Seeds In The Air

We've been busy making whirligig, helicopter type things this evening (click here, for the printable template from ThinkingFountain.org), to reinforce the concept of how seeds travel on the wind.

We actually started out reading The Dandelion Seed by Joseph Anthony, following the fictitious journey of one lonely dandelion seed. But our dandelions have not gone to seed yet, and we don't usually encourage the children to blow them around the yard, anyway. So, instead we settled with making paper helicopters, weighted down with paper clip "seeds", and compared them to the twirling motion of a couple of maple seeds we found outside the library.

They flew almost exactly the same. In fact, there was quite a bit of excitement, when the wind picked up, and started to carry the helicopter born paper clips aways, just like real seeds.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

What My Child is Reading - April 24, 2010

We had another hodgepodge week of reading, with no theme at all. We have about 40 books out, from the library right now, which is a few more than I like to keep track of. I think we'll be doing some marathon reading today, so we can return the bulk of the books, before the next batch arrives in at the library.





We checked out Ladybug Girl and Bumblebee Boy by David Soman and Jacky Davis, after our ladybug sighting. A fun book, about cooperation, and getting along with playmates, it reminded me of the Fancy Nancy books, but without all the big words. I love how the mothers in these books are are plain, and simple, with oversized shirts, rolled up sleeves, and their hair pulled back in clips, while their little girls are all frilly dilly.


We enjoyed Jeremy Tankard's Boo Hoo Bird, almost as much as his Grumpy Bird. As you might gather from the title, and the cover art, Bird is hurt in this story, and it's up to his friends to help him feel better.

I checked out Carla Morris' The Boy who was Raised by Librarians, after reading on Little Page Turners, that the setting for the story is the Livingston library. There is more than one Livingston in the country, but Brian Sneed's illustration of the library, on the title page, looks very much like the library in Livingston, MT. And, if the librarians there are even half as wonderful, as the librarians in the book (not to say the ones in our town aren't sweet), we're going to have to make a visit there sometime this summer.


We had our first spring thunderstorm, this week, and I was ready with a couple of books to read to the younger children, while things were cracking, and booming outside. I thought Barbara Helen Berger's Thunder Bunny would be good, because of the soothing pastel palette of the illustrations, which use a very interesting torn paper technique, too. But, the story has a strange, New Age sort of ending, that was uncomfortable for me, and confusing to the children.



Finally, the older children enjoyed listening to Betty MacDonald's Mrs. Piggle Wiggle so much, that they've been taking turns reading Hello, Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, another book in the series, on their own. The girls were particularly keen to have there older brother read the chapter on Mrs. Piggle Wiggle's bully cure, and he, in turn, suggested they read the chapter on the cry baby cure. It's made for some interesting dinner time discussion.

To find more reviews, and recommendation of children's books, check out this week's What My Child Is Reading link up, at Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Weeds in the Salad

Continuing with our dandelion theme this afternoon, we gathered some information for a couple of fun science projects, to try out for Science Sunday (but you'll have to come back, later this weekend, for those), and we read Mia Posada's Dandelions: Stars in the Grass. It's both a tribute to the under-appreciated flower, and a science book for children, chocked full of interesting facts, and illustrations. It even has a recipe at the back!

Now, if your familiar with this blog at all, then you know we love books with recipes. Even at my most optimistic though, I didn't think anyone in my family would be willing to try Zigorriesalat (or dandelion green salad). So, I came up with a compromise.

I found a small patch of dandelions, that I knew had not been sprayed, and that had not yet blossomed flowers. You don't want to eat the greens, once the flowers have blossomed. To say they will bitter, would be an extreme understatement.

Anyway, I washed, and dried the greens, and put them into an unassuming bowl in the fridge. The greens I picked were close enough to plants, that did have flowers, for me to verify, and be certain they were dandelions, too - that's another thing you want to be sure of. Not everything that's green, and leafy is good for you.



Then, I called my husband, and asked him to pick up a bag of salad greens on the way home from work, because everything that comes from the store, in a bag, must be good to eat - right?


I was tempted to slip the dandelion greens in with the others, without telling anyone. But, I don't like to be tricked when I'm eating, so it didn't seem right for me to trick my family. Instead, I gave the children a sampling of each type of green, from the bag, and from the bowl.


None of them are huge salad fans, so they weren't too thrilled with the tasting, but they didn't see, or taste any difference between the regular salad greens, and the dandelions.


