Things To Do This Weekend {January 20 – 23}

January 20, 2012 By Big Binder Leave a Comment

Brrr…

Don’t let the cold keep you inside all weekend! Head downtown where you’ll find our friends the Grand Rapids Griffins at the Great Skate/Winterfest! It runs from noon on Saturday until 10:00 PM Sunday and there is a TON of family friendly fun to be had! I just wonder why it always has to fall on the coldest weekends!!?? Check out the entire schedule and see what you and your kids will enjoy!

If you’re there on Sunday, make sure you pop into one of the museums offering FREE admission for the first weekend of Museums Free 4 All. I found some fantastic activities to teach your kids about a couple of the artists whose work they will see at the Grand Rapids Art Museum. Because there is nothing I love more than Pretending I’m A Homeschooler!

No snowshoes required for the Grand Rapids Symphony Lollipops Concerts Saturday, which will be a performance of Little Red Riding Hood. I am adding some learning activities for my kids because they have both seen Little Red before.

There is also Snowpalloza, Pokemon Madness, a Teddy Bear Clinic, Project Sleuth, Alphabet Safari and Experience China {we’ll talk more about Chinese New Year next week!} events throughout the weekend at the Kent District Library, and don’t forget about the Martin Luther King Jr. events at the Grand Rapids Public Library!

Don’t get your tongue stuck to any poles. I wish I had given A.P. this advice earlier, because when I picked him up from school Tuesday… yup. He did it.

Photo credit:

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Filed Under: Calendar, Country Day Homeschool Tagged With: Grand Rapids Art Museum, Grand Rapids Children's Museum, Grand Rapids Public Museum, Great Skate Winterfest, Rosa Parks Circle

How To Make A Pilgrim Bonnet

November 22, 2011 By Big Binder 2 Comments

Maybelle’s class has been learning about Thanksgiving, and the unit culminated today with what else; a feast. Her class was the Wampanoag, and the other Kindergarten class was the Pilgrims.

It was a busy day. First the kids made headbands, rain sticks, clay pots, medallions, vests with their Native American name {hers was Black Horse}, and corn husk dolls. It went about as well as when I attempted it with my kids a few years ago; that is to say – the adults ended up trying to keep the swear words under their breath, and exchanging tamale recipes.

The feast was amazing. The blessing, the food, the cuteness. I loved every stinking second.

Tonight Maybelle decided she wanted to make a Pilgrim bonnet; “In case I want to switch to Pilgrim”. We found very easy instructions {therefore, ones I am capable of following} and wound up with a fantastic Pilgrim bonnet.

Start with a 12×18 piece of paper. Cut a 1 inch wide, 3 inch long ‘V’ at 6¼ on each side.

Next, fold the other end (the not cut end) over two inches.

Fold the two cut ‘flaps’ over the center. Staple.

Staple string or ribbon to the sides to tie shut.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Filed Under: Country Day Homeschool Tagged With: craft, How to make a Pilgrim Bonnet, kids, Thanksgiving

B Kind 2 Earth – Teach Your Children Well

April 18, 2011 By Big Binder 1 Comment

Great things happen when people work together.

Even better things happen when bloggers get involved

Nickelodeon (which, incidentally, recently awarded my family the “My Family Does Good!” award and donated a laptop to a kid in Africa in my kids’ names!), the National Wildlife Federation, and TheMotherhood.com came together to create B Kind 2 Earth Day.

Then, they asked a bunch of bloggers to be State Leaders (Apples in Wonderland, ace and friends, Free is My Life, My Life of What Ifs, Susie B. Homemaker , The Diaper Diaries ,The Sale Rack and I are representin’ our fine state) and gave us a mission:

To encourage people to promise to do at least one earth-friendly action on April 22, 2011 — and beyond.

I had recently spoken to a mom’s group that yet another blogger, Mommy Daze was in the crowd. I happened to mention that I stink at crafts. She happens to be amazing at crafts – and pulling together entire themes. With snacks.

She whipped up this amazing Earth Day post just for this project! Awesome, yes? Teaching your children about Earth Day is absolutely something you can do to “B Kind 2 Earth”.

