Cold but uncaged

We live in Minnesota, which means a) it snows and b) it gets cold.



Last night we had our first decent snow. Not nearly what they had predicted (6-10 inches at one point), but enough to whiten the ground a bit.

Now, don't get me wrong. I do love the outdoors. Love the outdoors.

But I hate being cold. Really hate being cold. So it takes a bit of convincing to get my warmish self outside into a blowing snow, below zero with windchill kind of day. You know, like today.

But there is one thing that always convinces me: children who act like caged animals.

Now while its cute to think that two high strung boys and yourself can relax, staying warm and dry inside the house, snuggled in together under a quilt reading storybooks and sipping hot chocolate...the truth is, that hardly works.

I was blessed with two boys who go until they crash, never giving into defeat. They don't know the meaning of slow down. They run without stopping to rest, they talk without stopping to breathe. They need to move. A lot. Snowy cold weather does not mean snuggling to Iggy and Ooky. It means sledding and wrestling in the snow and snowball fights and run run run turn your cheeks red and no we don't want to go inside. That's just the facts of how it is.

But not liking the facts doesn't change the facts.
Sigh.
So we bundle up and go outside.



Smile for the camera, MamaTea. Come on, its not that bad out, is it? ;)

And within a few minutes, the boys are doing what they do best. Attempting to use all that energy. All that excitement and zest and power that I wish I could bottle and sell to every adult I know.







I wish I could bottle and sell their flexibility as well. Iggy plowed himself right under a chair around our campfire ring while whizzing down the hill at a billion miles an hour. He laughed the whole time, even while his crazy mother was saying "Holy crap, Iggy! Are you ok? Wait...let me get my camera!!!"



I'm glad he was laughing. I can tell you, for sure, I would not have been laughing if I would have been stuck in the same position. Under a metal chair. At the bottom of a hill. Notice, his legs are underneath his back??



But I was laughing. Laughing because he was happy, because Ooky was happy, and because I was happy. And warm.

Ooky tried to give himself a Santa beard...



Iggy tried to see how much (very clean white) snow he could fit in his mouth at once...




After an hour or so of playing in the cold, it was time to call it quits. We did have hot chocolate. And a wee bit of a snuggle. You know, for that brief moment Iggy and Ooky weren't moving. But I'll take what I can get. Because its not long before they are up and ready for round two. Or three. Or ten.

Such is life. :)

When magnets are funny...

We recently started a magnet unit here and it has proven to be quite fun. And funny.

Funny? How can magnets be funny, you ask?



Funny #1: I tripped across the above book from my collection about a week ago. It seemed like it might be an interesting thing to do with the boys during December. (Keeping them busy, trying to ward off the christmas flu.) Hmmm…Magnets…electricity…sounds perfect! But where in the world will I find a bar magnet to do the experiments? I know what a bar magnet is, but what does one cost? Is it hard to find? Is that something they sell at Walmart? If so, what section do I go to? Would I be better off at Menards or Home Depot? How will this fit into my simple farmish life of really trying hard not to go to the store unless we are absolutely in dire need of something?

“Gosh,” I said to Hubster one evening, and explained my whole dilemma. “Do you know where I could find a bar magnet?”

“Gosh,” he said. “ Maybe in the magnetic-electric-science kit we have on top of the entertainment center?”



Yep, seriously. You’d think I don’t stare at that shelf everyday.

Funny #2: After experiencing the embarrassment and later joy of finding a bar magnet, it turned out the bar magnet was totally lame. El cheapo. In fact, so non-functioning that most of our experiments with it went totally wacky or flat out failed. (How can you screw up a magnet?) So after all that we ended up dragging out our canister of Magnetix to do our experiments – which are surprisingly powerful for being so small. Yep, turn to the magnetic toys instead of the actual magnetic scientific kit.



Funny #3: While doing a little ditty with north and south pole ends of a magnet, we let our minds wander. A lot.

See, our book suggested we strap a bar magnet (or Magnetix, in our case) on top of two different Matchbox cars and see if we could get the cars to pull or push each other on the floor. So we did that.



And after we’d exhausted our fun with that, we brought out the next obvious toy choice: Star Wars Lego Men.

