Earth Hour 2016 and 1980s Trivial Pursuit

We LOVE Earth Hour, and diligently celebrate it every single year. The tradition involves candles, of course--lots of candles!--

--but also the Playing of a Board Game. During this Earth Hour, I introduced for the very first time the game Trivial Pursuit. I have my Junior edition from the 80s, so it's partly perfect, because a lot of the questions are at their level, and partly ridiculous, because it's from the 1980s. Here, for example, is a small selection of the questions from my edition:

• "What cheese spread is a whiz to put on toast?"
• "How many Vikings landed on Mars in 1976?"
• "What country is the Leaning Tower of Pisa in?"
• "Was The Police's debut album titled Zenyatta, Mondatta, Outlandos d'Amour, or Magilla Gorilla?"
• "What horse does Alec Ramsey tame when he's shipwrecked on a desert island in a popular novel?"
• "Could the world champion men's high jumper outjump the champion jumping horse?"
• "What letter adorns the flag of the Legion of Super-Heroes?"
• "What are Chesterfield, camel's-hair, raccoon and Burberry all styles of?"
• "What's a person who doesn't eat meat called?"
• "What's the highest mountain in the world?"

We skipped any questions that we thought the kids wouldn't possibly be able to answer, but I was surprised at how many questions were relevant--my children have a good-enough background in history, geography, literature, and science to hold their own in 1980s children's trivia games!

Trivial Pursuit wasn't a great game to play by candle-light, as the light was a little dim for reading tiny print by, and we spent an awful lot of time asking each other "Did I land on a pink or an orange? Oh, a yellow!":

We played it again the next day, and found it much more comfy!

Although we do Earth Hour every year, this particular Earth Hour was especially appropriate, as we'd only recently completed a 24-hour electronics fast for Will's Cadette World Thinking Day badge. In the past, I'd been treating Earth Hour as purely environmentally-motivated, but World Thinking Day is all about using these experiences to make connections and think globally, so it was a great chance to discuss the lack of electricity in many communities in many parts of the world, and how that might affect people, in both good and bad ways. Lots of time to play games together in the dim light. Awfully hard to read your textbooks or complete your schoolwork. If you're motivated to cover global issues with your kiddos, I highly recommend incorporating an electronics fast into your overall Earth Hour experience. And if you're feeling especially motivated, there's also a World Water Day!

Why You Should Adopt Animals: The Documentary

Y'all, the long-awaited, long-anticipated, long-dreaded, much fretted about documentary on "why you should adopt animals" has finally happened!

Geez, this thing was hard to manage, despite the fact that it ended up being pretty simple--IF you have the equipment and know what you're doing with it. Way back last May, Syd proposed a service project for our Girl Scout troop: she wanted to make a documentary about the animals at the local Humane Society, to get people to adopt them. The other girls liked this idea, and then.... nothing. I just could not figure out how to get five (then six, then eight) girls to film a documentary at the Humane Society, then actually make it into a movie.

I did NOT study filmmaking in college, my Friends.

Finally, I decided that we'd skip, for the moment, the logistics of even asking to film at the Humane Society (all those children, all those barking dogs, all that hand-held video...), and just film animals that had already been adopted, and maybe interview their owners about their experience and why one should adopt.

Even that, of course, was hard for me to figure out, and I went way down the rabbit hole of amateur filmmaking forums before I finally figured out that the equipment that we have--a digital SLR with video recording capabilities, a USB-compatible microphone, Audacity, and Nero--would work just fine for this. We won't be submitting to Cannes, but we could make something that would please and delight little Girl Scouts.

We still have to present this particular idea to the rest of the troop (which means that I still have to figure out how to do it with eight little girls and assorted animals), but as a test case, and for Will's Cadette Digital Movie Maker badge, my two kids made a documentary about Gracie and Spots, fostered and then adopted from our local animal shelter.

Considering that this documentary was Syd's idea, and that Will spent most of an entire year being vocally NOT on board with it, it will probably surprise you to learn that Will did the vast majority of work on the documentary. It doesn't surprise me, as I know that Will tends to get very deeply immersed in projects, but I was nevertheless VERY relieved that she did not just all of the compiling and editing--

--but also the filming of the interview, which was something that I'd expected Syd to be excited about.

So now, without further ado, I present to you the world premiere of the original documentary short film, Why You Should Adopt Cats:



Thank goodness that is figured out and over! Now all we have to do is figure out how to do it again, this time with six more little filmmakers. And I have to buy the patch for my now officially certified Cadette Digital Movie Maker!

Homeschool STEAM: Whole-Body Pendulum Painting in an Aerial Hammock

Why, no, I DIDN'T write lesson plans for this week--hooray for me! The kids will still have Math Mammoth, a page of cursive, a Book of the Day, their Memory Work, and a hands-on project of my choosing each day--more crystal-growing, perhaps, or more chemical reactions, or maybe some craft projects that I've had in the back of my mind for a while--but we have so many BIG things going on this week that it just didn't make sense to block out half of each day in advance.

Our homeschool group's STEM Fair is tonight. I anticipate that the kids will spend fully half a day on finishing their prep and refining their presentations for this.

