My musings on our homeschool, coop, figuring out what my educational philosophy is anyway, and will I ever make curtains for the rest of the appartment?
May 20th, 2013 by Christinethecurious
May 17th, 2013 by Christinethecurious
Monday afternoon we played games at the I’s. K played dress up in young L’s Sunday clothes. No ink spills though.
Thursday as usual we did Biology lab at the
W’s (so Ben doesn’t need 4 arms) Mrs W suggested water play as it was hot, I forgot to make M wear old shoes. He went into the pond up to his knees in his comfy Sunday Shoes.
It was hot yesterday, so the shoes dried in the sun when we got home.
And I survived.
This afternoon we played at the Mc’s. And I got 3 bags of living books for elementary school aged children while K played with, “The fluffy white dog who loves me.” I dug out one bag’s worth of books I could part with from the living room shelves, and found places for them all to fit! Nothing is hanging out on the floor reproaching me for greed or hoarding.
I’m almost over my sinus infection.
Next week is standardized testing. That’s sort of a social time too.
May 10th, 2013 by Christinethecurious
Last night K made a train layout with B’s old Thomas the Tank Engine tracks. She was careful to put the traffic signal piece next to the car crossing one, so the trains and cars would know whose turn it was to go. I don’t remember any of the kids who have played with this set over the years worrying about community communications before.
Last night when Dan read K “The Glass Mountain,” from the red books, (photo here) he asked her how she would have helped her brothers climb the hill and win the kingdom (and princess). She said she’d find them a gecko horse. I guess she’s been watching the Kratt Brothers a lot lately. The red books version has nobody die, and a helpful old man, not mystical animals like the Andrew Lang version, but fairy tales are like that, they vary from teller to teller.
This morning, M was the “Warming Spider,” when K didn’t want to get out of bed, he brought her a sweater and socks to put on over her jammies, then helped her get dressed.
The sweater was put on backwards, but it still warmed my heart.
May 9th, 2013 by Christinethecurious
Pretty:
K’s new dress from the great hand me down continuum – it still had tags on it.
My new dress adapted from old Burda World of Fashion patterns circa 1996.
My back lit tulips from last week
Happy: my Second Cousin’s party. His clever parents held the party at a local park – so they didn’t have to stuff family and friends into their condo.
My husband got to make on of his sidewalk mazes too.
Dan put up the ladder in Mom’s tree – she bought it for M and K for Christmas
No one has been complaining about eating gluten free since my celiac diagnosis, but I know they are missing special foods. So when Ben was admiring a new quick ribs recipe in Cooks Illustrated, I bought him the 4lbs of baby back ribs it called for so he could be the grill master at my Mom’s house on Sunday after church.
There were no leftovers.
Real: the lady who was going to coordinate the How Great Thou Art seminar in my town’s grandmother broke her hip and she had no time left to volunteer. I was swinging between thinking, “I have time, the co-op isn’t meeting this Spring anyway” and thinking,”Let’s step away from people person jobs, they aren’t really in my skill set and I get cranky.”
Of course I did volunteer. And it looked like the new elevator was going to be installed during the seminar – but it wasn’t!
Here are the boxes of art supplies for the class delivered at my house so the Stebbings could leave their trailer at home.
Now that’s clever.
They buy the art supplies in bulk and sell them pretty much at cost so their students can have good supplies that won’t frustrate them. The class averages out to only $10/day/student for the 3 days and is such a bargain for value.
Mrs Stebbings mentioned that her students using Classical Conversations find that the How Great Thou Art Curriculum really coordinates well.
I especially enjoyed learning about mixing colors, and how to dip paint like the Impressionists. I had to quit taking art in 7th grade if I was going to continue with the violin at my school, so art is one of those scary topics for me to homeschool.
Real: All K and M wanted to do after their 3 day art class was draw.
And that made it all really worth it.
May 4th, 2013 by Christinethecurious
Today is the road race in Attleboro. Dan just smirked at the car driving around the barrier on 2nd street only to be turned back by the officer on Riverbank at the barrier there. He came in from the sunlight and remarked, “On a scale of 1 to 10, this day is 11.”
