Clay Day

At a local craft store, my girls cashed in on a 40% off coupon, wrapped their arms around 7 pounds of clay and hurried home to the kitchen table. Clay creations came alive. Our table was covered in gray dust. We used several resources to learn more.

Fun With Modeling Clay by Barbara Reid
Mudworks: Creative Clay, Dough, and Modeling Experiences by MaryAnn F. Kohl

Later, our oldest daughter made some cooked playdough, a huge hit in our home. She used the recipe I used when I taught preschool, emptied all the ingredients into a medium cooking pot and cooked on medium heat until the dough formed a ball. The old recipe was hand-written on a piece of scrap paper and given to me by a mentor teacher. No idea where the teacher found it.

• 1 c. flour
• 1/2 c. salt
• 1 c. water
• 1 tbsp. vegetable oil
• 2 tsp. cream of tartar

What Have You Been Doing?

I can't believe it has been almost a month since my last post. What have you been doing, you ask?

Our summer started with a reunion in PA to celebrate my parent's 50th Anniversary. We came home, unpacked, and welcomed families into our home for annual evaluations. We love this time of year as we assess the progress of home educated children and encourage the mommas (mostly, though we did have one dad this year). Evals were a large part of our day, the other part, well Mike sent me off to write while he read aloud to the girls. I sat at the computer, writing and enjoying the giggles and laughs pouring from the living room.

Between June 16 and July 22 I polished the manuscript of my newest book, Celebrate High School: Finish With Excellence. The contents reflect the most commonly asked questions I've been asked, answered with the most helpful information we've discovered during our 6 years of high schooling. I added wisdom and practical helps I'd gathered and tweeked. Celebrate High School is packed with planning tips, record-keeping details, graduation and scholarship requirements, high school literature lists, sample course titles, NCAA guidelines, easy-to-follow instructions for writing transcripts, course descriptions and other valuable supporting documents, and Internet links for many high school-related topics. Sample letters and documents accompany explanations. The feedback I've received so far has been very positive. I am thrilled Celebrate High School has been helpful to many in just the first week of publication.

As I polished Celebrate High School, I prepared for a local high schooling event, Finish Well. Finish Well was a half-day conference Meredith Curtis, Virginia Knowles and I organized for families who were walking, or intended to walk, the high school journey. Held July 25, it was an event we hope to repeat in the Spring.

This week Mike is serving in the DR and Josh is spending week two in Mexico building water purifiers for the people of the Brickyard. When Mike returns, we will continue with two more weeks of evals before Mike heads back to school.

And so, you read what has kept me from blogging. It has been a productive summer.

To the Puddles

Rain poured. Rain poured. One solid week of on and off rain. Our outside time was limited. But, our girls were ecstatic. Rain meant puddles. Puddles meant...tadpoles! When the sun peeked through the clouds, to the puddles we went, fish net and small buckets in hand, ready for one of life's most adventurous events, tadpole-catching.

The first round of tadpoles made their way back home, to our home, that is. Dad dug out the 10 gallon tank from the garage. Swoosh! In went the tadpoles. Back went the children, to the puddles. The second round of tadpoles made their way to their new home. Swoosh! In went the second batch of tadpoles. You could almost hear the tadpole party leaping from the 10 gallon tank on our porch. The tadpoles had a new home with new friends and had been saved from being baked on the street.

So, for the last week we have observed tadpoles grow legs, shed their tails and hop out of the tank. It has been a week of jubilation, a week of excitement. Ahhh, if we could have such joy about the world around us, a joy that will send us back to the puddles next spring.

Raising tadpoles:
http://allaboutfrogs.org/info/tadpoles/
http://www.tooter4kids.com/Frogs/life_cycle_of_frogs.htm
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/amphibians/Frogprintout.shtml
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/amphibians/books/froglifecycle/

Reading about tadpoles:
From Tadpole to Frog by Wendy Pfeffer
From Tadpole to Frog by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld

THE END

The story has ended. My last blog, which took place at the end of our school year just days before our vacation, shared the beginning of our collage story. It was a story that began with painted papers intended to be cut into geometric shapes to create a beach scene. The idea was not our original idea, it was an idea we wowed over earlier in the month while reading the book I Love Collage! (you can read about it in one of my earlier blogs). Anyway, back to our beach collage.

After the painted papers dried, we cut out the shapes (yes, a math lesson) and created our scene. The girls helped one another place their shapes and re-cut new ones. In the end we had 4 amazing pictures, each completed at the developmental level of the artist.

I know it has been a long time, over a month, since I last sat to tell the story. I appreciate your patience and hope the anticipation built as you awaited the ending.

Stories Begin at the Beginning

Creation began when God created. Our family began when we said "I do!" Art begins in the mind of an artist.

Today we began our day reading about artists: Giotto, Bellini, De Vinci and Carle. We read their personal stories and learned about their techniques. I told the girls about the amazing paintings I was in an art gallery in Venice. Then we headed to the kitchen table to mix paint. The eleven year old decided to paint modern art. The seven year old painted a landscape like the one she watched Bob Ross paint the day before. The five year old painted Dad a birthday card. Mom and the three year old painted paper. Paper? Yes, papers from which we will cut collage shapes for our collage beach scene. That's this afternoon's story.

