Homeschool Expo: In Which We Once Again Display Our Geekiness

Last week was the local Homeschool Expo, which is a conference devoted to homeschooling. I usually avoid things like this like the plague, because the idea of voluntarily going to a place that is crowded, noisy, and involves lots of shopping makes me jittery (I also dislike going to the mall, particularly at Christmas). Plus at a conference you actually pay for the privilege of going through that particular hell.

But the kids' Musical Theater classes were presenting pieces from their productions -- Annabeth's group was doing 3 songs from Mary Poppins and Thalia's group was doing some numbers from You're a Good Man Charlie Brown -- during the Talent Show, so we HAD to go on Thursday night, which is the free night when all the vendor stands are set up and thus even MORE people come into the place to browse and buy. Gah.

Add to this that Thalia and Annabeth have never really been aware that the Homeschool Expo exists, so they were naturally curious as to what it's all about. I logged onto the Expo website to prove what a waste of time it all was and discovered, lo and behold, that Jim Weiss was going to be there. Yeah, Jim Weiss, whose audio books we've spent hours and hours and hours listening to -- THAT Jim Weiss. Thalia grew up listening to him tell stories via our stereo. And thus began the kids' campaign to go back to the Expo and hear him talk. Also, there was a seminar on high school that really did sound interesting once I actually LOOKED at the schedule rather than just simply dismissing it as silly. So we bought passes for the Friday and Saturday sessions.

And arrived Friday morning to hear Jim Weiss tell us about historical heroes. Amazing stuff. He spoke for an hour or so, without notes, pausing at one point to mention that he really hadn't planned this out -- he was just seeing where the stories went. Afterwards we left for lunch, and the kids spent some time pulling out our old cassette tapes from Chinaberry Books that had been our introduction to his storytelling years and years ago.

In the afternoon we went back. The kids went to a session in which Mr. Weiss was going to explain how to weave a story, although apparently he asked the kids whether they wanted to learn THAT or just have him tell more stories, and the kids voted for more stories (although I have the impression he did explain to them some of what he does). In the meantime, I learned about the various kinds of test that high school students can/should take.

The kids wanted to get some of the Greathall Production CDs before we left. I sort of wanted to wait until Saturday, but it was apparent that the stuff was selling like hotcakes. So we selected some to purchase. And I asked if I could snap a picture:


"You gotta know -- you're a rock star in our house!"

And went home with plans to return Saturday afternoon for his final talk. But, alas, the snow started falling after lunch, and we would've been slogging back to the Expo during the worst of the storm. So we stayed in our cozy home, secure with our stack of new CDs -- I'M SO GLAD I LISTENED TO THE KIDS ABOUT GOING AHEAD AND BUYING THEM FRIDAY!

We're thrilled that we met another one of our heroes -- seeing Rick Riordan last October was another one. What a banner year!

Performing

Irish dance performances. Lots and lots of Irish dance performances. I stole these pictures from a friend's mobile uploads, by the way, because I've reached the point of Irish-dance-performance-photo overload, and rarely bother.



(The following is the photo we used to figure out that she took off her missing headband BEFORE we left ST. Clare's, by the way, so it's sort of like forensic evidence.)


And then 2 performances of Mary Poppins, with Annabeth in the role of Mary Poppins. Here she is telling Mr. Banks what's what.


And now we're mostly tired, and trying to catch up on the laundry.

Spontaneous Space and Aerospace class

Late one night it occurred to me that most of Annabeth's co op classes weren't meeting the next day due to various circumstances. Since I had an hour free during the time the science class met I emailed everyone and said I'd do an optional science class about space, which would dovetail with our family's trip to the planetarium. The main criteria for selecting activities was that they required almost no prep and almost no supplies since I didn't have time to mess with that sort of thing.

We started of by looking at the relative size of planets while we were in the classroom (I had the correct supplies for this around the house, and no one in the class was allergic to peanuts). Then we went outside to mark off how far apart the planets were, except we didn't have enough space to do it relative to the peppercorns, etc., so we pretended the sun was actually a half inch in diameter and used that as the number in this javascript . Various kids were holding index cards that had planet names, and they were standing practically shoulder-to-shoulder for the inner planets, then Jupiter, etc., had to go waaay down the parking lot. I thought it was a cool hands on demo that made good use of having a crowd of kids together.

