My Muddy Schoolhouse

A tub full of overflowing sisterly love!

2010-08-21T21:31:00.000-07:00

Cammy is such an awesome big sister! She really loves little Karma and takes such good care of her and watches out for her. They are having so much fun together these days. Cammy is very into teaching Karma right now. I can occasionally sneak away from the room they are playing in long enough to really get something done. What a miracle!
Cammy can be a little overwhelming with her love sometimes and gets quite easily upset if she can't get Karma to hug her back and storms off saying Karma doesn't love her. I guess sisters will always have personal space issues and having to share.
Overall....we have two wonderful and loving sisters. I cherish every moment when I see them having fun together. I didn't have any siblings so it amazes me ....the whole process of seeing them learn to share and bounce love and anger around.

This is my favorite pic of sisterly bonding. How much closer can you get. A tub full of overflowing sister love!

The Cammy Jammy Family Band"

2010-08-21T20:40:00.000-07:00

Rock On! Cammy is most definitely following in Mark's musical footsteps. She loves to put on concerts ...be it at home or the Wilmington Childrens Museum . With my husband being a preschool music teacher and entertainer I guess it is to be embraced. She is not keen on lessons of any sort ...she very much wants to do her own thing musically. Mark has tried to teach her a few guitar lessons. She picked up the few cords he taught her so far pretty well but she wants to play the keyboard more.

My husband "Mr. Mark" performs at the Wilmington Childrens Museum about once a month. The whole family goes of course and Cammy will occasionally perform with him for a few songs. She does a great job with the puppets and with passing out shakers and instruments to the other children. She also has the patience and the attention span of a seven year old so she doesn't usually make it through a whole show before she wants to go and play like the other kids are doing.

She has been rocking it out at home with anything she can grab onto. I caught her here singing with the broom....hey whatever it takes to get her to do her chores. Again I say "Rock On!"

This time I found her singing with the hairbrush. Classic mike prop!

Mark and I painted this child size guitar up for her as a gift recently. It was in very rough shape and didn't play well at all but it serves as a good prop and Karma gets to play with a guitar now. Luckily one of my husband's guitar students brought Cammy a guitar they didn't need anymore that plays quite well. Thank You!

Here is the best shot of Cammy all dressed up for one of her shows. She will write little invitations with check mark boxes for yes or no and slip them under the roommates door.
These house concerts come complete with tickets and special lighting and almost always a few pairs of fairy wings on whoever is willing to perform with her. I would tell you the name of her band but it changes daily.

School Begins: Secret Agent Style

2010-08-16T20:08:00.000-07:00

School is off to a great start here in The Muddy Schoolhouse. Here is a picture of our first day blackboard. I am going to teach Cammy how to write in cursive this year. We ended the school year this spring reading creation stories from around the world. We probably read ten different versions...everything from Norse frost and fire giants creating the world to Japanese versions, Native American stories , Aboriginal accounts, biblical and more. So I felt it natural to move into the study of man and community and how we communicate. We are starting the year off by studying the origin of language. We talked today about the oral tradition of history and language and how man began to communicate in more elaborate ways. We are reading passages about the history and evolution of language in several different books but by far my main source is the book Letterbox:The art and history of Letters by Jan Adkins. My daughter is very comfortable with it now but I use the quote "What catches the eye, inspires the hand" all the time. It is kinda like a slogan around the house. So the eye represents what we see around us. The iris is like a clock with ancient symbols at each of the hours marks on the clock. In the pupil a sun radiates the time that our day is to begin 8:15. The eyelashes are the cursive letters that she will be learning this fall: tops are capitals and bottoms are lowercase. The eyebrow is a rainbow. I love to draw a new amazing picture to captivate and grab Cammy's attention at the beginning of each week.

I have been setting up our learning centers all summer. We have a new roommate in what used to be the office so we have had to make a few adjustments in furniture arrangements. This is a tray of rocks and pinecones and any other interesting nature finds on a low shelf so that Karma can get to them.

Here is Cammy posing in front of the new blackboard drawing. You can see the shelf beside her where I have our math center and all of the dividers for each subject ....color coded. I'm really trying to prove to myself that I can be organized.
I put up a bulletin board of sorts a few weeks ago. The idea was for her to write down anything she was interested in learning about. The light bulb above her head was her bright idea! Inside it I wrote the questions Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? We have been talking about different ways of brainstorming ideas. Last year Cammy loved it when we built a time machine to study history. So I came up with the idea of extending that playful learning with a twist. Last year my husband issued Cammy her very own official Universal Time travelers license. This year I sent her an official letter stating that she has been recruited to be a special secret agent for the Universal Time Travelers organization. Today she had her first meeting with my husband complete with an ever changing accent and in disguise (a tablecloth over his head and a dust broom mustache) Cammy laughing her head off. The fake meeting to discuss her training (school work) lasted almost an hour. My husband played his role up so much I thought I was going to wake up the baby I was laughing so hard.

Here is our secret agent in training. In keeping with the secret agent theme we are going to be doing a lot of work on puzzles and riddles and decoding secret messages. Highlights magazine publishes some books that follow this theme. Today she had to decode a secret message that was tied in with ordinal numbers assigned to the alphabet and when she decoded the message it read "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing"
Here I am trying to get organized for the school year again. Cammy seems to work best and is more focused and less anxious if she can see the plans visually. I have posted under each subject the basic concepts I would like to cover for the year. Hopefully this will help keep us on track. I am all about teaching Cammy what she is interested in but I also want to keep to some kind of path at the same time and meet certain goals even if we do branch off from the main tree trunk at least we have our roots firmly planted.
This is a glimpse of part of our science center. We go on a lot of nature walks and I am always collecting bits of eggs, bones, fossils, butterfly wings ....all kinds of things to study. Mark jokes that the kids are going to start thinking I am a witch....what with bat wings and slug slime in the jars beside the kitchen...I don't really have those but I can see where he is coming from.

My Karma is growing up

2010-08-13T20:33:00.000-07:00

Happy birthday Karma! Two years old....wow....You are growing up too fast. Such a curious and energetic little person. We love you! We did not have an official birthday party with presents for our youngest child Karma this year. My husband and his band The Cosmic Groove Lizards had a huge concert at Mayfair on the lawn so we just told everyone to come out and enjoy the music. I did make cupcakes to pass out to whoever wanted one but we didn't even get her a birthday present. Well we had almost 2,000 people come out to the concert to hear my husbands band play. I would say that Karma ended up having the biggest birthday party any two year old has ever had. My husband had everyone on the lawn for the concert sing her happy birthday. When the sun finally set there was even a fire breathing, fire twirling, juggling dancer. Unexpected....but it sure did top off the festivities in a grand way. I think her eyes were still glowing with wonder the next day.
Here is the only shot I managed to get of her birthday cupcake face. Our new roommate Gabriel Layman is holding her up. He is a musician and performed at the concert that night as well.
Karma with a very proud Granddaddy. My husbands dad Jerry Herbert is also a musician and performed on keyboard with the band as a guest that night.
Here is Karma being such a big girl riding her new tricicle, her birthday present from Grandma and Granddaddy.

I still play with my food

2010-08-13T20:12:00.000-07:00

I haven't had a computer to post on all summer and this is a rather odd one to start back with but it was the first one that came up on my camera memory card so I'll go with it. Early this summer we had a guest whose child was not a vegetable eater of any kind. My oldest child is known to go on boughts of vegetarianism every few months. We as a family are not vegetarian but we try to eat meat only two or three times a week. Both of my children eat their vegetables and are known to favor an apple or carrot over candy. My husband Mr. Mark a children' s musician and teacher sings a song about eating your vegetables with a giant broccoli puppet.....So needless to say a child who refused to eat a vegetable of any color was a new one for me. Well....we were having a vegetarian meal that night of roasted vegetables. A challenge!! Can I get this kid to eat our meal?. So I ended up making this potato sunshine thinking that it might inspire him to at least taste a vegetable if it could be part of something this crazy. I had so much fun and had high hopes of instilling a bit of vegetable love but still didn't manage to get a vegetable into the little man.

Drawing with water

2010-05-04T20:01:00.000-07:00

We have been spending a lot of time outside this spring and the kids have been engaging in a LOT of water play. Probably because I went kinda nuts with the garden this year and that calls for dragging the hose around the yard twice a day. I don't mind though ....I can work in the pottery studio with the garage doors open and watch the girls spraying themselves and making their own muddy mess in the gravel driveway. Cammy has gotten pretty creative with it. Today she started drawing with the hose. She started out drawing simple forms like squares and circles which was great....I have struggled to get her engaged and excited about form drawing all year with no success. Turns out I just needed to change up the medium. She likes drawing her forms with the hose.
Here is her triangle and square. These later turned into a magnificent castle complete with a nicely placed oyster shell door.

Trying to refresh the castle picture....."Mom...it keeps disappearing!"
Aha! Time for a lesson on absorption and evaporation and permeability and the list goes on. Learning and living at its best. Gotta love it.
She struggled a bit with a heart but I thought it came out pretty well. I love seeing her really getting into a creative groove and finding her own way to learn.

She was very proud of her square. She has pretty good control of the hose after experimenting with every setting and (accidentally) spraying inside the garage and the upstairs office (the window was open) and spraying mom and sister repeatedly. She likes the jet setting best for drawing with, but the fan setting makes the best rainbows. Who knows maybe she has a future as a firefighter.

Simple moments to cherish from my week

2010-04-28T21:30:00.000-07:00

A curious little fairy encounter with Karma...what a character!
A sweet sleeping beautiful baby!
Cammy rockin out and dancing with the broom in the kitchen while doing her chores.
Wow! Cammy is so beautiful here. I can't believe how big my girls are getting.
Crazy Karma sitting in the water play table on the porch.

Welcome to our Fairy Wonderland

2010-04-25T18:22:00.000-07:00

Welcome to our fairy wonderland. My oldest daughter Cammy is all about fairies. This year I built the girls a fairy house of sorts. I used Karma's old crib sides for the main structure and secured them to a shady tree. Then I cut the wisteria and grape vine back and wove a nice domed top for the house. It is actually big enough for me to stand up in. We had an old column off of a porch that was all painted up....it kinda looks like a chimney. We also added a piece of old broken fence and even made a walkway complete with stepping stones and secret passage going behind the house. Cammy has added her own touch by painting a door and she has filled the house with large seashells for dishes among other natural things. I had done this once before when we were renting a home but I used twisted crepe myrtle branches that time and let Cammy weave yarn and other things into the sides of it.
Here is little Karma our resident fairy upon occasion.

We have set up a little oasis for weary traveling fairies to rest at when their wings are tired from a long flight.
We caught sight of a fairy one morning but she flew away before we could catch her in the butterfly net.
Cammy has put together an edible fairy garden on the back porch in the shade of the umbrella trying to entice a fairy friend. Karma has been having tons of fun watering the garden and making the little ceramic animals play in the mud. Everything that we planted is actually edible : chives and lettuces. Karma is a bit confused with what is edible in the yard right now. I am having to keep a close eye on her. With seeing us pulling up radishes and picking herbs and lettuce...she is trying to pick and eat leaves off of just about anything right now.
We also found this old abandoned castle. We aren't sure but it looks like trolls might have stormed the castle because part of it is broken and it is empty, there is no furniture or anything in it.

Spring brings change: change is good

2010-04-21T20:12:00.000-07:00

I haven't been blogging much lately because it has been a very rapid transition into spring: lots of orders to fill (a good thing) but lots of tugs in different directions ie. children, pottery, homeschooling, teaching at the preschool, new store consignments, spring shows, the garden, holidays, and the list goes on just as it does for every family. We are all tugged in many directions all the time. I love it when I am able to find that alone time out in the studio, just me and my clay. A couple of years ago my mom gave me a great T-shirt that said in big black letters across the front "I NEED MY GARAGE TIME". I have been finding myself spinning my wheels out there thinking about what is working for our family and what direction we want to go in. I love teaching Cammy from home. I also really love the times when I teach a larger group. I volunteer often at the preschool and sometimes with the church but transportation has been a problem with being a one car family. I am really looking forward to opening up a classroom in the city again. I miss teaching more kids. I have no real desire to become a public school teacher and be chained to a set of requirements and curriculum. I much prefer a more organic form of teaching. I like being able to just go with where a child's mind wanders. I find myself in awe sometimes when I watch my own daughter in her quest for knowledge. I love it when she asks "Hey Mom, I'm really getting interested in dragons lately can we start learning about that next?" She is telling me what she WANTS to learn and NEEDS to learn for herself now. Why should I constrain her or put up fences and gates of set standard curriculum. It is a much more time consuming approach to teaching . It would be much easier to just follow a yearly standard curriculum or school in a box approach. I don't fit in that box and I don't want my children to fit in any specific box. They will find and fill their own organic form. I am just honored to be there to help nurture and guide their interests and to present inspiration and challenge their minds bodies and spirits. When her interests change I often find myself a little sad because I didn't get everything in or didn't get to some special project that was going to be the highlight of that topic. I also find myself thrilled to meet the next challenge. I thrive on that energy. I know I will spend a couple of late nights scouring my book shelves and the internet, but it's worth it. It's like a reward in the end getting to help her expand her knowledge and view of the universe.
I am excited and scared at the same time to be teaching on a broader scale meaning to more children again. It is going to be such a change of pace for our family. I have gotten so used to our flow at home and spending so much time outside....It will take some adjustment. We are also going to put the youngest Karma into daycare at one of the schools where Mark and I teach. She is very active and social and absolutely loves it, but it tugs at my heart that I will be away from her so much. Hopefully we can pull her back out a few days a week once we see how things are working at the new classroom. I need to find that inner strength and courage to run with it. I know that I will find a lot of support in the community as well. Much love and light to all who embrace the role they play in teaching the children of the world.

