Category Archives: Fun Educational Stuff

Things to Buy Instead of Curriculum

I expect this list will keep growing throughout the summer…

• A subscription to Moo Cow Fan Club magazine
—a terrific kids’ magazine which comes out in themed editions, each issue focusing on an interesting topic like bugs, the weather, Scotland, Egypt, wagon trains, or dinosaurs. I had the opportunity to check out several issues of Moo Cow, and to be frank, it was WEEKS before I could wrest them away from the kids long enough to peruse them myself. The themed format means each issue is sort of like a little unit study. My gang loves this immerse-yourself-in-a-topic aspect. The cartoons and zany Moo Cow characters have also been a big hit.

• A subscription to Muse Magazine, which I wrote about in this post on our favorite children’s magazines. I think if I’d been keeping a list of all the interesting conversations Jane and I have had this past year, a whopping majority of them would have begun, "So Mom, I was reading Muse and…"

In fact, so central has Muse become to our family discussions that not only am I now reading it cover to cover myself (and catching up on back issues, because quite frankly, Jane has learned so much interesting stuff from this magazine that she is leaving her mother in the dust), this year I am spending a chunk of our Fun Learning Stuff budget on some more magazines from Muse’s publisher.

Cobblestone (the educational arm of Carus, which publishes Muse, Cricket, Spider, and a host of other children’s magazines) is currently running a special offer: buy four subscriptions and save up to $54. I looked for information about whether this offer definitely applies to homeschoolers, didn’t find it, placed an order anyway, and got the discount.

I’m trying:

Ask (like Muse, but for younger kids—should be perfect for my 6- and almost-9-year-olds);
Odyssey (like Muse, but for older kids);
Dig (about archeology! How cool is that?);
Cobblestone (about U.S. history).

I’ll report back on those in a few months.

Now back to my list of stuff to buy instead of curriculum…

• Board games. We just got Clue. How did we not have Clue? I LOVE Clue!

Others we enjoy:
Settlers of Catan. (You know this. I’ve raved about it before.)
Rummikub.
Yahtzee.
Monopoly. (Who doesn’t love Monopoly?)
Caves and Claws. (Such a simple little game, but it has been popular here for, gosh, at least five years, maybe longer.)

• Origami paper.

• Good paintbrushes and watercolor paper. There is just nothing quite like painting on real watercolor paper.

Family memberships! You know about our zoo membership. We recently bought an aquarium membership too. It was cheaper than two visits’ worth of admission would have been.  The girls want to live there.

Jellyfish

I have to go make breakfast, but as I said, this list will probably keep growing.

*UPDATED ALREADY! I asked Jane what else she’d add to this list, and she said:

• all of Hilda van Stockum’s books

• all of E. Nesbit’s books

• the entire line of unabridged Puffin Classics. LOL!! (It looks like many of the newer editions of Puffin Classics have been abridged. Bummer.)

Connections

"Learning," says Sandra Dodd, "comes from connecting something new to what you’ve already thought or known."

Charlotte Mason called this understanding of education "the science of relations." Relations, connections, rabbit trails: these are the terms homeschoolers use to describe the natural processes of learning. One topic, even one word, sparks an interest or a memory, and zing, learning happens.

It’s like playing with those magnetic rods and balls you stick together to make cool geometric shapes. (You know, the ones currently banished to the top of my closet because they are so fearfully dangerous for babies.) When you touch one of the little rods to one of the shiny silver balls, there’s such a satisfying click as they draw together. You can feel the power of the connection.

I dearly love, at the end of a day, to think about all the connections my kids made—or that I made!—that day. So many satisfying little clicks, so many pieces of knowledge fitting together in interesting ways.

I had the Sandra Dodd "connections" page open on the laptop today because I wanted to look up that quote for a post. (This post, I suppose, although, as you’ll see, the page took over and became the impetus of the post.) If you scroll down Sandra’s page a little, you’ll see there’s a fun exercise for sparking connections, the bit with all the words in balloons. This caught Jane’s eye and she wanted to know what it was about. I showed her, and she asked if we could try it. She decided to start with the word "purple."