Back inside we calculated their ages on other planets (I had taken in an iPad, but a laptop would've worked just fine, too), which they thought was an absolute riot. We also calculated my age and Thalia's (Thalia had come in to help, which was great because she's good with kids and loves astronomy, but bad because she was sick). We filled out worksheets about what we'd discussed so far. Then we discussed some of the then-current space news -- this was while Discovery was still at the International Space Station, and Captain Kirk had awoken the crew that morning. We mixed up some Tang to toast the occasion


(Really this picture is from supper that night because Annabeth was so enchanted by this whole thing that she drank gallons of Tang all week long.)

Actually we used Dixie cups to drink it in class, as I would've been seriously upset if any of the glasses had gotten broken. By the way, we can't remember where that carafe and glasses came from -- was it the grocery? Did you have to purchase Tang? Maybe the gas station? Also, whatever happened to all the BC glasses we had growing up?

Anyway, we still had time left in our hour, so we turned to the Junior Girl Scout badge book (of course -- you saw that coming, right? since this was a group of 3rd through 5th graders OF COURSE my favorite resource is going to be the Badge Book -- yeah, that book that GSUSA is getting rid of because they're idiots). We had already accomplished part of a couple of badges by discussing the space shuttle, so we used our worksheets to make paper airplanes (Aerospace badge activity #1) under the direction of Thalia, who is a GREAT maker of paper airplanes. Then we put on an air show with them (activity #9 of the same badge).

Once I got home I emailed the parents of the other Junior Girl Scout in the class and listed out how she could finish the Aerospace Badge on her own (e.g., make a glider, make a kite, visit an airport, etc.). Also, March is Women's History Month at NASA For Students, which makes it really easy to complete activity #10 Women Flying High in Space. I also suggested that they start the Sky Search badge while they were at it.

Overall, not bad for throwing together a lesson for a bunch of kids I didn't know in a couple of hours. If I'd had more time I would've done things differently, but I liked a lot of what we did.

Crochetville

I had decided to teach crochet in the spring to our co-op knitting and crochet class because I like crochet better than knitting when the weather warms up.

By random chance it happened that some of the kids were ready to start learning right before Christmas break. So I got them started. This worked well from the standpoint of working one-on-one with them. I just whipped out crochet hooks and yarn, did a brief demo of finger crochet, showed them how to use a hook to accomplish the same thing, then worked on single crochet into that foundation chain. Much discussion ensued about WHERE TO PUT THE HOOK -- under both loops? Does it matter? Interesting to discover that one of the girls who already crochets was under the impression that it really doesn't matter.

Also, much discussion about HOW TO HOLD THE YARN. I was pretty low key about how they held their yarn for knitting, but for crochet it's nearly impossible if it isn't in the left hand (if you're crocheting with your right hand) and it REALLY REALLY NEEDS TO come around the index finger or some other designated spot ("But, see, my index finger is crooked, so I can't do it that way." "First of all, it's gliding around the finger, so whether or not your finger is crooked doesn't make a difference. Second of all, if you don't want to use your index finger you can use your middle finger, but you're going to have it coming around SOMETHING."). I'd say those 2 things are a MUST (left hand, coming around a finger) but someone somewhere probably does an awesome job crocheting one handed or somesuch -- never say never -- but for these kids in this situation, left hand and yarn around a finger is their best bet.

After Christmas I made little foundation chains for everyone to practice on so they didn't have to mess with that first row, which is the toughest row (just like knitting).

The last time I taught someone to crochet was a couple of years ago when Thalia was working on a Scout project. I showed her how its done, she did it ... the whole lesson took less than 5 minutes. This time, though, I discovered a whole slew of things people could get wrong or be confused about. I've now analyzed every single movement I make with the hook in an effort to explain it to others. Gah. I can see why crochet is taught after knitting in Waldorf schools -- the thought process is different, and some people don't make the leap.

I've told them several times that I want them to learn the basics of crochet, then they can go back to knitting, if desired. Or they can decide to never knit again in their lives, and just crochet. (Or they can ditch both, but only after the class is done for the year.)

Anyway, after our rocky start, observing that people needed a sense of direction like the dishcloths we did in our knitting segment, I decided to show them how to make granny squares. This was taught to those who were interested -- those who'd already selected a project and wanted to work on that were welcome to (one girl who already knows how to crochet extremely well is working on knitting a hat, although she sometimes pauses to help other students with the crochet). I used written directions with a photo (link is pdf). One girl instantly zipped one out, just looking at the photo. Others ... struggled. It was really a range of abilities. So the next week I took ina chart. This really helped a couple of people. Plus it's a good idea to teach how to crochet from a chart, and I wish I'd thought of it before.

