Field Trip, Part Two

Sneak in on a guided tour of Jack London's cottage with a kind and knowledgable docent.

Never mind the high school kid who's researching the history of the land.

Imagine living in Jack London's cottage, complete with detached kitchen and dining room (turned sitting room for museum - go ahead, imagine the farm table that once occupied this space).

Wonder how Jack London was able to not only write 50 books in his short 40 years, but also be an agricultural pioneer. Wonder why you can barely write a few emails and do the laundry in one day.

Figure out how you can get this man a vineyard of his own (though let's face it, you're the one who wants the vineyard - he'd rather have a hop farm.)

Climb the mountain to Jack London's personal lake.

Try to ignore your son's constant whining about the uphill hike. Be grateful for the sound absorbing properties of huge redwood trees, moist ferns, and damp earth.

Give your husband extra points for intentionally standing in front of the trail marker while the kids walk by - you don't want them to see how many miles you still have to go.

Bribe your son with a cold root beer on the way home if he will only. stop. whining. please. Be amazed at how well this bribe works.

Ignore the stench and hide your great disappointment with the cesspool that was once Mr. London's swimming hole. Ewwww. Don't even take pictures. Just plug your nose and hurry back down the hill.

Jump in the car and note with surprise the time - you've been hiking for several hours! You're nearly late for dinner with your parents and grandparents.

Change your plans to visit a brewery on the way home. Stop at a convenience store for drinks. Enjoy your family dinner.

Go home and get ready for part three of your field trip. This time, the husband and kids are staying behind and it's all. about. you. More to come.

Not Exactly What Newton Had In Mind

We've been casually exploring Newton's Laws of Motion, mostly in the form of dropping marbles from heights, creating marble whirlpools inside a big metal bowl, magically dropping a marble in a bottle without touching the marble. I've also been seeing proof of Newton's Third Law of Motion as I look around the house.

For every action there is an opposite but equal reaction.



I'm caught up on laundry, but behind on dishes.
My bedroom is clean, but my bathroom is not.
The chickens are fed, but the children are hungry.
We've got a little extra money in the bank from overtime pay, but we've hardly seen daddy the past few weeks.

Yeah, I know those examples don't quite fit Newton's equation, but I find it amusing to view my little world as an expression of non-negotiable physical laws.

Here's another example: I haven't blogged or taken any photographs for nearly a week, but we've made incredible progress in Aidan's education. Something has got to give for something else to flourish, and I've gladly set aside my own endeavors to see Aidan skyrocket in his pursuits.

We've been skirting around his math book the past few months, carefully avoiding double digit addition because "it looks too hard!!!". OK, no problem. Let's just move on to simple fractions. Can you color half of this circle? Sure, that's easy.

But earlier this week, he opened up his math book to the first incomplete page and tackled double digit addition. No problem. Easy peasy. The next day he wanted to do more - but this time with regrouping. BAM. He got it. The next unfinished page is double digit subtraction. Hmmm. I wonder if we'll skirt around that page or if he'll decide to tackle it head on.

Then, as if I tackling two big math concepts in one week wasn't enough (at least for a first grader working on a second grade math book), Aidan decided to take a huge leap in reading. On our way out the door yesterday to go fabric shopping with Grandma, I told the kids to grab a book for the road. Aidan chose a chapter book - no pictures, single spacing - and read the entire first chapter. To himself! No help from me! Sorry - I know I'm bragging, but I just can't help myself! Homeschooling moms spend a lot more time worrying about their children's progress than applauding it, but right now, I want to rejoice and revel and jump up and down! So much progress in one week! This elation will keep me from worrying for at least the rest of the school year. (And yes, I've disgusted myself with the number of exclamation marks in this paragraph.)

One of the great joys and benefits of homeschooling can be found between the lines of Newton's First Law of Motion: Inertia. Sometimes a student is at rest, and we let them stay at rest. But other times, a student is in motion and we let them roll on ahead, removing any barriers in their way (physical or imagined), clearing our schedules if need be, stalling our own motion so we can just stand still and watch their incredible movement forward.

And that, my friends, is why I've been absent. Blame it on Sir Isaac Newton and those darned Laws of Motion.

A Day Late and a Modem Short

Yesterday was the type of day my homeschooling dreams are made of. We started off snuggled in bed reading a book, then got up and drove 18 miles down the canyon, over the river, through the forest and back in time.



We went to the seat of the California Gold Rush in Coloma for Gold Days - a historical reenactment of life in the mid 1800's.



