Human Anatomy Lesson: Blank Kids

This is a very simple project that my children really liked. The idea is to make a blank life-sized "kid" that you can label with all the parts of the human body that you know. We called them flat kids (not to be confused with Flat Stanley, who is actually flat, and a whole different thing) and before we labelled them all up, we dressed them for this photo shoot:



You'll need a large piece (as large as your child) of fabric that's white or beige, or tan, or pink, or any color you can label with markers. We used some old bed sheets. Double up the fabric and try to smooth all the wrinkles out of it, so you have a front and back for your flat kid. Have your child lie down on the fabric and position his arms and legs kind of like a paper doll. Then draw around him, leaving lots of extra room. Make the head bigger and rounder, and don't make the crotch come to a point -- make it more of a gentle arc. :)



Cut out on the line, or have your child cut it out if he's adept with the fabric scissors. Then sew it up, leaving a space at the waist for turning and stuffing. Clip the seam allowance at the curves and trim around the points so it looks smooth when you turn and stuff. Then... you guessed it... turn and stuff! :)



When you've stuffed it (you'll need about one bag of stuffing for each foot your child is tall), stitch up the hole at the waist. At this point I put faces on ours, so they didn't look so creepy (to me). You could also add hair -- I am meaning to do this but haven't yet. Get out the Sharpies! It's time for permanent marker fun! Wheeee!!!

My two-year-old daughter did not want to label hers, so we left her dressed and she sleeps in Sadie's bed with her. My son, however, was eager to label "Flat Benny" with all his parts, so we did one side the skeletal system and one side everything else we've learned so far (digestive, respiratory, circulatory, etc).

Now Benny sleeps with his flat Benny too! Kind of like a body pillow but educational, and with a urinary tract drawn in excruitiating detail. :)

Check it out, Boy+ Academy did this project too!

Colonial Place Community Bike Ride

Benny was so excited to do this, and he loved it more than I can describe. If Sheila Janes would organize a community bike ride once a month for crime prevention or any other reason, I'll bring the water! A whole gang of people on bikes set off from beside the dog park on Deleware and Llewellyn, and meandered all through Colonial Place and Riverview. Benny (and his Dad) rode along for over four miles of it, then when the ride passed the dog park again, Benny and Dad peeled off, Benny to come and drink water and go home to bed, and Dad to go off on his regular 30 mile ride.

Can I just say that I cannot believe I allowed my child, even under the watchful eye of his very efficient father, to go out on the STREET and ride his bike WITHOUT TRAINING WHEELS for four miles?!!? I'm not only learning to let go, I'm starting to go insane. Okay, he wasn't the only kid on the ride, but... I wouldn't have thought myself capable. I didn't even run after the pack screaming, "DON'T KILL MY BABY!" I barely even thought about doing it.



Nothing bad happened. Benny came back triumphant, having crowed the whole way about riding his two-wheeler and how great it was to be riding "in traffic" (help me) and doing the Tour de Colonial Place with Dad. Benny sure loves his bike. I hope a lot of people registered their bikes with the police last night and that raising awareness of bike theft will keep other kids from losing their favorite toys.

Drawstring Pouch Instruction

I've been making little pouches for the items we find in geocaches, like travel bugs and geocoins and whatnot. Of course you could use these little bags for any old thing you wanted, including hiding prizes, hoarding treasure, or delivering cake. Of course, the cake thing might not work out so well, what with fabric being permeable by frosting. But you could try.

I made a few with buttons:



I really wanted to do a drawstring one though. Today I did manage a drawstring one with help from Nico at It's Your Life. I didn't exactly follow her directions but the pictures helped me finally figure out what the heck I was supposed to do with that lousy drawstring channel.

Here's my drawstring pouch:

It's just what I wanted. The Frog Log travel bug is going in it and going to Nevada, although I'm not sure the other travel bug I sent out there ever made it. Mental note: Call Kristen.

