issues for years, but eventually we moved past the iron fist business and got on with life for the most part. This past November, our sleep patterns fell apart all over again. A solid month of houseguests, a car accident, illness, holiday fervor, and an injured Mommy who couldn't physically get it together to do the normal bedtime routine turned us all into sleepless wrecks. Normally, I climb in bed with them and we read for 30 minute stretches before the singing and other Mommy voodoo. For the first couple of weeks, I couldn't physically climb into their bed. The nightmares and pain had us up and down all night. One sleepless night led to another and the whole system crashed.

In a moment of complete desperation, I picked up this book, recommended to me by the wise Aleisha.



I can't say enough good things about this book. It had me crying by page six. I'm not saying that I wasn't bone tired and emotionally fragile, because believe me, I was. But it opened my eyes to thinking about sleep and parenting in a whole new light.

And we're sleeping again, for the most part. But even when we're not, because life is always happening, it's like my brain is more attuned to what's going on. I can see sleep issues as sleep issues rather than plots to overthrow my sanity. I can cut us all a little more slack, and the rhythm can still flow through us. And so at last we're back to being mostly humane, functioning people. Who knew?

Building a nest

Last night was our local homeschool Science Fair, and we didn't go. We could have given quite an interactive presentation on GERMS and the spread of influenza. Instead, we opted to stay home, blow our noses, drink hot tea, and reminisce about last year's Science Fair, otherwise known as, the time Sunburst built a nest and Moonshine laid an egg.

It all started when we decided to partake in the Great Backyard Bird Count. All that winter bird watching inspired Sunburst, then age 6.5, to think about birds and nests. She had lots of questions, and we checked out a pile of books from the library. She was fascinated by the idea that birds make their nest out of almost anything, and she decided she would try to build a nest, too. How hard could it be? And which materials would she use?

It was her own brain child, and I let her run with it. She came up with this nest, which was almost too heavy for her to lift, and then narrated a little "how-to" piece:

Coincidentally, we happened to find a REAL nest that had been dislodged from it's usual place, probably by a gardener or a strong wind. Sunburst brought it along as part of her display, although it was teeming with mites.

Along with her nest display, Sunburst presented a poster* on the various nesting materials. She chose to discuss the first two components on her poster... poop and spit! She explained in great detail "bird nest soup!" and the cleverness of birds by adding carnivore poop to their nests to scare off predators. A healthy debate among her peers ensued:

Naysayer #1: "Ewww, that's too gross! Who would eat a nest?"

Naysayer #2: "Or spit?!"

Sunburst (grinning madly): "Well, they eat it in a soup, called Bird Nest Soup."

Naysayer #3: "People eat nests? In soup? I don't think this is true. How do you know about this?"

Sunburst: "Yes, it is true. I read about it in a book."

Obviously poop and spit were a huge hit and she had the whole crowd giggling (even the parents!) She was very cute.

Moonshine, then 3.5 years, not to be left out of the fun, decided that her contribution would be an egg. She crafted this one out of playdough.

It was their first learning fair, and they've been hooked ever since!


*That's a lot of neat handwriting for a 6.5 year old. To help Sunburst make it happen, I lightly penciled in the larger words and she went over them with a marker. She drew the pictures and glued on the "stuff." To simulate poop, she painted a dry chunk of TVP with acrylic paint. The gross factor prevails every time.

More games

We're having some more off-time over at our little homeschool. I managed to pass that nasty flu-bug to each of the kids, and they've been coughing their heads off for the last two days. Anything that looks even remotely like school is out of the question, unless, of course it's some kind of a game.

Enter Kitty Bill, the tiny mastermind. He has been taken with the Langwister cards and has begun distributing them throughout the house. Both his placement of the cards and the successive attempts to clean up said cards has prompted further game play.

We used this verse from A Child's Seasonal Treasury.

We're stepping over stepping stones, 1, 2, 3
We're stepping over stepping stones, come with me
The river's very fast, and the river's very wide
We'll step across the stepping stones to reach the other side.

Today, the girls pulled themselves together enough to play "Cross the River" with me, and they had a fun time and completely forgot to cough for a few minutes. It was great.

We spaced the cards out like stepping stones across the rug in our main room, and in order to "Cross the River" we had to call out the name of the cards before we could step on them. In German, of course, although I watched Moonshine do it in English and it seemed just as challenging to her in either language. I wonder if that has something to do with her age and general dreaminess. It never occurred to me before that four-year-olds would need to stop and rifle through that filing system in their brains to come up with a word they so obviously know in their native tongue to match it to a picture. It was interesting to observe.

When they're feeling better, I'd like to take this game to a more social, cooperative level with them. Give them the stack of cards and a task (ex. Get from Point A to point B without touching the floor.) And then let them use the cards as they need them. Maybe give Moonshine a couple of "magic" cards (like free spaces) so she can hold her own. It would be great to have more kids to help problem solve, but for now, we'll just have to work with what we have.

I was also thinking that the stepping stones idea would work well for math sums. I like the idea of having a sum on each card, and then they have to announce a problem for it (ex. "16" on the card, and they can say "10+6" or "2x8" or "20-4".) From whole to parts. I bet that would be fun.