When I told Avery where we were going, she said, "Oh good! We can do Bench Monday there!"



That's my girl.

After driving back through the forest, over the river, up the canyon and back into the 21st century, we came home to discover a lack of internet service. Talk about living history! I was secretly thrilled to live for a while without the internet. It certainly made it easier for all of us to stay off the computer. Instead, we made some rope (a skill we learned in Coloma) and then we crawled back into bed and read some more. It was a perfect day.

The Final Count

With the lowest guess at 35 and the highest at 372, our final egg count for the month of August was nearly in the middle.



And the winner is Jessica of Turkey Cookies with the exact guess of 152 eggs! I really can't believe she was right on and I can't wait to send her a little box of goodies. Thanks to all of you who played our guessing game.

Our chickens aren't the only winged creatures keeping us entertained these days. Our neighbor called one night and asked us if we wanted some caterpillars. They were ravaging her passion fruit vine. Of course we said yes. We set up a little habitat in a plastic container on our dining room table and watched them munch away until they became cocoons.



Then earlier this week, while we weren't watching, a butterfly emerged. Walking by the table, I happened to catch a glimpse of wings and called the kids over. We watched as the butterfly slowly got his bearings, beating his wings, climbing up sticks and unfurling his proboscis (this was most interesting to me).



After a little while, we carefully carried the butterfly out on the stick to which he was clinging. I had my camera ready and was hoping to take a picture of the kids looking at the butterfly, but he flew off in the blink of an eye. I tracked him down in the garden and he obliged me with a few shots.

In the tomato plants, I found a few more bugs munching away.



Tomato Hornworms. They are creepy critters! Big and green, with a beautiful black and white chevron pattern running down their back, and a pointy horn on their tail. I put them in their own habitat on the dining room table, and watched as they devoured handfuls of tomato leaves which I brought to them every few hours.

After a few days, they dropped to the ground and began to borrow in the massive amount of droppings they had dispensed. I put some dirt in the bottom of their home and they burrowed down deep. Within two weeks, if all goes well, they'll emerge as Hawk Moths.

Any cool bugs hanging out on your dining room tables these days?

Another Season Has Come to an End

Avery's third season of synchronized swimming came to an end over the weekend. She placed third in the championships! Yay!

As I was sitting in the bleachers watching routines and figures this weekend, fanning myself in the hundred degree heat, handing out quarters to my kids to buy more Otter Pops, wondering if and when championships would ever end, I realized something very important - I was surrounded by love. The hundreds of moms, dads, siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins and friends that came to cheer on the synchronized swimmers came out of love. They sat on hard metal benches, drenched in sweat, just to watch their girls (and one boy I should add).

I am not by nature a "soccer mom", or a lipstick-wearing hockey mom. Participating in organized sports is way out of my comfort zone. But my kids love their activities, and I love my kids, so I suck it in and sign them up. I sign the registration check as I sign away our weeknights and weekends, but I sign with love.

Our kids most likely do not realize all of this, and of course I'd never tell them. They'll find out one day for themselves when they're sitting on the sidelines, cheering for their kids, perhaps wishing they could be somewhere else, but knowing they are right where they should be.

And now I'm off to find out when we can sign up for basketball.

As We See It

So often when children draw, they draw from their imagination.



Like elephants in pajamas,



or royal mice (a gift from my little artist friend, Olivia).

Sometimes they draw things from experience,



such as a synchronized swimmer's ballet leg, performed by my synchronized swimmer hundreds of times.

When Lori of Camp Creek Press began posting observational drawing art lessons back in February 2008, I jumped right in. For Valentine's Day, I bought my kids (and myself) a sketchbook, just for observational drawing. We sketched a few times, but my kids weren't thrilled about our little lessons.

Our interest in observational drawing was rekindled when George brought home a dead Io moth found in a parking lot one day.



Rather than all of us sitting down at once, I set up a comfortable drawing area in the living room, with the moth in the middle and the sketchbooks around it, and encouraged my kids to sit down when they had a chance and draw a picture of the moth.

This seemed to work much better than our previous attempts at observational drawing.



For our recent Neighborhood Math and Science meeting, I brought a basket of ordinary objects from around the house and made each of the children a little sketchbook out of card stock and blank paper. I heard a lot of "I can't draw that!" comments, but eventually they were drawing.



Some children spent the entire time working on one single drawing,



while others tried to draw every single item from the basket.



I encouraged the children to draw the items from different angles, notice small details (like the little hairs on the carrot), think about scale, and observe the shadows around the object.