Annabeth really took off with the granny squares after this, making up an idea for mitts





and a matching headband.



Next up I plan to teach how to crochet amigurumi. I've had Annabeth giving it a try. We started out using patterns from Amigurumi World because I thought it was nice that you could make so many different animals from the same basic shape. Annabeth made a pink cat to try out the directions for me, since she's a beginner.



She did okay with it, but it occurred to me that some people in the class are going to really struggle -- they question each time they have to put the hook in a different stitch, they are somewhat unable to count rows and stitches, they question everything. I'm more the sort to say, "give it a whirl and see what happens, and if it isn't right rip it out and try again," but some people are so intense you'd think we're building nuclear reactors out of crochet; they're so wound up about whether they about doing everything EXACTLY RIGHT whilst concurrently unwilling to take responsibility for putting their crochet hook in the wrong stitch. Ack. It's exhausting to think about.

So I decided to do the Lion Brand egg cozy, which has less shaping and doesn't use safety eyes (a whole 'nuther potential for heartache, since once you put safety eyes in they're STUCK and can't be moved). This guy is festooning a plastic Easter egg, so he's tilty. Plus I sewed his ears on crooked, which I thought was sort of jaunty.




I used part of a cotton ball for the tail.



In the meantime, Annabeth pondered what she now knew about crochet ovoid shapes, and pondered one of her classmate's desire to crochet baby booties, and made up a pattern:



We need to take them next door to see how they work on baby feet.

She also made up a pattern for slippers for herself (another classmate wanted to find a pattern for slippers):



See, this is what is fun about crochet -- early in the game you can just mess around and make up your own stuff, assuming you're willing to accept the risk of make a total mess. I hope others in the class try designing their own stuff, too. I decided to take in some swatches so they could see the difference between, say, single crochet (on top) and double crochet (on bottom) and start to think about how they drape differently, how they curl, how would they work -- all handy things to know when designing, or, for that matter, deciding whether or not to crochet a particular pattern.



In the meantime, Thalia was inspired to use the Amigurumi World pattern for a pear




which she named George. I thought it should be named Malcolm (after Malcolm Reed on Star Trek Enterprise, of course).


And I've been working on more crochet collars for the Choreography Team dresses



which I've also taken in to class to show the kids. Again, perhaps it will inspire someone to try something new. Crochet is such a HUGE subject, and there are so many things to try. Too bad we don't have time to try them all.

Junior Girl Scout Making It Matter Badge

Annabeth has been working on this badge for a while now --back in January we made polymers and looked at ball bearings (activities 1, 2, and 4), we used one of our Snap Circuit sets to make various door chimes and alarms (activity 3).

Today we worked on activity 8, Base-ic Facts.

We chopped up red cabbage



and poured boiling water over it, then let it cool for 10-15 minutes.


We then used the water as a pH indicator. It turned blue with a base (baking soda in water)


and red with an acid (vinegar).


Then we tried mixing the 2


and once it stopped fizzing we got it back to its original purple.


Although after it sat for awhile it turned blue again.


We were having so much fun we started rummaging around the house for other stuff we could test.


Left to right: Windex, baking soda, fingernail polish remover (almost the exact color of the control cup above it), vinegar, Zevia lemon-lime soda.

So. Much. Fun. I was a little nervous about pulling out the Big Guns of cleaners, like ammonia and bleach. But guess what -- when I picked up Thalia after her classes this afternoon I asked her, "so what did you do today?"

"Chopped up red cabbage, and used it to test pH of various stuff, like toilet bowl cleaner, ammonia, lemonade ...."

Then, to finish up the badge, Annabeth took a look at CAD (activity #10). Since she's currently interested in architecture, we looked at YouTube videos showing how CAD is used in architecture, interior design, and landscaping. We found dozens of tutorials and adverts for various CAD programs -- it's a goldmine of examples.

