Nov. 18, 2009 Strawberry Popcorn
On a whim, this year we grew Strawberry Popcorn in our three sisters patch. I think we planed the pumpkins too late, we never did harvest any, but we did get lots of beans. We got about 7 ears of corn. a spoon made it easier to get the kernels off the cob.
 The flavor was delightful, but not all of the kernels popped, I think I need to soak them in water to refresh them.
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Nov. 4, 2009 Three interesting moments in Today's Homeschool
M and K were up by 5AM this morning which would not have been so early last week. In the process of the day, K asked DH if he would take her "side?" pointing vigorously at the front door. It was a glorious fall morning, golden leaves, golden sun, burnished sky. I usually wait until the hour before lunch to go to the park, but I packed some lessons we could do outside. had B pack a snack, skipped non-esential chores and hustled the kids into shoes. Then I realized that I wasn't dressed yet.
For M and B, chalk to review cursive letters and phonograms on the sidewalk, for M by himself, the first chapter of Everyday Number Stories, an e-book I downloaded from Homeschool Freebie of the Day. (That particular math text from 1915 is not on the website right now, but you can find it at Google Books.) The first chapter has lovely vintage illustrations, after that it gets more text book-y, but still cute. For B, we packed his next chapter of the Fallacy Detective. We had to review the Logical fallacies we've come across so far, because M was getting frustrated (and I couldn't remember them either.)
We enjoyed the sunshine, K got to run around while we got some things done that I had meant to do this week anyway, and she did sleep at nap time and has gone to bed without complaint! So I felt like a cool mom who knew how to flex.
But,after nap time, with a headache from the whatever cold I've got, I asked B what independent work he had finished in the 2 1/2 hours he's had sibling free, only to hear he'd done what I estimated to be only about 3/4 hours of work! (Thinking it over again, it was more like 1 1/2 hours work). I asked in a very wailing, immature way why he put so much emphasis on other teacher's assignments, but not on mine. He thought carefully, and said, "the other assignments come with deadlines, yours don't."
Well, you ask a question, you get an answer.
We decided to meet daily to set goals and check off accomplishments. It's not really that it's too much for me to do, it's just that I don't really want to do it! I do believe that teaching him to get organized is as important as anything else he's learning, I'd just been hoped thatI had done that already.
However, if he still needs this scaffolding from me, he still needs this scaffolding from me. He can't learn everything from experience if the results are this important. I just feel like I'm drowning in his assignments. He must feel that way too, he called it a nightmare.
So much for being the cool, flexible Mom from this morning.
Then B asked me if he could talk about his speech for Friday. He'd picked a topic that was unwieldy, and needed a new one. "Why not call your teacher and ask if you can change?" I asked.
B's face lit up, then fell. He didn't have another topic in mind. By this point, K had woken up, my soup was not on the simmer like I'd planned, and I hadn't had any coffee after nap time. I took a deep breath, and told B we needed to ask someone infinitely wise for another topic idea, bowed my head and prayed about it.
Once K had nursed, and been changed, B took out his mp3 player and recorded our brain storming session, we set the oven timer for 5 min. I cut up an apple and some cheddar cheese for the kid's snack. B picked the topic he liked (good thing he remembered, the conversation didnt' record very well). Then I phoned his teacher, explained the situation, and put Ben on the line with her. I was pleased with his phone manors.
Then I got to make myself some tea, it was too late in the day for coffee.
So, this morning we did some of our school at the park instead of the kitchen table, this afternoon we realized that we once again had to re-calibrate B's school organization (Ugh), but he also asked for help winsomely, and solved his own problem graciously. We also practiced brainstorming. So I'll count that as organizational scaffolding.
Check off one spot on the new goal.
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Oct. 29, 2009 Plimouth Plantation with Miss M
Miss M came 2 days early to our church's missions emphasis Sunday, so that she could speak to my geography class. I suggested several area historical sites we could visit on one of her free days, and she was most curious about Plimouth Plantation. I got the pass from the library (cutting our admission down to about %25 of the usual price) and we sailed off, leaving B and DH behind for Lego club.
 I never did get a photo of the Wampanog family site, I was wearing K, my purse, my camera bag, and had tied my jacket with M's and K's inside it around my waist: I felt like a Christmas tree with everying hanging off of me. I did feel proud of being able to get into the Weetu without dropping anything (or anybody). The walk up to the English settlement went past the Eel river, M was charmed by the view.
