Beyond the Books: September

Can you believe it’s October!  The time seems to be slipping by, yet I adore this time of year!  Especially this year!  After being away from a place where “harvest time” has such meaning, I can’t get enough of all the autumn-ness going on right now!  From the colors, to the leaves crunching, harvest produce, cheery pumpkins, crisp air, and holiday anticipation!  Ah, I love it! 

Last month I shared some ways we took our home preschool outside or even just found different ways to learn.  I thought I might keep up the pattern every month to possibly give others some ideas.  And maybe you’d share more of yours with us?  I always appreciate new inspiration!  I am not one to plan things out well, but sometimes just seeing someone else's ideas can spark an idea that would work for the particular circumstance. 

Eclipse: Fynn has been asking about fractions (halves and quarters) a lot lately and I realized it’s a little difficult to explain because it changes depending on what it’s a fraction of.  I knew math was going to be hard for me, but I thought I’d have a couple years of smooth sailing!  Nope.  I think I'm starting to impart the idea of what a half is at least, and being able to go outside and watch the super blood moon eclipse was a fun way to teach about what half of a moon would look like!    While we waited for the moon to rise, we saw the beautiful sunset over the lake and looked up to watch the stars come out.  We even saw one shooting star and a couple planes and satellites.  Wow, why don’t we do this more often!?  Josh pointed out the Big Dipper and it made me think about how I’d like to learn the constillations some day.

Now that is something that’s wild: the sky.  Sometimes I feel like it’s hard to find a truly wild place anymore down here in the lower 48.  Even in Alaska, for that matter, it’s not easy to get to the wild country.  But the sky, it’s always right there, and every clear night your eyes can wander galaxies away.  How does that song go?...”I don’t care, I’m still free, you can’t take the sky from me…”

Geek moment over.  Before we went out that night, I showed the kids a couple YouTube videos (SciShowKids was by far my favorite)  explaining what was going on so they could kind of have an idea when we got out there.  And I guess some little ones can be frightened by the odd moon, so we wanted to avoid that scenario if at all possible through education.

Trees: we ended up exploring trees a lot this month as we watched their leaves go from many shades of green to the vibrant oranges, yellows, reds and purples.  Also fascinating has been discussing the variety of ways that trees will naturally try to plant new trees:  seeds!  We discected several evergreen cones and found the “treasures” (seeds) inside. 

 

And I’m not certain what these (pictured below) are called that fall from the maple trees, but we’ve been calling them helicopters or whirly-gigs.  I’m pretty sure God made them that way as a toy for forest-wandering children as well as a seed transport mechanism because my kids could toss these into the air and watch them whirl forever!  They are rather hypnotizing.

 

 

  A big horse chestnut tree behind our house also started dropping it’d mace-like bulbs, then spilling the shiny brown nut.  It was like treasure hunting here every time we went out, too!  Now I have a whole bucket full I’m not sure what to do with!  Any ideas?  We took a closer look at the areas where the branches had been cut last month and we discovered sap: the smell, texture, color, and even the taste!  Then the little ones started using it as an adhesive!  They glued twigs and leaves to just about anything, even a letter they sent to Grandma. 

 

We still have a lot to learn, but I feel like we made some great progress!  And of course there is just the joy of jumping in a big pile.  PE?  Oh and leaf rubbings for art class?  We did also discuss why the leaves that had fallen were a different color and becoming dry and brittle (disconnection from the sap stream). 

 

Animal Wisdom:  Something that I feel is very important for anyone to learn is how to interact appropriately with animals and we are getting so many more opportunities here!  Having pets in the house is an awesome start and really helps them to be unafraid of animals (and decreases the likelihood of allergies!)  But I'm always so excited when they can meet new critters!  Our sweet friend from whom we buy eggs always lets us go visit the chickens, feed them a snack and check for eggs!  It's such a treat when they're not your own!  She also has some rabbits they love to pet, too!  So soft!  We talk about walking slowly and quietly and gentleness with all the animals and especially the eggs! 

We also got to visit ducks and were later confronted by a gaggle of geese at a new park we visited this week!  With the ducks we got to talk about not chasing them and what were good snacks to offer them.  Did you know that bread crumbs are not good for them?  I didn't until this past year.  You can learn more about that from Stella123 here.  Then the geese came at us as we were walking in another part.  Our little animal lover was so excited and started to run at them with open arms to hug them all!  We learned how to be cautious with geese and remember that they are wild animals and can hiss, bite, and scratch.