And another science badge done. Just in time, too, since GSUSA is retiring all of the science badges over the next several months. I'm hoping they're replacing them with something awesomely cool made in conjunction with, say, Society of Women Engineers, featuring even more hands-on projects like we've been enjoying. Realistically, though, I expect to see a bunch of insipid "imagine a world made only of girls" (a phrase to that effect is in one of the new Journeys, prompting Thalia to rather acidly ask, "wouldn't that world die out in about a generation?" -- yep, science at its finest, GSUSA!) Not to imply that GSUSA is making a mistake by getting rid of the cool parts of the scouting program and instead filling it with twaddle and drivel the kids make fun of, but, um, well ... ahem, I'm just glad we get a chance to work on this stuff while we can still have fun while earning badges.

EDITED TO ADD: Okay, I was just looking at the list of discontinued badges, and this one isn't listed after all. Several (most?) of the science badges are being discontinued, but this one has made the cut. For now.

Random Acts of Science

Last weekend every time we drove by the Science Center AnnaBeth asked if we could visit it (note to those who don't live here: the Science Center spans a major highway in town, so it's really hard to miss if you're anywhere near it).

Then, of course, this week was the blast off of the last mission for space shuttle Discovery , which we watched. And then sent a birthday card to Scott Kelly on the shuttle Friday. Then I asked, Do you want to go ice skating?" to which Annabeth replied, "I want to go to the planetarium."

Thalia decided to join our adventure, and thus the 3 of us found ourselves arriving at the planetarium in time to see the afternoon show on planets in our solar system, which was better than any of us remembered, possibly because this time we realized that the BEST answer when the lecturer asked , "What do you suppose these bodies are around Jupiter?" was to exclaim "Death stars?!" And,upon viewing the list of Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callista, Thalia announced, "that's what I'm going to name my children." Also, we decided the list of dwarf planets -- Pluto, Eris, Ceres -- needed the addition of a friend's last name (you know who we mean, right? Yes, HIM.)

After the lecture ended the kids practiced replacing the lithium oxide canisters to purify the air:



Annabeth pretended to wash her hands; the replica of the toilet next to it was pretty much impossible to pretend to use.


Thalia flew a simulation over the continent. Or something like that. Really, I'm not sure what the point of that particular display was.


Then we scurried over to the main science center to shop at the gift shop.

On the way back we discovered that someone had actually managed to put up the Arch (always worth a snap shot -- it fell over before they had a chance to take a picture themselves).




And stopped on those clear things that allow you to look down on the Interstate directly below your feet:

And isn't this the perfect outfit for visiting the science center -- Catbus hat, Oireachtas hoodie, Stormtrooper messenger bag, and, of course, Uggs

Mostly we stopped on all of the viewholes because they really disturb Thalia's BFF, and we wanted to take lots of disturbing pictures. Wish a car would've zoomed by when I clicked this:


Then home to eat our dehydrated ice cream we had purchased from the gift shop, which fulfills a Junior Girl Scout badge requirement (#8 Space Flight Spinoffs).


And, of course, we also completed #4 Think Sky High (visit an airport, an airplane cockpit, a control tower, a space center, an aerospace museum, or a planetarium) and #6 Shoot for the Stars (watch a space launch) in the midst of this, not to mention badge Sky Search #2 Constellations (learn to identify at least 5 constellations), #10 Mission: Space (learn about a current mission in space), and made a good start on #4 Planets (learn which planets are visible to the naked eye and locate at least one during a stargazing adventure -- we'll have to wait for some clear weather for that).

Plus, AnnaBeth has decided her new career path -- astrophysicist. Although I think she's simply attracted to the FIZZ of the word, and not the meaning.

Feis Doubleheader -- St. Louis Irish Arts and Winterfeis

Sorry for the delay in posting, but I was sick earlier in the week. On the bright side, the worst of it was on Tuesday, which is the day SyFy network runs a lot of Star Trek reruns, so that worked out well for languishing on the couch.

February always brings the St. Louis Irish Arts Feis to the Ballpark Hilton. And sometime in the past year or so it occurred to someone at Graham that the SLIA Feis was on President's Day weekend, President's Day is a day off for a lot of people, and wouldn't it be clever to run a feis on Sunday at the same hotel so that people could compete in 2 feiseanna for their travel time/dollar. Thus was born the St. Louis Winterfeis. (Full disclosure: Graham then merged with Clarkson, so to a certain extent this became our school's feis, but it was mostly the former Graham people running it, so I'm calling it a Graham feis.)

Things that were the same about both feiseanna:

Same hotel with same setup as to location of concessions and vendors.

Same stages, with our kids in Novice and Open assigned to the same stages both days.

