Multiplication Art Book

We finished our multiplication/skip counting books today. I did these with my oldest three children and my nephew and niece. The children bent a number line in a circle and then counted by multiples, drew either straight or curved lines to the number in the units place and then colored the resulting pattern with various mediums. They did ten pages and were required to use at least seven different art mediums. The three older children then wrote the accompanying multiplication problems, while the younger two wrote their skip counting numbers. The children were able to see various patterns and also how the skips of one number relate to another. Below are some that I liked from each of the kids collections.
Multiples of one in tempera paint.
Multiples of two in marker.
Multiples of three in colorix, which is a beeswax medium.
Multiples of four in crayon.
Another multiple of four in colored pencil.
Multiples of five in watercolor paintbrush pens. It is interesting that most of my nieces colorings were done in complementary colors. I don't think she even realized this.
I didn't end up with a six, but it comes out to be the same pattern as the four.
Multiples of seven in watercolored pencils, but not blended.
Multiples of eight in colored pencils.
Multiples of eight in broad pen.
Multiples of nine in chalk.
Multiples of ten in colored pencil.

Creating

As a daughter of God I have a desire to create. Even with little ones hugging and kissing and climbing all over me. As a daughter of my mother I saw how it was done. My mom was always making something. She had a sewing room that she worked in, a place perfectly organized to make her many projects and that also had spots for her children to come in and talk to her as she worked. I can also remember her sitting on our fuzzy brown couch with patterns of brown twigs and other things all over it with her feet pulled up to one side or resting on our very ugly brown foot stool. She had a light next to her and a bag of supplies and as we watched movies she would be making something out of plastic canvas, cross stitch, embroidery, crochet or knit.

I have enjoyed taking advantage of the little moments. I am blessed with a little boy who needs someone to listen to him read and to generally be near as he works which is a perfect time for handwork. I have also been queasy this last week and been doing a lot of sitting, so it has been the perfect opportunity to crochet. I have finished a little jacket, and am nearly done with a dress. I’ll post a picture of the latter when I have it done.

Wire Sculpting

My kids love to make things out of pipe cleaners, and have become quite adept at it. My son has an entire sweater box under his bed filled with all of his pipe cleaner creations-people, dragons, animals, the Cinderella characters etc. I thought it was time for them to take it to another level, so this week we began a study of wire sculpting. Kamron immediately began creating people, dragons, etc. out of wire, but I did get him to create a leaf for me today. Aubrey's scupltures are much more abstract. We're slowly going to broaden the scope of wire sculpture creation. Tomorrow we will do a project where we wrap an object in yarn, sketch just the yarn and then attempt to recreate it in wire. We'll see how that goes, but for today here are some of our creations. If you are interested in seeing any professional sculptures here is a neat page, http://www.wirelady.com/.




Logan and Seth wanted a picture of their tower too. Yes, Logan dresses himself-no I don't let him go out in public like that... most of the time.

Changes

One phase is ending. I finished student teaching today: we move into a short term rental tomorrow. Another phase is beginning. I will begin training as an Educational Specialist to help others home school. I will be finding us a long term home, and most important of all I will be home with my children. I have missed them so much over the past nine weeks. I have my work cut out for me, though. They need some retraining, a lot more time away from the TV and involved with the family. A lot of their babysitters have used the TV as a helper and I am so glad that with this move we won't even have one in the house. I can't believe the phrases and attitudes they have picked up over the last nine weeks. After moving my first step will be to add back gentle rythms to our days. A half hour devotion time with the older children in the morning, a little bit of family study and cleaning, some quiet time after lunch, games after dinner and scriptures before bed. I'm hoping that this gentle schedule will heal some issues with the children and in our family. I pray for God's blessing on our summer phase.

I Got the Position

As most of you know I have been working on getting my teaching credential for the last three years with the hope of getting hired by South Sutter as an ES. I had my interview Thursday and they offered me the position yesterday. Some of you have expressed interest in having me as your ES next year, and I am so excited to be able to do this. I love home schooling, love to talk about it, give ideas and get them. I am aware there are many ways of teaching the same thing and so hope to be able to offer alternative ideas if you get stuck. I am adept at taking life experiences and turning them into the “educationalise” required by the state. I also realize that sometimes this can get hard, after all, next weekend will be our third move in less than a year, I have been attending full time school, working full time, and juggling home schooling three different ages of students while have their younger siblings in tow. Of course, this has not been our best year, but some years aren’t. So if you hit a rough patch I hope to be able to encourage you to keep going. I feel strongly that the benefits of home schooling are worth the effort it takes. I also feel that the goals for your child’s education should not be designed by the state, but by the parents, the child and God. I love the individuality that comes when we can look at a particular child, pray and then say, for this semester this child really needs to learn to use poetry as an expressive outlet for her emotions, or he needs to learn to lead some time of group or she needs to learn to care for a younger child. Then we are free to find the best resources and methods to achieve these goals, and this is where I hope I may be of service to those who need it.
So for those who would like to go through South Sutter to home school and want me as their ES, I have 15 spaces available. If you are signing up for the first time, go to http://www.sscs.cc/ and click on the application form under the How To Enroll tab. On page 2 under the optional information section, it says requested ES. That is where you put Melissa Calapp=). If you are in the school already and wish to switch ES’s you can go to the Parent information tab, click on parent forms and then parent requests for change of ES. If love your current ES, don’t switch though, because it is awesome when you find one that you can click with. The school has said they will only assign me students who specifically request me for the next six weeks, after that they will begin filling in my spaces with other students.
I am so excited for next school year. If I can help in anyway prior, don’t hesitate to drop me a line.