Jumping into Dreams

2010-04-18T19:16:00.000-07:00

OK! so I have not blogged in a while. Our family has been struggling with choosing a path. We are loving our homeschooling but are finding that we are really being tugged back to the city where we used to live 45 minutes away all too often to teach. Now I know that lots of people have long commutes but it doesn't make our family very happy seeing as we only have one car. My days are spent here unable to go to libraries or parks or playdates as of late. Don't get me wrong....we really have it made in the shade out here. We are only four blocks from the river and community docks and there is a beautiful little lake in the community that we walk around quite often. But I get kinda stir crazy sometimes. I have been combating this pent up creative energy of mine by really loving on the land. I have been spending hours in the yard and garden this spring with my hands in the earth ...making things grow. In part out of frustration at our situation and also because I really was loving the land and needed to put my energies into something more. Earlier this winter I found myself in the front flower bed reworking the stones that border it. I was trying to make a spiral in the flower bed but found myself making multiple branching paths over and over again not quite satisfied with the layout each time. It is still unfinished and I have moved on to other areas of the garden transplanting overgrown daylilies and other bulbs that had grown up into the bushes. It has dawned on me this week how significant this compulsive gardening and path making really was/is. Recent events have revealed and opened up a pretty clear path. We are embarking upon a huge cosmic leap for our family right now and I am so excited and scared at the same time. Mark and I have dreamed of opening up an art center some day. We have been fortunate over the years to have had the opportunity to share our creative energies throughout the community. Now thanks to our partnership with Lovebird Studio in Wilmington, NC. We are thrilled to have been given the chance to teach and share our creative musical and artistic gifts with even more of our community. I have been homeschooling my children for almost a full year now and really enjoyed it. There is nothing better to me than seeing my daughter loving learning and finding new ways to keep her journey on the search for knowledge as creative and engaging as possible. This being said I really miss my interactions with other families and children. I have built up quite a stockpile of teaching materials and resources over the years and cannot possibly use all of it for just my two children. I am really looking forward to sharing my creative energies and knowledge with other families again. We really want this to be an opportunity to feed a lot of young creative minds and it will take a real community effort to pull this off.

Getting rid of the dryer

2010-02-06T19:32:00.000-08:00

Ok! So I'm a few days behind in keeping up with my One Small Change challenge for the month. I'm behind on a lot of things but this is an important one. If you are just now learning about it One Small Change is a challenge posted by Hip Mountain Mama to make one small change in our daily lives that positively effects the planet. It could be to recycle, compost, use natural cleaners you name it. She challenged anyone willing to post about it to make one change every month for the year. For the month of January our family got rid of our microwave. We had lived without a microwave for years until we bought our current home and it came with one. Having been here for two years we had gotten into the habit of nuking our food which I have always found to be a little disturbing. I was glad when this challenge came along because it gave me the excuse (I didn't really need) to get rid of the large radioactive contraption in my kitchen. So for the month of February I am vowing to discontinue using our dryer. We have a clothesline strung on the back porch already (we used it quite a bit last summer) and we also have one of those wooden drying racks. So I ask myself : Why do I continue to use the dryer?....it eats up massive amounts of electricity! The answer; I was being lazy. There are no excuses for this one. Millions of people around the world have no electric dryer for their clothes much less and electric washer. I live in the southern USA where the temperature year around is mostly pleasant. We have sunny days here every week. I can dry the clothes on the wooden drying rack if it is raining. This does drive my hubby crazy though because it is quite inconvenient in our kitchen but so what if we have to walk around it. We will be saving money by not using it, we will be using less electricity, we will be setting a good example for our neighbors and children, we will in our own little way be helping our earth. I don't quite have the where with all to completely give it away to a charity yet but I think in the mean time I might get creative with some duct tape and tape the front door shut so I won't be tempted to use it. Maybe I'll even let the girls draw on it with some markers.

Who needs toys when you have playsilks

2010-02-04T19:17:00.000-08:00

I have been in awe lately of the versatility of the simple playsilk. My girls play with this basket of scarves more than they play with any other toy in the house. There is a huge pile of dress up clothes and hats in my oldest daughters closet that goes untouched for the most part except to get tossed to the floor. The playsilks downstairs however go through many transformations during any given day. They can be a river on the floor one moment and the next they are part of a beautiful gown. Sometimes the scarves are part of a shelter other times they are used as bandages for wounds. Little Karma at just a year old loves to wrap up the "baabiees" in them and never tires of hiding under them to play peek-a-boo. They can magically transform a child into any creature or even be a leash or a bridle. They have even been known to transform a young child into an old woman or Rapunzel with her long flowing hair reaching down from the stairs.

Both girls love to play with them....sometimes I wonder why I even bother to buy the other toys. We don't have a lot of money to spend on toys and I am kinda picky about the toys I do buy. I have tried over the last couple of years to get rid of almost every plastic toy we have and opt for high quality wooden toys instead. I have managed to get some really nice wooden toys from time to time at the thrift store...a nice wooden castle, a great collection of wooden cars and rolling animals, wooden blocks and trains. The girls play with these occasionally. The scarves they play with everyday all day.
The inevitable plastic Christmas toy always seems to make it's way into the mix though. How can you make your kid give up their brand new piece of bright shiny plastic? Well, I have found that after about a week or two at most these have lost their novelty and go untouched...eventually making their way into the next bag destined for the local charity or thrift store without anyone missing them or objecting. My oldest just turned seven and I continue to be amazed when I am going through one of my household purges getting rid of "stuff"....just how much of her "stuff" she graciously and willingly puts into the give away bag. I know I probably wouldn't have given up my toys when I was a kid without a little fight.
You can see from this picture the pure joy and imagination she is filled with. She has always had an imagination without borders or restraint. It is a beautiful thing in action.
My beautiful butterfly acting out Eric Carle's The Hungry Caterpillar. What a metamorphosis!

Indoor Camp Fire

2010-01-21T11:06:00.001-08:00

I bet this is not what you were thinking! My daughter Cammy loves to choose indoor camping as one of her reward privileges. We have a box full of index cards that the whole family made, we each got to write down or draw fun things to do on them. Some of them are just plain silly like giving her baby sister a finger painting lesson in the bathtub or mixing your own bubble concoction. Others are really sweet like the one my husband wrote: Have a tea party with Daddy. When Cammy has earned enough pebbles in her jar she gets to choose a card from the box. The indoor camping is her favorite by far. She has only been camping once and that was with her Nana in the mountains. Sometimes we do a complete camping tent set up...sometimes we just make a classic sheet tent in the living room. This time we did the latter with a minor adjustment. It was raining outside so we couldn't do a fire in the backyard firepit to roast our marshmallows so I did smores roasted in the oven and we made this little pretend campfire inside and told stories. It was really easy to make. I have a box full of crafty recyclable stuff in the pantry. There was a drink cup holder and some paper towel tubes that proved to be the perfect fodder for a camp fire. Cammy colored the drink cup holder with red, orange and yellow markers and we ripped up a sheet of neon orange copy paper for flames and tucked them into the holes of the drink cup holder. Colored tissue paper would make nice flames if you have it. The paper towel tubes were our logs. I tried to get Cammy to color those as well but she said "Mom they are already brown!"

Spinning in Circles

2010-01-20T11:31:00.001-08:00

We are studying creation stories from around the world this spring.

We have literally been spinning in circles for two weeks now. I started off the new year with the intention of introducing some form drawing. We started off with two simple forms that are universally recognized among many cultures. We studied the spiral and the circle. I thought it would turn out to be fairly simple, we would draw and practice the forms and we would move on to new forms the next week. These two forms turned out to be more powerful for Cammy and myself than I could ever have imagined. We have been reading about community and the theme of being centered and of the connections we have with others. These two forms fit right into our current studies.
For the first week we talked about how the spiral is symbolic of the path we follow in life. We drew spirals, we walked in spirals, we made spiral cinnamon buns,

we looked at spirals in nature.

Circles were the clincher for Cammy. She embraced the circle wholeheartedly. She said the circle made her think of a hug:) So began our journey with the circle. I had Cammy make a main lesson book devoted entirely to circles. She included a circle picture dictionary with magazine photos of things that were circles with the words written beside them.

We blew bubbles and attempted some bubble painting. We drew concentric circles by tracing cups, bowls, and lids from around the house. We drew abstract circle designs.
We painted kinetospheres or energy spheres around ourselves. I had seen this in a book called Wonder Child by Peter Lorie. It's a book about staying connected with the magic that is childhood. It is one of my all time favs. The kinetosphere at the top is one of mine drawn with chalk on a sheet of roofing tar paper. When I was in college I couldn't afford canvas for painting class and I had found a roll of roofing tar paper at the home I was renting and took to painting on it. I love to paint and draw on a black surface much more than a white surface. The tar paper is also nice and stiff and holds up well to many mediums. I found that rolls of roofing paper were much cheaper than conventional paper so I still draw and paint on them to this day.

Cammy invented her own long handled paintbrush with a piece of cornstalk and some pine needles.

Our kinetosphere experiment got very experimental indeed. Here is cammy dipping a fly swatter in some of our paint.

We painted with our feet.
We painted with a sponge mop.

Here is Cammy circling herself with the paint to form a kinetosphere. It took her a while but she really built up her kinetic energy but it didn't stay in the shape of a circle for her. It went everywhere.
Needless to say ....when my husband got home he was slightly speechless.

This is one of Cammy's kinetospheres. It turned out like a sun.

We studied balls and motion and talked about kinetic and passive energy. We rolled balls and bounced balls. We made graphs of what bounced and how high.

Making Mittens

2010-01-18T19:14:00.000-08:00

I have been trying to teach Cammy some basic sewing. She has been really fascinated with costume design for quite some time now. Cammy's all time favorite toy has always been paper dolls. If she is ever in a book store you can guarantee that she is going to want a paper doll or sticker doll book even though she probably has five already. She draws fairy fashions all day long....pages and pages of them. Every time we are in the grocery store checkout she wants to get a fashion magazine so she can cut the dresses out for making paper dolls. Her most recent fascination has been with a young fashion designer named Claire Prebble.

I came across Claire Preble a couple of years ago online and showed Cammy her amazing costume designs immediately. Claire won first place in the WOW fashion festival in New Zeland several years ago. She got her first entry in at the age of eight. Ever since then Cammy will occasionally ask if we can look at that girls costumes again Mommy? Here is a link to the WOW page you have got to check this out. The costumes designs are incredible. You will never see your fabric scrap bin the same way again.
http://www.worldofwearableart.com/

2009 Winner Children's Section

The Dandelion Clock, Tracey Koole, Auckland

It's been tough going....she doesn't seem to have much patience for it. I am trying to encourage her by getting her to help me make some mittens for her sister and herself. I let her pick through my cloth bin which often contains some old clothing as well. She chose a pair of velvety red pajamas that were too small for Karma anymore. We traced the girls hands to make a pattern. Note: add at least half an inch to the entire edge of your hand pattern to make sure there is enough space to stitch your seam. Cammy got a good start on hers but is obviously having trouble keeping her stitches small and straight. She has never been one to follow a straight path what can I do? Hopefully I can coax her into finishing them before spring gets here. I got Karma's pair finished and she loves them although they are a little too loose in the wrist.

Making a change for the better!

2010-01-08T15:20:00.000-08:00

I recently came across Hip Mountain Mama http://hipmountainmamablog.com/

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and have signed my family up for the One Small Change challenge. Our family has made many small changes over the years in an effort to be more environmentally conscious but we are not always truly religious in observing these. We recycle but I will admit that there is more that we could recycle...there is paper that makes it into the trash and yes the occasional plastic container of moldy food from the fridge that I'm afraid to touch to clean it out. Lights get left on. The bath water runs too long. All sorts of things need improvement around our house. So when I came across these challenges today it inspired me. Hopefully it will inspire your family too. For more information click on the links provided below and sign up your family.

One Small Change
Community of Change
Here is a list of some of the simple changes our family has made over the past couple of years. A lot of these are in effect and some we need to revisit and get serious about implementing them and practicing them all the time not just sometimes. I have tried to be fairly honest about our family's practices. We have a long way to go still.
We haven't used paper towels or paper napkins for more than a year now in the house. When my second daughter was born we were gifted way too many folding cloth diapers and we just started using them for our cloth napkins and rags. We are planning to tye dye them soon. As silly as it is I must admit though that I did buy a roll of paper towels at Christmas so our guests wouldn't feel weird using diapers to wipe their hands.
We compost sometimes
We switched laundry soaps when my second daughter was born to a natural soap called Charlies Soap
We have tried our best to switch to all natural wooden toys (we gave away three large boxes of plastic toys with the full blessing of our six year old) though we do still have a few that my husband couldn't part with (Luke Skywalker figurine and Catwoman) along with a few Barbie dolls(aargh!) that my oldest didn't want to give in on.
We hung a laundry line on the back porch but I am often too lazy to hang the clothes out to dry and just revert to the old habit of just throwing them conveniently into the dryer....and it shows in our electric bill.
We used cloth diapers with both of our children although admittedly we used disposables when we traveled anywhere.
We have been in our current home for two years without using any pesticides or chemicals on our garden.
We have combated any home bug problems with natural concoctions like cayenne pepper or borax.
I'm sure that there were others but these were the most recent that we have made. Upon talking our family has decided to get rid of our microwave. We lived without a microwave for years but when we moved into this house it came with a small microwave oven and we got back into the habit of reheating food in it or thawing food that way. I have always been wary of microwave ovens....they seem so unnatural. So for the month of January we are disposing of our microwave as our contribution in the One Small Change campaign. What will yours be?