So, this blog shares the beginning of our painting story, the one we will conclude later this afternoon. I will tell you about it later when we finish the story

Scrabble for All Ages

I jumped and shouted, "Look! Cheez-Its with letters!" Turned heads and puzzled looks were upon me. "Lady, your in the grocery isle." They thought.

I knew where I was but I could not contain my excitement. A new idea had jumped from the grocery shelf and into my brain. I see learning opportunities everywhere, even in the grocery isle, and frankly, a new tool for learning is like a Christmas present under the tree.

I have thought about this new find for several days. Cheez-Its with letters. The new snack is called Cheez-It Scrabble Junior. Do you realize the learning possibilities?

• Grab a handful fo Cheez-Its. Group them according to letter...all the C's together, all the T's together, etc. Find out which group has more, which group has less. The math and language arts skills involved are for the youngest learners: grouping, set-building and letter recognition.

• Make an alphabet train. Line up the letters while singing the alphabet and you have the foundations for alphabetizing.

• Grab a letter, make its phonetic sound, and find items around the house that begin with that letter. Beginning phonics with a fun twist.

• Use the letters as mini flash cards. Grab a letter and make the sound. Grab another and make the sound. Go through the whole alphabet.

• Create two letter words: am, an, at, as, ax, be, go, if, in, is, it, me, on, so, and to. Add a letter to each to make three letter words. Spelling at its earliest beginnings.

• Spell the names of family members. These are high-interest words with a purpose for new spellers.

The possibilities are endless, not to mention, fun, different, and appealing . What a unique introduction to a positively educational game, Scrabble!

While I am on the subject of Scrabble, let me share how this game impacted our learning. Being an "adult game" if you want to classify it as such, it instantly grabbed my son's attention. He wanted to play because he saw Mom and Dad playing. Being a beginning speller did not stop him. He wanted to play. So, I created a "dictionary" for him. I stapled 26 pieces of notebook paper together. Each page was labeled with a letter of the alphabet. Once labeled, I wrote 3-5 letter words which began with the letter written on the top of the page. My son used his "dictionary" to play Scrabble with us. His spelling skills improved and eventually he was able to play without the "dictionary". Our children love a friendly, family game of Scrabble. It's a great way to spend an evening. Honestly, our older boy's vocabulary and spelling skills now surpass Mom and Dad and the kids usually win the game.

Scrabble (and Scrabble Junior) have been the number one spelling tools in our home. You can imagine how excited I was to find Cheez-Its Scrabble Junior on the shelf. I let the ladies in the isle know what an incredible treasure had been discovered.

With all this thought and excitement about letters, I have been reminded of our favorite alphabet books.

• A is for Asia by C. Chin-Lee


• P is for Pilgrim by Carol Crane (just one of the many, many titles in a series from the Discover America series...http://www.gale.cengage.com/DiscoverAmerica/guides/


• Eating the Alphabet: Fruits and Vegetables from A to Z by Lois Ehlert


• 26 Letters and 99 Cents by Tana Hoban


• Alphabet City by Stephen Johnson


• The Airplane Alphabet Book by Jerry Pallotta (just one of the many, many thematic alphabet books he has written)


• Wild Animals of Africa by H. Ryden

Have fun with language arts today. Education is real and relevant.

Plots: What We Know and What We Figure Out Later

Ever wonder just how each event or person impacts the plot of a story? I have. And I have learned a few lessons, like many of you. Every word, every situation, every action, every character, impacts the story. We may not understand how the story will unfold or which character will play a lead role in the climax, but rest assured it is all important. Without the unknown woman walking through the door, the lady sitting across the library table or the girl coming to the rescue, the plot changes. Sometimes dramatically.

Can we be a part of the plot? Everyday we have the opportunity. We step from bed and into the scene. We talk. We decide. We act. We love. It all adds to the plot. To ours and to others.
Where will I be in the unfolding plot tomorrow? Will I sit on a park bench and offer kind words to the discouraged one or choose to sit quietly? Will I hug the hurting or let someone else do the hugging? It all matters.

This is a seemingly off-topic blog, but a closer read begs a thoughtful pause. Think about the roles we play in the plot. Think about the roles others have played. How do we convey to our kids the role they play in the plot? By living the story. Each story is a story to be lived in order to be learned. They will look back and remember the wrinkled hands that held theirs. They will remember the smell of the soup kitchen in which they served warm meals on a cold day. They will remember walking the battlefields. Lessons learned from the plot of life. Lessons that don't become known, sometimes years later.

Reading books that invite us into the plots of others help us (including our children) learn. When we put our hands under the cool water, pumped out from the garden pump, we think of Helen Keller's courage to learn. When we fly in an airplane, we remember the brave Wright Brothers determination to fly. When we snorkel while on vacation, we understand the significance of an untethered breathing apparatus. All lessons learned from the lives of those who walked before us. Our lives today are no different. The plot is being written. What will we learn from our efforts? What will others learn from us? It is all to be determined....today, but maybe not discovered until later.