Many of the same judges and musicians.

Cool feis tshirt available both days:



SLIA feis started at 8:30am on Saturday. SLIA has a history of interesting feiseanna (ahem), so we were interested to see how this would work out for us given that 3 days after I submitted our payment for competition we found out that Annabeth had a Mary Poppins rehearsal from 12:30 to 3pm that same day. It was entirely possible that she could make it through all of her soft shoe competition before leaving for the rehearsal, but, this being SLIA, we figured it would be improbable. And, indeed, she danced reel, lined up to dance slip jig (after several other slip jigs had danced), waited around, then was told she was dismissed for lunch at about 11:20, meaning that by the time the lunch break was over and they got reorganized for her competition she'd have to leave for rehearsal. So very annoying. So very typical of this feis.

The main problem was that we were on the stage with ALL of the First Feis and Beginner 1 competitions. Of course, this had some entertainment value (the little kids in First Feis are amazingly cute, wandering off stage to talk to friends right in the middle of the competition), but also took FOREVER.

After Annabeth left with Rick, I headed over to Thalia's stage, which had completed all soft shoe before lunch, and had been working their way through Treble Jig. Thalia's stages were in the Archview Ballroom. The last time we were in this ballroom the picture windows had been behind us and the stages against the opposite wall. This time the stages were against the windows, which yielded an amazing view


but was fairly glare-ish for viewing dancing.


I have no idea if the judges had problems with seeing what the heck was going on. The judges were rotated fairly often, so perhaps that helped. Oddly, Thalia was also rotated between group A and group B with every dance (I had assumed these things were decided by birthdate, but maybe they draw numbers out of a hat to decide who's in which group for which dance). That was sort of fiddly to keep track of. Overall, though, things in this ballroom proceeded smoothly (not to mention the higher quality of gossip obtainable from the other spectators); Thalia was done dancing by about 2:20pm and we headed down to results, not knowing what to expect after last year's result's room mayhem. But, WOW, they were using the feisworx computerized system, so it was just a matter of presenting the dancer's competition number and quickly, easily picking up the appropriate award. We were out of the building by 2:50pm. We figured Annabeth's stage was still on Hornpipe at that point.

Overall I'd have to say that SLIA feis has gotten better through the years, although they still have some areas for improvement. I think they had higher numbers of competitors this year than usual due to the double feis lineup, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Even though Annabeth only managed to dance one dance, she did get a 3rd in it; as her teacher pointed out, that was 100% of her dances.

The next day's Winterfeis started at 8am -- earlier start because Graham was totally focussed on getting through the day EARLY so people could make it home Sunday night. Our competitions (Novice and Open) were in the same rooms, but the Beginners were spread out more equitably (no clue on First Feis -- I think most of those were on Saturday, because once you dance in your first feis you're a beginner). This time the picture windows in Thalia's room had a scrim over them in the morning, although they raised it in the afternoon. Other than that, we were sitting in the same seats in the same place doing the same thing for the second day in a row.

Annabeth did her own poof, though, and thought it looked better:


I did hear people complain that they wished there was more room to put their stuff (dress bags, wig cases, etc. etc.) in the stage 3/4 ballroom, which was the same one we were in for last fall's Graham feis -- I pointed out to them that there was a large area across the hall that could be used to dump extra stuff and still have room for kids to practice (it's that big hallway with the baby grand piano and the elevators -- I keep thinking there should be restrooms and a drinking fountain back there, but I've yet to find them).

At about 1:15 Rick came over to our stage to watch Annabeth dance, but we were packing up our stuff, totally finished with all dances, they were running Treble Reels and announcing that they were swinging some PC competitions to that stage so they could zip through them more quickly (aren't PC stages usually bigger, though? No clue if that was an issue at all). We all tromped over to Thalia's stage, watched Traditional Sets, went to get tshirts and results while Rick finished watching the Purdue basketball game on his laptop (if you were there, he was the one who yelled during a lull in the dance competitions because someone missed a layup during the game). We were home by 2:30, once again skipping the Treble Reel competition.

Again, the Feisworx computer system was used for results. The feis had run out of the 4th place ribbons, so they started giving out the 3rd place medals in their place. Cool medals -- quarter included in the picture so you can see how big they were:


This turned out to be a good weekend of feissing. I hope they (we?) do this again next year. Our results were mediocre, but both feiseanna had a lot of competitors, and the competition was pretty good because of it.