One of the things I like about homeschooling is that my kids still learn so much completely on their own. I really love it when they teach me things, which happens at an alarming rate around here.
I just had to share this conversation I had with Victoria a few minutes ago.
Victoria: Ooh! Is that henna? Could we use it for henna art?!
Me: It is henna but you can’t use it, it’s for my hair. Terribly sorry!
Victoria: Okay, how much is it? $18? I didn’t know henna was so expensive.
Me: Well that’s for 2 bags and this is very fancy quality punjabi henna. It’s not just any old henna. They hand harvested it… on llamas… in the mountains of… India!
Victoria: You mean Peru?
Me: No, India! I don’t know. Why?!
Victoria: Because there are no llamas in India.
Me: Well that’s why it’s so expensive. They have to import the llamas too!
Know it all […]
Original post by Alicia
Last week Grandma let Victoria try on a wedding dress she got for the grandkids to use for dress up. She also modeled the “Godfather” costume she wore on Halloween (there’s a hoop built in for a big belly) and they posed as bride and groom.
Why does this picture break my heart just a tiny bit? Wow, they grow up fast.
Original post by Alicia
Here’s some of my favorite shots of Victoria from our trip to Sioux Falls last week.
Original post by Alicia
I know you read my blog so I thought I’d leave you a little note here.
I’m glad you approved of my “It’s Hard to be Ten” post. I wouldn’t want to embarrass you but I thought it might be helpful for other mothers out there with ten year old girls.
Just the same, to balance the scales a little, I give you:
Ten things I love about you…
You like to read everything from Dave Barry to Beverly Cleary to sarcastic mom blogs.
You want to work on yelling at your brother and sister less.
You’re a great help with the baby.
You do amazing things and you take it in stride, like making the news in 4 states, starring in plays or interviewing celebrities.
I can have long, philosophical conversations with you or we can just act like idiots.
You care about people, animals and the world.
You notice beauty. From popcorn clouds to funky beetles, life isn’t […]
Original post by Alicia
Oh my goodness. It’s Victoria’s day to make my brain explode (yes, it’s all about me). She is not a happy camper today.
I suppose she had it coming. She’s spent her life being a very responsible, level-headed, easy child. It’s not like it could go on forever and it probably wouldn’t even be healthy if it did. Everybody needs to have at least occasional episodes where they’re allowed to weep, wail and gnash teeth. Without it they become robotic, numb or liable to end up on the evening news years later.
I’ve been informed that it’s miserable being ten. Nine is apparently all roses and sunshine. Nine is the golden year. Friends, fun and no responsibility. Ten is apparently a horrible time. Maybe it’s the double digits, though it’s more likely baby brother who’s increasingly mobile and demanding.
The thing […]
Original post by Alicia
We’re back from Victoria’s first annual camping party. It was such fun!
The trip didn’t go off without any hitches. My car died on the highway about 5 miles before we got to the park. Luckily we had taken two vehicles since we were bringing two little girls, so Daryl was able to come back and help out. He took most of the kids and I stayed with the car. One of Anna and Victoria’s friends stayed back to keep me and baby Alex company. We watched horses and butterflies for a very long time!
My fantastic friend Jeanne came out and helped us tow our car back to the nearest town (she happened to grow up nearby) and helped us find a trustworthy mechanic. Everybody seemed to be leaning towards a broken fuel pump, which is unfortunately spendy. We left it with Rick and hoped for the best. Then we loaded […]
Original post by Alicia
We held our own Olympics yesterday!
The kids started by picking a country to represent and finding its flag on the “flags of the world” poster to copy. They carefully made flags and we taped them to the front of their shirts.
I helped them make 15 medals (gold, silver and bronze for 5 sports). We cut cardboard circles and covered them with slightly crinkled tinfoil. Then they dabbed paint on them with a paper towel and rubbed it in (bronze for bronze, yellow for gold and unpainted for silver) and used a screwdriver to put holes on the tops. We threaded some coloful yarn through and tied it and were done.
Then we made an Olympic torch and talked about what it symbolized. The kids each took a leg of the journey from the flames at Olympus (the corner) to the host city’s Olympic games (the soccer goal).
