Amazing Wildlife Video

This video was posted to our local homeschooling Yahoo group recently, and it is without a doubt the most amazing wildlife video I've ever seen. It's several minutes long, but it's totally worth watching. I can't imagine what it must have been like for the people who did the filming!
Make sure your volume is up so you can hear the people talking in the background.

The Light of the Night

Click to enlarge image.

Tie Dyeing

Our group of homeschooling buddies got together a while ago to do some tie dyeing. All being a little crunchy, we decided to use natural dyes. I've never actually used them for anything before, but the colors are so incredibly vibrant, I can't imagine why we need chemical dyes at all.

We took organic cotton t-shirts from Mountain Equipment Co-op, and tied them up with string and elastic bands. Jay scrunched up his shirt like an accordion from top to bottom, and tied it horizontally from one side to the other (his is the one on the left). Bee started in the middle of her shirt and tied it towards the outside edges. Once they were securely tied, we squirted the dye from the bottles onto the shirts - this works much better than dipping, as you can get it exactly where you want it (you might want to do this on your lawn!). After leaving them to sit for several days, we rinsed them out and revealed their designs. Considering how much dye we squirted on these babies, I can't believe how much white is still left on them!

The colors are surprisingly stable, and I haven't had a problem at all with them running in the wash. To learn more about these awesome natural dyes, click here.

Socialization

I saw this cute comic that deals with the dreaded socialization question on one of the unschooling lists that I'm on. Its creator is planning to make t-shirts and bumper stickers with it. Check it out here.

Some Drawings

Wow, it's almost been a month since my last post! We've been up to a lot (we made some really great tie dye shirts with natural dyes that I'll post about shortly), but haven't had a lot of time for posting unfortunately.
Bee did these drawings of herself and her brother today, and they are just so darn cute that I couldn't resist sharing them.

This one is a picture that she did of Jay with our cat Baxter.

Here's one of Bee walking Princess.

And this one is what she envisions her life being like when we move to our new property.

I just love the huge anime eyes that she draws, as well as the crooked little grins.

Paper Airplanes

My son is obsessed with this book at the moment. He bought it at a recent book sale, and has been folding paper airplanes like crazy ever since.

There are several neat planes in the book, but my favorite is one called the Hurricane, which is actually a round tube that spins as it flies in a spiral motion.

Included with the book is a pack of really cool paper in a variety of prints that adds pizazz to your planes.

Anyone else out there a fan of Klutz books?

Critters

We went to a birthday party yesterday, and as the main form of entertainment, they brought in a man who keeps all kinds of animals, insects, birds, amphibians and reptiles. It was a lot of fun - we learned a lot, and got to see and touch some animals that we'd never seen in person before.

My personal favorite was Hazel, the Pygmy Hedgehog.

When he brought her out, she was curled up into a little protective ball.

But as she relaxed, we got to see a little more of her face...

...and in no time she was comfortable having the kids give her a gentle pat. Before too long, she was on the floor, eagerly checking out her surroundings.

The chameleon was very neat to see up close. Did you know that their color changes to show how they're feeling, not to provide them with camoflauge?

This Blue Tongued Skink was my son's favorite. His scales were surprisingly hard to the touch.

This Chinchilla named George was my daughter's favorite. I've never felt such soft fur, it's absolutely amazing. He was very happy just sitting quietly with the birthday boy.

This is a juvenile Cane Toad, which is highly poisonous (needless to say, we didn't get to touch him).

This scary looking guy is a Vinegar bug. Despite his fearsome appearance, the worst he can do to you is spray a cloud of vinegar scented air in your direction.

The hairless rat was pretty interesting - they've been bred to grow human ears and noses for reconstructive surgeries. Not quite as cute as the hairer variety though (I've had a few rats as pets and they are lovely animals).

The Japanese Fire Bellied Newt was pretty non-descript from above...

...but take a look underneath and you see where he gets his name.

This charming fellow is the Tailless Whipscorpion, which is harmless (although I'm sure it could do some damage to your ticker if you stumbled upon it unexpectedly!).

It was a very neat way to spend an afternoon, and my kids have been pouring over his website to see what other animals he has in anticipation of their own birthday parties. I'm game as long as I get to see Hazel again!

Do Schools Kill Creativity?

Someone sent me the link to this great video and I thought I'd share it here. The speaker is fun to listen to, and the message is an important one.
Enjoy!



If you can't see the video, try this link.

