We made it out with friends again this weekend, for another dose of Montana history on the road - this time with a local Lewis and Clark event, and I'm wondering...
...is it only in Montana where the Native American dancers carry cell phones (handy for rounding up their lost drummer) and cameras...
...and children are called to the front chairs for the beaver skinning demonstration?
Or, is this everyday life everywhere in the country?
I slipped out early this morning to freehand a few lopsided circles, of varying sizes, on the sidewalk...
...for the girls (and I) to color in today.
They hadn't taken their box of sidewalk chalk from our box of summer yet...
...so I thought a fun and fanciful project might help spark some creativity. There's something whimsical, aesthetically pleasing, and hard to resist about a large number of circles grouped together. Even the Man of the House smiled when he saw them, and he generally dislikes sidewalk chalk projects in the front yard. He didn't even make a comment about the risk of tracking chalk in through the front door - so I know he liked them. Coloring them in was amazingly relaxing (therapeutic even).
Not to mention, that squatting down to draw, and color in, all those circles was a great workout for our quads. And, it was a long enough project to keep the girls outside in the sunshine and fresh air, on and off, throughout the day.
But really, best of all, I was afforded the biggest belly laugh of the week, when my 18 year old appeared at the door, wondering when I was coming in.
"Maaahm, are you ever coming in? Everybody's up in here, and there's no Mom - who's going to make breakfast?"
As there were neighbors within earshot, I restricted my answer to semi-quiet laughter, holding my stomach and rolling in the grass, letting tears of pure mirth fall freely. I think he got the message.
Anyway, tips for engaging your children in sidewalk chalk art:
provide a nice selection of colors of chalk
if the chalk sits idle for too long, provide a structured project (you can find several here, from summers past)
keep it simple and doable
try not to have a completed "look" in mind
join in the fun - children are much more likely to enjoy a project if they see you're interested in it as well.
It's been a few years since we tried our hand at decorating ice cream cone clowns. If you haven't tried them yet, let me encourage you to add them to your summer fun list. They're messy and imperfect, but super simple, and a lot of fun to make (and to eat).
To get started, clear a flat spot in your freezer, with enough "headroom" for the cones.
Cover a cookie sheet with tinfoil (anything to help reduce the washing up is a plus).
Place flat cookies of your choosing (we went with a soft chocolate cookie this time, but have made our own sugar cookies in the past) onto the cookie sheet.
Scoop ice cream onto the cookies...
...top with cones, and place into the freezer for a few hours, or until the ice cream has had a chance to harden back up.
Prepare your decorating paraphernalia (maraschino cherries, marshmallows, chocolate chips, candies, sprinkles, frosting, whipped cream, etc.) and pull the cones back out of the freezer.
Move each cookie/cone onto a plate for decorating, and have at it. Just remember, it's dessert - not a work of art - so have fun, and don't worry about perfection.
Pop the decorated clowns back into the freezer to firm up once again.
Our style of schooling (almost unschooling) doesn't tend to lead to lot of summer slide, at least when it comes to the "unschooling". That part of our learning is life directed, and doesn't really stop for summer - if anything it picks up, with all the great outdoor learning opportunities, and road trips to musuems.
The "almost" part of school year is another story, though. Little things, like the multiplication tables, or all those geometry formulas, that took so long to learn, can slip away over lemonade and popsicles. So, even though we continue learning throughout the summer months, summer slide can still be a concern.
So far, in our decade and a half of homeschooling, the easiest way to combat summer slide that I've found, is to keep the facts in view. Literally in view...
...taped up onto the walls around the house. This week, for instance, I've been busy taping multiplication stories next to C (age 9)'s bed (from Alan Walker's Memorize in Minutes, The Times Tables - reviewed here), where she can contemplate them before she drifts off at night, as well as an oversized map of the world, on the wall across the room.
This may seem pretty obvious, and might be something you already do on a regular basis - but really, don't underestimate the power of pictures on the walls. Something that you look at daily, even if you think you're not paying much attention to it, has the ability to fix itself permanently into your mind, as a memory. My older girls say they still see a flash of the pictures (from Times Tables the Fun Way, in their case) as they automatically answer multiplication problems, even now.
Changing it up for summer, with a review of this last year's basics - just the facts - can help to keep those little grey cells active without a lot of fuss or fun stealing bother.
I was out watering the yard one evening, over the weekend, when I noticed what looked like a double rainbow in the sprinkler (color enhanced above, to make it show up better). At least, at the time I thought it was a double rainbow (thus the photograph). Now I'm not so sure, maybe it's a twin bow instead. I can't quite tell if the colors are reversed in the fainter bow, and the colors have to be reversed for it to be an actual double rainbow.