 As we walked along the sea wall from the parking space to the Mayflower II, K played in every puddle, and M counted all the vents. Sometimes little kids are not all about linearity!
 K's hair was whipping in the brease through this vent.
 The crew member showed M what the windlass was for: inserted one handle and let him try pulling up the anchor by himself. There were 8 more handles with good reason.
We got home a bit lator than I'd planned (I also took a wrong turning and was glad of Miss M in the passenger's seat to staighten my out!) DH bought us Chinese take out and saved the day.
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Oct. 9, 2009 Oakdale Farm in October
 animal feed is just $.25, cheap entertainment
 The cow tongue was fast, again. "I am definitely washing my hands when we get home!"
 K loves the chickens.
 The sun is setting sooner than it had been. Ricky and Fred were roosting already when I tried to take their picture. They like a pine tree.
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Sep. 25, 2009 Feeding Animals at the farm, or comparative slobber
 This is how K looks in the polkadot shirt with the dashound applique that cousin K bought her - I'm so glad it got warm enough again for short sleeves so I could take a picture of her in it! This calf's tongue was quick on the diagonal,  and his slobber surprised B.
 One of the other children visiting the farm anounced that goat's spit was hot.
 K likes the chickens,
 But Fred and Ricky are the favorites. |
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Aug. 31, 2009 First Day of School with a Schedule
Most years, I divided up the chapters into hypothetical weeks, and aimed at so many lessons a week in each subject. We started a few subjects a day in mid August (because they were bored and all those pretty new books were there) and feathered out the end as things ended.
This year, I really listed every thing, and counted weeks we'll have if we end in mid July (when band in the park's pavilion starts) I've only written out weekly plans for the first 3 weeks, as we will surely have to adjust as we go along.
Today was actually peaceful as I had my notebook all ready telling me what to do, and I had the yearly check off list to record on. As I was looking at M's assignments, to review the clockface as a preface to reviewing how to form the cursive letters, and to work 2 Miquon sheets, I realized that there were Miquon sheets ABOUT the clockface! That bought me a few more minutes to read the first chapter of the Fallacy Detectives with B, but it also mean that when M was bored, and K was napping...M was bored.
Efficientcy is not all it's cracked up to be sometimes! |
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Aug. 29, 2009 Picking Blueberries with K
Before I even got married and had kids, I had set an educational goal for my future children. It happened this way:
DH was then my boyfriend, referred to as Mr Wonderful by my Dad. Mr Wonderful and I were hiking at Great Blue Hill near Quincy, when we came upon a small patch of wild blueberries. We had a container of some sort, I don't remember why, and we filled it pretty quickly. My Mom was later able to make us a fresh berry pie. As we were picking (and stuffing our faces) a little boy running down the hill saw us, stopped in his tracks, and also stared picking berries. When his mother arrived, dressed in a sand colored pantsuit with an '80's bow scarf at her neck, she called out, "Gregory! We don't eat food off (shudder) bushes!" At this point my memory gets foggy, but I think that Gregory looked sullen and stayed put, Mr Wonderful reminded him to obey his mother, and Gregory did, while both he and his mother glared at us.
I decided then and there that my children would that know that food does not just come from the grocery store in boxes.
In fairness to that lady, I'd be nervous too if my kids were hanging out with strangers and eating something I wasn't familiar with, my rule with my kids is they have to be told which plant parts to eat first, no experimenting. But oh dear, her phrasing was unfortunate!
K mostly played in between the rows
 while we picked blueberries at Dufort Farms, Last week.
 But then she switched to playing "Follow M." He went through to the other side of the bushes to escape.  She did try to pick also, but had trouble distinguishing between blue ones and green ones.  Then she played the put things into the container, and dump them out game.
B meanwhile picked industriously, tried to avoid my camera, and challenged himself to pick more than he had while picking with Grandma.
When K tired of her game, and got loud, I declared that we had enough berries for a buckle, and to snack on as well, so we were done. B and M both wanted to keep picking, until they had filled their yogurt containers. I managed to fulfill M's desire by pouring my berries into his. But, B has outgrown such tricks, and asked to stay behind while I picked out our grass fed beef for Sunday dinner, as we'd pay for the beef and berries at the same time. K settled down when the farm's Black Lab came by to visit, and she saw the pretty jam jars in the new store shed.
 When M told me to look in K's mouth, I realized that she had figured out to eat the blue ones; but Mrs Dufort was understanding.
And far from getting in the way, K has one important educational goal of mine checked off, she knows where blueberries at least come from.