Even the man of the house, who wouldn't try my dandelion flower cookies last year, had to admit, that the greens weren't too bad. Not that he's going to stop spraying, and let me grow a salad crop of them, but he managed to chew and swallow, without gagging.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Dandelion Bookmarks

We had so much fun making our dandelion crowns this week, that the girls have been asking for another dandelion craft. Much to my husband's joy, we used up almost all the dandelions in our yard for our crowns, so we needed to find a craft that only required a few flowers.

We found perfect inspiration from Don Freeman's Dandelion, an old fashioned lesson on being yourself. The story, which was originally published in 1968, is about a no fuss lion, named Dandelion. He decides to get a haircut, after being invited to a "tea and taffy party" at a fancy friend's place.

The haircut turns into a curl, and a new set of clothes, and a cap, and a cane, and a store bought bouquet of flowers for the hostess...so that when he arrives at the party he is so dapper, and dandy - he's unrecognizable. But, after a rain squall blows through, returning him to his simple self, he is not only recognized, but welcomed. He promises his friends, and himself, "From now on I'll always be just plain me!"

We made our Dandelions, by sandwiching dandelion flowers between our paper, and a piece of wax paper, face down, and then hammering them flat.

When we removed the wax paper, and the loose bits of flower, we were left with a fuzzy sort of print.

The girls (the boys have not been feeling crafty at all, lately), glued on googly eyes, and tiny pompom noses.

Then, I drew in the mouths, and ears with a marker, and outlined lion bodies, for the girls to color in.

We cut them apart, and I penciled in the last quote from the book - the "just plain me" quote from above, for them to trace in marker.

We finished them off with a covering of clear contact paper, to protect our books from the dandelion bits.

If I'd known how cute the lions were going to turn out, I would have had the girls make them on thin cardboard, to cut out, and glue to craft sticks, as puppets. But, the girls were already in bookmark mode, by the time I realized where the project was going, so bookmarks it was.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Not So Grouchy, Ladybug Cookies

We spotted our first ladybug of the season, yesterday. Forget about spring - here comes summer!

The girls weren't too sure about it at first, but gradually warmed to the idea of it being a good bug.

In the evening, to celebrate our sighting, we made a batch of ladybug cookies, a repeat idea from last summer (with inspiration from Gretchen's Cookbook). Again, it's just sugar cookie dough, divided, with 3/4 of the dough colored red (ours is more of a bright pink, because red takes a lot of food coloring to achieve), and 1 tablespoon of baker's cocoa added to the rest.


The girls helped make large (2 in) balls of red for the bodies, and smaller balls of chocolate dough , for the heads, watching each other closely to keep the sizes right.



We pressed them together, on a greased cookie sheet, and I made a slit in the backs, for wings.


Then, the girls added a few chocolate chips spots.


While they were baking (12 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit), we read Eric Carle's The Grouchy Ladybug. It has some fun elements of time telling, and size comparison, and explains, very nicely, how helpful ladybugs can be, for ridding leaves of aphids. The girls, and their older siblings, were quite intrigued. Now they want to know more about aphids...

For additional story stretching, arts and crafts, check out this week's stART (story+ART) link up, at A Mommy's Adventures.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Wordless Wednesday - Too Much Flower Power?

I thought we'd join in the Wordless Wednesday fun at 5 Minutes for Mom, this week.

The whole Earth Day thing might be getting out of hand.

But, it's great to be a homeschooler.

Turn Off The Light Signs - A Fancy Nancy Earth Day Craft

We're out to save the planet, or at least a little electricity, with the help of a Fancy Nancy inspired Earth Day craft.

In Jane O'Connor's Fancy Nancy: Every Day Is Earth Day, Nancy becomes very enthusiastic about being green - too enthusiastic for her family's comfort. Together, they find ways they can take care of the planet, while still living, comfortably in it - like turning off the lights in empty rooms. That's a problem area in our house.

To help the children remember to turn their lights off, when they leave their rooms, I thought they could make reminder signs, to hang from their light switches.

I drew the signs on the back of an unfolded cereal box (we love recycling cereal boxes!), and cut them out for the girls to "fancy" up.

My initial thought was they could trace out the words with markers, and then add some fancy touches with Elmer's 3D Washable Paint Pens (I picked them up by mistake this weekend, thinking I was grabbing more glitter glue). Of course, once the girls saw the paint pens, they lost all interest in markers, and traced the words in paint instead.

The pens handle pretty well, and even my youngest (age 3) managed with to trace most of the letters legibly. The signs are blobbier than I had planned, but the girls love them.

Once, the paint dried, I punched holes in the top corners, and tied on ribbons for hanging.

We're feeling greener already.

It's great to be a homeschooler.