Snow Day: Snowfall Chart Printable

We were supposed to get 5-7 inches of snow. We stacked our firewood, bought the kids' long-johns for playing in the snow, and I stayed up late the night before making a snow measurement chart. Yes, of course, snow like this is a learning opportunity, I thought.

And we got 1.4 inches. Boo.

But at least I have an accurate measurement!

We learned how to measure snowfall here. And measured several times throughout the day as the snow continued to fall. We lost interest when our last measurement didn't change. But, the nice thing about printables is that you can use them again! Here's hoping for another snow day! Grab the printable pdf here.

Reading Day

Ah, Mondays. Sometimes our weekends are so full, we need a rest from the weekends! But Monday comes, and we can't afford to get behind in school. So I did a little shuffling with our weekly schedule to make last Monday a little different to get us excited about starting a new week. We had just been to the library and it was time to start some new books, so reading day seemed like a fun idea.

So what do you need for a great Reading Day?

1. Books. We started with 6 books, and replaced our usual subjects with extra readings. We started two new chapter books (Royal Monastic and Island of the Blue Dolphins) from which we read several chapters in a sitting. The rest were easy reader books that we read all in one sitting (including Poppleton books, Arnold Lobel's Grasshopper on the Road, and Henry and Mudge books), and we ended up adding in a few extras of these.

2. Schedule. I organized our schedule the same way I usually do - with a checklist in a spiral book for each child, but today's usual subjects were all replaced with reading. So today's check list looked something like this:

• Read during breakfast. 
• Read.
• Morning walk, and read outside.
• Quiet reading time on your own.
• Read again.
• Snack and Read.
• Read.

3. Post-its. Before we started on our schedule, we decided to read each book in a different place. I put a post-it on each book, and let the girls choose where we'd read each one. We wrote the location on the post-it. We chose Grasshopper on the Road for our outside reading, L thought it would be fun to read Poppleton in the Pop-asan (papasan chair), and then the girls each picked their bed for their favorite book.

4. Cozy socks. A last minute idea, to help make today feel extra special, everyone put on warm socks so we could be cozy while reading.

After we got organized, we read through our schedule. I tried to put the next book in its place while the girls checked off their list. I was just trying to stay organized, but the girls thought it was like a treasure hunt. So when we took our quick morning walk, we picked some flowers and then we arrived on the porch; and there they found a vase ready for our flowers, and our next book waiting. Later their books were waiting in their beds with snacks. A successful treasure hunt indeed! We went through most of our stack of library readers, and got started on new novel and biography with lots of snuggles, so I'd say a pretty successful day. 

Pine Lizards

L has been hunting lizards lately. She caught this lizard (she named him Kosmos) by the garden, and Daddy let her keep him overnight in her bug box. The next day when she was letting him go again, she caught another lizard! 

She named the new lizard Cool Chatchman. They got to meet briefly before L let the first one go.

We looked him up and discovered he is an Easter Fence Lizard, or a Pine Lizard.  We were really excited to learn that, because last year we found some lizard eggs and let them hatch in a jar on our porch. The day they hatched, we got to see them a bit before letting them go in the garden again. They were also Pine Lizards, so we're just sure this lizard is one of the babies we saw last year. :)

just hatched

She recorded these lizards in her field journal. :)

Chicken Love

We've had chickens for many years now, but mostly they're John's chickens. I like to watch them, and occasionally throw some corn at them, and (of course) eat the eggs. But John has always been the one who takes care of them. 

But this winter, I was home without him for about a week, and so, for the first time, I took charge of the daily chicken chores: feeding them, letting them out, collecting and washing the eggs, locking them up each night, and with the freezing temperatures, replacing the frozen water in their jug each day. 

Each morning, they clucked wildly around their frozen water dish until I came to replace it. And when I let them out of the hen house, they charged me like a pack of feathery velociraptors hungry for cracked corn. At night, I'd slog out through the dark and the freezing mud to lock them in away from predators. I woke up in the night to google chickens in freezing temperatures to make sure they'd be okay.

These aren't difficult chores, but they are absolutely vital to the dear little chickens. And there is a rhythm to these chores, that settles you and softens you, and re-connects you to the external world that central-heat-and-air so often hides from us. I have been grateful that John did all the work... but now I wonder if I wasn't missing out on something?

Love begets love, and today I love these chickens.

Space Stations, and Meteorites and Holy Nights

We've enjoyed being outside with the girls and especially watching the sky with them. Its very dark at our new house since we are far from any street lights, which makes the star gazing absolutely amazing. Seriously.

This week has been especially fun, with all the organizing credit going to John (okay, and the folks at NASA, too). John signed up for Spot the Station, a free program by NASA that will send you text or email alerts telling you when the International Space Station is visible in your area. John has been spotting the ISS for a few months now, but this week the timing was at the perfect time in the evening when we could all bundle up and sit outside together. It was very cool to see and to think about the astronauts on board (the NASA website is also very cool). Space stuff is always a little mind boggling to me in all of its paradoxes: far away but visible, empty but infinite.

