God’s Eyes and Apple Eating

This morning’s handwork was making Eye of God and/or a woven spider web.  The kids enjoyed it so much they continued to make them for most of the afternoon, especially Cyan.  She has made 4 so far.  All more beautiful than the last!

This is Alex’s:

Isn’t it lovely!?! I just love how he used the blue in the midst of all these drab colors.

This afternoon was dedicated to using up the last of two laundry baskets of apples we had gotten from a dear friend.  I made batch after batch of applesauce.  And after I was done and tired of it, Cyan took over and made yet another batch.  We now have 18 quarts in the garage and more in the kitchen and still had enough left over for some for dinner tonight!

In Logan’s last workbox today was ‘make fresh apple pie with mommy’ and he just loved helping me prepare a pie for the family.  We made the whole thing from scratch and fresh apples.  No store bought dough or pie filling in this baby… Logan really honed his rolling pin skills!

With the left over dough he got to make his own little ‘pielette’. He just LOVED that!

As I put the kids to bed this evening I realized that even my ‘treat’ to myself tonight was apple:

Tis the season!

Happy FALL!!!

First day of school ~ Interviews

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Interview with Logan ~ First day of Kindergarten

“I HAVE A LOOSE TOOTH!!!!”

Favorites:

Color - Golden

Season - Winter with the snow, but wait!  Halloween!  Those are both my favorites!

Food - Pizza!  Corn chowder and mac & cheese, and tomato soup.

Animal - It’s a River Monster - an Alligator Gar - but I haven’t watched all their seasons yet so I don’t know.  Something could be cooler.

What do you want to learn about this year?

I want to learn two things - piano and ninja moves.  I already know one.  I know how to build stuff pretty well.  I didn’t say I want to learn it…  just that I know how.

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Interview with Cyan ~ First day of 6th Grade

Favorites:

Color - Peach (Like a sunset)

Season - Depends on the sun or snow.  Seriously, it depends on how much sun or snow there is.  Cuz if there’s lots of sun yu can go swimming and if there’s lots of snow you can go snowmobiling and that’s tons of fun!

Food - Potatoes

Animal - Horse

What would you like to learn this year?

More history with my friends.  I think the books “Love that Dog” and “Hate that Cat” were really good so I want to learn more about poetry and stuff like that.  I want to do singing lessons because I want to be a singer and I want to be a babysitter for dogs and children.  Like taking care of dogs.  Kinda want to learn how to make crepes because Alex doesn’t always want to do it… and pancakes!  I want to learn more about how to be in movies.  I think that would be cool. 

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Interview with Alex ~ First day of 10th Grade

Favorites:

Color - Ocean Blue

Season - Spring - I love all the colors.

Animal - felis domesticus - Cat

Food - Sliced apples and pickles

What do you want to learn this year?

I want to learn how to socialize and how to blow things up with chemicals.  I want to learn how to play the piano and how to actually draw stuff.  I want to learn basic gymnastics cuz I feel like I’d be good at it but I’d be terrified to do a flip cuz I feel like I’d break my neck!  I also want to learn to write fancy (calligraphy) and how to sing.  OH!  Walk a tightrope.  And photography.  That’s all.  Oops, I forgot, I want to learn to dance, too.

Let the school year begin!!!

ASL for the oldest

Alex has been wanting to learn ASL for about two years now.  I have been getting him all kinds of materials and working with him (I have limited knowledge of the language) as much as I can, but he was still hungry for more.  This year I set him up with a co-op class that does ASL on Friday mornings. 

He has just poured his energy into this and to add to it I set up a ‘final exam’ for him to do a complete interpretation of The Napping House by Christmas.  Yesterday was his first day working on the project and I don’t think it will take him more than a few weeks to do the whole book.  He was AMAZING!  I have never seen him pick up anything so fast!  It is as if physical language comes naturally to him. 

And it was pretty amazing to watch his first attempts yesterday during school. 

I love seeing that type of success for my children.  I don’t mind that it doesn’t happen often because the feeling is so sweet when it does!  He was positively vibrating with excitement that he could do this so quickly and so well.  I’ll have to record the final draft with the camera so you all can see it as well.  It’s pretty great!  :)

It’s great being a homeschooler!

