glue sky

The Family Farm

Peter’s family owns a farm a few hours from us. Since Oma and Opa were in town we thought we would visit. That’s the farm up there, in the right corner surrounded by trees.

I spent the first 30 years of my life in Southern California. My idea of a farm usually involves a little fruit stand or cute animals. But this farm grows just two things: Corn and soy. America’s major crops. If a field grew corn last year, this year it grows soy and vice versa. They store their goods in large silos and wait for them to dry out, and for the market to be just right.

This farm was owned by my kids great, great, grandparents. German immigrants that got one of the best pieces of land a farmer could hope for. The soil is amazing. Pete’s other side of the family have a farm too, also in Illinois, but it’s soil is not as good. It makes a big difference.

That’s not to say this farm didn’t have a few animals on it. The younger cousins have projects too, which include ducks that will NOT be eaten, yet they do not have a plan for what they will do when they grow up. An impulse purchase you don’t see much in the city:

And a hen house of 24 chickens for eggs:

chickenpeck

They like to peck feet.

But the best part were the tractors.

How many kids get to play with little tractors and then go out with dad on the real thing?

That’s Ero and Pete on the back tractor there. They went on many, many tractors all day. They did not however go on the Couch-Mobile.

That arm is Oma getting out of the way. One person has to steer the Couch-Mobile, and another person does the throttle. It goes very fast.

We also picked berries, and the family even left the pepperoni out of the pasta salad for the vegetarian from California.

There was something so natural about the kids here.

They were so comfortable.

grass

I understand why people move off the grid.

farmland

Sculpting with Reference

totoro

While sculpting the other day, Lou asked for a ball of clay. I rolled one. She began shaping it into a triangle. She said she was making a Totoro (A catlike creature from the movie My Neighbor Totoro.)

She looked a little deflated that it wasn’t looking like Totoro. I said “Let’s get a picture of Totoro so we can see what he looks like.” I got the box. We looked at it together. I asked “What do you see?” She said “Little ears.” She pulled off some clay and stuck ears on. I asked what else she saw, and she began making a leaf hat. Then after we got a few items I would say “Hmm…are we missing anything?” And she would compare. Arms, feet, nose, whiskers….

After a while, Lou says “Nope” to the “Are we missing anything” question which means we are done.

This way of creating from reference really works for us. I feel like it’s teaching her to see clearly. She may not become an artist, but she will be able to analyze!

We love reference:
Drawing a plane from reference
Drawing birds from reference
Collaborative drawing from reference.

Weekly Roundup – Tumor, Suicide

Weekly Roundup lists studies and info I find important to life as a parent. Plus one artist.

3d model of tumor growth.
Rise in suicide of middle aged.
Obese mothers a burden on hospital resources.
New doctors pose bigger risk. Don’t go to the hospital in July!
Interesting look at studies on pro-social video games. I wonder what a pro-social and violent video game would do like World of Warcraft.

Holli Schorno

Sorting Nature

leafsetup

On our walks we collect sticks, leaves and weeds. I read in one of my Montessori books to collect a bunch of twigs of different sizes and let the kids sort them by height. I have not had much luck with sorting. The kids love to sort, but they love to sort when it’s their idea. So instead of doing an actual adult led activity we just did our usual collecting, but this time we brought the flora inside.

When we got home, we put the nature stuff on a table in a heap. I walked away for a moment and came back to this:

sorted

I expected Lou and Ero to have fun with the nature things, I just didn’t expect sorting. Go figure.

This nature stuff was entertainment on and off all day. Later, a towel was laid on the table and new arrangements were made:

sorteddandy

Little Botanists.

Optimism

optimist

The other day I found my copy of Becoming the Parent You Want to Be after it was lost somewhere in the house for a few months. I opened it up while I was hanging out with the kids and chapter 3 stood out to me. I read it months ago but this time it really hit me. “Cultivating a Spirit of Optimism About Your Children.”

It reads “…our job as parents is to hold a vision for our children of the people they are becoming. They’re pushing and shoving now, but we believe that, ultimately, they are going to learn to share.”

