Brainstorms: Glitter is Coming

We have been making our own Christmas cards for years, filed under Homeschool Art Projects, or Making Virtue out of Necessity. I mean, we have to do something! It's cold outside, and as previously confessed, we're broke.The children need to develop their little hand muscles and artistic souls, so kitchen table cards it is.

Don't let the blog fool you, I am usually not so on top of this process as to have an actual process. It's usually a week long free-for-all of stencils, stickers, paint, and pens. But this year is unusual. I have an idea; a master plan, which I am imposing all over the place, and the kids are knocking it out. Paint, my elves! Paint!

In my adventures, buying used goods at the dump, I happened across the paper doilies and glitter necessary for this project; but not card stock. Instead, I found a big fat short cut in the form of a giant box of hanging file folders. Prefolded cards, just cut them out. I can get two to three from each folder.

You can paint these doilies any which way. George liked imagining where his trees would be cut, and stayed controlled with the lines and colors.

After slathering on some color, and letting it dry, cut the slices. Leaving little breaks of white between colors helps with the snow-covered tree effect.

 Glue the trees onto the folded card bases and top with a dot of glue + pinch of glitter. I hope you already know, the glitter will get everywhere. It's glitter. That's what it does, you know, besides glittering.

 We'll get a metallic ink pen and add some greetings and dots and squiggles, before mailing them all over this side of the planet.

There you have it. If you're on our mailing list, I guess the cat's out of the bag. Sorry for ruining that magical moment when you, with trembling fingers, open the package from our family and see for yourself what the card looks like. I figured it was only fair to warn you: Glitter is coming.

Brainstorms: Advent Calendar II: The Preparening

In typical fashion, my preparedness for upcoming holidays is a big jagged line of highs and lows. Let's start at the bottom. Thanksgiving is, like, forty eight hours away, and not only have I not done any shopping. My cookbooks, spiral notebook, and pen, are sitting on the living room coffee table, making sad trumpet music of failure at me every time I look at them.

However, at the tippy top of my super mom accomplishments is this year's Advent Calendar. I capitalized it because it has earned a spot in the list of traditions I attempt to cram into December. Only, remember last year, when I realized you actually have to start thinking of them in November? I didn't forget that this year. I got right on it about a week ago, because, not only did I want to have it finished by December 1st, I wanted to be able to share it with all the world well before then.

I decided to make the different units of the calendar hold the chocolate. Oh yeah, I also learned, just give them chocolate each time. Always learning here.

Our take on an amalgam of a million different kids craft idea sites all over the internet. Paper pyramid trees, a forest of them, full of candy, each waiting to be opened and harvested.

Here's how they started.

 It's like a triangle base, with three triangle sides, each of those sides having a little flap.

That helps sturdy the box corners.

We decorated them, numbered them, scored and folded them, punched holes at the top, stuffed them, and tied them shut. When you're doing 24 of anything, it's best to go as simple as possible. My mind could imagine all sorts of adorable embellishments, scraps of lace, buttons, magazine pictures, wrapping paper. They could look much more dolled up. We just used our stencils, stamps, fingertips and ink pads, with stickers and the occasional glued on dot from a hole puncher. Sometimes you have to let some things go and just plow through. Get her done, so to speak. I mean, there are springerle cookies to make, for goodness sake. Otherwise they won't be properly aged by the time we watch Sound of Music! (panting, wild-eyed)

Holiday Traditions: Sometimes they fill you with a love for the steady rhythm of time, like a song whose beat never fails; a song to which you are invited to add your own artful meaning, thus sharing a bit of what's inside you with those around you, and partaking in what they offer. This loving commune can be what makes life worth living. Other times, it can feel like, "OH NO! Christmas Eve is tomorrow and we never made those gingerbread Tardises I saw on Pinterest!! AND WHY HAVE WE NEVER GONE ICE SKATING AND THEN HAD COCOA?! This is when I take a deep breath and tell myself to move on. Enjoy finishing something, instead of spending forever making it just so. The little people in your life will benefit more from that light-heartedness than any clever craft activity.

Another variation on this idea is to fill the boxes with something other than candy. A small ornament or gift could fit in the box, which can be adapted to fit most anything. You could also stuff the trees with little slips of paper, saying that it's time to make a wreath with a parent, or read a seasonally-themed story, or play a favorite song from a CD, turned up loud, dancing around. As long as you mix it up and do something out of the ordinary, it should feel like a treat.

