Unplug Your Kids: Tiny

For this week's Unplug Your Kids project, the focus was "tiny." I looked at the blog of This Girl Loves To Talk and followed her link to the Filth Wizadry blog. This blog is aimed at preschoolers, but I found some wonderful ideas! In fact, there are a lot of ideas I'm planning on trying. You should hop over to her blog and take a look!



We used her origami post to make "tiny" baskets (and also a couple of boats) and then used them for Alex's huge collection of Littlest Pet Shop toys. I'm sure Alex spent over an hour making these little boxes. I made 6 boxes and Alex made TEN!!! It was just a lot of fun and something we both enjoyed. (The actual link for the tutorial to make the baskets is at oragami-instructions.com.)

A Tadpole Named "Marvin"

We caught a tadpole near the beginning of June. We released him as a teeny tiny toad yesterday. Here are some photos. (By the way, I think he's a toad because he stayed out of the water once he got all of his legs. Can anyone tell me if I'm right?)

Marvin at 2 weeks - he just got his hind legs.

Marvin at 3 weeks - he actually grew his front legs while being transported to my mom's 4 hours away so she could watch him (and our dog) while we were in Oklahoma and Vegas. My mom said his tail was practically gone and he was sitting out of the water by the next day!

Marvin at 4 weeks. Can you believe how tiny he is??? He's about the size of a fly - maybe smaller. We released him back near his pond the day after this photo was taken. What a great experience watching this little tadpole change into a little toad!

Back from Trip #1

Last night, we got back from trip #1 (of three!) for the summer. I drove Alex to Oklahoma where she could stay with grandparents and attend a family reunion. It was our first reunion (and I hated to miss it) and we had about 120 in attendance!!! Alex had fun and made a great friend of one of her distant cousins. (Above is the amazing view from our room.)

After dropping Alex off, I hopped on a plane for Las Vegas to meet up with my husband. One of my husband's best friends from college (and he lives nearby so we see him pretty often) was getting married for the first time. We had 4 days in Vegas - our first trip without Alex (except for one overnight stay) since she was born. We had so much fun!

Part of the time, I braved Vegas on my own and went to the Titanic exhibit at Luxor, watched the fountains at Bellagio, went to the Reef Aquarium at Mandalay Bay (where we stayed) and went to an art exhibit of Warhol, Lichtenstein and Friends at Bellagio. (photo: Hoover Dam in lower left.)

On the plane ride back, I made sure I set on the right side and I got to see both Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon! It was a great way to end a wonderful trip.

Where Do Your Kids Get Their News?

Heather at Blog, She Wrote mentioned in a post that her children use God's World News as a news magazine. This year, Alex had been using Scholastic News. We might continue with it, but I was wondering what other news magazines there are for young children. (Alex will be in "4th grade".) So, where do your kids get their news?

Backyard Photowalk

While Alex has been lying around sick today, I've went in the backyard for 2 nature photowalks. I usually crop the photos, but then you can't enlarge them. So, today I left them "as is" and hopefully, you can click on them to enlarge - some of them are REALLY neat looking! (UPDATE: I thought if I didn't crop them, you could enlarge them. But, only the photo with the inchworm works. Any ideas why? And ideas of how to fix it? Thanks!)

snail

another inchworm on the black-eyed susan (actually, there is a lite green one on the stem, too)


very cool green spider on the black-eyed susan cone (this looks great enlarged!)

neat looking small moth I identified as a grape leaf skeletonizer on Whats That Bug - if you enlarge it, you can see his fuzzy abdomen and antennae

our first cicada exoskeleton of the year - we just started hearing them in the evenings about a week ago

Massachusetts Authors

While I was practicing the piano yesterday, Alex grabbed a "Which Way USA?" book off the shelf and started working. Of course, I had to join her. We both really enjoy these books which are filled with puzzles AND they teach you about each state - geography, landmarks, history, etc. We got a BUNCH (25?) of these books from Half Price Books several years ago for $1 each. We finished this one yesterday, but I know we'll work on another one today as Alex is SICK! So, we're just lying around right now... she's watching TV and I'm on the computer blogging and researching our next project.


