Tesselations

I have always had difficulties with tesselations. 
Back when I was teaching, we had to do a section in Geometry about tesselations. 
Goodness, that was tough for me. 
My poor students probably didn't get the best lesson that day!
It's not that I didn't like them.
I even have an MC Escher video (very cool) that was given to me by my math ed. supervisor in college.
Tesselations just don't like me.

But as I was perusing the internet, I found this tutorial of sorts.
Awesome.
Perfect for Thanksgiving.
Taking a lesson from the tissue paper votives, I tried this first before instructing the kids.
Good thing too.
They needed quite a bit of help acutally constructing the template for their tessealation.
In the end, the kids did a good job tracing, and the entertainment of this lasted close to an hour.

This is probably not the best activity for a four year old.  Ezren got a little frustrated toward the end, and decided he would just color on the back of his paper. 

Chad's . . .

Olivia's . . .

Mine . . .

Isaac's . . .

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Number Theory

A few months ago I was commisioned by my brother and his fiance to create a math related baby item for two of their good friends who will become new parents at the end of January.  Combining two things I really love -- sewing and math -- was so much fun!  I gave them a couple of options to choose from, hoping of course that they would choose my favorite.  And they did!  I was going to make a ring stacker.  You know, like the plastic ones at the store except this would be made of fabric and would have mathematical constants appliqued on it.  It took a month to decide on sizes, get the pattern pieces made, and create the prototype.

But finally . . . it's completed!

The constants

For those of you who don't know:
i = squareroot of -1 (imaginary numbers)
phi = the Golden Ratio (Google it - there's lots of cool info. about this constant!)
e = exponential growth constant
pi = circumference of a circle divided by its diameter (we all love pi!)
infinity = infinity

The approximated values of said contants

The inside tube is also a rattle.

And because I just couldn't help myself, I also made some onesies for the new little one.  They are incremental in size, starting with 0-3 mo. all the way up to 12 mo. 

Thank you Philip and Jes for asking me to do this. 
It was so much fun!
I hope J and J's new baby will be happy, healthy, and (most importantly) mathematically savvy!

Tissue Paper Votives

Since beginning The Freckled Elephant nearly two years ago, I have accumulated a pretty large stash of leftover tissue paper.
I don't like the idea of throwing it away because it could someday be useful.
If for nothing else, shipping filler.
Looking online, I found a craft project for making a glass jar into a decorative candle holder.
I would have used a glass jar from our recycle bin, but I had previously purchased (like three years ago, seriously) four votive holders from A.C. Moore.
And I didn't use Mod Podge, just regular Elmer's.

Brief directions for the kids, and off they went!

In retrospect, I should have tried this first before asking the kids to do it.
Probably should have read the directions better myself.
Like - water down the Elmer's glue.
Their little fingers wanted to stick to the paper.
They added too much glue (again, thinning it would have helped).
The paper pieces they chose were way too big.
So, in the end, I had to help more than anticipated.
But it was still fun.

And I think they turned out pretty nice.

Applesauce

The other day I was in Trader Joe's getting the necessary yogurt, bananas, and other misc. when I noticed that their organic Gala (my favorite!) apples were only $1.99 for 3 lbs. 
Yes, that's for organic! 
I snagged up four bags and thought we could probably make something with them.

Ezren and I decided to make applesauce. 
I've never made applesauce before. 
Wait . . . I think we may have made it waaaaay back in second grade for our Thanksgiving day feast. 
But who knows?  I was only eight!

So, I looked up a recipe online.
It sounded easy enough.  Like making mashed potatoes.
It said to use multiple types, but I only had two on hand -- Gala and Crispp Pink.

Ezren's a great apple washer.



Then peel, core, and chop the apples.

 
Ezren's favorite part of the apple is the skin. 
He will often get an apple out of the refridgerator, only to eat the skin off and say he's done.
I usually end up eating the leftovers.
He was really excited to see all of the skins piling up and kept munching on them as they shot across the counter.
At the end before getting rid of the remaining skins and cores, I made him a bowl of just the skins.
I'm wondering if you could roast these and turn them into chips . . .
Maybe next time.