 

 

Fractions: We discovered this a little with the moon, then we got some pears from the farm stand across the street and got half and even quarter concepts a little more engrained.  MMmmmm!  What a yummy way to learn math!

Writing: I’m struggling a little with ideas for this one.  We have done a little book work, then tracing with the chalk.  It also seems to help him if there is a purpose to his writing.  Copying letters over and over in a book is tedious, but when he wants to  write a letter to his friends or relatives he  seems to be much more motivated. 

Library story time:  Sometimes, you hear too much of Mom’s voice and just hearing  another seems so much more enjoyable.  A couple age-appropriate stories, songs, and activities they were able to engage in along with others their own age.

Museums: At the beginning of the month we went to a science museum.  It was a bit overwhelming and we didn’t get to see everything.  But I so remember going to science museums growing up, and even though I hated reading through the signs, the concepts I saw demonstrated there quickly came back to me when I had to read about them later on. 
 

 
 

 

Then there was the Smithsonian museum day and we got into the local historical museum free last weekend!  The little ones are just beginning to understand that there has been quite a bit of  time before right now.  Lots of questions about how life went on without engines or electricity.  Great questions and ones I want them to think through!  I want them to figure out alternative ways to do things, how to do without, and know what is important. 

Dorris Ranch also had a fun pioneer day at their recreated village.  The kids were taught about the Wagon Trains, frontier life, trapper life and native life.  They got to practice hoeing up the hard dirt by hand, washing clothes with a wash board, hauling water, grinding flour, writing with a quill and some native children's toys. 

 

 

Music: A very thoughtful and generous couple from our church decided to lend us their keyboard for as long as we wanted it! Wow!  And there are all kinds of drum beats and instrument sounds built in.  The kids are loving playing around with it!  No formal lessons yet, but what a fun introduction!  And we found the ukulele, too, so now the rest of my crew can all play their “ ‘tar’s” together! 

 Then Monday night we all went to see one of the artists we know at a concert held behind an ice cream shop in town.  It was really a lovely venue with a giant mimosa tree growing in the middle.  The kids loved the harp, piano and guitar and danced along to the upbeat songs.  A late night, but well worth it!

Our little guy nailed it this week when he told me he goes to lots of schools.  I asked him what he meant by that and he said, "Well I have homeschool and Sunday school and Daddy school and Grandpa electric school and outside school and..."  The list went on, but that's all I remember and I just thought, Yes!  He gets it!  Learning is everywhere! 

Grandpa Electric  (and construction) school:  I've heard several other homeschool moms talk about this and I love the idea.  If there's someone else in your life who's knowledgeable about something (especially if it's something you do not excel in!) consider asking them to teach your little one a skill.  Most people (especially Grandpa!) are more than happy to share their knowledge!

 

 
 

 

Sunday School crew discovering bugs and making their own salad from things they picked from the garden:

 

Projects around the house: paper making, baking together (apple oat muffins!), drawing a picture together, building a barn for their toy animals with Daddy, corn husk doll making, and map reading with Daddy and Grandma. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I enjoy writing these out because it helps me remember that they are learning and getting new experiences all the time.  I think like any mom I often worry that I don't do enough.  And maybe I don't, but they're learning anyway!  If you'd like anymore information on any of these projects, please let me know!  I'd love to hear what you are interested in! 

 





Mobile Home Time Capsule

This is our rental.   Isn’t it the loveliest thing ever?  Okay, maybe not ever, but I would consider it a miracle!  The story of how we found this place starts back in Alaska.  We felt it was time to move south for many reasons and felt such peace about the move.  It really seemed as though God was throwing open doors  when it came to taking steps to get down here (selling our house, a new job for Josh, etc.) sometimes even faster than comfortable.  When perusing properties down here we began realizing that our priorities were changing and we weren’t caring about the houses so much as the land.  We had learned that renting when you arrive in a new area is best so that you can get to know your way around and what you want in a place before you buy.  So we were keeping our eye open for rentals, but didn’t want to commit to anything sight-unseen.  No worries, though, there seemed to be plenty on the market…

…until we arrived.  I called every realtor and property management in the two nearest counties searching for places, but there were so few available in our price range, and absolutely none that would take our pets.  The waiting list for possibilities was months long.  We even considered renting a trailer, but the one park that would accept our pets would not accept children!  Can you imagine!  I’m afraid they’re a bit of a non-negotiable!  We were at the end of our ropes and could no longer afford to stay in the hotel, so we checked out with no idea where we would sleep that night. 