Daddy came out to help […]
Original post by Alicia
A few weeks ago, a woman who runs a Little House on the Prairie web site asked Victoria if she’d be willing to write up a guest blog entry about meeting the Greenbush Twins last month. Victoria jumped at the chance and finally got her entry written and emailed in yesterday. Here it is if you want to take a peek.
The essay was great for homeschooling besides just being a neat thing for Victoria. We went over how to write an outline, how to plan the body of the article, what sorts of things to say and how to edit to make it flow better.
We’d been so busy with camping, the latest play, swimming lessons, sleepovers and such that it took a while for Victoria to write it. I helped her write a rough draft Sunday night and we had Daddy take a look yesterday morning. I thought he helped […]
Original post by Alicia
Tonight was the last performance of “Fragments of a Dream,” the outdoor play that Daryl and the girls are in based on Laura Ingalls Wilder’s time here in nearby Walnut Grove.
The night went well and Daryl bought each girl a souvenier T-shirt, like every year, and they went around with Sharpie pens and had the cast and crew autograph them.
I also took pictures of them running around the empty street at midnight in their pageant dresses, another tradition of ours.
There will be a picnic in Walnut Grove next week for all the participants and families. It’s always a fun time and it’s literally by the banks of Plum Creek so that’s pretty neat.
We’ll bring gifts for each pageant family member, which is another big pageant tradition. The girls usually make their gifts. One year it was salt dough prairie doll ornaments. Another year it was decorated coffee containers for their […]
Original post by Alicia
That was the headline in the Marshall Independent last week, talking about our girl!
WALNUT GROVE - A curious 10-year-old girl helped to fill the park at Walnut Grove on Saturday to hear twin sisters Lindsay and Sidney Greenbush talk about their days as the Carrie character on the TV series “Little House on the Prairie.” …
The whole article is here (minus the photos that ran in the paper). She was also mentioned on the evening news in Wisconsin, in our local paper, in the St. Paul Pioneer Press (scroll down), on Minnesota’s WCCO evening news, North Dakota’s KXMC news and countless newspaper and TV reports as the story was picked up by the Associated Press.
When the Greenbush ladies visited last Saturday, they talked about their experiences filming “Little House on the Prairie” and answered questions from the audience. At the end, Victoria was introduced and she went up […]
Original post by Alicia
The boys and I went to the pageant last night with Grandma and Grandpa. I got some pics backstage before the show…
And some of the girls acting silly…
Grandma, Grandpa and the boys in the audience…
And some of the scenes… The arrival in Walnut Grove, Getting used to living in a dugout, and Anna’s big scene where she steals Charlotte (Laura’s doll) and stomps it!
And erecting the church, the exciting fire scene, and the final scene…
Last but not least, signing autographs and getting flowers from Grandma and Grandpa!
Original post by Alicia
Victoria and Daryl joined the Greenbush Twins’ (the girls who played Carrie on the Little House TV series) fan list online together last year when Victoria played Carrie in the local Wilder pageant. Victoria got chatting with them and sent them information about the pageant, and they contacted Walnut Grove and will be coming as special guests. She asked them if she could interview them before their visit and Rachel said yes. Victoria emailed her the questions and Rachel emailed her answers back.
Victoria turned the interview in to our local paper yesterday. The editor said he would like to interview Victoria soon about the whole experience too!
Here’s her interview.
My Interview with Rachel Lindsey, AKA Carrie on the “Little House on the Prairie” TV show.
By Victoria Bayer, age 10
(Note: Rachel and her twin sister, Sidney, played the role of Carrie. The Greenbush twins are visiting Walnut […]
Original post by Alicia
Oh my.
Daryl and the girls just got back from play rehearsal and Victoria is quite upset. It seems that Daddy knocked down a hornets’ nest from the set and put it in a jar. He had the grand idea to have it be a bit of a science experiment and watch to see what happens.
Apparently, the adults are all gone but there are some larvae. My sweet Victoria is quite upset for the hornet babies, whom she says are doomed to hatch and starve to death.
