Woe is me: total panic to happiness in 3, 2, 1

Being a mother is hard. I've known this information for the past 5 years, however, nothing had prepared me for the multitude of emotions that I felt over this past weekend.  Everything from worry, confusion, dread, and extreme fear, to elation, relief, and happiness was felt by yours truly in a matter of just a few minutes. 

Allow me to explain.....

Last Friday, my family met up with my husband's side of the family for a camping trip at Clifty Falls State Park for the weekend.  It was tons of fun, but boy was it hot!  On Saturday, my lovely sister-in-law, Sally, and I decided to take all of the kids (her 2 girls, Mikayla and Marissa, and my 2 kids) to the pool to cool off and relax.  The pool was really nice with the zero entry and a tall water slide, but not too big. Turns out that everyone else and their uncle had the same brilliant plan to beat the heat, so it was beyond crowded.   We were hanging out in the zero entry area just getting our feet and legs wet without getting too deep.  The kids were having a blast walking around and just being able to play with each other.  Then, all of a sudden, I couldn't find Madeline.  Looking around for a few seconds, I finally saw her coming towards us from the concession area.  Before I could even tell her she needed to stay close by, which I assume was a given since I say it so frequently, Travis wanders off.  I go after him.  Once I catch up to him, I pick him up and carry him back near Sally and the girls.  I look around.... and don't see Madeline.

Before I began to panic, I did a quick scan of the area, trying to peek through the mobs of people.  I walk towards the concession area and don't see her.  I start walking back to Sally and can't find her.  Sally noticed Madeline wasn't there and asked where she was.  Neither of us could find her.  I swallowed a huge lump in my throat and told myself she had to be there.  My eyes were darting all over for her.  Still holding on to Travis, I went up to a few high school or college aged lifeguards sitting in a little room.  I told them that I can't find my daughter and they all just looked at each other, then got up and started looking for her, too.  They went over and told the other lifeguards, and soon we all were looking... and not finding her.

At this point, I'm imagining the worst.  I run over to the fence that looks into the parking lot to see if I can see her being loaded into someone else's car and listening for her screams.  I start looking at the bottom of the pool to see if I can see her down there..... I was beyond terrified.  Finally, after what felt like an eon, a female lifeguard comes up to me and points to the stairs for the waterslide asking if Maddie was the one coming down the stairs.  Thank God she was!!  My cocktail of emotions washed over me once again as I walked toward to base of the stairs.  Sally got there first, and I shortly after.  I grabbed her hand and pulled her off to the side.  I dropped to my knees and told her NEVER to do that again, then I started crying. Then she started crying, and finally Travis started crying. I was so mad and so incredibly relieved at that point, that I now completely comprehend how you can yell out of anger and cry out of joy at the same exact time. I don't think she understood the severity of the situation right then even though we've talked previously about safety issues and what not.  Still though, I never imagined Madeline to be the one to just walk off like that. 

On our drive home from our camping trip, we discussed it again and I told her how scared I was when I couldn't find her.  I asked why she decided to climb the stairs and she said she just wanted to see how high she was.  I felt a little melancholy at her answer....  we've been hanging out dowtown more than usual lately and every time we park in a parking garage, she wants me to lift her up to see how high up we are.

Moral of the story:  motherhood is as frightening as it is rewarding.

Geo-state-board?

I love the geoboard.  I love it because the kids love it... and they learn while having fun with it.  If you are unfamiliar with what a geoboard is, it's basically a mathematical device (pegboard) used to explore basic geometric concepts.

Madeline was playing around with it earlier today and made a familiar shape.  She stops for a minute, just staring at it, and then tells me that the shape looks like "that state right next to California".  She wasn't sure what the name of the state was, so she ran upstairs with the geoboard to look at the US map on the wall, and came downstairs with this new design.....

From left to right: Nevada, Kentucky, and Illinois.  The bottom shape represents Kansas.  I thought this was a really interesting interpretation of geometric shapes in relation to the states. (For the record, the original state shape she made which caused her to go upstairs was Nevada.)