No place to go and my little guy made me a clover crown

 

So, we went to a park and spent the day playing with the kids.  That afternoon, I got a tip from one of the gazillion realtors I had talked to previously: one of her friends had just bought some property and might have something that would work!  I called the number she gave right away and spoke to a rather confused man on the other end.  You see, he had just typed up an ad and was getting ready to push the publish button when I called and couldn’t figure out how I knew about it already!  Talk about timing!  Well, they showed it to us right away: a 1970s double wide that hadn’t been lived in for over a year.  It needed some cleaning, but was in relatively good shape.  And, if we would take it without them replacing the carpets, they would accept all three of our pets for no deposit or fee!  And the kids were allowed, too! =)

Best part: we’re on a little bit of land in farm country !  There’s several farm stands walking distance away where we  have indulged in the best fresh fruit and veggies at least weekly.  Within a mile is a county park full of trails and a cool, calm river for the hot days.  It takes Josh less than ten minutes to get to work, and our landlords have been truly wonderful and helpful.  They already have a grandparent-like relationship with our children.  We’re still going to look to buy our own plot, but this double wide is going to be harder to leave than I would have thought!  I am just so thankful for this place and wanted to say, “God is so good!”

All taped up and ready to go!

All that to lead us to the fact that this is an old house (but I’m okay with that!)  You know, there’s not a lot out there about sprucing up mobile home rentals where you aren’t going to put in a ton of money to update the look of the place.  I found nothing on painting mobile home walls!  Because they are not your typical spackled walls.  The wallpapers (yes, plural) were really peeling off the walls in the kitchen and I had to do something.  Our landlord asked if I would just paint it and I of course agreed; I enjoy painting!  First, I pried the trim pieces off with the back of a hammer, then I used this water and fabric softener concoction from Fancy Schmancy to get the layers of wall paper off and it worked so great!  Better than I expected! 

Primed

 But then I realized that under the bottom layer of wallpaper was just plywood.  When I tried to get that final layer off it was tearing the wood to shreds, so we determined the best thing to do was to just paint over it after a couple of coats of Kilz.  The color choice was not my own, but I do love how it turned out and how there is finally one un-patterned surface in this abode!  It’s such a resting place for the eyes! 

Most of the walls are wood paneling, but every wall papered area and drawer lining were such interesting prints, I wanted to share with you.  It felt like I was peeling back layers of time and I kept finding more and more patterns!  Some I like more than others.  I’m guessing at the eras, too.  Let me know if you’d switch any of them…

1970s

 

 

 

 

1980s

1990s

 

2010s

 

The only way I know the last one is because I added to the menagerie when I had to replace a couple sections of contact paper.  There are even more I can only see pieces of without really tearing into what's there.   I believe I'm nearly up to twenty different patterns in this house! (Two of the above are not paper, but other surface patterns.)  But wasn’t that kind of fun?  If you had to pick a favorite (or least favorite), which would it be?

Edible Chocolate and Peanut Butter Play Dough!

Today I’d like to introduce you to the silliest member of our family: meet Clancey!  He joined our family just a few months before our eldest was born.  You  could say I was in baby mode.  I also got six chicks at that time.  Life was a little crazy for a while, to put it lightly!  Anyway, Clancey has had a bit of a rough life with us thus far, having been attacked by moose twice and nearly fatally hit by a truck on the highway.  He loved the Alaskan winters, though, being half Malamute.  In fact, he was born at the beginning of winter, so by the time the spring came (at least six months later) he had such a hard time knowing where to go to the bathroom once all the patches of snow had melted!