A fellow parent even joined the fun and sketched a few objects. He commented that observational drawing takes a lot of patience and concentration. I agree, and I think that perhaps observational drawing is a good way to develop such skills, especially if they don't come naturally.

I kept one of the small sketchbooks for myself, and plan to keep it close by this summer and fill it up with my observations.



I'm beginning to remember how much I like to draw.

I'll Be Seeing You

In some new unfamiliar places. I've been getting around lately, and haven't told you about my adventures.

Eren, our favorite Vintage Chica, interviewed me for her Summer Unschooling series.


Helen, purveyor of Homeschool Style Bytes, shared my recipe for homeschooling.



Kelly, of The Misadventures of Kelly and Kelly, interviewed me about sewing.


And finally, our local magazine for parents, Sacramento Parent, published my article about unschooling, in which I share my recent interview with Mary Griffith, author of The Unschooling Handbook.

Also in the Sacramento Parent magazine this month is an article on the class size increase here in California (have you heard we have no money?), written by Lisa of Paper Cup Poet. She asked me what we're doing in response to the school crisis:

Molly Dunham, a mother of two who lives in Auburn, joined her neighbor in creating a math and science club for their neighborhood kids (ages 4-11) when he saw less-than-challenging lessons coming home from his children’s school. Their first project involved hatching 1,000 turkey eggs. “We charted how many were hens and how many were toms. At the end we graphed the results on the computer and printed out a bell curve, then discussed probability.” At their second meeting, the group built a geodesic dome out of newspaper. “The kids worked together, rolling up newspaper into tubes, taping the tubes together… it was a blast!”

My neighbor and I hatched the math and science club idea a few months ago. He hosted the first meeting back in May, and yes, we hatched 1000 turkey eggs. By turkey eggs I mean flipped coins, heads = hens, tails = toms. We put ten coins in a clear plastic container with a lid (taped on), put the ten children in five pairs, and had each pair flip the container of coins 20 times and record the results. Five pairs x ten coins x 20 times = 1000 coin flips.

My neighbor set up a spread sheet and had the two oldest kids in our group enter the results. He then generated a bar graph, and sure enough, it was a bell curve. It was also a great way to introduce probability in a hands on, visual way.

Our next math and science club meeting was also quite visual and hands-on. We made a geodesic dome out of newspaper.





This project involved problem solving and cooperation, as well as A LOT of newspaper. The kids and I will definitely do this project again.



Our neighborhood group has met five times so far, and we've done some amazing projects. I've learned quite a bit myself. I planned on sharing the rest of our activities with you this week, but we received an unexpected invitation to go camping tomorrow. So instead, you'll be seeing me next week.



I've started my Summer Lovin' link list on the right hand side bar, and will continue to fill it with fun and frugal activities that we're enjoying this summer. Feel free to share any fun and frugal ideas so that we can try them too!

Spring 4-ward

Just in time for Daylight Saving Time (set your clocks forward one hour when you go to bed Saturday night!), I thought I'd share a little game the kids and I invented.

The game is inspired by Tic-Tac-Toe, Connect Four and Penta (one of my favorite games as a kid). We used an egg crate scavenged from the garbage pile at our favorite diner and some scrapbook dots I picked up years ago (I always wondered what to do with them).



Each player starts with a small stack of dots - one color for player 1, another color for player 2. You could also use buttons, checker pieces, rocks, small squares of paper, etc., as long as each player has their own color.



The object of the game is to get four pieces in a row. It's a little more challenging than Tic-Tac-Toe but still fast paced enough to play several games in a setting.



The game didn't hold my kids' interest for long, but then again they are 6 and 8. I think this would be an excellent game for preschoolers. A great thing about this game is that when you're done you can recycle it! There are lots of fun crafts to do with egg crates - little flowers, bells, caterpillars. According to my friend Sarah, egg crates are great fire starters too. I think we might use ours to start some seeds. And the diner thought they were garbage.

Have fun and don't forget to change your clocks!

Where The Journey Begins

First of all, let me say that I'm very excited that so many of you are interested in my latest food journey. I think it will be tremendously helpful and encouraging to share my discoveries and hear more about your food journeys.

To help me sort out and map out our itinerary, I think I'll embark on this journey like a journalist, using the good, old, "who, what, why, when, where, how" approach. Let's start with where.



Where I spend most of my day, right here in the kitchen. I spend hours every day in this very spot. My kitchen island is food central.



This is where I prepare our meals and snacks and where I eat most of my meals (standing up). This is where I search for new recipes and try new recipes.
This is where I converse with family and friends, often about food. Chances are, if you've been to my house you've spent a majority of your visit in this very spot.

While I don't consider myself a foodie, I'm very much into food. I believe in communicating love and warmth through the food I make. I believe food is much more than nourishment for the body. Cooking is a form of expression. Eating is a wonderful way to connect with others. Food is one of the few things each and every human being has in common.

My food journey began long ago. When I was in my early teens, my grandparents were diagnosed with hypertension and high blood pressure and started taking some serious medications and altering their diet. I became acutely aware of sodium and have been ever since. Throughout my childhood, the women in my life did Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, Nutrisystem, Atkins, The Zone - you name the diet, I know someone who has tried it.

In college I took several nutrition classes (I was a nursing major) and started altering recipes to reduce fat. When I had children, the reality that I was solely responsible for their nutrition hit me hard. I started reading labels very carefully, cooking nearly every meal from scratch, and talking to other moms about feeding our families. Over the years we've eliminated many things from our diet: hydrogenated fats, artificial flavors and colors, high fructose corn syrup, nitrates, artificial sweeteners.

I buy organic often, but not always. We only eat local, in season fruits - which can get a little boring this time of year. Thank goodness we have local kiwis to give us a break from apples and oranges. Most of our vegetables are local and in season, but I do love the convenience of frozen veggies. We only eat meat 2-3 times per month, and we buy our meat from a local rancher at the farmer's market. Our eggs come from friends who have free range chickens; but soon they'll come from our own chickens. I shop at five different stores and the farmer's market. I bake all of our bread and baked goods, often adding a little milled flax seed, substituting apple sauce for oil and butter, using half whole wheat flour and half unbleached flour.

I'd like to say we eat well and have a healthy diet, but sometimes we "cheat". I've been known to drink soda on a bad day; the kids love Slurpee's now and then. My kids also eat more candy than they should - I'm a sucker, and the rest of our family delights in giving our children sweets. Some of the foods we love (specifically cereals and snack foods) contain ingredients that I know we shouldn't eat. I don't want to make rules against certain foods, but I want to educate myself and my family so we can make better choices. I want us to know why we say yes to some food and no to other food, and I want us to feel good about these choices. I want us to know where our food comes from and how it gets to our plate. I hope our journey leads us to a better understanding and appreciation for the role food has in our world, our lives and our bodies.

This just about covers where I come from, where I am and where I'm going in this latest food journey. But where am I getting information and where am I shopping?

Here are a few links I've been studying:

Organic Consumers Organization
Environmental Working Group
Weston Price Foundation
Institute for Responsible Technology

This is a lot of information to chew on, so I suggest small bites. My favorite new resource is the Non-GMO shopping guide found at the Institute for Responsible Technology. This guide has helped tremendously as I've trolled the aisles of several different grocery stores. Thankfully some of the brands we love are Non-GMO, such as Tillamook, Envirokids, Annie's, Organic Valley and Jelly Belly. Here's where I've been shopping: Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, our local natural food store, and even the local, major chain grocery store - I just make sure to read the labels carefully. And of course the farmer's market. We're very fortunate to have a year round farmer's market every Saturday morning.

Phew! Have I lost you yet? It might be a few days before I share the next leg of our journey. I'm still digesting it all myself. Feel free to share more about your food journeys. We can all caravan together and share travel tips. Happy trails to you, until we meet again.

Inspiration - Imitation - Innovation

I've noticed a pattern in my crafting and making over the past few months. I find inspiration (usually from all the wonderful blogs out there), I attempt to imitate the idea, then I branch off from the original idea and create something new or different from the original inspiration. I've been mulling over the process this week, looking for evidence to support my inspiration-imitation-innovation theory, and I discovered that this process occurs over and over again. And it's not just me.

This morning I was working in Aidan's kindergarten class. Today was the 100th day of school - a pretty big deal for kindergartners. The children had to finish the following statements:

I Could Eat 100...

I Could Hold 100...

I Could Run 100...

But I definitely wouldn't want 100...

The teacher shared how she would finish each statement, and for the last statement she answered "brussel sprouts". Another child in the class shouted out, "green beans!"

Well guess what? Many of the children, inspired by their teacher and classmate, responded that they definitely wouldn't want 100 green beans or brussel sprouts.