So back to the book... one of the activities was a word search using the last names of famous Massachusetts authors. I was excited that Alex recognized quite a few of them and I was telling her about others. Then, I decided to "test" us and see who we recognized. In case you want to play along, here's the list:

Louisa May Alcott
Anne Bradstreet
William Cullen Bryant
John Cheever
Emily Dickinson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Benjamin Franklin
William Lloyd Garrison
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Henry James
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Amy Lowell
Herman Melville
Theodore Geisel, aka Dr.Suess
Henry David Thoreau
Phillis Wheatley
John Greenleaf Whittier

Here's Alex's list:
Louisa May Alcott - "Little Women" & "Little Men" (Yeah, Alex!)
Emily Dickinson - poet (Yes!)
Benjamin Franklin - wrote an almanac
Dr. Suess - The Me Book
Phillis Wheatley - she was a slave - wrote poems (I was the most excited that she recognized this lady! She said she learned about her from the Liberty Kids DVDs.)

My list:
Louisa May Alcott -"Little Women", "Little Men"
Anne Bradstreet - not familiar - looked up here - she was a poet in the mid 1600's
William Cullen Bryant - familiar - looked up here - poet & long time editor of New York Evening Post
John Cheever - not familiar - looked up here - novelist, but best known for short stories
Emily Dickinson - poet - wrote "I'm Nobody Who Are You?" - my high school English teacher's favorite poet :-)
Ralph Waldo Emerson - poet - looked up here - I should have remembered him more for his essays & philosophy of Transcendantlism, from the same English teacher
Benjamin Franklin - Poor Richard's Almanac, letters as "Silence Dogood"
William Lloyd Garrison - not familiar - looked up here - best known for radical abolitionist newspaper, "The Liberator"
Nathaniel Hawthorne - "The Scarlet Letter" (read in same English teacher's class) & "The House of Seven Gables" - I mainly remember this from SEEING this house while visiting Massachusetts as a child
Henry James - not familiar - he is primarily known for a series of novels portraying the encounter of America with Europe
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - poet - "The Children's Hour" - I LOVED this poem as a child and memorized it for a presentation - I can even remember the little red book I learned it from
Amy Lowell - not familiar - poet who won Pulitzer Prize for Poetry posthumously
Herman Melville - "Moby Dick" (I should have remembered "Billy Budd", too - we have an audio CD in the car) - I even mentioned "Moby Dick" yesterday!
Theodore Geisel/Suess - "Green Eggs & Ham"
Henry David Thoreau - "Walden" - same English teacher! (Oh, and I had her 2 years - 10th & 11th)
Phillis Wheatley - slave/poet
John Greenleaf Whittier- familiar - Quaker poet & a "Fireside Poet" - so now, of course, I want to learn about the Fireside Poets :-)

Overall, I was happy with what we remembered. But, I also realized that we are not learning much poetry or about many poets. So, I hope to fix that this year! We'll start by reading a book about Emily Dickinson I've had on our bookshelf - "The Mouse of Amherst" by Elizabeth Spires. It's about a mouse that lives with Emily Dickinson.

Unplug Your Kids: Slippery

This week's Unplug Your Kids challenge was "SLIPPERY." I had trouble thinking of anything except for slippery soap. I remembered I had bought some Ivory soap quite a while ago as we were studying whales for our Swimming Creatures co-op. We were hoping to use it to make some scrimshaw like the whalers used to do.

When we went to Maui a year and a half ago, Alex and I spent quite a bit of time at a whaling museum. At the museum, we bought some scrimshaw Christmas ornaments (which I couldn't find this Christmas!) Whalers would carve into bone and teeth of whales (and sometimes other body parts) to make beautiful etchings. Well, I read that you can try to do your own "scrimshaw" using Ivory soap.

