Balloons

The last two weeks have brought "seasonal" reading - fall and balloons.  And man are the balloon books horrible.  It turns out that 90% of hot air balloon books involve an animal stowaway - perhaps because a child stowaway would be too frightening to parents?  And the fall books all involve starting school.  I thought they would be more nature/fall oriented, not back-to-school oriented.  But clearly I have no idea.  However, regardless of the quality of the books, the balloon fiesta was fantastic.

IMG_5215, originally uploaded by middles.

I've started taking our weekly stories from the Rainbow Book of Fairy Tales, available online here.  The ones we've read so far are very prop-friendly, but are short enough to hold H's attention without any pictures.

What I have decided to not try: Circle Time.  Perhaps it is because my heart is not in it, perhaps it is because the 2 year old's mission is to climb furniture, perhaps it is because I feel too pregnant to lead children in follow-the-leader kinds of stuff, but it is not working for our unit.

What new thing is working:  I bought The Ordinary Parents Guide to Reading, and we've been doing 15 minutes or so of learning letter sounds while I goes for her nap (ok, 5 minutes of me trying to "teach" him something and 10 of him making up a new game to learn it himself).  Since doing this over the last 2 weeks, we've noticed he's started taking apart words and trying to identify the first and last letter without any parental prompting.  And although he won't do any of those tracing worksheets on how to write letters, given enough pens, chalk and appropriate things to write on, he's started writing the letters on his own when the mood strikes him.  So I'm considering this a successful early-reading experiment.  I think we'll probably try and get the Bob books - mom has an in with a Scholastic rep - but at this rate that won't be until after we've done been through the alphabet.

I feel like I've whittled down our schedule to what is working best, and now we're ready to add a couple of new things.  

Treasure Trove

Before there were blogs to overwhelm on with crafty inspiration, I have often wondered:  What did people do?  Now, people who live in cities - or even moderate sized towns - probably had a local craft store or guild to offer classes.  Maybe there was increased human contact!  But because I live in the Middle of Nowhere, supplies and inspiration are hard to come by.  So what did one do?

THE FAMILY CREATIVE WORKSHOP, that's what!

A friend was kind enough to not only kidnap my child for a couple of hours, but also come back with 8 or the 23 volumes that make up this astounding encyclopedia of craft and hobby.  The first thing I did when I got these goodies:  look through every page.  The second thing:  order others off of ebay and Amazon.

And now I need to figure out what to make.  My plan is to start with Volume 1 and make everything that could possibly be of interest.  Some things are simply not feasible, and some are admittedly horrific reminders of what was wrong with the 70s.  But overall, the projects and techniques are fantastic.  So what first?  Tunisian crochet afghan?  Baskets?  I hear Christmas presents nearly making themselves....

This week

This week had its ups and downs - many of them heightened by the absence of the hubs - but overall it was great... thanks in a large part to the moms who kidnapped my kids for a few hours at a time.

The things that went the best:  we stayed roughly on our daily schedule, which helped the week flow.  Hooray for rhythm.

Our regularly scheduled book of the week:  The Enormous Turnip.  First I tried telling the story with H's Toy Story Army guys, and he immediately retold it to me again, excited for the props.  Surely, I thought, we could do better.  So I made the characters out of felt, inspired by the Living Crafts article by Melissa Crowe.  The whole project took about 2 hours, and he's already played with the characters/retold the story more than that.

The second thing that worked:  I made (and laminated) the alphabet - 2 sets of lower case and 1 set of upper case.  And we played Go Fish with them.  Every.  Day.  H loved it, and I do think it helped him recognize some more of the letters.  I think this week we'll try and pick only a subset and do a matching game.

I joined the guided reading of The Kingdom of Childhood on the Waldorf at Home Forum.  And I'm really glad I did.  We've only gone through two chapters - and I am admittedly a total lurker - but it really has provided me with a better idea of why Waldorf does what it does.  This seems especially important given that there are no Waldorf schools around here, and I'm only looking at things I find on my own.

I also started looking at Ambleside Online.  I like the music suggestions for me more than for the kids, and plan to keep checking back each quarter.  After the Kingdom of Childhood I figure I'll try and read more on Charlotte Mason's thoughts on kids.

I also tried to find some books about fall, but darn those Los Alamos moms who had already checked all of them out.  I found that without having some book reviews first (ala The Read Aloud Handbook), and we got some real duds.  So instead we made pumpkin bread (from the recipe on The Rhythm of the Home), which was fantastic), collected leaves and colored in fall colors.

Now onto next week!

To Make!

We are finishing the basement and need to clear everything out, which has given me the opportunity to organize my knitting stash. Because of Ravelry, I can be a complete maniac and actually catalog the yarn types and amounts and find appropriate projects.

Now I want a Ravelry for sewing.

Instead, here are the patterns I want to make - I am afraid if I do not collect them in one place I will lose them.

1. CD/Music case
2. Superhero Cape
3. Rolie Polie

Homemade toddler gift ideas

Surely one of the benefits of being home with the kids is having the opportunity to make stuff with them. Because it's still early in the year, I'd really like to try and make useful christmas gifts for the fam. Here's the collection of ideas so far:

A picture mobile

Pebble trivet/coaster

Clothes pin trivet/coasters

Picture magnets

Apron

Kitchen Towels

Reusable grocery bags

Using crayon drawings for decorating fabric

Edible Clay Dough

From the Jemez Thunder:

• 1 cup pb
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1-1/4 cup powdered milk

Stir, knead, add more powdered milk if necessary.

Ours was actually a little too dry, so I added some more honey and water. All in all, I'd call it a success.

Playdough recipe

• ¾ cup flour,
• ¾ cup salt,
• ¾-1 cup of water,
• the food coloring of your choice, and
• 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil.

Mix it all in a pot over low heat until it looks like playdough. Knead in the food coloring.

the one hundredth entry

Things are only just settling into a new kind of normalcy since moving and the baby, and little knitting has been done. Since I've decided not to take pictures of work in progress unless it's something terribly remarkable, I don't really even have anything to show but this, from Weekend Knitting:



So instead of what I've completed, I'll show you two hand-crafted blankets I received for the baby. If any more nieces or nephews come along, this is the style of blanket I want to make for them:



And then there's this beautiful work from my mom's godmother. This is actually the same pattern I'm using for my latest niece, but her yarn and finishing choices are far superior to my own: