Social Non-Distance Bingo

Click on the image for a .pdf download with links to more content.

I’ve been thinking about the social needs of humans quarantined for the covid-19 pandemic. Not only are adults experiencing anxiety about economic and health consequences, children will now be home for weeks without usual group activities.

Several years ago, I created bingo cards to share with me female farmer friends. The squares were usually jokes about how hard it is to be a female farmer - Need Bigger Pockets, Mansplained At The Hardware Store - but turning it into a game with others made me feel solidarity in what can be an isolating occupation.

In similiar fashion, I created this Social Distancing bingo card to encourage us all to stay connected with ourselves and our community, including the natural world. I brainstormed ideas that are free or nearly so, can be accomplished by children and adults, and support healthy brains and bodies.

Want to play along? Click the image at right for a PDF to print. Underlined text is linked to more resources in the PDF.

"Science Lesson" {Homestead Haiku}

Unschool girls in woods. What better teacher exists than Mother Nature?

Billy Ireland Cartoon Museum

On a chilly day in the middle of our kitchen remodel, Lil and I took a break to visit the new Billy Ireland Cartoon Museum at the Ohio State University. Leonard, the DIY whiz, and our friends Kate and Darren came along.

The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library, held at OSU since 1977, is the world's largest collection of American cartoon art. The museum, opened in late fall 2013, now makes parts of the collection available in well-curated displays to the public.

I'm picky about museums - high school career tests always said I should be a librarian or museum curator - because I want the experience to be as high quality as the content. The Cartoon Museum succeeds at both. It's a small space of three open galleries that held the attention of our group of folks ages 5 to 65.

To make best use of the display area, and perhaps to give children something physical to do, the Walker Gallery contained many originals in drawers and poster doors that could be pulled out and discovered by the museum goer. No afficianado myself, I still appreciated the breadth and depth of the collections. I could find an original of every comic I've ever heard of and discovered many more new to me.

Through August, the museum is exhibiting a portion of Bill Watterson's series of work highlighting Calvin and Hobbes, the clever and smart comic about a boy and his stuffed imaginary friend tiger companion. Throughout the gallery you could hear giggles and growls as children and adults read originals. The exhibit included displays about how Watterson created the comics, his influences, and favorite tools.

I'm thrilled to find comics and graphic novels experiencing a resurgence these days. Once classified as daily newspaper amusement, cartoons are now being given their due as a valid form of intellectual commentary, art, and story telling. Cartoons and graphic novels help teach Lil to read and think in an engaging format. If you are new to family-friendly graphic novels, I recommend starting with the epic quest tale Bone by Ohio-writer Jeff Smith and the Olympians series by George O'Connor.

Guests can browse the Billy Ireland Cartoon Museum galleries in 60-90 minutes. Admission is free and parking is easy in the OSU parking garages or ride the bus - the Sullivant Hall building housing the museum is right on High Street with a bus stop right in front.

Enhance a visit with some browsing at the library's collections website - http://cartoons.osu.edu/collections/. Here you can search a portion of the collection which has been digitized, find information on artists, and learn more about donating and upcoming exhibits.

Have you been to the Cartoon Museum? What did you think?

Billy Ireland Cartoon Museum Sullivant Hall - 1813 N High St Columbus OH 43210 High and 15th, enter from plaza also containing Wexner Center Open Tuesday - Sunday 1 pm - 5 pm

If you go, consider our other favorite destinations around OSU campus: Orton Hall Museum - free small collection of Ohio fossils and minerals Thompson Library - inspirational tall stacks of books and nice view of the city on the top floor Buckeye Donuts - I'll let Breakfast With Nick tell you about this campus institution

Billy Ireland Cartoon Museum

On a chilly day in the middle of our kitchen remodel, Lil and I took a break to visit the new Billy Ireland Cartoon Museum at the Ohio State University. Leonard, the DIY whiz, and our friends Kate and Darren came along.

The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library, held at OSU since 1977, is the world's largest collection of American cartoon art. The museum, opened in late fall 2013, now makes parts of the collection available in well-curated displays to the public.

I'm picky about museums - high school career tests always said I should be a librarian or museum curator - because I want the experience to be as high quality as the content. The Cartoon Museum succeeds at both. It's a small space of three open galleries that held the attention of our group of folks ages 5 to 65.

To make best use of the display area, and perhaps to give children something physical to do, the Walker Gallery contained many originals in drawers and poster doors that could be pulled out and discovered by the museum goer. No afficianado myself, I still appreciated the breadth and depth of the collections. I could find an original of every comic I've ever heard of and discovered many more new to me.