It’s a brilliant chapter. After reflecting on what I read I realized that this optimism is almost as important as respect for us, and that’s saying something. This optimism can be applied to all relationships, just like respect. And not a nauseating optimism. It’s more like a strong, positive outlook.

Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

Weekly Roundup – Saturn, Anxiety

Weekly Roundup lists studies and info I find important to life as a parent. Plus one artist.

Photos of Saturn and it’s moons that will blow your mind.
A new way in treating anxiety using computers and a supervising therapist.
Tara Parker-Pope has a new book on marriage, so she’s been putting up some posts on it lately. She has not mentioned my favorite author yet, so I will: John Gottman.
A neat study following middle class families around for a few years in California.

Paul Blow

Milk Clouds

milkwater2

It’s a pretty cool special effect they used to use in old movies. We did this type of stuff when I was doing a claymation video game. High tech.

milkwater1

Pour or drip, either way it’s great looking. I’m sure teaches some kind of science, though I am not sure what. Do tell if you know.

Here is a neat video on a much grander scale.

Making Montessori Objects for Reading

sculpy

We have our sandpaper letters, our movable type and a little carpet. Lou is eager to kick reading in gear. Now all we need are some Montessori Objects for reading.

These are usually things Montessori moms hunt for all over, or they can be bought from Montessori Services. But I didn’t have the patience to hunt like that, and I didn’t think they would have all of the correct words that we wanted. I did however have a big block of Sculpey laying about.

list

A while ago I made this list. It collected dust on my desk for months. It’s day had come. We began sculpting.

sculpting

The kids were eager to help, but in their own way. Sometimes contributing to the characters, sometimes creating flowers…

flowers

I made the bulk of the objects, with Lou poking eyes into them or decorating them. Our “hen” got about 50 holes poked in her, which only enhanced her look. As I sculpted I wrapped all tails against the little bodies so they wouldn’t break off:

rat

It took a couple hours to do them all, spread out over a couple days. Then we baked them and painted them.

Painting them was chaos. I did not get any photos because there was paint everywhere. We just went with it, and after painting like crazy the kids moved on to other play while I finished them off. We put them in an old box:

paintedcharacters

Some of the words were hard to sculpt, like “hot” which we made a fire for. Ham was also an odd one. Lou had never seen an actual leg of ham so she made a flat blob which we painted redish-brown. Appetizing. (above the fan, middle right)

My favorite however was the Ant. He’s got an indifferent smile and lopsided eyes.

ant

Here’s a much bigger list that we shall tackle one day: Montessori For Everyone’s Words

And here’s how they use them: Setting up Pink Series Work

Weekly Roundup – Placebos, Melanoma

Weekly Roundup lists studies and info I find important to life as a parent. Plus one artist.

Skujeniece

The Sharpie Helps Again

superboy

Coming up with the title for this was entertaining. I decided to play it safe.

Lou was playing chase and scraped her knee pretty bad. I told her we would go get Super Boy and a band-aid. As usual she was unhappy with it being a boy and asked for a Super Girl instead, but the stores don’t have Super Girl spray. So out came the Sharpie. Lou opted for low down ponytails. She was pleased.

More Sharpie goodness.

Roundup – Breastfeeding, Recall

Roundup lists studies and info I find important to life as a parent. Plus one artist.

How breastfeeding helps a mother’s health too.
Timing potty training – We’re starting now at about 20 months, but by starting I mean letting Ero run around in unders instead of diapers. Messy.
Learning science through videos.
If you have medicine in your cabinet it was probably recalled.
Charter schools have mixed results.
Kids and socializing via computers. – This was a bit of a non-article, but I thought I’d include it anyway.
FDA approves first cancer vaccine.

Yusuke Nagano

Watercolor Block

watercolorblockinaction

Reader Kevin asked what a watercolor block was after my last post. So above is Lou’s watercolor block.

And here is my watercolor block:

watercolorblockoutside

It’s called a watercolor block because the pages are glued around the border to form a bit of a block. They have a place to stick a butter knife into them to separate them.

watercolorblockpapers

Here is a list of watercolor blocks. Remember Hot Press = smoother surface and Cold Press = rough watercolory surface. I use Arches. Lou’s are by Canson and Fabriano. Let them dry before peeling them off.