Grandma Jan and Cousin Ruby got the children Perler Beads last week.  I have fond memories of making Perler Bead crafts with friends as a child, and was pleased to see how much the children enjoyed them, too.

Hal spent the first few minutes just running his fingers through the beads in the pie tin.  As a 3 year-old, he really enjoys the process of tactile play more than completing a project.  When he settled down and started to work with the form, applying each bead one by one, fine-tuning his hand-eye coordination and fine-pincher grip.

The girls, being 7 and almost 9, focused on the design element, and did the ironing themselves.  And we all helped clean Perler beads up from every corner of the living room floor afterward. 

For more on tactile play for the preschool child, please come back and check out tomorrow’s post here on sensory play, and also this thoughtful post by Not Just Cute.

The children are really enjoying this book.  It’s those days where we have “nothing to do” that the kids engage in deep, meaningful learning on their own terms.

This week we’ve been playing a lot of card games (Bea’s favorite), which reinforce cooperation, strategy, addition, subtraction, memory recall for the girls, and help Hal ( age 3 1/2)  with number recognition.

Our friend Dr. Ellie gave the children this paper punch-out book, and Hal has particularly been enjoying the city play mat in it.  It has been really neat to see him maturing in his play, and listening to the detailed conversations his toys have with each other. 

In the mornings, when it’s been too cold for the kids to play outside, and we have down time, all of the children have been sculpting with Bendaroos.  Bea likes to create her own designs (a “long neck” dinosaur, above), while Ruth prefers to follow the directions in the pack (a Toco Toucan, below)

What learning are your kids engaging in when they have nothing scheduled to do?

In this season, we add Advent readings, reflections and songs to our homeschool day.   Some way we are enjoying this season of anticipation:

reflecting with an Advent prayer book from Ascension Presbyterian

reading from The Jesus Storybook Bible

celebrating with Family Hymns from Kortney at One Deep Drawer

playing with some of our Nativity sets on the nature table

creating an Advent wreath

Many thanks to my mother for getting the kids a subscription to Highlights Magazine’s Top Secret Adventures!!  Ever issue brings a new mystery to solve in a new country.  It’s one of the best structured homeschooling activities we’ve ever worked on as a family.

We’re currently making our way around China attempting to solve a crime, and in the process learning geography, history, anthropology!  We’re solving logic puzzles and mazes, and breaking secret codes!

We can’t wait to solve the mystery, and look forward to next month’s adventure!

…reading a few chapters in Ann Voskamp’s book before the children were up…

…enjoying granola in the breakfast nook after morning chores, watching chickens, ducks mucking happily around the yard  (Cran-Walnut Granola recipe at the bottom)

…quilting for a neighbor’s baby, due in 2 weeks, while the children had breakfast.

A welcome reprieve before tackling the general chaos of the day.

Larksong’s Cranberry Walnut Granola

Preheat oven to 325F, and get out two large jellyroll pans.

In a large bowl, combine:

6 cups old fashioned oats

2 cups unsweetened, unsulfured coconut

1 cup wheat germ

1 heaping cup sesame seeds

1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts

1/2 cup sunflower seeds

1-2 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp ground cloves

pinch of sea salt

In a saucepan, on med-heat, combine 1  cup of honey, 1/2 cup maple syrup, 3 tbsp dark brown sugar, 1 cup veg oil (I use 1/4 cup hazelnut oil, 3/4 cup veg oil), and heat until warm and honey is thin.  Stir vigorously, and then pour over dry ingredients.

Toss all until combined, then spread over two sheets and bake 20 min.

Remove from oven, stir, scraping around the edges especially, since they will brown first.

Return to oven, and bake approx 20-25 min more, scraping and stirring granola every 5-7 min to prevent scorching in parts.

When granola is dark, toasty, and fragrant, remove from oven and immediately stir in 1 1/2 cups dried cranberries.  While granola is still hot, transfer to a glass or other nonstick bowl, or granola will stick to sheets as it cools.  When totally cooled, break up with a fork and put in sealed jars to keep crisp.  Will keep 1 month, but ours is eaten up in less than a week.

