Prayer for a Deer

Unfortunately, last night the children saw someone hit a deer with a car and kill it. When Natalie went to bed she asked me if we could pray for the deer. So we prayed that God had taken the deer to heaven, that He would take good care of all the other deer and help other drivers to be safe on the road and to pay attention. I was so upset -- the driver didn't even stop. There was glass all over the road, the deer was thrown down the hill and died very quickly. It must have been some impact... how could anyone not stop? I was behind a driver who hit a deer last year and the same thing, they just kept going. I stopped and the deer was there in the road in front of me trying to walk with only three legs, confused and disoriented. I went to the closest church and called the police since the deer was wandering about in the road and it presented a hazard. The police came and shot it and left it in a field where it proceeded to decompose over the course of the next year. I felt so guilty every time I passed the corpse because I felt like I personally had killed the deer. Of course, I didn't. I don't know if deer go to heaven or not but I hope this one does. It really wasn't his fault that the car hit him and, mercifully, he was soon out of his misery.

Today the Valentine's Fairy brought us snow! Natalie pointed out that last year she had brought toys and games but, as we all know, the fairy is working with a somewhat smaller budget this year. :-) Actually I fell asleep feeling terribly guilty that I had nothing to give the children this year for V. Day but when we woke up to snowfall and a two hour school delay it was a real blessing. Natalie gets a long weekend vacation so I am really excited about having her all day Friday and Monday.

By the way, Somebody Loves You, Mr. Hatch is the classic V. Day story but I also really love You and Me which is a current favorite in this house and a wonderful love story suitable for any adult and child to read together.

Valentine Frenzy

Something new for us... the responsibility of providing a valentine for every child in the class. Can't afford store bought valentines but don't have time to hand make 14. And I had forgotten about V-Day because we were so focused on Japan. In the car on the way to get Natalie from school I came up with the solution. What do we have 14 of in the house? Clementines! And clementine, luckily, rhymes with valentine. Her teacher specified that she needed to hand-write the name of each boy and girl in the class and sign each card by hand so that's already a lot of writing -- I printed out cheerful sayings on a sheet of address labels and we put a clementine in each baggie with a card upon which Natalie had written her name and the name of the recipient, folded the baggies over and sealed each with a sticker. Done. She also decorated the cards with some stickers we had on hand since it took her less time to write the names of her friends than I had feared. Apparently she's been practicing them in class because that's what she really really wants to learn how to write. My original plan had been to stencil a heart on each card and fill them in by gluing vintage buttons... still a cute plan but voted too time-consuming. Next year.


Here's a clementine for you, Valentine!

Volcano & Fish Printing Notes

Our volcano model of stacked nesting mixing bowls (upside down) with a small cup on top (right side up) covered in tin foil and placed on a cookie sheet with wooden trees around worked beautifully. Here is the recipe:

Pour into vessel
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup white vinegar
a few drops clear dishwashing liquid
a few drops red food coloring

When it is time for the "explosion," pour in 1 T baking soda very quickly.


The children in her class were very impressed with the volcano model and enjoyed Natalie's presentation quite a bit. The fish printing also went over big. This was a new project for me and here are the notes:

1. thin paint (or calligraphy ink) works best

2. thin paper such as newsprint (or rice paper) works best

3. a foam brush works better than a foam roller for quickly covering the fish but still preserving detail and not overpowering it with paint. If your fish has too much paint on it do two prints and keep the second

4. having the children choose which hand will hold the paper steady on the fish and which will slowly and carefully press all the parts of the fish before they lay their paper on the fish is a good idea

5. so is having them write their name on the back of the paper first

6. rubber fish are a fantastic invention (otherwise you have to use EXTREMELY fresh dead fish which can be hard to get hold of)

7. two rubber fish is plenty. Set up two fish printing stations instead of having to pick up wet painty/inky fish with your hands when the child decides she wants to do the other one

8. set the fish on a cafeteria tray for easy cleanup


Acorn Naturalists is a good source for replica fish as well as other goodies for the naturalist in us all; they also sell a complete Fish Printing Starter Kit.

UPDATE 06/02/2017: Acorn Naturalists is no longer the supplier I recommend... I get my Gyotaku Fish Printing Replicas from Dick Blick.

Food From Japan

This weekend I went to the grocery store to buy some snack foods for Natalie's class to enjoy in their "restaurant" part of her presentation. I found rice crackers, Pocky (cookies), roasted sheets of seaweed for rolling sushi, instant green tea powder, black sesame seeds, bamboo shoots, Japanese brown sugar, crystallized ginger and a sugar cane baton which is the coolest thing I've ever seen! It has to be refrigerated so I have it in my fridge and I keep peeking in to look at it. It is an actual hunk of sugar cane cut right off the plant with a machete or whatever (see below). Apparently you simply stick it in your mouth and chew on it vigorously.

Tomorrow we are practicing our fish printing, our volcano eruption, and reviewing the items in the artifact box so that Natalie is not nervous for her presentation in front of the class.

For the younger children, our radish and lettuce seeds have sprouted (it was super-fast, within 48 hours) and they are happily spritzing them with water at every opportunity. They'll be in on the fish printing tomorrow. I also plan to get out all the pots and pans in the house and have us bang on them. This is a classic moment from childhood that somehow they missed... so time to rectify that!!! Maybe it's because they've been helping cook since they were so little that they knew what the things were for and so never thought of flipping over a pot and swatting it with a spoon. But I am tired of seeing it on TV commercials and thinking, we've never done that, so tomorrow we will. It will be a cold cold day here so some indoor fun is just the ticket.

