I have started a new blog at Blogspot. I am moving all my favorite craft projects and recipes from this blog over to that one, as well as adding new content. I will continue posting Monday Memories and things of a more personal nature here. I just felt a need to become more organized in my blogging, to compartmentalized my interests more.
The new blog's address is: Over the Crescent Moon
They will be writing a report that includes what was happening the day they were born, as well as what important things happened on that day during other years. It will also include prices, music, and trends from the year of their birth.
The cover page will include photographs of the child as a baby and how he looks now.
I have been having so much fun helping them to do the research that I thought other people might enjoy this project as well.
I had a question asked in my comments from my last post that I'm going to try to answer, although I don't pretend to be an expert on the various homeschool philosophies.
During the late 1800's and early 1900's there were a lot of new ideas coming out about education. Some of the educational movements that are still spreading today were started then, Maria Montessori was in Italy working with children from low income families to teach them life skills, nutrition, and more hands-on ways of doing regular school subjects. She did not believe in exposing young children to fantasy books, because the young mind cannot distinguish between fantasy and reality, so the two Montessori preschools I have worked in had no fairy tale books, only books about people doing plausible things and non-fiction. This is the part of Montessori's philosophy that I disagree with. Many of the other ideas I really like. The life skills and handwork are helpful and she had some great ideas about teaching geometry.
Also at this time, Rudolf Steiner was in Germany coming up with his ideas for education, which is called Waldorf Education. I have never worked in a Waldorf school, although I did help out in a Waldorf art class at the school where I work now. I do use a lot of Waldorf supplies in my own homeschooling (and did so when the girls were little, even though I didn't know what Waldorf was back then). Children under the age of 7 are not pushed to read, because they are not considered to be mature enough for that extra stress. They are encouraged to explore nature and express themselves through art and creative play. To help foster a link between children and nature and to give the children different textures to experience, toys are made only out of natural materials, wood, wool, cotton, and silk mostly. The art supplies are also made of natural materials, beeswax crayons, water color paints, colored pencils, and clay. The pictures that the children were able to create with the block shaped crayons in that class I was in were just amazing (many of these children didn't believe they could draw before they took this class).
In England at this same time, Charlotte Mason was coming up with her ideas. Her ideas were specifically for private schools and home schooling. Her teaching method is literature based and avoids workbooks and text books. Children are encouraged to tell stories back to their parents as a way of checking for understanding. Once a child can write, copy work and journaling is part of the school day. In those ways, Waldorf and Charlotte Mason are very similar, because notebooks with the child writing about what they have learned and drawing an accompanying picture, is also part of Waldorf.
Nature study and keeping a nature journal is part of Charloote Mason's plan. Excersize is also important, even if you are staying inside.
The lesson plans take quite a bit of planning, because every aspect (math, launguage arts, science, history, art, and anything else) should be incorporated in what you are studying. Sort of like doing themes for unit studies, but without separating out math time or English.
Charlotte Mason is actually the one I have least read about out of these 3 philosophers. I have noticed that many of the homeschool moms on here follow her teachings, though.
I don't really follow any one philosophy. I read as much as I can and take what works for us.
We lean towards Waldorf for art and toys. I also think fairy tales are culturally important, so we read those along with non-fiction. We do occationally read something out of a text book, although not often. We use Math*U*See for math and I have been very happy with the program.
I'm going to be up late. I just put Blaze's bedding in the washing machine after he threw up all over his sheets and pillow.
He was complaining about a bad head ache, so I gave him his medicine and put him to bed early. He had only been in bed about twenty minutes before he vomited. I don't really know if he had a seizure or just a bad migraine headache.
What leads me to think that it was just a migraine was that he was still awake when I got back from the laundry room. Usually after a seizure he's "out cold" pretty quick.
The neurologist told me that migraines are pretty common with epileptic children.
We went to the Florida Museum of Natural History today to see their new exhibit, Grossology, based on the children's books about the more discusting parts of human anatomy.
Blaze had a blast!
the barf machine
the urine game
THE END
While we were at the museum, we also went to see the local Native American exhibits.
house on a shell midden
Seminole patchwork
We also made a short stop at the Harn art museum, which is right next door to the natural history museum, so we could see the exhibit "Almost Alice".
Yesterday afternoon we went to the Fall program for kids at the small branch library near the school.
A Fairy named Raven Moondance read farm and pumpkin related stories to the children and led them in songs. Then she carved a pumpkin and let all the children take home some of the seeds to plant.