We so often imitate those that inspire us. If I take a good look at the way I dress, how I decorate, the books I read, the things I make, how I parent, even the way I speak, I can trace many of these things back to a source of inspiration - a person I admire, an article I read, a picture I saw in a magazine, a movie I watched. Blogs and Flickr friends provide even more inspiration.

What I love most though is when inspiration and imitation lead to innovation. Coming up with a different approach, a new (to me) idea, an original twist, a compilation of ideas resulting in something completely different. This is the creative process I love so much.

It's not news that I am deeply inspired by Margie of Resurrection Fern. Over the weekend, I found some motif patterns in an old crochet book and made a few covered stones similar to the stones she makes. Good old fashioned imitation.





Avery and her friend, inspired by the covered stones, came up with their own versions.



Now that's innovation.

Inspiration - Imitation - Innovation. Now that I understand the process, I see it everywhere.

If you've followed my rambling this far, I have a surprise for you. A little giveaway.



These two imitation stones need new homes. Leave a comment and I'll draw two names Monday, February 2nd (can you believe it's nearly February?). If you're inclined, share a personal experience of inspiration-imitation-innovation. If not, finish this statement: I definitely wouldn't want 100 ... I'm sure Aidan will get a kick out of your answers (and for the record, he answered brussel sprouts).

It's Barack Obama Day!

At least that's what we are calling it around here. Quite amazing to watch the inauguration live this morning (thank you Facebook and CNN.com!). Avery did not like the poem read by Elizabeth Alexander because it didn't rhyme. I'm not the biggest fan of poetry myself, but I was moved by the rich imagery of ordinary people and plan to listen to the poem again. I also plan on watching The Daily Show tonight - you know it will be a good one.

Also appearing tonight - The Obama Show at the Eyebuzz Fine Art Gallery in Tarrytown, New York. Guess who's going to be there?

My President Obama finger puppet! I'm very excited that he's traveled so far. Thank you Tara and Tim for making room for my little creation.

Now back to our regular programming.

Third Grade

Do you remember third grade? Third grade memories seem very vivid to me.



My first pair of Levi 501 jeans, which never quite fit.
Black and white saddle shoes.
A Tupperware lunchbox, which I quickly traded in for brown bags.
Feathered bangs.
Learning cursive, multiplication and a mnemonic for the planets in the Solar System.
Placing third in the school spelling bee.
A dark haired, blue eyed boy named Bill.
Digging through the trash for my friend Rachel's retainer.

Avery has just started her third week of third grade.

So far third grade has been blisters from the monkey bars.



And lots and lots of writing, which is really hard to do with blisters.



Avery turned 8 three days after school started, and while I really wanted to write a nice little birthday post, I just couldn't do it. I was emotionally drained from our back to school drama. So instead of belated birthday wishes, I'd like to ask you to share a third grade memory. Avery would get such a kick out of reading about your third grade experience, and let's face it, so would the rest of us.

I'll be back in a few days to show you what I made Avery for her eighth birthday. It's a little something I think every girl might need.

The Wheels On The Bus Go Round and Round

A common question when you homeschool is, "How long do you plan to homeschool?"

I never had a solid answer to that question, but I did have some lofty goals. Do you know of a good homeschool college program?

But life is unpredictable my friends. Today I put my kids on the big yellow school bus and sent them off to kindergarten and third grade.



This was not my choice. I was happily homeschooling my little heart out, but my kids have been lobbying to go back to "real" school for quite some time. Aidan even told me about a dream he had that he went to school and had a super nice teacher. Avery would salivate every time we mentioned the phrase "public school".

It hit me one sleepless night that the decision to send my kids to school was not my decision at all; it was theirs. My goal for homeschooling has always been to follow my children's lead, to let them decide what, where and when to learn. I had the misconception that our education system was linear, with public school at one end of the spectrum and unschooling at the other. I now see that, just like the wheels on the bus, the spectrum of education goes round and round. Unschooling led my children right back around to public school.

I'm not quite sure if this is what John Holt meant by trusting our children, but allowing my kids to pursue the education they want feels like the right thing to do at this time. It hurts just a little, well actually a lot, but I'll get over it. The tears will eventually dry up, won't they?

So now the question everybody asks me is, "What will you do with all your free time?"

I have no idea. So far I've done the dishes, washed the slipcover on the couch, said a few prayers and tried to channel some mommy love across the few miles separating me from my children. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that "real" school is all my children hope it will be, but I'm harboring a secret wish that the wheel of education will continue to spin and one day bring my children back home to learn. Until then, I'll be at the corner come three o'clock waiting for the missing pieces of my heart to step off the school bus.