Behold the Earth Day Awesomeness:

Read

Every day is Earth Day by Jane O’Connor. (Fancy Nancy is very Earth conscious)
It’s Earth Day! by Mercer Mayer (love that Little Critter)
Earth Day by Marc Tyler Nobleman (a book about the origin of Earth Day)

Craft/Activity

Make Team Green t-shirts. Print off this fun logo and transfer it to a white or gray t-shirt. Easy, cheap and it makes a statement.
Go for a walk and pick up litter! You could wear your team green shirt too!
Make an earth out of a coffee filter. Provide green and blue water (add food coloring), an eye dropper and a coffee filter. Use the eye dropper to drop the colored water on the filter… watch it change into earth. (from perpetual preschool.com)
Make “egg heads”. After using your eggs reuse the carton and egg shells. Wash out the egg shell halves and place back in the carton. Add soil and grass seeds. Water and wait and in about 1 week you will have grass growing. After the grass grows we decorate the egg halves with faces and pretend the grass is the hair. Then each week or so we have to cut the grass with scissors. This is a great activity in so many ways and kids need to remember to water their egg heads.
Make Earth Day Shrinky Dinks. Click on the link, print out the template and you can make a mini earth keychain or necklace.
These Earth Day Pinwheels are super cool. Again follow the link for instructions and templates.

Snack

These snack ideas are from perpetual preschool.com. Make “earth” rice krispie treats. Make the recipe as usual (see the side of the rice krispie box) but divide the batch and add blue food coloring to 1/2 and green food coloring to the other 1/2. Then give kids a “glob” of each and have them form it into a circle like the earth.
The second idea is to make earth cookies. Make oval sugar cookies and then frost them with green and blue frosting to represent the earth.

Game

This website has 2 fun Earth Day related games. The green home puzzle game and Eco vocabulary game.
This great website planetpals.com. Is a really great resource. There are several ways to re-use products and you can find online games too.
This last website has so many online Earth Day games and activities it is part of DLTK’S growing together.

Movie

Wall -E. Although it is about a “robot” Wall-E has a lot to teach viewers about pollution and caring for our planet. Rated G.
Ferngully. This story about saving the rainforest is a great flick for Earth Day. Rated G.
Disney’s Earth, a documentary, rated G.
An Inconvenient Truth (Documentary by Al Gore) for viewers 6th grade and up, rated PG.
Planet Earth: The Complete BBC Series 2007. NR
Disney’s Earth, rated G.
WordGirl. Earth Day Girl [video recording] / Scholastic Entertainment ; PBS Kids.
Franklin plants a tree [video recording]
Sesame Street, Being Green, DVD.
Nick Jr. Favorites: Go Green, DVD.

Katie Gilbert lives in Comstock Park with her wonderful husband of 10 years and her 2 young children. Katie is the author of Mommydaze.net (a website for crafts and activities to do with your children), Fox 17′s Morning Mom, and a contributing blogger for Momslikeme.com. She loves volunteering in her children’s school, taking part in a local MOPS group, cake decorating and exploring the world with her children. Her email is katie.gilbert1@gmail.com and can she can be reached at Mommydaze.net.

Stay tuned for more B Kind 2 Earthy Day ideas!

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Filed Under: Country Day Homeschool, Learn

Get A Little Culture During Spring Break (Yours Or Someone Else’s)

April 1, 2011 By Big Binder 2 Comments

Even if you aren’t leaving town for Spring Break, you can still experience a different world. Did you know that Grand River was called O Wash Ta Nong by the Native Americans?

See? You’re off to a great start.

The Grand Rapids Public Museum is free for Grand Rapids residents on Monday. I will see my follow townies there then; the rest of you have to pay anyway so head down whenever it works for you!

Grab these guides to do a little pseudo-homeschooling, Big Binder style. You can learn all about life along the O Wash Ta Nong , and then eat lunch in the cafeteria overlooking it.

That’s just downright handy.

Visit the “People Of This Place” exhibit using this Anishinabek learning guide; then use the Native American Culture Guide at home for literacy extension. Incidentally, ‘literacy extension’ is the only educational term I know and I over use it shamelessly.