It makes me smile to think of the day we moved in.
May 2nd, 2013 by Christinethecurious
Apparently I haven’t taken M and K to the Mansfield Country Store
ever – because Ben started getting nostalgic for a store with candy,
nicklodians, and pretty things were we’d bought presents for his
grandmothers, and M had never heard of it. The building is an old country store with
porch and everything, they have barrels of pickles, penny candy, fancy soaps, crackers, kitchen stuff, stationary, and furniture.
Nostalgia coincided with necessity; I need a birthday present for my 3 year old cousin, and the nearest educational toy store is near the Mansfield Country Store.
I’d borrowed a cd from the library of Ella Fitzgerald and Louis
Armstrong. I listened to an Ella Fitzgerald u-tube when Google featured
her, and thought I don’t understand jazz, but this might be an approachable spot for me to come in. I took the wrong road up to Mansfield, but the opening gardens were so pretty, and the cd was so interesting, I didn’t care.
Louis Armstrong on trumpet with azalias blooming, and maple trees in
bloom with leaves just starting to unfurl: lovely. On the way home I accidentally blocked the intersection by driving through a green light without enough space to continue. Not so lovely – but I did have room to leave before the light changed so I didn’t stop traffic through the next light cycle.
I gave K a list of does and don’ts as we drove over. I didn’t do that this Sunday when M was baptized, and she and I had some tearful apologies to make to each other.
When we got to the store K didn’t touch expensive stuff, she
put her own quarter in the nickleodian all by herself – it played
Tomorrow from Annie really loudly on a player piano with percusion in a
glass front in the bottom. She bought our cousin a taffy at the penny candy
counter with her allowance money, M bought some fudge, I held K up so she could see it
being weighted, I bought Dan some mint white chocolate kisses and me some dark chocolate cashew turtles.
Ben said the store was smaller than he remembered, M and K said it was huge.
This evening K and I made chicken sate for supper, with rice and green beans. The boys did some of the dishes, then they walked to the library for chess night. One of Ben’s friends from church came to play as well. It was harder than usual for the chess club leader to beat Ben at the game, he was very happy about that.
What a pleasant day. Now all I have left to do is read to M, and write the menu for next week.
Apr 30th, 2013 by Christinethecurious
I’m coordinating a Barry Stebbings Art Seminar for next week at my church. On the only day the contractor can install the new elevator.
The contractor is putting up a temporary wall so the young children stay out of the shaft.
Ben has an essay due this Friday – his desk looks fantastic. I never cleaned things when I was procrastinating about a writing project! Is this generational advancement?
I’m up to swimming 20 lengths these days. The regulars are teasing me that I need to swim longer now that I’ve passed the swim daily goal.
All of K’s plastic ponies have braided hair today. She made them a new barn out of cardboard, paper, glitter glue, and plastic lanyard.
I got to read the new CJ Cherryh Foreigner book – a fun page turner; xeno political wars at a prince’s sleepover with family china, in-law spats and ray guns. Dan and I had duelling book marks. I (of course) read the ending first. It’s not exactly a series for teens and children, despite the presence of child characters.
I think I’ve planned out three lunches I can bring with me for the three days of the art seminar and the three days of the standardized testing the following week. Figuring out gluten free picnic lunches panicked me for some reason, I’m so used to being home for lunch, with a kitchen available to me.
Two copies of the knitted hat pattern have sold. I got to use my business check book to write a check for the Friends of the Attleboro Public Library. I almost never use that checkbook, it still has the newly printed smell.
Apr 25th, 2013 by Christinethecurious
The crochet version of the Library Window Watchcap is available for purchase now.
On Ravelry 
and Craftsy.
I actually made it before the knitted version.
The top down shape allowed me to try a crown, then rip back when it was too loose.
It’s amazing how much negative ease a watchcap needs.