Sweet, sweet love

2010-01-05T20:27:00.000-08:00

This beautiful and deliciously sweet heart was the accidental result of introducing some waldorf form drawing again. Somehow I found it deeply symbolic of the love I have for my family. In wanting to start the new year off with some more deeply rooted rhythms around the house and a little less chaos I have started trying to implement some more Waldorf form drawing. This week I introduced the symbol of the spiral for our form drawing lesson. We started off the week by making spiral cinnamon rolls. We are starting off the new year with a unit about various creation stories from many different cultures and religions . I chose to introduce the spiral because it is such a universally powerful symbol for the path that we follow in life . I am finding myself being ever more grateful for this opportunity to be one of my daughter's guides on her life path. Yes I am her teacher...but I am able to be so much more than that even. I am loving homeschooling my children because I am able to really dig into a subject in so many more ways than she could ever be able to experience in most public schools. I am able to let her mind go to places that would be shut out by conventional classroom learning. If she is suddenly enraptured with a book about Egyptian Pharaohs in the middle of our week about American Indians we have our way of dealing with that in our house. We just use our time machine. It is my belief that this creative flexibility can be a very powerful learning experience. As for the form drawing I have a deep love of pattern and form and texture. Being a potter and artist I use lots of rich textures and patterns on the surface of my clay. There is something very sacred about being physically engaged with a shape or a line. I am always amazed at the forms that I see in everything....in leaves, shells, the soles of shoes, flowers, the landscape etc. I have done a little bit of this with Cammy in the past with not much success. She is usually able to draw the form but not with the kind of spirited embrace of the form that I am intending to try to imbue or impress upon her. I have simply tried to connect the form to something we are studying. When we were studying the globe and the compass and maps I introduced the cross form and an arrow. We drew a huge compass in the road with sidewalk chalk trying to be as accurate as possible with the directions. We studied the clock at this time as well and drew clock faces incorporating arrows. We laid down in the floor and made arrow shapes with our bodies. we played a game where we laid down like the arms of the clock and posed each other having to try to figure out what time our partner posed us in. My intention and goal was to try to physically engage Cammy with the shape and how it played a role in her life. This leads to a deeper knowledge...a mind, body, spirit connection. Last year was quite possibly the most powerful and trying year of my life. I want to imagine myself wearing a hand sewn super mom cape for having made it through my first year of homeschooling a six year old with a one year old by my side and hers and climbing on the table and into the cabinet There were some incredibly difficult things that happened to our family last year that we have been strong enough to come through stronger than ever and loving each other more and more. I love being a mom I do, I do! With all my heart!

Adventures with the math gnomes

2010-01-05T20:05:00.000-08:00

We welcomed the math gnomes into our family with a special candle lighting ceremony. Cammy made each of the gnomes their own hand rolled beeswax candle complete with their math symbol decorating it. She also decorated an advent candle for our family and we lit them all. I finally finished the math gnomes for Cammy for her Christmas present this year. She knew they were in the works because she has seen me working on them off and on for months now. We had such a busy fall that all my intentions to introduce her to many of the math concepts through the adventures of these curious little gnomes fell by the wayside. We have been doing lots of math all along but she has been so worked up and eager to do math with these characters I didn't think I was going to be able to contain her. Ever since we did a unit on Medieval and Renaissance times with our time machine she has been asking "Mom, when are we going to start with the math gnomes?" She has them linked in her head with that time era because I had my husband dress up and pretend to be King Equals one day and ask Cammy for her help in solving a dilema on how to divide a cake evenly among everyone who was invited to the royal ball. We did this by folding paper to see how many cuts would need to be made to make enough pieces of cake for everyone. Good King Equals was insistent that everyone's slice be the same size to be fair. Then we cut into an actual cake that we had baked together using the folded paper guidelines. The King was surely going to need more help in the future to count his treasures so he insisted that Cammy help him find the legendary math gnomes. Thinking I would have the gnomes ready right away she was charged with going on an adventure to find these math gnomes that were known for their knowledge of numbers. Needless to say the math gnomes did not get finished that night and we got sidetracked by about two months to be exact. She took a trip back to the present in her time machine and the benevolent King Equals was left to count his own gold and cut his own cakes.

Here are the four gnomes in their cave each with their own math symbol representing the four basic math processes: addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.
Well, needless to say she was thrilled when she saw the little gnomes complete with bags and hats along with a small King Equals by the Christmas tree. She wanted to do math with them that very day but we waited to go on any math adventures for a few days until all of our Christmas guests took their leave. By this time some of the gnomes had misplaced their hats. With my husband distracting her I surprised her and set up the gnomes in the front yard by the twisty wisteria and pine tree. I hung a blanket to make it more cave like and confined because the gnomes lived deep underground. It was very cold and windy outside the day we went adventuring with the gnomes and luckily the blanket blocked a little of the wind.

Here is the yellow gnome whom we have named Times Multiply climbing up through the twisting tunnels of the mine to get to the surface. Below is the blue gnome whom we have named Marcus Minus at the entrance to the cave.
I was inspired by several different Wadorf homeschool bloggers and their own math gnome stories. I took a bit here and there and pieced together a story for an adventure that I knew would fit into our studies. I got a great deal of my inspiration from Serendipity here is a link where you can get her math gnome stories. She has many marvelous ideas and pictures and has been amazing generous in making these available to download.
Download gnomes_and_gnumbers_lesson_one.pdf

Here is a shortened version of the story I came up with for Cammy.
The Gnomes ran out of jewels to gather and count deep in their underground cavern so they made their way to the bright surface. It was a long, winding and treacherous path through the tunnels of the mine. None of them had ever been to the surface before and didn't know what to expect when they came to the cave opening. They had never seen such a blinding bright light as the sun.
When their eyes had finally adjusted they saw before them a vast and beautiful land and they bravely began to explore sure that they would find huge troves of gems. They soon came across a huge pile of colorful gems at the foot of a great tree. The Yellow gnome having spotted the treasure first started grabbing all the gems for himself but the red gnome named David Divide suggested that to be fair they should divide the gems evenly among themselves. The gnomes had never had to count or divide such a vast treasure and were unsure of how to count so many gems. They thought long and hard wanting to be sure that the gems would be divided evenly.
Finally the green gnome named Adam Plus suggested that they use sticks to count how many gems there were. This got confusing very quickly as they laid out one stick for each gem that was counted and they were running out of sticks to count with. The red gnome suggested that they break the stick in half and make the shape of a V (like the shape between your fingers when you hold up five fingers) when they had five gems. The gnomes continued counting deciding that one stick before the V would be four IV and that one stick after the V would be six and so on. When they got to ten they decided to cross two of the sticks to make an X. We laid out the gems and practiced making the roman numerals with sticks that we found around the base of the weeping willow tree.

"The rainbows of life follow the storms"

2010-01-05T19:57:00.000-08:00

On New Years Eve I was inspired to draw this on our chalkboard. It is a family portrait of sorts. We have been in our current home for two years, the longest time period that we have ever been anywhere since my oldest daughter who is about to turn seven was born. We do not consider ourselves to be the gypsy type but have found ourselves moving almost every year for some reason. Sometimes because of finances....sometimes because the neighborhood in question wasn't so safe. We consider ourselves very lucky to be in the beautiful home that we have now. My husband and I are both artists and we are able to eek out a living on what we love to do but a bank doesn't always like our numbers so buying a home was not something we thought we would ever be able to do. My mother generously offered to sell us her coastal home when she bought a new home in the mountains and we couldn't turn her down on this offer....it was pretty much the only way we would ever be able to buy a home. She didn't cut us a break on the price but she financed it for us as an amazing rate when no bank would ever talk to us. Now two years into owning our own home and we are finding ourselves again wanting to move for various reasons. One reason is that we had no idea how isolated we would feel moving away from the city into what is referred to around here as the"boonies". We live only 45 minutes to an hour away from the city where we lived before but no one will visit us because it is too far to drive. We are finding that to sell my pottery and art anywhere other than online my husband is having to go to the big city for the farmers markets and other events and we can't afford to all go together (it would take two cars) to fit everything. The real kicker is that a traumatic event happened to one of my children in the neighborhood and has left us feeling very angry and even further isolated in trying to keep to ourselves to keep the kids safe. I am juggling a lot of emotions about how to handle our situation right now. The mama bear in me wants to lash out. I want to feel comfortable in my own home and neighborhood again but I'm not sure how to handle it all. I know that this is where we have to be for now because of the simple fact that we can't afford to move....we have checked into selling and we couldn't get enough out of the property right now to pay off the mortgage in full. Part of me feels like we can't afford not to move for the psychological state of my family but I see no way out at present. So I find myself everyday trying to love where we are at. I am trying to put as much energy and love into not only the land and the physical home itself as possible but also to just reassure my children of the love that we have for each other as a family. There is so much more jumbled up in my heart and my brain right now battling it out for who will be on top when all I want is some kind of balance or peaceful resolution. So in greeting the new year I knew that I had to try to at least come to some kind of peace with being here.
It is as simple as the saying "Grow where you are planted....with love all things bloom!" This has become my mantra. For now our roots are planted here and with enough love we can grow as a family and bloom.
I have drawn our family inside of what is like an onion or flower bulb. The outer layers can be peeled away to reveal the fragrant, ripe goodness that is inside. Cammy has talked often as of late about how we might all have a little bit of fairy inside of all of us so I drew fairy wings on everyone. The layers of the bulb are like rainbows....inspired by a saying I read somewhere long ago. "The rainbows of life follow the storms." This sums it up. I know that there is light and love available to us here despite some of the difficulties and trauma we have suffered. We are taking all the steps (counseling etc.) to make sure that our family comes through this whole and capable of loving our neighbors still. I want my children to feel empowered and strong...not like victims. We have to take advantage of all that we do have here and focus our energies moving forward on thriving here for now. I know that we can and am looking forward to seeing just how much we can overcome our discomfort with this place and much we can bloom.

Happy New Year

2010-01-05T19:45:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! We celebrated New Years a little early at the Children's Museum. They did a countdown at noon for all the kids complete with lots of confetti and plastic champaign glasses with white grape juice. The girls had a great time. Cammy saved her glasses and drank out of them for the next week. It made her feel grown up.
Here is my husband "Mr. Mark" the local music man. He performs at the Children's Museum at least once a month. Sometimes my oldest daughter performs with him if she is in a good mood that day. She was far too distracted this day with all the festivities.
I love seeing her this excited and happy.
Little Karma was in awe of everything. She tried to eat the confetti though.
This year is going to be great. Cammy is turning seven in a little over a week and Karma is starting to talk. Everything is going so fast. I love it when the pace is crazy. It keeps me on my toes. I tend to be an on my feet kind of planner and the year is off to running start already. I have loved our experiences homeschooling over the last few months and can't wait to get into our groove in the new year.

Our own little red gnome

2010-01-05T19:32:00.000-08:00

Here is our own little red gnome Karma....she is really good at subtraction. She sneaks off with those jewels every time.

Here is King equals counting out his gems.
Times Multiply is stuck in a tree.
We had a great day of adventures with the math gnomes today.

Prismacolor Ice Sculptures

2010-01-05T18:32:00.000-08:00

This beautiful ice sculpture resulted from two days worth of freezing coastal temperatures. It isn't often that it stays cold enough for more than a night around here for water to freeze outside but we have had a cold streak this week. Cammy and her friend have been playing by the icy ditches....throwing stones and sticks to try and break the ice in them all the while calling themselves the rainbow ice princesses. So we decided to take advantage of what mother nature was throwing our way and last night I let them loose with all the plastic containers in the cabinet and some food coloring and a pitcher of water. The next morning Cammy woke up early and went outside to the back porch (no shoes on) to check on her ice blocks before she did anything else.

These were our beautiful rainbow colored containers of ice the next morning. Cammy observed that the really full ones were still (wet) on the inside, but the thin ones were frozen solid. I found myself wishing that we had filled a few more containers to freeze. They were so jewel like.

Cammy got wise pretty quickly and got a pair of Daddy's socks to keep her hands from freezing since we couldn't find her gloves. Poor Karma couldn't seem to keep anything on her little hands and her fingers were bright red. Cammy was fascinated by the way the ice would actually stick to her hands or the socks and I was unable to give her a satisfactory answer as to why it sticks to things. I found myself thinking about that Christmas movie where the little boy sticks his tongue on a lamp post. Why does it stick anyway?

I just love fall!

2009-11-17T09:18:00.001-08:00

I recently found this beautiful fall leaf when the girls were out for our daily nature hike. It had the most beautiful heart pattern in it. I had to take some pictures because I knew the colors wouldn't last if we pressed it (They didn't we tried). It made me look for heart patterns in leaves and nature all around us for weeks after we found it. Cammy loved spotting all the heart shaped things from cracks in the pavement to different leaves and rocks. I have long been a collector of heart shaped rocks and shells that I find when I'm walking outside. I keep then in a bowl for the girls to feel. Cammy made the bowl for me. It is amazing how abundant the universally accepted symbol of love is in our everyday life. I walk past it everyday not always truly feeling the appreciation and awe I have for mother nature and her wonders. All of this reminded me of a poem I had come across called Leaves by Frank Asch. I usually start off our week with a new poem and illustration on the chalkboard every week. Cammy then copies the poem into her workbook and illustrates it herself. I shied away from this poem at first because I felt that it was a little too long for Cammy to have to copy down and illustrate. I gave her a shorter poem but read this one to her out loud this week. It is now starting to get cold once in a while as winter is almost here and the leaves are almost all gone except for a few remaining golden and ruby gems tucked in here or there.