Here are *my* directions, unhelpfully unillustrated in ten steps each:

Button:
1. Cut two rectangles about as wide and more than twice as high as you want your bag to finish.
2. Sew up the side seams on each rectangle, so you end up with two little pockets.
3. Turn one right side out and tuck it down inside the other one, so the right sides are together.
4. Sew around the top where the raw edges are, leaving an inch to turn.
5. Turn it all right side out and stuff the lining down inside the bag.
6. Fold it down once, and topstitch around the top edge, enclosing the part where you left it open to turn.
7. Put a button on the inside of the back and a buttonhole on the front -- BANG you're done.
8. Smile warmly.
9. Pat yourself on the back.
10. Call your mother and congratulate her for raising such a fine child.

Drawstring:
1. Cut two rectangles just as wide and twice as high as you want your bag to finish.
2. Sew up the side seams on each rectangle, so you end up with two little pockets.
3. Turn one right side out and tuck it down inside the other one, so the right sides are together.
4. Cut another rectangle, about 3 inches wide and long enough to go ALMOST all the way around the top of your bag.
5. Hem the short ends of it a little big.
6. Fold it over, wrong sides together, and tuck it down between the two layers of bag that you already have.
7. Sew through all four layers, leaving one inch to turn.
8. Turn it all right side out and stuff the lining down inside the bag.
9. Topstitch around under the drawstring channel, capturing the little edges where you left it open to turn.
10. Stick a safety pin on one end of a ribbon and pull it through -- BANG. Done.

Life in the Country

We recently returned from a vacation in the country. I just posted an article on my official homeschooling blog at the local paper's web site, about how being there allowed me to release a little of my strangle hold on Benny's safety and well being, and trust him the tiniest bit to not immediately die if I'm not watching him.

Summer in the Country

We recently spent some time at my family's farm in Pennsylvania. We haven't been there since Benny was three. This tim around, I found myself letting go of a lot of things that would have had me screaming my head off, three years ago.

When I was a child we went to "The Farm" every summer. My parents were school teachers, and they'd hung on to this property in Pennsylvania, where they used to live full time, as a summer home. I climbed trees, rode horses, hiked in the woods, and in general stepped outside my narrow urban experience for a few months of the year.



Now, I am a parent. Tree climbing no longer means escaping to a staggering height to stay there with a book all through the afternoon while your mother wonders where you are. Tree climbing now means hysterically imagining trips to the emergency room, with broken arms, legs, and heads, and that type of thing. Riding a pony no longer means feeling the animal move under you, and the wind in your hair, and civilization at your back. Now it means believing with certainty that the pony is most likely crazy, and only wants to scrape your precious baby off on the nearest tree, and then trample him/her into the moss as it neighs in evil triumph. What a difference twenty years and two pregnancies makes.



The last time we were at "The Farm," Benny was three years old. I hovered over him like a swarm of bees, guiding him away from anything sharp, high, cold, or made out of poison. This time around, he was six, and I had little Sadie to hover over. The question on everyone's mind, as we made plans for our trip, was this: Will Lydia be able to release her deathgrip on Benny's safety at all? Or will she hover over BOTH of them, relentlessly, forcing them into a small, resentful unit that marches before her in only the safest of safety?

Let me tell you.

There are trees in the front yard, at the farm. They are tall. They are taller than the house. Benny, naturally, being a six-year-old boy, was attracted to these trees as a duck is attracted to water. Or, as a duck is attracted to a whistling precipice where he probably plummets to his certain death.



Benny: HI MOM DO YOU SEE ME I AM VERY HIGH!

Me (pulse racing): Aren't you ready to come down, now, Benny?

Benny: I AM NOT AT MY HIGHEST POINT!

Me (eyes popping): Okay, but be careful, okay? Okay? Because if youf all, it will not be good. You will get hurt! Hurt I tell you!!!

Benny: MOM DO YOU SEE HOW HIGH I AM IN THIS TREE I CAN SEE THE ***ROOF***!

Me (blood draining from extremities to hide cowering in heart): Okay, but are you at your highest point yet? Mommy's not feeling okay about you going so high!