This is going to be an amazing week.

I promised you an Ultimate Spring Break guide a few weeks ago, and you now have the makings of an incredible, interesting, and refreshing week.

The Calendar of Events is so full of free and frugal fun I can hardly stand it. Crafts, art, instrument petting zoos, $5 admission to Meijer Gardens, free movies, not one but TWO frog programs, and a giant crocodile. Seriously.
If you aren’t a fan of huge crowds (and the inevitable ‘sniffles’ that follow anything attended by a large number of children), take it outside this week!
Don’t forget to try some new restaurants or pretend you’re on a road trip. It is a vacation, after all.
Since you’ll be out and about AND saving tons of money – would you consider buying a package of diapers to donate to the Great Start Parent Coalition Diaper Drive? You can just drop them in one of the collection boxes; they’re all over town.

Have fun!

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Filed Under: Country Day Homeschool, Explore, Learn, Things to do Thursday

President’s Day

February 14, 2011 By Big Binder Leave a Comment

February. Ugh.

I could end this post right there and have the majority of you agree wholeheartedly; but let’s press on together and make the most of this, shall we?

It was mighty generous of Presidents Lincoln and Washington both to be born in February so we can celebrate Presidents Day in this otherwise rather bleak month. I have a special fondness for President Lincoln.

First, because I went to the University of Georgia and that whole Civil War thing we don’t really think about much? Yeah – it’s still a big deal there. We spent a lot of time studying the War, and the biggest takeaway I got was that Lincoln was an amazing leader.

Second, I am related to his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln. I make less of this fact than I do of my kinship with Maybelle Carter, but it’s still a source of ancestral pride. Even if she was a little crazy.

Third, the house I grew up in was on Lincoln Street, which goes a long way towards cementing my favoritism.

We can learn more about Lincoln, Washington and all of the presidents from our homeboy, Gerald Ford. The Ford Museum website has a great educational resource; mainly for upper elementary and middle school kids but some of the activities can be adapted for the young ones.

The Circle Theatre will be presenting “Honest Abe” at the Gerald R Ford Museum on February 17th and 18th. I’m going to play the Country Day Homeschool card and see if I can get tickets for Maybelle and me. For $5 each, we get to see the presentation, which is geared toward kids in Kindergarten through 5th grade and includes admission to the museum.

And of course, the cherries. I posted a Cherry Pie recipe yesterday to round out your President’s Day celebration!

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Filed Under: Country Day Homeschool, Explore, Free and Frugal, Fun, Learn, Save

Things I Love Thursday – Walking Like Egyptians

December 15, 2010 By Big Binder 2 Comments

So. Monday is the first day of our winter break, and we are blissfully un-busy this year. My “pretending I’m a homeschooler” tendencies come out in full force during times like this.

Behold, a Country Day Home School lesson plan.

The Kent District Library will be having an ”Experience Egypt” program starting Monday to celebrate Rick Riordan’s Kane Chronicle series first title, The Red Pyramid.

Truth time: I have no idea who Rick Riordan is or what his Kane Chronicles are.

I’m glad I got that off my chest.

The part that interests me is this:

Come play games and make crafts related to all things Egyptian as we dress like a pharaoh, make ourselves mummies, and create a pyramid. For ages 6 and up.

Well, actually Maybelle isn’t quite 6 yet, but she can totally pass. Especially if she’s wrapped up like a mummy, right?

So how are we going to rock this theme? Stick with me; I’ll show you.

We’re going to start things off right. I read here that Baklava was a popular Egyptian food, and when in Egypt, do like the Greeks do I guess. Our local Middle Eastern Market sells pieces of Baklava, so we’ll head down this weekend and pick up a few. We’re also going to try dates, another Egyptian food, because I don’t think my kids have ever had them before.

After our Egyptian Breakfast, we’ll read a book about Egyptians that I checked out at the library:

I also found this video about the Nile that looks cool

Then we’ll have some Koushari for lunch. I’ll show you all how to make it Sunday on Recipe Roundtable!