It took some convincing to get Blaze to put his hand in a slimy pumpkin to get seeds.
She also let the children each pick out a stuffed animal to play with during the program. Blaze chose this very cute little mouse in a shoe puppet, which was perfect for him yesterday, because he was acting shy, too.
While we were at the library, we also read several books including one about how tadpoles develop into frogs:
One of the boys at the school gave me 4 tadpole yesterday. Only three made it home alive, but those three are doing well so far. We put them in water from the lake and they are now living in Blaze's room, so he can watch them develop into frogs.
We are finishing up our study of the Inuit and getting ready to move on to other Native American tribes.
On Monday, we made little arctic figures out of white clay, to use as game pieces.
The game is to pick up all the figures and shake them up. Then gently toss them down. The player gets one point for every figure that lands right side up (they all have flat bottoms for this purpose). The first player to reach 20 points wins.
Our pieces are finally dry, so we should be able to play today.
We have also started getting ready for Halloween. Blaze wants to be Robin Hood this year. Over the weekend I found a pair of dark green legging for him at Goodwill for $1. Then Monday I finished making the hat.
We have also put up a count down calendar for Halloween.
Each day has a riddle. Then you open the little door on the picture to see if you answer to the riddle is correct.
It's still hot here, but not as hot as it was all summer. We've been able to turn off the air conditioner and open the windows. We have also been able to spend more time outside.
Saturday, Blaze and I talked about Fall colors and leaves swirling in the breeze. Then we made wet-on-wet water color paintings using the colors we had talked about.
we decided afterwords that the one above looked like an abstract Mickey Mouse.
Blaze has also been spending a lot of time on his favorite activity, making bubbles. We found a never-before-opened set for making large bubbles at the Hospice Resale Shop for 49 cents.
I spent some time over the weekend cleaning out the garden and preparing it for Fall/Winter planting.
It's a desolate wasteland now,
But, hope springs eternal:
The only plants that are still thriving in the garden are the lemon grass and the sesame. I have been particularly interested in what the sesame is doing, because I never knew how sesame seeds grew before.
Here are the flowers:
And here are what the pods look like that the seeds will come from:
I had told Blaze that for the first day of Fall we would take a nature walk to look for signs of the changing season, but it rained on the first day of Fall and again on the second day. So, yesterday, we finally got to spend some time outdoors.
First we went out to the garden for a while. All traces of the bamboo house have been completely removed now and I started cleaning out all the dead summer plants. Then, after going home and drinking a lot of lemonade, we went for a walk around the lake.
The browning of the water grass is really the most noticeable sign that the seasons are changing.
This little guy just sat there in the water and let me take his picture.
pretending to fish
We were able to find a few leaves that were changing colors
We sat in a clearing and made this crown of leaves and Blaze pretended to build a campfire.
Here I am wearing the crown while Blaze took my picture
Blaze crossing the creek
We took a tiny side-path we had never noticed before and found all these lovely wildflowers.
We returned home just as sunset was beginning. There were a few dark clouds that made it look like it might rain again, but that just increased the number of colors in the sky. Watching colorful clouds was the perfect ending for our little outing.
We continued our Fall activities once we got in the apartment, by learning some new Fall themed songs from Sing a Song of Seasons
and then reading The Story of the Root Children as a bedtime story.
Many of you may already know about this site, but every day for the past couple weeks, I've been checking to see what new thing will be offered. Each freebie is only offered for that one day and every day is different. For instance, today it's sewing tips for making modest clothes, one day last week it was an 18th century alphabet book.
Here is the link:
Yesterday afternoon was Blaze's annual pediatrician appointment.
We are now going to have another round of specialty doctors appointments because he didn't do as well this time with his eye test or his hearing.
His left eye was perfect on the vision test, 20/20, but the right eye ( the one with the blind spot ) was only 20/100, which is the worst it's ever been.
With his hearing, he was not responding to sounds in the higher or lower ranges. This was also worse on the right than the left.
The doctor also wants him to go in for some kind of behavioral and developmental testing.
The pediatrician wants to see him back for a follow-up visit in 3 months.
You can almost tell that it's Fall here (almost). The temperature has been below 90 and the water grasses around the lake have started turning brown.
We've been talking about eating more meals outside at the picnic table, since it's now the time of year when that won't cause heat stroke.
I've been doing some Fall themed cooking, too. Here are the Autumn Bento lunches I've come up with:
The base for this one is left over mashed potatoes (including the blue sky). The tree is luncheon meat and the owl is peanut butter ball.