Capoeira

Capoeira is a Brazilian martial art that was created by African slaves in the 16th century, and it's my son's newest passion (Bee enjoys it too, but not like he does). It combines sparring, dancing, singing, drumming, high kicks and acrobatics - what more could a seven year old boy ask for?

If you've heard the Mazda car ads with the song "Zoom, zoom, zoom", you've heard a traditional Capoeira song. It's one that they sing in class and it's very easy to get stuck in your head for the rest of the week.

It's amazing what the instructors are able to do, things like spinning upside down on one hand with seemingly very little effort - the strength and flexibility that it requires is incredible. The women who do it are an inspiration, and the men - well, as one dad put it upon sitting in on a class for the first time, "I can see why it's standing room only with the moms.".

Ridiculous, we're only there to support our kids, honest. ;D

To learn more about Capoeira, click here.

The dark side of homeschooling?

I seem to be neglecting this poor blog lately.
The kids and I have been busy with various things, but nothing too exciting.
Our homelearning group held its monthly "Theme Day" on Thursday, which was fun. There were many great presentations, and we learned a lot (about Chinese inventions, why it's important to recycle cell phones, bones in the human body, why popcorn pops, invisible ink, etc.) . This month's theme was open, which is supposed to allow the kids the freedom to talk about whatever they feel like, but my guys seem to have a problem with that. When there's a specific theme, they usually look for a way to make it fit their interests, but when it's completely up to them, they have no ideas. In the end they decided to make a movie for their friends using their Littlest Pet Shops and a batch of borax slime. It turned out to be more of an in joke between the two of them than anything else, but they had a ball making it.
Theme days are always fun because it's a chance for the kids to play together as a group, and for the moms to catch up/bitch/compare notes.
We (the moms) ended up talking about how it seems like a lot of homeschooling mothers try to create this image of non-stop domestic bliss, never admitting to the frustrations and outright madness that sometimes ensues. It occurred to me today that this is probably partly because by choosing to homeschool, we're doing something that many people don't understand and are eager to find fault with, which makes it hard to admit that sometimes it's not all fun and games and academic brilliance. If someone asks in that oh-so-interested way "how's the homeschooling going?", it can be humiliating to confess that you haven't been out of your pajamas in days, and that the kids can't be within 10 feet of each other without one making the other one cry (not that that ever happens at our house, of course). That's when it's great to get together with other women who are in the same homeschooling boat to vent your frustrations and restore your sanity.
So in the name of solidarity, I'm here to tell you that in between acting out our favorite Shakespeare plays and studying the various dialects of the Yanomamo people (what, you think I'm making this stuff up?), we have our fair share of crying jags and uncontrollable hissy fits (and sometimes the kids have bad days, too). : D

Harry Potter

Our whole family is filled with Harry Potter nuts (grandparents included), and we're anxiously counting down the days until the next movie comes out:



We're not quite finished reading the Order of the Phoenix yet though, so it's a good thing the movie's still several months away. We'd like to have The Half Blood Prince finished soon too, as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will probably be released in the summer. Our favorite local bookstore (Vancouver Kidsbooks) always decorates the front of its store to look like Hogwarts or Gringott's Bank, and hosts a midnight party on the day of its release. We haven't made it to one before (the kids were younger and hadn't read as many of the books previously), but we definitely don't want to miss our last chance to participate. They still have their Harry and Hermione costumes from last Halloween, so they'll be dressing the part as well.

The latest craze around here since Christmas has been Wizard's Chess and the Harry Potter Scene It game. The kids are usually playing one or the other. They're obsessed, I tell you.

Any other Potter fans out there?

Rock On!

I took this photo of Jay yesterday while he was playing with his new electric guitar. It's a loan from a friend of his who has decided that he doesn't want to learn how to play the guitar after all. His mom knew that my guy would like to learn, so we've got this adorable mini electric for the next three months (longer if we decide to take over their rental).

I think the first course of action will be to get headphones for the amp - improv rock guitar at full blast can be really hard on the nerves! :D

He looks like such a little rocker with his long hair (the dimples and sweet face kind of blow it though), and I just noticed that the shirt he's wearing in the photo says "Draco School of Rock". Too funny. He and his sister are convinced that they will have their own band one day, with her on the piano.

Now to find him an instructor!

Knitting

I learned to knit as a child, but I was pretty much starting from scratch when the kids and I decided to do some knitting a couple of years ago.

Bee is really good at it. She's very crafty, has nimble fingers, and can focus on a task for a long time if she's interested in it. This is her working on a scarf made with some cute fuzzy yarn that we got at a nearby wool shop. I'm making one out of the same yarn, but mine is in tones of orange, green and pink as opposed to her pink, blue and purple.

