DIY Reusable Montessori Dot Game

I think the dot game is yet another brilliant method of  teaching high level math to kids.  Maria Montessori seemed to have a special kind of brilliance for taking difficult concepts and making them concrete.  The trouble is that it seems they're expected to use their dot game paper for one single math problem... and then what?  Recycle it?  This gets expensive (AND WASTEFUL!) very, very fast.  Especially when your daughter thinks the dot game is about the coolest thing ever and wants to do it all.the.time.  That's what you want, but not when it drains your pocket book!  I had been just printing it off and letting her use it that way, but then we went through a phase where she was sort of uninterested in doing any school at all and since it's summer I just let it be for a while.

Starting up again, I wanted something fun and exciting and nice to look at.  So I broke out my old scrapbooking stuff and found a pretty "dot" paper.  I printed off a copy of the dot game paper from this site and cut it out.  I stuck it on with tape because I didn't want to take the time, but if I had it to do again I'd use a glue stick or something to stick it on since it does seem to pop up a little funny in the middle of the paper.  Then I stuck on the letter stickers to say "The Dot Game".  Finally I used self adhesive laminating sheets to laminate it and then cut off the excess.

She's using embarrassingly large dry erase markers in the appropriate colors, but I'd like to get some that are a better thickness for the size of the dot game.  These are just what I happened to have on hand.

I love that I don't have to print off a thousand copies of the dot game paper and my daughter can math to her little heart's delight!

Review: Merrell Barefoot Life Wonder Glove

Merrell now has a line of barefoot shoes that include a number of casual shoes (!!!), and because, who DOESN'T want to feel like they're barefoot all the time, I bought a pair.  Now, looking on their website, I see they also have boots and fun looking shoes for fall!

I appreciated the look of the "Barefoot Life Serene Glove", but wasn't sure I wanted the ribbon going around my ankle.  Instead, I went for the "Barefoot Life Wonder Glove"... in "mulberry"!  Hooray for bright pink shoes!  Actually they're not as bright as I expected them to be, but they're still plenty noticeable.  I've decided shoes are now officially a netural (no matter what color), so I wear them with everthing.  Haha!
 

The wonder glove is extremely comfortable.  It seems more flexible, to me, than either of the Merrell barefoot running shoes I own, which is a bonus.  The fabric on the sides is very thin, similar to the fabric for vibrams in thickness, but the toe and heel is leather.  I'm not sure this would be a reasonable shoe to wear if there's water on the ground or if it's cold out, but it's been wonderful for summer.  It's also cute enough that I can wear it with nicer things or with jeans or shorts.  Looks especially cute with jeans.  If I worked, I'd totally wear it to work.

It seems nearly all of their women's line has that elastic by the ankle.  I'm not sure why that is, but it is reasonably comfortable and doesn't really bother me as I expected.  The elastic is fairly stiff and not really pulling into your ankle, as it looks like it might be in the pictures.  That's something I recall being worried about before I bought any of their barefoot shoes.

The sole is, as I said, thin and flexible (you can roll them right up in your hand), but with a decent amount of grip, so you don't have to worry about sliding around.  It's also rubber, so not a problem in slippery polished indoor floors.  As you can see, it's a vibram sole.

I've been wearing them daily, with no sock or anything, for a couple months, and have yet to detect a stench.  They supposedly are treated to slow bacterial growth, but I do wonder how to clean them when they do start to smell.  Of course, this would be a problem with any shoe you typically wear without socks.

Really, my only negative on this shoe is that the cross strap occasionally pulls the shoe over a little and I have to scoot it back.  That is, it sorta feels like it's on sideways.  It's not a huge deal, to me, though.  Overall, I love them and am looking forward to getting other varieties of Merrell barefoot casual shoes!

**Edited to add**

My shoes started getting pretty stinky, so I asked merrell how we should clean these.  They said they do not recommend sending them through the washer, but that I could use a typical sandal cleaner.  What I did instead was dump a bunch of baking soda in them and then dampen it with some water and use that to gently scrub any crud off.  Then I rinsed with apple cider vinegar.  I followed this up with water rinse and then let them dry in the sun.  It's not a perfect fix but it's cheap and made a big difference in the funk.  :)

DIY Montessori Globe

Last week was my kids' last week of school at their tiny montessori school.  We can't afford next year's tuition for my kids, so I am officially starting homeschooling now.  I'd like to keep within the montessori style mostly because I LOVE the montessori math curriculum.  It's just so brilliant!  Also because my kids are just sort of used to that style now.  I'm not married to the rest of the curriculum, though I do like it.


Anyway, I was scouting out Michaels' looking for ideas for things and came across this globe:

It's just a small (maybe 5 inch diameter or so?),  presumably paper-on-cardboard globe that has just light brown for the land parts, though it has some darker and lighter areas to show the mountains and such, as well as the names of the various countries and borders drawn in black.  The kids saw it immediately and were all excited to have their own globe at home, and my immediate thought was "hey, I could make this all sorts of montessori!"... and it cost me all of $1.

This project was super easy.  All you need is permanent markers in the appropriate colors and then carefully color in each continent. I think if you didn't want to see all the borders and country names, you could probably use paint pens, but they're much more expensive and I sort of like being able to see what's underneath.  I already had the sharpie markers in the right colors, too, so that was lucky.

Colors you need:
Europe -  red
Asia -  yellow
Africa -  green
N. America -  orange
S. America - pink
Australia - brown

Antarctica did not need to be colored because it was pretty much white to begin with.