The other game, the picking up game, doesn't have much to it. The cards are tired and they want to sleep. So the kids need to collect the cards, "Die Katze ist müde." "Guten Nacht, die kleine Katze." And so on... I'm learning if you say anything with enough enthusiasm it catches like fire.

Langwister

Yesterday, as I was languishing on the sofa after being taken down for the count for the last few days by a throat so sore and swollen that my entire head throbbed and I couldn't swallow my own spit without painkillers, I got an idea.

I know, I know. It surprised me, too.

Anyway, I had been thinking about our foreign language lessons, if you can call them lessons. This past Fall we had been singing songs and doing finger plays, but not much else. I was hoping to jump back into language lessons after our extensive break, but jumping back into the same songs, the same plays, all seemed stiff and forced and boring. If there's anything that has occurred to me since our big car crash experience, it's that there's no going back. Life is always changing. All of us are in a perpetual state of metamorphosis, and our homeschool needs to reflect that. We can use the old to create the new... but we can't go back to "exactly the way it was."

This afternoon I spent some time at the dining room table drawing with beeswax block crayons. Then I took my artwork and fed it through the copy machine onto cardstock, cut them out, and did some faux lamination with clear packing tape. Then I threw them on the floor.

The end result? Language + Twister = Langwister.

The girls and I played Langwister for about an hour. We played a very simple version. Just hopping from picture to picture this time, feeling out the experience.

First I called out the words in English, so they got the hang of it.

Mother, father, dog, cat, shoes, house.

We did it slow. Then fast. Then faster. This was fun enough they thought. Then, to switch it up a notch, I called them out in German.

Mutter, Vater, Hund, Katze, Schuhe, Haus.

That was better, they thought. It made them think a bit. Bonk into each other. Laugh. Then, I cranked it up again and called them out in Spanish.

Madre, padre, perro, gato, zapatos, casa.

Whew! Craziness. Chaos. And funny, too.

I just wanted to see. How does this work? Is this a viable language lesson? Is it fun?

They seemed to like it. I plan on adding new pictures to the mix over time, as we progress. We'll craft a spinner and throw in hands with the feet, and really get that Twister-effect going and see where that takes us. I'm hoping they will want to help make the pictures. They were so curious about what I was doing today that they finally brought their own paper to the table and started drawing right along side me.

Moonshine made this picture. It appears as if she has started experimenting with hairstyles, and I'm not surprised.




Sunburst got right to work on a new book, which she then narrated and presented to her father at dinnertime tonight.



And then Moonshine pulled out the Langwister cards and spent an hour matching them up and playing Memory with them... Even Kitty Bill got into the fun and grabbed at the mother card and cried out, "Mama! Mama!" The boy knows what he likes... of course he calls Einstein "mama" all the time, so what do I know.

School Happens

"His hound at his heel,
His hawk on his wrist
A brave steed to carry him whither he list
And the blue sky over him."

Can you tell what we're working on?

We've jumped feet first into a new block to start off the New Year. Padriac Colum's The King of Ireland's Son. So far, we love it. We're entranced and addicted and on the edge of our seats. Treachery, enchanters, killing, magic, and true love. And we're only on page 30. We can't wait to hear what happens next. It's almost painful to stop and draw pictures and write little sentences to go along with them.

But we could both use the artistic outlet, so we're making an effort to go slow and build that anticipation. Strengthen the will and all of that. Have our cake and eat it, too.

Meanwhile Sunburst hasn't had her fill of the Anansi stories. She's been retelling her favorites to anyone who will listen, and then, she's reinacting them - sort of. All on her own. No prompting necessary. Let the grand trickery and scheming commence!

Last night I was highly absorbed in cooking dinner when I turned around to the stove and beheld this:



Yup. She got me. Anansi and the Tomato Soup.

The fun continues.

Sanity, lost and found

Finally it all makes sense!

I'm losing my mind. It has been one thing after another lately, and last night I reached peak overload. I threw in the towel and called everything off. All of it. Homeschooling. Motherhood. Cooking. Cleaning. Breathing. I. Can't. Do. This. Anymore.

Have you ever been there?

My resignation lasted all of a few minutes. Of course I can do this, I just seem to have temporarily misplaced my sanity. It all started with the car accident and not being able to do much of anything physically. Just trying to situate myself to pee took my breath away the first few days. Then girls started acting out-- Sunburst with her open defiance, and Moonshine with the incessant whining. Kitty Bill started climbing on the tables and whacking things off the counters. No one was sleeping. Our rhythms got totally and completely whacked out, and then came the vomitting. All this and Christmas, too!

Moonshine vomitted all through Solstice. There was no greeting of the sun or gathering of friends, reverance, symbolism, and candlelit spiral bliss. There was just vommit. It subsided just in time for Christmas morning, thankfully, but by then we were simply worn out.

Since the vomitting sickness, Moonshine has been less than agreeable. She has been throwing a tantrum a day. These are all-new tantrums. Special tantrums. Flailing, kicking, screaming, shrieking, crying until you can't breathe, vomitting, and then crying some more tantrums. We have had at least one-a-day for several days now, and the slightest thing sets them off. Last night was perhaps the pinnacle of tantrumness, just as dinner was put upon the table. And that was it for me. Maximum overload. I threw in my proverbial towel and had to step away from the child.

