Half-baked Homeschool

Most of what I've posted in the past has been in the "wrap-up" category, but over the summer I it was a recap of the whole academic year, and this past week it covered six weeks. Perhaps a weekly review would be better.

Bearclaw finished the novel Pocahontas and the Strangers by Clyde Robert Bulla. Much of the week, then, was spent preparing a project on the book for his humanities class. Despite seeing several on the given list that I thought would be right up his alley, he chose to build a Powhatan longhouse. They always choose the thing that will make the biggest disaster of the kitchen. Anyway, it WAS fun and turned out quite well.

While staying within this general time period, we took a look this week at both Japanese and Chinese history, discussing the shoguns in Japan and the end of the Ming Dynasty in China. We included a literature selection from each country, both of which were retellings of traditional stories. From China came Lon Po Po, which is similar to Little Red Riding Hood in many ways. The Boy of the Three-Year Nap, from Japan, is a fun folktale and a Cadlecott Honor book.

We try to cook at least one thing related to our the time or place of our history study each week, but time ran short on Wednesday, and instead of the homemade Gyoza I had planned, we cooked frozen potstickers. At least this was an option. Last week, when we covered the Thirty Years' War, we made Schnitzel. I don't think frozen would have been an option there. (too bad I missed doing a "wrap-up" that week - we even streamed polka music in on the laptop during dinner from "24-7 Polka Heaven". Check it out for your next Octoberfest!)

Bearclaw spent a good deal of time categorizing sentences and contructing topic sentences in grammar. In Singapore Math, he's working on adding and subtracting money. I'm better at the subtracting, because that's all I do! Tee-hee!

Shortbread's curriculum centers around a different "letterbook" each week in the humities hybrid program the boys attend. The kindergarteners do not progress trough these alphabetically, but in a way that allows them to begin to read and spell simple words. The week's letterbook was "Ss", and I'm thrilled that he is now beginning to sound out words. He's very proud too!

Each day, Shortbread and I sit down to read some of the wonderful children's books we own or have borrowed from the library. We try to pick one theme book (currently that's "autumn") and one book that has the letter of the week in the title. Some of our favorites from this week were:
When I'm Sleepy by Jane R. Howard
The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle
A Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats
The Berenstain Bears Learn About Strangers by Jan and Stan Berenstain

We weren't all work and no play. Dh and my dad took both boys to an airshow at a nearby Air Force Base. Going with "Papa" and their dad is extra fun for the boys, as Paps is a retired Air Force jet and helicopter pilot, and dh is a liscenced pilot as well. They had a great time, and I cleaned the living room carpet (which I thoroughly enjoyed, by the way).

I hope I can make a habit of summarizing our weeks and sharing them with all the other great homeschool bloggers at Weekly Wrap-ups, hosted by Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers

As a former science teacher, I should be leading my children in mind-blowing activities and experiments followed by enlightening and insightful analysis each week, right? If so, I'm in big trouble. You see, I didn't receive much of a history education myself, so I'm enjoying and focusing there. That's where I would sit if I could, and we'd address science in middle school. After all, I've been there and done all that science stuff before. My children, however, have not, and they are fascinated with all things science.

Despite my background, I was struggling with how to teach something like Biology at a level that would be interesting and helpful to my young boys (which is why my then first grader knew, and still knows, all the major invertebrate phyla). So I began to search for a science curriculum, and I didn't care for most of them. I will go into my objections to most of what's out there some other time, but I did finally find something I love. It's called Real Science 4 Kids, and it's written by homeschool mom and biochemical physicist (no, no one knows what that is) Dr. Rebecca Keller.

Even better, one of my homeschool friends was interested in using the same curriculum with her two boys - instant co-op! We've done pretty well at this, but Friday is our science day, and so it's also the day that people go out of town, have relatives coming in, go on field trips, etc.

Real Science 4 Kids has several levels and covers Physics, Biology, Chemistry, and (they're working on) Earth Science. We started with the lowest level Physics for our first 10 week term. We won't quite manage to get everything in within the 10 weeks, but hey, we did succeed at setting up the "Lemon Battery".




Aside from such organized lessons, there are always the opportunistic science activities, many of which involve nature study.

On a recent trip to the Sea Grove beach on the Florida panhandle, dh corralled a crab into a bucket (not without first suffering a small laceration from the cornered crab's claw) and we watched as he burrowed backward into the sand.


We also visited Gulf World in Panama City Beach on that trip, which was not exactly Sea World, but then, I wasn't exactly looking for Sea World crowds. We did learn some interesting things about marine animals, including what they eat:


Yep, I'm raising little biochemical physicists all right. Yes, indeedy.

It's getting cooler here, especially at night, so I'm beginning to think more about soups and stews, which I love to cook and to eat. That will also give me a chance to use some of the vegetables I froze this summer, since I missed the farmers' market this week and am low on produce. Also, we're studying Japanese and Chinese history this week, so we'll dabble in some Asian cuisine.