Bedtime story last night? Blueberries for Sal.
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Aug. 16, 2009 Planning the School Year
My blog has not been updated very much lately for the same reason I imagine that there have not been many updates to read on my bloglines reader: either finishing up paper work for the school transition (in my case) or vacations (I hope in someone's case).
I've printed out the Letter of Intent to Homeschool (we have to file annually for approval here in Massachusetts). DH has proofread it, a very vital step in my case, but I can't run out to the post office to mail it registered mail right now as it turns out that M's eye is bacterial conjunctivitis, and I don't want to further infect Attleboro. I also got B's standardized test scores from last May sent into the principal's office where he would have been a student, so they can let the superintendent's office know that we filed our end of the year report as agreed.
Yesterday I stayed home from the Sunday School Picnic with a swollen foot, I played too much on my anniversary, but I used the time I was alone to list out all the things I want to do in the various books we bought for the boys. I dropped some of the requirements for B, because it's just too much, and now I have to figure out some sort of weekly/daily plan that takes into account his dream of being "done," in mid July, and folding M into the plans as an official student I report
 (and figure out where busy K fits in, as she might be about to switch to one nap, YIKES!)
I think we are going to sit down with a calandar this year and mark out the weeks we know we will take off, include at least two floating weeks for sickness, and count the days we do have to work with, and schedule those in for the work we have to do. If we designate certain times as quarters and halfs, then we'll know if we are "ahead" or "behind." B has been begging for more structure. I find him a hard task master; last week he had me read three chapters at once of The Story of the World plus the mapwork all on one day.
He has a point, it's August and he and his Dad have not yet had their celebration for finishing 5th grade yet (10 chapters of history to go.) I think this year's fun is putting together another computer for head to head wargames. They also have to get to the Boston Science Museum before September 7th when the Black Hole Exhibit closes. He finished Animal Farm last week, and has been asking everyone questions about the Russian Revolution.
 I can see why he wants his summer "free," he has so many interesting educational plans, he hasn't got time for lessons. I want some of that freedom too: so I'm writing into that checkoff chart things like "6 nature walks," and "I may assign you more novels to read."
Maybe I'd better write in "Mom may change her mind!" Then it will be official.
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Aug. 12, 2009 Funny Things are More Memorable
While our pastor was on sabbatical this Summer, 3 different pulpit supply pastors used quotes from Animal Farm in sermon illustrations. B was intrigued, and asked if it was appropriate for him to read. I remember crying over it in 8th grade, and having to make myself read 12 pages a day to get through it in time (which like Moby Dick, grew to 24 pages a day, then the rest of the book...) I just don't like gut wrenching novels, I still think of fiction as something fun, not instructive. No wonder I majored in chemistry, not English in college! I should have told B, "Animal Farm Good, 1984 bad." but I think I just said, "Sure."
So, I found it interesting to watch B this week. He keeps laughing over Napoleon and Squeaker's manipulations, and Benjamin the Donkey's wise cynicism. But Snowball's exile brought up more questions than I could answer (we haven't gotten to the Story of the World Modern Times yet, and to be honest, I don't know it yet.) I stuck sticky notes in the chapters of SOTW Vol 4 that covered the various stages of the Russian revolution, and rise of Stalin, and left him to it.
I asked him today, "What about the sad and pathetic parts?" B replied, "The pitiable parts are there, but I find the funny parts easier to remember. I think jokes are candy for the ears." |
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Aug. 4, 2009 So Far, So Good
Yesterday everyone was CRANKY, hot and wet. I asked the deaconess who had volunteered to help me to wait a few days, because her husband had had a stomach virus, and after last February, we really want to avoid that! I had the blues last night, DH suggested that we shop for school stuff at Staples as a family outing, but K melted down after dinner, so I drove myself there! After all, I only use my right foot for driving, and I haven't taken hydrocodon in a week and a half.
You know, you walk a lot at Staples and Target? I think I'd chalk that up as, good for morale, bad for the foot. It's a bit sore this morning, but my heart is lighter. I got to see other people's sun flowers as I drove past, and the sunset. I bought two binders to hold the boy's homeschool portfolios from this year, and some printer ink to print out my observations of them. Their portfolio pages are a little sparse this year, I'll have to mine the blog for funny incidents to cut and paste, the actual portfolio if just boring things like, "B's handwriting has improved, but he can now find the homekeys on the keyboard, and type t as well, so it may not matter as much..."
