We Were Just Wondering

Garden Spiral Notebooks

2010-02-27T19:13:00.000-08:00

J has been asking me to get back to doing regular projects with him. What's a mom to do when a little boy makes a request like that? He also requests to watch Star Wars and go onto Lego.com regularly, so I have to look like I'm filling his requests in one way or another.

Mom Unplugged has transitioned to monthly projects, and this month's theme is spiral. Boy, did we have to think about this one long and hard. Spiral staircase? The double helix of DNA? And then it hit us. I handed over my graph-paper spiral notebook that J has been coveting so that he could create his very first garden journal. Here's how it went:
I'm pretty sure collage might be one of his favorite types of art to create. We even "laminated" the cover with contact paper. I wonder if the contact paper was his favorite part.
I wonder what he'll choose to do more: create diagrams, sketch plants, or create lists of all the plants he'll add to his dream garden someday when he can buy his own seeds.

Follow-up: "Float"

2009-02-22T16:38:00.000-08:00

Finished it.

I slacked off last week and didn't even tell J about the "wrinkle" theme do to another project I was involved it. This week we'll report on this week's Unplugged Project themed "clothing."

We're back.

2009-02-10T17:09:00.000-08:00

It has been many moons without posting our projects. Today I start again. I bet you've been wondering what has happened . . .

Unplugged Project--Floating Astronaut Mural and Puzzle

2009-02-10T16:46:00.000-08:00

Wonderboy saw right through my idea of a fun "float" project involving jellyfish. He proposed a mural project portraying astronauts floating through the solar system. He worked so hard on this one--he required that I sit near him, but really this was his project. I love it! Here he is pointing out the asteroid belt. It's a good thing that he remembers the order of the planets because I really needed his help in discussing his work today. I meant to ask him more about the astronauts and the unique flags they are holding.

He wondered allowed if the planets are floating in space or if they're "orbitting". He's convinced it has to be one or the other. I wonder if they can do both.

It's a good thing that I snapped the photo when I did. I left the room for a few minutes, and when I went back in I found this! No, that's not a pile of trash. It's the PUZZLE he created for me to assemble. He was serious, too. No excuse was good enough to get out of finishing his project.
So I went to work. He waited patiently, but distracted himself effectively by climbing into Daddy's sweats.
This is what I've got so far.
Good thing he got hungry and removed himself from the sweatpants. He'd still be in there if he waited for completion. I'm determined to get this thing together, though--he giggles everytime I mention that it's challenging.

I wonder why my "neat-and-tidy" projects (you know, ones that people on an assembly line can do) are so uninteresting to him. I'm always amazed at what he comes up with when I give him ownership over a project. We end up far from where I had originally intended to visit, but I learn new things about his abilities to create.

Weekend Adventure: Wheat Celebration at Howell Farm

2008-10-07T10:06:00.000-07:00

Howell Living History Farm near Lambertville, New Jersey is definitely one of our favorite destinations for fun. Run by the county park system, it is a working farm open to all who are interested in learning how farms were run at the turn of the last century. I love going there for the quiet, and I think Joshua likes the mud and the rocks. But the animals and setting are fun parts of our visit. This weekend they had a celebration of wheat--we played the "Help the Farmer" game visiting a station for each stage of wheat planting and harvest. Here are some pics as promised.

I didn't get a good a good shot at the first spot--I was a little sidetracked by the enormity of the Belgian draft horses that were being used to plant the winter wheat. So onto station two:
The reaper-binder. This beauty of a machine was pulled behind three horses who were hooked up that long tongue. That contraption features a a long sharp blade, a conveyer belt, and a big paddle wheel that moves the wheat onto a fork where the wheat is gathered a bound. All of that is done with the power of the moving horses alone! After that someone went through the field and stood the sheaves of wheat upright so that it could dry for a few days, laying one sheaf across the top in case of rain.
Next stop: wheat threshing! One hundred years ago at this time of year big steam engines and threshing machines would rumble through the valley, stopping at farms to thresh the wheat crop that had been drying in barns for the last couple of months. Threshing involves removing the wheat grain from the stems. You can't see the engine or the thresher well, but they make for a very loud duo as wheat is thrown in, chopped up, sifted, wheat is gathered, and the stems are blown up into the barn with a fan.
Station 4: Feed Grinding! Here's Joshua hard at work. He also loved feeding the chickens with the wheat he had cracked for them. Station 5 was the Winnower. He loved this, too. Winnowing is the process of separating the chaff and dust from the wheat berries.
Finally we stopped at their working kitchen to churn some butter and sample the wheat bread. I should have snapped a photo of the butter churn that screws onto the top of jars--I seriously would love to get one for myself.

