Cool stuff we do after we learn cool stuff

I agonized over an appropriate title for this post. Ridiculous, I know. Especially when you read the title I chose. 

Something Tuna enjoys doing is extending a learning experience from a book or video into a hands-on activity. We tend to have at least one or two of these activities every week. 

Doing cool stuff after learning cool stuff doesn't have to be time-consuming or difficult or expensive. Here are a few things we've done recently:

We read about the Franks, and the beginnings of Paris. We read about the fleur de lis, and what it stands for. Then we made a fleur de lis stamp...

...and we sewed a cape, and stamped the cape...

...and now, Tuna has a royal cape to wear! 

We read about the Maori warriors of New Zealand. Then, we painted Tuna's face in a design typical of the Maori, and she got all theatrical on me, striking this pose (and others). 

We read about medieval Japan, China, and Korea. Then, Tuna single-handedly prepared a Japanese 3-course meal for her family, complete with a chop stick lesson.

Most of the activities we try take under an hour, with the rare exception here and there (we're in the process of creating imaginary islands which will take us a couple of months to finish, for example.)

I can't imagine "doing school" without these incredible projects. They reinforce concepts. They promote bonding. And they meet our primary goal for anything in life: they're fun. 

I get my ideas from the internet. I seldom have to come up with something on my own. There's always a tutorial available. Google and Pinterest are my BFFs. Seriously. Try searching for "hands-on homeschool activities ___ grade" and see how many hits you get. Tons. My usual formula is homeschool hands-on ___" (insert desired lesson: Paris. London. Grammar. Human Body)

There are parents out there not doing fun stuff with their kids. There are parents who think school needs to be regimented, strict, and hard. This is not the case. My Tuna retains so much more information when her hands are involved, when the lesson is brought to life. I will continue having fun with my girl for life. 

Tonight, we're going to our first bonfire ever, in celebration of homecoming week at the high school where Bay attends. She's a cheerleader, Bay, and she's leading the march to the bonfire. It's my first homecoming week: I never attended any of my school's festivities. Tomorrow, we're going on a field trip to an outdoor "living history" museum that depicts life in Germany in the middle ages. How cool is that?! Bay gets to come, too, since there's no school. Then, we get to go watch Bay cheer at her first home game. Oh, she's also singing the national anthem. I'm so excited, and so proud, of both of my daughters. 

Go forth and make stuff with your kids. It's rewarding in so many ways. 

Dynasties: Not Just for Ducks

I don't watch that show. Actually, the thought of it sort of makes me want to vomit a little in my mouth, which you will soon find ironic. But people talk about it nonstop. What is it about Americans that makes us want to watch a bunch of rednecks living their day-to-day lives on television? 

Here, I must stop and admit, fully, to watching Here Comes Honey Boo Boo on a weekly basis. You better redneckognize. 

Anyway, this post has nothing to do with ducks, and everything to do with dynasties. We're reading Story of the World Volume 2: The Middle Ages, and we just finished up chapter eight: The Great Dynasties of China. In the activity guide, I found instructions for replicating a jade necklace with Sculpey. Sounded fun, so off we went. 

Materials: Sculpey in the closest shade to jade we could find, embroidery floss (or other string), something on which to string your beads (we used kebab skewers), a baking sheet, the oven

Soften the clay in your hands, then roll it into ropes and cut off 1/2" bits. Roll those into balls and skewer them. 

Baking the Sculpey at 275F for about fifteen to twenty minutes sets the beads. 

Why yes, those are pajamas my daughter is wearing. 

Then, you can browse the Internet, looking up more detailed information on jade, like we did. Here are some sites we enjoyed:

The Big Site of Amazing Facts

some jade history

Wood Shop, Agriculture, Physical Education, and Culinary Arts

If schools can give fancy names to their courses, so can I. Today, we had wood shop, agriculture, phys. ed., and culinary arts.

Wood Shop

I'm in the process of renovating some furniture I don't love. I bought this table at The Salvation Army thrift shop five years ago with the intention of stripping it down and repainting it.

 

I'm finally getting around to it, and I'm enlisting the help of my kids. They learned how to use my sander today, and they learned that it's hard work to sand corners by hand. We didn't even come close to finishing this project. It'll take  couple of weeks. When it's fully sanded, we're going to paint it grey and white stripes. We have a new knob for the drawer, as well.