Alex's Kitchen Science Lesson #1 ~ Braising

Braising = cooking with liquid

Recipe: Grandma Shari's Pot Roast with Peas

Chapter 3 "Braising" in Alton Brown's I'm Just Here for the Food

Searing the meat.

(This was our last pot roast from our half a cow we buy each year. What an awesome way to use it!)

Cutting the veggies. He got a little knife lesson in here too and did a wonderful job! Uniform potato bits is not the easiest trick to learn.

Making the cooking liquid. First, he added a Bullion cube to the water...

And the finished dinner! Man, it was good! I am going to keep this recipe in our stocks so we can try 'braising' again!

Alex's kitchen science inventory

My mom, Alex, and I are starting to implement the Alton Brown science stuff we have worked out over the past few weeks. My mom had two fantastic ideas which have taken up our first week with this science curriculum. #1: a kitchen inventory and #2: a kitchen safety briefing

Here is Alex's inventory:

I think he did a fantastic job! He said he wants to take pictures of the toaster and coffee maker too, but I told him that was unnecessary as long as he remembered he had them to use if he needed to.

(Just for my own sanity, I feel the need to point out that we had just made pizza with the mixer when he decided to do this. It doesn't just sit that dirty. ;) )

Quotes from Facebook

I have found recently that some of the things I would normally post on here have ended up on Facebook instead. So I decided to move them over. Enjoy the funnies from the past week!

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Husband: Who left the flag up on the mailbox?

3 yr old: I did!

Husband: You can't do that buddy. That means something.

3 yr old: Yeah. It means I can reach it!

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I ask the daughter to bring all of the stuff from around the yard, onto the patio so we can get rid of the garbage and go through the outdoor toys before Winter... what is the first thing she brings? ROCKS. Big fat rocks from all over the yard. When asked what she is doing she says: "But... you said *everything*."

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Dear moonbrained teenage son,

For future reference, axes, hatchets, and hedge trimmers are not lawn ornaments. Weed whackers do not belong on the front porch, and extension cords are not part of our curb appeal. You bike does not get flipped over and left in center the walkway, nor do you get to get angry at your three year old brother for picking up/touching said bike, hatchet, or ax.

Also, wearing socks and flipflops through wet grass is dumb. As is complaining about it afterwards.

Love (your very irritated) Mom (who is now leaving and getting a cup of coffee.)

(God, please help us both live through this year. Amen.)

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Instant Chemistry

What do you do when you get dry ice in your weekly milk delivery box? Well, you give it to the teenage boy of course!! :)

Instant chemistry lesson!

New Friends!

Meet our newest additions to our suburban homestead, Sophie and Ariel! They are our new baby rabbits.

We thought at first that they would be terrified of the cats, but as we got them settled, Alex allowed the cats to come check them out, and Ariel seemed as interested in the cats as they were of her!

I think they will be a fantastic addition to our growing homestead. Not sure if we will be in time to get chickens this year, or if it will have to wait until next Spring... but chickens are the next step!

Quotes

Conversations over dinner: Alex - "Mom, what do you think it would be like to be a piece of cheese?"

(Later) Me - "Hey Logan, did you finish your piece of broccoli?" Logan proudly opens his mouth to show me that it is empty, then puts out his fist and says "Oh yeah! Fist bump!" while shaking his little butt and happily 'bumping' my fist with his.

On the way to a friends birthday party we were discussing what we could get our little friend at last notice... I decided money would be best as we didn't have time for much else, and it's always fun to get anyhow. So I get the card, and Cyan says "Mom, can you get her twenty dollars instead of ten?" "I guess I could honey, why?" "Because ours is more than a ten dollar friendship."

New thoughts for school

Things have slowly been changing with Cyan this New Year... she is reading much faster and easier lately. And I think it has to do with her reading less. Yes, you read that right, I am having her read LESS. At the start of this year, I was frustrated by her lack of quick reading (she had all the rules down, it just took her forever!). So each time we would come across a 'learning opportunity' for her to read, I would jump at it with gusto.

But it has been 5 months...

and she is still a pokey Jane reader.