African mask and paper beaded necklace

While perusing my new favorite blog, Relentlessy Fun, Deceptively Educational, I came across a DIY African mask.  How perfect since we just read about Ancient Africa!  I could seriously spend hours reading her blog and would do every craft/activity if I could.  At least we have one item to scratch off the list so far....

We first did a google image search to see different pictures of African masks and learn a little background behind them.  Then I used a razor blade to cut apart 2 milk jugs and cut out shapes for the eyes and a mouth.  I admit I was in a bit of a rush and quite mad at the razor blade for not cooperating, so the masks look a little choppy.  The kids didn't seem to mind though. Once the facial features were cut, I spray painted one purple for the girl and the other orange for the boy, and let them dry while the kids napped.  I then set out some random crafting items we had on hand along with a couple bottles of glue and watched as the kids went to town on their masks.

 We stapled on a strip of card stock around the back to hold the mask in place, but I'm thinking we'll replace that with a piece of stretchy elastic instead.  Maddie's mask was in place where she could see out of the eye holes right before I snapped the picture...

While the kids were napping, I cut up a bunch of used pieces of construction paper into little triangles to use for 'beads' on the paper beaded necklace.  I would have normally had Madeline do the cutting, but she is getting over a stomach bug (again!) and was actually napping for an unusually long time.  I wanted this craft to be prepared for her to get started on whenever she was ready.   She took the base of the triangle and rolled the paper around the pencil.  A little bit of glue was placed on the point and pressed firmly to keep it all in place, then she removed the bead from the pencil.  Once there were plenty of beads made, she strung them onto a piece of yarn.  Travis strung some as well, but refused to wear his necklace.

Africa - Anansi the Spider

Who doesn't love that tricky little spider, Anansi?  He's been well liked here ever since we read Anansi and the Moss Covered Rock a few months back.  Madeline was very excited to learn Anansi the Spider is a favorite character of African storytellers. In addition to 'Anansi and Turtle' and 'Anansi and the Make-Believe Food' included in Ch. 11 of SOTW, we also read the books in the picture below.  We've actually read them a number of times so far and I have a feeling we'll be renewing these items at the library in a couple weeks.  Both the kids keep bringing them to me to read, and I've even overheard Madeline reading them to Travis at bedtime after they've been tucked in. Love those sweet moments!

Since he is so popular at the moment, we decided to use materials we had around the house to create our own tricky little Anansi.  I cut up a cardboard egg carton vertically so 2 pieces are connected together for the head and body, and the kids painted it black.  When that was dry, they glued/taped 4 black pipe cleaners (cut in half for 8 pieces) for the legs, and added some googly eyes. KPOM!

I had fully intended to fry up some plantains, as they are an African staple food, but both grocery stores I went to last week were out of stock.  I didn't realize plantains were such a hot commodity in Lexington!  Hopefully, they will be plentiful when I go to the grocery on Wed and we will be able to have a belated African-style snack.

Lemon-AID

This morning Madeline and I were dropped off at the downtown Farmer's Market so she could help some of the kids in her co-op 'sell' lemonade (they didn't price the cups, just asked for donations).  Maddie was pretty shy at first and didn't know what to do, but soon found a job in distributing the cups and adding lemon slices to the lemonade.  It was pretty hot out and since she overheats fairly easy, she had to take a few breaks in the shade to cool down a bit and snack on some delicious kettle corn.  We were there until all the cups were gone, about 3 hours, and the kids received a total of $315.60 in donations that will go to the Salvation Army to help homeless children in KY.  They all did a wonderful job and worked very well together. 

Ancient China - Pictograms and Ming Bowls

Chapter 10 in SOTW covered Ancient China.  I thought Madeline would be a little bit more excited about this section since we have been eating more rice lately and also because some of her favorite food is Chinese chicken nuggets, aka sweet and sour chicken.  She liked the activities but didn't seem too concerned with the facts.

We did, however, learn that silk was first discovered in China by the empress, Lei Zu, when a silkworm dropped into her cup of tea, and we also read a story about a young boy named Chin who worked hard with his father to manage their rice fields.  He stood in cold, ankle deep water and bent down all day to tend to the rice.  The work was hard and he felt proud of himself at the end of the day.