Their grandparents arrive for a visit tomorrow night. I'm sure they'll want to do things with them other than watch them color in maps and make salt dough models of the spleen or whatever all week. Not to mention that we should probably tidy the house at least a little before they get here.

Oh, and the Trashion/Refashion Show is this weekend! Not only do we have to practice and figure out runway shoes and hair/makeup, but, um... yeah, I also still need to sew the belt and the petticoat that Syd wants for her garment. Oh, and hem the skirt. Nothing like waiting until the last minute to get super productive!

But that's for later, as soon as I get off my butt and outta this chair. For now, I want to tell you about the STEAM project that I did with the kids a few weeks ago, on account of it was so awesome!

You know that we have an at-home, DIY aerial silks rig, right? Several months ago, the kids asked if I would re-rig it into an aerial hammock. I did, and we all love it. I'm about to rig it back because Syd has been wanting to do some actual aerial silks on it, not just lounge around in it and read all comfy (silly girl!), so before I did, and concurrent with Will's Math Mammoth unit on geometry, I set up a whole-body pendulum painting activity on the aerial hammock.

You, yourself, don't have to have an aerial silks rig to do this, of course. You can do it from a tire swing. You can do it with your feet from a playground swing. You can take your regular hammock, double it, and hang both ends from one hook in your ceiling beam or from one carabiner latched onto a rescue rig and looped around a strong tree branch. Hell, you could do it from an actual hammock if you didn't care about having a full 360-degree range of motion. As long as your kid can comfortably reach the ground with a paintbrush while lying in the rig that you've set up, you're good.

Along with the rig, you'll also need this stuff:

• large-format paper. Giant sheets of newsprint work well (we have this exact thing), but you could also use actual sheets of newspaper. This project is about the process more than the product, so who cares that there are already words on it? An alternative to large-format paper could be a drop cloth, tarp, or huge canvas or curtain, etc.
• paint. Use something cheap, with a good flow. We used Biocolors for this particular project, but I can also recommend tempera. I put the paints into separate pots, each with its own brush.
• giant paintbrushes.
• duct tape.

1. Duct tape the large-format paper under and around the rig. You don't want the kid to feel like she has to reign herself in so as not to paint on the floor, so really cover the area.

2. Settle the kid in and make sure that she gets herself comfortable with facing down in the hammock, extending an arm. This is a pretty heavy core exercise for some kids, and they structure it for themselves in different ways. Will chose to lie prone in the hammock, while Syd chose to crouch and lean--both ways exercised their muscles in ways they weren't used to.

Since we were using our aerials silks for this, and aerial silks are quite expensive, I also emphasized at this time that no matter what, they were not to touch the silks with their paintbrushes. I'm sure I'll wash them before I re-rig them, but I just do NOT want to deal with paint stains. Fortunately, the kids both know already to be careful to not soil the silks--no shoes on the rig, no food, no filthy hands--so this wasn't hard for them to remember.

3. And off she goes! You've got to play facilitator for this entire project, as the kid can't swing herself, nor can she reach the different paint pots without you. The kids took turns in the hammock (Syd nearly beside herself in anticipation for her turn), and I sat right next to each when it was her turn, pushing her and handing her the paint colors that she requested. 

Both kids had SO much fun with this! It was interesting to see what a different approach each had to the activity, as well. Will was completely abstract from beginning to end, enthusiastic about simply swinging and letting the paintbrush move with her:

Syd, however, had a goal from the start. First, she tried to paint a face while swinging, and even managed to do so, but even when she moved on from that to painting in the abstract, she wasn't content just to swing, but really wanted to cover all of the paper, not missing any corners:

Regardless of the differing intents, and my emphasis on process over product, both kids' paintings turned out absolutely gorgeous, and they're both hanging in the kitchen right now, where they'll stay until I get around to buying the giant piece of sheet metal that I want to make the giant magnetic display board that I want to live in that giant space.

So... geometry, art, body awareness, muscle strengthening, maybe a little engineering, some of that spinning that's so good for the inner ear. Not a bad way to spend an hour on a Saturday afternoon!

We played with pendulums some during Will's History of Video Games unit study a few years ago, so if you're interested in exploring more with pendulums, have I got some great resources for you!

• Pendulums are fun for knocking things over! Build up a collection of cardboard boxes and toilet paper tubes, and your kids will probably never want you to put this set-up away again.
• Giant pendulums paint on the driveway! If you happen to have a portable coat rack, this would be a fun way to explore pendulums outside. 
• Pendulums are fun for painting! There are several different depictions of pendulum painting online, all with mostly the same basic set-up. I like the PVC pipe rig the best, though. A kid isn't going to knock it over the way that she will a lashed-together bamboo tripod, and yet PVC pipe is nearly as light to transport and just as easy to disassemble. Here's how to build the rig, although I'd put a hook or a carabiner at the end of the string, not a cup. Don't you want to attach a whole bunch of different kinds of pendulums, not just one?
• Here's how Foucault's pendulum works. I know that you've always wanted to know!

Homeschool Science: Measuring Pad and Tampon Absorbency

Fair warning: I am going to write the word "vagina" a LOT in this post.