I'd love to one day be good enough to make our own socks. I guess I better get practicing!

The Sound of Music

I realize this might come as a bit of a shock, but up until a couple of weeks ago, I had never seen all of The Sound of Music. I'd seen bits and pieces in passing over the years, but I hadn't ever sat down and watched the whole movie. The crazy thing is, it's one of my mother's favorite movies, but she's not exactly the type to sit down and watch a movie that she's already seen once, so it's not too surprising that it was never on in our house.
We finally sat down over the holidays and watched it (my mom included) , and I think we've found a new family favorite. We've been singing the songs ever since (we gave my husband a grand performance while he was trapped in the car with us the other day) and we were tickled to hear "The Lonely Goatherd" sampled in Gwen Stefani's latest single. I can see it being even more fun to watch once you know all of the songs.
Bee is keen to learn some of the songs on the piano. We got my sister-in-law the piano book last year when they bought a piano because she's a huge fan of the movie, so maybe we can borrow hers.
Any other Sound of Music fans out there?

Paper Fashions

Klutz books have always been a favorite around our house, but this latest one, Paper Fashions, has got my daughter obsessed!

A couple of her friends have the book and she would pour over it whenever we went for a visit. Luckily, she got it from her grandpa for Christmas, and it seems to be her favorite gift as she's spent hours making different outfits over the past week.

I especially like the two shirts on the right in the above photo.

The evening gown is also very elegant.

Now if only she would take up sewing!

Gingerbread House

On Thursday we went to visit some friends for a little Solstice get-together. They have a really neat reversible cast iron mold that makes two styles of gingerbread houses. Since we've been enjoying the Little House on the Prairie books for the last little while, Bee decided on the log cabin style.

We got the house constructed, but brought it home to decorate, which Bee did last night.
The gingerbread mother, standing by the door, is wearing a blue apron and calling the kids in for dinner. Santa is up on the roof getting ready to go down the chimney. I love the vivid colours she chose for the icing, and the little added details such as the skating marks on the pond and the holly decoration on the front door. The warm glow coming from the windows looks very welcoming.

Merry Christmas!

Homemade Caramels

The kids absolutely love the caramels that one of the vedors sells at our local farmer's market, and I was planning to contact the woman who makes them to see if I could get some for stocking stuffers, but then I got to thinking that surely there must be a recipe for them out there, and I could just make them myself. I did some searching and finally found one that looked promising.

These are the resulting caramels - glossy and creamy and unbelievably good. They might even be better than the ones at the market! They taste a little like the Werther's hard candies, but are soft and chewy and melt in your mouth.

My plan of putting them in the kids' stockings flew right out the window when they started going stir crazy from being stuck at home while I was in the kitchen baking, so I put them to work wrapping the individual candies in waxed paper. Bee (my little manager) took great pride in wrapping them just so, and was so pleased to show off our huge pile of professional looking candies when her dad got home. I think we've got a new holiday tradition on our hands.

The recipe that we used to make these delicious treats can be found here.

Piano Lessons

Bee started taking piano lessons last spring, and loves to play her favorite songs over and over, (one time as fast as she can, the next time really slow).
Her brother has music in his soul (he's always humming quietly to himself), but he's never shown any interest in learning an instrument. Until last week, that is, when he asked Bee to teach him how to play the piano.

They spent almost two hours that day working on the first two songs in her lesson book. I was stunned by her patience, and he was thrilled to be getting so much attention from his big sister. The next day, while she was away at a class, he decided to learn one of her favorite songs. He worked on it steadily for about an hour and a half (with a little help reading the music from me - I played the guitar and clarinet in my "youth"), and by the time she got home, he could play it no problem. I think he may have found himself an instrument!
While they were practicing the other day, I peeked into the room and saw her playing the piano, with him beside her resting his head on her shoulder. Trust me, they can fight like you wouldn't believe (especially now that she's maturing and he's, well, a typical 7 year old boy), but I think the bond they share will serve them well throughout their lives.

Word Cloud

Here's the essence of our blog summed up in a "word cloud".

Click here to make on of your own.

Door decor

We've been busy doing most of our Christmas decorating over the past few days.

We made this wreath several years ago using gloves and a hat. The photo is a bit washed out - his nose and bow are supposed to be red, not orange (and the door is actually dark blue like the one below).

The kids made these gorgeous snowflakes using patterns from a book we borrowed from a friend. We've never made such pretty ones before!