The first activity Maddie accomplished was making her own pictogram.  Early Chinese writing used words that look like pictures.   Picto means "picture" and gram means "writing".  I found a fun Chinese pictogram worksheet here.  Madeline practiced the drawings on the worksheet and then set out to create her own.  It was suggested to paint the pictograms in black ink, but as Madeline says, "It's my pictogram painting, and I want it to be colorful."  So be it.  I think this ended up turning into just random little paintings, but she had fun with it.  After her painting was all dry, I asked her what each pictogram stood for, and I had a good giggle watching her decide what the picture should be.

Since she has been interested in playing computer games lately, I was very happy to find this pictogram game on pbskids. It kept her occupied for a little while.


The next activity, which ended up taking a ridiculous amount of time, was to make our own ming bowls.  The only reason I say it took so long was because we had to exchange more clay as the first batch was not pliable at all, even after I added a little water to it.  So back to the store I went.  I ended up just getting a small tub of Crayola air-dry clay, which had just enough clay for both kids to make a bowl.  Once we finally had usable material, go figure that it rained for a couple days, leaving us to air dry in the house instead of out in the sun.  I didn't think that would add that much time to the drying process, but it took a good 2 days even though the clay on the bowl was pretty thin. During that time, Madeline and I did a google image search to see photos of ming bowls.  When everything was finally dry and ready to go, we took it all outside to paint blue designs.

Ming bowls also make really awesome hats, in case you were wondering.  :-)

These were molded around our regular bowls covered in plastic wrap.





Madeline and Travis decided to paint the inside solid blue and decorate the outside with random designs.  Again, as Madeline says, "it's her ming bowl to decorate how she likes."  Travis got bored while painting (that's a first), and Madeline became distracted by rescuing a non-flying lightning bug.  She then had to build a habitat for the little guy in hopes of saving him.

 After getting the lightning bug's habitat in order, she finished off her ming bowl by painting pictograms on the outer part.  Travis requested a swirly, so mama painted that on his bowl.  Tomorrow, we will finally finish the bowls by adding a glaze of  glue/water with added glitter to make them fancier!

Travis' bowl

Maddie's bowl

Perhaps it would be brilliant to finish off this section with Chinese take-out for dinner tomorrow night.

Divine reality {Mind Blown}

Epiphany: (n.) the manifestation of a supernatural or divine reality

Yes, I had a moment of divine reality a few days ago. Have you ever realized that you've been doing something incorrectly your entire existence?  I have... this past Thursday, to be exact.  I learned that for the past many many years, I've been doing this one thing "the normal way".  No more.  

What I am about to show you will leave you dumbfounded, yet extremely thankful.... the correct way to eat a cupcake.  You, too, have most likely been doing this wrong.

But first, the youngins' way:

The look below is only acceptable if you are under the age of, let's say.... 7, and that's being pretty generous.  The crazed cowboy picture on the left was taken last summer after Travis ate a cupcake with red frosting.  It makes me laugh, but he will probably be mad at me for this some day.  Sorry buddy!  The photo on the right was taken on the day of the epiphany (last Thursday, remember?).

Now, back to the important stuff... .do you ever seem to struggle with getting a bite of frosting and cupcake together without looking like a complete idiot?  Either you end up with just bite of cupcake,  just a mouthful of frosting, or a messy face/hands combo trying to get both in one bite. Neither of these is a good scenario.  Why should we ruin the fun of cupcakes with the worry of eating them neatly?  (Actually, that is a bit of a lie.  I don't really care what I end up looking like until I have no more cupcake to eat.  Then I just feel silly.)

So, here it is. Be prepared that you are about to learn this piece of information that will forever change your life.  Do what you will with it.

1) Hold cupcake.

2) Tear the bottom half off and place it on top of the frosting.

  
3) Eat and enjoy! 

Why hadn't I thought of that at least 20 years ago?  Near mess free, and frosting with every bite.  Thanks to a few friends to show me this bit of awesomeness.... you know who you are. Cheers!