Through August, the museum is exhibiting a portion of Bill Watterson's series of work highlighting Calvin and Hobbes, the clever and smart comic about a boy and his stuffed imaginary friend tiger companion. Throughout the gallery you could hear giggles and growls as children and adults read originals. The exhibit included displays about how Watterson created the comics, his influences, and favorite tools.

I'm thrilled to find comics and graphic novels experiencing a resurgence these days. Once classified as daily newspaper amusement, cartoons are now being given their due as a valid form of intellectual commentary, art, and story telling. Cartoons and graphic novels help teach Lil to read and think in an engaging format. If you are new to family-friendly graphic novels, I recommend starting with the epic quest tale Bone by Ohio-writer Jeff Smith and the Olympians series by George O'Connor.

Guests can browse the Billy Ireland Cartoon Museum galleries in 60-90 minutes. Admission is free and parking is easy in the OSU parking garages or ride the bus - the Sullivant Hall building housing the museum is right on High Street with a bus stop right in front.

Enhance a visit with some browsing at the library's collections website - http://cartoons.osu.edu/collections/. Here you can search a portion of the collection which has been digitized, find information on artists, and learn more about donating and upcoming exhibits.

Have you been to the Cartoon Museum? What did you think?

Billy Ireland Cartoon Museum Sullivant Hall - 1813 N High St Columbus OH 43210 High and 15th, enter from plaza also containing Wexner Center Open Tuesday - Sunday 1 pm - 5 pm

If you go, consider our other favorite destinations around OSU campus: Orton Hall Museum - free small collection of Ohio fossils and minerals Thompson Library - inspirational tall stacks of books and nice view of the city on the top floor Buckeye Donuts - I'll let Breakfast With Nick tell you about this campus institution

Fairy Houses And The Importance Of Self-Directed Play

Lil spent the better part of Monday and Tuesday last week building a fairy house. Crouched below a tree, she collected and arranged equal-sized pieces of bark into walls and a roof. She lined up tiny branches to form a path to the house, keeping an eye on little hound Hawise at the same time. Or was Hawise keeping an eye on her? 

Lil decided the house should be more than just a structure. The fairies would enjoy a garden. Lil carefully transplanted spring beauty wildflowers and mosses outside a 'window' in the house with a scrap of glass as a gazing pond. With laborious effort, she tied grass to sticks and a piece of bark to make a swing.

Decorations continued with a little stick to hold acorn-top hats and a hand-written welcome mat. After this photo session, she transplanted a radish for more green space. Rain damaged some of the walls to fall and she repaired them at the next dry opportunity.

Initially I was thankful for the hours of uninterrupted time I was afforded by Lil's interest in building the house. I layered and planted some garden beds, tended the hoop house, and cared for the chickens and dogs.

But upon reflection, I thought about all the benefits Lil earned:

• practice with laws of physics as walls fell down
• approximation and measurement to build even wall and roof members
• classification and identification of natural species
• awareness of surroundings
• responsibility for others (the little dog Hawise)
• persistence when building and rebuilding the swing
• large and fine motor exercise
• imagination and story-telling
• satisfaction of carrying out a vision to completion

I suppose I could have construed a home school lesson to teach these things. But I didn't know her brain was craving them. Assigning her to build a fairy house would have changed the whole dynamic - instead of time for my own chores I would have to monitor whether she was carrying out my vision and she likely would not have freely expressed her creativity or felt satisfaction.

Self-directed play is the heart of our unschool philosophy. It is allowing Lil to choose projects to consume her time, meeting her own needs leisurely. Sometimes Lil's chosen activities require our support in gathering materials or learning alongside her. Often, like with the fairy house, Lil is completely independent.

Lil excitedly shared her fairy house with us when it was completed. Conversation about the fairy house inspired talks about construction and resilience in the face of difficult problems. Building a swing the size for a make-believe character the size of a quarter might not seem like a real problem to us but for Lil it was - and she created a solution.

Self-directed play is work of the best kind, something to be experienced by children and adults alike. Play is fun and empowering. It draws people together.

While Lil exhausts herself playing by building homes for mythical creatures, Alex and I tire from playing outside planting, digging, chopping and moving wood. These are all self-chosen chores that fulfill our spirit while creating the homestead we envision.

How are you playing these days?

Weekend With Guests From Japan

Once again we opened our home to guests from Japan this week. Long-time readers may recall when we hosted Kayoko and Anna in summers past through the Ohio 4-H Program. Hosting international guests has so many benefits that of course we said yes when asked by daughters of our friend Naoko if they could stay with us for a few days.

I was pregnant with Lil when we hosted Naoko in 2005. She mothered me through a hot summer, creating a special bond between us. We met her daughters Maiko and Yuiko on our trip to Japan in 2007 and welcomed the chance to house them for a few nights this weekend during their short spring break vacation to Ohio.