There's a lot I don't understand about my kids. Now, I cried a lot as a kid. I did. You just had to look at me wrong, and there I would go, off like a sprinkler. But to kick and scream and cry hard enough to vomit? When I've lost people I loved, I've cried that hard. But at four? Over a lost sticker? A piece of candy? Dinner?

It's too much to deal with. It's too much for me. It's certainly too much for Moonshine. She gets on this roll, and she can't stop herself. Seriously, she shrieks and cries and flips out for over an hour until she literally can't breathe and starts gagging. And the only thing I've found that works is if I get down on her level and hold her close to me with a hand covering her eyes and tell her a story. I have to block out reality... the smells, the sounds, the sights in the room, and I have to give her this illusory world to live into. As quickly as I can come up with something. A story of Jenny, the weaver's daughter working on her wedding shawl. Hear the shuttle breathe against the warp threads. See the pattern of doves on the fabric. A story of the whirring snowflakes, sparkling in the moonlight and all the animals and fairies gathering round for a wintery party. Oh look, there's Mr. Squirrel peeking out of his nest. Won't you come join the party, the fairies cry to him? We've plenty of nuts! And Ms. Mouse scurries out wearing a red silken gown. She's brought a plate of the finest gingerbread cookies to share, and the fairies catch scent of them and squeal with delight...

And on I go, for half an hour or so. As long as it takes to get her breathing and still and safe. To get her sorted out and functioning back in our world long enough so I can clean up the vomit and wipe her face and get Kitty Bill off the table again.

In thinking about it all, it's no surprise to me that I'm going crazy. I feel like my world is imploding, that everything is coming to a head. And it is. Apparently it's supposed to be. I'm 34.

I've been reading this book, Taking Charge: Your Life Patterns and Their Meaning, by Gudrun Burkhard. It's an anthroposophy book dealing with biography work, similarities, and life stages. Supposedly there is a life crisis somewhere between the ages of 30-33. You know, plus or minus. At age 35 you begin a new life phase. This crisis is a catalyst for that new phase. A change, a metamorphosis, a becoming... and apparently this is mine.

Biography work is amazing stuff. I've gone through a lot of major changes since I turned 30. We got rid of almost everything we owned and moved to Texas. My dad died. We simultaneously had a baby, sold our house, and moved to the midwest. Things were going swell, and then WHAM! Car crash wake up call. And this summer, we will move again, and start over for the third time in four years.

Einstein is ecstatic about that. He can't wait. But then again, he's 37. He's at that major turning point, according to the book, where people change their jobs and plod forward with bold enthusiasm. Me? I just want to stick my head into the sand. Call me when it's over. When the kids stop screaming and the floors get cleaned and my body stops hurting. And I'm not coming out a moment sooner... I wish.

Today I woke with a plan. Starting with getting our rhythm back into place. I walked on eggshells around Moonshine today and spoonfed her syrupy words and catered to her every need. I fed her before she knew she was hungry. I held her before she knew she needed to be held. I coddled her in every imaginable way... and there was no flailing and crying. A few shrieks, yes, but no knock-down, drag-out vomitting freakshow. It was a GOOD day.

And what's more, I even managed to get in a few minutes of homeschooling time with Sunburst. I fed her some Anansi stories to match the soap-on-your-toothbrush antics she's been up to lately. And she lapped them up like honey and asked for more.

We're off to a better start just in time for the new year. And tomorrow, joy of joys, Moxy Jane is coming! Here! To my house!

Surely, things can only get better.

Heart on my sleeve

This car accident is the gift that keeps on giving this season. Today I was told that my left heel may have a small crack in the bone, but there is no treatment for it except to keep off of it and wait.

How long? As long as it takes.

They're labeling it as a bony contusion (bruised bone) at this point, and if I can't bear pressure on it in a month then they will do an MRI to check the extent of the damage, just for fun. Meanwhile, I'm supposed to crutch it, and the doc told me it would probably hurt for awhile. How long is awhile? Months, apparently.

Doesn't the universe know that I have THREE SMALL KIDS? That I don't ship them off to school and preschool and daycare everyday? That we're home and learning and that they need me? I've been eeking by the last month with help. We've been on our own for a week and I'm struggling to keep up. It takes me all day long now to do an hour's worth of cleaning. Add to that Moonshine's vomiting and Kitty Bill's ear infection, and I'm just like a wet piece of toast.

I've got my heart on my sleeve this week. I'm sad and confused and angry all at once. I want to be feeling the joy and singing the carols. It's Christmastime! Solstice is here! But I'm not here, not present in the moment, not really. I've got a heavy load.

Einstein is back on the job market. He missed an interview in England the week after the accident because we couldn't walk. In two weeks he'll be interviewing for a position at in Utah. The thought of picking up again already is painful and scary. I knew it was coming, that we were still transitory. But I also didn't expect to like the midwest so much. Sure, I miss the mountains out west, but there are some truly amazing folks here. The homeschooling community is diverse and welcoming and just full of some really fantastic people.

Of course I said that about Texas, too. We seem to be making family wherever we go. I'm just tired of going. Tired of packing up and putting myself out there. Doing the little homeschool dance with a new community. Will they like us? Are we too different? Will our kids fit in? Will it be enough?