The Five Senses

Yesterday we tested Madeline's five senses to see how keen they are.  I set up ten stations, two for each sense.  Stations 1 & 2 were set up as 'touch' with a cotton ball in one brown bag and a screw in the other.  Madeline had to reach into the bag and guess the item without looking.  Stations 3 & 4 were 'sight' and I used an orange on a plate and some vinegar in a glass jar.  The next stations, 5 & 6, were 'smell'.  Again, I used vinegar and also some minced garlic.  I kept a washcloth on top so she couldn't see what the items were.  Does it make me an evil mom that I really enjoyed her reaction to the garlic?  hehe.  Next, there were another two brown bags set up for 'hearing' for stations 7 & 8, one containing a set of keys and the other some coins.  The last stations, 9 & 10, were 'taste'.  I understand her reluctance for me placing something in her mouth with her eyes closed after the good laugh I had when she smelled the garlic.  I assured her they were things she liked.  Station 9 was a piece of cantaloupe, and station 10 was some craisins, which apparently she no longer likes.











After making her rounds, I'd say she's pretty in tune with her senses. 8 out of 10. She got all correct except for station 4 being the vinegar in the jar for 'sight'.  She obviously guessed it to be water.  She also thought station 8 had another set of keys instead of the coins.

She filled out a lab sheet guessing which items were in each station and also stating which other sense she'd like to use instead of the sense given.  She answered that she would like to use her sense of sight most often, followed by her sense of taste.

We also read a few extra books about the five senses.  We had 2 books at home about Helen Keller and read through those as well.  I'm always amazed at what Helen Keller had accomplished in her life.  Things could have been *oh*so*different* for her without determination!

Preschool pre-writing

So I realize I do not make many posts as far as preschool things that we do with Travis.  I should probably post some of the activities, huh?  He has been more and more interested when we do school with Madeline and got somewhat upset today that he couldn't write in her handwriting book.  You should have seen the smile on his face when I told him he could do writing also.  My friend, Anna, posted a writing activity on her blog and I thought it would be fun to do with Travis.  You write a letter on a chalkboard, then have the child trace the letter with a wet Q-tip. After that, they can go over the wet mark with a dry sponge or cotton ball, then trace over the dry mark with chalk.  This worked pretty well for Travis, but I think next time we do this we will use a wet cotton ball instead of Q-tip to make a more prominent mark on the chalkboard.  He did a few letters and you could tell that he felt pretty proud of himself!

In the above picture he had just traced over some dry marks that he made, but since the wet Q-tip didn't erase all of my marks, it's kind of hard to see what he wrote.

Maddie took it upon herself to finish the rest of her 'My Printing Book' workbook today.  That means she just completed pages 75-92!!  The only page that's left is the Final Check where I make sure her letters are still being formed correctly.  I'm glad I already have the next handwriting book here and will be looking through it this week to see if we're ready to start on it or just practice random copy work or poems or what not.

Digestive Stuff - Part 2

Our second lab of the Digestive unit showed the length of a child's digestive tract -- 21 feet!  We had a piece of yarn 21' long, then stapled index cards labeled with the distance along the tract.  We labeled the mouth at 3" from the beginning, the esophagus 10" from the mouth, the stomach 6" from the esophagus, the small intestine 15' from the stomach, and finally the large intestine 4' from the small intestine.  We spread it out from one end of the room to the other... actually, the digestive tract was longer than the length of the room and we had to coil the small intestine a bit to make it all fit.  This activity really showed Madeline the true length and she was amazed that her digestive tract was so long and coiled up inside her little body.  I tried to get a photo of the entire thing, but it was near impossible.  Here is the beginning of the digestive tract, just to show you what I mean.  Super simple, yet very effective. 

Last summer, we found this cool anatomy apron while perusing garage sales. I just love going to yard sales of home schoolers and teachers! The organs are held on with velcro and the kidneys are on the backside.  Madeline likes to play with this every now and again, but was even more excited now that we were discussing some of these organs.

We finished off the digestive unit with a snack and Madeline proudly exclaimed that her trail mix will be in her stomach for the next 3 hours getting squeezed and mashed up into a liquid form!