We started shouting out ideas or things we associate with purple, and of course "royalty" came up, and neither one of us could remember the name of the shellfish the original purple dye came from. We looked it up and found this page, which told some tidbits I’d never heard before. Did you know the legend says it was actually Hercules’s dog who discovered the dye? Hercules noticed its mouth was stained purple after it ate some snails.

King Phoenix received a purple-dyed robe from Herakles and decreed
the rulers of Phoenicia should wear this color as a royal symbol.

  We also found this part particularly interesting:

The chemical birth of the synthetic dye industry can be traced to the
discovery of an aniline-based purple dye, mauveine, by William H.
Perkin in 1856, who accomplished this while searching for a cure for
malaria. Perkin was an English chemist who changed the world of his
time by making this purple color available to the masses. It became
quite fashionable to wear clothing dyed with “mauve,” and Mr. Perkin
became a very wealthy man.

We had lots of other associations with purple, but the Hercules thing was so interesting we got sidetracked, and about that time Rose asked me to make a baby duck out of felt for Beanie, to match Rose’s Beanie Baby duck (!), and in the middle of that endeavor I remembered I’d picked up a book of patterns for knitted animals, and hadn’t shown it to Jane yet, and she got all excited and went off to translate the knitting patterns into crochet patterns, because she much prefers crocheting.

Rose asked for a felt dog next, or maybe Jane will crochet her one, but I don’t think we’ll stain its mouth purple.

Tasty Bookmarking

Do you use del.icio.us? I was just meandering through my list of del.icio.us bookmarks, and wow is there some good stuff there. Like this link, which I flagged with the intention of sharing it, and now I can’t remember if I ever did, nor whom to hat-tip:

Kids’ Corner – Featuring the Stories of Beatrix Potter (and more!)—Read (or listen to) Beatrix Potter tales and lots of other stories (including A Christmas Carol) in German, Japanese, and more. There’s also an audio interview with Mr. Rogers.

Every time I remember about del.icio.us I wonder why I keep forgetting to use it. It really is a handy way to keep track of links you want to bookmark—instead of bookmarking on your computer, you’re bookmarking on the del.icio.us site so that you can access your links from anywhere.

The tags feature makes it easy to group links by topic. For example, I created a tag for links I want to blog about, and another for posts I think Scott would enjoy. You can create public tags and private ones. Very useful.

If you’re a del.icio.us fan too, send me your username so I can add you to my network!

Cookies and Books

Possibly the nicest things ever invented, no? Cookies and books? Here’s my contribution to Jenn’s Awesome Virtual Cookie Exchange: my Aunt Cindy’s Saucepan Cookies.

Aunt Cindy, for the record, is my great-aunt, and her real name is Cinderella. I am not kidding.

These yummy morsels aren’t really holiday cookies, but I love them, and they’re easy (no baking!), and with oatmeal and peanut butter as the main ingredients, you can eat them for sustenance while you’re making Christmas cookies.

I couldn’t actually find my copy of Aunt Cindy’s recipe (Hush! I just moved in!), but I googled "oatmeal peanut butter saucepan cookies" and found several identical recipes. This one is from About.com (and I didn’t know that bit about making sure it boils hard for one minute, so aren’t you glad I Googled?):

No Bake Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies

There’s just one trick; you have to make sure that the
sugar mixture boils hard for at least one minute, otherwise the cookies
will be sugary instead of creamy.

INGREDIENTS:

  • 2 cups sugar
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1/2 cup cocoa
  • pinch salt
  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 3/4 cup peanut butter
  • 3 cups oatmeal

PREPARATION:

In
large saucepan, combine sugar, milk, cocoa, salt, and butter and mix
well. Bring to a boil and cover saucepan to allow steam to wash sugar
crystals down sides of pan. Boil mixture for 1 minute. Then remove from
heat and stir in peanut butter until smooth.

Add oatmeal and mix well.
Drop mixture by spoonfuls onto parchment lined baking sheets or Silpat
sheets.* Let cool until you can touch the mixture; then reshape the
cookies to make them more a ball shape. Let cool completely; store at
room temperature. You can also pour this mixture into a 9" square pan
that has been greased with unsalted butter, let cool, then cut into
squares.

