Happy Halloween!

Our Halloween traditions: how to make them easier on Mama?

I was inspired to try and take the "Easy Way Out" this Halloween. It's one of my family's favorite holidays (not my favorite, but the kids and my husband love it) and we have traditionally celebrated the heck out of it. But, let's face it - it's a LOT of work for the Mama. Being the holiday wizard in charge of making sure the family gets their special times and memories is yet another chore that falls on my shoulders.

I didn't have it in me this year (I really am barely keeping my head above water with all the work and different hats I'm wearing), so I couldn't imagine sitting down and sewing costumes. I proposed that we just go to the Halloween store and buy costumes this year, and the kids LOVED that idea. Although it meant shilling out hard-earned money for cheap crap, the trade-off was that I didn't need to sit up all night long trying to find the time to sew costumes. I don't know that it's the right choice for every year, but for this year it felt right.

But then I proposed that we just buy our pumpkins at the grocery store, instead of picking them out at the pumpkin patch farm. They already got to go to the patch earlier this month, for a homeschool group field trip, and pick out small pumpkins to bring home. So why not just buys our big carving pumpkins at the grocery store?

TOTAL MUTINY. It's not Halloween if we don't get our pumpkins at the farm! So we squeezed a trip in, and they were happy with that. And now I know which traditions matter to them and which don't.

Egg Drop

It was my second year as a DRE, and I had been inspired to write my own curriculum for our 1st-3rd grade class called "The Seven Principles and Dr. Seuss". I was still pretty fresh from graduate school, with more theory than practice under my belt. I wanted this to be a multiple intelligences curriculum, with each lesson working a different form of intelligence: musical, artistic, interpersonal, etc. Being even more rigid, I laid down the order of rotation (so it would be consistent and predictable) for how the lessons would cycle through those intelligences.

So the 2nd Principle was Horton Hatches an Egg, but it also "had" to be musical. I struggled with that, then thought of those egg shakers you can buy for rhythm band instruments. We could have made them from easter eggs, but I didn't happen to have a supply of plastic easter eggs on hand, so I morphed it into just any sort of shakers. It wasn't ideal, but whatever - the kids should enjoy it and then they could shake them to "From You I Receive, to You I Give" and it would all make sense with the 2nd Principle.

It was the day of that lesson, and we had a big class (in retrospect, it was a small class, but it was big for what we were used to back then), crammed into a tiny 1/2 of a classroom with cubicle dividers between them and the preschoolers. The teacher did a good job reading the story, but then we sat down to make the shakers. It was a tight space, and beans were falling everywhere. The teacher was frazzled. But the kids were laughing and having fun.

My son was in that class. He was six years old, and was my little shadow, always going to work with me. I asked him how the class had been.

"Well, Mom, I had fun - but I didn't see any connection between the story and the activity."

I was both proud of him for seeing the problem and naming it, and frustrated with myself for failing to make a better lesson plan.

This year we pulled that curriculum off the shelf to do it again. And this gave me a chance to re-do this lesson plan, a second chance to get this right. I now know that when I am planning I need to picture the kids themselves, and imagine what will make sense to them and be fun - not what will follow some strict theory or plan. What makes sense and will be fun with "Horton"? An egg-drop, baby. :)

And they loved it.

(If you don't know what an egg drop is, it's a some-what classic activity where you give kids an egg and challenge them to design a way for it to fall without cracking. In our case, I hardboiled the eggs (less messy) and gave the kids packing materials.)

chicken keeping

Carbon is the primary chicken keeper around here. It's his chore to go out first thing in the morning and collect the eggs and feed the chickens, and to go out after dark to lock them in for the night, safe from predators. He needs a bit of monitoring, but mostly he does a good job at this chore.

While I was away the kids got to stay with my mother on her little hobby farm, and she has a much bigger flock of birds. It happened that she and my brothers were going to be slaughtering some of the flock and putting them up in the freezer for the winter. After getting my permission (and really - I think kids should know where their food comes from if they're going to eat meat), they all included Carbon in the process. He watched the killing, and he plucked birds, and he was proud of himself for being helpful. Now he says he's ready to be a "real farmer".

Meat-eating is not a given, and I absolutely respect those who choose not to eat it. I agree with the argument that meat takes more resources (so vegetarianism is a bit lighter on the environment) and that most animal-farming is horribly unethical in how it treats these poor living creatures. But when I was a vegetarian I got pretty sick, and I've come to the conclusion that I'm not up to the task of managing my genetic anemia (it's a rare type) without eating meat. So ... I'm really happy to find ways to be a responsible meat-consumer and be connected to the animals.

And I'm proud of my little boy who wants to be a "real farmer".

Musings on the Sabbath

(This week at the Liberal Religious Educators Association Fall Conference, keynote speaker Kim Stafford gave us through some writing exercises and reflections. After he read a selection to us from Rabbi Herschel's Sabbath, I wrote this reflection in my journal.)

Sabbath, not as worship but as rest. Spring does not come without winter. The field must be allowed to lie fallow. What if I did not meditate on a cushion, with legs folded under me and new age music (or silence - even harder to get in real life) in a world apart from my life? What if I meditated in my adirondack chair, with a cup of coffee on one arm? Gazing out over the field, bundled up against the cold, just sitting there? What if I allowed myself to just enjoy all that I have, not worrying if I am worthy of it or not, not worrying if I have done enough to earn this rest time, not worrying if others see it all as good or not. How amazing and free would that be? What if I just sat, not in a hermit's cave or on a mountain top, but here, now, amidst my life and all it's crazy messiness?

Related post: On Keeping the Sabbath

links to the words of others: No Shame in Stillness

What I'm Doing in Portland

This week I had to find a volunteer substitute to fill my role at church on Sunday morning. I had to go into church on my day off to set out materials in all the classrooms, with little notes "set up for Sunday classes - PLEASE DO NOT MOVE", and just hope for the best. Then the next day I had to drive 2 hours each way to go drop off my children and dogs with my wonderful sweet mother who is watching them all for me this week. There were other loose ends to tie up; other people I needed to ask favors of so I could leave town for a few days. Why, oh why, I think, do I ever try to get away? It's so darn much work.

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Then I got a taxi to the train station, and a train down to Portland. I'm attending the Liberal Religious Educators Association (LREDA) Fall Conference. A gathering of 200 wonderful folks (not all women), who do this same work I do. I also signed up for an additional two days of training in Youth Ministry, and that training had a 120 page reader that was emailed to me last Thursday and I had to have it all read before I arrived.

It's work, but it's good work; the kind of work that educates, renews, refreshes, and re-inspires. I have so many ideas jotted down, and more energy to get home and get back to it.

And ... a plug for the train. That was my first time riding it, and it is the Most Relaxing travel I have ever done. No crazy-making security and sardine can claustrophobia. No road-rage or blindness. Just me and a comfy seat, a cup of coffee I bought in the dining car, passing lovely scenery - and that reader I needed to finish before I arrived.

I hope to find time to take the train somewhere again! I think the kids would love it.

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Rocks and Minerals

The University has a lovely little natural history museum, and they have a lovely educational department that loans out "museum in a box" kits to teachers. The kits come full of specimens and books and so forth, and a 3-ring binder of lesson plans. With the budget cuts that are hitting almost everyone, they've raised the rental fees on these boxes, but it still seems worth it to me.

We've had a box of Rocks and Minerals for two weeks, and we've been working through the lesson plans. It has been a fun unit study, all packed and ready to go for me!

I don't know how many people even know about this resource. If you have a museum or a University near you, you should check what sort of teacher resources they have. These resources are available for homeschoolers too!