Korean stop sign, photo taken by my son because he knows I like stop signs in various foreign languages.
New local bakery where my daughter and I shared a pecan caramel roll and cherry turnover, good coffee and sweet conversation.
Blueberry muffins galore, made by my daughter and gratefully consumed on ski day morning.
Time alone on a chairlift– beautiful and peaceful silent time. Short and sweet and high off the ground, but I’ll take it.
Trying to walk regularly outside because I should, not because I really want to, so I grit my teeth and lean into the wind.
God frosted the trees for us, beautifying our homeschool ski day with His creative handiwork plus cheerful sunshine and no injuries.
My husband drove this cute little Mazda Miata down to Florida for a friend recently. It looks like a toy car, but he sure got lots of applause / envy from strangers along the way. The admiration sat well with my husband 🙂
I am sad to say goodbye to a wonderful audiobook trilogy about Crispin by author Avi.We finished the last of the three books this week.
From beginning to end, these stories about a young orphan growing up in the Middle Ages are adventurous, suspenseful, and touching.
Avi is a talented and prolific author and his first Crispin book is a Newbery Award Winner.
We also liked The Traitor’s Gate by Avi, and his newest book, Gold Rush Girl, is coming out in March. (Avi is 82 years old and still going strong!)
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We enjoyed Homeschool Ski and Snowboard Day last Monday.
Hyland Hills in Bloomington, Minnesota is a tame spot for beginning skiers, and the 26 degree January day was perfect.
Anyone walking in to the chalet could tell it was a homeschool event — crockpots were everywhere, and the air smelled like patchouli and lavender essential oils.
Now, we are bracing for more snow, and true to our nature, Minnesotans are frantically storming the grocery stores to stock up, like we may be snowed in for months.
I confess I left the house at 6:00 a.m., determined to beat long lines and the blizzard.
After being urged last night by one of my teenagers to get some “fun food,” (as opposed to gloomy, drudgerous food?) I grabbed a few essentials:
meat
kombucha
microwave popcorn
hot chocolate mix
coffee and herbal teas
heavy cream for the coffee
makings for soup and homemade no-knead bread. (Not the boring soups I usually make from leftovers) but Copycat Olive Garden soups, like Zuppa Toscana.
In addition to these staples, we are armed with *anti-cabin fever* activities:
Season 2 of Gilligan’s Island DVDs, purchased at GoodWill
A new puzzle. This is our third Mudpuppy puzzle, and it’s Kaleido-Beetles! I like Mudpuppy puzzles because they have three pictures of the finished puzzle for reference as you go, making it easier for 3 or more people to work on the puzzle.
We are studying similes and we are trying to avoid the trite cliches that are “as old as the hills”, so we are making up our own. Everyone chose five abstract nouns and wrote two similes for each one. I thought these were some of the best:
He felt freedom like a feather in the open air.
Hatred melted away like a stream in the spring.
Reality is like a punch in the face.
Forgiveness is like a safety net.
The crime was as big as a bonfire.
His anger was like a house-eating wildfire.
He was as dishonest as a killdeer.
Their romance was like a budding flower — ever changing.
His anger bubbled up like a volcano.
Accepting defeat is like trying to know somebody you’ve never met.
His adventure was as fun as a ride at ValleyFair.
The moonlit snow sparkled like a thousand tiny jewels.
Jealousy is like hair loss; it might take someone else to point it out.
He was as calm as a painting.
His hatred was as hot as a burning furnace.
Music is like a therapy session.
He was as fast as a full-grown cheetah in the desert.
The lion’s power was like a legion of angry dragons.
“Reading these similes was like an eye-opening ride through an undiscovered village.” — Me
We are finally in the 1970’s in homeschool history, and this will shine a spotlight on why — for us — homeschooling has been the best way to go:
this may be the first time in my life I will truly understand what was happening in my childhood when I was too young to comprehend or care.
Questions like the following will be answered for all of us:
What is Watergate and why did they call it that?
Where and what was Camp David?
Who was the Shah of Iran?
Why did they put yellow ribbons all over fences and buildings?
As I assigned a few reports to my oldest homeschoolers yesterday, they didn’t get why I danced around the kitchen, singing “Tie a Yellow Ribbon ‘Round the Old Oak Tree” and got busy reserving “All the President’s Men” from the library website. They didn’t understand why I told them to: “Write the first paragraph of the report like a newspaper article — like a summary; like “Watergate for Dummies.” Explain the start of the Islamic Republic of Iran like you were explaining it to a child.
Hooray! I might finally understand all this stuff. More soon.
I live in Minnesota, where snowy forecasts threaten and chapped lips are a way of life.