Ivory has its own site, with patterns, showing you how to carve the soap. We really enjoyed it and it was challenging, but I thought it turned out well. I used one of the patterns while Alex created her own design.

BOOK REVIEW: I've also been meaning to mention a book I read about whaling while in Maui. The book is In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick. (He also has a juvenile version titled Revenge of the Whale: The True Story of the Whaleship Essex, which is also available on CD.)

The book tells the amazing story of the whaleship Essex which was attacked by an angry whale. It sunk and the crew did everything they could to survive, even taking the most drastic meaures. In the end, only a few of the crew survive the 90 days at sea. The book is indeed intense and mezmerizing and this true story inspired Herman Melville to write Moby Dick.

Wildflower Surprises

Several years ago, we planted a lot of wildflower seeds but not much grew. (It could have been that our yard guys were pulling everything up!) So, we were surprised a few weeks ago when we went to this part of the yard (which is usually hidden) and we found a lot of yellow wildflowers! I took some photos and am only just getting around to blogging about them. (Because Alex has some friends over and I've already cleaned the house so I have some 'spare' time!)

There are 2 different kinds of yellow flowers in our new "wildflower garden." One type, above, I've identified as Plains Coreopsis. I think the easiest way to identify these wildflowers is by the edge (margin?) of each petal.

I believe this other type of flower is a Black-eyed Susan. The center is kind of purple and the "eye" is raised quite a bit. Even though I took these photos a few weeks ago, I just looked at them today and was surprised to see...

three inchworms!!! (One is in the center.) I'm going to have to go check tonight and see if I can find more of these. I love inchworms! I've posted about them before, but thought I'd go ahead and repost what I learned about them last April.

Inchworms are a specific type of caterpillar. Like most caterpillars, inchworms have 3 pairs of true legs in the front of their body, but usually only 2 pairs of false legs in back where most caterpillars have 5 pair. They move by drawing their back legs towards their front and then stretching out their body.

Inchworms are also called measuring worms, spanworms, cankerworms, and loopers. They are usually about 1 inch long. They belong to a family called Geometridae or the Geometer moths - "earth measuring." You're probably familiar with the Inchworm song that teaches arithmetic. (See video at the bottom of the page.) We actually sing this song pretty often - sometimes during math.

Update: I went outside and found at least a DOZEN inchworms! We might have to try to raise some. :-)

Henri Matisse & Icarus

Last week, we read Henri Matisse: Drawing with Scissors by Jane O'Connor (part of the Smart About Art series we really enjoy). Then, we spent some time looking at another book at a some of the artwork Matisse included in a book called "Jazz." This is a book of art Matisse made using cutouts. Matisse created this book in his 70's when he was in poor health and couldn't draw or paint easily. He would cut out pieces and then arrange them until he was happy with the result.


I like that Alexandra made up her own artwork. This is "my" closet and I LOVE the Winnie the Pooh sweater she has hanging up - I really do have a Pooh sweater. :-)

I am not as creative and I did my own version of one of Matisse's pieces in "Jazz" - this one is called Icarus. After viewing Matisse's version of Icarus, we discussed the myth of Icarus & his father, Daedalus. Alex has a "Book of Virtues" video of this story, so we watched it also.

Then, we watched this incredible Lego version of the story. Now, I want to learn how to do some stop motion movies. If anyone has any tips or hints, please let me know!

One Little Tadpole

When we went on a nature walk near a pond 2 weeks ago, we caught 2 tadpoles. One of them didn't survive until morning (I'm not sure why), but the other is doing great! In fact, we saw he had teeny tiny legs yesterday! (This photo is from today -aren't the legs tiny, though?)

My friend Robin at martinzoo just posted about her tadpole habitat so I thought I'd share ours. Alex actually came up with the idea of putting our tadpole in a wine glass, so this is his 'home'! Kind of ritzy, huh? After reading Robin's post, though, I realized we need a place for this little guy to hide. So, we'll probably be revising his home soon. (Oh, and she feeds her tadpoles flake fish food while I've frozen some lettuce and just break tiny pieces of it off. I guess they survive just fine on either!)

Praying Mantises

Alex had received a praying mantis kit for Christmas 2007. I finally got around to ordering the mantis egg case and it arrived about 3 weeks ago. The egg case is supposed to hatch about 2-4 weeks after you receive it. Well, the hatched Saturday and we had 100-200 baby praying mantises!

We wended up releasing them all as they become cannibalistic if they do not get enough food. That would not be a pretty site! I thought it was neat that they were very spread out and seemed to need a ring of "personal space."

Here's Alex holding one. You can see how tiny they were.

And, here's a video. We released them in groups all over our yard, so hopefully we'll be seeing them around sometimes!

Locks of Love

Last week, I had 10 inches of my hair cut off to donate to Locks of Love. Two years ago, I first donated my hair after one of Alex's friends had her hair cut off and donated. So, I share about my donation hoping to inspire others. Locks of Love provides hairpieces to "financially disadvantaged children in the US and Canada under the age of 18 suffering from long-term medical hair loss from any diagnosis." It takes from 6 to 10 donated pony tails (must be at least 10 inches long) to create one custom hair piece.

And, here's the back of my new look! I thought Alex took some pretty good photos, and I'm enjoying my new look.

Ireland...

The very first post I did was on July 8th, 2005 - almost 4 years ago! That post included the photo above and was about Galloping the Globe (a WONDERFUL curriculum) and Ireland. My sister-in-law and my in-laws were going to Ireland and took these two Flat Friends for Alexandra. They took photos with them and created a scrapbook of Ireland that Alexandra still has.

That trip to Ireland was because my sister-in-law was teaching in Limerick, Ireland for 3 or 4 weeks. Well, she's going back this July and WE ARE GOING WITH HER!!! Yes, Alexandra and I (and other family members) are heading to

IRELAND!!!

We will be gone a total of 2 weeks and will be visiting Limerick (and surround area), Dublin (for a weekend), and going for 4 days to Edinburgh,

SCOTLAND!!!

This is our first trip out of the US and we are very excited. I've been doing lots of research and we can't wait to see the castles, the land, the wildlife, the museums.... It'll be wonderful! And, of course, I'll be sharing our trip with our blog friends! I can't wait!

Parallel Journeys

I recently finished an amazing book called Parallel Journeys by Eleanor Ayer. The book follows the young lives of Helen Waterford and Alfons Heck, who were born near each other in Germany. But, Helen was Jewish and Alfons was Aryan or non-Jewish. Helen ended up in hiding and then in a concentration camp during WWII while Alfons became a high ranking leader in the Hitler Youth. This story tells their amazing stories, side-by-side.

Alfons Heck later regreted the life he had lead. He felt that because of their age, millions of German youth had been brainwashed by Adolf Hitler. Millions of these Hitler Youth died fighting for their beloved Fuhrer. In his later life, Alfons became a journalist and wrote about his experiences as a Hitler Youth leader. Helen Waterford read one of his articles and contacted him and they eventually joined forces and spoke about their experiences at high schools and other settings.

I found the quote by Alfons Heck at the beginning of chapter 1 to be incredibly powerful:

Unlike our elders, we children of the 1930's had never known a Germany without Nazis. From our very first year in the Volksschule or elementary school, we received daily doses of Nazism. These we swallowed as naturally as our morning milk. Never did we question what our teachers said. We simply believed whatever was crammed into us. And never for a moment did we doubt how fortunate we were to live in a country with such a promising future.

I did not have Alexandra read this book, but I will one day. It is a powerful story showing both sides of this horrible time in our history. Especially in light of last week's events at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in DC, I found the very last quote of the book very powerful, too. It is actually on the wall of the Hall of Remembrance at this museum (which includes some of Helen's story):

Only guard yourself and guard your soul carefully,

lest you forget the things your eyes saw,

and lest these things depart your heart all the days of your life.

And you shall make them known to your children

and your children's children.