Viola Sugar Cookies

Our local farmer's market opened back up for the summer today, making it possible to find organically grown (meaning not sprayed with poisonous chemicals, and so safer to eat) violas to add to our garden.

To celebrate the find (not an easy one in our area), I made up a batch of viola topped sugar cookies for the girls to enjoy, while they listened to book two in the Herb Fairies series.

Book one, as it turns out, features a chickweed fairy.  The Man of the House assures me I will not find any of that growing in our yard (not if he has anything to say about it), so we'll have to pass on the recipe cards, and stick to the craft and coloring sheets that go along with that book, for now.

The books cost $7.50 each - not a bad price when you consider that includes a .pdf print version, a Kindle version, and an audio version of the stories, as well as coloring sheets, recipe cards, and back issues of a children's herbal e-zine to match up with each title.  Unfortunately, you have to purchase them by subscription, and pay for all thirteen books in the series (which are to be released one per month after the initial two) at once, and after midnight tonight, they will not be available again until mid-2013.

You can find out more about the learning series through HerbFairies.com or LearningHerbs.com.  I will say, my 5, 7 and 11 year old daughters love them, and even though they have a fairy theme, the fairy-tale type magic they offer up is mild, and the characters are adorable.

Of course, you don't have to be reading a story about a viola fairy to enjoy viola cookies.

Inspired by a shortbread version, I made ours with sugar cookie dough (naturally), rolled out and cut with a flower shaped cookie cutter, and placed onto a parchment paper covered cookie sheet...

...topped with viola flowers, that had been washed and dried (remember you probably don't want to eat the ones that have been sprayed with chemical fertilizer)...

...brushed with egg white, and sprinkled with sugar...

...baked for 13 minutes at 350° F, and sprinkled with a touch more sugar (so they'd sparkle).

The flowers don't add much in the way of taste, but they're awfully pretty on the plate.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Paper Frisbee Geometry

Sunday A (age 11) made a paper frisbee, as part of a verse go-along activity, in her Sunday school class.  It's a very good frisbee, and still processing the whole higher math debate, I thought it could probably be used for a nice geometry lesson, too.

To make one, you start out by trimming two sheets of paper into 8''x8'' squares.

Divide, and cut each of the squares into four, 4''x4'' squares...

...for a total of eight squares.

Fold each of the squares in half, turning them into rectangles.

Fold the rectangles in half, short sides together...

...and unfold them, so you have eight rectangles, each divided into two squares.

With the fold at the top of the rectangle, take the bottom left corner and fold it to the top right corner of that square...

...creating a shape made of a square and a right isosceles triangle.

Now, fold the top right corner of the square down to the bottom left corner...

...to form a parallelogram made of two right isosceles triangles.

A piece of tape can be placed between the two triangles to hold them in place.

Once you have folded all eight squares into parallelograms...

...you can begin forming an octagon by placing the closed corner of one parallelogram  into the open side of another...

...to from a 135° angle.

You can double check, that you need a 135° angle, with the formula for angles of a regular polygon:

s - 2 * 180°/s = the degrees of the angles of regular polygons, where s = the number of sides of the polygon.

In this case that would mean the angles should equal 8-2*180°/8 or 135°.

You can double check the angle with a protractor if you are uncertain...

...or eyeball the angle.  If this is 90°...

...and half of 90° is 45°...

...then the two together look to be about 135°.

Or, you could be really clever and just add up the three 45° angles from all the isosceles right triangles placed together.  Either way, once you've determined you have a 135° degree angle, continue adding sides in the same way...

...taping the pieces together as you go...

...finally slipping the last piece into the first...

...to close the octagon...

...for a very nice frisbee...

...with a geometry lesson thrown in, just for fun.

Now, if we just had a better grasp of calculus, we could probably even complete a throw.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Knowledge is Power - Thoughts on Math

Love2learn2day posted a video for thought, this afternoon...



...and it really did get me thinking.  In the short TED talk, math teacher John Bennett seeks to answer the question of whether higher level math classes should be required in middle and high school years, or not.

When asked the inevitable question by his students - "Why do we need to know this stuff anyway?"  Mr. Bennett moved through a progression of answers.

• Math is all around us. Which is true, but doesn't necessarily answer the question.  Fibonacci numbers and golden ratios are cool, but useful?  Maybe not.
• Math is helpful and necessary for technological advancements.  That's great if you want to be an engineer, but what about for the rest of us?
•  You might need math in a future career.  How many people do you know, apart from math teachers, who actually use higher math in their work?  I know one - my nephew.  He's a rocket scientist (or something along that line).  Mind you, he was a high school drop out, too.  But, really the majority of working Americans do not need higher math to carry out the tasks of their employment.
• You need math to do well on the SATs.  You need to do well on the SATs to get into a good university.  You need a university degree to land a high paying, fulfilling career.  The first two statements might be true, but the last one, especially in light of the recent economic turmoil, is open for debate.

Finally, Bennett settles on the fact, that higher math, algebra and beyond, teach inductive and deductive reasoning skills.  Skills, which Bennett feels could be learned through educational, strategy games.  He suggests then, making middle school and high school math classes elective courses, for those interested in math based careers, or with a general interest in math. 