Two weeks ago I was reading the Workbox System Guide for the second time, and Sue mentioned to be careful about how many subjects you are asking your children to do at one time. Especially if those subjects are emergent subjects (skills that are not quite mastered). I realised that by asking Cyan to read while she was working on other subjects, I was overloading her little brain. So now, on her workbox, she has a 'work with mom' note on any subject that she may have to read more than one sentence... and then I read it to her. It may seem like good practice to make kids read the math problems, or instructions on their other assignments, but with Cyan, it was making her more reluctant to read during 'reading', which honestly, was inhibiting her learning a lot more than I thought it was. And making the other subjects doubly hard for her, because she is trying to figure out what 1/2 of 6 is, on top of trying to figure out what those words on the page mean, on top of trying to make sure she writes it in the correct place, on top of getting her 3's to face the correct way, etc. How confusing! It ended up that she wasn't really liking any subject. She would do it, but it would take her forever, and she would often loose track of where she was on the page, or what she was supposed to be doing because she was too busy deciphering the words.

So now, when she asks me what something says in another subject, I read it to her. I have found that this leaves her mind more refreshed when I ask her to read because she hasn't been stretching those same muscles for every other subject... and guess what? IT'S WORKING! She has been reading up a storm, and much faster than usual.

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My teen and I have been plugging away at school lately. Some newly emerging personality traits (completely normal for the age, yet terribly annoying for the mama) have made the last few weeks difficult to say the least. But somehow, we have managed to do school nearly every day. Alex is FLYING through math right now, and when he is done with their curriculum for this year, I am planning a set of fun things for him to finish out the year with instead of moving on to the next level (considering he is already over a year ahead of his 'grade level'). I have decided that he is going to start Life of Fred. A lot of the series will be a review with Alex finishing up his first year of Algebra in the next few weeks. But there are ways that Fred teaches math, that many other curriculum's just miss... it is PACKED full of real life applications of things like geometry and algebra, fractions and statistics. I believe that children learning things more than one way is very helpful, and I am excited to see how he does with this new way of learning.

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I wanted to share in the brilliance of this idea:

Ikea Trofast system workboxes

I am planning on switching to this system for my entire family come Tax Return time. These boxes are much spendier than the plastic shoe boxes, and I am thinking of getting two for Alex, one for Cyan, and one for Logan. That is about $300. YIKES! But I think it will be the perfect system for our family, and if it doesn't work out... these systems are perfect for small toys, even clothes. I have no fear that they will go to waste whatsoever. It makes spending the money a bit easier when you know that even if they don't work for what you want them for, they will work in your household. :)

Logan has been SO interested in doing school lately, that I think giving him a set of boxes with preschool play stuff in it will really help with his behavior during our study time. I have been compiling lists of activities that I could add to his workboxes that are gentle, quiet, and yet enough 'work' to keep him busy while we get our school work done. And of course, there is always the 'work with mom' card... where I can put games and things for us to do together. He would LOVE that.

I am really excited about this idea. I am revamping the entire homeschool closet to make 4 of these fit across the bottom so they are all nicely tucked away, and yet completely accessible for all the children. I think I may take off the doors to the closet and put on curtains... that would make it even easier. Hmmm.... Lots of fun new ideas.

Yes

Window stars and origami

Alex has been going crazy with the origami. He sold over $10 worth of his creations last weekend at the craft fair we went to. He is so good at it, and his work is beautiful and crisp.

I got him this book on Magical Window Stars for another paper folding activity, and he has loved making them so far! His first one was put in the nature case at the library to show the sun behind 'summer', and this is his second one:

He and I share the paper obsession. When he was little he used to like to make 'confetti'... which meant that he would take whole pieces of paper and cut them up into tiny bits, and then put them in a box or envelope. His paper crafts have grown with him and I am so proud of his latest works. They are beautiful and well done. He is becoming a master of folding paper and I am excited about having lots of Christmas decorations around the house made by him!

