Making Dolls

Over the last month or so we've been knee-deep in doll-making. While we were at The Gateway Arch bookstore over Spring Break, Sunburst and I honed in on a little booklet entitled Easy-to-Make Early American Folk Dolls. Sunburst has been wanting to sew stuff for a while now, and she was still looking for a project for our local homeschool History Fair, so it seemed like a perfect opportunity. And it was something that Moonshine could help with, too.

Tonight we fastened the dolls onto the presentation board with wire and schlepped it over to the library. I vastly underestimated what a load of work it was going to be. We made EIGHTEEN different dolls, including two that weren't in the book! The girls both did a fair share of that work, but of course I had to help a lot. And I don't mind that. We all had a load of fun! For Moonshine it was all about loving the dolls. Each new one was her "favorite," and she gave most of them names. Sunburst enjoyed the hand and machine sewing, but it was also a bit of a history lesson. She knows about early America-- the colonists, the revolution, and folks moving West-- all from reading American Girl and Little House books. So we took her prior knowledge and added some dolls and a timeline to it. It was great. Or at least, I thought it was great. The girls were really into it, and Sunburst really understood the ins and outs of each doll and why it fit the time period.

But then we got to the library and she gave her presentation. She stood with her back to the small group of parents and kids and numbly whispered. My extroverted, energetic, non-stop talking, forever fidgeting, bright-eyed, confident, sharp-as-a-tack daughter is suddenly a lot like her dear, old mom. Shy and totally freaked out to be in the spotlight. Now, I've long since grown out of that. I'm no longer a barnacle on my mom's leg... but Sunburst? How did this happen? And what can we do?

Luckily, Moonshine got up and chitter-chatted in her usual way. You almost have to gag her to get her to be quiet these days. She willingly told the names of all the dolls and the history of those names and so on and so forth. On the way home I overheard her offering to give Sunburst's next presentation for her, too. Free of charge.

Here are some close-ups of a few of the dolls (including the one made with homespun yarn.)

O' Pioneers?!

Another month, another homeschooling fair. This time the topic was history, and Sunburst was all fired up to present on her favorite obsession of all time: pioneers.

Sunburst lives and breathes Mary and Laura Ingalls. She has been taken in by the Little House books for more than half of her short life, and now that she's reading independently and fluently, each progressive book in the series accompanies her wherever she goes. Her life and interests have been shaped by these books, and really, that's not such a bad thing.

Two hours after we arrived home from our trip to Michigan, Sunburst was slated to present. She put on her pioneer girl costume, grabbed her knitting, spinning, and embroidery projects, gathered up her prized collection of McGuffey Readers, and headed out the door. She wasn't entirely prepared to speak about the subject in a fluid, flawless manner, she's only 7 afterall, but she did manage to say a few words, show off her handcrafts and give an impromptu spinning demonstration.

I love that this pioneer theme parallels Waldorf education and unschooling in many ways. It's real life work, connecting first to her heart and then expanding out through her hands into concrete, meaningful creations. And she's engaged, cognitively. She learned to read using the same type of books that Mary and Laura would have used, McGuffey readers from the late 1700's. It was her idea, her passion, and completely self-directed.

Homeschooling doesn't get any better than that.

Playing with brownies

Moonshine simply doesn't want to be left out of the mix, ever, and I don't blame her. I didn't formally sign her up for the International Fair, but I did let her present. Let? Perhaps not the right word. She fussed when they skipped over her, and insisted on presenting her topic...

"Well, these are cherries."

Um, is that a Brownie? What is a Brownie?

"Well, I don't know."


She does know, I think. The girls and I have been reading Adventures of a Brownie, and Sunburst has been writing letters to see if we have a Brownie in our house (no replies yet, so we think they might only speak Gaelic.) We talk about Brownies an awful lot, and there is some question as to whether or not the woodpecker that lives in a tree next door is really a Brownie in disguise.

For those of you that don't know, Brownies are small, brown house elves that originated in Scotland. Scots believe quite heavily in faerie folk, so much so, that they even rally to save sacred fairy homes: Fairies stop developer's bulldozers in their tracks

Moonshine co-opted the Scotland theme and drew a picture of a Brownie with cherries, sort of a little sister project for team Scotland. She was happy, we were happy, and Grandma found us this FABULOUS link for printing out our very own Brownie Paper Dolls: here, and here.