As you might have seen me discuss a few times before, we're undertaking a health unit this year. It's a curriculum that I'm compiling on my own, which, by the way, I also encourage YOU to do, as well, with any subject that you want, as it's awesome and totally do-able and creating it yourself means that you can make it exactly what you want it to be.

Anyway, the health unit is really a human biology study, but with an emphasis on healthy habits and personal safety and self-care. Although now the kids are taking turns telling me which body system they want to study next (I'm currently researching Will's choice: the lymphatic system/immune system), I insisted that we begin with the reproductive system. The kids learned its anatomy, coloring diagrams and creating and labeling salt dough models. We discussed sex and pregnancy, but mostly I wanted to focus on puberty and menstruation.

And I wanted to science it!

This following science experiment, in which the kids measured the absorbency of various commercial pads and tampons, had three goals, none of which really had anything to do with measuring the absorbency of pads and tampons:

1. I wanted the kids to become familiar with them, handling several kinds and increasing their comfort level with what is a pretty basic hygiene item. I do NOT want to raise kids who see menstruation as taboo!
2. I wanted the kids to understand how both pads and tampons work, what the absorbency rating means, what that looks like, and practical usage information. 
3. I wanted the kids to ask me lots of questions about puberty and menstruation, whatever questions they had. If you've got a question about menstruation, and you're not sure how to ask it, well, if you're not going to ask it while you are in the process of dipping a tampon into blue water and then weighing it, then you're just going to have to wait until you're grown up and take the SafeSearch setting off of your computer to Google it, I guess.

So while you're secretly working towards those three goals, here's how to actually do the experiment that you're supposed to be doing:

1. Gather your supplies.

You will need a scale that measures in grams, a large jar of water that the kids can dye in any color of their choice (I did ban red, pretending that it would be more "fun" to dye the water a "silly" color. I guess the menstruation taboo is hard at work in me!), a small ladle or measuring cup to dip the water, the kids' science notebooks, and several different types of pads and tampons. 

You might notice with disapproval that I have no homemade or eco-friendly solutions on offer here: I lost my Diva Cup in the move (could it possibly be in the same box as my wedding album? I've never found that, either!), and the boyshort underwear that I now wear doesn't work with the style of pads that I used to make. I actually do own a pair of Thinx underpants that I'm trying to figure out how much I like, but I didn't pull that out, either. In our first-world country, disposable store-bought pads and tampons are a universally available supply, so that's what we're learning about. As we talked while doing this experiment, I did mention Diva Cups, homemade pads, AND the bleaches and dioxins that make some people unwilling to use conventional products, if that makes you feel better.

2. Make a chart. I had the kids write down the name of each exact brand that we were going to test, and its stated absorbency level. This was a good exercise in label reading, and noticing that different pads and tampons have different absorbency ratings:

2. Set up the scale for the first test. We decided that the pad or tampon would fail if it did not meet its maximum absorbency as stated on the box, so the kids put a container on the scale, tared it, then measured out the correct amount of liquid. This was also good practice in accurate measurement:

3. Test the pad or tampon. This step required some good trial-and-error problem-solving for the kids. On the face of it, all you have to do is introduce the pad or tampon to the liquid, see if it absorbs it, and if it does, add more liquid in measured amounts. However, the process definitely required some troubleshooting. Firstly, I'd just randomly gotten out our Erlenmeyer flask to hold the liquid on the scale, as it's lightweight and "scientific." However, the Tampax Pearl tampons, when wet, began to unfurl and they ended up quite wide, so much so that pulling them out through the narrow neck of the Erlenmeyer flask caused them to squeeze out some of their liquid:

This was actually an interesting phenomenon, because the non-Pearl Tampax tampon did not get wider when wet--it got longer. The kids and I had an interesting discussion about the elastic walls of the vagina, and expressed many theories about which model of tampon would possibly work better to stop any menstrual fluid from leaking past them. I also modeled how one uses a tampon, and here is how you do that:

Remind the students that they should have clean hands, and make a loose fist with your non-dominant hand to imitate the vaginal channel. Model the correct way to hold the tampon for insertion in your dominant hand. Remind the students that in between their labia they'll find the bump of the clitoris toward the front, then, inside the folds of the labia minora, there are both the opening to the urethra, again, more towards the front, and then the vagina behind that. Suggest that the first few times one wants to insert a tampon, one might want to gently put a finger into the vagina first, to help visualize the path. Model how to insert a tampon into your fist, then make note of the tampon string, and model how to use that to remove the tampon. Tell the students VERY firmly that used tampons must be wrapped in toilet paper and put in the trash--we don't flush tampons, because we appreciate having working sewer systems!

Anyway, after the failure of the Erlenmeyer flask, I brought out a Petri dish, and the kids used that, instead:

Measuring the absorbency of the pad was also problematic, as introducing liquid too quickly would cause it to just roll off of it--a good opportunity to discuss what an actual menstrual flow would resemble (not that!), but less helpful in accurate measurement.

Interestingly, each item absorbed nearly double what was listed as its maximum absorbency on its box, and a couple of items absorbed more than that! The kids then had to figure out how to accurately measure how much more the item would absorb, and Will is the one who figured it out--you weigh it! She measured out a known number of grams, absorbed away all that she could, weighed the liquid again, then subtracted to find how much liquid was absorbed.

