October 5-9th 2020

Printables we used this week:

For A and M

Cone Dolls – just for fun

A and M are both excellent readers. They read voraciously. but when it comes to spelling they make a few consistent mistakes one of them is putting an e at the end of a word that shouldn’t have one (writing ‘ate’ when they mean ‘at’, ‘made’ when they mean ‘mad’, etc.) I thought these cards may help them to practice when to use the ‘magic e’ and when to leave it off.

For X –

Fall Dot Pages we used these with our pompom magnets

For Q –

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DIY Baby Wrap

Make your own stretchy baby wrap for $10-$15, no sewing required!

I love my baby wrap, I made it 7 years ago and have used it with 3 babies.  I can’t find the tutorial that I followed at the time, but I’ve found a couple of others that are just like it.

It’s really quite simple, buy a length of Jersey Knit fabric, most people recommend 5 yards, but you can go longer than that if you need more length, I made mine 5 yards but have often wished it was longer, especially when my very tall, broad-shouldered husband wants to wear the baby, the wrap is just not long enough for him.

Jersey knit fabric is usually 48 to 60 inches wide, that’s too wide for a wrap, you want your wrap to be about 24-30 inches wide. Fold your fabric in half lengthwise and cut on the fold so you have two strips of fabric that are 5 yards long (or longer, depending on what length you bought) and 24-30 inches wide. That’s it! Now you have two wraps, I kept one in my house and one in my car until I gave one of them to my Sister-in-law.

Here are a couple of tutorials that include pictures and instructions on how to make the wrap and how to tie it and put your baby in it: here and here.

Stretchy wraps are for front carries only, do not use these to put your baby on your back.

 

 

Why Memorization?

Why do I teach my kids to memorize poetry?

There are a few reasons for this:

1. Memorization is part of our Language Arts curriculum. This is the reason we started to memorize poetry, as I have seen the benefits and learned more about memorization we have added more of it to our curriculum plan.

2. Helps kids learn language patterns. Andrew Pudewa from the Institute for Excellence in Writing includes memorization in his talk entitled “Nurturing Competent Communicators” it’s free on iew.com and I highly recommend it. He talks about why memorization is important, why we should choose excellent literature for our kids, and why reading aloud to our kids or having them listen to audio books is more beneficial in nurturing good writing and communication skills than reading quietly to themselves.

3. Builds confidence. My 4-year-old is so proud of himself when he can recite a poem for someone and they tell him what a good job he did. All of my kids are proud of how many poems they have been able to memorize it gives them a boost of confidence that they can learn something that seemed really hard at first.

4. The more we memorize, the easier it gets. Memorizing multiplication facts, scriptures, a part for a play, or anything else is much easier for a child (or adult) who is used to memorizing, knows how to do it, is practiced in the skill, and has the confidence that if they can memorize 20 or more poems they can memorize anything.

Painting With Ice

Cowgirl came up with a great idea yesterday. We were playing outside, drawing on the driveway with chalk, and she came outside with a cup full of ice. She says “I like to paint with ice” and handed out the cubes.

It was a fun activity, of course the designs don’t last long, they dry and dissappear quickly in the sun.

Notebooking

I’ve been thinking a lot about the way we homeschool, I like most of what we do, but I want to find ways to make it more interactive and self-directed. I have been studying Charlotte Mason, TJed, Well Educated Hearts, and Classical Education. We kind of do a mash up, I take what I like from each, what I think will work for our family, and I don’t worry about what I know won’t work for us. I have been thinking a lot lately about incorporating notebooking and it was so overwhelming for me to even think about. I didn’t know how to get started, what to do, how to do it. I never even tried because I was just so overwhelmed.

So, I did what I always do. I started looking for resources to help me. Well Educated Hearts talks about notebooking, and I love all of the resources and support available on the website. I wanted to find more information and see how other homeschoolers did it, so I continued looking and I found notebookingpages.com There is a free membership and a paid membership. If you watch for a sale, you can get a paid lifetime membership for a great deal. Both include tutorials, tips and ideas. I’m headed there right now to get started on the first tutorial. 🙂

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

A generous neighbor gave me some rhubarb, usually I would make rhubarb crisp but there wasn’t enough for that. What to do? I have strawberries, I could make strawberry rhubarb pie! I’ve never made a pie before so I turn to the trusty Internet for recipes.

