good news and Habari Gani

Got the post-Christmas blues?
There's always Kwanzaa.
From Dec. 26 to Jan. 1 you can celebrate African heritage. That's just what we needed to get us through to the New Year.
If the morning paper had not had a full spread describing Kwanzaa we may not have known anything about it. That reminds me I need to send a Christmas tip to the delivery guy... Anyway,
The girls got right to work decorating with the Kwanzaa colors of red, black, and green.
We checked out a book at the library about African folktales that we'll spread out over the week.
And, we'll try to remember to say the traditional Kwanzaa greeting to each other as much as possible "Habari Gani!"

Need a Little Christmas...NOW

Today we made these snowflakes out of pipe cleaner and pony beads. No two are alike of course!
First we worked on memorizing the 3rd stanza of "Twas the Night Before Christmas." This is just so our brains don't freeze completely from having a couple of weeks off from school. We also read a short little story, "The Apple Tree Christmas." The story almost made it sound fun to live in a barn. It's about the simplicity of Christmas-es way back before there was W-mart. It also inspired the girls to eat some of our apples.

Yesterday, our neighbor taught the girls about Christmas traditions in Germany, where the tradition of decorating pine trees originated. They had rice pudding and decorated gingerbread houses with graham crackers and lots of gooey frosting.


We were lucky enough this year to have a spontaneous ice skating rink form in our yard. Kate was the first one who discovered it and since then it has become a main attraction for all the kids. Oh they've had their share of falling, wet bums, and cold hands, but they still like to go out. Kate will bring out the radio and blast the Christmas music. Today she spent a whole hour with Adrie choreographing a lovely skating dance complete with whirls and twirls.

While I was planning all the fun activities we'd do this week Kate (who's 8 and great) taught me a great lesson. She had just read the newspaper and came to me after we had read our bedtime Bible story. Apparently she had come across a picture of an ad that showed an old man with a plate. It said something like, "Can you help the hungry?" I had remembered seeing that ad running for a few weeks now and I hadn't even given it a second thought. But, Kate, who is so sensitive and compassionate was visibly moved by it and wanted to help. The next day we had a true CHRISTmas activity. The girls cut out that picture in the paper and went around the neighborhood collecting money in a jar to send to the homeless shelter. With their own contributions and that of the neighbors they collected $16.30. That is enough to give 9 people Christmas dinner. Thanks Kate for teaching us the true spirit of Christmas!

Last December we took the whole month off from schooling. It was glorious. We spent the whole month celebrating Christmas: baking, making Christmas crafts and reading Christmas stories.

This year our schedule has been a little different so we will just be doing 2 1/2 weeks.

Our plan is to read a short Christmas story everyday then do an activity: decorate a tree outside with popcorn/nuts/seeds for the birds, make gingerbread houses, paper snowflakes, ...

Last week we made salt dough ornaments. How easy and fun! We actually extended it into two days. One for making and baking and the other for painting. The girls are very proud of their decorations. Kate even went beyond the cookie-cutter versions and molded her own Baby Jesus in swaddling clothes. The little girls in the neighborhood have taken to him so fondly, that Kate made another batch this week and cloned him.

Recipe from about.com

1 cup flour

1/2 cup salt

1/2 cup water

Mix the above . Roll out 1/4 inch thick. Use cookie cutters or use a knife to free-hand your own shapes. Be sure to poke a hole in the top. (We used the back end of a paint brush)

Bake 250 degrees for 2 hours. Flip every 20 minutes or so to prevent curling.

Cool and paint!

What did we learn at the end of the day?

Today was one of those days that I wondered if anyone had learned anything. It seemed like everyone had a case of the not-wanting-to-do-anything disease. Does Mrs. Piggle Wiggle have a cure for that one? But, at the end of the day as I gathered their papers I realized that they must at least have one thing in their heads.
In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
They each had copied this to their varying abilities: Kate in cursive, Brynn printing, and Adrie trying to get the letters in order.
In honor of Columbus Day we talked a bit about his life and watched a clip from the History Channel. The girls also had to copy a few more lines to add to the above.
He discovered America.
The world is not flat. It is round.
Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria.

Copying seems to serve a lot of purposes: spelling, grammar, punctuation, and of course whatever info they are copying is sinking into their heads. Last week the girls each chose a poem to learn. Each day they copied a stanza and just by doing that, they have them nearly memorized. Next week we might have to get out some famous quotes and scriptures. Think of the fun we could have with a list of "Mom's rules!"

Thought for the Week

If you want your kids to read, create places in the home where they will want to read.

I found Kate in my bedroom on my bed curled up and reading Roald Dahl's Matilda. When she saw that I was surprised to find her there she explained, "This was the only clean place in the house."

Dumb Dirt

We have the perfect backyard for a lesson about DIRT. We live on exactly 1/3 acre of the red silty stuff and have been for 3 summers now. I have been known to shout, "I HATE DIRT!" when picking up my muddy specimen of a toddler and hauling him away to be hosed off....again. I don't care if anyone hears me. In fact I can now say that I LOATH dirt--can't wait to bed it down with some plants and grass.

I hope my attitude has improved a little today because of our science lesson on "appreciating SOIL." Soil is just a nice name for dirt. While the girls played in it, we learned it's made up of

• air


• water


• minerals


• humus (HYOOMUS) (things that were once living)

Here is what Kate regurgitated from the lesson and I wrote it down in her notebook.

Humus is made of dead stuff. It makes dirt black. There are 3 types of soil. We have CLAY soil in our yard. If we add humus to it, it will make our plants grow better. That kind of soil is called LOAM. Next week we will be at the beach. It will have SANDY soil.

This afternoon we went to our local Home store or what Brynn calls the "boringest store ever" and bought some LOAM, a spade, and some daylily's. We are excited to add some more dead stuff to our dirt. It's time we put our dirt to work and try to beautify the yard-- if only a lily at a time.

p.s. While at the Home store I got a consult for installing a sprinkler system. We're only a simple irrigation system away from getting rid of the dirt problem forever. Ha ha. I'm wringing my hands with delight.

A Very Bad Horrible No Good Day

Sending kids to public school is so very tempting on days like yesterday. Was I in a bad mood and it rubbed off on everyone else or were they in a bad mood and it rubbed off on me? Either way we all had a bad attitude. I would give an assigment followed by complain, complain. Some days I can manage to divert a little complaining but yesterday seemed to be unmanageable. We got our work done BUT IT WASN'T PRETTY. Time for me to refresh my Love and Logic parenting skills or something. Eventually I put myself on time out. Meditation and prayer work miracles...we ended up with a good afternoon.

I LOVE this new book we got from the library, The Shape Game by Anthony Browne. It has a fresh perspective on Fine Art and an idea for a fun game at the end. Here's how it goes: someone draws a silly free form shape. The other person has to make a picture out if it. Our girls had a lot of laughs and used about 20 sheets of paper. Here is my favorite sample:

Today was much better , we invited a friend over and had a geography/history lesson about Africa. We learned about the gold of Ghana and the merchants who traded it through the Sahara desert with their trusty camels. It acually kind of turned into a science lesson when we watched a National Geographic clip about camels, talked about Dromedary and Bactrian camels and made our own out of egg cartons and pipe cleaners.

If anyone is interested in some cool spelling software there will be a free trial offer and giveaway Friday Sept. 4 on this website. www.SpellQuizzer.com/community