I knew I was on the right trail when M picked up my prototype, and asked if he could keep it.
Then Dan wanted it.
And finally, K brought me the orange left overs from the knitted one, and said, “Mommy, I need a hat too, but I want one like M’s.” So I crocheted her the small size, but in a thicker yarn. It came out just right.
Apr 24th, 2013 by Christinethecurious
Quick breads, sorta. Because you don’t have to worry about over mixing them and developing gluten. Right out of the oven, wonderful. After the meal if any are left over, not really. Cookies are just dandy. And pan cakes.
I follow an algorithms for pancakes, and use what is on hand. We didn’t have any buttermilk, so I used some Greek yoghurt we had as a garnish for vegetable curry. It worked really nicely. If I’m using hard to lift flours, I use both baking soda and baking powder. I always put in a generous amount of salt, because I really don’t like the flavor of baking soda (I read somewhere that %25 of people can taste it, but it might be %40. I don’t remember. Enough people can’t taste it so that many recipes use too much of it for me to enjoy.)
I’ve kept the pancake molds a secret from K. They were a stocking gift to B, and they didn’t work. No matter how much I greased the non-stick surface, especially the gingerbread man shape. But on a whim, I tried the flower.
I think K thinks I’ll be making flower pancakes each time we have them; because for some reason, it worked this time. Maybe the gf flour mix?
Apr 22nd, 2013 by Christinethecurious
You know how I put library fines in the financial category of homeschool? That’s because I know that for every time I return a book a day late and pay $.10, that’s still a living book I didn’t have to buy for $10.00 and find a place to store before I’d read it to the next kid in 5 years. The books I need aren’t always in the collection in Attleboro, but I can access at least 50 other libraries through the SAILS network, and I get an e-mail when my inter-library-loan is waiting for me there. I can even put it on reserve from home over the Internet. I tend to batch process my books. Sometimes a library reserve book from the same batch of Amazon books comes in first.
The library gives us a place to walk to (so we get outside and walk) a place to meet children and lively adults, a place to connect with the larger community. Believe me, if something cool is happening in Attleboro, the librarians know about it, and will most likely tell me about it. In fact, it was the children’s librarian who first encouraged me to homeschool, back when Ben was a toddler.
Several years ago, the city had to cut back on the budget, which meant shorter hours at the library, which meant they were close to losing state certification, which meant I might not be able to use the SAILS network. They fixed it before I thought of a way I could contribute; but I’ve finally written a pattern and I’m selling it.
Boy did this design take a while. I looked at the building. The whole building reminded me of a strong set of shoulders. I looked when the first version of the library was built, and the fashions of the day – the S-curve corset was popular. A vest with strong shoulders? A handbag in the shape of the building? A hat from 1908? Too representational; not something someone would wear. The extremely pretty children’s librarian I initially approached as a model did NOT want to wear my first sketches.
This winter, we misplaced the last several navy watchcaps we all shared and we were getting cold. I even lost my hooded cowl I’ve worn since we lived in Illinois in 1998. Watchcaps – all my family loves them – and the window pattern in the library is used as a logo anyhow, slap that on the brim. Easy. Men can wear them, women can wear them, children can wear them. They don’t take much yarn, and they’ll stay on your head when you go sledding.
I made both a knit and crochet version, but the crochet one is still in editing.
For every $5.oo pattern I sell, I will give $4.50 to the Friends of the Attleboro Public Library. They are the non-profit group able to receive money besides fines and taxes. They use the money for museum passes, community programs, and buying books.
you can also pick it up on Craftsy.
Why am I keeping $.50? That’s for hosting fees and pay pal processing – approximately. Each website has different financial structures. You could think of it as a $4.50 donation to the library – with a pattern thrown in as a thank you. That’s why my Dad always bought a raffle ticket from the volunteer fire department – he had a bit of a conundrum the year I won the grand prize, but that’s another story.
Our Curious Home
My musings on our homeschool, coop, figuring out what my educational philosophy is anyway, and will I ever make curtains for the rest of the appartment?
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