Benny: MOM GO IN THE BACK YARD! I CAN SEE YOUR BLUE CHAIR OVER THE HOUSE! I CAN SEE YOU IF YOU SIT IN IT! GO SIT IN THE BLUE CHAIR!

Me: *thud*

Did I let him climb the tree, all the way up to the top, all the way past the roof? Did I let her ride the pony? I did, repeatedly. By the end of our time there, I even said things like, "Go play outside for a while Benny. It's going to be bathtime soon." Then I would open the door, bustle him out, and continue feeding the dog or pulling the baby in the wagon, or whatever. I did relax. It was, at times, not at all relaxing, but I did manage to do it.

He also learned to ride his bicycle without training wheels, and I learned not to hold onto the back of his seat. He read himself to sleep at night, after our reading time together was over. And he got to be in charge of the dog.

The country was good for us. You never realize you can let go and allow your child to expand in these ways until you're in the situation, and you see yourself doing it. I'm assuming, though I can't imagine it right now, that this will be the case when he wants to drive, go to college, get married -- those other dangerous projects. One breathless conversation with him climbing, climbing inexorably up, and then he will be there, alive, and I will have survived it too.

Skeleton Lesson: Meringue Bones

The first thing you should do is sit down and write down all the bones you know, and draw a picture of the skeleton. You'll need to think about scale when you're making your meringue bones.


Now it's time to make your skeleton! You will need:

1. A good meringue recipe and this probably involves a mixer, unless you have a robotic superarm capable of creating "stiff peaks" in egg whites. You be the judge. Little confectioner's sugar, little egg white, around and around, and bam you have meringue.



2. Large ziploc baggy. You'll need to cut a small hole in the very tip so you can squeeeeeeze out your meringue onto the cookie sheets.



3. A lot of cookie baking sheets and parchment paper. You can get parchment paper to line your cookie sheets in the baking section at the grocery store.



4. A large space to set out your skeleton when the pieces have finished baking!



A couple of hints:

If you do this on a humid day (like we did) your bones will soon be sticky (like ours were). This can work to your benefit if you want to connect them, but it can also get all over your fingers. You have been warned. They'll come out of the oven nice and crispy, and then gradually they'll start to kinda sweat. This of course will not bother the children at all.

Baked meringue is brittle, so make your bones thicker than you may think you need to make them. If you have leftover meringue, go back over the piece you've already made and thicken them up. For tiny bones like the phalanges and metacarpals and whatnot, it's easier to not make each individual bone, but rather make a little web with all the bones touching.

When you are removing the meringue from the parchment, pick it up and peel the paper off the bones, rather than trying to lift the bones off the flat paper. Some will break, and that's okay! When you lay them out, just lay the pieces together.

This skeleton is FAT FREE, in more ways than one. Enjoy!

***
Interested in more Little Blue Ideas? Try the Idea Box for homeschooling ideas and more.

Masterpieces from an English Country House: The Fitzwilliam Collection

Have you seen the Fitzwilliam Collection at the Chrysler? I'll give you a few ideas for preparing your children to have an interesting experience at the museum.

Okay, it's not like Masterpieces from an English Country House: The Fitzwilliam Collection is going to change your life or rearrange your laundry room or open your eyes to the world of... giant books about birds, for example. But it is an interesting an eclectic exhibit, and something my children found enjoyable. The collection displays some interesting artifacts from the a stately home in England, collected over a family's long history.

The exhibit is divided into sections based on the centuries. The first room introduces you to the house with photographs of the exterior and interior. Then there are the portraits. Look for the Anthony Van Dyck portrait of Thomas Wentworth and his very cool dog. If you go to the link above, you can show your child a picture of this portrait before you go. The next room features work by George Stubbs. Check out this link for lots of pictures of his paintings. His style of drawing horses has been copied often, but not so much his penchant for painting them being attacked by wild animals. Interesting man, that Stubbs.