The only real problem that we had was determining the appropriate saturation level of each pad and tampon. The kids introduced liquid until not only could each item absorb no more, but it also would drip when picked up--this, obviously, is beyond the item's maximum absorption, but for this particular activity I didn't get too fussed about it.

This activity leaves plenty of time for kids to familiarize themselves with the pads and tampons--

 --and ask whatever questions occurred to them. Will's question about Toxic Shock Syndrome (she read the instruction sheet that came with the box of tampons, of COURSE!) was an excellent opportunity to again emphasize that one should use clean hands to insert and remove a tampon (bacteria is bad for vaginas), one should change a tampon at least every six hours, and if a tampon doesn't "need" to be changed at least every six hours, that's a sign that you should switch to a tampon with a lower absorbency rating, as you should always use the tampon with the smallest absorbency rating that will meet your needs.

Other excellent discussion topics included the usage of pads as back-ups, if you can feel a tampon after it's inserted, predicting one's period using a calendar (or app--I am told that all the cool kids use apps these days), why one would choose to use a pad vs. a tampon, swimming while menstruating, and many other practical subjects that it would surely have not occurred to the children to ask about if we were discussing menstruation without manipulatives.

A final note: making the focus on science made it MUCH easier to have all the discussions that you need to have with a kid about menstruation and puberty and sex and self-esteem and all that stuff that you have to discuss. The kids loathed just about every book that I offered them on the subject of puberty, because they were all too touchy-feely and focused on Big Questions about Feelings. My kids don't operate like that, and neither do I--there's a running joke between me and some of my friends that basically consists of the not-too-farfetched image of me desperately texting Matt to come save me from various social situations because "people are having emotions, and I can't escape!"

Anyway, putting the focus on Science, not feelings, let the kids actually find a way to think about things, including feelings, in a way that felt dispassionate and safe to them. And if Mommy had an extra glass of wine with dinner that night after all of these discussions, well... Mommy needs a safe way to deal with feelings, too!

Here are the books that we used for this study; you can find the videos that we used in my Homeschool: Science: Human Biology pinboard. I have a ton of old-school "hygiene" videos in there, too, that I'd thought would be funny (and sneakily instructional) to show the kids, but I didn't end up using them this time. I also didn't do as much with menstrual hygiene issues around the world--it's important to ME, but the kids weren't super into it, so we'll go into it another time.

Again, I didn't end up loving most of these books (notable exceptions: I LOVE Julie Metzger, and I LOVE the It's Perfectly Normal series, and *I* think The Care and Keeping of You is good, although both kids hated it), but I did successfully get the kids to read them by inviting them to snark on them as hard as they could. We all sat there, reading these books and making fun of them--"Ugh, Mom, they're talking about self-esteem again!"--but at least we read them. Mwa-ha-ha!

Work Plans for the Week of March 28, 2016: STEM Fairs, Cat Documentaries, and an Opinion Poll

Although I felt like wringing the children's necks for much of it, last week was actually a good school week. The younger kid mastered the long division algorithm, both children kept up their schoolwork with minimal nagging, and my Friday meltdown really only occurred because in all the good schoolwork we'd been accomplishing, the house had managed to become a pit.

It's still a pit, but I had a weekend to refresh myself. Back into the fray!

Books of the Week this week include Treasure Island for the older kid and a Colonial America-era book from the Dear America series (I LOVE the Dear America series!); several living picture books and a non-fiction one for older kid on rocks, as we're FINALLY moving into the rocks and minerals portion of our rocks and minerals unit; and a couple more non-fiction books about the Colonial and Revolutionary periods. Last week was fairly manipulative-heavy, what with the younger kid's long division lessons--

--and the pattern blocks that were our open-ended material of the week--

--so this week I'm going to try something a little different for our Open-Ended Material of the Week: the children's cameras. They each have one, the younger kid's a little newer and therefore better than the older kid's, and the kids are occasionally quite invested in them, but since they have to be recharged, eventually the batteries will die, the kids will forget about them, and there they'll languish for months. I've decided that what I really want from this weekly invitation is not necessarily to expose the older kid to more sensory stimulation, although I do think she benefits from that, but to expose her to more play opportunities in general--that kid is laser-focused on reading, and there's not much that will sway her from it. However, the novelty of bringing something out that she hasn't explored in a while is generally enough to get her involved, and as the younger kid always loves the chance for more play and exploration, it suits them both well.

Memory Work this week is really just Mandarin vocabulary and spelling words, although one of my goals is to put together a better list of review facts from our schoolwork that I can just grab on my way out the door; when we're in the habit of it, spending the first ten minutes of the first car ride of the day on Memory Work is one of the best homeschool routines that I've found. Even if there's one day a week that we generally don't go anywhere, that's still one full hour a week JUST on Memory Work!

And here's the rest of our week!

