Listful: Spring

1. Warmth
2. Green
3. breezes
4. baby goats
5. turtles crossing the road
6. the smell of grills being fired up
7. March Madness, until UK loses
8. driving with the windows down
9. morning jogs
10. swings
11. having school outside
12. minor league baseball games
13. outdoor concerts & festivals
14. hiking
15. going to the drive-in
16. stargazing

I love spring. I'm so happy that the long, dreary winter is finally past that I want to skip everywhere I go. I want to paint the house yellow and green and sparkling blue. I want to cover this blog in glitter and glue flowers all over it. I'm downright unbearable in my glee for the warmer weather and an end to sorry, trembling, naked trees and crunchy dead grass.
So far, spring has been full of outside birthday parties, drive-in movies, trampolines, face painting, critter catching, bird watching, inchworm wrangling, picnics, drives, happy music, and milkshakes. And it's only just started. Isn't it swell?

*I really, really like the word "listful." I think I'm going to use it too much this week.

Ol' Naked Joe

"Mom," Allie whined. "We didn't see any leprechauns today!"

It was 9:00 pm on St. Patrick's Day. I felt like I had adequately fulfilled my holiday obligations by that time, with the now-gone day spent crafting and decorating, reading Irish legends, poetry, and blessings, hunting clover, and other shenanigans. (This is the one time of year I allow myself to use the word "shenanigans.") It was time to send the kids to bed, and time for me to do nothing. I was pretty excited about that.

Allie disappeared upstairs. Noises followed. Sounds of digging around, stuff falling, something being torn up. Definitely not the sounds of a kid sleeping soundly. Allie soon reappeared, and she needed my help.

"It's a leprechaun trap, but we won't call it that. They won't get in it if they know it's a trap." She pushed a box at me. At one time, it had been a long, narrow USPS priority mail box. The end was hacked off, and she had plans.

A half an hour later, the box had bars made from pipe cleaners, was painted green, and bore glittery signs saying "Leprechaun House! and "Home Sweet Home." On the back of the box was a sparkly crowned fish, because now the box was a pub named "The Happy Herring." The Happy Herring was full of candy in shiny wrappers, and, once it was put in its place on the floor, surrounded by fake grass, birds, and plastic ducks. If it were real, I'd probably be at the Happy Herring every night.


"How will it get in? If it can get in, can't it get back out?" asked Allie. She's quick.

"Weeellll, it will get in pretty easily, but once it eats all the candy, it'll be too fat to escape." My ability to lie under pressure is one of my greatest gifts as a parent. (I'm kidding.) (A little.)


"You're right, Mom!" Allie yelled happily. She had more questions, I had more answers, the bars were tweaked, more candy was added, prayers were offered up to St. Patrick. Really. Allie was finally satisfied and bounced off to bed. I was troubled and had to make a quick trip to the store to get leprechaun supplies. I was hoping to find doll house miniatures and doll clothes, but of course they didn't have any of that, so I had to get felt to sew the leprechaun clothes, stickers, and little cheap gifts.

The tired and definitely unpleasant lady at the check-out looked at me like I was crazy. "You KNOW St. Patrick's was today and there's no reason to buy leprechaun stickers now because it's NOT like they're on sale, RIGHT?" she barked at me.
"I have to fake a visit from a leprechaun and have stuff for our leprechaun trap," I replied, like it was the most normal thing in the world. She didn't say anything.

(I can't sew. Obviously. Thankfully, leprechauns make shoes and not sportswear, so it was convincing craftsmanship.)

Three hours later, I had made a leprechaun shirt and pants, eaten or thrown away most of the candy, and printed a letter from an angry leprechaun. (I would like to apologize to the Irish and to leprechauns for my terrible, no-good Irish/pirate/something-I-saw-in-a-movie-once accent.) The bars were stretched out on the Happy Herring, and there was leprechaun barf inside. I could go to bed feeling clever and also slightly ridiculous.


I was woken up too early the next morning by three giddy kids, all talking a mile a minute about the destruction! and the clothes! and the letter! It was fantastic. I sat in the floor in the morning sunshine, laughing with the kids over "Naked Joe" and his letter, and was grateful for kids who can still believe in slightly crazy, magical things.

Spring Swap!

Here's the package I mailed to my swap partner on Monday. It's for a homeschool group's spring swap, and, in giddy anticipation of SPRING!, I had a blast putting it all together. Each little package had a theme (spring = getting outside, being young, make new things, etc.) (uh-huh!) and I had ridiculous amounts of fun wrapping it up and adding birds and clouds and grass. I'm sure it arrived looking like a more hurricane-ravaged version of the pictures I took, but was pretty swell going out the door. **Enjoy, Heather!**

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

We are having a lovely, sunny, lucky day, having found eight four-leaf clovers, made two Crois Brides, and dripped gold glitter glue across three rooms. I hope you're having a wonderful day, too. I'd like to share the kids' new favorite Irish blessing:

May those who love us love us.
And those that don't love us,
May God turn their hearts.
And if He doesn't turn their hearts,
May he turn their ankles,
So we'll know them by their limping!