She says it’s cruel, that at least when she squashes mosquitoes she does it quickly and painlessly. She says she doesn’t want baby hornets to suffer. I guess she has a point!
From the look on Daryl’s face when he came home, it would seem that he got an earful on the drive home tonight.
Poor Daryl. He once caught a […]
Original post by Alicia
Victoria decided yesterday that she wanted to write a “web report” on marbles.
Daryl helped her google images and information on how they were made, the history, etc. She used Neopaint to make an animated GIF that flipped through pages of pictures, information and trivia.
The whole thing was about 15 “pages” and included a typed introduction about the history of marbles and several screens about how to play marbles.
She said it was a lot of work, but she was immensely proud of the final report. She emailed it to me and I’d put it up here if I could figure out how to make it work. It’s basically an animated GIF. Anybody know if that’s possible?
I’m not only proud that she did this cool project, but I’m also proud that she decided on her own that she wanted to do it and taught herself how to design the program.
Original post by Alicia
Yesterday was Victoria’s “mom and me” day so Daryl took the other kids for a couple of hours in the afternoon.
She decided she wanted to spend it making cookies, playing Scrambled States of America, and doing a craft. We generally only get an hour so I explained we might not have time for all of that, so she chose the cookies and game.
We made oatmeal raisin cookies. We were a half cup short of the oats required, so we supplemented with ground flax seed, whole wheat germ, organic spelt flour and pulverized organic whole wheat raisin bran. She was a little worried! I explained how to hide healthy things well and assured her that you wouldn’t taste them.
They were delicious! She licked the bowl and I licked the beater, and we agreed that you sure couldn’t taste any of that sneaky healthy stuff […]
Original post by Alicia
It was picture day for Victoria’s “family” in the Wilder Pageant on Thursday so she had to get in full costume. I took a picture before she left for the set. Here’s my little girl as Lydia Beetle.
Her lines, from the grasshopper plague scene:
“Mama, Mama, I can’t sleep.”
(Mama hushes her and tells her it’s okay and to close her eyes.)
“I can’t. Every time I try, all I see are grasshoppers. Thousands of grasshoppers. And when I wake up, they’re everywhere, even in our house and in my clothes…” (sob!)
She also does a fair amount of dancing, playing, going to school and basically being part of the scenery.
She plays Daryl’s daughter and he was all dressed up too but he was sort of sweaty and sort of grumpy so I didn’t bother taking his picture.
Anna’s pics are next week.
Original post by Alicia
This week I started having assigned days when I spent about an hour doing something special with each child.
I’ve always made a point of doing one-on-one things daily with each of the kids, but it is often mundane tasks like fixing dinner, doing math or pulling weeds. Even those times do matter since it’s focused on just the two of us, but I wanted to designate one time per week that was truly special.
Monday was Victoria’s day. She chose to go on a bike ride and then play marbles.
Wednesday was Jack’s day. He chose to do a painting craft (I taped saran wrap on a big piece of cardboard and he painted a picture that we hung on the window when it was dry) and play with playdough.
Thursday was Anna’s day. She chose to go to the mall together (a silly excuse for a mall with about 3 stores that […]
Original post by Alicia
Jack, Victoria and I were blowing bubbles in the front yard last week when the newspaper editor went by in his van. He circled the block and a minute later I noticed him parked across the street taking pictures. He spelled my name wrong but he did pretty well for just going by memory. Small towns are good for getting lots of runs in the paper!
Original post by Alicia
We’re not officially doing school at the moment (do we ever? LOL) but it sneaks in anyway. Here’s a few ways the kids have managed to learn despite the (mostly) wonderful weather.
Jack announced yesterday that he could count to 400 by fifties. He did it for me and later counted all the way to 950 by fifties.