This is the first time I've felt these questions so deeply because as tired as I am of moving, this is it. This is what I wanted. These jobs are permanent, forever, put your roots down and watch your kids grow up too fast. There are still a dozen applications out there, and there's no telling how many of them we'll get to choose between. How do you choose forever? By the scenery? By the job? By the homeschooling environment? By the community? It's hard.

Maybe I've got to put down my heavy load, and as terrifying as it is, let forever choose us.

The Low-down

Thanks so much everyone for all the well wishes. It means so much! And thanks for hanging in there with me... it has been a crazy time. Crazy!

I know some of you were waiting for the gruesome details of our car accident. It could have been much worse, really. But I'll give you the low-down. Suffice it to say that we had a very full vehicle. We had company in town. Remember my step-mom who had just been in ICU for a month? She was in the front seat. She had come to visit, and we were having a lovely time. It was her last day with us, and we were taking her to see the lake. She's from Tucson where naturally occurring water is a mystical thing. Anyway, we didn't quite make it to the lake that day.

I was in the middle of the backseat with the three kids. I had just unbuckled my seatbelt because Kitty Bill was screaming. I felt Einstein hit the brakes, and I turned my head just in time to see this car SMASH right into us. Next thing I knew I was in the front seat and the car was filling with smoke and the kids were screaming their heads off.

We all got out of the car, and I registered the fact that my head and leg were hurting more than a bit. But Kitty Bill, 14 months old at the time of the accident, had a mouthful of blood. BLOOD. I rememember thinking, OMG! MY BABY'S BLEEDING! Maybe I screamed it a few times. My memory is a bit fuzzy about that. The girls, Sunburst and Moonshine, were screaming, too. Crying and screaming. And of course Kitty Bill was screaming. He bit his tounge pretty hard... though at the time, I had no clue why he was bleeding so much.

I couldn't stand. It was 30-some odd degrees outside and sort of raining/sleeting. But my brain didn't register that. It only told me, SIT DOWN. So I sat in the cold, wet grass rocking a bleeding baby. Completely helpless to calm my girls. Completely incapable, especially when I reached back to touch my pounding head and came away with a handful of my own blood. The back of my head was soaked with blood. It was dripping down my neck, and the paramedics told me my neck was cut. At that point, they could have told me that aliens were dropping out of the sky. The shivering and shock started to set in, and some nice bystander brought me a blanket while we waited to be loaded into the ambulance.

My stepmom took out the glovebox with her knee and shin. Einstein ended up with swollen knees. Sunburst cut her knee. Moonshine and Kitty Bill... let me just say, carseats really are worth every penny. Those thick metal clips that you're supposed to use when you're fastening a carseat to a shoulder harness belt? Those clips actually BENT from the force of the accident. Oddly enough, we were congratulated in the ambulance by a local firefighter for having our carseats properly installed with those clips. It was a weird moment.

And me? Physically, I'm okay. The insurance adjuster surmised that I flew through the car: bent the driver's seat with my body/leg, busted off the rearview mirror with one part of my head, caught my hair (where a clump of it still hangs to this day) on the visor clip, and then proceeded to smash another part of my head into the passenger's side windshield. I've been told that had I weighed more or had we been going a tiny bit faster... or had I not been impeded with bending that driver's seat... maybe I would have gone though the windshield?

But, I didn't. I'm here.

I've had just about every part of my body x-rayed and/or CT-scanned by now. I'm making progress. I've been able to wear a shoe on my left foot for a few days now. I'm finally hobbling along without crutches, though I can't bear any weight on my left heel-- still waiting on the results from that x-ray. My ankle is still a beautiful shade of blue-green. In the ER they originally thought my leg was broken and put me in a knee-to-crotch immobilizer for a few days. They washed and examined my bloody head and offered to staple it closed. They ran some kind of dye and iodine solution through my system and stuck me in a machine to see if I impaled any of my organs when I flew around in the car. Luckily, all I did was break an L-2 transverse process. In layman's terms, that's one of those wings that stick out on the side of my spine in my lower back. Apparently it breaks only when you twist really hard... and four weeks later it hurts when I twist or lift anything heavy or bend wrong or pull or push or sneeze hard. So I'm trying not to do those things.

Emotionally? I think we're all messed up. Einstein and I are both a bit freaked out when we drive. The girls are having trouble sleeping and having behavior problems, and Moonshine seems suddenly obsessed with death. "Because sometimes even loving mothers die, like in Cinderella." They have been playing "Dead Princess," over and over and over. Maybe it's all a coincidence? But I'm thinking that now that I can walk somewhat it's time to check us all into some kind of post-accident therapy.

We were so blessed to have such wonderful help over the last four weeks! People brought us lunch and dinner and Thanksgiving pies. They helped shuttle our kids various places, loaned us crutches, rescued us at the ER with warm tea and vegan treats, and took our girls home, bathed them and put them to bed. Amazing folks! We also had family here helping out. Einstein's parents came for five days, and then my youngest teenage sister flew out from California for two weeks. Since she's homeschooled, she can do that!

With my sister's help we managed to eek out some birthday cheer for Einstein, get the shoes out for St. Nicholas Day, decorate for Advent and Christmas, and do a Santa Lucia breakfast. Plus, she made me laugh so hard I cried. Truly. And of course she helped enormously with the kids- leave it to Kitty Bill to learn how to climb on the dining room table the day after the accident!