After they are cut, put them in a large pot with about an inch or so of water.
Turn the heat up to pretty high (on my stove it was 8 out of 10).
Once it starts bubbling, turn it down some (to 6-ish).

Can you smell it?
Oooo . . . that's too bad.  Because it smells amazing!
Let it do it's thing for about 20 minutes until the apples are soft but not soggy.
I scooped off most of the juice.  Now we have applejuice in the fridge!
Ezren used the potoato masher to get the mashing started.

I got out the stand blender thing (such a useful tool!) and really got the chunks out.
Our applesauce is so yummy!

I'm going to get more apples later this week and do it all over again.
Go get yours too!

A Walk in the Woods

We went to the lake again.
This time it was all three kids, the dog, and me.
Remember how I said last time that the camera might be an inconvenience?
Yep.  It was.  But I'm still very glad to have taken it.

Olivia took a camera too.  The one I don't like to use but is small enough to take on trips.  She got a few good shots.

I love this one that she did.
It's cool to see her perspective.

I cannot even begin to tell you how much I love this path at the lake.  It has natural land bridges (which used to house a beaver dam), ponds covered in algae, wooden bridges for small creeks that occur when it rains.  It is truly Nature at its best.

This fallen tree is at the start of one of the land bridges.
The kids like to climb and hang from it.
It drops off right into the lake. 
I just know one of these days they'll fall in.

There are billions of daddy longlegs walking with us.  Seriously.
We kept trying not to step on them although they are quite camoflaged, and I'm sure we didn't completely succeed.
This one was a little mad that we were staring.  He had a drop of some type of liquid dangling from his mouth.  Or what I'm assuming was his mouth.  I didn't get close enough to ask.

A mushroom growing out of a crevise in a rock (and a daddy longleg underneath) . . .

Running through the forest . . .

This is one of my favorite spots on this path.  It is somewhat of a clearing.  There is very little secondary growth.  Just a bunch of tall, old pines next to the edge of the lake.
Except . . . see that giant tree?  The one that's thick and massive and all gnarly?
There are two of these right opposite each other -- the other is just to the left, not in this shot.
They are great old trees who have probably seen more than I will ever be able to imagine.

This shot . . . one of my favorites.  We were crossing this wooden bridge and the boys began picking up piles of leaves that had accumulated on the bridge and were tossing them up in the air.  Quite happily, I might add.  Disappointing that I blew out their faces, but it's still a wonderful capture of a purely blissful moment.

One day she's going to make an excellent mother . . .

Free

Nothing like getting something for free, right?

The other day while taking Ezren to school, I saw this little table sitting on the side of the road infront of a house with a "Free" sign taped to it.
Free?  Really?  OK, I'll bite.

It was still there on the way back, so I stopped and checked it out. 
Cobwebs.  A spider (big one too).  Dirt.
Not too bad.
I'll take it.
It's free . . . you can't go wrong with free.

Here it is before.

It's not the sturdiest table.  And the top needs to be replaced because it's really cheap and warped.  Character, right?  But it's light (Olivia can lift it), and it works.

Some paint and here's the after.

It's been in near constant use since moving it in.
Yahtzee, Solitaire, Sorry, Go Fish.
It's a great game table.
And the kids love that we can now sit at a table and eat lunch while we watch If Walls Could Talk . . . every day.

Halloween Night

This Halloween was warm.
Too warm.
I mean, you're not supposed to be able to wear shorts on Halloween night while Trick-or-Treating. 
But it was, and the boys got quite toasty in their costumes.

Isaac wanted to be Mario from Nintendo's Super Mario Brothers . . .

. . . which meant that Ezren wanted to be Luigi.

Olivia borrowed a costume from a friend and was a rock star.

We Trick-or-Treated for little over an hour. 
The boys were sweaty.
All of them were tired.

Good loot this year! (translation: lots of chocolate for mom!)