I found this recipe for perfect foolproof pie crust: The Best and Only
Pie Crust Recipe You’ll Ever Need by Mel’s Kitchen Cafe

and a recipe on the same website for Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

I said already I have never made pie crust before. My mom doesn’t make pie crust, she always buys it because she says hers turns out more like cardboard. I watched my great grandma make pie crust once or twice, but that was a long time ago. Everyone tells me that making pie crust is hard. So I was nervous to try it.

I forgot to take a picture before we devoured the pie, but it turned out perfectly!! The crust was delicious and the perfect texture. I will never search for another pie crust recipe again, this is the one I will use forever more. The pie recipe was also very good, easy to follow and delicious.

Favorite Mom Podcasts – “At Home With Sally”

I recently discovered a podcast called “At Home With Sally” by Sally Clarkson. I have listened to the first five episodes and I love all of them. Each podcast is uplifting and encouraging. She talks about motherhood, homeschooling, and faith in God. After listening to these podcasts I want to read all of Sally Clarkson’s books. I love finding things that inspire me to do better and be better in an encouraging and uplifting way. 🙂

Dandelion Pancakes

So, some of you are going to think I’m crazy, and maybe I am. We made Dandelion Pancakes today. With actual dandelion petals in them. How did this happen?!

It all started when I was listening to an interview that John Gallagher from learningherbs.com did with Aviva Romm entitled Outdoor Kids. I tried to find a link for you but I couldn’t find it. If I find it I will add it here.

In the interview Aviva mentioned making dandelion pancakes with her kids. I was thinking “We have a yard full of dandelions, maybe we should make dandelion pancakes, I’ll never get my kids to go for it.” So I say to the kids, “Hey kids, should we make dandelion pancakes?” and they all said “Yes!!” (What?! that was not the reaction that I expected at all!)

So today we made dandelion pancakes. I looked for a recipe on Aviva Romm’s website but could not find one, so I turned to trusty Google and found these two:

Dandelion Pancakes – Wintergreen Farm

Dandelion Sourdough Pancakes – Montana Homesteader

We decided to try the recipe from Wintergreen Farm first. This recipe calls for 6 to 8 cups of dandelion blossoms. That is a lot of dandelion petals! Picking all of the petals off of that many dandelions took a really long time. Cowgirl and I sat and picked them all off, Princess helped a little. We sat outside in the sunshine (finally some sunshine!!) and listened to one of our new favorite podcasts:Eleanor Amplified

Cowgirl, Tank and Monkey liked the pancakes, Princess tolerated them (with a lot of jelly on top), I did not mind the flavor, but I could not handle the texture, there were a lot of petals.

We may try the other recipe, (there are fewer petals in that one) we may not, it depends on whether or not the kids ask me to make them again.

Mere Motherhood

Several months ago I read an amazing book, one of the best homeschool/motherhood books that I have ever read. The book is Mere Motherhood by Cindy Rollins. I heard about it from several bloggers and instagrammers and went searching for it. Suddenly “Mere Motherhood” and “Morning Time” were buzzwords on all the homeschool blogs and I had to see what they were talking about. I remember having a hard time finding the book because it was not available on any of the sites that I usually buy books from (it is now available on Amazon).  I finally found it here and discovered that there is a companion book “A Handbook to Morning Time” I ordered them both. I loved the book, it has become one of the books that I recommend to other moms when they ask me about homeschooling and how to get started, or for advice on what books they should read. I also found the handbook to be very helpful, it includes a sample schedule; suggestions for songs, bible verses, and poetry to memorize; and suggestions for how to get started with Shakespeare and Plutarch; book suggestions; and more.

We started doing Morning Time as part of our day, usually right after breakfast, I will start reading as the kids finish eating, and they will clear their dishes and pull out coloring books, handwriting, or math worksheets to work on as they listen. We LOVE Morning Time!! If we forget or our morning gets busy my kids will pull out the Morning Time box at lunch and ask if we can do “Afternoon Time” instead. Morning Time is a great way to start our day, a good way to get in some extra read-aloud time and do our history, art or science lessons as a family before we separate to do individual math and language arts lessons (we haven’t started on Shakespeare or Plutarch yet, but I plan to soon). I will write some more about our selections for Morning Time in another post.

A few weeks ago I discovered that Cindy Rollins has a podcast through the Circe Institute and I have really enjoyed listening to that as well.