And there you have it. The long, full story of why we haven't done any formal homeschooling in the last month. And now, we're moving on into the Christmas hooplah, and then hopefully we'll be back to our regularly scheduled program. Heart, hands, head. Homeschooling and all that.

CRASH!

That's our car.

Sunday afternoon we were hit head-on by a 16-year-old who lost control around a slick curve.

We hurt. There were six of us in the car, including the kids. It happened so fast. It was terrifying and horrible and crazy.

We're still trying to assess the extent of our physical damages. They carted us all off in an ambulance, and we got to learn all kinds of things about x-rays and cat-scans and ivs and saline and iodine. We learned about broken bones and wheelchairs and leg immobilizers and crutches. We learned how much a head-wound bleeds versus a tounge-wound. We learned about shock and shivering and that we don't EVER want to learn about this stuff again. As long as we live.

We live. We're alive. ALIVE! And it blows my mind and heart wide open.

There's so much to be thankful for.... but now, I need to go lay back down. More to come.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Swallowing horses and other maths phenomena

For our Grade Two maths block we're back in the swing of things with the continuing saga, "The Adventures of Clara."

This time out, our heroine Clara (your average Wiseman's daughter who lives in an age of castles, horse-drawn carts, gnomes, talking dragons, and good sturdy walking shoes) is making her return journey home from helping nurse a sick family in a neighboring village. On the way she encounters an odd man on the side of the road. He is deep in contemplation but then abruptly looks up and yells out fantastic numbers, "1, 342, 105!" And then "2, 684, 210!" Clara interrupts him and they begin a great discourse on all the possible things you can count. Birds, ants, clouds, cows, trees... He even does some quick calculations to count the leaves on a nearby tree, assessing the number of branches, first, and then the number of leaves on each branch, and WOW! What a huge number of leaves! And WOW again, what counting!

I decided for the introduction to this lesson, that I would just put it all out there-- the BIG PICTURE. I wanted Sunburst to get a taste for the possibilities. My goal was to inspire her with the grandieur of large numbers, the quickness of counting, and how it can be used like a trick or entertainment. Numbers are fun and fantastic, and there are no limits.

Lucky for me, it worked. Sunburst was awestruck, and she loved how fast the man counted the leaves on the trees. She repeated the same trick on Einstein while we were sitting at the dinner table with some creative math of her own. She just made up some wildly large numbers and threw them out there, filling up the air with some kind of mathematical magic. Abracadra, I'm counting into the millions! And with that exciting introduction, we were off!

I gleaned this introduction and story idea from a book called The Man Who Counted which was written by a Brazilian mathematician in 1949. It's a marvelous story, and I'm finding a lot of useful story material that needs little adaptation to make it meaningful and useful for what I'm trying to present. It would be useful for any grade, with a bit of tweaking here and there, and that's precisely what I aim to do.

I'm also throwing in a bit of Aesops and other stories (fairytales, Sikh stories, legends, etc.) to mix it up a bit, deepen the work, and balance it out so that we keep it centered in the heart. We'll still practice our rhymical counting with games as we go along, too, but for Sunburst, a good story is everything. It has to move her and inspire her to carry us through.

The first thing we did was draw a picture of Clara encountering her new counting friend, Beremiz (yup, straight from the book.) At the top of the picture we put one of those astronomically large numbers he was calling out. Sunburst loved that. She got to write a number that was in the millions! Then we counted the leaves on the trees, but not into the millions. We counted much smaller trees --and ended with totals like, 16, 24, and with Sunburst's suggestions, 90, and 120. We counted from whole to parts and parts to whole, just for fun.

Next, Clara and Beremiz decided to walk together and the two were met by Clara's trusty horse, Penny (Sunburst is feeling deep horse-love right now.) The three were going along when they encountered three brothers arguing over the division of a pasture of horses (again, from the book.) They were trying to divide 35 horses between them, as per their father's will, by 1/2, 1/3, and 1/9. We worked it out and it necessitated cutting up a few horses-- a head here, a flank there (the gross factor works every time.) But Beremiz had a better idea - a trick!

This is what I love about this book. It's all about tricks and surprises, which is just where Sunburst is developmentally at. It just fits so well. Anyway, Beremiz offers to add Clara's horse to their hoarde (it's okay Clara, trust me) and everything turns out peachy. Each brother gets more horses than they would have gleaned from the original 35, and look! There are two left-over. Penny, which belongs to Clara, and another for Beremiz. Tricks and happy endings.

Sunburst wanted to draw the two horses and then we worked out a horse division problem on a smaller scale: 12 horses, divided between 3 brothers: 1/2, 1/3, and 1/6. She really, really understood what was going on. It was fantastic! Until she swallowed one of the marble counters we had been using to count horses... unfortunately, it was the one she had carefully selected to represent Clara's horse, Penny.... Poor Penny, down the hatch!