Despite a desire for a little more elbow room, I simply cannot bring myself to banish my children out to the frozen tundra on restless January afternoons.
So, I, with many other hearty Midwest parents, have been forced to plan creative indoor activities, thereby saving our kids’ eyes from electronic combustion.
Here are three indoor activities to offer your children — and if the parents play along, the fun rate exponentially increases…
Jigsaw Puzzles
Puzzles may look like a simple, slow activity, but working jigsaw puzzles is actually a brain-building, skill-building pastime. Jigsaw puzzlesenhance problem-solving skills, improve learning, support social interaction, and generate a feeling of accomplishment.
Puzzles are an absorbing, therapeutic activity that can last days or weeks. If you have a spare table where a puzzle-in-progress can stay available, this is optimum. (We don’t; we just let the puzzle take over the dining room table until it’s completed.)
Jigsaw puzzles are great for many ages (but not all — watch those tiny pieces and keep your babies away.)Puzzles are beneficial for older people, too; they stimulate the brain and may delay the onset of dementia.
Together we completed OCEAN LIFE: a fun and colorful 1000 piece puzzle by Mudpuppy.
Audiobooks
Although audiobooks shouldn’t take the place of visual reading,audiobooks have their own unique benefits. Kids love being read to (adults do, too) and audiobooks are becoming popular and widely available.
Audiobooks are a worthy activity because they:
build listening skills
improve attention span
enhance critical thinking skills
Kids can listen to audiobooks while they draw, build, or work puzzles. Audiobooks are also great for car trips — long or short.
Young readers can listen to an audiobook while they read along with the print version and reluctant readers who aren’t enthusiastic about print books can be wooed into a love of reading with audiobooks. (True story.)
Audiobook narrators are usually awesome, and they transport a child right into the pages of the book. Some of our favorite audiobooks for kids include:
Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Mysteries
A-Z Mysteries
Chronicles of Narnia
Mysterious Benedict Society Series
Best Christmas Pageant Ever
Note: We listened to three (Hardy Boys) audiobooks while we worked the Ocean Life puzzle shown at the beginning of this post.
Krypto
Okay, this one was dredged up from my childhood math class (thank you, Mr. Kesti) and it’s more educational than it is pure fun. But, approached creatively, Krypto can be a pleasant addition to your indoor arsenal of activities.
There is a commercial version ofKrypto, but this is how we play it at home, without buying the game:
Choose 5 cards from a joker-less deck of cards.
Write those numbers on a white board.
Choose one more number and write it at the bottom.
Everyone looks at the board and tries to find a way to use all top 5 numbers to get the target number at the bottom.
You can add, subtract, multiply and divide the numbers until the target number is reached.
This uses all of the numbers, and the result is the target number (2) at the bottom.
When someone arrives at the target number, she yells, “KRYPTO!” and demonstrates how she got the answer.
We keep track of points and play it regularly as part of our homeschooling routine.
If your kids take to it, you can plan a lively Krypto tournament.
With or without competition, you’ll have some fun and keep math skills sharp over the holidays. Krypto is also a great low-key summer activity – a great way to stay math-savvy over school break. For more explanation, here’s a Krypto video.
Whether you live where it’s cold, or just need some rainy day ideas, hopefully you will enjoy some of this indoor fun that keeps Minnesotans snowbound but smiling until March.
I find myself wallowing in the memory of a handful of recent conversations about motherhood, watching children fly away, and stepping reluctantly into “The Afternoon of Life.”
(That’s a book, given to me by my daughter. I groaned when I saw it, but it’s actually just right for me…and funny, too.)
So, just now I scrawled out a poem — with sappy tears streaming down my face– and my 20-year old son comes in, unaware of my poignant tears, to get something from this room.
“Don’t mind me,” I say. “I’m just writing poetry that makes me cry.”
“Your OWN poetry is making you cry?”
“Yes. I’ll read it to you when I’m done.”
(Maybe. If you’re lucky.)
I’m Meant for Little Things
Big things? No, I’m meant for little things —
I’m the tapper of a traveling stream of a thousand text messages and heart emojis, a hundred “are you almost homes?” and “luv yous”
I’m the tiny-Lego-helmet-finder and the “Where’s my Wallet?” wizard
Big things? No, little things —
I’m the finger-mender of the glove that gets lost a day later at the hockey rink
An empty cupboard magician, a juggler of leftovers, and a make-do artist
I’m the queen of laundry
(my royal eyes have seen that same pair of underwear a hundred times)
We are studying similes and we are trying to avoid the trite cliches that are “as old as the hills”, so we are making up our own. Everyone chose five abstract nouns and wrote two similes for each one. I thought these were some of the best:
