Pasta Day

It seems that without meaning to, I've been writing along a theme lately. It's an over-used proverb, but for me it holds true: It takes a village to raise a child. This phrase has become a joke of sorts but when you think about it, it is very wise.
I, alone, could not give my kids the varied experiences they have been given. My daughter and, soon, my older son have had the experience of helping others in a far away place. Our church and many committed adults have allowed my kids learn about another culture and share our many blessings with people who don't have as much. Friends and their families bring different viewpoints and perspective to many issues. Musicians share their music with my family when we attend a concert. Actors tell stories to my children in a way I never could. My daughter shared her love of maps with AH when she invited him to her college cartography lab and taught him to make a map on the computers there.
I am always happy when someone volunteers to share a skill or experience with us. One good friend, Cathy, did that recently when she invited AH and me to her home to make homemade pasta and Alfredo sauce. AH is a pasta fiend, and was very excited to try this.

Cathy was great! She had AH working right alongside her. He mixed ...

and kneaded...and rolled. He shredded and measured. AH had a blast! He also had the satisfaction of sitting down at a table of people knowing he had helped to feed them. The pasta was delicious, but the sharing of a new experience was priceless and will not be soon forgotten. I am blessed that my "village" is so willing and eager to help!

Thank Goodness for Rachel

I'm often asked how I can teach my child every subject. The questions are asked as if we learn in a vacuum. I suppose most people think that homeschoolers must be all alone at home all the time. AH and I strive to be out in the community: both the general and the local homeschooling community. The homeschoolers I know read blogs, Internet sites, books and magazines for inspiration and help. They love to share what they learn. Most of my inspiration and ideas come from others who are homeschooling themselves. The most helpful suggestion I've ever received came from Rachel, a homeschool mom in St. Paul who I found myself working with during the Minnesota State Fair. What wise ideas did she impart? She simply recommended a book, Right-Brained Children in a Left-Brained World: Unlocking the Potential of your ADD child, by Jeffery Freed and Laurie Parsons. AH doesn't suffer from ADD (we've had him tested) but he is extremely right-brained. Rachel also has a right-brained learner, so I immediately requested the book from our library. I read the book with interest, not thinking it was going to change our homeschooling lives, and was intrigued with the author's ideas. It was the chapter on spelling that changed everything for us. AH has had an extremely hard time with spelling. His is atrocious! We've tried all sorts of systems and books and methods to no avail. Here was one chapter of a book that unlocked the mystery of spelling. I remember thinking to myself, "Could it really be this simple?" As the author suggested, I chose a word that had multiple syllables and that he wouldn't know how to spell: Cartography. I spelled it out on a sheet of paper like so:

Cartography

I called AD in from another room and asked him to study the word and make a mental image of it in his mind. I gave him 20 seconds. Then I covered the word and asked him to spell it. Without much hesitation, he spelled it correctly! This is a child who had difficulty spelling the word from! The author then tells you to ask the child to spell it backwards. I thought there was no way AH would be able to do that, but I tried anyway. With that mental image in his mind, AH spelled it backwards correctly! I cried that day and almost everyday that we work on spelling. It's fun to see the pride on his face when he remembers how to spell a word. And, yes, he can still spell cartography correctly!

Thank goodness for Rachel! Sometimes inspiration is sitting right next to you.

Frozen Dreaming

January in Minnesota can be beautiful and bitterly cold and dangerous at the same time. I do love living here even though I have been known to complain about the weather (Minnesotans are notorious for complaining about the weather All. The. Time.) Before we have our famous January thaw, one of my ways of coping with the bitter cold is to brew a hot cup of dark roast and open up my seed catalogs. I am instantly transported to warmer days. It is heavenly reading. I take notes, draw up diagrams of the garden, research plants. Does any real garden come close the the frozen dreams in January? So many goals, hopes, dreams, and plans. I'm an idea person so I love to let my imagination fly. The gardens of my dreams are lush, beautiful and practical, and there are never any bugs! Though my real garden never quite measures up to the garden in my head, I do believe it benefits from these moments in the middle of January when all is possible.

Christmas at the Swedish Institute

The Friday before Christmas we went on a very Christmas-y field trip to the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis. We stopped for coffee and hot chocolate to sip on the 45 minute drive from home and listened to Christmas music and talked about all sorts of things.

The first part of our tour was an informational session about Christmas in Sweden. We learned about St. Lucia's Day, Star Boys and traditional Christmas decorations and foods. We then got to try our hand at making heart ornaments with construction paper. I thought AH would hate this, but he liked this so much he made three!