(Cost comparison: similar granola at New Seasons Market – $8.99/lb.   Estimated cost of homemade – about $2.50/lb (all items purchased in bulk to cut costs considerably, except walnuts, which were gleaned from a friend’s tree.)

We’ve all been dreaming of them for such a long time, and now they’re finally here!!  3 fuzzy little day-old Indian Runner ducklings came home with us this past Wednesday.

The duckings are just about the cutest things we’ve ever seen!!  They’re comical, inquisitive, interested in people, and love to snuggle their little heads in the crook of your arm.

The little drake and two ducks will make a great slug-seek-and-destroy team, as well as provide us with up to 400 eggs/year (for the pair of females), and endless entertainment.  Besides being good egg-layers with sweet dispositions, we choose Indian Runners over other breeds because they cannot fly (or cross any fence much over 2 ft tall), and do not need a pond.

While Indian Runners don’t go broody easily, and often don’t make good mothers, we got a drake in the hopes that one of our chickens will go broody and raise a few clutches for us down the road if we want to increase the flock (Chickens, especially Buff Orpingtons like Cookie, will sit until the clutch hatches (a few days longer than chicken eggs), and then care for the ducklings with devotion.)

The ducklings were a mix of fawn/penciled and we won’t know exactly how they’ll look for another number of weeks, but they sure are adorable right now!

Cookie, the Buff Orpington. (She’s the largest and fluffiest of the chicks, by far.)

Violet (dark brown), and Nudge II (golden), the Auracanas. (You can see their little tufty beards coming in already!)

Fiesty, the Salmon Faverolle.  She’s a petite little thing, but has lots of attitude (and 5 toed-feet and feathered legs!)

Midnight and Blacky, our tried and true favorite breed - Black Australorp.  Our two and a half year-old is very partial to Blacky, who is the gentlest and most mellow of the chicks.

And last but not least, Pickles, the Delaware.

We’re all amazed at how quickly they’re growing, adding bulk, wing and tail feathers every day.   We’re going to do our best to photograph them once a week to see how they change and mature.

On this brilliantly sunny February Saturday, we ordered chicks and ducklings from the feed store, and discovered garlic, crocus, vibrant-pink rhubarb emerging from the soil, and soaked up the first hints of spring-to-come.

In a week in which we had a lot of sickness and stress, and grief, I am doubly blessed that we are learning to make our home a haven, a place where we can witness birth, and rebirth, and celebrate life.

Temperatures have been dipping down into the low 50s and high 40s at night, and there’s been a crispness to the air that says Autumn is on her way here. 

Many plants are waning, having set seed and beginning to shut down for the year.  So, this afternoon, in the bright sunshine, we cleaned up many, many wheelbarrows full of biomass for the compost. 

Cosmos and sunflower stalks have to be chopped into small pieces to break-down well, but the chickens feasted on heads full of sunflower seeds. 

Most of the sunflower seeds were set out to dry on the picnic table, so that the chickens can have them for snacks throughout the winter, and we’ll have seeds to plant next year.

As we pulled up spent flowering plants all over the yard, we carefully collected their seeds as well, so we can replant them in the spring, and share them with friends:

Calendula seeds, still in the seedhead.

A bucketful of nasturtium seeds, in various stages of drying out. 

Coriander seeds.

Sadie’s Horse Beans (a rare heirloom similar to a Scarlet Runner Bean, but with immense beans – I purchased them through Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds many years ago, and have been saving the seeds each year.)

The patches of amaranth are almost ready to harvest as well – there isn’t enough for chicken treats this year, but we’ll save the seeds and plant a large patch next year just for the hens. 

We’ll continue to harvest green beans, summer squash, tomatoes and tomatillos as long as the weather holds, and look forward to bringing in the winter squash, kale, chard, leeks, and some remaining herbs. 