Anna and Daddy found a killdeer sitting on her nest in the middle of a dirt parking lot in a nearby wetland. They talked to the DNR worker about her and he said nobody parks there when it’s not hunting season so she should be safe. They researched how long it takes killdeer eggs to incubate (about 28 days) and they visit her every day. That funny little bird sits on her eggs in the middle of the parking lot and if anybody comes near her she either feigns an injury and tries to […]
Original post by Alicia
Victoria has wanted to be a doctor since she was two years old and has always been fascinated by the human body. When the “Body Worlds” exhibit (a traveling exhibit of preserved human bodies) came to our area a couple of years ago, she really wanted to see it. We were unable to go and were excited to find out that it was coming to nearby South Dakota.
Then I dug a little deeper.
It turns out that the exhibit coming to South Dakota is not the original Body Worlds. This one is “Bodies… The Exhibition,” one of many copycat exhibits now traveling the world.
Apparently, displaying dead folks is big business. Such big business that the other exhibits buy their cadavers from a medical university in China that is “renting” the bodies to the exhibitors for $25 million dollars over 5 years.
The Chinese police provide the cadavers to the university and they […]
Original post by Alicia
I was thinking today that our type of homeschooling works a bit like a virus!
Two days ago, Daryl took the kids down to a local lake and they saw carp thrashing about. They made such a scene that the kids were delighted and stayed to watch.
When we got home, we had to look up what was going on. We found out it was spawning, and all about how the females lay their eggs up near the shore and the fish rush to fertilize the eggs and fight with each other to father the most fish.
The kids also noticed fish bodies left on the shore, which led to a discussion of the law in our state and how carp are invasive and should not be returned to the water if caught. This led to more research of the law and our finding out that was changed back in […]
Original post by Alicia
Victoria discovered this mutated dandelion in our lawn last week.
It’s hard to see from the picture, but the stems have grown together, so they are sort of conjoined twins. The stems are separate down near the ground but they are one thick stem up by the flowers.
She has informed Daddy that he is not allowed to mow them, so that she can observe them.
She’s especially curious what will happen when they go to seed. I’m suspecting she’s going to want to grow the offsprings, to see if they are mutated too.
We’re going to purposely cultivate dandelions? Like the neighbors didn’t already think we were nuts!
Original post by Alicia
Here’s Victoria’s answers for the best list.
Best books read: Molly Moon series
Best math game or activity: Running the lemonade stand
Best reading/spelling/grammar game or activity: Blogging and emailing (with spell check)
Best field trip: Maine
Best science experiment: The mold comparison experiment
Best science activity: Collecting different kinds of seaweed at the ocean, pouring seawater on the acorn barnacles to make them open
Best read-aloud or chapter book: Hoot
Best movie: Surf’s Up
Best educational DVD: Rough Science (reality TV challenges for scientists stranded somewhere!)
Best educational web site: Scratch, Science News for Kids
Best educational computer game: Timez Attack or Pet Vet
Best art activity: altered books & artist trading cards
Best PE activity: playing wiffle ball with the kids after Japanese class, tree climbing, HS swimming, HS ice skating
Best history book, project or activity: Playing Carrie in the Wilder Pageant, The History Fest
Best social studies/geography book, project or […]
Original post by Alicia
Victoria happily brought this poem up to show me last night. Thought I’d share it here (the original was very multi-colored too).
Summer
I wake up. It’s today!
Summer’s here! Hip hooray!
Summer means lots of fun!
Swimming under the summer sun!
Splash in the pool! Catch that ball!
Roller skate! Don’t fall!
Be happy! Have a blast!
Do it all! Before summer’s past!
~ Victoria Bayer (loves summer)
Original post by Alicia
Victoria asked permission to run her own lemonade stand tomorrow and I told her okay. She’s been planning it for a few days now and today we walked downtown to the grocery store for her to buy her supplies.
Things learned so far….
Math: She kept a running total of how much she had spent in the store. She also figured out how many cups of lemonade she would have to sell at 25 cents in order to recoup a $2 investment, how many brownies she’d have to sell at the same for a $1.25 investment, the number of brownies she’d have if she cut a 9×13 pan into 3 rows by 5 and how much that would be worth, and more.
Vocabulary: We discussed the meaning of profit versus investment, recoup and some other business-related terms.
Environmental Studies: Victoria learned firsthand why companies choose to do things that are bad for the environment […]
Original post by Alicia
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