Adventures in Mama-Land

All the spoon doll princesses, lined up in a row… I forget the names the girls gave them.  Should have written them down!  Naomi’s is on the far right.  This was a harder craft than I anticipated, especially after my sister (who came at 10 o’clock!  amazing!) suggested that braids might look wonderful on the dollies.  All the girls wanted braids, none could do them herself; it took a while to get all that braiding done.  There were also a few other steps that the girls couldn’t do alone – attaching the skirt, tying the bows, even beading the little jingle-bell necklace.  Basically, all they could do was decorate the skirt and draw on the faces. Anyway, that took about an hour longer than I anticipated, but… then came our next craft:  a REAL princess isn’t afraid to get her hands a little dirty! Here are the 4 egg-carton planters I made this morning – they each have a see-through plastic wrap window taped on top – so tight you can’t see t...

Why the weird dates? Click here to find out! Other “weekly challenges” I participate in: Homeschool Diary Menu Plan Monday Crafty party supplies… ready to go! We’re doing a princess birthday breakfast for Naomi in the morning.  Just three friends, which is cool because we can do better crafts, like this wooden spoon doll, which I plan to shamelessly introduce as a “pioneer” craft so Naomi will like it.  Anyway, this website says it is:  “ They were very popular in the 1700 and early 1800s New England .”  So there. We’re also making egg carton herb garden seed-starters (hat tip to Lionden Landing for the link !).  Hey, it’s almost March, and I haven’t started any seeds yet. As for the rest:  chocolate-chip pancakes (hey, it’s a party!) right away, with strawberry smoothies to drink, then crafts and playtime for an hour or so, then store-bought cuppy cakes – with a “6” candle in one for Naomi Rivka.   Good night!  And have...

What has happened to me?  Beyond a colossal headache (today only), I have absolutely zero interest in preparing for Shabbos these days.  Sigh…  I tell myself it’s because I’m waiting for WINTER to be over. And as a strategic move to prevent me from being utterly horrible to my entire family, Ted seems to have taken over doing much of the Shabbos cooking on Thursday night.  Again, this isn’t “luck” on my part – I suspect it’s more like self-preservation on HIS part.  Sigh… and sigh again. Dishes with an ASTERISK are my responsibility.  Dishes with an EXCLAMATION mark are currently being done by kids.  Dishes with nothing at all are Ted’s job. Supper * Challah Chicken Soup w/ ! kneidlach Amalfi Chicken (kosher by design teens & 20s) ! Pears & Sweepoes (kosher by design teens & 20s) Hoisin vegetables Corn Lunch (Dairy) – the KISS (Keep it Simple Shabbos) way! * Challah Pareve Cholent Blintz loaf ...

Here’s Gavriel Zev, listening in sheer concentration – turning one ear towards the speaker and staring into space – listening to Vivaldi’s “Winter.”  (eventually, I gave in to his begging and played “Spring” also) I cannot believe how quickly the kids went from resisting Vivaldi, our second composer in the Ambleside rotation , to sheer and utter loyalty. They fell in love so totally with Beethoven, our first composer, that I thought they’d never accept another composer in our lives.  But thanks to the Classical Kids story “ Vivaldi’s Ring of Mystery ” – and also, I hope, thanks to the wonderful music itself, they quickly became fiercely loyal Vivaldi fans. It’s like the saying in math (yes, there are sayings in math!):  “There’s no such thing as an uninteresting number.”  Every number has some unusual or useful property:  it’s prime, it’s an unusual multiple; I don’t remember all the possibilities.  But the point is that if you do come across an “uni...

שְׁמוֹת / shemos / shemot / Exodus 30:11-34:35 Printable PDF versions here:  Ashkenaz , Sefard (Ki Tisa) Now sharing on 4Shared, so if you’ve had trouble in past, try it now (I apologize for 4shared’s 20-second delay)! Parsha narrative overview here . Copywork sheet and parsha activities, including half-shekel parsha math , available here . Aharon’s Story:   “Make us an idol!” the people cried, when Moshe was long gone. “He’s just a guy who’s served us well, but it’s time for us to move on.” I hemmed and I hawed, I didn’t know what Hashem would want me to do, And finally, I thought I’d stall them ‘till Moshe himself could come through.   “Who has gold?” I asked of them, expecting that they would quail. But instead, they came, hands full of gold, each man came without fail. “Where’s it from?” I asked but I already knew deep inside, They’d ripped it from their wives’ own ears, a place they couldn’t hide.   “I’ll have no part,” I said, “of this,” but my l...

This is the second of two unrelated “mini-essays”.  Read them or not… I know they are longer and denser than my usual fare.  Here’s the first . If you don’t know what unschooling is, it’s not QUITE what it sounds like, and it looks different in different families.  It doesn’t mean ignoring your child or letting them run wild and do whatever they want. However it looks in different homes, all unschoolers basically take their cues from the child’s interest:  if a child wants to learn a particular subject, that’s what they’ll spend time doing.  And if a child has no interest in swimming lessons, or math, it won’t happen – yet, though the child is free develop an interest later. To traditional schoolers and textbooky homeschoolers, it sounds like a nightmare, but it works:  I have SEEN it work.  Kids DO learn to read; they do learn math and history, politics, geography, and, should they need it, higher math and science at any level they would normall...

This is the first of two semi-related essays.  Read them or not… I know they are longer and denser than my usual fare.  Read part two here . My father hauled us places against our will:  I hated it, deeply, deeply.  He took us to lectures, concerts, operas, Shakespeare, and good old-fashioned SHLEPS through nature, on skis or on foot or canoe, nothing but a chilly thermos of “vasser mit milich” (basically, tea without the tea) for comfort. Why did I hate it?  And why did he seem at once mystified and nonplussed (or even bemused) by my hatred?  Why didn’t he give up, just kept right on shlepping us places? To share the things he held most dear. I know now, as a parent – at once – of little children and of teenagers, that I didn’t always hate it, though it’s fixed that way in my memory.  That’s because my early memories are gone; memories from the years when I must have loved it all so much.  How do I know that?  Because I saw my s...