Leaves
"My green leaves are more beautiful
than your white clouds,"
said the maple to the sky.
"That's a lie," said the sky.
"At sunset my pinks and purples
make me more beautiful than you."
The maple was angry and
for the first time being just green
made it feel blue.
"Let's ask Mother Earth for a favor,"
said the maple to the pine.
"Go ahead," said the pine tree."
"The way I am is just fine with me."
"Mother Earth," said the maple,"
"make my leaves more beautiful
than the sky at sunset."
"You will regret that request,"
said Mother Earth.
"No, I will not," said the maple.
"Believe me I can feel it in my sap."
"Then it is done, " said Mother Earth.
"Now leave me alone to take my winter nap."
Day by day the leaves of the maple
turned yellow and orange and red.
And the compliments he got
from the animals of the forest
went straight to his head.
Now the sky was jealous
and sent down a breeze
to steal the maple leaves.
"Dance with me," said the sky,
"and fall where you please."
"You are mean, " said the maple
and shook it's bare branches at the sky.
"Let it be a lesson to you," replied the sky.
"There is no one more beautiful than I."

I highly recommend this book of poetry. Our family reads from it all year long because it it organized. This is where I found this beautiful poem by Frank Asch.

Paper Chain Story

2009-11-17T09:05:00.000-08:00

Cammy has been begging to learn how to make paper chain dolls. She still has a hard time cutting well with scissors and gets frustrated easily but is getting better. I thought this would be an excellent opportunity to help her hone her skills and tell a story at the same time. We have been engrossed with our study of Native Americans and pilgrims for the past two weeks. I came across a book by Jean Stangl titled Paper Stories. It has a lot of really cute stories to tell and paper patterns to go along with them. I chose one about Indian maidens and adapted the story to fit what we are studying a little better. Here is the story I told.

One day a young Indian girl named Pocahontas was playing in the woods near the sea shore when she saw a strange sight on the horizon of the water. There was a dark shape coming towards land. It was an English ship with strange people on board. They came to shore and immediately she wanted to meet these strangers but she thought that her father Chief Powhatan might be angry with her for this. She didn't know if these new people with their light skin and hair on their faces would hurt her so she ran through the woods as fast as she could to tell her father the chief what had seen.

Chief Powhatan was glad to see his daughter come back to the village...she told him of the new visitors by the shore with the white skin and clothes all over their bodies. Chief Powhatan told Pocahontas how brave she had been and sent several Indian scouts to check out these new people and greet them. They returned with an Englishman named John Smith. They did not speak each others language but tried to communicate the best that they could. John Smith could see that there were many Indians in the village so he asked Chief Powhatan how many children there were. The Chief said that there were many but did not know how to tell John Smith a number in his language. John Smith said do you have one child? two children? three children? All the Chief could say was we have many....so he got out a piece of animal hide and folded it up and made a few cuts. When he unfolded it to reveal how many John Smith counted out loud so that the Indian chief could learn and understand in his language.

*This story can be simplified or changed to suit whatever your needs and is a great way to teach basic counting skills. We had a lot of fun afterward reading and singing along to a book we have called One Little , Two Little, Three Little Pilgrims by B.G. Hennessy

This is how you make it:

The first thing you need to do is get two pieces of paper that are about 6" x 20" for each character you want to cut out. We used brown paper grocery bags and just cut them at the glued seam and trimmed them to the size we wanted. I use them for a lot of our craft projects: they are thick and strong enough to take paint and best of all they are free. Fold the paper into 2" accordion folds and trace or draw half of a figure for the character you want in your story. We drew a Native American girl (Pocahontas) and a pilgrim boy for our story plot. Make sure the arms go all the way to the edge of the fold. Cammy had a hard time understanding why this was necessary at first until I showed her what would happen if you cut the edge of the fold all the way off ...all the figures fall apart. Make sure you cut the feather and fringe lines on the Native American girl. As you tell the story cut the figures out and at the end slowly unfold and have the children help you count along.

Cammy drew and cut out the pilgrim boy and colored all of the figures when we were through telling the story.

The paper grocery bags are stiff enough that they can even stand up on their own when you cut the figures out. We pretended the Indian girls were dancing around a fire.

Snack time

2009-11-16T18:03:00.000-08:00

We have been having a lot of fun lately with snack time. I have been letting Cammy prepare snacks for everyone in old ice cube trays. She loves it! I usually let her choose what to put in them for the day with a few suggestions. She usually makes one with goldfish and raisins, one with pretzels and mustard, one with cut up bananas. Other good options we have tried recently are carrots and celery with ranch to dip at the ends and animal crackers with yogurt.

Mushroom houses

2009-11-15T20:48:00.000-08:00

Take a look at these mushroom houses that we found under the weeping willow tree in our front yard. How cute is that...little windows for the fairies. We have had lots of fun this fall taking walks and photographing mushrooms. When it rains here they seem to pop up within an afternoon. It amazes me how fast mushrooms can spore and populate a nice moist yard. We live near a lake and a saltwater marsh and there are always mushrooms to be found near them both. We take care to never eat any of them and we always wash our hands if we have handled any of them. We have yet to check out a book about mushrooms from the local library but it will have to be on our next visit.
Wow! Look at this nice big mushroom cap. What could we do with it?

Cammy being the fierce defender of the fairies has made it into an umbrella to keep the fairies dry. Apparently it also doubles as a magic staff of mushroom power....her imagination is limitless.

Cammy thought these mushrooms looked like hamburger buns.

I don't know much about mushrooms....but this was one of the only ones we found that had a frilly skirt under it. Hence the need for us to get to the library to check this out...after we wash our hands.
These were some of the nastiest looking mushrooms we have found to date. Someone had apparently stepped on them before we came by and they looked like rotting meat. Yuck!

And here is a closeup of one of the mushrooms with a view.

We had a "fairy"ly good weekend indeed

2009-11-07T18:49:00.000-08:00

Gillie Du, I think his name was....made quite an impression on Karma this weekend. He is the yuckiest fairy of them all because he picks and eats his boogers....he showed us (really did)! She has been picking her nose ever since.
He wasn't the only strange site we encountered jugglers and acrobats with swords, knives, chainsaws and fire....and oh yeah a few balls too.
This guy was amazing.
The tree man caught me offguard. I thought it was a sculpture and was about to touch it when it hugged some people right in front of me.
Cammy got to see "Mother Goose"
There were amazing artwork and crafts to see.
We had a great time at the renaissance festival. Cammy especially loved the fairy that befriended her and gave her a magic pebble. Cammy in turn gave the fairy some of the treasure that she later got from the pirates that we saw. Upon returning home she has been drawing more fairies than ever...I don't have enough paper to keep up with her need to draw sometimes. I have taken to getting our groceries in the paper bags just so that I have some kind of extra paper for art around the house. We just cut them open and turn them inside out so that you don't see the logo and voila you have a giant piece of paper to draw on and they take paint well too.
Last night we watched the new Tinkerbell movie....Cammy had earned a well deserved treat. Today she was busy trying to catch a fairy and getting quite frustrated in the process. She just couldn't understand why no fairies would come to her. She said it was obvious that she was a nice girl. I pointed out that standing in the driveway with a jar and a piece of rope to trip the fairies and trap them might not be the most welcoming sight for a fairy and that they tended to shy away from big people things anyway.....at which point she stormed off in her own little furious six year old way. Later she came out with a plan to make amends and apparently it was the water fairies birthday and she would be quite upset if Cammy didn't have a tea party with her or give her a gift. I was very busy trying to load the pottery into the kiln so she took it upon herself to mix up a fairy dust concoction as a gift. Five minutes later with lots of glitter and moonsand on the studio floor she was pleased to display a bowl full of fairydust to give to the water fairy. Who knows....maybe the water fairy will come and give her a goodnight kiss and leave a present under her pillow.

Where did our rhythm go?

2009-10-10T08:24:00.000-07:00

Being gone for two weeks has really disoriented me. The kids seem to be readjusting better than I am thankfully. We have been back for almost two weeks and I still haven't quite gotten back into the solid rhythm we had working so well for us before we left for the mountains. I think part of it is that I really didn't get a good dose of nature when we were there. It rained nonstop the entire time we were there.....so no hikes in the woods or up mountain trails or dips into mountain streams. I usually get so invigorated and renewed by a trip to the mountains but not so this time. I left feeling unfulfilled and kind of empty. Then we had a craft show the next weekend on the road where it rained and sales were lousy. We made enough money to get home which I am thankful for but I am still a little bummed. I haven't had a show that slow in years. So.....getting back into my groove in the pottery studio has been difficult.
I have had a hard time getting myself really focused on Cammy's school lessons as well but we are trudging forward. I have made it really fun and loose this past week with a lot of imaginative play thrown in. We built the time machine last week and took it on our first adventure this week. Monday, Cammy launched from headquarters and went back in time to the Medieval/Renaissance period in history. We chose this time period because I am teaching a workshop in Charlotte later this month and we will be going to the Renaissance festival.
We have been doing some work with telling time and with calendars and so it was a nice fit to build the time machine. The other neighborhood kids have been congregating on the porch to play with the time machine as well.
I must give credit to the many Waldorf homeschool bloggers who I pulled bits and pieces of stories and ideas from to create our adventures from but I do not always know how to insert a link....gotta get some tech help from my hubster when he gets back home.
For the first stage of our adventure Cammy took her time machine back to the Renaissance period and ended up in the castle of the benevolent King Equals who was quite distressed because the Dragon of Numeria was very angry with him because he had not been invited to the last royal ball. The dragon had locked the gates to the land of Numeria until someone brave enough and clever enough to solve his math riddles could unlock the tweleve locks. We have had a jolly good time pretending to be a host of characters this week. My husband stood in as King Equals being quite dramatic and begging Cammy to help him decipher the dragons riddles. I was the royal servant (kitchen cook, maid, messenger, etc,) and the demanding Queen. Cammy was herself ....although she did have to change into proper attire for the time period for the Queen did not approve of a lady of the court wearing pants. Cammy had a blast. I as the royal servant showing her the lay of the royal land upon the request of the King and Queen was quite fascinated with the odd trinkets she brought with her in her time machine. Cammy thought it was so funny that I didn't know what all these modern technological things were and she was delighted every time she had to explain to me what something was or how they did thing now versus how they made things in the Renaissance. I was most fascinated by her iron horse which she called a bicycle that she rode on in the streets( apparently she brought everything in the house including the kitchen stove with her in her time machine...she said she had a shrink/enlarger machine on board).
I (the kitchen cook ) enlisted Cammy's help in determining how to cut the cake or in our case brownies up so that everyone invited would get an even sized piece; for the great King Equals always wants everything to come out even and fair for everyone. We traced the pan onto a big sheet of manilla paper and cut it out and then folded it in halves until we had an adequate number of pieces for everyone who was invited. This was a good lesson in doubles and fractions.
I did not have our beloved math gnomes ready for the adventure yet so word has been sent via paper origami cranes for them to come and help their dear friend King Equals and Cammy with her training before she goes up against the math dragon. We started some of her physical and mental training even though the gnomes are not here to oversee everything yet. I made bean bags with numbers up to twenty on them for the girls. On one side there is an even number and on the other an odd number. We played games on the castle stairs like even or odd or greater than or less than where I tossed out bean bags at random and if it was even she jumped up one step or if it was odd she had to jump down a step. For Greater than or less than she got to jump forward if it was greater than or down if it was less than the previous number, etc. We also did some double digit addition this week and Cammy picked up on it with no problem and took to writing her own problems on the board and solving them. I also challenged Cammy to see how many blocks it would take to build the castle stairs. This involved adding multiple single digit numbers. She also got to build some nice block towers in the process for Karma Kong to knock down. All in all we had a royal good time.

Building a time machine

2009-10-01T19:17:00.000-07:00

That's right, we are building a time machine. Inspired by our recent trip to the mountains to visit Nana. We had a great time despite the rain. Cammy enjoyed it......especially watching Nana's cable TV (it was verrrry rainy). She got to watch a show called Time Warp Trio and got interested in time travel. The whole way back from the mountains she was rapping about everything and talking about what she would do if she was a kid in Time Warp Trio. Karma was so entertained she didn't cry once......for five hours in a car!!
We started our project today. After a few review lessons today we went on a scavenger hunt for materials to make our time machine with. We got a great big box from a local heating and air place. It was big enough for Cammy to kneel in ( I secretly wish it was bigger so I could get in too). To make it a little bigger we taped a sturdy banana box to the top and cut out a hole for Cammy's head. I keep a box of odd sculpture stuff like cd spindles, bottle caps, broken toy parts etc. in the garage because you never know when you are going to need spare parts for a time machine.
We are going to the Renaissance festival in Charlotte, NC at the end of the month. I have to teach a workshop for the Red Hat society and the girls and I will be topping the trip off with the festival. I have been to one in Sarasota, FL and it was great. Cammy is going to love it. I wanted to work the subject of the Renaissance into her lessons but it felt like an awkward leap from our current studies but the time machine solves that. Now instead of feeling like an awkward leap we are simply jumping back in time with our new time machine. That's all!
Cammy has been building great block towers and asking about Leonardo Da Vinci, so I guess it's a good fit right now anyway. To start the time machine journey off right we rented Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and made some popcorn. After taking a few test spins through the centuries and encountering dinosaurs and dragons Cammy decided she wanted to work on "What do you call it mom....the outside of the space shuttle....you know the part that keeps it from burning up? The musilage?" "The fuselage," I say(while I'm thinking how does she know this stuff?...because she reads a dictionary for fun in the car). So we got out the tin foil and some glue sticks and duct tape and got part of the box covered in a protective shell. She also wanted some rocket boosters so we taped on some cardboard tubes and now we are turbo charged. Since Cammy is the captain she said that apparently if you don't have security clearance to operate the time machine you will go straight up into space and the computers will go all wacky.
It must have been meant to be because I found a great book for a quarter entitled The Time Traveller Book of Knights and Castles by Judy Hindley.