Yup. They're still laughing over that one. Wait until they're old enough to appreciate limericks. Hoo-boy.

Cacophony

My youngest daughter found one of those books of birds and their songs on our last trip to the used bookstore that we adore. It's a swell (if a little, umm, noisy) book with nice illustrations, and she fell in love with it immediately. She even chose to spend her own hard-earned (because it's work to be so cute) money from her grandparents on it. She's hugged it and slept with it and pushed those little buttons overandoverandover, picking her favorites and giggling at the one bird that says "RRRRALPH! RRRRALPH! RRRRALPH! Chkchkchkchkbrrrrrchk!" Really. It sounds just like that. She and her sister mimic it endlessly, chasing each other around the house screaming "RALPH!" and sitting on the back porch, hoping to call whatever bird that is to our backyard so they can laugh at it.
It's not too painful, really. If all else fails, I know they'll have a future in this:

hey, blog, why are you hitting yourself?

This is just kind of pathetic now, isn't it, the way this little blog limps along, holds up its head and whimpers, "I'll be back soon," but maybe not for weeks or months. If you do wonder about it, you might wonder if it just thankfully, finally died, but then it emerges from underneath the dusty, webby porch and looks at you pitifully. Like now.
We've been busy, like everyone else in the world...busy going skiing, busy making felt groundhog portraits that look breastacular and get renamed Jugsaplenty Feel, busy trying to convince an eight year old girl who wants nothing more than to be allowed to watch Hannah Montana just once that the location and story behind the constellation of Gemini is not only fascinating, but worth an entire hour of her life.
We're working on decorations and crafts for our Valentine's Day shindig next week, so I've spent a lot of time snowed in and surrounded by felt scraps and paper hearts and inky thumbprints. It feels too soon to have another 20+ kid party, since we just had one in the beginning of December, and I really like to space those things out about, oh, a year apart. The last party was for Allie's birthday, and she wanted a Beatle bash. I've since discovered that my calling is to be a Beatle Birthday Party Planner. Seriously. I had too much fun. Allie, on the other hand, decided a week later that the Beatles were no longer her favorite band. I killed them for her. But still! *I* had fun...

Aren't they cute? I made so, so many of these. I couldn't stop, honestly. Wanna see it again?...

I also made apple cupcakes. (APPLE! Ha ha. Oh, how the under-10 set loves the Beatle references.)

The gift bags: A mini version of an old (very silly) Beatles coloring book, Beatles word search, a CD of Allie's favorite songs, a copy of the fan club membership card, a "letter" from the band, candy, and Christmas ornaments.

Pin the Moustache on Paul: The Aftermath. The kids actually enjoyed this, and I felt very clever for giving them moustache choices.

This was the most intense performance of Beatles Rock Band, ever. Kids were booed, drumsticks were broken. Eventually the band split up & went their separate ways. (Well, to the kitchen, to open gifts.)

RINGO! Tee hee. They played RINGO! (and yup, I MADE them shout RINGO!, because I could.) The playing pieces were little tiny Beatles album covers that I spent hours and hours cutting out. Who thought they were cool? Me.
There was more, but I'm going to stop now.

So, yeah. Valentine's Day is gonna be ridiculous. (I'm just thankful I ran out of time before I had the chance to organize the Yellow Submarine races...)

I think I'm a little in love with parentheses. (A lot.)

We're back at school with gusto. (Dang! You bet.) I've been working on creating our own lapbook, one on the winter constellations and mythology. (Of course! It's what I do.) It's kind of challenging, and it's kind of a blast. So right now, I'm watching Weeds with the sound turned down, listening to the Rosebuds (holy cow, there are sooo many great NC bands these days, lucky us), and trying to do more with Photoshop than the usual cropping and whitening of backgrounds. I really just learned how to do a square, which is awfully just tragic to admit. Anyway, the lapbook...Once it's finished, I'll post it here. I've gotten the pocket, cards, and lesson done for Orion, as well as the basic intro about stars, constellations, and myth. My kids are pretty hip to the whole myth thing (because they're my kids and all) but I'm trying to make something comprehensive and shareable. If this turns out well, I'd like to make more lapbooks on mythology, polar exploration, architecture, photography, the space race, and Appalachia. Contain your excitement if you can.

