We are gradually reducing the amount of batteries that we use and converting those we do use to rechargeable but what do we do with the drawer FULL of used batteries? First Elijah will sort them by manufacturer and type.
Then Sadie and Elijah will organize them in neat rows in a boot box.
Then we take them down to the Ft. Worth Recycling Center for recycling!
We finally figured out a way to get this new raised veggie bed to sit flat and be stable and a slightly less than level surface. Elijah enjoyed the hauling of bricks and building process even though it was flawed and we had to take the whole thing down to rebuild it in a more stable way.
We are gradually filling it with bags of soil. The bags are so heavy that the car can only take so many home at one time!
While at the Water Gardens the other day, we saw a bride having her pictures taken. Sadie approached her to tell her that she looked beautiful- just like a princess. My friend Sara and I talked then about how long it had been since we’d actually seen our own wedding gowns. Sadie must have heard or this is just a serendipitous occurrence because she asked if she could see my dress so we pulled it out of the closet.
She and I both enjoyed looking at the dress and she loved trying on the headpiece with the veil. We wrapped it back up safely for the day that she will wear it (or decide not to and cut it up for some other purpose 
Sadie recently decided (and quite out of the blue, I might add) that she would very much like to plant tulips. I love to garden but have never endeavored to plant bulbs. I know nothing about it. So we looked it up and found this video on ehow.com.
We all watched it together and went out to purchase our tulip bulbs and supplies for planting at Home Depot.
Then we got to planting. We dug a hole 3-4 times as deep as the bulbs were wide (yes, we measured with a ruler) and mixed in our compost with the existing topsoil.
Then we set the tulip bulbs about 4 inches apart so that they will sprout in a clump shape rather than an unnatural looking line. We skipped the chicken wire cage as we have never seen a squirrel in our neighborhood and are fairly confident they will stay where we put them. We shall see! Hopefully in the spring we will have parrot tulips that look like this in our front yard:
Though I don’t have many interesting pictures, let it be noted that we met up with Justin, Sara, and Sara’s parents (having traveled south to escape the NH winter and ventured into town for the Greek Festival. We tried some new food (pastitsio, gyro, and loukoumathes- YUM), looked at Greek candles, textiles, sculpture, and jewelry, and (of course) bounced in the bounce house, had some face painting, and colored!
Afterward, we took them to one of our favorite places in town- the Ft. Worth Water Gardens. We had never climbed up to the top of The Mountain- a mountain made of graduated concrete towering over the gardens- so we checked it out!
Another wonderful Casa Manana children’s theater production- The Stinky Cheese Man based on the book The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales.
We enjoyed it thoroughly- even having not known the premises of a couple of the fairy tales.
Not being a group to let an excuse for an extended adventure go to waste, we met up down the road at the Ft. Worth Botanic Gardens once again. This time, we checked out another area which happens to have a children’s boardwalk filled with exciting things to see and do. We went the length of the boardwalk investigating which “phones” connected to which and were able to track down the mates to all but one with this method: Elijah tells me to stay at the one we are investigating and runs ahead to talk into both at the next station until it is determined that we can hear/speak to each other. Then I run to catch up. Repeat.
We even saw this guy! This is a rare sight indeed. Though we have seen several of these in preserved form, this was the first phasmatodea (AKA- stick bug or walking stick) we had ever seen that was quite alive!
Elijah and Sadie peek out of the climbing log on the boardwalk.
Sadie loves to make ink pictures out of various types of berries. Here she investigates the berries of this bush. It was determined that they were a lovely color but not juicy enough to produce an ink. They were brought home and used for a collage instead.
Elijah listens to bird calls and looks at the birds to which they correspond.
Elijah and Ethan look at birds and their eggs. Ever seen a hummingbird egg? They’re tiny!!!
We’ve been feeling very crafty lately.
There was a request to make salt dough ornaments and so, using every last bit of salt (and needing to quarter the recipe so that we would have enough), we did.
The spare wood pieces from behind the shed have become quite a source of amusement and invention. FYI- children do not require pre-made balance boards, balance beams, or balance anything else. A few different lengths and widths of board and the imaginations and inventions will amaze.
Sadie is becoming more independent with her cooking tools. Here she cuts apples and clementines for a fruit salad that she and Lijey ate for lunch.
The kids made glycerin soap bars complete with scents, colors, and trinkets in the middle- a surprise for clean kids!
Elijah paints his ornaments.