Only, don't intermingle candy and non-candy box contents. I learned that lesson the hard way. If it goes- Day. 1: Make a wreath, Day 2: CHOCOLATE, Day 3: Read  'Winter is the Warmeest Season" with Henry. Guess who hates reading books now? The kid who was really hoping for some candy. So pick one road and stay on it. We're stuck here, giving them chocolate every night, but it's not too late for you. Don't worry though, we're a merry bunch.  Rocking out to carols and making wreaths will happen, even if we are not commanded to do so by the little trees.

Brainstorms: Thanks

This is a Blue Hubbard Squash, we grew in the garden.

Here is the same Blue Hubbard squash, with rock'n roll fingers.  Thanks, Thomas.

Here is that same Blue Hubbard squash, with a turkey head.  Did I mention this squash will probably be featured prominently in our Thanksgiving dinner?

Here is Mae, calling it a chicken, only she says "chkn".  She is also eating leftover pumpkin stew out of an old hummus container.  I feel like I might be losing you here.  Perhaps, a little background:

See, every year, one of my good friends, also a mom and lover of learning, does a November-long activity with her two beautiful children, leading up to Thanksgiving Day. I am lavishing her and her children with praise, because I want her to know that we are not mocking her wonderful project, with our bizarre recreation of it.  Every November morning, her children offer one thing they are thankful for, to be written on a paper turkey "feather" and added to the back of a turkey figure. This is a little like it, only hers are much cuter, with the turkey facing you, and the feathers made from a variety of pretty paper.

So, I told the kids about it, and they felt we should do it.  Only one thing, we don't eat the celebrated bird on the holiday of dubious origins.  We do eat a lot of stuff we like, however, and will probably slay and prepare our vegetables with a sense of gratitude.  And so, Thomas fashioned a paper and duct tape turkey head, and Hubbard, the Blue Squash of Thankfulness was born.  He sits on our shelf, accumulating daily feathers, bearing the names of things we love.  Today was day one.  Mae is grateful for Pandora, the online radio that fills our house with cumbia music all day (my thing to be grateful for, coincidentally).  George thanks Netflix for Kipper, Henry is thankful there is pastry in the world, and Thomas appreciates a little thing known as Mankind.  I can't wait to see what they say tomorrow.

Brainstorms: Saddle Bubble

George and his dad made a saddle surface today. That's what you call the soap bubble that folds two ways. They used a bent paper clip, some soapy water, and a little food coloring.

This activity reveals the smallest area within any closed shape, even one that is bent in two directions.

Brainstorms: Flipping the Script

Ah, (late) Spring! When we dust off everything that got all dusty during winter, rub our crusty eyes, yawn and stretch and start school.* Yep. Backyard University is flipping the script. We see no reason to commence in fall and break in late spring. That's just when we're getting started! There's more light. The weather is nicer. The adults are more energetic. The garden is exciting. It feels like a beginning, which is why saying good-bye to teachers and learning activities at this point in years past always seemed strange to me. After many long dark months in which leaving the house is a painful chore, we are suddenly on our own when the sun is out and everyone finally feels like going here and there? No. This is the new time, and for us here at the BU, ~Spring is the new Fall!~

And, while we're at it, ~Saturday is the new Monday!~

Real Talk: Most of the week is less than productive. When you factor in every daily obligation, there's little time to do lots of prolonged active learning projects. There's one adult here, and she's just trying to scrape up the usual chaos sprinkles of daily life most of the time. The weekend holds more promise. The mathematician is home, and the conversations and projects can go on uninterrupted, for the most part.

Speaking of projects, we're happy to announce the initiation of the launching of an idea. We're going to blog our way through this book.

You'd think blogging your way through something would require hipwaders, but no. I might still wear mine, but that's beside the point. This book requires just a few basic craft supplies, time, bored kids of a variety of ages, and grown-ups. We have all of that (and so much more), and are going to give it our best shot.

We're going to go for an average of one activity per day for a whole year, starting this Sunday, with the Bas-Relief Pancakes (#18). The activities range from simple to very involved, so rather than do them in order, we'll choose them according to the seasons, weather, and our needs. We reserve the right to double up and and do two or more simple activities one day, if we need to make up a day. Not all of them will be discussed here on the blog. Sometimes, we'll just post a photo or status update on the Backyard University facebook page. You "liked" that already, right? Good.

*We practice a rare form of unschooling called Secretly Maniuplated Living, and it really goes on 24/7/52. It is powered by the superfuel that is a kid's internal motivation, and somewhat supported by attending grown-up masterminds who put said kids into situations where they can pick up grade-level skills and concepts said grown-ups looked up on the Oregon Department of Education Common Core State Standards page. Shh! Don't tell the little ones. They just love to cut and glue. They don't know they mastered key fine motor skills.