MONDAY: Both kids should now be on track in their Math Mammoth units, with neither struggling on any particular concept (fingers crossed!), so I'm able to devote a lesson this week to enrichment. Normally, I like to have the enrichment related to a concept that the kids are currently studying, but I couldn't think of anything super-riveting about either long division or percentages (although I was tempted to do giant long division on the driveway on this day, I remembered that we actually need the driveway to be a practice fashion show runway), so instead I'm pretty excited to try out this activity that I discovered just this weekend: you have the kids measure and mark the angles that a door makes in the doorway. Doesn't that sound AWESOME! And the older kid did struggle some in her angle measurement unit in Math Mammoth, so the practice will do her good.

I have washi tape, masking tape, a protractor, and Sharpies at the ready, and yes, we WILL be keeping this on the floor forever.

I have the sinking feeling that the younger kid may have weaseled out of completely memorizing the spelling words from last week's Wordly Wise chapter, so don't let me forget to review that before we move on this week. The older kid is currently in Wordly Wise 6, while the younger kid is in Wordly Wise 4, and I cannot say enough about these books. I. LOVE. Them. The younger kid is neutral, but the older kid loves them, too--although the kids technically have the entire school week to complete the several comprehension activities in each chapter, the older kid usually does them all on Monday. This from a kid who balks at writing the lowercase "q" ten times in her cursive workbook!

Cursive also continues, of course, with the younger kid still in the secular version of New American Cursive 2 and the older kid in Teach Yourself Cursive. I really, really, REALLY want them to start doing copywork/memorization of famous quotes from our Revolutionary War unit study, but I'm not yet sure how to work it in, since I do want them to continue regular work in these books. The older kid, in particular, needs a LOT of handwriting practice; I eventually gave in with printing, and her print handwriting is terribly unattractive as a result--legible, but unattractive. Therefore, I cannot give up with cursive until she has lovely cursive handwriting, sigh. I may still be giving her handwriting drills well into her thirties, but I will not give up!

The kids are bringing the opinion poll that they created last Friday for our Election 2016 unit everywhere they go this week, with the goal of gathering 100 responses. I won't let them query the patrons at the food pantry today, but the staff and the other volunteers are fair game. We also need to return the pasta maker that we borrowed from the Tool Share and check out a grow light instead. It's seed starting time!

We've got a little less assigned work again this week, since we have so many long-term projects going. Both children are working every day on their STEM Fair projects, and on the "documentary" that they're filming about Gracie and Spots. I'm hopeful that they have enough footage now that I can set them to putting their movie together this week. The younger kid, of course, also needs to be practicing every day for her appearance in the 2016 Trashion/Refashion Show in a couple of weeks. April is going to be a big month!

TUESDAY: Although I'm pretty confident that the younger kid has mastered the long division algorithm, I'm giving her one more worksheet page of drill problems before I set her back into her Math Mammoth unit on the topic. The older kid is spending a couple of weeks reviewing percents in her Math Mammoth, but again, I don't anticipate any struggles there.

Matt and I are both giving some major side-eye to the "tamale pie" that's the next recipe in Your Kids: Cooking, but the recipe's lesson has some important skills that I don't want the kids to skip, and so yes, we will be eating tamale pie for dinner on this day. Shudder.

You might notice that I've removed two of the kids' regular chores--load of dishes and load of laundry--from their daily work plans, and instead I have just one big chore listed. Even with the kids and I doing dishes and laundry every day, we still have unwashed dishes and laundry ALL THE TIME, usually a ridiculous amount of it, so last week I developed an incentive system in which I pay the children to keep us caught up on both, and to complete their schoolwork with a good attitude, with a bonus payment if they do all three. We're off to a pretty nonchalant start, with the only money earned so far that of the older kid for her schoolwork, but if the kids do catch on, I will consider the money output 100% worth having all of the dishes and laundry done daily, and schoolwork always done with a good attitude. Here's hoping!

WEDNESDAY: Making Thirteen Colonies covers the Bloodless Revolution in this week's chapters, and so I want the children to learn a little more about Parliament, particularly its differences from both a monarchy and our own Congress. Fortunately, the UK Parliament has a Youtube channel, and so we'll spend some time watching videos from that.

FYI: If you want to study Parliament in more depth, there are loads of resources to do it, as, of course, British teachers want their British children to learn about their own government!

THURSDAY: Now that the kids have the basics of atoms and elements and molecules down, we're ready to move on to minerals. The first part of that unit is learning about crystal formation, and what better way to learn about that than to grow your own? I scored this Smithsonian kit from Goodwill a few months ago and the kids will use that on this day, but next week I'm thinking that we'll spend more time growing crystals from various other substances--this should be a BIG hit.

The Young Writer's Workbook still garners zero enthusiasm, and I'm fairly sure that the children are half-assing all of their assignments in it, but last week they were able to tell their father all about their main and supporting character with a decent amount of enthusiasm, so maybe they're more interested in it than they let on. Either way, I'm certain that they'll better enjoy creating a villain, which is this week's assignment.

FRIDAY: Hopefully by this time, the kids have enough responses for their poll. I'm hoping for 100 because it'll make the math make more sense to Syd, who hasn't done percents, but they've both done graphs, so together they ought to be able to figure it out. They'll re-read the pages of Election 2016 that have to do with public opinion polls, and I'm curious what they'll be able to take from their personal experience creating, administering, and evaluating their own poll and apply to the public opinion polls that they see happening in the presidential race.