**EDIT - 02 May 06**

The brownies must be onto us.

The above links to the brownie paper dolls have mysteriously stopped working for some folks. Try copying them into a new browser window. If they work for you, I advise saving them ASAP to print out for your little ones.
http://image03.webshots.com/3/9/99/94/9799994ZrdRyKVqbh_fs.jpg
http://image03.webshots.com/3/9/99/49/9799949XdJTkVQlua_fs.jpg

Just to be on the safe side, I'll leave out some milk and bread for the wee brown folk. We don't want any nasty boggarts on our hands.

Good luck!

Scotland, the brave

She's a brave wee lass to stand up in front of a crowd of folks and give a presentation.

It's painful to be the parent watching it though. Sunburst introduced herself, said, "I'm doing Scotland," and froze. Just for a minute. She stared at all the faces, turned around and stared at her display, and tried to sort out in her brain what she was supposed to do next. The crowd was very patient with her, and I watched her take a deep breath and ready herself. "This is a picture of Scotland that I watercolor painted. And there are lots of castles in Scotland..."

I almost didn't tell her about this international geography fair. I thought she might be too young for it, and I recall reading that with littles you should start geography with where you are, which makes perfect sense. You can own where you are, you can see it, smell it, feel it, and connect with it on a heart level. Formally, we haven't really done local geography. Shouldn't I get out a map of our current state and go from there?

We watch the wildlife outside our window. We see the different colored blossoms on the trees, and notice that the squirrels here are red and fat and fearless. We watch the birds and the bunnies and the deer. We walk and drive. We meet people and see things. We experience the change of seasons and stick our hands in the dirt. How can you live and breathe and not learn local geography?

So I let her jump right in. It helped that bits of Scotland are already familiar to her, that her dad plays bagpipes, and that haggis is utterly foul sounding. It helped that the Loch Ness Monster is a thing to wonder about. And it helped that we're reading Little House on the Highlands. and we have Scottish ancestry, too, just like Mary and Laura Ingalls. That pretty much sealed the deal. The heart connection was there.

And she had fun. The kids that presented were homeschoolers ages 3-16. Some of them whispered and others cracked jokes. It was a chance for homeschooling kids to come together and be a part of something bigger than themselves. And that, at least at our house, doesn't happen every day.

When it was over she turned and said to me, "Mom, I think they really liked my shortbread cookies."

Tapadh leat

Today Sunburst worked on her Scotland project. She has been speaking in Scots Gaelic (apparently different than Irish Gaelic) for three days now. Not complete sentences, mind you. Assuredly not anywhere near the correct pronunciation, (I wouldn't even have a clue about that,) but in bits and pieces here and there as she can work it in, opening the book each time and requesting things like lite (porridge) and uisge (water.)

We talked through the planning stages of her display board, and she had me writing out a rough list of words/phrases she might want to recopy to include on it. She sat across the couch from me thumbing through a book on the Loch Ness Monster while I held the other book open and stared at those Gaelic words long and hard trying to spell them right ...uan, uisge, Ciamar a tha thu?

Thinking I was done, I closed the book and started to walk away, "Oh wait, tapad leet!" She yells at me. What? I looked at her blankly trying to interpret. "Thank you, tapad leet." Huh? "Write that one down too." Oh! I opened the book back up and there it was, on the bottom of the page, Tapadh leat. I hadn't heard that one before.

How on earth did she remember that?

Nothing gets past these kids. They remember every story, every promise, every everything. It's easy to see in the girls, as they come up with some new thing to amaze us with everyday (like knitting blind-folded!) The jury has been out on Kitty Bill, though. I mean, we weren't sure if we would be blessed with another sound mind. It's risky business, this gene pool lottery. But it looks like he's a clever one too. He's already watching to see what he can get away with, and as soon as we turn our heads --Zoooom! He's gone after some item of contraband, and he knows it, because he keeps looking over his shoulder to see if he's getting caught. At seven months! These kids can already outwit us, and they're not even close to being teenagers yet.

We are so screwed.