In August, the "get the portfolio done, get the Letter of Intent written, get the school books ordered, figure out a daily schedule, organize co-op..." beats in my head like a drum (or a drill sargent) Somehow telling myself that I've done this 6 times before with reasonable success and very few spelling mistakes did not make me feel better.
But shopping did ;-) Thanks DH!
Well, this morning was great! I announced at breakfast that I had 3 goals: play a round of The Way Things Work game level 2, read a chapter of The Story of the World, and work on, "the great wall of laundry."
K took a nap (sorta-kinda, she played quietly in her crib for half an hour) I read the chapter to M and B as B did the breakfast dishes, we played our game with K trying to grap pieces off the table (M won), until we spilled the pattern blocks for her to play with. B is sorting laundry in his room while listening to "Ink Spell," on a book on CD from the library, and M is watching "Scooby Doo II." in the livingroom. K is wandering through the house, but the doors to the bathroom and boy's room should be closed, B caught her climbing up his bunk bed ladder today!
There is a reason we call her scary k!
The great wall of laundry is getting put away in drawers, but the pattern blocks are still disperced throughout the house.
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Jul. 30, 2009 Our Scope and Sequence for Next Year
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Instructional Scope and Sequence for B:
Bible
B will be assigned selected narrative portions of the Old Testament to read, he will continue reading the New Testament with his Father.
Art Feed My Sheep by Barry Stebbings
Geography
Blackline Maps of World History published by Knowledge
Quest. We will fill in blank maps, and other exercises as they
come up in the Story of the World Vol 4.
History
Story of the World Vol 4 by Susan Wise Bauer
Latin
Latina Christiana II by Leigh Lowe
Mathematics
The Key to press workbooks for measurement, fractions,
percents, decimals, algebra and geometry. B will work
through them over the next 2 years, reviewing his basic
arithmetic facts as he goes.
Music
Flute lessons
Nature, Science, and Technology
We plan to hike in the local Audubon Sanctuaries,
National Wildlife Sanctuaries, and State Parks. B has
begun to keep a notebook. We will also work in our flower
and vegetable gardens. We hope to compete in the
F.I.R.S.T Lego League Robotics Competition. We also hope
to work through the experiments in several books by Bernie Zubrowski.
Spelling
Spell to Write and Read by Wanda Sansori
Writing
Writing Strands 4 by Dave Marks
Public Speaking
B will take a co-op class, and his Lego team must make a presentation to the judges during the competition.
Logic
The Thinking Toolbox, and The Fallacy Detective by Hans and
Nathaniel Bluedorn.
Instructional Scope and Sequence for M:
Bible
M will continue to listen to daily reading from his Dad and Brother.
Art
M will work through the exercises in I Can Do All Things: A Beginning book of Drawing and Painting by Barry Stebbing
History/Geography
M will be read any appropriate biography or story from the co-lateral reading for Story of the World Vol 4. The twentieth Century is really scary for first graders! We will look at maps especially on field trips or family outings, and when we pray for world events and missionaries at church.
Writing
M will continue to practice is handwriting with worksheets from CursiveFirstby Liz Fitzgerald. I will write down his narrations for him to copy over for copy work.
Phonics
Spell to Write and Read by Wanda Sansori
Literature
We will continue to read a loud many novels and biographies, so that he will know that it is bedtime .
Mathematics
We will continue to work though Miquon Math, the red and orange books. We will also read books, work puzzles, and do vigorous block play as suggested by the Living Math Group on the Internet.
Music
God's Children Sing by Lorna Heyge, Catherine Mathia, Linda Robinson, and Audrey Sillick.
Nature, Science,and Technology
We plan to hike in the local Audubon Sanctuaries, National Wildlife Sanctuaries, and State Parks. We will also work in our flower and vegetable gardens. We hope to compete in the Jr. F.I.R.S.T Lego League Robotics Competition. We also hope to work through the experiments in several books by Bernie Zubrowski.
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Jul. 15, 2009 Orthodox Celts
| B's Summer Band is playing a medley of Celtic songs. To help him learn the music, I searched for performances on U-Tube. (It's just so much easier to learn sheet music if you've heard the tune before!) Our favorite version of "Star of the County Down." was by Orthodox Celts, who aren't Irish at all, but Serbian. I think B would like to buy one of their CDs, they sound great. He's been practicing that number a lot lately. |
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Jul. 7, 2009 OK, She won't Sleep, Lets go to the Zoo, the Sun is Shining
On Thursday, K took a long nap in the morning. I got lots of school in with the boys, but in the afternoon when I was dragging, K was bushy-tail-ed. This was an occasion for the DVD player. M and B watched her while they laughed at veggie tales. I napped until the timer went off, made myself some coffee, slathered them with sun block (what's this stuff mom? they hadn't needed it in a month or so)
M wanted to see all the animals, The nocturnal bintorong was awake. K wanted to dance in the pavilion.
