Family Story

We spent spring break with my mom, who was on her 3rd of 4 rounds of chemotherapy. She taught Mane to customize clipboards:

 

 

And then Mane read stories to Grandma when she was tired at night...

 

We went for a walk (run?) at the nearby county park while Grandma took a nap in the afternoon...

 

And observed all the signs of early spring here in MN...

 

We had a little science lesson about Fens...

 

And we spent hours and hours talking about family history with Grandma. We dragged out the binders Grandma has full of information on hers and Grandpa's families. We started those binders back when I was in 4th grade! We looked at old birth, marriage & baptism certificates, letters from WWII, newspaper clippings, and photos. And we took Mane to visit the cemetery where Grandma's parents are buried, along with 2 of Grandma's siblings, an aunt & uncle, and my cousin's husband. We took photos of the gravestones to add to our family history binder.

 

 

I have a feeling that Mane will remember this spring break for a very long time. She flew kites with Mango, got a remote controlled helicopter delivered to Grandma & Grandpa's P.O. Box in their little town, ran around outside A LOT, listened to stories, camped out in the living room, did craft projects, invented new games, crocheted, went to bed early, got up early... I'm glad we have the freedom and flexibility to take off and spend a week with Grandma!

Life Lessons

The last few months have brought us:

Visits to the library that made us feel like we were in the Griffindor Common Room...

 

Two visits to the History Center for the 1968 Exhibit (one on our own & one with Mango and the grandparents, who felt that there should be chairs for them to sit in and be part of the display also)...

 

A trip to the Minneapolis Institute of Art with friends to celebrate The Year of the Dragon...

An afternoon at the FIRST Robotics Competition...

...And a whole lot of experience working with people and businesses! Mane has accompanied me to my place of employment, where I was the temporary manager while the owners were out of town for a month. She learned to greet people, make polite conversation, attend to small requests, and anticipate the needs of both the employees and the customers. She was a great help, and this was a fantastic opportunity for her to learn what the management of a small business looks like. She was right there with me while I was answering calls, scheduling appointments, ordering supplies, cleaning, organizing, and problem-solving!

Mane has also launched her own small business designing and building custom computers for people. She and Mango have built her website over the last several months, and last night they delivered her first computer to her first customer! It took them about 2 weeks to work with their client, set the budget, research the component options, order the parts, and build the computer.  Mane explained the various internal components of a computer to me yesterday. Mango supervised the building of the computer, but she did all the work herself.  

 

Mitochondria

Mane has been learning about the organelles of a cell: the smaller organs within cells. We started out talking about body systems and then worked our way backwards: body systems are made up of organs, organs are made up of cells, cells are made up of organelles. The other night she & Mango had a long talk about mitochondria:

 

She's working on a chart of organelles. The next step with be to make a clay model of a cell!

We found this game for learning about organelles:  The Incredible Megacell. Mane gave the gave a 4 out of 10 for fun and interest. I'd give it about the same. It was fine to do once, and she did learn some things from it, but it does the same thing over and over once you've played it once. It wasn't a bad way to continue our conversation about organelles, though. A comic strip for science class? Hey, who can complain?

FIRST Robotics Competition 2012!!

Once again, guess where we'll be for the final days in March this year?! We're super excited for this year's FIRST Robotics Competition. This year the robots will be playing "basketball." Check it out:



March 29th-31st: http://www.mnfirstregional.org/regional/agenda#ns

Handcraft

Shorty before Christmas, Mane's crocheting abilities really took off. She'd been finger crocheting chains for a few years already...chains that grew so long that they could be stretched round and round the house, I'm sure. But this year, she persevered and learned to make rows. Having mastered rows, she was able to make rectangles, fold them over, and sew up the sides to make purses!

Currently, she's working on a dishcloth:

She's also been using the round knitting loom for hat-making:

Alongside those handcrafting skills, she's been acquiring screen skills, learning to email and to navigate her own online photo album. She also learned to look up video instructions for making more crafts (screen skills merge with handcrafting skills)! She found the instructions, followed them, and made this traditional Polish Christmas star with absolutely NO help from me:

Stella comes home!!

On December 19th, Flat Stella came home:

Stella had been in Montana, with our good friend, Anika:

Together, they went to Anika's favorite coffee shop...

They spent some time in the snow:

...and climbed a frozen waterfall:

She came home with a new winter coat, which sent Mane scurrying to make one for Stanley, too! 

...and Mane also set to work filling their Christmas stockings!

Stella came home with a nearly full journal, lots of other photos, AND an email address! She had such a fantastic adventure! Thanks, Anika!!

Once they were back together again, Stanley & Stella had a blast lighting Hanukkah & Advent candles with us, playing dreidel, and eating pistachios from the Christmas Goat!

Nordic Story Hour

We have had the good fortune recently of discovering (re-discovering, for me) some local cultural treasures here in Minneapolis. Our friends, who join us at the Tapestry Folk Dance Center for homeschool Scottish Folk Dance, also alerted us to the fabulous story-telling at the Scandinavian shop just down the street from us, Ingebretsen's. So, one chilly day, we bundled up with some other good friends and headed on over. We had a delightful time learning about wool (from sheep to yarn) and listening to Kari Tauring tell Nordic falk tales.