Sadie has been loving flipping through a library book called Eco Art- Earth Friendly Art and Craft Experiences for 3-9 year olds
She’d been waiting a while for a milk jug and before we knew it, we had two! The kids decided to make this ball game. It’s fun! It reminded me of jai alai which led to locating Spain on the map and watching YouTube videos of jai alai.
Let’s make an elevator for our babies! Tangled rope on the up-pull left us wondering about a better system. We’re thinking a pulley may be in order.
Yet another library book that has led to hours of fascination for both kids is this huge one (from the adult section) on the history of robotics. Here Sadie uses it as a template for her own drawing of a robot.
It was election day and (post-voting), we LEAPers needed something to keep our minds off of the polls so a whole lot of us gathered at the park for a big, giant day of fun.
Jaiden, Kadence, Sadie, and Ehlayna go cruisin’.
How many LEAPers can you fit in a sandbox? ALOT (and we totally could’ve fit more and probably did at some point).
Many of the kids ventured down to the water here and there to check out the birds, fish, and turtles. Here Elijah sports his Obama gear as he mucks around.
More LEAPers for Obama!
Brett shows Kenzie, Sadie, and Gretchen into his fort under the playground. There was an entry fee varying between 10 and 15 pieces of mulch to enter. All the girls were paid in full.
Someone needs to remind us that we live in Texas. Our New Hampshire instincts (very similar to a squirrel’s) to prepare our home for winter have kicked in. We have several projects going on all at the same time.
The shed is in need of some TLC. Sadie and I started by scraping, sanding, and painting it. I haven’t taken a finished picture of it yet (though it is) but it looks great! Next up for the shed- replacing two rotten door frame boards and a few of the shingles that got blown off in the spring.
Replace the fence? Stain the fence? Replace the fence? Stain the fence? We’ve gone back and forth. With the economy in its current situation, we went with stain the fence. We’ve started with the sections that were redone and we won’t have to replace for some time. Elijah jumped right in with Chris on this one.
The kids and I are building a vegetable garden to accommodate a larger number and variety of plants for next season. We needed more space and depth and decided to use the pile of bricks leftover from the housebuild which, to this point, we’ve had no idea how to use. After constructing a wall 2 bricks wide and 3 high in a 12′ x 5′ rectangle, it was clear that severe winds or a leaning dog would knock it over fairly easily. We needed a different plan.
So, after discussion with some friends, we went to Home Depot and picked up some cinder blocks to use as a base for the bricks. It worked beautifully. Our compost plan is still in the works but our garden is ready for planting! Of course, all of this home improvement leaves the kids flat sometimes. Continued staining of the fence led to this:
How do you blog cognition? Without worksheets, quizzes, test and other forms of mandated proof of knowledge, how is mastery measured? It is not measured. It is demonstrated- freely and without bounds or self-consciousness. It is used- daily by necessity and for… FUN! Elijah has become fascinated with math and is constantly spouting equations, different combinations of numbers to use to achieve the same sum, odd vs. even numbers and dividing both, etc. He does algebra instinctively and loves to quiz us to see if we achieve the same result to his made-up equations as he did.
I blog mostly by using pictures as my recall for things that we have done, places that we have gone, etc. Math equations continually interspersed in car rides, dinner conversations, and all over the house leave no visible trace by which to jog my memory.
On one morning, PBS had a commercial that children could win one of several fantastic prizes by submitting a math word problem. This information was accompanied by an example word problem with the answer to be found on the internet. It went roughly as follows: A hot dog stand sells hot dogs for $2.50 each. If they sell 20 hot dogs in one day, how much money did they earn? Elijah couldn’t resist. We worked it out by both addition and multiplication then checked our answers against each other and the answer on the web. How to write one’s own? When attempting to write a word problem, Elijah had difficulty conceptualizing an example that had no immediate pertinence. We dropped it and, within 5 minutes, he had two just by being made aware that he was doing math in life. This is a very clear example of ONE of the reasons why we unschool. The presentation of information without readiness, necessity, or application only breeds confusion and fear (how much of the world has a math phobia?). So much of what is in texts are concepts removed from the situational bases for their use. This presentation makes them seem abstract, frustrating, and unnecessary.
Elijah gets great joy out of math. He says, “My brain is like a computer, you know.” Sadie feels this joy and satisfaction and is catching the bug as well.
Life is math and math is life. I see that now and I’m not afraid anymore. I was doing it all the time. Thank you, Elijah.
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