Since we have fewer schoolwork slots this week, in deference to the STEM Fair and the documentary-in-progress, I'm deleting Health this week; we finished up the reproductive system last week, with a science experiment done on pads and tampons--

--and I need more time to research how to present the immune and lymphatic systems. We ARE doing the Geography that I realized last week we needed to start, however; our Revolutionary War unit just isn't going to make as much sense without a good understanding of the geography of the colonies. I've got the kids making their master map on this day, and next week they can start adding relevant places to it. I bought the mapwork download from Montessori Print Shop, and even though I don't know if I'll use the three-part cards, it's worth it for the quality of the maps alone.

SATURDAY/SUNDAY: Always ballet and Mandarin and more ballet. Maybe a road trip to Indianapolis to buy a giant piece of sheet metal for a project. Definitely a fashion show rehearsal. Hopefully the roller derby!

It's going to be a wonderful week!

How to Model Long Division with Base Ten Blocks and Cuisenaire Rods

I want the kids to learn algorithms without losing the number sense of what's going on behind them, so I LOVE using models, even for more complicated algorithms.

LOVE it!

I was super stoked a few weeks ago to figure out how to model multiplying and dividing fractions (I'll show you that another time!), but it took a Google search and this guy to teach me how to model long division.

I read his post on modeling long division probably 50 times, and watched his video maybe 50 more before I got it, but now I got it! And you should get it, too--it makes so much sense. It's so logical. You can SEE how the algorithm works.

And it's easy!

Although you really need to go check out that post for yourself and see the magic, I'll walk you through a couple of problems that will clear up the parts that I was confused about for a while, and you can see how it works for a big kid who's in the process of learning the long division algorithm.

The biggest thing that I had to wrap my head around is the way that you set up the model. I did NOT want to set it up this way, and it took a loooong time before I understood why it's best. You start by laying out your Cuisenaire rods in a rectangle, and then you put the long division sign over it, to show that you're measuring these sides of your rectangle:

Here's what I didn't like at first:

Can you see what I don't like?

In area and perimeter models, and any type of measurement, the number on one side illustrates the measurement of THAT SIDE. So in the problem above, I want the 3 and the 4 to be reversed.

But that's NOT how the model works. The 3 measures across, as the arrow shows, and the 4 measures down. You put the arrows there to help you remember.

You have to do it that way because of the way that you model the algorithm. Say that you're starting out with a model that looks like this:

Always build the model with the hundred flats first, then add the ten bars to the right and bottom ONLY, then fill in the last rectangle at the bottom right with Cuisenaire rods.

Have the kid count the total (good reinforcement of counting strategies and skip counting!) and the number of units across, then set up the algorithm so that it's next to, but a little higher than, the bottom of those hundred flats. Don't forget the arrow!

Your kid is going to want to immediately just count down to find the quotient, especially if she's calculated area before, but keep her focused on the fact that with this model, you're going to count how many 34s are contained within this number by subtracting out groups of 34.

The first thing that the kid does is count down to see how many whole tens there are of 34s, then separate them out. We'll count them first:

Syd has separated out the whole tens by moving the rest of the model down, and I've drawn a line under the whole tens to model that we're counting those first. See how the line extends to the algorithm? It's beautiful how much sense that makes!

The kid now counts how many whole tens there are. There are 30. Review place value, and review that 30 is the same thing as three 10s. We can write 30, and just replace the zero when we know how many units' worth we'll have, or we can just write 3 in the tens column. We've done it both ways:

After she knows that there are thirty 34s within the number we've separated, she needs to count the total number of units. Again, more skip counting and adding big numbers! Syd likes to count the hundreds and write the answer down, then the tens, then the units, and then add on paper.

That answer, of course, gets plugged into the algorithm. If you've got an older kid like Syd, you can ask her to double-check the model with calculations, if she seems game. It's a way to reinforce the calculations that she'll actually have to do when she's only got the algorithm, not the model. It reinforces that they both work exactly the same way.

Next, the kid counts the total number of units left below the line in the model, and plugs that number below the line in the algorithm--that's the number still left to divide. She can double-check the algorithm to see that subtraction will give her that answer there, as well.

The only limit to this is how many blocks you have to build models with!

It's fun to have the kid build models of her own to solve--

--but I'll also give her problems with the dividend and divisor, and she gets to figure out how to build the rectangle and then calculate the quotient.

Mind you, Syd does NOT love these lessons, which we've been doing all week. This is NOT play-based learning. However, each day that we've sat down together for no more than half an hour to work these models and do the calculations together, I can see not just how her understanding of how long division works growing, but also her overall number sense. Putting your hands on math, having to group it and count it and keep track of it and organize it, AND having to regroup it and count it and subtract it and count it again, AS WELL AS having to organize and note that on paper, is some hard-core math to do on a typical Tuesday morning.

Come Monday, we'll also likely be doing this!

Work Plans for the Week of March 21, 2016: Long Division and Lots of Projects!

School has been going so well, y'all! I have figured out The Secret to getting the kids to complete their schoolwork without a giant power struggle.

I bribe them.