Are things winding down in your garden?  Or still going strong?

The children went to a Storybook Costume Ball with their cousins last night.   We had a two-day scramble to throw together some costumes, but we pulled it off just in time!    Here’s a little bit on what we made:

Little Hen wanted to be Amphitrite, the Queen of the Ocean, wife of Poseiden, in Greek Mythology.

Her costume:

$0.50 -A blue velvet skirt from the thrift store (with about 12 holes in it that we had to mend)

$0.00 – a tank top from her closet with a seahorse on it and a “seaweed” looking scarf from my closet

$0.50 – 1/4 yd of ocean print fabric, from which we made part of her crown and cut out sea creatures to tack to her “ocean” skirt

$0.00 – more ocean creatures to sew onto skirt, which she drew out of cardstock and decorated with glitter glue.

$0.00 – scraps of leftover fabric from her brother’s costume to make her crown

$0.00 -some body glitter leftover from Halloween

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Total cost $1.00!!!

She helped me cut the pieces and sew her crown out of scraps from her brother’s costume – the middle of the crown(to make it stand up) is 3-layers of very ugly flannel that came in a big bag of thrift store scraps.  We whipped it up in about 15 minutes (you can’t see the sea creatures she cut out and sewed to the sides and back from this shot…)

Firecracker wanted to be a mermaid.  With no pattern, limited time and $, here’s what we came up with:  She didn’t want a tail-shaped skirt, because they are difficult to walk/run/play in since they are awfully narrow at the bottom.    We decided to sew her a skirt with blue fabric, which would be the sea she’s swimming in, and then make a two-piece apron “tail” that she could take on and off if she wanted.

We lucked out at the thrift store and found an adult size 4 skirt with blue fabric (yes, it’s butterflies, but Firecracker said it looked “oceany” to her!), so I didn’t have to make a skirt from scratch – I simply cut it up and resewed it in her size, with an elastic waistband.  Voila!  Sea skirt!

$3 – blue skirt, cut down and resewn to fit a 5 year-old

$0.10 -thrift store elastic

$2.00 – 1/2 yd of clearance fabric at Fabric Depot (turquoise with swirls, Firecracker thought it looked like scales)

$0.00 – 1 yd very ugly flannel from a previously thrifted bag of fabric, for the double layer batting in the tail – to give it rigidity.

$0.00 – random snippets of green fabric for tail decoration plus a scarf from the dress up box for the tail, piece of blue tulle for her hair from dress up box

$0.00 – white leotard and blue bikini top from dress up bin

$0.10 – turquoise bias tape from the thrift store (for the apron-tail ties)

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Total cost – $5.20 (plus, some turquoise fabric leftover for doll quilts, etc, and it includes a perfectly good skirt for her and Little Hen to wear anytime)

Since his big sister and cousin both wanted to be mermaids, guess what Tum Tum wanted to be?  MERBOY!!

His daddy even made him a trident from coardboard and foam and duct tape (which was a bit of a dangerous idea, but he loved it!) (Please ignore the mountains of fabric in the background, as long as the sewing machine has to be out, I’m going to sew, sew, sew!  Wish I had a sewing room!)

$0.00 – Blue knit pants from Tum Tum’s closet plus blue leather moccasins

$0.50 – 1/4 yd ocean print fabric for his sash (mermen don’t wear shirts!)

$ 2.50 – 1/2 yd of blue “waves” fabric Firecracker found at Fabric Depot on clearance for the tail.  (Yay, kiddo! )

$0.10 – thrifted seam binding for the ties

$0.00 – 1 yd very ugly previously-thrifted flannel for the double-layer batting to add stiffness to the tail(s).

$0.00 – scraps from making Firecracker’s tail(s) used to make his fin and decoration on the front.

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Total cost – $3.10!!

We had a great time!!  Thanks for inviting us, Aunt Kristi and Cousin Ruby!!