I've posted before about the meal plan outline that I use every week. Due to some schedule changes, it's been modified somewhat, so I put the categories in this plan too.

• Monday (vegetarian) - Curried Lentil Stew and Brown Rice


• Tuesday (spaghetti) - Spaghetti Night


• Wednesday (meal to match history/geography study) - Gyoza


• Thursday (seafood) - Chili-Lime Glazed Salmon w/ Cornbread casserole and Green Tomato Salad


• Friday (Pizza) - Grilled Pizza with Olives, Peppers, and Onions


• Saturday (soup/stew or sandwiches) - Chili


• Sunday (big Sunday dinner) - BBQ Chicken, Green Beans, Yellow Squash w/ Bacon and Onions, Cheese Biscuits, and Homemade Frozen Pumpkin Yogurt with Maple syrup for dessert.

I just love being able to have stew and chili in the same week; if the highs get down into the 60's, we'll have to have soup everyday!

Did you ever start something, fall behind, and then resist picking it up again because you were so far behind that the thought of catching up overwhelmed you? So it is with the blog for me. I also had this ridiculous idea that I would blog after all of my other work was finished. You know, instead of sitting around twiddling my thumbs as I usually do.

One of the purposes of this blog is to log our homeschooling activities and accomplishments. In the six weeks since I last posted we've been working our way through the humanities curricula for third grade and kindergarten provided by the hybrid school we're using this year, while continuing with our own math and science programs. The boys, especially Bearclaw, have been challenged by the amount of work required for the humanities program.

Shortbread's kindergarten class at the hybrid program is focusing on early phonics and handwriting as they go through a set of "letterbooks". As you can imagine, there is one book for each letter. They are cute, but on the first day of use, Shortbread exclaimed, "That looks like a baby book!" He had a point. However, he's warmed to using them and loves going to class, taking part in "sharing time", and playing with his friends.

Bearclaw's class puts a heavy emphasis on grammar, using both Shurley English and some exercises from Easy Grammar. The best thing to come from this is their recent work in writing, which has helped Bearclaw learn to outline and write a 3-point expository paragraph. This is not something I expected him to be able to do this year, and I'm happy to have had the help of his teacher in working on it.

The third grade curriculum also includes spelling, vocabulary, and critical thinking, but history consumes the bulk of time not spent on grammar. Using Biblioplan and SOTW, we've been using Bearclaw's history work as our family history study. Currently we are studying the early colonial period of America, beginning with Jamestown and moving on to Plymouth Plantation. Our studies have included investigating the Native American populations that the colonists were in contact with, and the growth of the slave trade in North America. We've also looked at what was happening in Europe during this time, including the government of England and Scotland and the Thirty Years' War. Throughout it all, we've seen the overarching impact of the divide between Protestantism and Roman Catholocism.

Here are some of the highlights:

The first day of classes-

Making Native American pinchpots and colonial hand-dipped candles-

Making hasty pudding as the Indians taught the colonists-

And making homemade shortbread when we studied Scotland-

So now I think it's time I joined Kris's Weekly Wrap-Ups. Six weeks of review forces me to drag around too many photos!

Every Saturday I'm one of the first folks in line at our local farmer's market. I buy most of my meat and all of my produce there, and I like to finish before it gets too hot or they run out of anything. If you're there and you're standing between me and an egg vendor when the woman in charge rings her cowbell, watch out! - you're likely to get mowed down. I have to have my eggs; my family can eat/use up to 2 dozen a week. We're practically clucking.

When I get home with all my goodies (including eggs), I lay it all out, so that I can plan my menu around what I've purchased. All of my decisions are based on what's available, and I think there's a broader lesson in that for me. Not being able to have whatever I want, whenever I want it, forces me to accept the circumstances and to look for the blessings in what I have. If okra's what you've got, then be thankful for it and find a way make okra that you love.

That said, I skipped the okra this week. I did get a gorgeous watermelon, alongwith cabbage, pattypan squash and some Golden Delicious and Honeycrisp apples ( the first of the season). The tomotoes in my garden have stopped ripening, so I picked up a couple of those, too.

Here's the plan:

• Monday - Spaghetti Night (Whole wheat spaghetti and grass-fed beef)
• Tuesday - Brunswick Stew (Crock-pot night)
• Wednesday - Toasted Ciabatta with Apples and Cheddar or Hummus and Peppers plus Cabbage -Carrot salad with Yogurt Ranch Dressing
• Thursday - Pepper Jelly-Glazed Salmon on Goat Cheese-Corn Bread Pudding with Garlic Greens (Seafood Night)
• Friday - Grilled Pizza with Squash, Bacon and Onions plus Margherita Pizza (Pizza Night)
• Saturday - Grass-fed Local Beef Burgers with Salad and Watermelon (Sandwich Night)
• Sunday - "State Fair" Local Chicken with Creamy Aioli Potato Salad and Green Beans

If I'm ever going to prepare any of this, I need to get to bed!