 

My kitchen table is a touchy subject. Once upon a time, in a land far, far away from here (in Georgia, precisely), I let my bully mother-in-law convince me that my husband needed a new kitchen table and chairs for his birthday because my high-top bar table and chairs (solid cherry wood, and I loved it) was unsuitable for company. So she bought me a chintzy table and chairs that looks like it has toes. Granted, it was free. But I miss my old table. The wood is bubbled up and the fabric on the chairs is hideous. So I'm going to sand it and paint it bright cherry red. The chairs' fabric arrived in the mail yesterday. It's red and cream chevron pattern duck cloth. The kids will help with the sanding, painting, and reupholstery work. They're pretty excited about the final product.

Of note: the in-laws are coming for a visit this summer. I wonder what monster- ..I mean mother-in-law will have to say about my project.


Also, I bought a three-drawer chest for $5 at a used furniture sale. It's solid wood, very sturdy. It was a great bargain. But the pattern of the staining and the hardware on it make it look like it stepped out of the eighties. New hardware and new paint (same white and grey stripe job, as it is going in the same room) will breathe new life into it. Another thing my kids are learning: Buy cheap, buy used, and transform your bargain into a masterpiece.

Agriculture

Spring has arrived in Germany! Today, we planted our carrots and lettuce, and started some more lettuce and some parsnips in starter pots. Later this summer, we're going to have some good eats! The kids helped plant and learned about fertilizer, seed depth (ooh, math! in real life!), spacing, and crop yield.

 

 

Physical Education

I don't push this one. I don't feel like kids need a class in running around. Tuna skated and Bay ripsticked (I know Blogger spell check is going to love that word). There you have it. Gym.

Culinary Arts

The kids and I volunteer at the thrift shop. We found a pasta rolling machine. So, today, we tried our hands at fresh pasta, for the very first time. See? Adults can learn, too!

 

 

This good stuff is destined for a creamy broccoli-garlic sauce mmmmmm

There you have it. Our "school day" is done (not really...we never stop learning around here). We've learned so much more than those kids learn in that big brick box down the road. And we've had fun doing it (and we absorbed lots of vitamin D in the process).

Tomorrow: volunteering and reading, preferably outside in the sun. Happy Hump Day, everyone. :)





 

What we did on spring break...

Charles had a week off from work for spring break, so we took advantage of the time together, hopped a train and went exploring.

We went to Nürnberg, home of the Nazi War Crimes Tribunal. It was a rich history lesson for all of us. 

Here is Courtroom 600, the courtroom where the tribunal took place. It's been remodeled, of course, as it is still in use today as a courtroom. But the general sense of what it looked like was easy to imagine. The defendants sat in the box to the right of the large doorway. There's an elevator in the box for secure entry and exit of prisoners (can you see the door?). I've studied Nazi Germany for almost two decades. Entering this courtroom was emotionally overwhelming to me. I actually cried. I felt embarrassed for crying, but the flood gates were opened and I let loose. The feeling of being there is somber, tremendously moving... I don't know how to word the feeling. Just...go there yourself if you ever get the chance. 

Bay admitted complete boredom here. As you can see, she is less than enthused about sitting here while Tuna and I (Charles, too, to a lesser extent) sat in awe of history. Tuna listened attentively to her audio tour. I listened to a bit of it but was too overwhelmed to continue. 

The city is full of interesting (weird) statues. 

The famous golden fountain (which was never actually a working fountain at all!). Ornate. Pretty. 

I love finding smiles in inanimate objects! We spotted this fella from the top of the castle, through my camera's zoom. 

The girls are sitting on rock at the base of the castle. We got a fascinating tour of the well house, which was guarded securely, because the Germans were concerned with poisoning plots against them. The well was crazy-deep. I don't remember how deep it was. The tour guide lowered lit candles down into the bottom of the (still full of fresh water) well so we could see how far down it went. The other demonstration he conducted was pouring a pitcher of water into the well. It took the water a full five or six seconds to hit the well water! Tuna asked the guide about the oxygen levels in the well, and expressed concern about how the workers survived. It was all chiseled through solid rock by hand. The tour guide was knowledgeable in the oxygen topic and even told Tuna exactly how far down oxygen can typically be found (a little bit further than the well was dug). Later, I asked Tuna how she thought to ask that question. She reminded me of the scene in one of our Little House books when Pa and the neighbor were digging the well and they send a candle down each day to check for oxygen. That was a nice reminder that the way we're learning really works. We do sticky learning. ;)

Along the same lines: We took a break sitting on some monument steps. The monument was this one here:

It's a monument to Wilhelm the First, who was the first emperor of Germany. We needed a rest, and he offered it.

