Like Summer

Tin Man

If you listen very carefully, you can hear a rusty voice barely whispering, "Oil me!"

Ruben made the hat with one of the parents at his school out of a paper plate, tape and aluminum foil.  He taped the cans and lids to his shirt.  (We have a nice can opener that removes the lids of cans without any sharp edges.)  I love how the big tomato cans fit right over the tops of his cowboy boots.

It is non-stop Wizard of Oz around here!

One of THOSE Days

"What is the matter, my dear? said Miss Grizzel.  "Is the jelly not to your liking?"

That face just kills me.  Even though I was having "one of those days," a look at this picture lightened my load.  This is from a 1931 edition of The Cuckoo Clock by Mrs. Molesworth, and the brilliant illustration is by C.S. Brock.  It is in Chapter 6, "Rubbed the Wrong Way."

What makes you smile when even the jelly is not to your liking?

Phony Trees

I kept seeing a strange tree as I zipped past in my minivan, but it was hard to get a good look in traffic.

I tried to get a little closer, but it proved difficult.

Do you think it's related to this conifer around the corner?

Or this one without its foliage?

Make Your Own Kid-Sized Clothes Hangers

Here are some free and easy wire hangers that I just made for our dress-up area:

Watch out when you cut.  My wire end went flying!

I am hoping that the electrical tape wrapping will make these more durable and will keep any sharp wire safely inside the cardboard.  It's time for me to teach them to hang up their own capes!

Sheet Pans and Oobleck

I use aluminum baking sheets (aka sheet pans) as work surfaces for a lot of our projects.  They keep glue off of the table and keep small parts from rolling away, but above all, they make it easy to move the project aside for a few minutes or hours and then bring it back without a lot of disruption.  I often wish our art area (dining room) had one of these.  I'm pretty sure I'd put warm cookies on mine, too.

You can see the kids using sheet pans for playdough just a few posts ago.  Sometimes I have the kids finger paint directly on the pan instead of on paper, and then just rinse the pan when they're done.

These pans are perfect for oobleck, too.  If you've never tried making oobleck, PLEASE do:  2 parts cornstarch + 1 part water = non-toxic, mind-bending Non-Newtonian fluid.  Fun if you're 2 or 20 or 100.

Plain white oobleck is wonderful, but you can have lots of fun with color mixing, too.  For mesmerizing color, you can't beat adding little flakes of dry watercolor paint, which dissolve slowly, leaving color trails, but adding drops of liquid tempera or food coloring works, too.

Oobleck is a shear thickening non-Newtonian fluid, which basically means that pressure makes it more solid.  If you punch it, it's hard, if you poke it, it's soft.  Squeeze it and it breaks, let go of it and it drips.

Here's an amazing video of oobleck on a vibrating surface.  I can't wait to try that!

Jumbo and Peanuts

I am almost embarrassed to admit how many times I've listened to my Jumbo CD.  It has been in my car since it first came out (right around when Julio was born), and in the past year and a half I have listened to it over and over... and over.  This has had an interesting unexpected consequence:  Julio loves it, too.  More than I do.  When we get in the car he starts saying, "Jumbo!"  If I try to play any other music, he starts shouting, "JUMBO! JUMBO! JUMBO!"  Like some magical elixir, Jumbo stops his crying immediately when he hears it.  If he's tired, it puts him right to sleep.  If he's neither tired nor cranky, he starts laughing when he hears the first notes.  You can listen to the title track at the link above to see how hilarious this is.  It is certainly no "Hush, Little Baby."

Jumbo is my brother, Mole's, album, but all sisterly pride aside, this album is excellent.  My brother wrote and sang all of the songs, the music is complex and catchy and beautifully produced, and his lyrics are alternately brilliantly funny and touching.  This is not kids' music, but in our family it's at the top of the charts.

If you want some great music that was actually written for kids, check out "Whoever Shall Have Some Good Peanuts" by Sam Hinton.  My brothers and I literally wore the grooves off of our old vinyl album when we were kids, and you may hear some of its folksy influence in my brother's music.  There are a lot of old traditionals on this album, and although there are many sweet songs, it is not saccharin like so much of today's kiddie music.  There are fights and dreams and drunkards and death and there is plenty of silliness, too.  Hinton was a superb vocalist and a true folk master (he was also a naturalist), and I count him among my personal heroes.

You can listen to the beginnings of some songs from the album:
Barnyard Song
Old Blue
Old Dan Tucker
The Frog Song

My music list is not quite as long as my book list, but there you have it: Jumbo and Peanuts.  What are you listening to at your house?