School is great.
I have lots of pattern ideas. (including your Christmas present)
I have lots of books that are read and unread.
There are lots of things we do.
Why don’t I write about any of it?
It’s probably because I can’t think with all the talking in here.
Or maybe it’s because the yard NEEDS me more than this site does.
It might be because I have chosen to use my mornings for things like playing Nintendo games.
That last one sounds much more like it.
Yoga time. Gotta run.
All the Barnes & Noble stores in the US (ALL of them) host a Mini Maker Faire this weekend! I’m sure you’ve heard of Make the magazine (and it’s short-lived sibling Craft). There are local Maker groups around the country that hang out, tinker, play with 3D printers, and often provide workshops for kids and adults. Lots of science and technology. Lots of crafting and building. Lots of stuff to like.
We went over to our store (a couple towns south) last night to take a peek – the Maker workshop Ellie was interested in was last night.
Ellie and some other kids built with Bionicles.
Ellie is Very Into spider legs.
We met some very fun people and made really clever little book marks at the Meet the Maker Session!
If you’ve got a Barnes & Noble near you, I encourage you to head that way this weekend – especially if you’ve never been to a Maker Faire. You can find the event schedule for your store on the Mini Maker Faire website.
This was one of the strongest weeks so far (in my opinion) for a couple of reasons.
Reason 1: COMPASS.
Finding North. She drew a compass rose in the driveway. There was also a map to treasure.
Reason 2: Math Wheel.
Math wheels are a very Waldorf method for reinforcing the patterns in the multiplication tables (taught along with skip counting – “counting by 3s” etc.) among other things. It’s just neat.
It’s basically a circle with the numbers 0-9 evenly spaced around the outside and a nail (or hand crafted wooden peg if you have a fancy wheel) by each number. There’s a piece of yarn tied at 0 (since you start counting at zero). To form the patterns, pick a times table and wrap the yarn as you go around…for 2s you wrap 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 (which is 2 again, but since you are counting as you go it makes sense as you pass 10 which is 0), and on until you run out of string.
This is what you get for 3:
Here’s 4:
And here’s a bunch of them all on top of each other because pretty.
Guess which is green.
Pretty sweet, right?
Totally made up for when Lucy ate last week’s plant science experiment.
You’d never have guessed.
You can see the whisker remnants – she went to yoga as a cat.