Nanny Throws a Birthday Party

Tomorrow is Aubrey's birthday and Savannah's was a couple of days ago, so their grandma wanted to have a party for them at Girlfriendz. I thought this was more of a princess and tea party place, but it ended up being geared towards popular music, etc. They got to pick out outfits and then have their hair, makeup and nails done.

Here's Jenna getting her hair done.
Aubrey's hair is so thick it took the lady forever. She eventually just braided and wrapped the rest.
Aubrey preforms a solo, but since we don't listen to any of the music they had there she didn't know any of it, but she still had fun.
All of the girls pose.
Aubrey and her friend Heidi.
My dramatic daughter.

After they changed again, they got cute cupcakes and blew out candles.

German Wonder Ball

A pile of trinkets and a ball of thick wool yarn, becomes a beautiful German tradition. When a child is taught to knit they are given a ball of yarn with special presents throughout so that every once in awhile as they work through their ball a new price is discovered. Here are the first five balls completed. I then decided to make three more for my nieces and nephew. After we made chains we turned them into flowers, which we then handed out on Easter. Here is Uncle Steve with a flower in his pocket.
Here the children are working away on their balls. The older two boys spent about three days finger knitting. They worked their way through about four skeins of yarn. This was a lot of fun.

The Frog Prince

by Aubrey and Brennen Calapp



Once a princess was playing with her wooden ball.

She threw it so high it fell into a pond.

A frog appeared and told the princess he would retrieve the ball for her if she would agree to take him into her home and kiss him. She agreed.

After the princess was given her ball she ran home without the frog, but when the frog followed her and he father the king heard all, he told her she must keep her promise, so unwillingly she kissed the frog...

only to find he was a prince, who had been changed by a magic spell.

Our Praying Mantises Hatched

We ordered an egg sack from Insectlore. It just sat for several weeks and then all of a sudden hundreds of baby praying mantises began emerging. My children loved watching them come out and also watching them as they eat the fruit flies. About one hundred hatched, but only fifty are still alive for a reason of which I don't know.

Of Bread and Sacrament

I was pondering today, and I don't know if this will make any sense to anyone else, but this is what I pondered-

Through work we sow seeds, care for them and then, gather the wheat from the field we have dominion over. Our neighbor gathers wheat from the field he has dominion over. Together we combine and refine the wheat, and with that wheat create bread. We then sit together, rejoice, feast and break bread. I, as a missionary in my dominion, am in charge of planting seeds, working and nurturing those plants and then eventually helping in the harvest of those who are found ready. My neighbor in Christ, is doing the same thing in the field he has dominion over. When our harvests are made we join them together into a church, which is also called the body of Christ. In our Sacrament meetings the body of Christ is represented by bread. We meet weekly to rejoice in our God, worship him and break that very bread that symbolizes his body. So the church is the bread and bread is the staff of life. The bread group is the base. The church, the body of Christ, the gathering of the wheat that is ripe and has been harvested is also the base. We are not to worship alone at home as a lone grain, but we are to come together as the body of Christ and be the bread. And here we are to partake of that symbol which represents Christ’s body and also represents the unity of the church, which is the family of God.

God is so full of symbolism in all He does and I am barely scratching the surface of it in my studies I think. He is such an awesome God.

Nursery Rhymes

I am student teaching first grade. Friday I was to teach a lesson on "Little Miss Muffet," and then give the students a four page test on this nursery rhyme. I said to the mentor teacher, "Don't the students already know "Little Miss Muffet?'" She said, "a couple of them might."

I sat the children down and told them that today we were going to read a nursery rhyme. I asked them if they knew what a nursery rhyme was...blank stares. They are old make-believe poems in which we don't exactly know who wrote them and so we often say they are written by Mother Goose. Often they have meanings that tie into something that happened in history and they are often mentioned in other books that you will read later on. Has anyone heard of "Little Bo Peep," or "Jack and Jill?" Aah, three eyes flickered, the other sixteen remained bewildered. I asked if anyone could tell me either nursery rhyme. One boy tried, "Jack and Jill went up the hill ... um, then ... there's a picture of him upside down ... and a spider, I think." Well at least he has seen a book of nursery rhymes.

I am concerned that children who don't know their nursery rhymes are missing a very valuable connection to the past, a source for rich language, strong meters, and an understanding of allusions in later quality texts. I had always taken it for granted that people still read these to their children.