Mohenjo-Daro

Last week we learned about The First Cities of India in our SOTW book.  The first section discussed river-roads, and why it was important for ancient people to live near and travel by river.  The people of India used the Indus River as a road to trade with others and settled into the Indus Valley so they could fish in the river, drink the river's water, and use it to water their fields. Along this valley were groups of independent cities (the Harappan cities) that had no great warrior trying to group all of the cities into one kingdom.

These cities were built around huge circular mounds called citadels, which were strongholds at the center of a city.  The citadels were very advanced for ancient times.  The houses were made out of mud bricks, they had toilets and drainage systems, the citadels had courtyards, wells, and even a large public bath so that everyone could stay clean and cool. 

Something unknown happened to the cities along the Indus Valley that caused people to flee.  For hundreds of years, no one knew that citadel cities were even there, as they were buried under sand and dirt.  Archeologists found ruined walls and even writings on the walls, but we have no way of reading the writing, and can't find any clues as to why people stopped living there. We'll probably never know for sure what happened.

The mysterious citadel city of  Mohenjo-Daro was built in 2600 BCE, deserted around 1500 BCE, and rediscovered in 1922.  It was located in modern-day Pakistan and had nearly 40,000 people living in it! This may have very well been the most advanced city of that time.

Our craft project for this section was to make a Mohenjo-Daro dwelling using air-drying clay.  I first got the red clay, which would have been perfect, except when we opened the container and cut into it, the clay was moldy.  Weird, huh?  Jake went to exchange it and said they only had regular clay left.  Anyway, Madeline started patting and spreading some of the clay out to be cut into bricks. Once it was all cut out, we placed them outside in the sun to dry.

 Meanwhile...... little buddy Travis finally fell asleep on the couch after feeling sick most of the day.

Here is Maddie being a good big sister and keeping her sick brother company while the bricks dry.  She even picked out a Spider-man coloring book for him when exchanging the clay.  Is it me, or does she look insanely big and he look insanely little in this picture?

And sadly, here is Madeline after she's come down with the same illness as Travis.  

Our bricks are dried and ready to be built into a Mojenho-Daro dwelling, but that will have to wait until everyone is feeling better.  Since Travis got sick yesterday morning and is feeling slightly better today, I'm hoping that Madeline will be feeling better by tomorrow.  On a side note.... this marks her first 'sick day' from school.  :-(

SOTW - The Jewish People

It's been a little while since I've updated what we've been up to in The Story of the World.  A few weeks back, we covered Ch. 6: The Jewish People.  We learned about the city of Ur, located in the evil Sargon's empire in Mesopotamia.  Abram and his father, Terah, were merchants who had grown rich buying and selling in Ur, thanks to Ur's handy location on the Euphrates River.  After Sargon's death, his empire fell apart, and all of the surrounding cities were fighting.  Terah worried that he would lose all of his riches if the city was overrun and burned down by the Gutians (tribes of wild people) who were invading the lands. Terah was extremely upset and went to the largest ziggurat in Ur to ask to moon-god to protect him from evil.  A ziggurat was a special pyramid, not a tomb, built with stairs on the sides so that priests could go to the top and sacrifice to the gods. Terah finally decided to move himself, Abram, and Abram's wife, Sarai, to a better place to live. 

Here is Madeline's make of a ziggurat. Travis knocked it over about 30 seconds after this picture was taken.


The story then continues that once they got settled into Haran and became successful merchants again, Terah passed away.  After his funeral, a god called out to Abram to move away from Haran and go to the land of Canaan.  Abram made a deal with God that he will obey and worship Him, and in return, God will make Abram a father of a whole new nation and give him and his entire family the land of Canaan.  God changed Abram's name to Abraham, meaning 'father of many children', and also changed Sarai's name to Sarah, which means 'princess'.  The following year, at the ripe old age of at least 90, Sarah had a baby, named Isaac. 

Then Isaac had a son named Jacob, and Jacob had 12 sons.  Each of the 12 sons had their own family, and everyone lived in Canaan.