Unplugged Project--White Kitchen Creations

2008-10-07T09:50:00.000-07:00

Unplug Your Kids Theme of the week: White! Our has just a little bit of yellow. Each time we make cut-out cookies my kitchen turns white, but I really should do it more because he loves it so much.
Today's lesson: sometimes cookies break. I'm wondering why rolling out cookie dough has to be so hard for a child! The stick-to-the-pin factor was so frustrating as a child. Good thing we can get over it, eat cookies, and take silly pictures.

Unplugged Project--Sandbox Plans

2008-10-07T09:44:00.000-07:00

I have such a backlog of posts of make! Here's a recent project we did for Unplug Your Kids. The theme was "sand" so we headed to the local park one evening to measure and diagram our favorite sandbox in the area. I love this thing--it features seating for mom or for the child who needs a break, and it has plenty of space of digging, bulldozing, etc. Someday I'll build one, but today we had fun using the measuring tape, shouting out numbers, and then, of course, we had to dig a little.

Unplugged Project--Soft Quilt Squares

2008-09-12T07:03:00.000-07:00

When I asked my little thinker what he thinks of when I say the word soft, he exuberantly replied "quilts!" He loves the quilts he's been given--a baby quilt from his great-grandma, an "I Spy" quilt from a good friend, and a big-boy bed quilt from his Nana. I had thought it would be fun to get away to a great quilting store, but the field trip never happened. We ended "piecing" together quilt squares of of leftover felt from my craft box.
He got a little frustrated (as many quilters who are figuring out how things will fit) when his patterns didn't seem to work out.
But eventually he figured it out.
I'm wondering why I haven't started him on tanagrams yet. I'll be he'll love those.

Check out other "soft" projects at Unplug Your Kids.

Laugh, Learn, Love--Post-thunderstorm Sensory Walk

2008-09-10T08:58:00.000-07:00

There is something about a post-rainstorm walk that is positively soothing to my senses--colors seem more vivid, normal city odor is cleared and the smells of nature are more apparent, and everything is wet. It is the perfect time to go outside and I really wanted my little thinker to enjoy this experience--I had such an urge to let him take off his shoes just so that he could experience the sense of touch with his toes. After yesterday's thunderstorm, we went on a sensory walk at a local park. In his brief words here's what we sensed:

Sight: browns, greens, trees, ferns, dead leaves, gravel,
Sound: wind, drips, swooshing (leaves blowing), splashing
Smell: dirt, wood, "fresh air",
Touched: wet ferns, slippery boardwalk, rough rocks, soggy wood
Taste: apple juice (he was a little disappointed that there was nothing to taste so he suggested we have some juice so that we wouldn't miss this sense)
He also wondered aloud: What's inside a leaf? What's inside a rock? Why is the brown wood on the boardwalk green? Why is brown bark of trees green in some places?

Off He Goes!

2008-09-10T08:54:00.000-07:00

Joshua started preschool on Monday. His excitement was impossible to contain. I'm excited that he gets to be in such a great group setting. Initially when I was making the decision about sending him out of the home for his final year before school, I worried, prayed, counseled with trustworthy friends, turned it over to my husband, and finally I feel good about it. As captured in the photo, he feels pretty good, too.

Trees Project--Getting to Know our Frontyard Tree

2008-09-02T10:24:00.001-07:00

Today my little thinker learned about hugging trees. And he worked on climbing our tree. (And this image is what I get when I say "can you just smile, please?") We steered away from fine motor crafts today and got some large motor movement in. Check out Unplug Your Kids for other tree projects.

Cylinders Project--Chimes!

2008-09-02T10:00:00.000-07:00

For this week's Unplug Your Kids challenge, I pulled out our cut-pipe chimes and My Little Thinker clinked away with his playfriend--we created an instrument of 18 musical cylinders! By the way, have you ever noticed how many musical instruments have some cylindrical piece to them?

Each pipe plays a musical note, so we lined them up on a broomstick so that they were in order. We were wondering how to play "Happy Birthday"--that's a fairly tedious chore for a 4yo boy, so I eventually let him loose. Wow--"cacophany" and "pandemonium" are words that come to mind.

I love these things. My dad cut the pipe, threaded them with string for handling, and labeled them with numbers and the correct musical note they play. My family has all kinds of fun with these at Christmas time--usually on Christmas Eve we have a rousing (and I mean loud) Christmas carol celebration on the chimes.

Great Day

2008-09-02T09:48:00.001-07:00

Another blog! I always thought "I'll never start another blog!" But today is a great day to start a blog. My other blog shall heretofore be used to keep my west coast livin' family and my world-traveling friends apprised of our family's adventures--it will include lots of images of us and stories of our life.

The purpose of this blog is to keep in contact with all of you who share my deepest personal desire to give my kids experiences that will help them find joy in this life. We are all truly teachers--no union represents us, there are no vacations from our responsibilities, and I don't have a teachers' lounge to collapse into halfway through the day. Yet, we are colleagues and I love your ideas. Heck--I need your ideas!

It's such a great day to be a mom.