Yep. Call it lack of caffeine or not enough sleep or just going with the flow, but we went all out in Star Wars Lego Men Magnet world.

We wanted the Lego Men to be pushed around by the magnets, and quickly figured out we had to have a magnet on both their stomach and their back, otherwise the Lego Men just tipped over. Too much Space Juice, or something.



Then we figured out this really important guy needed really big magnet guns. So we built them.



We staged awesome battles, most of which weren’t easily caught by camera. The boys thought it was hilarious how they could either get the Lego Men to push each other around, stick to each other, or (if we got really fancy with how we attached the magnets) we could get them to kinda whip each other from one side to the other.

Now that's some funny magnet stuff.

In case you’re wondering, at the end of the battle, the Star Wars Lego Men ended up getting sucked into the Magnetix Cave.



One managed to escape, but the other was pinned under falling…magnets.
“Save yourself!” he said. “ Go…save yourself…”



My kids really got into it. They were very dramatic. And funny. And I’m pretty sure they will never forget north and south poles of magnets. :)

A swashbuckling good time

Pirates invaded my house yesterday.

Argh.

Since Pirates of the Caribbean had (out of the blue) become hugely important and cool at our house, we got ourselves a little piratey unit from Currclick and had some fun. It was mostly a language arts unit with a bit of history thrown in...so MamaTea had to get a few piratey books from the library to supplement Iggy and Ooky's But what about and Do you know if and but I thought what actually happened...all in all, we learned as much about syllables, spelling, and writing as we did about designing Jolly Rogers, making old fashioned treasure maps, lego pirate ships, Blackbeard, being marooned, and of course, pirate weapons.










Its perfectly safe to say they learned something. And were excited. Many dinnertime conversations have turned to something piratey. And for this odd duck of a mama, that was a good thing.

Anyhow, the invasion of actual pirates began because I told them on the last day of pirate our unit we were going to have a little quiz. I also told them I might be convinced to introduce them to a certain piratey game online after the quiz was done.

This is who showed up to school that fateful last day of piracy.



Why if it isn't Captain Jack Sparrow and Will Turner!
(They did this while I was still sleeping. I had nothing to do with it.)

So after Elizabeth Swann (who the boys decided I was) got over the cuteness of her fellow pirates, the boys decided there was something that just didn't look right.

Elizabeth Swann had the answer, and we made some changes. (Aye. The magic of facepaint.)





We had a jolly time. We took our quiz (which went lovely, except for them inheriting their mother's terrible sense of direction: if you are facing north, what direction is right behind you?) and then we played some online piratey fun. They slashed up some undead and battled giant rock crabs. Delightful fun.

Iggy said at the end of our day, with a little bit of a quiver in his voice...

"Mom, now that our pirate unit is over, does that mean we can't talk about pirates anymore?"

Seriously, Iggy. What school do you think you go to?
;)

Yes, I probably live in a cave.

A fellow homeschooler and I chatted over coffee while our kids played football in the backyard.

“So,” she began. “Do you ever go to Currclick?”

I didn’t know what she was talking about. Never heard of the thing.

Apparently I’m one in a bazillion.

She explained what it was (a great place to get downloadable curriculum for homeschooling) showed me some of the fantabulous things she’d gotten (both knights/armor and magic treehouse lapbook thingies) and, as a bonus, told me how cheap they were (on sale for a couple bucks).

They looked kinda cool.
No, actually they looked really cool.
I was so checking out CurrClick when I got home.

And I did. I found myself looking things up. Creating a wishlist. Looking up more stuff. Doing a little planning in my head. I mean, who knew there were so many absolutely cool things out there?

Oh wait. Any homeschooler currently not walking around with tunnel vision into one certain method of schooling. Yup, y’all would know about the absolutely cool things out there. Right?

Sigh.
Homeschooling is so much easier when you look at the world with eyes actually open and stop operating under assumptions. I think perhaps I will resolve to glue my lashes to my eyebrows in an effort to keep my eyeballs constantly doing their thang.