Tuna took off her shoes and gave herself a massage. :)

Bay sprawled out on the monument steps and soaked in the newly-found sunshine (it's springtime!). I had no idea who Wilhelm was, and I asked about him aloud. Bay knew who he was and explained to me the changes in German government throughout history. And she's not even really that "into" history! Sticky learning! Yay!

We really enjoyed ourselves. Not every moment was rich in history or educationally-motivated. We just went to have a great, memorable day together. It was a "bucket list" city for us. We spent a good part of the day shopping, eating (being next door to Italy does have its perks, lemmetellya!), and goofing around. 

It's so cool that I don't have to force-feed information to my daughters, because they absorb real-world experiences like thirsty sponges. 

Now then, I'm off to enjoy the final day of spring break with my family. We're sanding and painting furniture and putting in a garden today. The temperature is supposed to hover around 65F. Enjoy your day!

Little House and Little Rug

So Tuna and I have been reading Little House on the Prairie. I think we're about halfway done now. We're at the point where the family gets malaria, is rescued by strangers, and spends some time recovering from their illness. Pa is too weak to work outside, and Ma needs help inside, anyway, so Pa sets about the business of making Ma a rocking chair. 

One of the parts of the Little House books that bores me to tears is the in-depth explanations of the monotony of everyday pioneer life. Laura goes into excruciating detail about how things are done at times in the book and it's just boring to read aloud. 

This rocking chair was no different, except that I had an activity planned for weaving that tied in nicely. So we did it yesterday, right after reading. 

Paper plate weaving is about as simple as weaving can be. You just notch a paper plate and go to town with your yarn. Here is a good explanation of how to begin your paper plate weaving. To finish it off, clip the threads on the back of your plate and tie them in knots around your weaving. This will prevent your work from unraveling.

Tuna's woven round has been dubbed her new Barbie rug. It's just the right size. 

Tuna's paper plate weaving final product with tied-off ends

Have you seen the hula hoop weaving tutorial? I think I'd like to try that with some wool yarn for a small area rug. The concept is the same as the paper plate, just on a bigger scale. 

Paper from Pulp & Hieroglyphics

Tuna already made actual papyrus last year, from reeds, in the proper manner. But we wanted to write on some handmade paper for our Egypt project, so we tried recycled paper pulp instead. It was a giant mess but it was fun and successful.

Our blender was lost in our move to Germany, so we had to use my food processor to make our paper pulp. I hate the scent of newspaper, so to mask it, I added vanilla extract and cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger (it worked). 

Oh, by the way: It's super messy. Paper goo came SPLASHING out of my food processor all over the tile, counter, stove, sink, everything it could reach. 

Nasty-looking paper pulp mess ready to be made into paper

It looks like cooked hamburger meat, doesn't it? Since I didn't have a screen, I used one of my stockings over a pan to dry our paper. We flipped it after a day so it would dry evenly. 

No more hamburger meat. Now we have paper. Tuna's writing "EGYPT" on it.

All done!

We made a cuneiform tablet, too, out of baked salt dough. 

Fun Friday

That's not a real thing here. At least, it wasn't even planned to be like this. But we had a great time today reinforcing the week's lessons through hands-on activities.

Actually, "normal" days have looked a lot like this, too. I guess it's just that we had so many projects we wanted to do that today just felt extra fun.

On an average day, we do our obligatory lessons (spelling, grammar, writing - though that is about to become a fun activity because we're working on writing a real book now - and math). Then we move along to the fun stuff: literature, art, history, and science, though not usually on the same day. We can spend hours and hours on our favorite things, and we do.

Today, since we took yesterday off, we wanted to finish out our week with our intended projects. These included whittling soap (just like the boy who whittled Paddle out of wood, but our projects were not as ornate, to say the least), painting and filling and hanging a bird feeder, and baking and decorating a cookie dough map of ancient Egypt.

Whittling soap to get a feel for whittling, as the boy who created Paddle whittled a canoe out of wood. Whittling soap is harder than I expected and we have a great appreciation for "real" whittlers now. 

We're going to start observing local birds, so making them a place to eat seems like a logical place to start. 

Ours is made from a 1/2 gallon milk container, a stick, some yarn, and some paint. 

Hands-on is a great way for Tuna to commit a subject to memory. I expect she will not soon forget her cookie dough map of Ancient Egypt. We used peanut butter cookie dough (1 cup peanut butter, 1 cup sugar, 1 egg), butter-cream frosting, food coloring, and colored sugar. 

In Tuna's own words: "Today was fun, amazing, awesome, and I loved making the cookie. I pretty much loved everything about school today."