Also on our last trip to the library Cammy checked out the book Ms. Frizzle's Adventures Medieval Castle by Joanna Cole.

We already had the book Castle by David Macaulay.

We are going to the library tomorrow to see what else we can find.

"What Catches the Eye Inspires the Hand"

2009-09-16T05:33:00.000-07:00

"What catches the eye inspires the hand." (unknown)

This is a quote that I came across somewhere many years ago and it has had a profound impact on my approach and level of perception in daily life. We are in a chaotic whirlwind right now, trying to get ready for a trip and a big fall show. I have to be in my friend's wedding this weekend and then the very next weekend we have our biggest show and sale of the year Festival in the Park in Charlotte, NC. So that means we are going to be out of town for more than a week. I have been working late into the night lately trying to get enough pottery made for the show and to fill all the orders for the galleries and shops. I didn't even really try to start school off this week because we are leaving mid week. The flow and routine are definitely interrupted this week. So I cleared off the chalkboard last night and drew this picture and quote. I introduced some cursive writing to Cammy last week and she loved it and has been trying to read it wherever we see it so I wrote the quote in cursive. It made her so proud that she could read the cursive writing. The eye is a very powerful symbol in a lot of my art. In this picture the eye contains a heart for the pupil symbolizing the love that I have for all that I see around me good or bad, ugly or beautiful we have something to gain from it all. Around the eye I subtly introduced the roman numerals (Cammy has come across them several times recently and asked what they stand for and seems to understand some simple addition concepts with them) we are also working with time. Inside the eye I drew the mountains because that is where we are going on our journey. Under the eye I traced my husband's hands and mine as trees of knowledge losing their leaves for the upcoming fall. Cammy is really interested in finding purple leaves and wants to prove that a fall leaf can be purple. We did end up doing schooly stuff this week we always do around here sometimes without even trying. Monday we watched the nature documentary Earth by Disney.We also went on a nature walk each day.....it has become a very good habit. Cammy insisted on checking on the crab apple tree up the street (she thinks the apples are going to be ready every day we visit it). I find that if I don't come up with an assignment for Cammy she becomes bored easily and asks if she can do at least three workbook pages. She is so hungry for knowledge. I only hope that I can help to teach her to observe and to keep her eyes and heart open to what every encounter or experience has to offer as inspiration. No matter how insignificant something seems at the time it can lead the mind or the hands to broader matters like a chain reaction. I often find that when I am in the studio and I am supposed to be making a specific soap dish the images of my day will inspire my hands to work in a different direction. I see this tendency in Cammy as well. She can become so excited about something and spout off these grand project ideas that are often out of reach in their entirety but I try to find something to pull from that is attainable and that we can make happen or try to do. I try to let her row her own boat to a certain extent and go with the currents of her creative mind. So far it has taught me a lot about the development of ideas and how to help them grow into fruition. I am loving homeschooling so far.

The Grand Procession of Peculiar Pets and People

2009-09-14T05:55:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was the parade that we had been awaiting for weeks. The Grand Procession of Peculiar Pets and People. Cammy and Karma and I all marched in the parade in full costume. In the weeks leading up to the parade several costume making parties were hosted around the city to encourage people to come out and get creative making their own peculiar pet costumes. All the materials were donated and supplied and people were encouraged to donate anything they might not want for others to use. A local artist here in Wilmington, NC named Dixon Settler was one of the lead coordinators of the event which took place on the same day as the Arts and Antiques walk downtown. It was a busy day for us....I was set up at the festival selling my pottery, my husband Mark had to play music on the kids stage for a while and we marched in the parade. Whew! But it was a whole lot of fun!!! The image above was the giant dragon kite that led the procession. It took at least six people to carry the kite through the street. What followed was quite a site.

There were pets of all kinds...cute and adorable butterflies.
Unidentified creatures from who knows where.

Jellyfish on stilts.
Menacing furry infants

Bald bunnies!
Sweaty suspicious looking ducks

This little elephant was my favorite (besides my daughter) how cute is this!
Dragonflies on stilts eating giant worms

Here is Cammy in her cheetah costume that she made herself.....by the end of the parade she was saying that her face was melting off.

Second Week

2009-09-05T18:30:00.000-07:00

Second Week in review: OK! so here it is Monday night and I am just now finishing my week in review. I never really knew we would be doing so much learning everyday around here. It's at times chaotic, occasionally peaceful (when Karma is napping), often entertaining especially on days when Dad is home, always full of creativity here at the Muddy Schoolhouse. This was one of the weekends when my husband Mark goes out of town to sell my pottery at several shows. That means I'm playing catch up for a few days. I don't get much time in the studio when he's gone. Karma is a goat....she will put anything in her mouth. There is hardly a day that we don't have to rescue something from her mouth....so the studio is off limits to the baby for now. I started writing this sometime last week and couldn't find the time to finish it until tonight.

Monday:I have a mild cold right now and am feeling like laying back down but I don't want to throw everyones rhythm off this early in the newly established routine....it's going beautifully. It was rainy this morning so we couldn't go for our morning walk around the triangle.
We baked homemade biscuits this morning. It took a good amount of measuring practice and we discussed the fractions associated with 1 cup and all the different ways to get to 1 cup. After breakfast we read our new poem on the chalkboard about the Fuzzy Wuzzy Caterpillar and Cammy copied it down into her journal. I got out the rubber stampers and she created a picture doing Ed Emberly style fingerprint caterpillars along with all sorts of other rubber stamp additions. We worked on geography in the Maps Globes and Graphs workbook. Worked on mapping with just shapes and colors to keep it simple. Worked on making a calendar for the start of the new month on Tuesday. Talked about capitalization rules for months and days and did a worksheet. Did some work on ABC order and also sequencing events and numbers.

Tuesday:
I had to go to town this morning to get some clay and glazes for the upcoming shows and orders. So school was on the road today. I quizzed Cammy on her spelling words from last week just out of curiosity. I did not test her last week. She has always been a strong speller ...probably better than me, Ha! She got all the words right except for one of the challenge words: neighborhood. Whenever I am in Wilmington I always have to stop at this thrift store called The Rescue Mission. Most of the time they have lots of toys and books and sometimes good kids clothes. It's the kind of thrift store where you go up with a pile of stuff and the guy says just gimme a buck mam. Gotta love it! I always walk away with a bag full of books for the kids. Cammy paid and practiced counting out her change to the man. We got back in time for me to still get to work in the studio.

Wednesday:
We walked the block this morning and talked about drawing a map of the block or in our case triangle. We counted houses and observed which side of the street they were on. Cammy drew a map of the triangle when we got back. We read The Secret Shortcut by Mark Teague because our triangle has a secret shortcut through the woods. Cammy hesitated to include the shortcut on the map because she didn't want anyone else to know about the path. Worked in our People and Places workbook in the chapter about neighborhoods. I had Cammy do a review page about finding things on calendars and she did a workbook page about whether or not to capitalize the names of the seasons.
We ate caterpillar snacks made of grapes(cut in half), raisins, pretzels, bananas, cheerios, puffs and honey.Mark did some music and movement with the girls when he got home from work. I could hear them on the baby monitor from the studio, I just wish I could have seen them.

Thursday:
It was a very nice cool morning. One of the first of many to come in fall. I can't wait. Cammy needed to get out some energy and I needed a good walk with Karma so we visited Jubilie today. Cammy rode her bike all the way there. Her confidence is building slowly. She fell right when we got to their driveway but didn't cry a bit. She was so proud of herself. On our way back we discovered that an army of fuzzy caterpillars had consumed half the grape vine overnight. So we started a caterpillar poem book when we got back. Cammy wrote a poem with one line for each letter of the word caterpillar. We did a little grid based mapping math work today. Cammy became a card carrying member of the library in town today. She was so happy:).She was only allowed to check out three books on her first visit. I was allowed to check out 24 books because I was already a member. She kept handing me books because she didn't want to waste her three....hers had to be the most special books of all that she found. She did great! She was choosing books on her own about what we are studying right now.

Friday:Ok! We are missing my husband Mark already but are trying to forge ahead on schedule.
We tried to go for a bike ride again today....Cammy's confidence of yesterday is completely gone. Before we could even get around the curve she was scared stiff, crying and unable to get off her bike. We had to walk it back to the house. Where did it go( the confidence of yesterday)? She pulled herself right out of her downward spiral by turning on the funny Cammy and rapped about her baby sister Karma the whole way home.
"Karma is my sister yeah that's her name and saying goo goo gaa gaa that's her game and it's gonna put her in the hall of fame. Yeah Karma is my sister and that's a tongue twister. " That was all I could remember...it changes every time she sings it for someone. She said on the way home that she wanted to be a rapper now and could someone be a rapper and a teacher. "Of course! Look at Daddy."
I recently brought down all of the play scarves from Cammy's dress up basket in her closet to a large basket in the living room. They have been the center of many hours of play as of late.So when we got back to the house I decided it was the right time to do some fun yoga I had been planning. Earlier this week we read Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar. We have been talking about the life cycle of the butterfly this week. We got out the colored mats when we got back. I had asked Cammy to curl up like an egg on the green mat.She went straight for the yellow mat wanting to be on a bright sunny flower instead. So I took the leaf and we sat curled like caterpillar eggs and rested. Then we hatched and stretched out on our bellies and became caterpillars wiggling across the floor eating our way through leaves and flowers (scarves and pillows). Then we wrapped ourselves up in scarves (Cammy folded herself up in the mat like a burrito) like we were forming a cocoon. Three weeks later (three long breaths later ) we unfurled our beautiful butterfly wings (scarves). I want to help Cammy plan a butterfly play to perform for her relatives and maybe the daycare up the street or the schools that Mark teaches at each week. I would like her to do this yoga as part of the performance while I read The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
We talked about symmetry vs. asymmetry today and Cammy colored a symmetrical butterfly. While she colored her butterfly I read the See How They Grow Butterfly book. All this talk of symmetry led me to my book The Reasons For The Seasons published by Little Brown Books. It has a lesson about feathers and symmetry. We examined our vulture or hawk feather closely and tried to figure out what part of the bird it fell from. We think it is from the mid wing area because of it's rounded tip. I let this lead us into a form drawing lesson that I just hadn't found the right time to introduce until now. We talked about how to use a feather for a quill pen and cut the tip off at an angle and got out the india ink and a small glass jar and I let Cammy do her form drawing lesson with her newly crafted quill pen. As she experimented with the forms she gravitated toward drawing bunny faces focusing on the circle. But upon closer examination she managed to design her bunny faces to incorporate all three of the forms we had just learned although she only talked about the circle. Cammy wanted to know more about writing with quill pens so we talked about the history of writing. let this lead us into a form drawing lesson that I just hadn't found the right time to introduce until now. Cammy really struggles with keeping her handwriting under control. I am really loving the way Waldorf introduces forms and letters and I wish Cammy had been introduced to it that way. However she was not....but I can certainly take the time now to reinforce what she does know with a deeper understanding of the forms that inhabit our world and our writing. Today was the first time I tried form drawing with Cammy. I introduced a circle : refering to the circle as symbolic of a hug or embrace, of a sense of being united like a community around you, of a the earth round and big, of being like an eyeball, etc. I also took the time to reference all of the letters that required the use of this form. This excited Cammy and she started shouting them out faster than I could write them on the chalkboard. I know I probably should have stopped at this one form for the day but I went ahead and taught her the other two that have been on the board since last week when we started this adventure. The others were a plus sign: symbolic of a crossroads or a compass since we are studying mapping and geography. The arrow was the last sign that I introduced. It was again introduced because of our unit study topic. Later in the day I referenced a book called Letterbox which is about the history of writing. Cammy was fascinated with this topic and that they used to write in clay and she laughed and said "What if? Mom- our whole table was covered in clay and we had to do our schoolwork and it got stuck in the clay?" All I could do for a minute was laugh. When we went back outside later in the day I showed her how to write with burnt sticks that had turned to charcoal. She loved this drawing for almost an hour....all the forms we had been working on.
We rented a movie today for our weekend without Dad. Cammy picked out Around The World in 80 Days with Jackie Chan saying it to the lady at checkout "We are studying about geography at home because my mom teaches me, we homeschool"

The revenge of the caterpillars

2009-09-03T18:01:00.000-07:00

OK! So the word must have gotten out that we ate caterpillars yesterday (grape and raisin ones) because when we went outside today a whole army of fuzzy little caterpillars were devouring my grapevine leaf by leaf. Justice served up caterpillar style.

Cammy thinks that the boys and the girls must be different colors...honestly I'm not sure. We are going to have to look this one up. Good thing we went to the library today and checked out every book I could find on butterflies and other creepy crawly insects.
Funny thing is this little guy looks just like he jumped right off the chalkboard inside...same stripes and everything.
Since the caterpillars seem to be dominating the scene we made a caterpillar poem book today. I had Cammy cut eleven large circles (about the size of a CD) in all different colors of construction paper, one for each letter of the word caterpillar. Then she wrote one line starting with each letter of the word caterpillar.
C-Caterpillars are cute.
A- A caterpillar is always eating leaves.
T-They turn into butterflies.
E-Evan is the name of my pet caterpillar.
R-Rose is my pet butterfly.
P-Pet butterflies are fun.
I-I love butterflies.
L-Love is what I have for butterflies.
L-Larvae is what a baby caterpillar is called.
A- A butterfly is pretty.
R-Rose is a pink butterfly.