Oatmeal and teens

Teen accidentally drops a bowl of hot oatmeal. Bummer... Teen then thinks it is a good idea to dump the rest onto the kitchen floor and then clean it up with a mop... without even removing pieces of bowl or the oatmeal. Teen throws oatmeal covered rug into carpeted dining room. Teen puts oatmeal covered CSA box into living room. Teen then proceeds to mop the floor with oatmeal covered mop... before cleaning off the cabinets that are covered in oatmeal, or the counter... that is STILL covered in oatmeal. Now there is oatmeal in three different rooms... it isn't even 9am.

I am going to get Starbucks.

Party Planning

Alex and Cyan both really like to cook. But honestly, I don't let them in the kitchen very often. Well, they help me all the time, but when it comes to cooking their own thing the opportunities are few and far between. I am always working in there! So last week I decided that since we were doing the Farm to Table curriculum, their assignment for the week was to make a full on dinner party from scratch. From start to finish.

Alex was given the heavier load that included the menu plan, table set up, selecting and cooking the appetizer, main and side dishes, and then setting the tables. This included many more little jobs through out the week for him. Such as a grocery list, checking the pantry for supplies, making sure we had the amounts he needed, deciding on a budget, making a cooking timeline for party day, and remembering to defrost/prepare the things needed in advance so they would all be ready.

Cyan's side included dessert and table decorations. She had to pick and read a recipe, get the ingredients all ready and then help put them together.

I did have a couple of stipulations... the budget had to be under $40, the food had to all be from the same culture, and the groceries had to be in season. Other than that though, they were on their own. Alex spent hours pouring over cookbooks and finding the best recipes. He picked one that I thought looked daunting, and I told him so... but he wanted to make it. So I let him choose. He picked Italian American Lasagna from the Joy of Cooking. Which includes making the sauce AND the meatballs before hand. A lofty recipe to start with. Especially when you are responsible for three more courses as well.

The day before I had him sit down and make a timeline for what he needed to do the next day. He checked all the cooking and prep time, and decided that he needed to start by 1pm so that he could be all done by the time our guests arrived at 6pm.

When the day came, we went and I had them get their groceries from Trader Joe's. I had already gotten the produce on their list from the market. Then we got home and Alex got to work. He started off by making the meatballs. He had started to defrost the 1 1/2 of beef the night before, but it was still frozen. So he put it in the microwave on defrost and got it all ready. When the meat balls were done, he realised that it had taken him 45 minutes longer than it should have, and just like any good host... he started to freak out.

At this point, Cyan and Don were making the carrot cake. This was great because it left me free to help Alex. After the meat balls were made, he added the sauce stuff to the pot and let it simmer. Then he cut the lettuce for the salad and set the tables.

He was still feeling stressed, but as things got completed and he was able to focus on setting the table and such, he started to calm down.

Dinner turned out to be about a half hour late... even with his 5 hour head start, but it was DELICIOUS! The menu they picked:

Appetizer: Italian Salad (butter and oak lettuce with kidney beans, Genoa Salami and provolone)

Main Course: Italian American Lasagna with spiced meatballs

Side dish: Fresh baked sour dough bread and steamed artichokes.

Dessert: Carrot cake with vanilla ice cream with fresh raspberries on top

It ended up being a educational experience for the whole family, for my very non-culinary husband decided that he would help Cyan with the dessert once again. Twice in the same day looking up recipes and making them... Banner day for my man. :)

Cyan was very proud of her cake:

And Logan loved Daddy's cream cheese frosting. :)

It was a wonderful learning experience. There were tons of great learning opportunities. I think I may have them do this once a month this year and see how they improve their skills.

Alex's Potion Shop

Alex has spent the last week making a magic shop in his room. It is pretty adorable. He has a whole bunch of things in there that look ordinary, but have magical properties. Some of them are really inventive. Like last week he went out and collected rain water in a bottle. He calls it "last minute rain water". It was on sale for cheap because it's magical properties are unknown.

He had a simple piece of paper taped to his door that said that his shop was open, and I thought that for the work and time he has put in to his shop, that just wouldn't do. So I made him this sign:

It was very simple. I used a craft round from Micheal's and chalkboard paint. Then I drilled two holes in the top and hung it from thick brown ribbon. He loved it! I painted the other side as well. It currently says "Closed".