Will is the WORST about doing her schoolwork, because she only ever wants to do what she wants to do, and that is read. Of course, being such an avid reader means that she always needs something new to read, which means that she always, always, always wants to go to the library.

Our deal: Each morning, I highlight the required schoolwork and chores that must be done before I will take her to the library, and I tell her when they must be done in order to get to go on that day. For instance, today we're leaving the house at 11:40 for our volunteer shift, and I'm not making two trips into town, so if she wants to go to the library today (and she does!), then she needs to complete her math, cursive, Book of the Day, and dishwasher work by 11:40. If she does all this, then she goes to the library. If she doesn't, then tomorrow's train to town leaves at approximately 1:00 pm, and to get that train to make a stop at the library after playgroup, she'll have to have completed ALL of Monday's work AND Tuesday's highlighted work.

And let me tell you, if she didn't go to the library on Monday, she is BURNING to go on Tuesday!

Friends, this has worked for two solid weeks of school so far. Nothing has EVER worked to get Will to do her school for two weeks in a row before!

I have long suspected, however, that the children meet together often in private to decide which of them will play the role of the Good Kid and which the Bad Kid on any given day, so it will not surprise you to learn that in this same period of time in which Will has done her schoolwork excellently, Syd, who is normally my reliable worker, has been a total pain about getting her work done!

Here's what she's been doing instead:

It's my policy that I don't disturb a kid who's happily engaged, but she also doesn't get her screen time if she doesn't finish her school. This is usually incentive enough, considering that she's My Little Pony's biggest fangirl, but the lack of screens wasn't seeming to bother her at all, so yesterday, when Syd was starting to look seriously bummed at the big pile of schoolwork that she still had to complete, I pointed out the Barbie movie that she'd checked out of the library the day before and said, "When you finish all of your schoolwork, you can watch the entire movie."

The normal amount of screentime that one earns by finishing schoolwork is one hour, so an entire two-hour movie? And a BARBIE MOVIE?!? She was zoned out in front of it by early afternoon.

Hopefully, schoolwork will go smoothly this week, as well. Books of the Day include a couple of leftover books on the Salem witch trials, some living picture books of the Colonial and Revolutionary War times, and a couple of science trivia books--I introduced the children to Trivial Pursuit last week, and Will, in particular, finds trivia intoxicatingly fun. Our Sensory Material of the Week is our set of good old pattern blocks. I'd never get rid of them, as I'm sure we'll have further academic use of them one day, but it's been a while since we've worked with them--time for them to come out and play!

And here's what we're doing with the rest of our week!

MONDAY: Syd fussed and pouted all last week about long division. She can do it, but she doesn't like to, and anyway, I know that the algorithm isn't making a lot of empirical sense to her, so all this week, we're just going to back up and learn long division again, this time with manipulatives. You actually CAN physically do long division using Base Ten blocks and Cuisenaire rods--I learned most of it from this guy! Syd and I did many, many long division problems by hand this morning, and we'll do more tomorrow. Maybe she'll move back into Math Mammoth after that, or maybe I'll have her dividing by hand all week--we'll see!

Either way, it's a SUPER cool way to divide. I'll show you more about it some other time.

Last week, the kids completed all the grammar activities in their Wordly Wise chapters, so this week's task is to memorize the spelling of those words. The kids will practice them daily, as well as their Mandarin vocabulary and their cursive:

They'll also be working on their STEM Fair projects every day, and their Gracie and Spots documentary project. Lots of dailies this week!

We've got our regular volunteer gig at the food pantry today, and tonight's big plan is to eat pizza and Easter candy while watching the third film of The Hobbit series. Dream big, Friends!

TUESDAY: In Math Mammoth, Will is still zipping along with integers, although she has moved into the tricky bit of adding and subtracting negative numbers. We speak of it as "an absence of cupcakes," as in "You have three cupcakes. I am taking away an absence of two cupcakes. How many cupcakes do you have now?" 

I am SUPER excited about our art lesson for today. I have an entire series of first- through seventh-grade art lessons that I haven't yet used, but I like the way that they combine art history with guided viewing, discussion questions, and several suggestions for extension activities. That's just the way that I like a lesson to go! Starting with the first grade unit, I've just been looking through them to find any works that might be relevant to our other current studies, and so how awesome is it that there's an entire lesson on the Lincoln Memorial? I printed a couple of photos of the Lincoln Memorial, and so we'll be studying and discussing those, then completing an activity that replicates the way that the sculptor, Danial Chester French, worked to create this sculpture.

An afternoon at the park with our homeschooled friends will complete this wonderful day!

WEDNESDAY: Okay, I am now officially obsessed with Benjamin Franklin. I have extended the Philadelphia leg of our summer road trip so that I can spend more time fangirling over him, and instead of zipping through several chapters of Making Thirteen Colonies, our prequel text to the Revolutionary War, we'll just listen to the chapter of Benjamin Franklin on this day, the better to discuss him at length and ad nauseum.

The kids got distracted from their newspaper late last semester, but perhaps a little encouragement is all that's needed to finish up the last bits... in honor of Ben Franklin!

