Diversions

I blame Andrea.

Between reading Zahi Hawass’s book Curse of the Pharaoh, resalting the Pharaoh’s Chicken, making step pyramids out of Legos and sugar cubes, and going to another good animal presentation on the library, I have had precious little time on the computer today.

And I spent what little time I had laughing out loud, to the amazement of my children, who laughed along with me even when they didn’t get the joke.

Read about the worst cakes ever baked or decorated by so-called professionals at Cake Wrecks.

Take a look at the worst photos ever attached to real estate listings at It’s Lovely! I’ll Take It!

Then, since I was laughing anyway, I had to catch up with The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks and the often side-splitting Passive-Aggressive Notes.

Go ahead.  Go laugh.  I’ll wait.

Happy Birthdays!

In between everything else that’s going on this week, we have gone to two very fun birthday parties. When JediBoy was born, I started going to La Leche League meetings here in town, and I met a group of moms who remain very dear friends. All of our first babies were born in that summer or fall. JediBoy was the oldest on June 19, and Ethan was the youngest on October 2. All the others came in between, including B. on July 24 and A. on July 31. Here they are the summer they turned one.

Now they’re all turning six! If you want to see how big they are, I have lots of pictures after the cut.

Continue reading »

Homemade Senet

Today PisecoDad is home sick with the same awful cold BabyGirl is just getting over. While the two of them napped upstairs, JediBoy and I went on a wonderful Egypt romp.

For old times’ sake, we read his two favorite books from when he was 3: Mummies in the Morning (Magic Tree House, No. 3) and The Best Book of Mummies. Then we spent a long time looking at a fantastic book that Pappy brought earlier this year: The Amazing Pop-Up, Pull-Out Mummy Book. The pages of this book unfold to a five foot long picture of Tutankhamen’s mummy case with little flaps to flip up to see inside.

Yesterday we had started our chicken mummy, and this morning the salt mixture was quite wet and clumping. We tossed out the old salt and made up a new, dry batch. According to what I’ve read, we’ll probably have to change the salt every day for almost a week, and then every few days or once a week for three or four more weeks before it’s done. (I’ll put up a longer post with pictures once we’re all done with the project.)

After changing the salt of “The Pharaoh’s Chicken,” we decided to make a version of the Ancient Egyptian game Senet.

I had picked up a small “bread board” (obviously meant only for decoration) at the craft store as well as two bags of small wooden pieces and a square dowel, all for around $4.

JediBoy painted the pieces (chosen to resemble the red and white crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt) while I drew the board with a permanent marker. We cut four small pieces of the square dowel and used files (I couldn’t find our sandpaper) to round off three sides. The “dice sticks” end up with one flat side and one rounded side. JediBoy painted the flat sides white and the rounded sides brown while I copied the rules onto the back of the board for future reference. (The rules were taken from the book Make it Work! Ancient Egypt.)

JediBoy was very impatient, waiting for the paint to dry so we could play a game. We had a great time playing, though sadly I was defeated in the end by the mighty Thoth.

If you’d like to make this game, you’ll need to make a grid with 3 rows of 10 squares. Each side needs 5 markers, and at the beginning of the game all the pieces are in the top row, alternating colors. Movement is to the right on the top row, then back to the left on the second row, and across once more to the right on the bottom row, in a back-and-forth route. (I drew small arrows on the board to remind us.) The goal is to get all 5 of your pieces off the board.

On your turn, you throw the four dice sticks that I described above. Each “flat” side that’s showing is a point, so if you throw 3 flats, you can move one piece 3 spaces. If you throw all “round” sides up, you get to move 6 spaces. A roll of 1 flat, 4 flats or 4 rounds lets you take another turn.

Your first move must be with the last piece of your color from the top row. After that you’re free to move any of your pieces on any turn. You can jump over pieces, both your own and the opponent’s. If you land on an opponent’s piece, that piece goes back to the square where your piece was coming from. If you have two of your pieces next to each other, they are “safe” and cannot be “attacked” (landed on and sent backwards). If you have three of your pieces next to each other, they are “safe” and also make a “blockade” that the other player’s pieces cannot pass. You may not move any of your pieces off the board if you have any pieces remaining in the top row.

Landing on the “water” square sends a piece back to the “ankh” square in the previous row. If the “ankh” space is occupied, the piece goes back to the top left square. The other three special spaces in the bottom row are “safe.”

Let me know if you make your own version!

Carnival of Cool Homeschoolers 6

The latest edition of the Carnival of Cool Homeschoolers is up over at Homeschooled Twins… and this week it includes a link back to my post about our Good Knight adventure.

We Can Do That!

I think I’ve just gone up to the next Level in Homeschool Mothering. This weekend I was leafing through some Egyptian Activity books (it’s telling, though, that I just happened to have four books of crafts and activities about Ancient Egypt on my shelves). I thought it would be fun to try some new things this week.