That night Clara and Beremiz stayed at an Inn. It was awfully cold and stormy, so to pass the time that night Beremiz and Clara sat in the parlor with their thick mugs of tea and played a dice game called "Twelves." Each person takes their turn at the same time, rolling two dice each. They add them up and keep a tally sheet. The goal is to get to (or surpass) twelve. If both players reach twelve on the same turn, they both win (which happened quite often.) If only one player does, then he or she wins. No one loses, really, because you just pick up your dice and play again and again and again. It was good counting and adding and estimating practice. And Clara enjoyed the game very much.

Next Clara taught Beremiz a dice game... this was Sunburst's idea. It was called something like, "Get to the Boat." We have a striped area rug in our living room. This was the sea full of logs. At the end of the sea is a loveseat pretending to be a boat. We used a large die we fashioned out of cardboard awhile back and took turns rolling it. Each roll of the die told us how many stripes we could move forward. The game was made more interesting by the fact that some of the stripes are skinny and hard to stand on without falling over, SPLASH! Finally we both reached the boat and then we had to ask the die questions, like Should we swim back? Should we cook dinner now? Rolling a 1 or 2 was a YES answer. 5 or 6 were NO. It was some kind of magic 8-ball dice thing, and all of this was made a bit more difficult with Kitty Bill's repeated attempts to abscond with our die.

Eventually we managed to swim home again and make dinner, but you knew that already. As for Clara and Beremiz, we left them stuck at the Inn... and who knows what counting fun they will encounter next! I've got a few ideas mapped out, but we'll have to wait and see...

Lanterns in the night

Last night we went on our lantern walk to celebrate Martinmas-- bringing light into the darkness, lifting our voices in song, and trying not to get caught in the forecasted downpour.

This was our fourth Martinmas celebration-- just our little family. I don't know what it's like to walk en masse with a group of torch bearers, but there's something about the symbolism of this celebration that's deep, even with the light of one lantern lighting a path through the darkness. We've walked in the woods. We've walked in our neighborhood. And for the last two years, we've walked through the twisting, dimly-lit, forest paths of a university campus, singing our songs and bringing smiles to those who cross our paths. There's something about that... bringing this ethereal image to touch the lives of unsuspecting others that made our last two walks the most rewarding of all.

We carry very simple folded-paper lanterns that we painted with watercolors. For the lanterns below we used medium-weight drawing paper that measured 30x40 cm. After folding, cutting, and gluing (see pattern,) we attach pipe cleaner handles with a hole puncher and tape tea lights in the bottom. They turn out fairly sturdy.

There are many variations on the story of St. Martin and how he shared his cloak with a beggar. We tell a similar version, though not quite, to this one. The story itself is just one example of choosing kindness. By celebrating this day we're also recognizing the light within ourselves, our own goodness, and releasing it into the world. The light of our lanterns on this night seems to sustain us, carry us, through the long dark nights that lead up to the solstice. It keeps us mindful that there's something deeper, brighter, and more meaningful at play here.

Balancing Unschooling and Waldorf

Big Mama asked me a really great question about how I balance Unschooling and Waldorf. Actually it's quite simple, really.

What we do is use unschooling (child interest) as our foundation where-upon all things rest/build. Last October Sunburst asked for something "more school-like" and I turned to Waldorf Ed and presented her a lesson. She loved it and wanted more, and that's how we got here. She still wants more and LOVES the stories, so we're still using Waldorf as a guide.

So far almost everything that I've offered up to her she has latched onto and wanted to see through to the end, though again I think it's that idea of school and authority. She loves to play school and have the idea of school. And I think she craves the authority of having someone else come up with the ideas. I have no doubts that her varied interests, if pursued, would give her a full education. But I think she really needs/wants to share the load of responsibility there. By handing the reins to me, she's free to sit back and learn. It's a lot of work to constantly run the show and be in it!

If one of my lessons hits a brick wall, I would have to really examine if it was lack of interest or poor presentation. I'd probably ask her. I think we're close to that brick wall with this tree stuff we're doing... probably because it comes less from me and my creative process and more from a book, so we've shelved it for now. I've asked her if she wanted to work on it, and she's told me, "No. Not right now." It's easy to tell when something just doesn't excite her.

I also use her interests to guide lessons. For our letter stories last year, one of the main characters was a girl that had similar interests to Sunburst, and Sunburst really latched onto her. I weaved that same character into our Intro to Numbers lesson, our introduction to the flute, in presenting the four operations, and into the math stories for grade two. Sunburst is currently into horses, so our current maths lesson is rife with horse-work. I've noticed that if it engages her heart, her current interests, then everything else just falls into place.

We don't have a set school time. It's really something impossible with an infant in the house. Kitty Bill's needs seem to trump everyone else's right now. Usually during his naptime I'll suggest we do school, and most of the time she's into it. Sometimes she'll ask to finish what she's doing first. Or do it tomorrow.

The handwork comes naturally, so I don't have to push that. It's monkey-see, monkey-do around here. I do have to instigate music lesson time, and she loves it, but it's not usually something she remembers she loves until she does it. Again, I try to tie the music in with her interests. A flute song will come from a story or it will be a song we've been singing in the morning. And oftentimes if I pick up the flute and play, she instinctively HAS to grab hers out and play with me. It's contagious.

Also there are times when I plan a lesson, and she likes it, but has a different idea of how it should work or what she wants to draw or what should happen in the story. So I try not to be too attached to my own ideas. Her ideas and needs are important, and I often seek them out. She helps name story characters all the time or will guide the plot with a simple question. And if she asks for a story, like more fairy tales when we've clearly moved onto something else, I will oblige her and work it in. That's probably not so different than what most homeschooling parents do. It's all about making it work and making it fun.