*We always dropped ours onto waxed paper.

As for the books, I thought new readers might like a look at the "Books We Love" series I ran on Bonny Glen last year. Lots of gift ideas there, which ties in with the "Best Gifts for Homeschoolers" thing I’ve been doing.

Books We Love, Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

And don’t forget to drop by Jenn’s Journal for a list of all the other Cookie Exchange participants!

Another Gift Idea: Art Prints

Back to that art print post I mentioned yesterday. Like many homeschoolers, my family chooses an artist for picture study every couple of months. I usually pick out five or six paintings to use as wallpaper on our computer, which is located in a central area of the house. We talk about the artist, read a little about his or her life, look at where he falls in time. If I can get hold of a cheap calendar with prints of his work, we cut out the pictures and hang them up.

In this way we make the acquaintance of, oh, four or five artists a year. (At one point I was aiming for one artist a month, but then we had another baby and moved across country, yada yada yada.) And I was thinking how lovely it would be to commemorate each one by choosing our favorite work and having it framed, so that over the years we would grow a collection of paintings that mean something to our family.

Mantel
We do have a couple of Carl Larsson prints framed (calendar pages, so the color quality isn’t perfect) and recently we picked up some Van Gogh prints when frames were on sale at Michael’s. It struck me that a wonderful way for other family members to be part of the fun of picture study would be to include the names of favorite art prints on holiday wish lists. A favorite Renoir on the wall is a delight in its own right, but a favorite Renoir from Grandma is even more special.

LOL—this is a very hard post to write—I keep worrying that it sounds like I’m dropping hints for my mother and mother-in-law. I’m speaking in a general sense, honestly! But of course both grandmas do ask me for gift ideas for the kids every year, and I think from now on I will start including some paintings on those lists.

The Artchive Poster Store is one good source of framed prints. Of course it’s much cheaper to just buy the print and watch for frame sales at Michael’s or Target.

Best Gifts for Homeschoolers

I just had a fun idea! I sat down to write a post about putting art prints on your Christmas list (I’ll get back to that later) when it struck me that I have a little theme going. Family memberships, art prints—I’m writing about great gift suggestions for grandparents and doting aunties. I don’t know about you, but in my family, our loved ones are always looking for ideas for presents the kids would really enjoy and use. And of course my list of fun educational stuff I’d like to have is always about a mile long.

So this week, let’s explore that topic. I’ve got a number of posts in mind, and if you’ve got a link to a post on the subject, send it along and I’ll do another big linky carnival post.

Rosejumps

Rose says: Presents make me jump for joy!

(Photo by Kristen.)

Family Memberships = Awesome Education

My parents flew in from Denver last weekend to check out our new digs and enjoy the perfect weather with us. So much fun. On Monday, we all (except poor Scott, who had to work, sniff) went to the zoo. It was every bit as wonderful as I’ve heard. Who doesn’t love the San Diego Zoo?

Python
We didn’t make it to the pandas because we spent so much time with the reptiles and monkeys. But that’s okay, because my fabulous parents bought us an annual membership for Christmas. For a family our size, the membership costs about as much as one and a half trips to the zoo. It comes with guest passes and other discounts, plus a zoo magazine. It’s a perfect arrangement: now we can drop in for an hour or two whenever we feel like it, without feeling pressured to see the whole thing in one swoop.

The first year we lived in Virginia, I bought a family membership to the Frontier Culture Museum, which was about 40 minutes from our house and five minutes from our church. I took the kids at least once a month, often dropping by for an hour on our way home from Sunday Mass. We got to know the costumed interpreters by name, and when new lambs were born that April, we got to cuddle them on our laps. Going by numbers, the membership paid for itself in two visits, but its real value to our family would be impossible to tally. My girls would don their bonnets (purchased at another living history museum* before we left Long Island) and make-believe their way through barnyards and thatched houses, having the time of their lives. They got to spin wool, card fleece, shell peas, and chase hoops. Best fifty dollars I ever spent.