The next section of The Jewish People focused on the story of Joseph, Jacob's favorite son.  It explained how Jacob had a beautiful and colorful coat that he gave to Joseph, and that made all of his brother's extremely jealous.  One day, while out in the field, they decided to sell their brother as a slave, and stained his beloved coat with lion's blood to show their father that Joseph was dead.  After many years of being held prisoner in Egypt, Joseph was able to decipher the Pharoah's dream about 7 fat cow and 7 ugly, thin cows to mean that there will be 7 years of plentiful crops followed by 7 years of famine.  The Pharoah instantly put Joseph in charge of collecting and storing grain during the plentiful years, making him second in command to the Pharoah himself. 

During the time of famine, Joseph's brothers walked for days from Canaan to Egypt in search of grain.  Once they arrived at the Pharoah's palace, they did not recognize Joseph as he fed them.   Finally, Joseph invited them all to a feast and told them who he was.  They thought Joseph would kill them, but instead, he invited their whole family to move to Egypt where there is plenty of food.

As you can tell from this lengthy post, we enjoyed this chapter.  We also read through a few extra books... "The Coat of Many Colors" was the favorite around here. 

Handwriting

Last week, we went over to a friend's house to play and celebrate our year end co-op.  When it was time to leave, Madeline refused to help clean up.  I explained that it's very rude to not help pick up a mess that everyone has made, including herself, and especially since we were at someone else's house.  When we got home I suggested that she write Kasey an apology note.  Being naturally stubborn, she did not want to.  Later that night, I found out we were invited to another friend's house the next day.  When Madeline woke in the morning I told her the good news, and that we couldn't go until she wrote Kasey's note.  Maddie usually is concerned with spelling words correctly and regularly asks for help sounding out words.  She asked for my help and I told her this is her note to write all by herself and that I would help when she's all done if needed.  I'm not quite sure how I would have helped when she was finished, but that's all she needed to hear.  She huffed and puffed for about a minute, then wrote this:

There were no issues when I told her it was time to pick up at Reagan and Kennedy's house :)  Thanks to Kasey and Anna for having us over each day.  The kids always have a blast, and I have fun too!

We've been off and on again working in the Handwriting Without Tears book.  She'll usually go through a few pages at a time and then stop working in the book for a week or two.   Since her handwriting has noticeably improved lately and she does other writing in different subjects and for fun, I'm not too worried about it.  Here she is doing copy work of a poem that she loved. 

I'm a red blood cell

Recently, Maddie was a red blood cell carrying oxygen through a giant's body.  You didn't know that?  It's true.  She started the journey in the giant's heart, then traveled to the lungs to pick up some oxygen, and back to the heart.  Since this giant was walking, she needed to carry the oxygen all the way down to the giant's foot, where she then traded the oxygen for carbon dioxide, a waste product.  The carbon dioxide then needed to travel to the heart so it can be sent to the lungs.  Once the carbon dioxide was in the lungs, the giant exhaled, sending it out of the body.  Then, she was able to pick up more oxygen and repeat the process. 

There were four pieces of paper and a cardboard tube spread out on the floor for this activity.  Each paper had either a nose, lung, heart, or foot drawn on, and the tube was the trachea.   In the picture above, she had just carried the oxygen to the foot and exchanged it for carbon dioxide.  In the picture below, the oxygen is traveling down the trachea to get to the lungs.

She originally had 5 oxygen (red) and 5 carbon dioxide (blue) cubes to work with, and she did a couple rounds of this.  About a week after we did this activity, she impressed me by remembering how to pronounce carbon dioxide, what it is, and talked about it in the correct context without any help.

Volcanic activity in the kitchen

"Don't step on the red.... it's lava!" is a typical statement heard around our house lately, especially with all of our water and land form discussion in geography.  I figure what perfect timing to make our own volcano.  It was really easy and the kids thought it was super fun. Travis even woke up in the middle of the night last night asking to make another volcano.

Recipe:
In one cup (the volcano cup), add 1/3 cup water; 2 tsp baking soda; 2 tsp liquid dish soap (add more for extra foam)
In another cup, add 5 T vinegar and a few drops of red food coloring (optional).
Pour vinegar into volcano cup quickly.

Great teamwork adding the ingredients.

Action is about to happen..... wait for it.....

Travis doesn't look too impressed, but don't let that fool you.  

"I'm gonna touch it...."

 

All in all, this was a quick and fun experiment.  This will probably be something we'll do randomly when the kids need a distraction.