Left to Right: Windows, Space Station, Jupiter

I know you're amazed at my crazy photography skills. Yes, that dot of light is impressive. But seriously, it's fun to watch and it passes over fairly quickly, so check it out if you can.

Last night, we bundled up for another adventure - watching a meteor shower! The peak time was at 3:00 AM, but there was no moon or clouds, so they were visible for most of the night. We took the girls out from 7-8PM and made a cozy bed in the back of the truck and watched patiently. We probably saw two dozen shooting stars, and the girls were thrilled with each sighting. You can keep up with what you can see in the sky each night at EarthSky, although John says sometimes you have to google around for meteor showers and comet sights. He got up again at 3 to watch at the peak time, and said he saw 75 shooting stars that were brilliant! I'd say that was worth losing sleep.

It seems fitting to marvel at the stars during the Christmas season.  It reminds me of one of my favorite Christmas Carols, O Holy Night. I prefer the version with the coffee commercial, but I couldn't find it, so here's one with a scene from the Nativity Story. Happy star gazing to all!

Fall Fantastic

Isn't fall wonderful? Our life has been quite idyllic the last few weeks. The trees turned a million shades of beautiful, the weather turned perfect, and we've spent all of our evenings around a campfire for at least a week. John rigged up a grill over the fire so we could cook corn on the cob. Oh dear, it was heaven.

The girls are loving being outside with the chickens and the fire and the leaves. We don't have quite the array of colors in the photo anymore, but we had such fun making our leaf rainbow and identifying the trees they came from.

We're still settling in, but maybe we always will be. This past weekend we put in our brick sidewalk and introduced the chickens to life outside the pen.

I hope your fall is magical, too!

Floating, Cheaters, and Tea Towels

I posted last year about the tea towels I was printing at Spoonflower. I only thought to snap a picture of them today, after a year of use. I also gave away some, so I only have two of the colors. But here they are, stains and wrinkles and all. I'm not usually a navy person, but I love how this blue has aged with much much use. I'm thinking of printing some new ones in gray...

I've been jamming our boxes in my studio so that our house doesn't get too crazy before the move. So I can't paint or sew now, which has lead me to fiddling around with Illustrator, imagining muted color schemes for my new house that I can only now see on Spoonflower.

I meant to make a cheater quilt for the girls using a flower garden pattern. I love flower garden quilts, but I would never have the patience to make one (much less two). So I put this cheater print together and my mom graciously offered to sew the girls' blankets. Unfortunately, I realized the fabric width won't work for a twin size blanket, and so my lovely cheater design is just floating around in digital land.

That is very much how I feel these days.

Floating.

My book is in the editing phase (!) - which is wonderful. My house is so close to being done, also wonderful. All of my sewing projects are on hold, as is our homeschooling, until we get settled in the move. We are suspended, waiting for our feet to hit the ground again.

In the meantime, I'm keeping myself entertained with A Google A Day (come play with me!), and google image searches to try to figure out what this flower is. My flower books are packed away, and I can't find a match for this pretty yellow flower growing in our driveway. Any ideas?

The Volcano Saved the Valley from the Sharp Teeth

L crawled into our bed one morning and said, "Daddy, today I want to do something exciting that we've never done before." And shouldn't we all?

John quickly came up with the idea to build a volcano. Ideas like this come quickly to daddies who don't mind messes.

We built our volcano around a glass with baking soda in it. I also put in food dye; and yes, my children were wearing Sunday dresses (although not for long); and no, I wouldn't do the food dye again, but thanks for asking. Also it made the lava pink.

Then we piled up big rocks, little rocks, dirt, beans, more beans, split peas, more dirt. until we finally made a mound that reached the top of the glass. It was a small glass, and I was genuinely surprised how much stuff it took to build this little volcano. Keep in mind the dirt is about to be mud, so don't use any beans you hope to eat later.



 


Then the girls arranged their dinosaurs and played for awhile. This was funny, and I made a darling video of them: arranging the dinosaurs; explaining how the sharp teeth were coming into the valley; then Mommy made it rain in the volcano (vinegar), and it erupted! and the sharp teeth ran away from the great valley; hooray! Do it again!

Only the video didn't take. Boo. So you'll just have to imagine little girls delighted by pink lava, and sharp teeth running for their lives.

I put quite a lot of baking soda in our glass, so each time it fizzled out I would just throw in a bit more vinegar and it would go again. I think it erupted about 7 times. Afterward, the girls played in the muddy pink mess for a long time before moving to the bath. It was really sort of awesome and dazzling in a-hey, let's build a volcano-kind of way.