I've gone through all the progressions above already, both in answering the question for myself, in debate with my husband (who is not a lover of math), and with my children, especially now that my oldest are moving into algebra, geometry and beyond.  Like Bennett I've come to the point that when the children ask when they are ever going to need the math they are learning, I answer - probably never.

So, why do I keep teaching it?  

That's the question I've been pondering all afternoon.  Strangely enough, as I considered the thought, my mind kept wandering to "The Feeling of Power", Isaac Asimov's short story about a future where people have lost the ability to perform even simple arithmetic without a computer. 

While the children were eating dinner, I found a copy of it online to read to them, and in the very last lines of the story, as Programmer Schuman considers his newly acquired ability to multiply sums, I found the answer for which I'd been grasping.

Nine times seven, thought Shuman with deep satisfaction, is sixty-three, and I don't need

a computer to tell me so. The computer is in my own head.

And it was amazing the feeling of power that gave him.

Why did I study algebra, geometry, trigonometry and calculus in high school and college, when I suspected I'd never use any of it?  Why do I insist my own children learn it, even though my suspicions have now been confirmed?

Because, it's knowledge, and knowledge is power, right?  Francis Bacon said it, or if he didn't, every teacher I ever had, did.  In fact, if I remember right, that phrase was usually used along with a patriotic speech, about it being our duty as good citizens to become educated, because knowledge is power, and an educated population means a powerful nation.

Of course, those same teachers also taught, usually during a Shakespeare unit, "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

And, 1 Corinthians 8:1 warns knowledge puffs us up.

So then, if knowledge is power and power corrupts and knowledge makes us proud, an educated nation might be powerful, corrupt and proud.  Hmmm...that might be deductive reasoning, but I'm pretty sure it belongs more in freshman philosophy, than algebra II.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not ready to jump on the "ignorance is bliss" bandwagon.  I still think math is important.  I just think we've got to come up with some better reasons for teaching it, or maybe, just maybe, start using it.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Children in the Garden - Waiting for the Seeds to Sprout

While we had the seeds and planter boxes out, the children insisted on planting a fairy, or Lego man, or Poly Pocket garden (depending on who was negotiating).  And, although I have to think starting a garden like this from seed is probably a futile exercise, I understand their desire to plant something - and get spring growing.

So, I sent them out to gather rocks for a path...

...and helped them map out their planting, trying to ignore the fact they planted too many seeds for one planter, or that the height of several of the plants probably won't work for a window box.  I think all the fairies, Lego men, and Polly Pockets (not the mention the children) want to see is a few small plants sprouting above the dirt...

...the well watered...

...and protected dirt.

Of course, most of the seeds won't germinate for two or three weeks, and won't grow into big beautiful plants until some time after that.  So now we wait - just like the young gardener in Julie Fogliano's and then it's spring.

He plants his seeds while the world around is still all brown.  He feeds the birds, and watches over his garden, and waits, and waits, and waits.  He begins to wonder if the birds might have snacked on his seeds.  He worries that bears, who can't read his garden markers, might have trampled his seeds.  He watches for green, and listens with an ear to the ground for any sounds of life.

And all the while, the world is slowly changing - though he doesn't seem to notice.  He plants his garden wearing a hat and scarf, feeds the birds in a light jacket, worries about bears in long sleeves, hangs a tire swing in short sleeves, and waits impatiently in shorts and rain boots for the world to change from brown to green - and then it's spring.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Children in the Garden - Dandelions Indoors

We discovered, by accident last summer when the girls left a bouquet of dandelions in their playhouse, that even cut dandelions, in a vase of water, will still go to seed.  This year, I thought it might be fun to watch the entire process taking place, with the flowers the girls picked for our kitchen window.

Right away we observed that dandelions close up at night...

...and open again in the morning sunlight.  This process is called a nyctinastic response (nycto- having to do with night and -nastic referring to plant movements that depend on stimuli).

After a few days of opening and closing, one morning the flowers stayed closed.  The yellow parts dried up..

...and fell off...

...leaving behind fuzzy white tops, sticking out of the closed flowers.  The flowers sat that way for a couple more days, and then opened again...

...into perfect, white, fluffy, "seed balls".

We turned to Mia Posada's Dandelions Stars in the Grass to see what happens next, as the seeds escape the plant, with the help of the slightest breeze, and find their way to soil.

Oh, and just in case that doesn't clear up any doubts you might still have about yesterday's mystery seed - ta da!

Dandelion Seed

The girls were very interested in the fact that the seeds sprout right down into the soil without having to be buried.

That's something they want to see for themselves.  The Man of the House, who has declared an all out war on dandelions in the yard (a yearly declaration), reluctantly agreed to fill a window box with a layer of pea gravel, and then potting soil for the girls to plant with seeds...

...water...

...and place into a sunny windowsill (or at least as sunny as it gets between spring rain showers).

Brown thumbs or not, I think we might actually succeed with this one.

It's great to be a homeschooler.