LivenLearn

Homemade Games

I want to share with you Lucas' homemade game first. I think it's very impressive. It's like a homemade game of Risk. The idea is that two players each have an army. The large figures are 4,000 soilders and the little figures are 3,000. You roll the die to see how you move. If you roll a 1 or 2 you get to invade another country with up to 4,000 men. If you roll a 3 or 4 you get to place a small figure on a country. If you roll a 5 or 6 you get to place a large figure on country. You win by taking over all the countries. Even if you have men in each country and so does your opponet, the army with the most men in each country wins. Lots of math.

It took a couple times of playing with him to understand. But now I've got it. I think that's pretty cool. I am very impressed and proud of him. OK. That's just obvious. 

I also have been making two games. I have some really pretty box elder wood that I want to work with. And I wanted to make "board" games.... hee hee, get it? One for Tobin. An ocean scuba game where lego scuba divers (boys idea) take turns rolling the die to see who will be first to observe the cuttlefish in his natural habitat. The ocean creatures along the way are where you observe nature and skip a turn. Of course he loves it! And it was for his birthday, but that's too far away. 

I also made a dragon game. The idea was to sell this at etsy, but Lucas pirated it. The idea of the game is to be the first one to get to the princess that the yellow dragon is keeping hostage. Then take her to the end of the game. If someone passes you they get to take her. Also the fairy spots on the game are where you skip a turn because the fairies have enchanted you. Again the knights are the playing pieces and are made of lego figures :) They may be plastic, but I really like the legos!!

The boards are made of box elder and I wood burned the squares. Then I painted the games with stockmar watercolors. A fabulous idea! They soaked right into the wood like a stain and these boards are so pretty. I had no idea what would happen, but like all ideas I had to get it out of my head and into the world. Try it out. And then after seeing what happened with the paint and how beautiful it looks I am gonna have to make some fun puzzles!!! 

One of my favorite forms of math is board games. All kinds! Lucas digs card games right now. Not only is there instruction in math but all kinds of learning while having fun. What are some of your favorite board games? 

Summer

Yep. That's my Lucas. Usually with a pocket turned out and zipper down. We had fun playing around the Missouri River Bottoms. Then we took the canoe out on the water. A wonderful afternoon. Not planned at all. I love this about summer. Now that I think about it we are a pretty spontaneous family in general. Oh well.... hee hee.

We took time the other day or I should say last week... oops... to make some compositions with sunprint paper. You can find this cool paper at craft stores now. It's readily available. Then we pasted them onto cardstock and the boys cut them up. Puzzles! 

to be continued.......

Homeschooling Zine

Where have I been? Sheesh it's been a while. We are playing all the time and even though I do have things to share I am WAY unorganized right now. I am sure many of you know exactly what I mean. Summer is here and it's time to just be. Each day an adventure. Each day everything is unexpected. The spontaneity of summer is something that I adore. Summer also holds two of my favorite birthdays; Lucas and Tobin's birthdays. 

I did want to share something with you. My new edition of Around Homeschooling Zine came in the mail today. I really love this zine. It's just begun it's adventure so it's young and fresh. It will be so great to watch it grow. Anyone can contribute. It's just fantastic! And Laura, the editor and publisher of Around is really cool and so great to work with.

Inside this zine I found this and I look forward to trying it out. Neat huh? 

So off I run. I really have so much to share! Lucas made an amazing game of homeschool/math risk. I am working on a fun game for Tobin. Crafts to share. Photos of summer. Eric is in the loop for an awesome job that has us all excited. 

Happy Monday everyone! I hope your summer is grand and full of adventure. 

For The Mama's

Well you know that I have a huge heart for mother's that stay at home and make toys during their mama time. I just recently chatted with a lovely toymaker, Linda. A super sweet homeschooling mama that makes beautiful knitted toys. So today is a sweet Tuesday find. If my boys were just a bit younger I would have this coming to my house! So soft. So cute. Go on over and check out her shop! I think these would be so sweet with a wooden barn. A great mix of texture; wood and wool. Something I love combining lately.

And to all the hardworking mother's out there. I want to say that I love you! For all that a stay at home mama does. And she does it with a full heart. I know it's way past mother's day, but what the heck! And for those of you living in the south and trying your darndest to keep cool, I am wishing you cool thoughts. Time to make lots of homemade ice cream!

Happy Tuesday bloggers! Keep on lovin.

To The Pond!

Lots of fun yesterday. Tobin was in his element. Net in hand. Mud all over his feet. Critters to snare and explore. Lucas enjoyed the microscope. Pond life is magnificent up close and personal. We even brought home some little tadpoles, snails and water beetles to watch for a while. Feeding them boiled lettuce (yuck) and just watching them. We were lucky enough to find a tadpole with four legs already! 

Then last night I made them a snapping turtle, kingfisher and cattails for a pond habitat. It's kept right by the tadpoles and the well loved tidepool. It is amazing to see a kingfisher dive for his food. They are super fast! And you can eat cattail! I didn't know that. Also water beetles bite. Stinkers.

So I guess our Friday finds were our little handmade critters for our pond habitat. We need to make some water spiders too. They were everywhere yesterday. 

Happy Friday!

Math Sites

I have been searching for some fun math games. Looking for blogs and online resources. Here are some of the things I have found.

This site times how long it takes you to answer. Good for the competitive older child. I have one of those!

Simple Kids Math

Fun, fun games to do online.

Cool Math 4 Kids

Great Blog!

Let's Play Math!

And from there I found this:

Hundred Board Puzzle

a fabulous idea!!!