Did you know that? I sure didn't - until I stumbled onto Walter Lewin's For the Love of Physics, from the End of the Rainbow to the Edge of Time - A Journey Through the Wonders of Physics. He includes an entire chapter on rainbows, filled with all kinds of interesting details about refraction, reflection, destructive and constructive wave interference, Snell's law, and how to spot all kinds of rainbows.
I think they're interesting facts, anyway (you can catch a lecture of his on the same subject and containing almost all the same information on YouTube, as well).
The children didn't care as much for the chapter, or the lecture. They are of the opinion that too much math or science takes all the magic out of the phenomenon.
They were quite happy though, to take some of their new found knowledge (yes, I did make them sit through the whole thing :) outside to try making circular rainbows at noon - by spraying a mist of water up into the air, from a hose held at chest level, putting them in the center of the mist, at a vantage point to see pretty much the entire circle of color (which is very cool, by the way).
My camera is not waterproof (and was apparently set on a strange light setting) so I stayed out of the center of mist with it while D (age 13) took a look at the rainbow. Later in the day though, I was able to catch the multiple bands of color G (age 17) created with the mist setting, in the evening sun. Those are not double rainbows either, but supernumerary rainbows instead (at least I think they are).
As, to the double rainbow we were hoping to see, but were never quite sure of, we found an experiment...
...that helped us create our own, inside, with a clear mug of water, held at a 42° angle above the eye line to the beam of light (from a flashlight on the table behind us) refracting through the water in the cup and reflecting off the back side, to see the initial spot of rainbow, then adjusting the angle slightly, until we had two (with a few extra reflections)...
...a primary band - with the red on top, and a secondary - with red on bottom.
The video linked above gives a much clearer explanation of the experiment. We tried it with a fish bowl too, but found lack of handle made it cumbersome to lift up and down in the light.
At any rate, the lawn is now well watered, we had a lovely science lesson, ultimately found our double rainbow, and even the least science minded of us has a better appreciation for the complexities of rainbows (and physics) - wherever we might find them.
Have you taken a look to see what's in your yard today?
Also on the table, next to what we are now calling a grease lamp, at the Old Trail Museum was another item that caught our attention. This time, it was not because it was oddly named (although I'm pretty sure they spelled it wrong, and mislabeled it as "hardtack", which it is not - but who am I to argue with the museum people, maybe they know something I don't), but because it looked like it might be something we could eat...
...at least, if we mixed up a batch, at home, ourselves.
Originating in Scotland (the name coming from the Gaelic bhannag, bannach, or bonnach), bannock was adopted into North American Native American culture, becoming fry bread.
There are a number of different variations on the recipe, but basically, it is just a biscuit type bread mix - consisting of flour, salt, baking powder, and water, kneaded together, and fried in a skillet with bacon grease.
I'm imaging an old mountain man frying up a serving of bacon, plopping some of the dough into the still hot grease, to make a biscuit, and then scooping it up, adding a little more flour and water to the pan, for biscuits, bacon and gravy (we have to try that too).
It can however, also be baked in an oven (or for that matter, wrapped on a stick and roasted over a camp fire - another method we would like to try).
We found a child-friendly, oven baked bannock recipe, provided by Chief Earl Old Person of the Blackfeet Nation, on Montanakids.com.
According to the chief, his people traditionally enjoy the bread with a meal of fried beef roast and potatoes, and chokecherry jelly, washed down with coffee or peppermint tea.
We cut the recipe in half, added a tablespoon of sugar (because we could), and enjoyed our bannock warm, with blackberry jelly and lemon curd.
I'm a homeschool mom of six. My family has been homeschooling for about seventeen years. And, each year, we've learned a little more about having fun, and spending less, while learning more. It's great to be a homeschooler!
I'm very happy to share ideas, and thoughts with you. I try to give credit to others when they inspire, or add instructions to a project, and ask that you do the same for me. You may copy ideas and pictures from this blog as long as you give credit and link back to the original post. Thanks
Disclosure Statement
Generally this blog is about sharing ideas parent to parent, and not trying to sell you things. I often mention products that I like, the children like, or we've found very useful, but unless specifically stated in the post, I am not being reimbursed for my opinions. There are advertisements (which I believe use cookies) on this blog, located outside of the posts. I do receive a small kick-back when you click on the ads, so please feel free to click on as many of them as you like.