We're starting school tomorrow, so I though this would be a good time for me to engage in a new endeavor: Meal Plan Mondays.

I've been planning menus for some time now. Before I began planning meals for my own family, I was planning meals for other families as a personal chef. My menu emphasis has shifted several times in this, as I figured out what was important to me in feeding my family (and others). I experimented with extravagant (ok, that was before the kids), super low-fat, super low-carb, super inexpensive, etc.

Still, I was never really passionate about any of those plans, so I usually gave them up quickly and returned to the world of too many options where menu planning would take me the better part of a day. Finally, I found two things that are currently driving my weekly cooking, and they're keeping my quick AND passionate. What are they?

1 - a weekly menu outline
2 - focusing on cooking local, seasonal, sustainable food

A weekly menu outline is mostly helpful with the "quick" part of my planning. It helps me wade through the endless possibilities in the sea of ideas that is my culinary brain. It gives me paramaters to plan within. So here is my weekly outline, which varies every homeschool semester, depending on activities, etc.

Monday = Spaghetti Night (the fam gets one recurring meal a week, and this is what they want)
Tuesday = Crockpot Night (we're gone most of the day on Tuesday)
Wednesday = Seafood Night
Thursday = Vegetarian Night (usually beans or eggs - no tofu for dh)
Friday = Homemade Pizza Night
Saturday = Sandwich and/or Soup Night
Sunday = Sunday Dinner (feasty or fancy)

So that's what I plan around, and it makes so many decisions for me!

The second thing that has altered my planning and cooking is a new interest in local, sustainable foods. I want to post some other time about why this has become so important to me, but the summary it this: I spend a lot of time in the kitchen, and I want that time to be as worshipful and glorifying to God as possible. You can explore this more at Kitchen Stewardship.

Since my meal planning is frequently hampered by the abundance of choices available to me, focusing only on what's local, seasonal, and responsibly produced cuts down on the decision making. Should we have asparagus or spinach salad with our chicken? Neither one; it's August in Georgia - how do pole beans grab you?

Good gracious - am I ever going to get to my menu?

Monday -Spaghetti Night (homemade sauce and local, grass-fed beef)

Tuesday - Crock-pot Enchiladas (sauce with garden tomatoes & local peppers)

Wednesday - Crowder Peas, Corn Bread w/Cheese and Jalapenos & Tomato Salad

Thursday - Tahini Shrimp, Grilled Peppers and Squash w/ Feta & Homemade Pitas w/ Hummus

Friday - Grilled Pizza Margherita (if you've never grilled pizza, you've got to try it!)

Saturday - Huevos Rancheros on Romaine

Sunday - Grilled Pepper Jelly Pork Chops, Baked Sweet Potatoes, Salad of Baby Lettuces*, Bleu Cheese and Early Pears w/ Balsamic - Mustard Dressing

* I can't believe I found baby lettuce at the farmer's market in August!! You can get a second planting and grow lettuce in summer, but it's been so hot, I assumed lettuce was done. She said she's been "babying" them all the way.

I've fallen behind in my summaries of last school year, and we're starting school tomorrow! The only subject that I didn't really cover so far is Bible. I know the county won't ever check on that, but I want to remember what we did all the same.

We covered Bible in the morning during breakfast. This involved memorizing a weekly verse, learning one hymn each month, and reviewing the topic we discussed on Sunday evenings during our family devotion time.

For our Sunday evenings, my husband would read a lesson from a sweet little book his mother gave to me called Little Visits with God. Both the language and the illustrations give away the 1950's publishing date, but an excellent updated version is now available. Although I enjoy the sometimes quaint, sometimes corny aspects of the vintage version, we occasionally had to change the wording so that our children could understand the point more thoroughly.

Each lesson in Little Visits centers on a Bible verse, which is illustrated in a short story. Discussion questions follow and a closing prayer is provided. We found these lessons appropriate and interesting enough to hold the attention of both our 5 year-old and 8 year-old. I think they would work for children from about 3 to 11.

During breakfast that week, the boys and I memorized the Scripture verse from our lesson and also learned a hymn. I generally organized our devotions into monthly themes, thanks to the index in Little Visits, and our monthly hymn alligned with the theme of the month.

If time allowed, we would continue to discuss the week's lesson. This was particularly true once we started on themes of Christian character, which I would emphasize with readings from The Book or Virtues by William Bennett or Everyday Graces by Karen Santorum. Both books provide stories, poems, and quotes to illustrate a variety of noble character qualities.

We also used the breakfast hour for poetry memorization, with each of the boys memorizing a poem every month. The only difficulty in that was choosing a poem; Favorite Poems Old and New provided too many options. Of all our selections, Bearclaw's rendition of Psalm 8 and Shortbread's sweet and stumbly recitation of "The Quarrel" by Eleanor Farjeon were my favorites.