Maiko and Yuiko arrived on Thursday evening after a lengthy wait on stand-by in the Chicago airport. On Friday, we drove North out of Columbus to see Amish and visit with the animals at Six Buckets Farm. We came home for dinner with friends which featured venison sausage and pie that Maiko helped cook.

On Saturday, the girls shopped the Worthington Farmers' Market and Mall. We visited my father-in-law's studio and City Folk's Farm Shop before Maiko and Yuiko made us ramen for dinner.

We saw Maiko and Yuiko off to another friends' home on Sunday. Their visit was short and we couldn't show them everything we wanted to, but that's OK. We're building a relationship sure to last a lifetime with more visits over the years.

It's that time of year when Ohio 4-H is looking for host families again for July 24-August 19, 2013. You don't need to be a 4-Her or have any special plans this summer - the children coming here want to see real life in a family with a 10-15 year old host sibling. If that's you, please read the Ohio 4-H International Program website to fill out an application or contact me for more information.

Take It Apart {Easy Unschool}

Alex caught Lil heading towards an electrical outlet with a metal screw driver awhile ago. He shouted, she dropped the tool, and there was much talk about electrical shock risks.

But Lil's mistake was an honest one. She didn't intend to put the screwdriver in the outlet - she wanted to unscrew the cover plate. She wants to take apart everything these days.

Later over the weekend, Alex provided an outlet (ha!) for her inquiring mind. He pulled a non-functioning laptop from a pile of old electronics and helped her take it apart. They used screw drivers of all sizes to discover materials of all kinds.

Lil especially likes the hard drive. She plays it like a record player. How does she even know how a turntable works?

Taking apart a machine is undoubtedly fun. It is also an exceptional learning experience. Here are just some of the skills kids (and adults!) can practice while taking things apart:

• Using hand tools
• Reading labels
• Comparing numbers
• Sorting fasteners
• Analyzing shapes
• Using simple machines
• Examining materials
• Exploring how complex machines work

Not everyone (I hope) has a stack of non-functional laptops like we do. That's ok. You can take apart a toy or trash-pick an appliance. Old lamps, furniture, and instruments are all exciting to disassemble. Sometimes, the multitude of pieces can be put back together.

Take something apart soon. It's an inexpensive, easily accessible, shhh-don't-tell-them-they're-learning good time!

PS. Do I need to tell you that adult supervision is a good idea because some materials are hazardous? There, I feel better with that warning.

Crafty Holidays and #STEMchat Thursday!

Our house is like Santa's toy shop with handmade projects day in and day out this month.

On December 1, Lil ran downstairs and opened the first day of this cute muffin tin advent calendar my mother made. Mom saw the idea in a magazine and found scrapbooking paper with the numbers already written and adhered them with rubber cement to top the tins. Inside each is a little gift that Lil can't wait to open each morning.

I invited friends over to see our new house and make hand-rolled beeswax candles, one of my favorite activities of the holiday season. I order wax from Knorr Beeswax; this year they even went out of their way to rush my order.

Lil decorated a gingerbread house using cake pieces made by my pastry chef sister Heather, recipe on Facebook tonight. I view gingerbread decorating as a 'process not product' activity - we will eat it rather than display, not that the pets would leave a display in tact!

Lil and I designed, sewed, and lettered new stockings for our food-motivated animals. My favorite craft has been these felt star ornaments for gifts. I printed a template from AllSortsMakery, reduced and copied for the inner star, and embroidered Lil's heart illustration. She stitched the smaller heart to the outer, stuffed the inside, and we shared stitches around the outside. I love that we made this together and hope I can talk her into creating one more for us to keep.

#STEMchat

I'll be talking (typing?) DIY tomorrow night at 9 pm EST on Twitter with Kim Moldofsky, the Maker Mom. She runs the monthly #STEMchat, a time to tweet about creating, hacking, and making. This month, the chat is about Hack-y Holidays - exploratory gifts, making open-ended presents, and gifts that keep on giving.

Kim asked me to share this about the sponsor, littleBits:

"littleBits, invented by a woman, are (cute!) little electronic modules for prototyping and play. The bits snap together with magnets, so you can't mess up with them. These colorful bits take crafting projects to a new level allowing people with little or no electronics knowledge to add lights, sensors or other bells and whistles to their projects. Ayah Bdeir set out to put the tools of engineers into the hands of artists and she's succeeding. Seriously cool stuff, people.

littleBits is hosting a creative holiday challenge. It's kind of like Design Squad for adults- dream up a creative project incorporating littleBits, sketch it out and submit the sketch to win. How easy is that? "

What are you crafting and making for the holidays? If you're a twitterer, I hope you'll join the #MaketheHolidays #STEMchat conversation tomorrow night.