The zoo membership promises to be just as much fun. We got a real treat on this first visit—we happened into one of the aviaries just as a zookeeper was beginning to feed the birds. She was carrying four or five little tubs of food: crickets, worms, peanuts. She’d cluck and call the birds by name, and they clustered round her in anticipation of their particular favorite tidbits. My girls clustered round, too, and the extremely kind zookeeper told them all about the birds. It was a glimpse behind the scenes, and we were thrilled.

When she finished, the zookeeper told us she was about to feed the flamingos, and did we want to come watch? You bet we did! She told us the best place to stand, and on our way to the prime spot, she opened her access door to the flamingo pool area and invited us to the threshold for a quick meet-and-greet with some of the birds. We were charmed by "Handsome," a flirty scarlet ibis who likes to stick close to his zookeeper friend. My kids can’t wait to go back to visit him. Our plan is to scope out when the feeding times are for all the different  animals, so we’ll know where to go whenever we drop in.

This year, when relatives ask you what the kids would like for Christmas, I highly recommend that you drop a hint for a membership to the zoo or museum or science center closest to you. Charlotte Mason encouraged mothers to take their children to the same park or woods on a regular basis, so that the place and its denizens would become familiar, and changes in season easier to observe. The same principle applies to places like museums and zoos!

*Readers of the Charlotte books may be interested to know that the hatmaker in Charlotte’s village was inspired by the hatmaker at Old Bethpage, the place where we got our bonnets. Bushy eyebrows and all!

Meet the Dancing Kids

Dancingkids
They’re tiny, they’re shiny, and they love to boogie. They jitter and jive their way around the world in the company of my college pal Kristen, and yesterday they danced right into my house and won my children’s hearts. Before that, they trotted off to Japan, and we’ve had a ball seeing the sights with them: it’s the world up close and miniature, and the result is poetry in pictures.

We hope they’ll dance back down this way very soon!

Oh Wow Is Right

Calling all galaxy girls (and boys)—you HAVE to see what Tracey just posted at Jinkies! Too incredibly cool!

You’ll excuse me for being scarce today—it’s almost time to start pushing. In the comments to my "moving is like childbirth" post, Jennifer remarked that she’d be happy to be my virtual doula, and I thought, WHAT A FABULOUS IDEA—seriously, there’s a business for a big-hearted entrepreneur. Doulas for people who are moving. Oh oh oh. I’d hire one in a snap. Someone to catch the little details that keep falling through the holes in my brain, someone to take my by the shoulders and say, You do NOT need flannel sheets in southern California!, someone to make sure I remember to eat, and also! The backrubs! Doulas give backrubs, right?

Now lest you get all sorry for me, I want to make it very clear that I have TONS of help here. TONS. You would not bee-leeeeve how amazing everyone, EVERYONE, has been. Meals arriving every other day from lovely neighbors, more (or sometimes the same) lovely neighbors spending hours helping me pack, lovely neighbors reading my blog and showing up with MORE Dr. Pepper!, lovely grandmothers (my children’s own, I mean) also reading the blog, and not to be outdone by a son/son-in-law, supplying chocolate and more chocolate, lovely friends sending amazing gifts in the mail (of the sort that you are VERY happy to have on a two-week-long cross-country odyssey), more lovely friends driving ALL THE WAY FROM NEW JERSEY to pick up a beloved loom that wants some babysitting while we’re on the west coast (and volunteering to run errands in town as long as they’re here), and dazzlingly lovely friends taking care of Wonderboy for hours upon end, and hauling countless boxes of Stuff to the Goodwill, and giving up a billion afternoons to help me weed through what’s in my basement so that I don’t wind up like this.

I have lots and lots of help; it’s incredible. I just thought a doula for moving sounded really cool. When we were in the hospital with Jane, I used to think a doula for mothers with very sick children would be a great thing to have too.


P.S. Lest anyone scold me for taking the time to read blogs on a DAY! LIKE! THIS!—this morning I only read three. Two of them, chosen from the yikes almost 250 feeds I sub to at Bloglines, I linked to above. The third was of course Alice’s, which made me sputter my tea, too too funny, and then when I clicked through to the earlier post she referenced, I got choked up all over again.