Mondays are free at the Grand Rapids Public Museum for Grand Rapids residents, and there is a small “Egypt” exhibit on the third floor, so we’ll head to the museum and check out the mummy.

After that, we’ll cruise over to the library and enjoy the program that sparked this whole thing in the first place.

From there, we’ll head home and make some Cartouche Cat Bookmarks. A.P. keeps asking me for bookmarks, and I don’t really use them. I use business cards, scrap paper, paper clips, recipts… so the kid needs a proper bookmark. Maybelle loves cats, and they are both all about ‘translation’ so this is kind of the perfeft storm of a craft for us right now.

Then we’ll watch our Redbox movie, The Prince of Egypt.

This program goes through February at different locations, so bookmark this post if you can’t do it this Monday. Enjoy Walking Like an Egyptian!

Monday, December 20, 2:00 PM – Cascade
Tuesday, December 28, 2:00 PM – Lowell
Wednesday, January 19, 2:00 PM – Plainfield
Saturday, January 22, 10:30 AM – Sand Lake
Saturday, January 29, 10:30 AM – Alto
Thursday, February 10, 4:00 PM – Comstock Park
Saturday, February 12, 2:00 PM – Cutlerville
Monday, February 14, 2:00 PM – Wyoming
Thursday, February 17, 3:30 PM – Caledonia
Monday, February 21, 2:00 PM – Grandville
Tuesday, February 22, 2:00 PM – Kentwood
Thursday, February 24, 6:30 PM – Spencer Township
Saturday, February 26, 11:00 AM – Byron Center
Monday, February 28, 6:30 PM – Rockford

This is linked to Things I Love Thursday at The Diaper Diaries. Also, I am really sorry for making the “Walk Like An Egyptian” song get stuck in your head, ’cause now it will be there all day.

Hey! Psst! I am having a giveaway right now, so if you’re in the market for free movie tickets and cereal, read this!

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Filed Under: Country Day Homeschool, Things I Love Thursday

Earth Day Activity

April 17, 2010 By bigbinder Leave a Comment

Many, many years ago I worked as a volunteer at the Kalamazoo Nature Center. I had grown up watching this place expand from a little building with some animal bones hanging around in it to a stunning, award winning Nature Center. I was a long way away from having kids at that point, but I felt a real pull to teach kids about nature. Fortunately, I was teamed up with Pete Stobie, an amazing naturalist with an incredible talent for connecting with children.

For the KNC’s Earth Day celebration, I was assigned to the “Down To Earth In Your Backyard” tent. The activity at my table was Cookie Mining, and I remember thinking “when I have kids, I am TOTALLY going to do this with them“. I have been dragging around a photocopied activity page since 1997. Really.

The sheet makes me giggle, because it notes that the cookies for this project were donated by Gil’s Market. Anyone familiar with Kalamazoo will know that stepping into Gil’s was a bit of a time machine itself; back when grocery stores were little, slightly dirty and did not include an “International Foods” section unless you count about 24 inches of shelf space donated to Old El Paso products.

So cookie mining is an idea whose time has come. It’s a perfect Earth Day activity, because all you need are cookies. There should be one for each participant.

Tell them they will be able to eat the cookie soon, but for now, they have to follow your directions. Say, “We are going to go cookie mining. Your job is to remove all the chocolate chips very carefully“. Give them a few minutes to do this, then when they are done tell them they just have to do one more thing. “Please put the cookie back together again”. This is the best part, because they freak out. They’ll laugh, but you have to stay serious and act like you asked them to do something perfectly reasonable so they’ll try it.

It won’t take long for them to realize they can’t do it. Here is where you use the activity to illustrate a bigger point; tell them, “This cookie reminds me of the Earth. You can only remove so many things from it before the whole thing crumbles, or in the Earth’s case, it can’t repair itself. Whenever we make a change – develop land, or change a habitat, it’s like taking one chocolate chip out. Take too many, and we can’t fix what we have done”.

The kids will be very sad, but it’s a profound learning moment. You can say, “Let’s talk about some ways we can do for the Earth while we eat our cookies”. You can talk about recycling, or walking or riding bikes instead of driving, or composting – something the kids can participate in.