It took her quite a while to work her way through this project and she did not have enough spirit left to copy the poem onto the circles. She still struggles quite a bit with her handwriting. I am wanting to introduce the Waldorf form drawing into lessons to help her get a better grasp on forming letters but don't quite know how to integrate it smoothly. I can usually wing things but I feel like I need a book on this one.

We ate caterpillars today!

2009-09-02T19:54:00.000-07:00

At the start of the week I was at a loss as to what to put on the chalkboard this week but then I found this little poem in one of our Kindermuzik handouts. It has fit with our continuing study of butterflies. So keeping with our theme we found a really cute snack recipe idea in the very same handout "A Garden Flower"

Yes it's true, we ate caterpillars today but not the kind you usually think of. These caterpillars were the snack creation of Cammy herself. I set her to task on making grape and raisin caterpillars for our snack today and she went to town....full creative license. She used bananas, grapes, raisins, pretzels, goldfish, honey and puffs to create her edible caterpillars. She loved it and so did Karma and I. Yum!!!

Costume Party

2009-08-30T18:23:00.001-07:00

Today I took the day off from working in the pottery studio which is almost always where you will find me If I can get in there. I decided a little cultural adventure was long overdue. I packed up the girls along with a laundry bag stuffed with old tights, fuzzy bath mats and any odd piece of clothing or fabric I didn't need anymore. We also packed up a laundry basket full of sculpture materials like broken toys, cardboard tubes and anything else odd. Why did we need such provisions....for "The Parade of Peculiar Pets" costume making street party of course. Karma was a big help...Ha! Lucky I knew the people in charge and they were friendly artists...they just laughed and let her at it. She is at this stage where she wants to help so badly. It's been great for clean up time at home but here it was chaos unleashed. She wanted to paint and draw and use the hot glue gun...yikes

Wouldn't you know it Karma headed straight for the wigs. She has also been wearing anything she can as a hat like a bowl lately.
If you have read my blog before you would know that this family has a proclivity to play dress up with wigs. This one is definitely one of the best pics yet.
Cammy however did not want anything to do with this wig!

Cammy jumped right on the stuff she wanted to use to make her costume. She saw some cheetah printed fuzzy fabric and instantly started making a cheetah mask to go with it. She did it all herself. Along with being an author she says she wants to be a fashion designer. She spends hours drawing dresses. Just today she asked me "If I design like two paper dolls with maybe four dresses to go with each of them and box them up could I sell them at your art show for five dollars?" Absolutely! I said.

Look at this beautiful Indonesian eagle kite. Cammy is so excited they said she could fly this one in the parade.
This enormous dragon kite is going to lead the parade procession and spans at least 15 feet wide and I have no idea how long?.
It was by far the most impressive and massive kite I have ever seen. Gorgeous!

Then there is me, a snail. It still needs a little work. There was no wire for the antennae but you get the overall concept at least. I just rolled up Karma's old crib bumper since we weren't using it and voila a snail shell. I actually let one of the local newspapers take a picture of me like this....oh well all you can do is laugh!

Our week in review

2009-08-28T13:35:00.000-07:00

Our first week of homeschooling is at it's end though we never stop learning around here. To help me maintain my grasp on this new endeavor I am going to try to do a review of the week and list or write about some of the things we learned over the course of the week. I know it is already well into the next week and I have probably forgotten half of what we did last week but better late than never....spoken like a true procrastinator.

Monday: "Muffin Monday"
I teach in the morning from about 9 until 12 then we all eat lunch together and I put the baby down for a nap and go out to the studio to work until dinnertime. Mark gets to work in the mornings and he has the girls in the afternoon to teach and entertain. The plan is for the subject emphasis on Mondays to be math, mapping(for now) and music with Mark in the afternoons. A little bit of everything else is thrown into the mix as it fits.
1. Introduced the weekly routine chart( We are talking about one day at a time because it is still subject to change as we see how our week flows and we don't want anyone to get overwhelmed)On Monday mornings we will be baking and doing some measurement related math. By baking on Monday we will hopefully have a tasty snack like muffins ready for several days for the girls. We also prepared a crockpot meal ...enough for dinner and lunch the next day.
2. After breakfast we went for a morning nature walk and found some small sassafras trees and dug roots for tea. We made sure to identify the leaves online. We made tea and Cammy drew and wrote in her nature journal about the experience.
3.Talked about maps and globes(We have been mapping all of our Etsy sales this summer so Cammy was familiar with a map somewhat)
4. Read section 1 in Maps, Globes and Graphs workbook
5.Tried to draw a map(This frustrated Cammy quite a bit because she wanted to draw a very advanced map, her brain is about 100 steps ahead of where her actual skill level is at sometimes) finally calmed her and got her to draw just a simple map of her room.
6.Introduced weekly spelling words: map, globe, earth, land, ocean, where, compass, north, south, east, west and bonus words: direction, community, neighborhood
7. Listed the order of the universe form home to street to neighborhood to city to county etc.
8.Did a few simple addition workbook pages for review and started our grow a pony(one of those spongy things that grows in water)
9.Music didn't make it into the day but a trip to the beach with dad did.

Tuesday: "TV Free"
No television at all even for the grownups when the kids go to bed.
Luckily Cammy takes well to no TV most of the time and Karma seems to have zero interest in it so this was no problem in our house. Same game plan with me teaching in the morning, lunch together then I work in the afternoon and Mark works in the morning while I'm teaching. The subject emphasis for Tuesday is on telling time and reading and writing.
1. Cammy was a little resistant to start the day so I made her go and find the funkiest hat in the house to be her thinking cap. She immediately ran upstairs and grabbed this black and whit checker board patterned hat. Awesome choice I say! It worked like a charm she was into it now so I had her play a little word game with our spelling words. As it happens all of the weeks spelling words actually had a least one hidden word inside them, for example earth has ear and art inside or where has he and her hidden inside. Cammy got it right away even catching some that I had missed and I thought this game might be a little hard for her.
2. Cammy did some copy work of the list we had made about geography on Monday
3. Cammy copied her spelling words and put them in abc order
4. We built a tee pee in the back yard with some small trees that the power company had chopped down.
5. Cammy did some time oriented math worksheets

Wednesday: "Wacky Word Game Wednesday"
Again I teach in the morning while Mark works. Then I get to work until dinner time....Mark is a great cook. I'm loving this, he even does the dishes.
1. Cammy was a little resistant to start the day so I made her go and find the funkiest hat in the house to be her thinking cap. She immediately ran upstairs and grabbed this black and white checker board patterned hat. Awesome choice I say, now that is the hat of a genius! It worked like a charm she was into it now so I had her play a little word game with our spelling words. As it happens all of the weeks spelling words actually had a least one hidden word inside them, for example earth has ear and art inside or where has he and her hidden inside. Cammy got it right away even catching some that I had missed and I thought this game might be a little hard for her.
2. To continue with the wacky word game theme I distracted her with a little busy work of some math worksheets and writing in her nature journal. While she did this I hid some rebus puzzle note around the house and put some mail in the mailbox for her to find. It was a letter addressed to Special Agent Cammy and required that she help this family solve a series of mysterious images that have been popping up in the most unusual places. She figured out the rebus picture puzzles no problem. They spelled out I love you, but she was angry that I had tricked her into it and that it wasn't a "real" piece of mail.
3.Made a compass rose with some glow in the dark window cling paint
4. Did a couple of math review pages
5. Read some more of Maps, globes and graphs
6.The girls went to the beach with Mark again and talked about the horizon line out on the ocean and where you would be if you went straight out until you hit the next body of land....turns out on google earth that we are directly across from Morocco.

Thursday: "TV Free" no television at all again.
Mark works away from home on Thursday mornings so it's just the girls and I until after lunch.
1. We read a butterfly poem and talked about butterflies and symmetry.Cammy copied down the poem in her journal and drew a picture
2. Painted butterflies ink blot style: snuck in a little fraction math with paper folding and cutting
3. Did some claymation for Cammy's book "Karma Kong"
4. Cammy measure the grow a pony again and recorded the info into her math journal
5.Got out the slime chemistry set and made pseudo putty

Friday: ???
Mark works away from home on Fridays so it is just the girls and I until late afternoon.
1. We took an early morning walk and discovered a cicada casing in the driveway but Cammy refused to get too close to it or touch it. Visited the snails that seem to always be covering the neighbors driveway posts. Less than a block from the house we came across some vultures that were devouring something dead in the woods. Did a little math counting them as they flew away.
Cammy drew the cicada and the feather we found in her nature journal
2. Did some more reading in Maps, globes and Graphs
3. Did some writing in the Karma Kong story
4.Measured our grow a pony and graphed it's growth on a bar graph. Did a few simple math pages for review: Cammy tells me she is tired of this baby work! I was just trying to start her off easy since we didn't do any real schoolwork over the summer.

I am sure that I have forgotten tons because our days are full to the brim of questions and little side shows and projects. The learning never has to stop just because it's not "school time". I don't plan to do this review every week but for a while until we are settled into this new homeschooling routine I am going to try to keep up with posting a review so that I can keep myself oriented and focused.

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Finding our Place

2009-08-27T18:06:00.000-07:00

Ok, so we are new to this homeschooling and routine is what we are trying for here but there is not always going to be a set curriculum exactly. When I taught in Wilmington for several homeschool families, what I loved most was finding that special something that really peaked a kids interest. You can tell the difference when you find what they are really diggin at the time. Teaching for me is a lot like going down a river...sometimes the flow is slow and smooth and sometimes it's like class 4 rapids. I must be a closet adrenalin junkie because sometimes I like the rapids more. Things are flowing smoothly in the Muddy Schoolhouse for now which is fine by me because my rapids are in the pottery studio right now trying to get ready for my fall show season and making enough to keep my galleries stocked for the end of the year....whew! I could use a few more people to row the boat with me right now.
So over the course of this week...we have been taking it one day at a time and really talking about how we want to have each particular day flow. To make the routine thing stick we have kinda themed each day with a fun name like "Muffins, Music and Math Monday" or "Wacky Word Game Wednesday". We have made Tuesday and Thursday "TV Free" that means no one can watch any television on these days. Thursday is slotted to be the day with an emphasis on science and nature so today we talked about butterflies. Cammy has been nuts about the butterflies in the yard lately....and this is where I am going with the flow ...I didn't plan on studying butterflies yet but it's what Cammy has a spark for right now. This week she has been screaming for me to get the camera everytime she sees a new butterfly. She is convinced that she has seen "that really rare one that flies to the mountains in Mexico every year" so we delved into the world of butterflies today. We greeted the day with a new poem on the chalkboard. I found this beautiful poem and wrote it down in one of my journals but do not remember where or when I found it, but it fit the day perfectly.It reads:

Come bright butterfly close to me
Your beautiful wings I should like to see
You fly like a bird, You sip like a bee
But you're really a flower the wind set free

After breakfast and reciting the poem I had Cammy rewrite the poem in her journal. We practiced folding paper in half and cutting and then painted these beautiful butterflies Rorschach ink blot style. We only painted wings on one side of the paper and then folded it in half so it would copy itself and print onto the other half. Cammy loved these...it was so magical the way they copied themselves.
Karma could only watch for so long before she had to get her hands into the paint as well.
They came out so beautiful didn't they!
I told you she really got into it ....there were more than this...I didn't have enough clothespins to hang them all.

This one is one of my favorites. Cammy thought it looked like a praying mantis and insisted on teaching me how to paint this special design.
While we were busy painting butterflies Karma got into the bag of pipe cleaners that were intended to be antennas. Cammy offered to clean them up but she had ulterior motives ....
She was so proud of this butterfly that she constructed from the pipe cleaner spill.
Cammy fancies herself as an author and loves to write chapter books. Her current book in progress is called Karma Kong and features her baby sister as the main character. Today just for fun and a break from writing in her story journal we got out the clay she was to create a line of Karma Kong toy figurines. Great fun was had by all upon seeing Karma Kong change forms.
The work in clay inspired even more Karma Kong forms to reveal themselves. Here she has made Bouncy Karma Kong and Bluehair. We had a lot of fun learning today balanced with some old school style book work as well. Cammy wrote her spelling word sentences. We did some fun math with a timer seeing what kinds of things could be done in a minute ie. put on your coat? tie your shoes? write your name 10 times? say your abc's? count to 100? You get the picture. Maps are frustrating her right now because she wants to be able to draw a really complex map but just doesn't have all the skills she needs yet. I am going slow on this one and introducing one or two very basic concepts at a time.
Cammy has been begging to do a science experiment from a slime chemistry set that I found at the thrift store. Today was science day so we got down the set and made our own version of silly putty.

Here is a little glimpse of what Muddy Mama is up to in the afternoons. Most of our intense schooling is done in the morning by lunch time and then after I get Karma down for her nap promptly after lunch I get "Muddy Muse Time". This has been working out great for us. We are homeschooling and I'm getting more mud time. Mark does his work in the mornings...shipping and computer work or any sales calls we need to make and then he takes over on kid duty in the afternoon.