The next room is mostly about enoooormous books: Audobon's _Birds of America_. They can't turn the pages, but the kids will likely be impressed by the scale of these massive volumes.

Then there's some religious art, including a triptych that Benny really loved, and some other more recent family acquisitions. Don't miss the black and white photograph of everyone out in front of the house with the King of England, on your way out. I guess when the King comes over, you want to snap a few shots before he toddles off.

How to make this exhibit interesting to kids? A little preparation will help. When we're going to see something new, I like to make a little "treasure hunt" for Benny to use to seek out things I want him to notice. Then when we're in the exhibit, *he* can point things out to *me*, which is much more exciting and satisfying than the other way around. This works for lots of different experiences, from ballet to boat trips. It also helps to learn a bit about the artists ahead of time, like Van Dyck and George Stubbs for example. Or Audobon.

Here are a few lesson ideas for after the trip:

1. Create HUUUUGE books with wrapping paper or butcher paper. Make a field guide to birds in your backyard, or another type of animal entirely. Why would someone want to make a huge book?
2. Take a digital camera and photograph your house's exterior and interior as if you're illustrating a magazine spread. What elements do you want to highlight or hide? (Hide my laundry room. Please.)
3. Create an art exhibit from items in your house. You can pull your art objects into one room, if you want, for display, or you can leave them where they are and make plaques to describe their origin and significance. You can highlight your own artwork, or artwork your family has purchased, or certain books you like. Create a tour guide pamphlet for visitors to your exhibit. Or make a Podcast, like the museum did for their "open house."

Have fun at the museum! Here are my kids in the garden outside after their trip:

Human Body: In Benny's Words

Well, I asked him to teach me what he knows:

First your food goes in the mouth and you crunch it up small enough to swallow. Then, you get it down into the esophagus. It's something you push, push, push, push down into the stomach. The stomach can drift down into the small intestine. Now the small intestine is a river that flows to the large intestine. The large intestine is so stinky! Because there's POOP inside! Back to the stomach. We'll teach you that the stomach can let everything down to the liquid part of feel. In the small intestine, the food will be soaked up into villi. It gets delivered to all parts of the body in veins and with arteries. What gets sucked out in the large intestine is water. The extra water goes into the tube, gets through the kidneys, and then it goes into the bladder. When that happens, you start to tinkle. Even the food in the large intestine can get pushed out of your body too. But when that happens, that is not tinkle. It's... POOP!

Here in the breathing, your air goes down the trachea, which is not like the esophagus, as the esophagus pushes it down, and the trachea doesn't push the air down. You breathe, and the trachea blows it down like the three little pigs. Like the wolf blows down their houses. Like it does to the trachea, as it blows the air down into the body. And the part in the body that it goes into is the lungs. And there's another part of the body that's air. It's red and it's liquid. When you get a cut, you'll see it bleeding sometimes and you'll see some scrapes sometimes. And you can not see it when you don't have any cuts. It's about the good blood and the bad blood. And there's the heart. First, the bad blood goes into the heart, and then it goes into good blood. What helps it is the lungs. And then it comes out of the heart, and then it comes into the body!

And there's something else about the digestive system. Girls have three holes, and the boys have two holes. Both the boys' holes are to the digestive system. And the girls don't have all their holes to the digestive system. They just have one hole to the reproductive system. The reproductive is where the baby comes out. You'll see it so tiny, the size of a baby dolly. And they have just two holes to the digestive system.

Deep Sea 3D IMAX

I've seen a few of these underwater IMAX movies now, and I don't honestly know why they don't fill the whole thing up with just jellyfish. 3D jellyfish RULE.

We went to see Deep Sea 3D, one of the IMAX movies showing at the aquarium, and I have a few thoughts.

1. Children do not appreciate overarching themes and ideas. Children appreciate jellyfish apparently floating out into the audience. If the movie spent a bit less time hammering home the whole predator/prey/symbiosis idea and a bit more time wafting through jellyfish forests, they'd be doing us a favor. Everyone waits for the jellyfish. No one waits for the really unusual behavior of small fish at certain parts of the reef.