My kids have heard about the recent mining accident, and I feel a little opportunistic doing the Cookie Mining project with them right now, but at the same time, it is the truth. If you have talked with your kids about conserving energy, they will understand the connection between using less energy and requiring less coal.

I LOVE Earth Day, and trying to teach my kids their role in caring for their planet. Yes.. I know it’s Saturday.. but if for more Things I Love Thursday, go check out the Diaper Diaries.

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Filed Under: Country Day Homeschool, Things I Love Thursday Tagged With: Children & Nature Network, Earth Day, Kalamazoo Nature Center, Leave No Trace

Update, please!

March 20, 2010 By bigbinder 15 Comments

I have been seriously preoccupied this week.

First, the two winners of the Red Gold Giant Tomato Can Contest were Aspiring Mom2three and What Megan’s Making. They were both excited to win! There must be some kind of blog contest karma, because I won something myself. We are going to see Disney On Ice tomorrow, thanks to Stacey Says.

On Monday, we had our “Pretend Home-Schooler” Sugarbush session at Blandford Nature Center. I loved being in a small group, that the kids were all the same age, and that the naturalist was totally into it. I did not love that Maybelle announced to everyone that her “preschool teacher said only 5 more days until Spring!”. One mom whispered to me, “Do you send her to.. preschool?” I nodded and said slightly apologetically that, in fact, I did. She confided in me that she sent her daughter too; and was surprised at how many home schoolers sent their kids to preschool before beginning home school. I agreed that I was surprised too and then tried to keep Maybelle quiet the rest of the time.

Next, BOTH of my kids were the ‘special helper/treat bringer’ on St. Patrick’s Day. I get just a smidge carried away with this kind of thing, so that gobbled up a lot of my time. And in turn, I gobbled up a lot of rice crispy treats. I added green food coloring – I mean this is a saint’s feast day, after all – and one batch turned out an awful puce color. So I ate it.

Today was the big day for my little bunch of friends who decided at some point in December to become runners. We began a program called “Couch Potato to 5k“ the first week in January with a goal to run the Irish Jig. And we did. I’m going to say this, even though it’s embarrassing: I was the last of my friends to finish. I was the last of almost everyone to finish!

I had a very uncharacteristic response to this fact. I like to do things I’m good at and conversely, hate doing things I stink at, so I avoid them. Today though, I couldn’t have cared less about being an awful, slow runner! I had one goal, and that was not to walk. I wish my MP3 player could have somehow recorded my thoughts during the race. I remember thinking after about half a mile, “Oh my God. I can’t do this. It’s snowing. I’m hot. No, I’m cold. No, hot. I can’t run outside. I’m going to get out of this stampede and go home”.

I settled down though, and slowed down, and people started passing me. If I had been walking the race, I would have passed me. Things went well until about 2 miles when I started to get sort of tired, and the snow picked up so now I was cold. At that point I thought “whether I walk or run right now - I am in the middle of a race that I have to finish either way, so I might as well just run.” More people passed me. I was pretty close to the back of the pack now. But I was running.

A few minutes before I hit the 3 mile mark, it occurred to me that my friends were all done with the race, and probably in their cars driving home. I was pretty much last, maybe 15 people were behind me. This is out of about 4000. I have never been so determined to so something I was so bad at, but by this point I was too tired to think anything but, “DO NOT WALK ONE DAMN STEP“. And I didn’t. Walk one damn step.

I saw my husband and kids just before the finish line. My kids joined me for the last little bit, and my friends, in fact, had not gone home, they were all cheering for me. I’m so proud of all of us. I’m so thankful for my husband’s support. It’s been a busy week with not much time to write, but it’s been a good one :)

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Filed Under: Contests, Country Day Homeschool, I Just Feel Like Blogging

Sugarbush

March 12, 2010 By bigbinder 2 Comments

A few blocks from my house, there are big Menards buckets sitting under a tree with tubes coming out of them. The tubes are about eight inches long and go right up and into the tree. I was a little confused when I first saw it. Did this tree have some kind of disease? Is this how trees get intravenous treatments? What does Emerald Ash Borer look like? Is it contagious? Does it hurt the tree?