Compost Burgers

2009-08-25T19:07:00.000-07:00

OK! so I know it doesn't sound that appetizing, that's just our name for them. My good friend Amber(she can't stand it when we call them compost burgers) taught me how to make them and they are actually called croquettes and they are delicious. My family loves them...even Cammy and Karma too. So far Karma hasn't rejected much of anything if it's food. She eats the tomatoes right off the vines if I don't watch her closely, she's a sneaky one. She always sneaks the cherry tomatoes and just grins at me clutching it in her tiny fist thinking it's hidden.
They are very easy to make and we lovingly call them "Compost Burgers" because we use the greens in the fridge that are wilted or just on the verge of being too old for a pretty salad....nothing actually rotten enough for compost. I saute garlic and onions in olive oil and add in some chopped up carrots and whatever greens we are using...lettuce, spinach....we like to add cilantro or chopped chives or fresh basil leaves. Saute until wilted down pretty well. I take this out of the pan and put it into a bowl and add 1-2 eggs depending on the amount of greens you have prepared and add some cornmeal until they will hold their shape loosely. I usually just spoon a small burger sized amount of this mix back into the pan of olive oil and fry on both sides until golden brown.....I season mine with curry, and a pinch of sea salt but you can experiment with any spices you like. Today our croquettes were mainly lettuce, carrots, onions, garlic, basil, chopped chives and curry powder to season. I served them with a vidallia onion sauce for dipping....YUMMY!
So go make some "Compost Burgers" for your family for lunch.

First Day of School

2009-08-24T18:26:00.001-07:00

So it begins and it was wonderful! We started our first official day of homeschooling in the Muddy Muse Schoolhouse today. Mark and I stayed up late last night getting everything ready to surprise Cammy this morning (we were going to start when the public schools started which was only one days difference but we decided to go ahead and get our new routine rolled out with the start of the week.) Let me tell you halfway through the morning Mark and I were floored...we were amazed that instilling a little routine in the day can do beautiful things for your spirit. We are loving this homeschooling gig...it rocks!!! By lunchtime we were asking ourselves why we hadn't buckled down and done this before now...Mark's response "we're still learning"
How true, how true! I am finding that I am learning just as much from my kids on a daily basis as they are from me. To explain the picture above....I wanted Cammy's first day of homeschool to be magical, so I painted this beautiful picture welcoming her to her homeschool journey. It said
"Welcome to the world of learning in freedom. There are no limits to what your mind, body and spirit can explore. I look forward to being one of many guides that you may encounter on your journey for knowledge.
Love Mom"
I tied up two sparkle pencils with gold thread and laid them all across a handmade pillow that Mark got for her. The pillow has a beautiful African influenced face that the artist called "Superhero". The eyes on the pillow are closed and Cammy has been using the pillow as a medi tating pillow...she goes to it when she is angry and needs to calm down...which is often. The painting is symbolic with an earthen eye awakening and opening to all the possibilities that the universe holds for us. Cammy's response to seeing this in the morning was "Mom....why did you tie these pencils together ...don't you know I have a drawer full of magic pencils already."

Here she is still in her pajamas seeing the message on the new chalkboard.
Mark stayed up late with me and helped me draw some of the beautiful artwork on the chalkboard last night. I loved it, seeing his eyes and heart light up about this adventure into homeschooling. I found this amazing poem sometime last year when I spent my nights researching the whole concept of homeschooling. I regret that I did not notate where it came from but thank to whoever wrote it. It sums up how I feel about this completely.

Grab hold of a magic pencil
Open your eyes and mind
For now begins the journey
Of the most exciting kind
A journey into learning
A step...a start....a glow
And we will be there with you
To help and watch you grow.
unknown?

Here she is busy working after breakfast. We are starting off the year learning about maps, globes and geography and basically our place in this world.

We have had a great big world map up on the wall all summer that we have been marking our Etsy art sales on.
I put some cubes under it and voila.....baby Karma can delight in shelved toys to play with while I'm teaching. It's working for now...that and the kitchen drawer full of sippy cups and tupperware.
We are book lovers in this house....this is just one of many bookshelves in our library. There are bookshelves in every room of the house...the bathroom and pantry included!
This corner of the living room is the main library for Cammy to pull from, but she reads anything these days. She loves to pull out my books and looks through them for hours. This kid takes the dictionary in the car for fun reading:)
This is my station. This is where I keep all the books that I am currently reading through and pulling from. It is occasionally where I make jewelry as well (mostly in the winter when the clay in the studio freezes the bones in my fingers).
All in all our first day of homeschool was awesome. I am even more excited about our year than I could ever have imagined. This first opening topic about maps and globes and geography with it's far reaching themes is helping to center me again in this world. I have really struggled with finding our place, our groove or routine and we are finally getting a handle on it. It has taken writing out many lists and calendars and trial and error and many scheduling mishaps along the way. Somehow taking on this new seemingly impossible task of fitting homeschooling into our lives has actually calmed it down and made it run more smoothly than before. I'm smiling through and through right now. I was so nervous all summer about how this would all work....How was I going to find time to make pottery and fill my orders? How was I going to be able to handle Karma while I'm trying to teach Cammy? and so many other pressing questions. It felt like the right thing to do in my heart of hearts and upon starting officially today I know this to be the ultimate truth for my family right now. We are happy when we are together, living and learning together. Why do we have children and families if we are just going to send then off to someone else for 8-12 hours a day? I love my children and want to be a part of helping them grow as whole people in mind, body and spirit .

2009-08-17T19:08:00.000-07:00

My daughter Cammy has a keen eye for spotting insects. She is quite the detective and can spot a green baby cricket in the green, green grass. She is a huge fan of those Eye Spy books and it shows. Yesterday she spotted this amazing caterpillar. I have never seen anything like it in all my life. It had these squirming white egg sacs hanging all over it. I don't know if the relationship was symbiotic or if they were eating the caterpillar...it seemed healthy enough. Now it was eating my tomato plants so it had to be removed, but this time we did not try to keep the caterpillar until it cocooned itself. We have tried that twice this summer unsuccessfully....both died after about a week. We housed them with fresh cuttings from the very plants they were devouring and had water for them as well. I need to do some more research on housing these creatures before we try again. As for this fellow....we tried to look him up and found out that the caterpillar is possibly a Luna Activis or a luna moth caterpillar. Sure enough, my husband spotted a Luna moth today. As for the white egg sacs, I couldn't find a picture of those online. If any of you nature lovers have a clue please let us know.

Nicotine Diaries

2009-08-14T07:39:00.000-07:00

My husband Mark is trying to quit smoking again. I have never been a smoker, but I see him struggle so hard with this addiction. I always told myself that I would never marry a smoker because I thought it was such a disgusting habit....but alas love overpowered that and I am very happy to be with him. He has tried many things to help him quit....going cold turkey, chewing on licorice sticks, a nicotine patch, gum, his latest attempt was to eat hot peppers(jalapeno, habanero, etc.) every time he wanted a cigarette to satisfy that craving. It was kinda working. Mark writes, draws, paints, makes puppets ...you name it, to express his own loathing of this smoking habit. He even has an online nicotine diary. His most successful attempt yet was about two years ago and he was able to quit for about a year almost. We actually hired a friend who specialized in video documentaries to come and live with us for a month and document his struggle with quitting. He was also here to do some music video work for my husbands band. Having to talk about it on camera did the job. The documentary was never completed though because the "friend" flew home and never completed editing and has never called us back....an expensive but worthwhile lesson I guess. It got him off the death sticks for a year. But the habit has crept back into our lives and it is really frustrating him that he can't seem to kick the habit again. He is respectful of the children in that he never lets them see him smoke and he absolutely never smokes in the house. I do make him change his shirt sometimes before he holds the baby.
His latest project has been making puppets out of cigarette packs. They are some pretty creepy looking characters. I wouldn't want to tangle with them. I just pray that his newest project will help him get the strength to quit again and for good this time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09jnOMG-70A&feature=channel_page

He often refers to his smoking addiction in his songs as the "Devil" on his back or the monkey on his back.
Cammy thinks that this puppet is the creepiest in the whole gang. She says that"It's a good thing he makes them scary enough for people to quit smoking."

Gross! Yeah I know....this one is vomiting up all the nasty chemicals and filth that the cigarette companies put into their product.
Look at this gang of evil characters. Mark calls them the "Evil Nicoteam". It speaks loads that he can create these. At least he is using the cigarettes in his art instead of smoking them.
Going out to the garage studio these days is like peeking into some kind of freak show carnival...I never know what new character will be sitting on the bench.
This one by far is the scariest to me. He looks like he could really take out a lung! So I hope that this little blog campaign will help to motivate him even more in his struggle to quit smoking.

Fairy feeding time

2009-08-12T17:11:00.000-07:00

So, the other day the girls and I had one of those "best day ever" kinda days. We started out the day doing a little yard work....which you can see Karma joined right in on. This kid is only one year old but she has some serious determination to do just what the big people are doing. She actually raked up that pile. Meanwhile her big sister was catching fairies.
Disappointed because all she caught was a stink bug. Yuck!
We decided that maybe if we left the fairies a special treat, then maybe they would come around. So off we went to find the rarest and most delectable flowers and herbs to prepare our special offering. Through the enchanted forest with it's tickling trees and onward.
We had to climb this impossible twisted massive beanstalk to get the magic beans to put in our soup.
We know where the fairies like to picnic....by the spotted orange mushroom house that Cammy made for them. They love to sit on the little brown bench and watch all the bugs.
Cammy made a wonderful soup with a broth of rainwater and tender zinnia petals and a sprinkling of butterfly bush flowers accented with a few chives. She was so proud of her soup..."but it smells bad...like poop" she says to me. I took a whiff and boy it did!!! Apparently along our enchanted forest trek she had picked up something the cat or some other animal left behind. This made for a most unpleasant discovery. So we did a quick dump of the beautiful concoction and a quick wash of the hands and opted for some leftover banana bread instead. She was convinced that the fairies would be satisfied with the bread. It was all gone the next day so they must have liked it.

Magic Peace Kids Band

2009-08-12T07:35:00.000-07:00

Magic Peace Kids Band

The Magic Peace Kids Band giving their first concert under the Willow Tree.

Cammy has started a new band. Since there aren't any girls around to play with Cammy has decided that her band name needed a change. The Butterfly Girl Band is sadly no longer in existence and being diplomatic she decided that she should be all inclusive (allowing boys into the band). The new band name is The Magic Peace Kids Band....they still need a little more practice before they can play out but they have been working on it. Sadly Mark accidentally sat on Cammy's strawberry guitar the other day(it was under a blanket on the couch)....boy was she mad!!! She has gotten over it for now but he has to buy her a new one for sure.

Just for nostalgia's sake I had to put in a few pics of the original Butterfly Girls Band. These are from their first live performance ....complete with spotlights per Cammy's request. I just wish I had an audio tape. The songs were so great, something about a field of flowers and fairies of course.

Peaceful Protest

2009-08-10T18:46:00.001-07:00

Here I am with Karma out in the 90 degree heat of July demonstrating with other mothers to try to get the hospital to reverse the policy they just handed down banning midwives from practicing there anymore. Now I am generally busy enough just trying to juggle being a homeschooling mom and work from home potter among other things....but this new delima in our community cried out for action. After all, both of my babies were born under the best of care from the midwives at the hospital. You can't beat the care and attention a midwife gives you over the clinical approach of an obgyn in my book. I had very long labors with both of my kiddos....we're talking over 36 hours and my midwife stayed with me the entire time. Where else can you get that unless you are one of those brave women who choose to birth at home.

There are a lot of angered mothers here. To start off our hospital has few choices to begin with and now we have even fewer. This decision to ban midwives was definitely a step in the wrong direction.

This sudden policy change ripped the rug out from under many pregnant women....some due in just days or weeks. How terrifying to be so close to the grand finale of your pregnancy and be told that the midwife that you have developed such a trusting relationship with will no longer be able to provide your care or deliver your baby....that you will be handed off to one of the "real" doctors. This is just wrong, wrong, wrong! I disagree with their decision wholeheartedly but the very least they could have done was to allow all the patients currently under the care of the midwives to come to full term and once the last baby on the books was delivered ....then cease the practice.

There were some very brave and supportive new mommies out there sporting their babies who were delivered by the midwives. We were under some very large and shady oaks with lots of cold water.....but this sends a powerful message to see the product of the care and love that these midwives bestow out here for the hospital administration to see. You can't see him but there was a very uncomfortable looking man in a shirt and tie standing on the hill above the oak trees watching the whole demonstration....sweating worse than we were.

I'm so proud of all these strong moms and I'm glad that I took that precious time out of my crazy schedule to be a part of something so important to our community. Please visit any of the links below to find out more about our community's fight for more birth options.

Mother's to be concerned about midwives. An article about the situation

blog post by Karen Brody, founder of Bold, playwright of Birth

You are My Sunshine This is an awesome little boutique in our town that caters to all the mamas that want to cloth diaper and go natural

"Where's my Midwife?"

2009-08-09T18:14:00.000-07:00

There are few birth options available in our area and the local hospital just took away one of them. Apparently they are no longer going to allow Certified Nurse Midwives to deliver babies at the hospital. Our community is outraged.....I for one am stunned. Both of my babies were delivered by a midwife at the hospital and it was wonderful. What is worse is over 90 women were left with no advance notice and just handed off to obgyn's . I can't imagine how these women are feeling. It is such an important time in their lives growing a child and putting their trust in their midwife only to have someone say....nope you are going to have to find a new doctor we won't allow yours to deliver your baby. I ask that any of you brave mama's out their who are advocates of nurse midwifery please visit this link and give your support. Mom's in the area are in the midst of planning a peaceful protest for Monday August 10, 2009 and I'm sure they would love to hear some supportive voices from around the world.
"Demonstration Monday to Support Wilmington Midwives"

Where's my midwife?

