New plans

Bear with me, because I’m trying to plan some new things for this blog and for The Exploration Station Blog.

What I’d like to work on is adding some downloadable/printable items. I just learned how to upload things into Scribd and embed them into posts so that with a quick click of the mouse, one can download or print the experiments to do at home. It’s pretty cool, so if you haven’t seen it already, you can jump over to this list of experiments we’ve done that have their own free printable instruction sheet to go with them. Some of them even have data tables for you to enter in your results too. By the way, check out this list of free interactive science links, because some of them are very, cool. Like the interactive periodic table of elements that is very informative. There’s also some links to free science curricula for young kids too.

I plan on coming up with more Scribd documents for downloading on this blog, including but not limited to math games I haven’t yet invented (but plan to), and some of the homekeeping organizational forms I designed for myself, in the event someone else liked them enough to try them out at home.

I’m a big believer in giving things away for free, and I have always loved finding free resources on the internet. I want to pay it back a little by providing some free resources too.

The only constraint I have is time. I can’t do all I want as fast as I want. I am working on The Exploration Station blog a little more, then will move on to my plans for this blog.

Awesome new experiments

Exploring Density with Ivory Soap

Convection of Heat

The best kind of compliments I could get

As if you couldn’t tell, I have been away from this blog. There was a few reasons for this absence.

I started the National Novel Writing Month in November, with the intention of completing 50,000 words in 30 days. I started off very strong, writing a fictional account of my 5 years in a forensic crime lab. You can read some excerpts on my other blog, Raising Smart Girls

I got to 15,000 words last Monday (November 9), when things came to a screeching halt, when I received the call I’d been dreading, that oldest daughter’s first grade teacher from last year finally lost her 5 year battle with ovarian cancer. She was everything to my daughter last year at school, and her teacher loved all of her students, too, but seemed particularly fond of my daughter. The very same day, I got a call for a possible job I wasn’t even looking for in a microbiology lab.

On Tuesday, both me and my daughter broke down crying when I saw her looking at year yearbook at her teacher’s picture.

I ended up taking a chance to go to speak with the person I worked with 17 years ago to see if I’d be interested in the position they were looking to fill.

I went last Wednesday and I haven’t heard anything back. While it’s not really good timing and I think I’m going to pass on it, I was able to update my dusty old resume and now I feel a little bit more ready for the next opportunity. My kids will be in school all day next year, and I’ll be better able to enjoy going to work, knowing I won’t have to find day care arrangements for them.

And then, on Thursday, my youngest smacked her head on our wood playset equipment the backyard, and we went to the emergency room and she ended up getting 2 staples in her head. Yeah, that was rough for her.

On Friday, we had all gone to Mrs. P’s wake. It went better than I thought it would.

So needless to say, I’d been trying to get back to equilibrium, and think about what I want to be doing, with my blogs, with my writing, with my mothering and career goals.

Just when I think I’m not doing much, I get an email, or a word of encouragement or someone links to my blog and says something INCREDIBLY touching, like this, from Jen at Dave*Jen*Barnes:

I totally thought she was a homeschooling mom, but she’s not. If we put the boys into public school, this is the kind of mom I want to be. The Wonder Years blog is choc-full of awesome ideas for teaching kids all kinds of skills.

Wow! What an honor to be thought of in that way. Just when I thought I’m going to let this blog idle until I figure out what to do with it (and my time), (and I was cautioned by a commenter on my other blog not to, because it is a very good resource for others), I get further confirmation that this blog is definitely worth nurturing.

In addition to finding that lovely comment, I also got another blog award by Leptir Montessori Blog. My next post will be passing this award on…I just have to go get my oldest from school.

I realized something important today. Even though I don’t get paid for my time on the computer, blogging has fulfilled a great need for me to share what I learn, to reach out and impact others, even if it’s just in a small way. It means a lot to me, more than you might know.

Thank you, my readers, for finding my blog helpful and fun. I really do appreciate the thanks I get from all who take the time to let me know this blog has made an impact on you.

I am going to assess how to grow with this blog and in general, where I want to go with all of the blogs I have, as they have been a meaningful part of my life and I’d like to see them develop and become even more useful to others.

Many blessings to you.

Halloween sorting/transferring activity

I found these cute pom-poms in sparkly Halloween colors and thought they’d make a really cute Montessori sorting/transferring activity.

Painted lady butterfly

Nature is wonderful, beautiful and completely amazing…

Check out my other blog, The Exploration Station for two great close-up shots of a Painted Lady Butterfly.

They Might Be Giants – teaching science through music

If you have young kids and want them to see some science concepts explained in a fun way, check out TMBG’s Here Comes Science dvd. We just got the 2 disc cd/dvd set from Amazon.com and the girls love it.

As for me, having come from a career in the biotech field, I think this is just amazing stuff. It’s fun, it’s got great, catchy tunes, and it’s very educational. I think TMBG did an AMAZING job of this.

Here’s a few selections from the dvd -

Fun with pattern blocks

I love it when the girls decide for themselves to pull out the math manipulatives to play with and come up with cute little designs. It’s unusual that all three of them decide to play with the same thing at the same time, but on Friday, they all decided to play with the same thing.

And for a while, it worked out fine…until of course they started to run out of pieces and started whining that so and so wouldn’t share [yes, despite what it looks like here, my kids don't always get along ]. Fortunately two of them went on to do something else and then my 6 year old decided to make a really…long…caterpillar.

Fall Nature Walk

Hop on over to The Exploration Station to see our fall nature walk.

Pumpkin life cycle sequencing cards

Here’s a free printable pumpkin life cycle sequencing card set from Montessori for Everyone. I printed them out on cardstock and laminated them with self-stick laminating sheets.

This is my 4.5 year old putting the cards in order.

I put the pumpkin life cycle cards, along with a set of oak tree life cycle sequencing cards from this wonderful little website called Pre-Kinders on our nature table.

Fall Nature Table

I’m entering this tree exploration and fall nature table post to Growing and Learning by Leaps and Bounds blog Tree Hugging Tots Mr. Linky round-up. This week’s theme is Trees.

*****

It was a nice day out today – better than we’ve had in weeks, so I decided to get the girls outside and collect some bits for our nature table.  We went to the local farm stand for some Indian corn and squash, to a local oak tree for some acorns.  

When we got home, I put together our fall nature table, knowing that it’s not going to stay this way (my middle daughter has already started exploring and adding her own touches). I love the Waldorf nature tables I’ve seen around the blogworld. These nature tables are hands-on displays of seasonal items found in nature or handmade toys or books to read.

These are a mix of real and fabric pumpkins, squash and gourds and one wooden red apple.

I love the Indian multicolored corn.

I will be turning these two peg people into fall gnomes.  These are the huge acorns we collected today.

The winter gnomes were helping with the harvest. The acorns on this tray are some I collected on our trip to Wisconsin Dells in September.

In fact, here’s a great snap of a squirrel with an acorn in its mouth I took on that trip.

And my littlest exploring the nature table and showing me a wooden acorn.