Friday, March 13, 2009 - Meet My Girls
There are 11 brown hens (a cross between a White Rock female and a Rhode Island Red male), and 9 white leghorn hens, and one leghorn rooster named Henry. I thought they deserved to get their picture up because I got another egg today! Woohoo!!
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Friday, March 6, 2009 - Lunch Time!
Since we started cutting out all processed foods back in November, it has been a little tricky coming up with different lunch foods. I came across some homemade pitas here, tried them out yesterday, and they passed the family approval test! Of course, I had to do a variation of Farmgirl’s variation of Bernard Clayton’s Pita Bread. But she describes the process much better than I, and hers comes with pictures, so go on over there to check them out. J
I still had the dilemma of what to put in them. Lunchmeats are out. Store bought mayo is out (hold the soybean oil, thank you very much). I didn’t have any leftovers to use up. So, I made some mayo and mixed up some tuna salad.
Mayonnaise
Whir in blender:
1 egg
2 tsp. Sugar
¼ tsp. Salt
1 ½ T white vinegar
1 cup safflower oil (I’ve also used sunflower oil and olive oil, we like the safflower best)
1/8 tsp. Black pepper
Tuna Salad
Albacore tuna
Mayo
Salt
Pepper
Diced celery
Alfalfa sprouts
The batch of pitas makes enough for 16 sandwiches. So today we wanted to use some more up but were looking for some variety. Looking through the fridge, I decided I had some cabage and carrots that needed to be used, so we made up a batch of cole slaw.
Cole Slaw
Throw all in a bowl and toss:
¼ head of cabbage, grated
about ¼ cup grated carrot
about ¼ cup finely diced green pepper
½ tsp. Celery seed
2 tsp. White vinegar
3 tsp. Sugar
1 tsp. Salt
½ cup mayonaisse (recipe above)
This was very tasty right away, gets even better after sitting a bit. We put it on the pitas and it was super good. Next time the slaw needs to be drained a bit more to prevent pita blowout. But I’m thrilled to have something to add to my lunch menu!
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Wednesday, March 4, 2009 - She finally did it!
Which girl finally did it, I don't know...But after 11 months and two days, we finally have an...
EGG!!
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Tuesday, January 20, 2009 - Middle Ages Journal - King Arthur
We continue on with our Middle Ages study, now focusing on King Arthur, and a bit on medieval mythology as well. The original King Arthur stories are a bit too much, so we read some books taking place during the times of King Arthur.
We read aloud and did HSS units on two of the Sir Cumference Math Adventure books. We also read some twaddle just because dd11 remembered King Arthur was mentioned. The girls had a lot of geometry fun, drawing shapes, making 3 dimensional shapes, and playing a shape game.
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DD9 went on a jester rabbit trail, locating the jester in all the Sir Cumference pictures and also reading Hester the Jester by Ben Shecter. She also dug around in the fabric bin and made herself a cute jester hat complete with bells. All week she read The Sword in the Tree by Clyde Robert Bulla. We pulled spelling and dictation out of the chapters.
DD11 also read The Sword in the Tree, but it was a quick read for her so she finished out the week reading The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald and completed a Story Study for that.
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Wednesday, January 7, 2009 - It's Been a While... December 2008
It feels like forever since I've posted on this blog. Actually, it has been almost a year! Yikes! Anyhoo, I'm going to try to keep up with posting, at least until planting season! 
December has been a crazy month, between birthdays, out of town guests, and a severe overhaul of our pantry and diets.
First for the birthdays… my baby, my beautiful, sweet, talented, intelligent baby, turned 9 years old. She had a nice little birthday party with Grandma and Poppop, and Mimi and Grandpa. And I turned 40 this month, but we won’t go there…
We had guests come in from out of town for three days, and it was a joy for the girls. The gal was 95 years old, and the girls just learned so much from her. They got into all kinds of discussions, like what life was like in early 1900’s, what the depression was like, etc. The girls were thrilled with the fact that Mrs. O did much of the same things as the girls do as children. Playing with paper dolls, crafting, reading, etc. were on the list.
And for the pantry revamp…We’ve cut out corn and soy products from our diets, as it is just too hard to find out which companies use gmo products and which ones don’t. I never realized how many products have corn and/or soy in them till you start looking for them. Oh…my…word…So we’ve been baking all our own bread, grinding our own wheat, making our own yogurts, and sprouting seeds. It is getting easier and easier to do, as I get a system down and remember to prepare ahead a bit.
As for school, we are continuing on with our Middle Ages study, covering the Vikings.