For the last two weeks there has been little impetus to do school, so I haven't pushed it. Sunburst has had her nose in a few books, and she's been content just to spend her time reading or outside raking leaves or playing with the neighbor's dog. And I'm okay with that. We also had the Biography Fair, Halloween to prepare for, and she came down with a fever two days ago, so there were no lessons. At least prepared lessons. I'm sure she's learning something, even if it's just what the warning signs of a concussion are-- we spent last night in the emergency room with Kitty Bill who inadvertently climbed up the bunkbed ladder and plummeted onto his head!

Even when we're not "doing school," there is this very Waldorf-inspired presence in everything we do, probably from all the books and information that I've digested over the last few years. I really think Unschooling and Waldorf can mix remarkably well --at least that's our experience right now. It may not always work like this as Sunburst changes and grows and wants less authority. But for now she wants school-time, and how can I say no to that? It's an open door. An opportunity, and I would be a fool to let it slip by.

Numerical Expectations

Sunburst loves computing numbers. Throughout our days there is always something she finds worth counting. Always. Though it's not enough, because if left to her own devices, she devises math worksheets and enlists her dad to play school with her. She's drawn to kids suduko books and other number games. She asks for "math work." Her thirst for number play is ripe.

In putting together our maths block, I recently looked up the mathematical standards for my state and discovered that we've mostly covered their expectations:

Grade 2

• Counting
• Fractions
• Addition and Subtraction of Whole Numbers
• Estimation of Mental Arithmetic
• Number Patterns
• Sentences and Expressions
• Order of Operations
• Identifying and Classifying Basic Shapes
• Congruence and Similarity
• Measurement (time, length, money, temp, weight, area, volume, etc.)
• Graphs and Tables
• Strategies, reasoning, connecting problems
• Checking calculations

Then I flipped open the Waldorf book, The Educational Tasks and Content of the Steiner/Waldorf Curriculum, giving serious thought to my purpose, my goals, my role as the educational facilitator. Do I really want to tie us into the Waldorf School goals of Grade Two? Last year we didn't even come close to the ones for Grade One. And in looking at them, I have to wonder, how deeply does a class of 30 little kids manage this?

Let me show you:

Class 1

• Counting up to 110
• Learning up to the the 7 times table by heart and rhythmically
• Intro of four processes with numbers up to 20
• Notation from whole to parts (ie. 7 is 3+4)
• Number riddles
• Intro to mental math

Class 2

• More mental math
• Using four processes with numbers up to 100
• Combined calculations
• Intro to number connections (even, odd, primes, etc.)
• Up to 12 times table by heart
• Represent tables in drawing
• Written calculations, including parts to whole (i.e. 3+4=7)

So in looking at this, the first thing I obviously ask myself is, where is Sunburst at?

Class 1: Can she count to 110? By ones - yes. Without fail? No. She skips a few numbers that end in 4, like 14 or 44. She knows she skips them, and it's not a big deal, I don't think. Does she know her times table up to 7? No. We've worked on it a little bit. Counting by 2's. Counting by 3's. Counting by 4's. By 5's, by 10's, by 100's. If I had to wager a guess, I would say she knows her 1's, 2's, 5's, 10's, and 100's. But only if it's phrased correctly, like 6 groups of ten, rather than 6 times 10. The rest of the list we've done, in small bits.

I'm also thinking about math attitudes. About the relationship of a girl's self-esteem to her math ability, as painted in Things Will Be Different For My Daughter by Bingham and Striker.

"According to the AAUW report, "Shortchanging Girls, Shortchanging America," girls who like math and science have higher self-esteem, aspire to more ambitious careers, cling more tenaciously to those career goals, and even feel better about their appearance than girls who do not like these subjects."

They say that a girl's math ability has everything to do with attitude and expectations. I think that can also be transferred to boys. Attitude is key. Math needs to remain fun and exciting and applicable. I don't want to rush or push or squash anything.

Then the real question for me is this. How important is memorization of the times table for a seven-year-old? What are they going to do with it exactly? How is it meaningful? Sure, it can be made into a fun game. We've worked with it on that end, but is it useful? Can they apply it to anything much in real life?

That's the angle that I shoot from. Application and usefulness, as well as interest. My kids may grow up to be computational geniuses and need this stuff, but right now? Not exactly. Not unless it comes up. Not unless it's meaningful to them to memorize it. For now I'm satisfied with introducing mathematical ideas. Situations. Thinking adventures. Numerical fun. Mathematically themed stories to ponder on. Strewing the path to numeracy, so to speak. And I've got big plans there. Stay tuned.

Until then, my friends, what do you think?

Dia de los Muertos

I've been thinking about my dad all day.

He's been peeking out of the shadows in my mind all week, playing tag with my thoughts. I don't know if it's because it's that thin veil time of year or what, but I really miss him. More so this week than last. You know, it fluctuates. More at holidays. More when I smell pine trees or cigarette smoke or Polo or woodburning fireplaces.... More when it snows at night or when the leaves change. More when I hear Jethro Tull, The Who, Simon and Garfunkel or the sound of snow crunching under my boots. More when I really, really need a hug, the kind that only your dad can give you. And more when I need to talk about something that only he would understand.