Seedlings!

April 15 I started a bunch of seedlings. I had planned to start more within a few days but as yet have not. That said, we have seedlings!! I'm excited. This is my first time being serious about starting my garden from seeds. Previous years, I'd usually start some seeds, forget to water them, they die, then go out and buy plants for my garden from a nursery. Anyway, I have pictures!!

Green(uh, purple until cooked) Beans:

 

Pumpkins:

Cucumbers:

 

Now, with the cucumbers, I was using seeds I had bought back in 2002 (and subsequently never used), so I wasn't convinced they would all come up - or that any would come up, so I planted a TON of them. I guess we lucked out though... out of 17 seeds, I have 15 plants. O.O I was NOT expecting that. So, I'd say it's probably a good idea to try using any older seeds you might have laying around because at worst, you don't have them come up and you get more *shrug*  

The Lawn

I looked out my window this morning and there was a man wondering around my neighbor's yard fertilizing it (or was it insecticides?). YUCK! For some reason, I'm offended by anything being spread THAT CLOSE to where my children play that needs a sign for the first few days saying not to walk on it. Come on, people, I'm trying to raise children and grow food on this lawn!

My husband and I joke that at our house, the grass really IS greener on the other side of the fence, but that seems to be because we're one of the few houses (much to my neighbor's dismay, I'm sure) that chooses not to chemically treat our lawn. That said, there is certainly stuff you can do to enhance your lawn organically!

Here's some links to organic lawn care:
www.richsoil.com
www.eartheasy.com
www.safelawns.org

Better for your kids and pets, better for the environment and better for your wallet. Or better yet... rip up your yard and plant native/hardy perennials...

Gift Wrapping

This year, I'm using up my wrapping paper from previous years (I may well be doing that next year, too!), but I heard recently that there's more paper in landfills than diapers, so I feel awkward about buying more wrapping paper. Thus began my search for a good (inexpensive) alternative.

One idea is to just reuse the disposable wrapping. If you're ambitious, you can wrap with paper and avoid the use of tape, and then just re-use the paper next year (assuming it's not ripped). I suppose if you're a scrapbooker, you may want to even used the ripped pieces for some Christmas pages. Obviously, though, paper can only be reused for wrapping so many times before it inevitably rips and is no longer useful for wrapping. Paper gift bags can be reused many more times (as can the tissue paper that you might stuff them with) than regular wrapping paper.

Martha Stewart had a lovely piece on wrapping with newspaper. I love this idea, it's beautiful, but I wonder how it would look with just regular old american newspaper. Also, since I don't get newspapers, I'd have to find someone who did that would give me some. I have been thinking I might use brown paper bags that we get from grocery stores when we buy too much to fit in our reusable bags. I was thinking I could let my kids go nuts with some Christmas stamps on them first and that could be cute. Throw on some ribbon and that would be pretty nice, I think, plus it's a fun Christmas project for my kids.

The most sustainable idea, I think, is wrapping with cloth. I've heard of various ways to do this, but it all seems to cost about the same as buying paper gift bags (well, some ways are pretty expensive), but are more reusable than that, so in the long run it's cheaper. First, there's wrapsacks. These are beautiful, colorful, and not much more cost than buying paper gift bags, but if you consider you can re-use them (or hopefully get everyone you know to use them, too, and have free ones given to you...) the cost is not bad at all. You can buy the variety pack too, which are on sale right now. They seem like they wouldn't be too difficult to make your, though, so I was thinking I might try. I'm planning to buy christmas fabric on sale after this season and use it to make next year's gift bags.

An idea I've heard is to use a cloth grocery bag as a gift bag. Just put the gift in and add tissue paper as you would with a normal gift bag. Something I did for a gift was use one of those canvas bags you can get at craft stores - the ones meant for you to decorate them - and bought an iron-on decorative patch and ironed it on. Voila, a long-term reusable gift bag! Alternatively, you could use fabric paint and paint or stamp on the bag to decorate it. Yet another fun Christmas craft for the kids!

My favorite (although, maybe the most expensive?) idea, though, is furoshiki. It's gorgeous and actually looks like a lot of fun! I think some of the Christmas fabric I get after Christmas may be devoted toward this end next year. Also, some of the craft stores have scarves that may be perfect for this, and can be acquired much more cheaply than you might see on that website (although their cloths are gorgeous!).

Crazy Things We Can Put In The Washing Machine

Ok, so maybe I'm behind the curve on this, but I'm a little shocked at the number of things you can stick in the washing machine to get clean. Maybe it's having grown up in a throw-away society, I'm not sure.

For instance, we have a simple clear plastic shower curtain liner that we use. Well, needless to say, it gets grungy from soap scum, etc, every so often. Up until recently, we'd just sorta wash it by hand every now and then and when it got to the point where that wasn't enough, we'd trash it and get a new one. Well, the last time my mom was here, she mentioned that we should just toss it in the washer. I was (strangely) shocked. So, I did it, with a little dish soap and some bleach. It came out practically perfect! I was so excited. Anyway, I'm saying this is both frugal AND green because although I used a touch of bleach, it's certainly better for the environment than getting a new plastic one every year or two!

Other things that I've tried in the washer that you might not think to put in there:

• sneakers
• slippers
• bath toys
• the bath mat (maybe this is too obvious)
• stuffed animals