I think like this all the time. I’m not kidding. It’s torture.

Then I realized nothing was going into the tree, silly, something was coming out. For as much time as I spend outside, I can’t identify squat so I had to assume it was a maple tree. These were taps, and pretty fancy ones at that. The sap just went neatly into the bucket.

There is a very short list of things that make me happier than resourcefulness. I loved these urban syrup farmers, whoever they were. I’d tap my own trees if I could figure out which ones had syrup fixin’s in them, and which ones just had, ah, tree blood.

As soon as AP could walk I started dragging him to Sugarbush at Blandford Nature Center. It’s a great little celebration of syrup and the colossal big deal it is to get, like, one teaspoon. I make a big deal out if it too, and this week we headed over to the library for a few syrup-making books like we always do. The Grand Rapids Public Library also put together a list of books.

We only ever buy real maple syrup (little fyi - it’s cheapest at Costco, unless it goes on sale at Meijer) , but it’s tradition that we buy a bottle at Blandford and have pancakes for dinner that night. Sometimes it’s still really snowy, and sometimes it’s muddy but I like that. There is something about being able to enjoy the harvest of something in weather that vacillates like crazy from year to year that makes for a good, enduring, Michigan kid.

Blandford has changed their website about 18 times since I had kids; here is the current one with a list of events for Sugarbush. Try and get there for a guided tour; it’s really hands-on and interesting from the actual tree tapping (where they poke it and let the sap drip out) to the boiling and processing where the actual end result is achieved. It seems like kind of a hassle, it’s muddy and maybe there will be a crowd but really, this is the stuff that makes memories for kids, you know?

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Filed Under: Country Day Homeschool

Things I Love Thursday – Pretending I'm A Homeschooler

February 11, 2010 By bigbinder 8 Comments

Well, hi there! I’m back! Work is over. It has been for a month actually. As much as I wanted to dive back into Big Binder – I had some home-work to do. First, I had to fix my kids. They got used to being in a large group of loud and semi-naughty kids with a fairly dispassionate adult tending to them. We had some attitude adjustments to make. More difficult was re-adjusting their appetites. Do you KNOW what they feed kids in daycare? It’s gross. Everything is sort of a pale yellow color and exactly the same consistency. I still get a little ‘bleccchh’ shiver when I think about it.

I think it’s only fitting that I re-emerge into the blogging world on a day I can participate in Things I Love Thursday. Jill was one of several people who talked to me or took the time to write and encourage me to get off my butt and fire up Big Binder again. It’s amazing to be thanked and encouraged to do what you love, so a big thank you to everyone who showed me the love and kept checking back in to see if I had started writing again.

My kids are both in half-day programs at school, so we have a lot of time for fun things in the afternoons. Fortunately, living in what I think must be the homeschool capital of the universe, there is a lot going on. It began to dawn on me that homeschooled kids go to a lot of performances, presentations, and seminars. And then it dawned on me that although I send my kids to school, I am also a homeschooler. Kind of. Well, sort of. OK maybe it’s a bit of a stretch, but I can live with that.

A few weeks ago, I called and got tickets to the ‘school’ performance of the Grand Rapids Symphony’s Lollipop Concert, Hansel and Gretel. This was WAY better than going to the Saturday morning performance – it wasn’t as crowded and the majority of the kids showed up on busses so we got a way better parking spot. The next performance is Ferdinand the Bull, a book my kids love so we are not going to miss this, (even if we have to go to the Saturday performance.) Just call the Symphony and ask when the school performances are, and get your tickets directly from them.

Next month, we are going to some homeschool programs at Blandford Nature Center. Click on their website, then go to “Education Programs”, then “Homeschool Programs”. I have two websites I like for finding more ‘homeschool’ opportunities. First is Grand Rapids Learning Exchange. It is really thorough and is a fantastic resource. Next is the Homeschool Building website, although I just look at the calendar. I don’t have enough guts to show up to anything – I’d be sniffed out as a phony in a second. But seriously; why should the homeschoolers have all the fun ? For more Things I Love Thursday, check out the Diaper Diaries.