The last time I saw him we passed around Freddy the Leaf by Leo Buscaglio. We all knew his time was short, though none of us said it outloud. We planned his funeral, together. We sat quietly. He played with the girls. We took him to the Alamo. We watched funny movies. We hugged and kissed and I spent a lot of time feeding him, holding his hand, holding his head in my hands, feeling the energy dissipate from his body. Trying to get a sense of what was going on. Trying to connect.

He died a month later.

It has been two and half years, and I'm still trying to connect. To understand. To work it out. I have, largely, but I don't think death is something you ever have worked out once and for all. It's more like getting your hair cut. For a while it's fine, but it changes, it grows, and you have to work it out again and again.

The kids and I were planning on celebrating his life for Dia de los Muertos, something I have purposefully neglected to celebrate since he died. We took part in a parade before he died, just to feel it out, knowing that his death was pending. That year I was interviewed by the local press: "What's a white girl like you doing at a parade like this?" they asked. Feeling it out. Thinking about death. Thinking about my dad, and myself, and my children. Thinking there has got to be another way to handle dying, I said.

Moonshine asked me today, "What does dying feel like?"

She's four. Where does she come up with this stuff?

Last night I missed my dad a lot. He was the King of Halloween. He loved everything about it --the pumpkin carving, the gooey candy, the spooky sound effects you can attach to your door to scare unwitting little children. He was a jokester, but in a good way. A fun way.

That's not to say he was perfect, mind you. He was also the self-proclaimed "meanest SOB that ever walked the face of the earth." And he was, for a time. He was very human. Smoked too much, drank too much, cursed too much, yelled too much. It was a life of excess. Read too much, loved too much, told way too many bad jokes. But he also loved to cook and bake and decorate for the holidays. Over-celebrate. Sing. Dance. Crank the music up louder and grin madly like a five-year-old.

I see him in that twinkle in Sunburst's eyes, and when she grins because she's up to something. He used to call her his little Meg Ryan. She remembers him as being a playful grandpa. The kind that read her stories, held her hand, carried her around, jumped on the trampoline, made funny jokes, and cuddled her in his arms. And he was. Moonshine remembers his face, nothing more. And Kitty Bill came after, as a promise to give my dad a body to reincarnate into. As freaky as that sounds, he did ask, and we were planning on another child anyway.

And me, what do I remember? How do you sum up a life in mere words? He would always tell it to me straight. He had an answer (or a joke) for everything. And he was deeply romantic about nature and ideas. He loved a good story and a good snowfall. And he gave the best hugs.

He caught me as I came into the world. He was my dad. Period.

And I'm still working it out.

Halloween is here!

We spent the whole day in preparatory anticipation. Making decorations, gooey party treats, pumpkin soup, the whole nine yards.

The kids all sat on the kitchen floor and scooped out their carving pumpkins. Kitty Bill was grossed out by the pumpkin goo at first, but he soon got into the fun and helped. As the girls removed their stringy seeds from their pumpkins, he scooped them up and dropped them back in. It was a hoot. Until he decided to smear them around the room...

Sunburst saw some Halloween ideas in a Family Fun magazine, and she was amped about trying them out. We each made a goblin from magazine cutouts and lunch bags.

Then we made whole wheat skeleton cupcakes and whole wheat cookies, saturating all those whole grains with sugary goodness. I know, it's some kind of backwards healthfood trick, isn't it? But Mmmmm, good.

After our spooky dinner of witches brew (pumpkin soup,) goblin lungs (corn on the cob,) witches fingers (stuffed grape leaves,) and crusty old bread, they dressed up in their finery-- Princess Rosemarie, Karla the Super, and the fierce baby Tiger-- and we were off!

I took them trick-or-treating all the way down to the really decorated house, which was only a few blocks away, but it was COLD... well, enough to see your breath. 36 degrees. The girls wanted to stand around chatting it up with every person that answered the door, which I guess is some kind of trick. They're obviously not about the candy, though they take it anyway. They love the experience of trick-or-treating. The meeting people part. Talking to them about their costumes, decorations, pets, flowerbeds, whatever...

It's not that my kids are some super-evolved alien species, oh no! They actually DO love candy. But we're vegans who also eschew artificial colors, and they know full well that most of the candy they collect on Halloween isn't on the menu. Two years ago Sunburst talked me into trick-or-treating for the fun of it, and we've been doing it ever since. And it works out.

We came home, frosty, but none the worse for wear. The girls decided to run back out and share their cupcakes with all the neighbors, and then our little party began. The girls got down to snacking on their own happy chocolate skeletons, and I surprised them with a Halloween show, Little Goblin Bear, something we hardly ever do anymore. Then we dumped out their bags and sorted the loot. They each ended up with six pieces of candy they could eat, thanks to my knitting buddy across the street. And they were elated. In three years time, that's the biggest score yet.

And the rest of it? The reeces, m&ms and giant hershey bars? Einstein will lug it to school and unload it on his unwitting labmates. But first the girls want to disect that gooey candy hotdog. They've been taking turns fingering it through the wrapper; it boggles the mind.