Baba Yaga Huts

I love Russian folk tales, and I've always loved Baba Yaga! I think my friend Rachael taught me that it's supposed to be pronounced "BA-ba ya-GA" [rather than "BA-ba YA-ga,"], so that's how we said it. There are tons of Baba Yaga stories. Her little hut on chicken's legs is always my favorite detail. So spooky! We listened to the piece from Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition ("The Hut on Fowl's Legs") while we made our huts.

I couldn't find anyone else's ideas online about how to make huts-on-chicken-legs, so I just had to make it up as we went along. We used little boxes from my gift-wrapping cupboard, taped on folded-paper "roofs," wrapped the boxes in paper, and then stuck pipe cleaners through for the legs. A couple of the houses actually stood on their legs, but most didn't. That was okay because the children mostly wanted to hop them around and make them "walk," so they didn't really need to stand up. We cut little doors in the side, and the children drew scary skulls on the fence around the house, or Baba Yaga peeking out the window, or whatever they liked.

Babies Homeschool Unit: Schedule and Lesson Plan

Since I had chosen something each child liked to study during their Birthday week, during MY birthday week, I decided to start a babies unit because I love babies! And it seemed like good timing because our baby is due in a couple months. It wasn't until later that I realized "Babies" would also logically include some sex education. I deliberated about how to handle that part for quite awhile---I kept looking for other people's ideas but I couldn't find anything I liked. Finally I realized, as I usually do, that to find something right for MY children, I would have to put it together myself. I prayed a lot that I would be able to present the information in the right way, and I felt really good about how it turned out for us---but I'm not positive that our approach is one everyone would be comfortable with. For our family, we have always been very open and straightforward about sex and bodies, using the correct anatomical terms, etc. And I continued that trend. Maybe some people would feel like this was too much, too soon for young kids, but I decided if we could delve into the logistics of nuclear power, we could delve into the logistics of making babies and giving birth. It felt right for us, and I loved the way the children reacted. We had some great discussions.  But be aware, if you're looking at these resources, that I didn't really hold back any information!

I think one of the very best resources out there is this book And They Were Not Ashamed. I actually think every married couple should read it. (We've started giving it as a wedding present---but anonymously---since we don't want the poor young couples having to imagine us choosing it for them. :)) I would recommend it to people more often, but it's an awkward subject to just bring up out of the blue, and I never want to imply that I think someone else has problems or needs help in this area---but honestly, it's just a great book. I think it would benefit any couple to read it, whether or not they think they "need help". Anyway, for my purposes here, it has a great section on talking to kids about sex. Lots of good insights and tips for how to approach the subject with reverence, without making it seem embarrassing or unnatural, along with enlightening quotes from church leaders and the scriptures. Much of my thinking on the subject of Sex Education was influenced by this book.

Another influence on our views about Sex Education was a wonderful Art History teacher Sam had at BYU, who talked about the benefits of teaching kids to be comfortable with the human body and to appropriately understand the beauty of the naked human form. Again, I realize this is a place where people's comfort levels differ, but we're comfortable showing our kids pictures like this and this and discussing them. I wish Sam could have been home for more of the unit (he's been working too much for the last several months to teach any homeschool) because he would have been great at discussing the place of nudity in fine art and giving good historical examples. But I did the best I could.

I used Elder Holland's excellent talk as reference as well---I know some of it is over the heads of children as young as mine, but there were several ideas that I took from it and presented to the children in simpler form.

Bread Unit and Lesson Plan

Bread! Could there be a better subject to study in the cold, dark depths of winter? Behold, I answer for you: there could not. We baked and baked every day. And we loved it.

My favorite two books were The World in Your Lunch Box (there were only a few parts specifically about bread, but it's just an interesting book all around!) and Loaves of Fun. The history in Loaves of Fun was really comprehensive and well-written---lots of interesting facts I didn't know before!

The children were so AMAZED with yeast and what it can do (and that it's aliiiive!). Though I know I've told them how it works while we've been making bread in the past, I guess doing some of the experiments/demonstrations this week really brought home the point in the way me telling them hadn't. This book had a few good experiments to try, and I also found several good sites online:

Red Star Yeast had some interesting projects

Here's a simple one (members only, but let me reiterate how much we LOVE The Happy Scientist---WELL worth the $20 subscription fee)

This experiment with gluten was kind of messy and interesting. There are some others on this site too.

It would have been fun to go to a grist mill for this unit if we hadn't already done that---actually I would have considered visiting again, but they aren't open in the wintertime.

Mesa Verde

Carlsbad Caverns is a tough act to follow, but during our cave unit, we also talked about humans' relationship with caves. Sam taught about cave symbolism and its religious significance for the Maya, and we looked at pictures of paintings found in the Lescaux Caves and others. And of course, we learned about the Anasazi people who carved out whole cities from the natural sandstone caves at Mesa Verde. We only had half a day, but it was time to take the easiest hike (many of the other hikes had ladders/climbs we didn't know if the littlest ones could negotiate) and drive around the mesa tops to see some of the sites from afar.

It was a beautiful warm Fall day. The leaves were changing colors and Daisy kept wanting her picture taken.

It is fascinating to be in these ancient places and think about the people that constructed them. I wish so much I could have a look at a day in their real lives. I wonder how accurate our conjectures are?