Restaurant Books

I have been guilty myself of the trap I always tell others not to fall into -- not posting because I'm afraid what I'm doing is not "Waldorf enough." It's true we've had to go a bit more mainstream because of the heavy scrutiny of the custody battle but I do try to keep things literature rich. We are doing the art and the cooking and the nature and the stories and the movement and so on and now a bit of letters and numbers are creeping in. So if you hate me for that, move on to a different blog. :-) But I do have some book notes on things that we've done this week so if you like book recommendations read on.

I took the children out to breakfast yesterday and we went to lunch today, of course, so here are some books that go well with a "restaurant theme".

Things People Do pp.10-11

Mr. Angleo by Marjory Schwalje

Today is Monday by Eric Carle

Some notes:
Re. Mr. Angleo, this book is VERY hard to find and I'm thrilled that there are some copies available on Amazon right now. It is the story of a man who wakes up each day, decides what he'd like to cook, and then makes a tremendous amount of it. One day he decides to open up a restaurant since he's already cooking such large quantities (he eats the same thing for breakfast, lunch, and dinner). But when his customers come he only has one thing to offer and it's never what they wanted! He is discouraged and about to give up on his dream when a young boy named Jim comes up with the perfect solution to the problem. Mr. Angelo washes up all the dishes at the end, too, which is a nice touch. I always like books that talk about cleaning up after your project is done. There's a book called The Man Who Never Washed His Dishes which I like to read to my kids too...

Eric Carle's book Today is Monday has written music in the back; you can also buy a cassette tape of the story being read and then the song. This has been a big hit in the car. It also teaches the days of the week (and you have to recite them backwards which is tricky) which is something my kids care an awful lot about now that they spend some days with their dad and some with me. So which day is which and what order they go in and how far it is between them has been a big deal here lately.

We've also talked about the seasons changing and especially birds. There is a great book to go along with birds building nests that I want to recommend; it's really cute and it's called Who Took the Farmer's Hat? by Joan L. Nodset. This one is a classic and good for ages 3 & 4 because they are old enough to get the joke. The premise of the book is that a gust of wind takes the farmer's old hat and sends it flying but every animal he meets who he asks about it gives him a different response. Each says no, but I saw a... and you can see that it was the hat but they think it was an old brown hill, a nice brown hole, a round brown bird, etc. The final person he asks is a bird who says, I haven't seen your hat anywhere but I have this nice round brown nest and the bird has already settled in and laid an egg so the farmer says to her, yes I see that this is most definitely not my hat after all and goes off and buys himself a new one. It's very sweet.

The Bot Mystery Solved

By the way, we have solved the mystery of the bots. Rebecca has fallen in love with a simple little picture book I got out from the library and will definitely buy since the kids are reading it by themselves and to each other 20 times a day: Animals Sleeping by Masayuki Yabuuchi. There are many many books of this type but this one is fantastic. The illustrations are beautiful, the text is simple but elegant, and the animals they choose are really fun. Koala, leopard, sea otter, albatross, flamingo, bat, and camel. They have copies used on Amazon starting at 18 cents so, really, I urge you to get one if you have a 2 or 3 year old. Makes a nice bedtime story too because I end it with, and how does Rebecca sleep? And she shows me how she lies down on her bed. So anyway she's been reading it to herself and one day I realized she was calling bats "bots". Aha!

Jon J

In homeschool today we had a play date at Annmarie Garden with some families from a local Mom's Club. I've decided to bite the bullet and join (having resisted for almost 6 years) mostly because my little girls need some boys to play with. I did get them a book on construction equipment, having realized that I was inadvertently being sexist and neglecting that aspect of their education, which was fantastic because when we arrived at the sculpture garden they were pouring a sidewalk for the new visitor's center and we got to stand and watch. After walking around and looking at the art for about an hour the children and I went to lunch with Katie and her mom Sarah. We had Chinese food, something my kids are not that familiar with, so that was a special treat. I packed up the leftovers to take home for Natalie to try. Her class is studying China this week as part of their World Tour.

Next Tuesday Natalie is leading her class as the tour guide to her chosen country, Japan. Two days ago we made a big backdrop with a mountain on it (she colored a white cardboard backboard) and the title JAPAN on it. I had her trace and color a red circle on a white piece of paper to be the flag and we glued it on the backboard in the upper lefthand corner. Now it looks really cool because it is the flag and the sun in the sky above the mountain. Hopefully that will help the children in her class remember the Japanese flag.

In Natalie's school, being tour guide is a huge deal. You help the children off the plane (or whatever mode of transportation they used to get to your country -- the kids actually line up in the hallway to enter the country) and take them around, teach them about the country and even take them to eat in a restaurant there! My role as parent is to help her learn about Japan but not to take over. I had a parent conference with the teacher just to make sure I was walking the line properly and not turning it into "Rhoda's Report on Japan." :-) But we have planned some really cool things. The backboard will stand on a table with a volcano diorama in front of it -- my parents NEVER let me make a volcano model and I always wanted to so this is the perfect opportunity!!! -- and she will talk about how the islands of Japan were formed and then make the volcano erupt. She will have a box of artifacts to help her remember the salient points about Japan. We will read the book Taro and the Bamboo Shoot by Masako Matsuno and then head over to our "restaurant" table to try bamboo shoots! Then the best part... Gyotaku: The Japanese Art of Fish Printing. I'm also going to leave some books (I thought when we first got this country that I didn't have any picture books about Japan but, of course, I was wrong) for the teacher since they'll be in that country for the rest of the week. Here are the other books I'm recommending

The Tale of the Mandarin Ducks by Katherine Paterson
Basho and the River Stones by Tim J. Myers
Zen Shorts by Jon J. Muth
Where Are You Going? To See My Friend! by Eric Carle & Kazuo Iwamura

By the way, if you love Jon J. Muth (and who doesn't???) I've heard he has a brand new Zen book for children out, also featuring the lovable panda Stillwater. It is called Zen Ties.