In other news, I need to add Geography as an additional subject in our school week, perhaps starting next week, so that we can focus just on the geography of New England, the thirteen colonies, and the Revolutionary War. Here's Syd coloring in the thirteen colonies as she listens to Making Thirteen Colonies--how cute is that?

I'm also in the market for a couple of coloring books on the Colonial and Revolutionary War periods, the better to entertain us as we listen to audiobooks. Anyone know any especially good ones?

We've finished the first chapter of our earth sciences unit, Composition of Earth--here's Will's investigation of the Ph levels of various liquids:

I want to make sure that they've memorized the main points of the chapter before we move on, so I've written a "study guide" for them to fill in, and then, yes, I WILL be giving them a test!

The NaNoWriMo Young Writer's workbook is still very much uninspiring and unpleasant for both kids, although I know of plenty of other kids who've loved this curriculum. They're working through it with so little enthusiasm that I despair of it being of any use in writing a story, for either of them, but when I asked each child, separately, what they'd rather be writing--poetry? A movie script? A journal?--they both just sort of shrugged, so we're sticking with this workbook for now.

Election 2016, now--we LOVE this text! The kids had a fabulous time last week searching YouTube for interviews and advertisements, etc. This week they learn about polls, and then I'm going to have them create their own poll that they'll then administer and record the results of on the following week.

A science experiment is our last activity for human reproduction. We'll be messing around with pads and tampons, discussing how they absorb menstrual fluid and measuring their absorbency. I asked the children what body system we should move onto next, so I can get started researching it. Will's request?

The spleen. I mean, I'm sure there are just loads of super-fun enrichment activities for exploring the spleen!

SATURDAY/SUNDAY: Saturday is back to business as usual, now that our university's Spring Break is over. It's a good day for me to work at home, while Matt shuttles the kids back and forth to ballet and Mandarin and back to ballet. We're actually going to the ballet this weekend, as well, and then on Sunday we'll eat lots of candy and maybe I'll finally get someone to help me in the garden!

Homeschool Math: Rice Krispy Treat Fractions

Here's a super simple way to get some extra fractions enrichment into your kids' day:

Make anything that's round or square--pizza, cake, pie, quiche, or Rice Krispy treats. Nom!

You get bonus points, of course, if your selection is a treat.

Next you give your kid a big ole knife, and challenge her to cut her treat into specific fractions. Cut it in half. Take a half, and make fourths. Eighths. Can you make sixteenths?

With a Rice Krispy Treat, you can!

Put the pieces back together in various combinations and determine their fraction.

Find all the equivalent fractions. Calculate 1/2 of 1/2 of the Rice Krispy Treat. Copy that equation down onto paper, and take a picture of the Rice Krispy Treat piece to go with it. Give a kid 1/4 of the Rice Krispy Treat, then take away 1/2 of that--what does she have left?

Even if you're doing a rigorous math curriculum, as we are, casual, simple explorations like this are crucial to a kid's math understanding. Math needs to be conversational--a kid isn't going to "get" math if the only time she encounters it is in a textbook. Math needs to be practical--what kid DOESN'T understand the need to divide a treat perfectly equally? Giving her four pieces of a treat and telling her they need to be divided among three people is the sneakiest way to get her to an understanding of adding, subtracting, and equivalent fractions that I've ever found!

Most of all, though, math needs to be hands-on and sensorial, even for these "big" kids of the ripe old ages of nine and eleven, even with something as simple as composing and decomposing fractions at those ripe old ages. Pattern building is one of the cornerstones of intelligence, and in order to build a reliable mental conception of what fractions ARE, we need to see them in all shapes and sizes and combinations so that we can build that pattern. We need to see 1/4 not just in a textbook, but in pattern blocks, Base Ten blocks, apples, game boards, measuring cups, gas tanks, bottles of milk, pieces of pie, trips around the block, and so much more, all the time, as much as possible, as naturally as possible. If you can see what 1/2 of 1/4 looks like in your head, whether you're visualizing a Rice Krispy Treat or a glass of water or your Cuisenaire rods, then you're well able to understand the algorithm that lets you calculate it, which means that it's easier to memorize and it's easier to perform and it's easier to apply.

And down I step off of my soapbox, primarily because if I continue to rant on, I won't have enough time to make egg sandwiches and prep the school table for today's work before the kids wander in and start begging for just half an hour of screen time before we get started, AND I forgot to make a big batch of salt dough yesterday, so I need to do that right after I get the kids settled in with cursive and Books of the Day. AND if I want them to help me in the garden--and I do!--I need to get them through their school quickly so that I can pretend to Will like the gardening is the work that we have to get done before I can take her to the library.

However, if you've got more time to browse the internet than I do this morning, here are some of my other favorite activities for fraction enrichment:

• edible chessboard: Fractions up to 1/64, and you can play chess and checkers on it!
• fraction art: The fun part is making the art; recording the fractions of each color is not fun, but IS a great illustration of what fractions look like, especially if you've got more than one person doing the activity. 
• spiraling decimals: This is a fun game, and it's tricky! Convert the decimal cards into fractions, of course, before you play.
• Roll a Whole: When we play this one, we usually play up to something like five wholes, and then I have the kids draw their results.
• fraction flags: You can use these, or homemade decorations and frosting, to record the fractions on your treat.