Our group learns about Christmas in Sweden

AH concentrates on weaving the basket

After the craft we were brought upstairs to the mansion proper. We learned that the Turnblad mansion is in fact classified as a castle because it has turrets and battlements. AH was so proud that he knew what architectural features were required to classify a building as a castle! We learned about the family that built this fabulous home, the Turnblads. During the Holidays, the Swedish Institute has 5 of the rooms decorated especially to represent each of the 5 Nordic nations: Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Iceland.

After the tour, we stopped in to the Kaffestuga, the coffee shop on site. We had lingonberry juice with Swedish cardamom pastries. Yum!

It was a great way to spend a morning before Christmas. It really got us in the Christmas spirit!

AH with one of his finished heart baskets

Visiting Sue

It's good to be blogging again. I guess I just needed one thing off my plate for a while.

While I was taking a break, we have been on a lot of field trips. One of the most interesting was "A T-Rex Named Sue" It is a traveling exhibit from the Field Museum in Chicago.

AH and I woke bright and early to drive about an hour and a half to a small county museum in central Minnesota. We listened to an audio book on the way, so the time flew by. We arrived at the Stearns History Museum early and spent some time in the gift shop while we waited for our tour to begin.

Then we got to meet Sue.

AH took this photo

AH with Sue coming at him!

She is the largest and most complete T-Rex skeleton ever found. What we were seeing was one of 2 replicas that travel the world. She is awesome. That's really all I can say! Along with the skeleton, there are pods to learn more about Sue, the technology used by scientists to study Sue, dinosaur vision and more. We got to look through Stegosauruses eyes and a T-Rex's eyes. Since each animals eyes were placed differently, they each have a very different field of vision. If you find Sue in your neighborhood soon, I would heartily recommend a visit!

Our group gets a good look at Sue's 5 foot skull

A better view of the skull

AH experiencing one of the many educational "pods" located in the exhibit area

Post Cards!

Who doesn't love to get mail? We rarely get "real" mail. By real, I mean letters, personal notes and post cards. (Bills don't count...I get plenty of those!!) AH has discovered the pleasure of receiving mail. Last week I put out a plea to my facebook friends to send AH a post card from their home state or a state they were visiting and he would research each state as he got them. 3 days later we had our first post card from Barry in South Dakota!

Then the cards really started pouring in!

That's when I noticed that AH really loved this project. I made up two notebooking pages where AH could tape a post card and list some interesting facts about that state. We printed out state flags, license plates and state quarters on sticker paper and AH cuts them out and adds them to his notebooking pages. I really got a lot of ideas from Jimmie's 50 States Notebooking lens at Squidoo. AH loves the stickers. In addition to those items, AH researches each state to find the year of statehood, state motto, capital city, other cities, and any notable rivers and/or mountains and records it on the notebooking pages.

He has gotten up every morning since we've gotten these postcards to work on this project before anything else. He hasn't done this since our baseball project! It's a miracle!

Below AH looks up the state motto of South Dakota which is : Under God, the people rule

South Dakota notebook page 1:

The plan is to gather all the sheets into a 3 ring binder and, hopefully, learn about each state as they come in. We have a pile to go through already, but it won't take him long to get through it if his enthusiasm holds. I have a feeling that as long as those post cards keep coming that won't be an issue!

Thanks to my dear friends for all your help. Your effort is making learning fun for this 11 year old!

A Halloween Dilemma

It had all the makings of a disaster.

I have an 11 year old son who likes to trick or treat. I also have an 18 year old high school senior who plays football. A section semifinal game was scheduled for 7pm, October 31st.

Like I said. The makings of a disaster.

First off, who schedules a game on Halloween for goodness sake! And then, who schedules it for 7 pm on Halloween night?

Apparently the Minnesota High School League does. And as a parent, how was I to handle this? I really didn't want to miss the game (it is his last year, after all). I also wanted my 11 year old to be able to trick or treat and have fun.

Thank goodness for friends! We've known this family for years. It's not easy to find a family who have almost the same spread of ages that we do! It's come in handy since the older boys have played baseball and football together since 6th grade. They were in the same boat. They live very near the high school, and invited AH to trick or treat in their neighborhood so if there was trouble, we could be there quickly. We outfitted the younger boys with cell phones, and sent them off trick or treating with instructions to go home right after they were done.

They two boys had a blast alone! They had quite a load of candy after canvassing the neighborhood and they got to play video games after they were done. I called at half-time asking if they wanted me to pick them up so they could watch the rest of the game. "No Thanks, Mom! We're having fun!"

I was having fun watching my oldest son catch 5 passes for 128 yards and one touchdown! AD was definitely having a great time out on that field and I was there to see it all. The team went on to win and are scheduled to play next weekend in the section final.

All the makings of a disaster. But a great night was had by all!

That's my oldest son, AD, in red running in for a touchdown