I have several very thick collections of nursery rhymes, my favorite is the first book in the "My Bookhouse Series." http://www.amazon.com/Nursery-My-Bookhouse-One/dp/B000H2J34K/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1240153943&sr=1-2 . It is several hundred pages long has all of the traditional English nursery rhymes and has many nursery rhymes from dozens of other countries. It is also absolutely beautifully illustrated. I begin this book when my children are one, reading a couple pages a day and often going back to the most familiar in the beginning. I then read them "The Real Mother Goose," and the second one in this series, of which I have forgotten the name. I also have a couple smaller collections which I read in one sitting to the children. It must work because I just asked my five-year-old to tell me "Jack and Jill" and then "Little Miss Muffet," and with a hint on two words he said both and then my daughter began rattling off several more.

Our history studies start back at creation again this year. As we go through history this time I'd like to incorporate the history of many of these rhymes as we come to their spot in history. I did this study myself a couple years ago, and was fascinated by it.

To close my rant on nursery rhymes, may I say read them to your children, because the three they will have read to them in public school, simply does not cut it.

Last One Standing

So I have seven siblings. We were all raised in California. Guess how many still live here. Yep, just one-me. How lame is that? My sister, Helen, who is just older than me moved to Utah, where four of my other siblings live last week. My Aunt Cathy, Cousin Sarah, Helen, Me(the one with the dorky expression), Cousin Jessica and my daughter Aubrey pose during the farewell party.
The party was also a birthday party for Seth, Logan and their cousin Caitlyn.
My husband snapping shots of me and Brennen, just to prove I don't always wear a dorky expression.
And yet another not totally dorky expression with me and my daughter.
Brennen, hitching a foot-ride from his Uncle Brandon, while Kevin supervises and tests the cake.


We'll miss you Porters! We wish you well on your further advetures.

Trip for Two

Kevin and I took a trip in March to Monterey. We stayed in a cabin/Inn on the beach. It was beautiful and quiet, as no cars were allowed. Everyone was given a golf cart instead. We walked the warf and watched the sea lions as we ate the first day. We then went kayaking on the ocean. Several sea lions followed us and Kevin saw jellyfish. We both got a little freaked out at the sea weed and so we turned back and went to the Inn.

The next day we rented bikes and biked the 17-mile trail. We saw many deer next to the ocean this day. It was beautiful.

The last day we went whale watching, and saw about three groups of whales. One group was circling and playing tag and so were very unpredictable in where they would show up next. I absolutely loved the wind on the ocean and riding over the waves, even though it was windy and the boat rocked crazily the whole time.

The pictures are in no particular order.

Overheard At Our House This Week

Overheard by the resident five-year-old, “If I was a gigantic pincher bug, and someone zapped me and shrank me, I would pinch them.”

Aubrey, who had just finished memorizing her part for a play, and Kamron got in an argument while doing dishes and then Aubrey felt bad. She came and talked to me and I told her she should apologize. She came back in and said, “I apologized, but Kamron didn’t know his lines.”

Since a month is an eternity at this age, I was quite amazed at the one-year-olds’ proclamation, “I wan’ tree. I wan’ Christmas.” To this the three-year-old replied, “I want Christmas presents. I haven’t had any for years and years.”

Aunt and Uncle went to China town and brought back a little Chinese doll. Aubrey was told she could play with it for two months, but that it was gift for their Grandma and would be given to her when they take their next trip to Utah. Aubrey thought about this for awhile and said, “All right she will be a for arrange student and stay with Alex (her doll) until she has to leave, but I’m sure they will not get along.”

Kamron coughed and Brennen says, “I will not get sick, because I wrinkle my noise and blow out with my lips and then shake my head and that keeps the germs away.”

After a vigorous wrestle match that resulted in tears Kamron said, “I was just defending myself, because even though I’m bigger you can still hurt me. I have nerves, you know!” Brennen looking puzzled says, “Why do little nerds make it so I can hurt you?”

Music

I had to find some appropriate music for Kamron to begin learning in his voice lessons today. Our teacher is not LDS and so doesn't know what music is best for sacrament meeting, so I went searching. Have you seen the church's interactive music player on the church website, www.lds.org? How cool is that thing? You can speed it up, slow it down, just play the part you are learning or change the key. Awesome. So I picked out a few I thought Kamron would like and had him listen to them-he chose "Come Follow Me." We'll see if this suits the teacher today. She is, shall we say exacting. I am gratified that she has shown very slight periods of being impressed with Kamron's ability to follow and to match her pitch, while at the same time demanding a great deal from him.

Our Visit to the Exploratorium

We spent the day at the Exploratorium in San Francisco today. Everyone of my kids loved it.
The children got to feel what Alice must have felt like when she drank her "drink me" bottle and ate her little cakes as they played with visual perception.

They had fun bouncing metal marbles at just the right angle to get them to go through hoops at varying distances.

The saw the different patterns that differently shaped rods would vibrate in.

A favorite of the older children was the high voltage electricity that skipped through the air from one rod to another.

Sethy's favorite was the water. In this exhibit the children got to place objects in a continuously flowing stream of water which had foam on top and so made foam trails around what they placed. Sethy also decided it was a cool place to drive the car he was carrying in his hand.



There were many more hands-on exhibits, including cow eye and sheep brain dissections. My daughter was fascinated by these, but I must confess that like my son it made my stomach turn.