Coiled clay pots? Oh, we can do that! I have half a block of terra cotta air drying clay left over from making the cuneiform tablets last week.

Weaving? Oh, we can do that! I have a small wooden loom I bought on a clearance sale from a Montessori website, just sitting in its box waiting to be used.

Tomb painting? Oh, we can do that! I just happen to have a few polystyrene meat trays in the art studio, and half a box of plaster of paris to boot.

Make a step pyramid? Oh, we can do that! I just have to decide if we should use Duplos or Legos, but we have enough of each to create a really big ol’ step pyramid, whichever we choose.

Burial amulets? Oh, we can do that! We can use the terra cotta clay or the white model magic clay we used for pyramids beside the Nile.

Mummify a chicken? Oh, we can do that! It’s much easier and way less gross than skinning a chipmunk!

I think that my freaky level of project-preparedness sends me up a Level.

Learning Notes: July 21-27, 2008

As of July 1, we are officially homeschooling and responsible for reporting to the state. We’ve just wrapped up our fourth week and I’m finding it a relaxing Sunday habit to put these posts together. I also print out a copy to slip into JediBoy’s weekly folder. I enjoy reading this type of post on other blogs, and I hope to make a similar post each week.

If you’re interested, you can find my summary of the week’s learning notes behind the cut. Continue reading »

Friday Feet

It’s Friday, and it feels great. Poor BabyGirl has a little fever and a runny nose, so she’s taken no less than five naps today! But in between her mini-naps, we’ve taken advantage of the finally sunny weather and dry driveway to tackle some fun outdoor art projects, the best of which was…

Good Knight

What a good knight we had today…

Our local library brought in a man who is something of a medieval expert (though he says it makes him feel old to be called An Expert) with his arms & armor.

JediBoy was in heaven.

The knight started out dressed simply, something like this.

Then he had one of the older boys come up from the audience to be his squire, and help him get dressed. The knight told lively stories and demonstrated things as he added each piece to his outfit. He explained all about how chain mail is made, and why they made it that way, and demonstrated how swords don’t cut or pierce it and regular arrows can’t pierce it either. As he brought out each piece of armor, helmet or weapon, he described it, explained how it came to be developed, and what it was good for. By the end, he was dressed like this.

He passed a chain mail shirt, three different helmets and a pair of gauntlets around the room as well as some late Roman era coins. He encouraged the kids to try the helmets on, with often hilarious results. Here’s JediBoy in one of the helmets.

He gave the kids a ton of information, more than I could possibly recreate here. He covered topics as diverse as social classes; lead poisoning; the roots of the sayings “wake” (at a funeral), “dead ringer,” and “upper crust”; Charlemagne; the Crusades; the use of last names; heraldry, genealogy and family crests; catapults and trebuchets; his own interest in medieval times; the Ren Faire; book research vs. internet misinformation; and so on. Unlike typical 45-60 minute library programs, he talked for more than an hour and a half, and we stayed and talked with him for 15 minutes after everyone else had left.

JediBoy was beside himself with happiness, and it got even better when the knight gave me his card and told me he would be available for our homeschool group, and that he even has his son’s old child-size set of chain mail that he could bring along. JediBoy is already relishing the sparring possibilities.

Slow Day and Loving Reading

JediBoy woke up this morning about 4:30 and was up for two hours. Then he crashed again, and slept until after 11:00. This is unusual for him, to say the least, and we spent a slow and lazy day at home. We did play a whole bunch of board games, and between each game I’d flash him some addition and subtraction flashcards - if they’re in small enough bunches, say 10-15 at a time, he doesn’t lose his concentration and he can answer them very quickly (almost all under that “3 second” benchmark I keep reading about). Then we’d play… Sum Swamp, Scrutineyes Jr., Bumparena, Disney Trivial Pursuit.

I’m still smiling because two nights ago he stayed up after we were all asleep, saying “I love being the only one awake.” He proceeded to read all of Stuart Little in one sitting and then fall sweetly asleep in his glider rocker, where he stayed the rest of the night. That’s the love of books that I hoped to encourage in my children. It’s one of my favorite Anna Quindlen quotes…

I would be most happy if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists of building enough bookshelves.

If you’ve ever been to my house, or even seen the pictures, you’ll know how true this is in our lives! I grew up in a house that was wall-to-wall bookshelves wherever possible, and my kids are growing up in the same kind of environment. It makes my heart glad.

New Math is Old Math

JediBoy’s new math is my old math - old as in the early 1980’s: he has found a new love in my old Speak & Math. Do you remember the extra-geeky cousin to the Speak & Spell? Well, my high-tech double-screen boy loves the clunky old technology as much as I did when it was cutting-edge.