Bowling can be educational

Shhhhhh...don't tell my son he's doing math. My latest Montessori inspired "activity" is bowling. Using a chalk board we keep score, using tally marks we reinforce our addition skills. Nobody is crying over a math book. Win, win for everyone.

 

We bought our pins online and painted them with non-toxic watercolor paint, and sealed them with olive oil. I won't have to worry if somebody decides to nibble on the pins.

This small tool box was just floating about in my laundry room. My son has made two such boxes in cub scouts, and this is the smaller of the two. He didn't have much need for this small one, so I've commandeered it for our bowling activity.

Now, it is very important that they not throw the balls in the house...or ever, since they are solid wood and could hurt somebody. So this is a strictly supervised activity for us right now. We however, had the perfect hallway for an alley, and the ball rolling down the hall makes a nice sound which is kind of cathartic for me. I have always enjoyed bowling. I only had to demonstrate placing the pins once, and even the toddler understood. They are learning to take turns, and seem to enjoy setting the pins for their siblings.

Dressing Board

I intended to make a large button dressing board today. However, as I was digging though my scrap fabric stash, I found three pairs of Lands End tumblers. These pants had the knees blown out, and my intention had been to repurpose them into shorts. Clearly, I never got around to it. My eyes locked onto the buckles and inspiration was born.

Here's my version of the Maria Montessori Dressing board. I need to find more old discarded picture frame and then I can make more. This frame used to be faux wood colored. I tacked on a ribbon to hang the board because I have another idea. I'm thinking of using my colorful dressing boards as both learning tools and interior decorating.

A lesson in thermodynamics

Do not place anything, including the cat genie rug that the cats like to sleep on, on top of anything that might get warm. If left in such a place, the rubber backed rug will meld into the top of the warming surface. When you go to lift that rug for cleaning you will have a very hard time pulling it up and most of the rug will be left behind once you do get it up. It will likely take a weak armed woman, hours and hours of picking and scrubbing to remove the mess left behind.

My first rebatched soap experience

With the help of my assistant, we grated four bars (18oz) of ivory soap. Ten bars of ivory came to less than $5 at Shoppers Grocery Store. An 8.45oz bottle of almond oil was less than $7.

Meanwhile, the crock pot (from the local thrift shop for $7) heated up. I read that dishes used for soap making should not be used for food. I liked the crock pot method idea, so decided to see if I could find a small pot just for this activity, but I wanted to stick to a budget. It was a bit of a risk buying an untested appliance, but it's working thus far.  

First, I added about 6 drops of almond oil to the crock pot because I saw this done on http://www.wikihow.com%20rebatch-soap-(almond-oil-method)/ 

Second, I added the soap shavings into the crock pot with 2 tbs of water, and set the timer to 1 hour and the crock pot on low.

Now I need to figure out what to add to the soap after it melts. I'm thinking some sort of moisturizer and maybe oatmeal.

One hour in the crock pot, and I stirred soap, which was starting to melt some. The stirring caused it to sink down considrably and it appeared to me that I could fit more into the pot. So I added another bar (about 4.5 oz)  and 1 tbs of water to the pot. This brought the total to: 22.5oz ivory soap and 3tbs of water.

 I probably added a couple more tbs of water before adding the oil mix. I decided to add 1tsp almond oil, 1/2 tsp olive oil, 1/2 tsp safflower oil, and about 1/4cup of oat bran and a couple shakes of lavender herbs.

Then I glopped it all into my bread tin, which was lined in wax paper, and used another sheet of wax paper to press the top down. I guess you can call this the cold press method, but I'm not really sure that's what I actually did.

After this I stuck it in the fridge over night and let it set.

The soap rebatching resulted in ivory soap with oats in it. It still smells like ivory soap.

first batch is on the bottom
second batch on top

A couple days later I rebatched 5 bars of ivory with two bars of plain Lever 2000.  I also added goats milk to the crock pot instead of water. Then I added safflower and almond oil, as well as lavender herb. Finally, I tossed in some dried peony flower petals...and they turned green and brown. So it looks like I made sea weed soap, but it's not sea weed. This soap smells like ivory too. Oh well, it's been fun. I'll ty again when we run out of this stuff.

Homemade soap

I want to learn how to make it. I have no clue how it's done. I bet I could do it. Can someone show me how?

Math Lesson 2: Alice Through the Looking Glass

The chapter, Humpty Dumpty, brought up the subject of the number of days in a year. So we did some subtraction (365 days - 1 birthday = 364 unbirthdays), place value review (3 hundreds, 6 tens, 5 ones), and problem cross checking (364+1=365)

There's a math problem everywhere you look really!

We checked this book out from our local library.

Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator by Roald Dahl

Could I possibly teach math without workbooks? That's been my biggest reservation in considering an alternative math program. A couple weeks ago I started reading the kids Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. It's the sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which I've never read. I didn't even know we had this book, till I saw it on the top of a heap of books on the floor. We've all seen the movie, but what happens next, who doesn't want to know!

Anyhow, I won't ruin the plot for you, but a fantastic opportunity for a math lesson come about in chapter 15, and I decided to give it a test run to see if I could give a spontaneous math lesson based on the story we'd just read. And I tried to explain negative value. I'm sure that part went over their heads, but I tried to introduce the idea of debt; the amount you owe someone...or taking more than you have. Perhaps the leadership on the Hill could stand to read Chapter 15 too.