The kids have spent the week so far learning about stars, making books on the Iroquois, creating Greek letter and phrase flash cards, adding valuable words to their Latin vocabulary (words so valuable I can't think of a single one right now, and they're also nouns, which thwart my Action Kid plans), (stupid nouns!), loving math/attempting to tolerate math/counting, writing, drawing, reading, and just being glad to be back at work. I gave them some pages to color (beeaautiful pages you can find here) over the break, and I think it was like an early Christmas for them. Yes! We really do get out. (We're going on a hike later this week, actually, because we're insane. It's going to be about 40 degrees, maybe, so it will be a very short hike. I should probably call it a jaunt, or an outdoors non-shopping excursion.)
There is a crazy-lookin' lady on PBS right now, so I'm going to turn the sound up and watch. I hope she's as intriguing as she looks. I actually have a plan for the next post (folk art follies!), and the thought of writing something cohesive here thrills me. Kicks!

2010.

The Fighting Chimeras* wish you a memorable, giddy, interesting, ebullient, colorful, all-your-dreams-come-true 2010!

(*The Well-Wishing Chimeras just doesn't sound tough, although it is so much more accurate. Don't fear us.)

I hope you like and are intrigued by the brief and vague.

I just signed into this blog for the first time in over two months. Two months! I've thought about writing and have had so much going on, but I never (pause while my 4 year old walks backwards to me to ask, "Is this what my elbow really looks like? Feel it. It's not right.")...never even moseyed over here to put letters to screen. I've been working on a lot of things for our school, have done so much that I'd love to share, and am just generally pretty happy to be sharing it all with you, if you're still around. I hope so.

It's the middle of the day, which isn't the best time to be writing anything that requires thinking. All I'm thinking about right now, for example, is about the photo of the Ashland Kentucky High-Wheel Bicycle Club I just saw in history of Ashland book I just (just now!) got (even though it was supposed to be here for Christmas, but that's no big deal) and also there's a kid jumping on the couch beside me singing a song about how terrible it is that she's soooo hungry. It is terrible, isn't it? I am shamed (by cute song) into feeding her. The sharing will come when everyone goes to bed much, much later tonight. I hope I don't beat them to it.

UPDATE: Remind me to fulfill blogging obligations before I start rearranging the classroom area. No one told me that being janitor was part of the job...

(You're embarrassed for me, aren't you? I wish I wouldn't have started. I wish we had different curtains. I wish we never brought a larger-than-life, my-husband's-a-MAN-because-he-won-it-at-the-fair Zoe into the house. You can wish me luck.)

UPDATE, THE RETURN: Loft finished and lovely and dust-free. Curtains, however, remain.

A Totally Fun Thing I'll Totally Do Again

Since I began homeschooling both of my older kids, I've been amazed (every day!) at how different their learning styles and interests are. Ian is quick to pick up foreign language, can spell and read anything, and loves to write. He learns best by reading and repetition. Allie can do math problems in her head better than I can on paper, and she loves it. She's also wildly creative and easily bored. She learns best by doing, with lots of hands-on activities and illustrations.

Their differences are rarely an issue. I do their math and English/grammar lessons separately, and our history lessons combine reading and worksheets with art projects and crafts. One area that has been a challenge, though, is our language studies. We're studying Greek and Latin. (We did study French for a bit, but scaled it back for now.) Ian looks at a word or letter once and it never leaves his head. It takes Allie longer to understand, and sometimes she gets frustrated that Ian gets it so much faster and is bored by the constant memorization. So, after reviewing and reviewing and reviewing vocabulary and making worksheet after worksheet, I finally had an idea!


Presenting: Action Kid Comics! Each panel has a Latin verb (first person singular, so it stars Ian! And Allie!) And they do exciting things like: I walk!, I work!, and I shout! (Hey, we'll get more exciting as we go along. You can't start with I destroy! or, I build an empire!) They have to remember what the word is and then illustrate each panel accordingly. Simple, right? Holy cow, they had such a blast with it. They actually were all a-flutter with glee over how to illustrate "navigo." And me? I was all a-flutter over their excitement. It was so much fun watching them draw and to see how differently they chose to interpret each one. Adoro: Ian adores Pokemon, and Allie adores Kit, her American Girl doll. Navigo: Ian drew himself as an explorer, and Allie chose to be a Viking-pirate hybrid. Laboro: Ian apparenly works for UPS and was carrying a box marked "fragile," and Allie drew herself at her desk, reading a book.

And, hooray, the words are safe and sound in the little houses built for Latin in their heads*. We can move along.

*(What?, you say? Another learning trick that's been funny and successful: We built a house for each subject in our heads, and each house has to be so wonderful that the facts never want to leave. Ian's math house is pretty elaborate, since his math facts do tend to wander, so he built them a house made of gold and gemstones and they have lots of parties and cake. Sometimes bands come and play a show for them. And voila! The multiplication facts are happy at the lovely home in Ian's brain. I kind of wish I lived in the math house, actually.)

(Whatever works, right?)