Miss Spider's Snack

2009-08-06T18:13:00.000-07:00

Our resident Miss Spider has caught a tasty butterfly for a snack today. Yesterday Cammy was amazed by this beautiful spider's size. Today upon seeing what a large appetite the spider had she was a bit frightened. It really struck her that a spider could eat something as big as this large butterfly. She got quite frightened for my life when I was trying to get a close up shot....we do not have a powerful zoom camera, so I had to reach up pretty close. We checked on her progress several times throughout the day and by late afternoon there was no sign of the cocooned butterfly anymore. Apparently Miss Spider was very hungry.

Banana Bread and Banana Spiders

2009-08-05T18:21:00.000-07:00

Trying to help Cammy catch a toad today in the garden I ran right into this beauty's web. The picture doesn't do her justice. This is absolutely the biggest banana spider I have ever encountered....bigger than my mother's tarantula. She is nestled quite comfortable near the garage and the compost pile near the garden and she is queen supreme. There were tons of baby spiders all in her web. I generally leave all garden spiders alone including this one but I must say the movie Aliens, with Segourney Weaver keeps running through my mind. I had just gotten through with baking up three batches of delicious banana bread when we went out to dump the banana peels and scraps. We walked around the yard and found some other interesting spider hangouts. Take a look at this funnel web.

Let's just say Mrs. Spiders Tea Party was definitely on our reading list for the night. Cammy wants to delve into the world of arachnids now and I'm all for it. I was planning on a worm study to start the school year off but spiders it is.
We already had a few books in the house but we have read them all already so we are in need of a trip to the library.

When the neighbors got home Cammy went running yelling that there was a spider as big as mom's camera. I was amazed at what she already knew....she told me about Anasazi trying to sell wisdom and that spiders eggs can hatch up to ten thousand babies....creepy considering my pottery studio is crawling with them. I usually don't have the heart to kill them. I will usually just try to sweep them out the door.
Well, I'm going to have sweet spidery dreams Anasazi.

Cranky Cammy Sandwich

2009-08-04T19:25:00.000-07:00

Sometimes when Cammy gets cranky we make a "Cranky Cammy Sandwich". Today was one of those days and let me tell you it was a deliciously fun sandwich to eat. We have some exercise mats that have alternate uses as either forts or bread depending on the need at the time. Throw in a slice of Cranky Cammy a few socks from the laundry pile for worms or onions. a pillow for some tomato, a blanket for some mustard or mayonnaise, a few stuffed animals to make it interesting and your sandwich is complete. She always comes out giggling hysterically and wanting to be a burrito next or lasagna. Karma even got into it today ....actually eating it. Here she is biting the mat. She just doesn't understand yet....you don't actually eat it.
Some of Cammy's favorite books are the Sam's Sandwich series of pop up books filled with gross and funny fillings. We also like the book Pete's Pizza

Tea Party with Daddy

2009-08-04T19:13:00.000-07:00

My sweet, sweet husband had a tea party with Cammy and Karma today under the willow tree in the front yard. Cammy had earned her ten privilege pebbles and chose to have a tea party. I am working really hard on a bunch of pottery orders before the fall season starts and he has been spending so much good time with the girls. I love it, he loves it, the girls love it! Homeschooling is going to be so much fun.

Bad Hair Day

2009-08-03T18:37:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I have been a little overworked trying to get ready for the school year and trying to get all of my fall pottery orders made and get enough inventory built up for the fall shows. I get a little silly to releive the stress. We have tons of fun around here playing dress up and donning various wigs. It's great for a full blown belly laugh and that relieves a lot of stress. My family are all accomplices, or victims however you want to look at it....they don't seem to mind. I was looking through all the photo archives and put this together to amuse myself and hopefully you as well.

Hey! Who put this thing on my head? What is it anyway?

Oh! I actually look pretty good like this...Do you have one in pink?

Why yes we do...you can borrow your sister's wig.

Cammy the clown. She is always up for a good wig show. Quite the entertainer just like her daddy.

Cammy actually performs with her dad from time to time and her favorite song is "Mikey the Monkey"

Yes, we even put wigs on our art!

I'm gonna go eat worms:)

2009-08-03T17:54:00.000-07:00

Earthworms Unit Study:
Vocabulary:
worm, compost, wiggle,
Music:
Singing Herman The Worm and I'm gonna go eat worms
Science Activities:
Set up a worm habitat for composting and viewing
Investigate the garden for any wormy activity on the vegetables(Have Cammy dress up like a detective and be the client that wants her to find out who is eating her prize squash)
Math activities:
Dig up and measure some earthworms for your habitat and graph their lengths
Do some yummy math with gummy worm subtraction or addition.
Art activities:
Form Drawing do an s laying down and an s standing up also do a w for worm.
Do a glue resist drawing of worms in the ground.
Make a coil pot
Make a worm puppet from some old socks and put on a play singing Herman The Worm and go present it to Jubilee or Milestones and Hope.
Cooking: Spaghetti of course and flower pot cupcakes and spaghetti squash
Movement:
Host a wiggle worm contest(could make this into something bigger like the insect olympics for playgroup friends with events like cricket hopping contest, Spider crawling contest : only your hands and feet can touch the ground and you race to the finish line, have a dung beetle ball rolling contest, maybe a rolly polly contest where they have to roll up and stay still the longest ,

Wiggle on the floor like a worm make a sam's sandwhich with the mats and put Cammy in as a worm
Gummy worms for math and of course eating

The Last Of The Blackberries

2009-08-02T19:13:00.000-07:00

I think I like these....what did you call them again......Blackberries.

OH ! These blackberries are sooooo good. YUM!

What do you mean there aren't any More Blackberries????

KARMA KONG and the puppet show

2009-08-01T18:23:00.000-07:00

Cammy entertained the family this afternoon with a delightful puppet show entitled "Everything You Can Think Of In Fairyland"...and yes she came up with the title and yes it did have everything you can think of. I kinda went nuts making felt finger puppets this winter when it was too cold to go out in the studio. The cast of characters included a polar bear, a zebra, a frog, a dinosaur, Fluffy the hamster and others. The show was going well until baby sister Karma wanted to join in the fun. Her nickname these days is "KARMA KONG"
because she delights in knocking down block towers and pulling books off shelves. There were a few tense moments but Cammy rolled with it and included her in the show changing the plot line to include her sister. Apparently the fairies were taking care of the giant infant child who was abandoned in the woods. Can you tell she watched Mowgli recently? She proceeded to get out the wooden play food and the fairies spent all their time feeding the human child who was lost......gotta love it! Sisters working it out, sort of.

Earth's Bounty

2009-07-31T04:59:00.000-07:00

We have been in our current home for about a year and a half. Last year we didn't get a very
good start on a garden because of my being pregnant. So this year we tried our best at being farmers on our little piece of heaven....less than an acre. We planted about four different kinds of tomatoes this year. As you can see the tomatoes are thriving. We aren't having such good luck with the other vegetables. The slugs around here are relentless and devour everything. We are trying to go the organic route but we are on a serious learning curve. We haven't had much luck killing the slugs with beer and I'm not sure what else to try. The pepper plants are puny...we have only gotten 3 jalapeno peppers out of the whole lot. The cucumbers are doing ok but they are growing funny cucumber balls most of the time instead of long cucumbers??? The deer ate all of our first crop of green beans down to the ground, our sunflowers too. I put the strawberries in pots last winter and apparently they didn't like that . They bore little fruit and the slugs got to all of that. We might have gotten six edible strawberries all season. The blueberry bushes aren't producing fruit this year...only three blueberries??? We have planted more green beans and some watermelon, canteloupe and squash.The weather here on the coast is nice enough to plant a second round of most. Hope all goes well with this second round. Cammy has been helping with keeping a harvest chart so that we can compare this years crop with future years to see how we are doing. So far we have filled up both sides of a strip of brown paper grocery bag. There were a few surprises along the way....blackberries line the ditch by the neighbors house and some potatoes grew up out of the compost. I know that it will only get better.

Fairy Fortress

2009-07-30T21:02:00.000-07:00

Cammy being the fierce defender of fairy territory has set up fairy camp headquarters by the edge of the driveway. Don't you just love the sweet little fairy door she made for them. She keeps adding to it. Today she left them a speckle glazed clay egg that I made back at Easter. Earlier this week she added her precious rocks that she had collected over the two weeks that she spent with her Nana this summer. She feeds them well giving them seeds and flowers and the occasional goldfish or cheerios. She leaves them water filled pots after the rain from the edge of the studio as well. Cammy has quite a fierce spirit and gets mad at my husband Mark when he cuts the grass, saying that he is destroying their homes. Hopefully they will like this new territory she has staked out for them.

Sewing and Centering

2009-07-30T05:32:00.000-07:00

I was feeling quite overwhelmed last night after a long day in the hot studio trying to get my pottery orders under control, so I got out the sewing basket. I sew a lot in the wintertime when it is too cold to go out to the studio without turning on the heat. Sewing is very relaxing to me because it is such a focused activity. This winter I started making the girls a set of alphabet bean bags....filling them with different kinds of beans: lentils, garbanzo, limas, black, pintos, black eyed peas, split peas and so on so that they will have a different feel with each one....some even have rice, barley or pasta. My goal is to have the entire alphabet done by christmas. I was going to keep them secret but I couldn't wait, they are happily playing games with them already.

I am also making Cammy a set of number bean bags. Each bean bag has an even and an odd number. For now my goal is to get all the numbers up to 20 made by the time we officially start our school year in August. I have a lot of fun ideas about how to use them with our math work. One of the things I like most about Waldorf is the way that they teach through movement to ingrain the knowledge deeply into the whole child...mind , spirit and body.

fairy mural

2009-07-29T05:56:00.000-07:00

I have finished part of Cammy's bedroom mural. I didn't get as much finished while she was gone as I had dreamed. She loved it and has grand plans for the rest of the mural. Cammy said that she wanted to paint a cowgirl fairy with cowgirl boots, a cowgirl hat and some cowgirl clothes riding an ant with a mane,a tail and a saddle.

Geography Resources We Are Using

2009-07-28T19:58:00.001-07:00

We are using a wide variety of books to learn more about geography and mapping. These are just a few of our favorites.
This book is a great all around first look at the subject with simple illustrations and an easy to understand text.

We got this book used so it was missing the stickers and stamps but we are having tons of fun with the games and other activities listed in the book. My daughter loves the odd facts element and will spout them out to friends and adults everywhere....the grocery store, church, the neighbors.

We were gifted several levels of this Steck-Vaughn series, slightly used from a Church in Charlotte....literally manna from heaven! I'm not always a big fan of workbooks but we are using some of the material to work on basic skills to keep up with some semblance of "real school" work.

This is a really fun book to introduce the concept of mapping.

We are reading through this one slowly to find out more about North Carolina, the state that we live in.

As we have sales around the world we are reading these enchanting folk tales from different countries.

Just for fun because we have our own special secret shortcut in the neighborhood.

We literally are jumping all over the world with our mapping activities and this book has lots of stories and creative activities from cooking to arts and crafts. LOVE IT!

There is only one thing Cammy loves more than paper dolls and it is mazes or puzzles. This book is a challenging mix of beautiful picture puzzles with hidden clues and a map.

When we have sales in the USA we look up the states in this book to get to know them a little better. It has the basic facts and a few interesting trivia facts for each state.

These are some of the resources we already had collected at home....I can't wait until we can get to the library to check out some more books. Cammy is now old enough to be her own card carrying member. Yeah!!!

Mapping the world with Etsy

2009-07-26T12:40:00.000-07:00

We are embarking on our homeschool journey this year and one of our ongoing projects is to map all of our Etsy sales on a large world map in the dining room. We started earlier this summer...I wish I had thought of it sooner because we had a lot of overseas sales last year....but I'm sure there will be more to come. So far we have been able to mark sales in several different countries around the world such as India, Spain, Italy, Finland, Canada, the United States and Great Britain. I must admit it has been educational for me as well. My geography skills were weaker than I thought.
It has become a ritual each week when we get sales together to ship we always mark the map with a tiny shiny sticker. My husband jokes that it's a map of our world domination. I have to say it is rewarding to see all those shiny stickers gleaming even if we aren't really planning to take over the world. At least now I can say that I'm an internationally known artist...ha! ha!
Cammy seems to really enjoy trying to find the new countries, but finding the states frustrates her because the world map doesn't divide them. We got a smaller poster of the United States of America and are marking the sales in the USA on that as well and it seems to be helping.

Fundraiser

2009-07-26T11:57:00.000-07:00

Muddymuse is happy to help raise funds for First In Families

A big happy hello from the Muddy Muse and Artwasteland family. We hope everyone is doing great. We wanted to let you all know about some big things that are happening this month and beyond. First and foremost we are happy to announce we are donating 15% of ALL of our online sales through March 15th to First in Families a wonderful statewide organization which does amazing work in funding and supporting folks with disabilities and their families. Please visit www.fifnc.org find out more a about t… Continue

Added by muddymuse on February 18, 2009 at 8:35am — No Comments

2 weeks with Nanna

2009-07-16T19:48:00.000-07:00

My oldest daughter Cammy is spending two weeks with her Nana this summer in the Appalachian mountains. This is the first time she has ever been away from me for so long and a week and a half in I am missing her very badly. I have her baby sister Karma here to keep me busy not to mention a backlog of orders. I am busy at night painting a fairy mural in her room as a surprise for when she gets back. I can't wait till she is filling the house and the neighborhood with noise.