Insubordiknit

A few days in the life of homeschooling

Does everyone here know that we homeschool? And yes, I think it's a bit early for, like, hardcore school, but according to present day society, you should have your fetus enrolled in half-day at least. And yes, I realize that I'm in a lucky and unique situation that allows me to stay home and actually do this, let's just get that outta the way. Privilege, in lotsa ways, I've got that shit wired.

Alright, so we're doing some cool kid science-y stuff right now, nothing big, you know, chemistry/magic where the final product is food-coloring-colored-homemade-play-dough. So, here's what we did this week --

After burying some fossils half way down in a bowl and waiting for days for it to dry so we could excavate, it was finally time. With paperbag (yarn packing paper for those of you in the know) down and excavating tools (knitting needle, darning needle, tweezers) ready, little bit dug in .

He was so careful and intense. After he found all the fossils (the biggest hit was the shark's tooth), we made a 2 inch block of fimo clay and he pressed the fossils into the clay and removed them with the needle, to make a mold.

We mixed up some homemade clay (flour, salt, cream of tartar, food coloring, water), he kneaded and kneaded and finally said his hands were all cracky and he thought it was ready. I put a dab of oil in the molds and he gingerly filled the molds.

12 hours later we had our casts. Sorry, no money shot of that. However, we did another step today, pics of the final product in a few days.

Posted by jacey at February 27, 2006 08:52 PM