I was just going back through photos last night and came across this video, taken exactly one year ago Saturday.  He loved cracking through those first layers of ice to catch the bubbles. And to think this year they’ve already been having snow on the ground for a couple weeks!  This makes me smile every time:

Clancey does the Fox Hop

Sometimes just going into a new season triggers fond memories.  For whatever reason, as the air began to get crisp and breezy, our little one (who’s only experienced four autumns) began to remember making edible play dough.  Although this is probably true to some extent anywhere, a lot of outdoor life is crammed in to the summer in Fairbanks, then we did all our fun indoor activities when the cold weather hit.  So he thought of this recipe and started reminding me about every other hour that we needed to make a batch.  And I’m so glad he did because it’s fun and simple, we can make it together, play with it together, and enjoy eating it together!  So yummy!  Really chocolate and peanut butter are always good together!  I remember this Reese’s commercial from TV Land when I was growing up!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Crash

SO cheesy!  But memorable, I guess.  Digging up the recipe reminded me of how Mom would make it growing up.  In fact, she would get groups of our friends together and make huge batches of it at a time and everyone always loved it.  Except when my buddies of the time decided to eat the evaporated milk by itself.   That didn’t go over too well…

Anyway, I only had a little honey left so I just made a half batch of the recipe below, then split that and added a little cocoa powder to one to have the chocolate along with the peanut butter.  Yum!  It was hard to convince the little hooligans to play with it they were so busy just gobbling it down!  I love how quick this is too!  Super fast, no baking, 3-4 ingredients, and minimal dishes!  A delicious consumable that’s okay to play with.  That’s my kind of activity!

2 cups evaporated milk

2 cups peanut butter

1 cup honey

2 TBSP cocoa powder (optional)

Mix them together.  Enjoy!  Yup, that’s it!  Add more evaporated milk or peanut butter as needed to achieve the perfect consistency.  It will be a little more grainy than regular playdough, you’re just looking for a moldable texture.

 

Hope you’re enjoying this autumn-time and can make some new pleasant memories with your family this season!

Autumn Scavenger and I-Spy Jar

It’s AUTUMN!!!  I’m just so excited!  This is the first time in seven years that we’ve had a fall season that lasts more than a week or two!  (It’s super short in Fairbanks where the snow is already falling right now)  The colors and pleasant crispness and all the harvest activities are so appealing to me!

 

Behind our home are two trees side by side: an apple (see my previous blog post about these treasures!) and a horse chestnut.  The later took us a while to identify this summer, but now it’s perfectly obvious as it drops it’s fruit to the ground.  And it’s shedding its leaves quickly!  Dumping might be a more appropriate term.  

So our big guy started raking the leaves all together this week into a big pile.  He did pretty well before getting distracted and I was able to finish it up into a 3-4 foot pile.  I had to explain to them what to do, then ready…set…GO!  They sped to the pile and jumped right in!  Oh, they were thrilled!  Squealing and giggling, throwing the leaves in the air and burrowing down in.  By far the best part of their day!

 

Clancey getting in on the joy

 

Sometimes you just need to get outside and get some fresh air!  We were having one of those days earlier this week, and everyone was grumpy.  In fact, our oldest was seriously fussing that he did NOT want to go out!  I insisted because I knew it was just the medicine we needed, though I didn’t even know what we’d do once we got there.  We just started wandering and picking up tiny treasures, and as we went the mood improvement was drastic!  There were feathers, acorn hats, pebbles, lichen, pinecones, and bark.  Each new item was celebrated.  We got back to the house with a bagful and I wondered what we could do with our collection?

I had a freshly washed honey jar and we tucked them all away in there.  It was so fun to look at them all through the glass and remember finding each one!  We’ve hung on to it now as an I-spy jar.  They will try to pick out the items they found or I’ll ask them to find something white, round, sharp or whatever.  It’s really been quite fun and such a simple form of entertainment!  You could do this with anything!  I even thought about picking up litter along the road for some tidying and color variety.  Or maybe toys that get left out!  Even if you just kept it to natural items, it would look different depending on the season.

Then just yesterday I read about this Nature Pal Exchange and it looks so fun!  From what I understand, every season you can sign up to have a sort of pen pal in another climate.  Then you go on a nature walk and collect little treasures just like we did earlier.  You take them home, label them, and send them off to your nature pal while they do the same.  Then you get to discover nature treasures from a completely different region!  How fun!  And I love how they keep the focus on God's creation and how we can be responsible with it.  This is their first year and they're already supporting charities with the monies made, too!  I’m going to see if we can get in on this next one and I’ll let you know how it goes.  If you get a chance, check out their Instagram account, too.  Some of the collections are absolutely lovely!

 

Happy treasure hunting!