Nature Table

I've been arranging furniture for our new house in my head. I've decided to use our old tv cabinet by the front door as a catch-all for bags and shoes that usually get left by the door. And the top will be a little nature table. In my excitement I told L about the nature table, and somehow in her excitement my side table turned in to a nature table right now.

baby pine trees, rocks with moss, honeysuckle, sticks, cork, dried worms, and oh so much more.

Half the fun was organizing everything into little pots and jars. We discussed how to group things together logically, but also which things were more valuable for keeping. L and I might disagree a bit on the curating.

organized

Cicada Shells

John and the girls pulled a bunch of cicada shells (skins?) off the trees last week and they've been shuffled around quite a bit before finding their home in our nature display. J calls them "monsters." I'm proud of them for not being squeamish of bugs, but that doesn't cure me of my squeamishness.

Our phone line was struck by lightning last week, and we've been picking up bits of the insulator for several days. L also found a spark plug, a moss covered rock, and some bumpy rocks that she's pretty sure are meteorites.

We also have a decent collection of sticks, bark, moth wings, and pine tree seedlings. We even have a dish just for toys found outside, and its interesting to see how being left outdoors has changed them. I haven't figured out what these burr like plants are yet, but I think they're my favorite.

Initially, I was afraid our nature table would be made of gravel from the driveway and smooshed pine cones. But now I see I underestimated my little archaeologists. We're still on the hunt for fossils. No telling what will turn up next!

And we haven't even set up our table yet!

Composter

John built us a compost tumbler this year. It sits near the back door by our kitchen and has been so handy. We've been wanting one for awhile, but they can be pretty expensive. So, naturally, John decided to build one himself using one of these big barrels.

We've had other composting attempts in the past, but they never seemed to work out.  We had compost piles that were far from the house  - which mean we'd fill a bucket for awhile in the kitchen that got too gross, plus it would be inconvenient to carry it to the pile, so we'd often forget. I've learned that for composting to work for our family it needs to be convenient and avoid the yuck factor.

John's barrel by the door is pretty convenient. I don't keep a compost bucket inside, I just put scraps in a dish while I'm cooking, so I have to take it out after every meal.  This helps avoid yuckiness inside. Of course, the composter is still a bit yucky when you open the lid, but we try to throw in grass whenever it gets too buggy, and keep it rotated.

He built it so that he could roll a wheel barrow underneath it to empty the compost, and I think the height also makes it convenient for throwing things in. I don't have a step by step on his process or anything, but I think there are plenty of ways you could easily make something like this.

Yay for dirt!

Spring flower gardens

The girls were talking about flowers, and so we spent a day buying and planting flowers and seeds. I especially looked for flowers that would go from seed to bloom in a short time.  We used: Nasturtiums, Marigolds, Zinnias, and forget me nots. 

We also made a big pot look like miniature garden. It seemed timely with easter, and I really wanted to make a tomb and stone so it could be a resurrection garden (like this, this, this, or this), but we never quite got there.  Still we planted it with succulents and flowers, then made a path of moss and set a rock in the middle. The girls talked about what they might do in the garden if they were small enough to walk in it: pray, think think think, smell the flowers.

Of course, I did have to pull their dinosaurs and dogs (who are small enough to walk in it) out of the garden several times the first week because they enjoyed jumping on the flowers.  The seeds have grown really well, and their getting quite tall now.

No blooms yet, but we're keeping an eye on them.

Butterflies

My eagerness to do more home school was tempered by reality a bit this week.  I've started working a few nights a week, which makes mornings a little rougher.  Plus, just life and general busy-ness happens and - anyway, we're three weeks in and finding a nice pace, I think.

It took us two weeks to get through our butterfly projects.  L is still loving it.  Here are a few of our projects:

 Again with the cutting and gluing and learning names of things.  Still one of my favorite things.

I loved this project inspired by this tutorial. We spent some time looking at our Butterflies and Moths Golden Guide (we have an older version, and the illustrations in the golden guides are excellent).  L picked our favorites, then I helped her draw their markings, and she colored them.  That was exciting enough for her, but I especially loved the collection-style display. 

We also made a butterfly feeder using this tutorial, but I didn't really have a good place to put it, and we never saw any butterflies come to it.  Our hummingbird feeders, on the other hand, are pretty well established and we caught sight of several butterflies there.  L helped me make the butterfly food (which is sugar water, just like hummingbird food, but diluted a bit more), and we drank a little in teacups.  Talking about nectar was a nice segue from our flower study, and she thought drinking the nectar was way cool, even if it was almost too sweet.  

We both really enjoyed looking up the butterflies in our books (besides the Golden Guides, we also love our Audubon Society Field Guide).  Maybe me more. I'm not sure that she remembers many of the butterflies' names, but she remembers that we identify them by their markings and the plants they like, which is exciting to see.