 Some 'big girls' all of 5 years old were dancing on the benches. K decided that the benches must be where to dance and climbed up too.
Then we played on the play ground until they had done "One More Exciting Thing."
  M was too thirsty to stay much longer. Little juice boxes don't quite last as long as big water bottles. Its been so long since it's been hot I've forgotten that fact of playground camping! M did revive when we passed the overgrown yew bush (it's a short tree now).
 This looks like brotherly love to me, but the guys assured me that they were really experimenting to see if leaning on each other made it easier to walk home in the heat when they were thirsty. Well, on the mutual assistance theme, I sure appreciated their help earlier in the day with K! |
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Jul. 1, 2009 Breakfast Entertainment
The City must have been either racing the heat, or the rain, because today the back hoe was digging up the sidewalk starting at 7AM.
The operator was so deft, his co-worker was sometimes using a shovel not inches away from the moving hoe, but they appeared comfortable. We scarcely noticed our oatmeal for the fun of the back hoe.
 M and B have been getting along unusually well lately. At this point they have walked down the hill to watch the next part of the operation together. Yesterday a neighbor asked Matty if he had permission to be out alone on the sidewalk, then the officer directing traffic asked Matty if he knew the neighbor, and if he had permission to be out alone on the sidewalk. He should have an easier time today with his brother along.
For K's morning naptime, I read "Are you my Mother?" and "Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel" I didn't have her on my lap to wrestle pages, and she lost interest, but M enjoyed the stories, and K "asked" for "Are you my mother," again after nap time, by hitting my leg with it.
Ever since B at aged 4 asked me if Maryanne was a snort, I've thought of these two books as a pair.
 
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Jun. 17, 2009 Frustration and Finishing
I was supposed to bring B to his flute lesson at 9AM yesterday, I did remember to bring him on Tuesday, but I showed up at our regular time of 4PM. And what did the calender say when I got home and checked it? 9AM Tuesday.
I'm OK with appointments as long as they happen at times I can remember, but if they are on different days of the week, I wind up paying fees for being late or showing up the next day thinking I was supposed to come. It's not just the sleep deprivation, I've always had trouble with time!
Maybe I should try that Mary Pride suggestion of having one week in 6 be Appointment week. Or maybe ask the receptionists if I could just have the nearest 10AM on a Thursday appointment, so I'd know on Thursdays I've got to get someone somewhere. It's stuff like this that makes my Mom say it's a miracle that I coordinate the homeschool co-op. So that's the frustration part.
What did I finish? My blue nursing adapted dress from last spring that fit wonky, fits nicely now. One shoulder seam was too deep, one shoulder pad was backwards, and I needed to take the waist in. (How often is that my fitting problem?). I twirled in front of the mirror at 10PM last night happy that I had a Sunday dress I looked pretty in, that was modest and easy to nurse in. Ah, all was not frustration yesterday.
And today? We checked three things off the 'must finish to call 5th grade good,' list, and B felt happy about it too. I also found a use for the time slot when M is bored, but B is doing chores, I'm bathing, and K is supposed to be taking her morning nap. I got out his art book and gave him a project on my nice desk in the workshop, he got to sit in the twisty chair from the computer.
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Mar. 31, 2009 Outwitting Meerkats
I truncated B's teacher intensive morning work so that we could all go outside at 11, we skipped morning snack because we had slept in and breakfast was late. K skipped her morning nap, so to keep things cheery, we drove to the zoo and play ground at Capron Park, it's only 6 blocks away, but with only an hour until lunch with Daddy, I used the car.
M loves animals but he was much more interested in the playground, so we chose just three favorite animals to look at before the playground. We have a membership, so I don't worry that our short visits don't cover the whole zoo. We can always come back. I was very pleased with our compromise, little did I know...
In the Africa house, the lion cub, soon to be relocated to another zoo (that doesn't already have a male) has grown to fluid, lethal grace. He even pounced on the plexiglass in front of M. What muscles! Down at the end of the building, some ladies we'd never seen before were in and out of the meerkat section, with a pneumatic pump and a metal box. Always curious, we asked what they were doing.