Then it happened. That darn Black Friday Sale came…right there at CurrClick…
I got out the check card.
I clicked and checked and chose and clicked some more and…

There it was. I was buying curriculum. A study of pirates (almost completed, post coming soon) and a unit on early/pioneer Christmas.
And I’m kinda excited.
Don’t tell anyone, ok?
Shhhhh.

Gratitude

Gratitude. Its something you generally talk about in November. You know, with Thanksgiving and all.

But me, sometimes I'm a little off. I'm either late or early. Never quite on time.

December 1st I was at a mom-ish type meeting and part of the gathering was to make a Blessing Box - a simple little box to keep track of things you are thankful for.



Grand idea, thought I. And the following day I introduced it to Iggy and Ooky. I set it on an end table with lots of colorful papers and a pencil.

"What's that?" one of them asked.
"A Blessing Box. A Gratitude Box. Whenever you think of something you might be thankful for, write it down on a slip of paper, fold it up, and add it to the box."

They said oh. I didn't think much would happen. Not to say that gratitude isn't high on our list of important things or that we don't talk about it. Because we do. But lets be truthful: Ooky and Iggy are 5 and 6 year old boys. Enough said.

We decided we would look through the box and read the slips of paper on Christmas, to remind us of everything that has happened in the last month that we are thankful for. Everyone is in charge of their own writing (which means there may be serious decoding on MamaTea's part, but its sweet just the same).

I have added a couple things myself. I'm thankful we have a nice warm house with a woodstove that smells so divine. And I'm thankful that we could put up a wall in the basement (long story for another post) because it means we will get more time with Hubster.

Two slips of paper I put in.

This is what the box looks like tonight.



Now that picture is worth a million billion words...don't you think?

Cheers to November

November was busy.



Very busy indeed.



Some days were rough and tough.



Some days were rather snuggley.



We've been to the cities...



...to see the lights...



We've built castles with giant moats...



for a giant medieval Christmas feast...



It's been a month of constant discovery of learning what works for us.



And what doesn't.



So cheers to November.



May December be as full of adventure and discovery.

a wee bit of daisy smashing (part one)

Awhile back, the keynote speaker at a homeschooling conference I attended said one of the most important things you can do when homeschooling is have a written down list of goals. And by goals, she did not mean "what I want my kids to academically acquire this year". She was referring to something a little more like how I hope my children and family grow and gain from this experience.

So I attacked the assignment like the dutiful student. I will share with you what I wrote down awhile back as long as we have two agreements.

A) You will remember this was written when I was still furiously fighting for the daisy chain.
B) You won't laugh at me.

MamaTea's Goals For Homeschooling

1. I hope that my family grows to understand that we are free to express ourselves and truly be who we are.

That my friends, is the beauty of life all wrapped up into one little happy smiley dreadlockish phrase...right? Free to express yourself and be who you are. I should tattoo that one right across my forehead.

However. Even though the intention was positive…the reality of it only worked on paper. You see, free to express ourselves was wildly misinterpreted by two youngish boys named Iggy and Ooky. Those two boys weaved themselves through that goal and found it to mean running the length of great grandma's house screaming, because they felt like singing (and they were expressing themselves). Or falling down on the floor and having a two year old fit because I said you've had enough eggnog...and they were angry...and expressing themselves. Another favorite for freedom of expression was freaking out uncontrollably at bedtime because they were uncomfortable with the lack of light. Ah...self expression.

Did I mention that one or both of my children have been referred to (in the absence of their company, of course) as The Negotiator and/or The Manipulator?

Goal numero uno, as lovely and pretty as it was, needed to be rewritten. And so...MamaTea rewrites goal number one as: We value self expression and true-to-self living BUT will also live in a way that grants respect to the boundaries of others.

In simpler terms, darlings, there is a time and place for everything. When its time to be goofy, go at it. But when its time to chill, its probably a good idea that you take it down a notch. Or three. Or a hundred. Or you should probably just stop all together.

Freedom of expression, indeed. Whose crazy idea was that? ;-)

And by the way Manipulator and Negotiator...I know that you know what the time to chill is. If you don't, the intense glare I am shooting you with should be clue enough.

Gee. Sometimes i feel like I'm just a big daisy smasher. Don't you?