Playing with brownies

Moonshine simply doesn't want to be left out of the mix, ever, and I don't blame her. I didn't formally sign her up for the International Fair, but I did let her present. Let? Perhaps not the right word. She fussed when they skipped over her, and insisted on presenting her topic...

"Well, these are cherries."

Um, is that a Brownie? What is a Brownie?

"Well, I don't know."


She does know, I think. The girls and I have been reading Adventures of a Brownie, and Sunburst has been writing letters to see if we have a Brownie in our house (no replies yet, so we think they might only speak Gaelic.) We talk about Brownies an awful lot, and there is some question as to whether or not the woodpecker that lives in a tree next door is really a Brownie in disguise.

For those of you that don't know, Brownies are small, brown house elves that originated in Scotland. Scots believe quite heavily in faerie folk, so much so, that they even rally to save sacred fairy homes: Fairies stop developer's bulldozers in their tracks

Moonshine co-opted the Scotland theme and drew a picture of a Brownie with cherries, sort of a little sister project for team Scotland. She was happy, we were happy, and Grandma found us this FABULOUS link for printing out our very own Brownie Paper Dolls: here, and here.

**EDIT - 02 May 06**

The brownies must be onto us.

The above links to the brownie paper dolls have mysteriously stopped working for some folks. Try copying them into a new browser window. If they work for you, I advise saving them ASAP to print out for your little ones.
http://image03.webshots.com/3/9/99/94/9799994ZrdRyKVqbh_fs.jpg
http://image03.webshots.com/3/9/99/49/9799949XdJTkVQlua_fs.jpg

Just to be on the safe side, I'll leave out some milk and bread for the wee brown folk. We don't want any nasty boggarts on our hands.

Good luck!

Scotland, the brave

She's a brave wee lass to stand up in front of a crowd of folks and give a presentation.

It's painful to be the parent watching it though. Sunburst introduced herself, said, "I'm doing Scotland," and froze. Just for a minute. She stared at all the faces, turned around and stared at her display, and tried to sort out in her brain what she was supposed to do next. The crowd was very patient with her, and I watched her take a deep breath and ready herself. "This is a picture of Scotland that I watercolor painted. And there are lots of castles in Scotland..."

I almost didn't tell her about this international geography fair. I thought she might be too young for it, and I recall reading that with littles you should start geography with where you are, which makes perfect sense. You can own where you are, you can see it, smell it, feel it, and connect with it on a heart level. Formally, we haven't really done local geography. Shouldn't I get out a map of our current state and go from there?

We watch the wildlife outside our window. We see the different colored blossoms on the trees, and notice that the squirrels here are red and fat and fearless. We watch the birds and the bunnies and the deer. We walk and drive. We meet people and see things. We experience the change of seasons and stick our hands in the dirt. How can you live and breathe and not learn local geography?

So I let her jump right in. It helped that bits of Scotland are already familiar to her, that her dad plays bagpipes, and that haggis is utterly foul sounding. It helped that the Loch Ness Monster is a thing to wonder about. And it helped that we're reading Little House on the Highlands. and we have Scottish ancestry, too, just like Mary and Laura Ingalls. That pretty much sealed the deal. The heart connection was there.

And she had fun. The kids that presented were homeschoolers ages 3-16. Some of them whispered and others cracked jokes. It was a chance for homeschooling kids to come together and be a part of something bigger than themselves. And that, at least at our house, doesn't happen every day.

When it was over she turned and said to me, "Mom, I think they really liked my shortbread cookies."