9yo read:
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And did lapbook components from Free Homeschool Share’s Viking Unit that we put on cardstock for Middle Ages notebook. We ran out of printer ink about halfway through the lapbook, but I think dd still got a good grasp of these people and their times.
11yo had already studied Vikings, including the above books, so she opted to read and complete book reports on these:
Next we are on to King Arthur!
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Friday, May 23, 2008 - Detective Sunshine
For the past few weeks DD10 has taken an interest in detective stories. I suppose it started with her reading The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle. She found it at the library sale, and was bound and determined to read this unabridged classic. She claims that it is a challenge, but she likes it because she can "hear" the people speaking with their English accents.
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She has also been listening to the free audio of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle that I downloaded from here
She has been preparing a Detective Lapbook (look for it FREE at Homeschool Share after the BLAST!) and learning all about searching for clues like fingerprints, footprints, hair analysis, handwriting analysis, etc. She examined hair under the microscope to solve the case of "Who took my hairbrush?" and searched for and measured footprints to solve the case of "Who Stomped Through the Garden?"
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DD took a break from her Sherlock Holmes book for a day, and read Basil of Baker Street by Eve Titus. This is a story of the mouse that lived with Sherlock Holmes in Merry Old England in 1885. The mouse, Basil, was the greatest detective of the mouse world, learning from the best. Very cute story!
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We also happened to have a movie based on Titus' book, The Great Mouse Detective, so we watched that together, as well as a Sherlock Holmes dvd we picked up on the dollar shelf of the grocery store.
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I'll post pictures of the tri-folder lapbook she made after the Blast. :-)
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Saturday, May 17, 2008 - A Cyclops In Our Yard
Last month, my 8yo found this cocoon in our front yard.
We watched it for a few weeks, as it literally jumped around in the little habitat the girls made for it. Then... a Cyclops was born. :-)
Actually, it is a Polyphemus Moth, named after the one-eyed giant of Greek mythology. It has large eye spots on the wings, as well as really pretty metalic spots. We watched as it pumped up its wings, which were an incredible 5.5" across.
After observing it for a few hours, and researching it, we set it free on the bushes outside. There is more information (and much better pictures) here.
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Friday, May 16, 2008 - Creek School
Every spring, when we are anxious for a change of scenery, we make it a point to walk the 1/2 mile down to the creek and do our schoolwork creekside.
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The rule is, 10 minutes of schoolwork...
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DD8 reading Spider Jane by Jane Yolen.
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DD10 reading Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Doyle.
And then 10 minutes of...
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Playing in the water...
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or picking flowers...
Thank you, Lord, for lending me your two dear children and allowing me to homeschool them.
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Friday, April 25, 2008 - The Estrogen Level Around Here Has Increased
...As we added 20 girls to the family (and 1 boy at my husband's request) :-)
10 reds and 10 white leghorns
and 1 rooster named Henry.
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Friday, April 25, 2008 - Creation Day 5 - Sea Creatures
Continuing with our study of Sea Creatures, this is what we have been working on over the last few weeks. [note: this was a few weeks ago, just haven't blogged till now] We are compiling Creation Notebooks, so where lapbook components are mentioned, they are glued to cardstock and hole punched for the notebook.
We read together Pagoo by Holling C. Holling at the rate of about 2 chapters a day. As I read, the girls worked on notebooking pages from HSS
We piggybacked Pagoo with various picture books and reference books.
As a tie in to the Pagoo chapters about jellyfish, we did a mini-row of FIAR title Night of the Moonjellies by Mark Sasha. The girls used some lapbook components from HSS as well as notebooking pages from Evan Moor Giant Science Resource Book and Considering God’s Creation. DD10 read about jellyfish in CLP Nature Reader Book 3.
As a tie in to the hermit crab theme, we shared A House for Hermit Crab by Eric Carle, with DD8 using lapbook components from HSS, and read about hermit crabs in CLP Nature Reader Book 2. She also read about lantern fish in Fish Do the Strangest Things.
As a tie in to the crab and tide pool theme, we did a mini-row of FIAR title Very Last First Time by Jan Andrews and did some lapbook components from HSS. DD8 also read about crabs in CLP Nature Reader Book 2. 
As a tie in to the barnacle and sculpin themes, we read Burt Dow, Deep Water Man by Robert McCloskey. DD10 read about barnacles in CLP Nature Reader Book 3 and notebooked findings.
We read a bunch more too, mostly about crustaceans. I'll scan and post as I find the time.
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