Tobin and I will work on this today:

Name Pattern

Fun game! Since Tobin is only five I think three to four players would make this more fun for him. We will see today!

Nim

Fun with a trampoline!

Trampoline Math

So so cool. I will be looking into this for Lucas.

Waldorf math

This is amazing! I think that we could cut out construction paper in a rainbow of colors.

Multiplicaton Clock

I will search some more soon and I look forward to getting to the library this weekend to find some fun books. Would love to hear from you if you have any ideas, fun book suggestions or game ideas!

Homeschool

Summer is here! Officially. This summer we are going to do something a little different. We are going to have a Math summer. We need to have a lot more fun with Math than we do right now. I know I can make it fun! Lots of games. Brain bogglers. Do you want to join us? Math is something that my husband and boys are all naturally very good at. I am terrible. So he takes charge of most of the math studies here at our house. But I am going to embrace my math nausea and have more fun with it. I'll keep the books we use posted here and games that rock.

A friend of mine is being very brave and giving homeschooling a try. And her questions got me thinking of what we do now and what the summer plans are. And I realized I rarely do give a description of what we do. I don't know why I never have thought to do this before. I guess I have been so focused on all the art and crafts we do here to share with you that I forgot that sometimes the basics are so so important too. So here is what we are up to this summer:

Each week I sit down and ask them what they want to learn about. Then if we need to; which often we do, we go to the library and find books and documentaries about the subjects. They will often make their own projects from these studies. Or I will take them on a field trip. Tobin wants to learn more about ponds this week. So I will take them to the pond with all our tools. I also sit down and write out what I think we should try out each week for a month. This keeps fresh things coming into the house. Last week we learned all about solar energy and everything that surrounds that idea like other forms of renewable energy, mechanical energy and the sun in general. I encourage writing, but I don't push it. I try not to push anything, but maybe playing nice. Like all mothers.

Also this summer we are learning about one famous artist a week. This week is Surrealism founder Max Ernst. Which will eventually lead to the study of Dadaism. I am excited about that. I get really excited about art all the time. Obviously.

So that is what we are up to! Making the most of each day.

Walnut Wonder

I love these slices of walnut heartwood/sapwood pieces I purchased recently. Did you know that the dark part of walnut wood is called the heartwood and the outside layer of white sapwood? Well now you know. All trees have a soft layer of sapwood on the outside of a dense middle of heartwood or hardwood. I have learned so much from a local retiree gentleman. Now that he is retired he requests grant money to go up into small airplanes and map Missouri farms near creeks and rivers. He knows that with some older farms the equipment used to plow the fields has grown bigger and bigger over the years. So when farmers are turning at corners of their fields they are actually loosing some of their land to overgrowth. He takes his findings to the land owners and helps them to utilize the land, clear it up and helps them to use that land to grow walnut trees. I think this is really interesting. So when they need to "fall" a tree he takes that wood home and cuts it up. Kiln dries some of it. Time dries the rest. This is our source for specialty wood. He is trying hard to convince me to switch from poplar to maple for my toys. We will see.

So with these slices my imagination gets to go crazy. I know that birthday's are the reason why many of you purchase things from my shop. I love being part of that! So I made this. It's a stage. For a child or children to act out plays and such with little wooden animals, gnomes or little things that they have made. I will be listing this one in the shop tomorrow if the weather perks up. I love the little wool mushrooms growing out of the bark! I love the vines for stage curtains. I love the grapevine curtain holders. I love the smoothness of the walnut wood and it's glow. I love making things like this! When I was a little girl I would have been overjoyed to receive this. Squeals!!

Happy Saturday!

Friday Finds.... Contest Winner

Hey it's been awhile. I am excited to share a couple of things with you. First did you know there is a fabulous movie coming out in October? Maurice Sendak's Where The Wild Things Are has been made into a movie! Directed by Spike Jonzs. I happen to love his work. And I happen to adore Maurice Sendak. We can all remember when we first came upon the book Where The Wild Things Are. I remember falling in love with the giant creatures and with Max and his spunky self. I can relate. I have a wild thing inside of me, do you? I think we will go and see this one at the theatre. Pricey, but every now and then I just like to treat my boys to a big screen film.

I also wanted to share with you a terrific website called BrainPop. There is an annual fee, but it's well worth it. They have answers to so many elementary questions. We have been learning about solar power this week. And it helped us a lot. Following that we learned about nuclear energy and geothermal energy. Mechanical energy and renewable energy. It's a really nice website.

Eric and I wanted to thank you all for such kind words about his wooden creations. It meant a lot to him and a lot to me. I think they are all so beautiful. And I pirate most of his mushrooms for myself. But you just never know how something will take off until you try. And I am really glad he did. We drew a name and the winner is Lee!!! I am really happy it's going to such a sweet mama. We really wish he had tons of time on his hands and wood to turn into a wand for everybody. What I like most about his wands are that they are made of walnut or osage orange. Two of the strongest woods available. Makes them sturdy, smooth and more of a treasure.

Hope everyone is having a fabulous month of June. A crazy whirlwind of a month full of food, friends, water, play, bugspray, roadtrips, outdoor music, and lots of firefly lanterns (well here in Missouri).

Fleeting

Spectacular childhood. Fleeting. Swiftly escaping from them, from me. I want to hold them tight and keep them young forever as if I had some sort of magical power. Just like a flower; a daylily, their wonders blossom. Then as quickly as it came it left only to transfer on to anew. An endless cycle that eventually leads to a maturity of wiser ages. One of my favorite quotes comes from Fred Rogers of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood.

"We are not only the age that we are now, but all the ages we have ever been."