They were absorbed in watching one lady hold a screw driver for the meerkats to bite. Huh?
Turns out; they were training the meerkats to bite a meter on their box so that they could measure the force of their bite. Once a bite on the upper black protrusions, some paste of boiled egg and water oozed out of the botom slot. If they can work out the meerkat adaptations for their prototype, they hope to win a grant from the national science foundation to go to South Africa to study the meerkats on meerkat manor, like the TV show. The Capron Meerkats are a lot closer to UMass than the Namib Desert though. They want to know if there is a correlation between winning mates and having a strong bite, and if juvaniles bites are as strong as adults, and how much force does take to crunch a scorpion. One of the ladies, Jaime Tanner, had used a similar machine to study hyenas.
The meerkats were not exatly cooperative; they rocked the box, tipped it together to spill the paste out without biting anything; they boxed the mechanism with their paws; and they tried to dig under it. K wanted the ladies to hold her (not much stranger anxiety anymore in that girl.) B engaged them in many questions. After making sure they didn't mind, I followed K and M out to the little sandbox in between the Africa house and the nocturnal house. When I checked back they were all discussing (including B) how to adapt the mechanism since the Meerkats are used to digging for their food, and seem to think up is paws territory, down is teeth.
After all this discussion M only got about 5 min at the playground. I'll try to get them back there this afternoon after nap time and before the zoo closes at 4PM. M wants to climb stuff, B wants to know if the Meerkats are biting where they are supposed to yet.
If anyone from the National Science Foundation reads my blog, these researchers very winsomely taught my children about biology and engineering today. Does that give them any points towards their grant?
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Mar. 26, 2009 DH to the rescue
We got the teacher intensive stuff done this morning and the kids did play outside. My Mom came over early for Latin lessons because she'd taken a half day from work in order to greet the missionaries she is housing for the conference this weekend (after Latin lessons). We got the naps synchronized enough to go shopping at Staples. Hooray!
It sounds like an efficient day up to that point.
That's the point where I locked the keys into the mini van.
I walked back to the Staples to ask to use a phone. The 20ish clerks looks a bit confused when I asked to borrow a phone. I explained that I did not have a cell phone. Still getting blank looks from the 20ish clerks, a lady standing in line to buy something lent me hers. DH works locally, so he arrived in less than 20min with a ride from work.
Meanwhile I bought snack food (chocolate covered almonds), played the-chase-K-through-the-store game, and "geography, non-reader edition." That's where you think of place names (fantasy ones acceptable) that begin with the last sound of the place name the player before you did. There are too few geography words that begin with 'a.' They all seem to end in 'a.' (Austria, Russia, Alaska, Antartica, Narnia...) When I played the game on long trips to Long Island with my grandparents, we had to use letters. With M playing we used sounds.
There are still to many 'a.' words though.
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Mar. 25, 2009 Favorite Play Structures
Before this park was a park,
 it was the site of a factory, with landscaping along a hillside. The landscaping is still there, and my kids like to climb through it better than the actual climbing structure. The little 3 year old and his dad took it as a right of passage that he'd be climbing up there in a year or two. Meanwhile K and I practiced walking on un-even surfaces, with hills.
Gotta walk before you climb.
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Mar. 4, 2009 Boston Children's Museum VI; Raceways, the track and ball room
Part V
This one always arrests the physics major types. Maybe this predicts something about K, it was one of her favorites. Either that, or being able to reach the balls had something to do with it.
I liked this quote    This is B launching a ball down a roller coaster sort of track, it only makes it to the end if there are no balls stuck in the valleys, and you launch it just right. He kept climbing the stairs to launch more balls to try to get it to go all the way, but he always got out of the way of other kids wanting to try it too. His patience paid off finally!
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Mar. 4, 2009 Boston Children's Museum V; other Wonderful Stuff
Part IV
If you wheeled pedals, or turned the capstan enough, the Exhibit title would start moving and lighting up, from your energy.
 This dancefloor was also a video game: we were running from a red ball that would explode if it hit our feet, and hear a deep voiced announcer proclaim, "You're out!"
 The art studio had an artist on hand to work with drop in kids. Yesterday was clay. I asked her for crowd control tips, she suggested greeting families softly, so that they had to quiet down to hear you, and to play soothing music. She had on Spanish lullabyes; I suppose the suggestion in Mona Brooks Drawing with Children to avoid vocal music when making art means vocal music in your own language, the kids were not distracted by the CD. I felt really soothed myself, and what great light from three big windows!
Part VI |
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