2. We get it. Predator. Prey. But sometimes, they help each other. Do you really need a thesis statement, to make a movie like this? Can't you just move us around in some kelp and make us think the sea turtle is about to leap into our row?

3. I forgive Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet for all the repetition of how predator and prey help each other. Why haven't these two done a movie together, besides this one where they placidly discuss giant squid? One wonders.

4. You never get through a movie about things underwater without some villainous behavior and some inflammatory language. "The ultimate killing machine" and "ravenous jaws" and whatnot. Perhaps that helps to wring a little interest from the teenage crowd, but the six-year-olds found it overdone to the point of absurdity.

5. Actually, the six-year-olds really liked the movie, and even the squeamish one was not disturbed at all, even by the dramatic music and obligatory "scary parts." We didn't see the shark movie, because we thought it'd be too scary. This one was just scary enough, without being traumatizing.

6. Sadie Grace, my two-year-old daughter, has never actually worn glasses and watched a 3D movie before, although she's had a few opportunities, notably at Disney World, in the one where Donald Duck shoots out of the movie at the end and then *can be seen* with his tail hanging out of the back wall of the theater as you leave. She wouldn't wear her glasses for that one. So, all she usually sees are blurry shapes and she doesn't actually watch.

7. She wore her glasses all the way through this and REALLY loved it. It was well worth the price of admission to see her gasp, and ooh/aah, and reach out for the bits of floating things in the ocean, and stuff like that. A nice helping of childlike wonder for all in attendance.



I exchanged a look with the mother of the small toddler sitting next to me, who was also saying "Ooooh!" and reaching for the jellyfish, and the look said, "This is why we came here. Because they will say OOOH and make that face, and reach for jellyfish."

In conclusion, I thought the movie was just fine. Kate and Johnny need a feature film together. The squid were really not all that scary, in spite of the accompaniment, and Sadie wore her glasses.

More jellyfish! It's what we all liked best!

Geocaching on the Fourth

If you've never heard of geocaching, you're probably normal. But if you're a certified geek in every other way, you need this sport in your life.

For educational merit, Geocaching is awesome. This time of year, it's pretty high on mosquito content too. Bugs notwithstanding, it's fun for the whole family, and all you need is a GPS thingy, and a willingness to get off the beaten path.

Geocaching is a worldwide game based on the old practice of explorers, cowboys, woodsmen, and other outdoors types -- leaving "caches" in secret places, so they could come back and get stuff they couldn't carry. Players hide caches in public places (or with permission on private property) and post the latitude and longitude coordinates on the internet so other players can go find them. Caches can be as small as a film canister and contain nothing but a log to sign and replace, or they can be a big waterproof container, where players can trade items. Lots of people leave Happy Meal toys, for example, for kids who are joining their parents on a treasure hunt. Caches can be hidden deep in the wilderness, or right on a downtown street corner.



You need a GPS unit, so you can wander around in the woods, walking this way and that, staring at the radio in your hand which tells you you're 15 feet away, then 400 feet away, then that you're standing on it, then that you're a mile away, all between two adjacent trees. You need a free account at the Geocaching web site, so you can look up caches to find. And you need BUG SPRAY!!! Don't forget the bug spray. And boots. Today I was ankle deep in mud.

Geocaching is fun for the kids because they like to find treasures, and leave treasures for other kids to find. My six-year-old loves signing the log books. For homeschoolers, this is a deep mine... which I haven't even really begun to think about properly. For example, you can put a "Travel Bug" in a cache, and send it around the world, tracking its progress on the internet, as other cachers transfer it from place to place. You can hide your own caches too. Some are puzzle caches, math-based caches, and of course you learn about the compass, the lat and long, and finding your way in the woods.

Today we went out "caching" and found four of the four we were seeking. A good day! They say days like that can make the game addictive. Tomorrow we're going to Ohio to visit grandparents. I'm *trying* not to look up geocaches to visit along the way.