As you can see, I'm trying to get my money's worth out of those Fall themed mini cookie cutters and the muffin pans I got from Jo-Ann Fabrics.
The main part of this lunch was a mini quiche surrounded by pie crust leaves. The salad has acorns made from the left over pie crust mixed with a little shredded cheese.
This is my lunch for today, "Harvest Moon". The owl was an experiment, but it turned out very well. Nika was making bean burritos for dinner last night and had left over beans, so I took a couple scoops and put them in the owl candy molds, which I then stuck in the freezer over night. This morning I had perfect owl shapes made out of refried beans.
The rest of my lunch is homemade trail mix ( craisins, dried blueberries, peanuts, and pumpkin seeds),
Citrus Slaw (I'll post the recipe tomorrow), Colby-Jack Cheese on a tortilla, lettuce, and some muffin tops from the blue corn muffins I made Saturday.
This is the lunch Blaze is taking to school today. The leaf shaped sandwiches are made from regular yellow corn bread and blue corn bread. This was the first time I had tried baking with blue corn meal and it didn't turn out a very attractive color. It would make good edible rocks, since it came out looking like gray granite). The pumpkin is one of the Harvest Muffins (recipe to follow) that I made yesterday, and the chips are these:
The chips are a bit pricier that I usually get, but the colors are so pretty and Fall-like.
Harvest Muffins
2 Cups unbleached white flour
1/3 Cup sugar
3 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped fresh apple
1/2 cup dried cranberries (craisins)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
Mix all the above ingredients in a large mixing bowl.
Then in a smaller mixing bowl or large measuring cup mix the following:
1 egg
3/4 Cup Milk
1/2 Cup vegetable oil
1 cup canned pumpkin
Stir well Pour the liquid mixture into the large mixing bowl with the dry mixture. Mix until all is combined.
Fill muffin pans 3/4 full and bake at 350 degrees F. for 30-40 minutes.
If I haven't mentioned in the past couple days how much I love my new silicon bakeware, let me say it now. I love this silicon stuff!!!
These muffins, even with all of their ridges, popped right out of the pan and hardly left a crumb.
For the ones on the right, I sprinkled a little cinnamon sugar in the bottom of the pan before putting the muffin batter in. The ones on the left were left plain.
Yesterday, I messed up pretty bad while playing with my blog. I was trying to remove the Talk Like a Pirate Day count down banner from the top and replace it with a count down to the first day of Fall (which is tomorrow, by the way), but I did something wrong and all the text area on my blog turned out covered in a patterned design. It was impossible to read any of the typing. I tried for quite awhile to fix it, but the only thing that worked was replacing the template completely. When the template was replaced all of the title and sidebar stuff vanished.
I'm starting to put stuff up again, but so far all I have is the title replaced.
My bento lunch pictures are being featured on a cooking website called "Mommy What's For Dinner". Head on over and check it out. They have lots of great recipes there.
We finally got the DVD of Pirates of the Caribbean At World's End, so we are going to celebrate International Talk Like a pirate day by listening to other people talk like pirates during a pirate movie marathon. We kind of started this early because we watched Muppet Treasure Island last night.
Muppet Treasure Island is really our favorite of all the movies based on Treasure Island.
Since I still have the plastic table cloth from Blaze's pirate themed birthday party, I'm also thinking about doing a pirate picnic today. I'll post pictures tomorrow if it turns out well.
If I had a bunch of money (which I don't) I think the ideal way to celebrate Talk Like a Pirate Day in Florida would be to spend most of the day at Disney's Magic Kingdom, because they have redone the Pirates of the Caribbean ride since we were there last,
then go to the Pirate's Dinner Adventure that evening, because I've always wanted to go there.
Argh! It be time to show off some of my pirate themed projects:
These bendy dolls were made for Blaze's 6th birthday, which had a pirate theme:
The Crew of the Surly Toddled II:
The Captain : Phillip Fopp The Captain's lovely wife Brigantine Fopp and their baby boy Jean-Pierre
The first Mate ( Ula came up with a name for him based on a historical character, but I can't remember what it was and lost the notebook I'd written it in).
Jack
One of the Tarr twins (common sailors)
The Helmsman and Navigator: Gaspar Perdido
The Captain's daughter Bonny, ship's cook and the inspiration for the name of Capt. Fopps other ship, " The Sullen Teen":
The following pirate doll is not part of the crew. I made him for a boy at school who wanted a pirate who looked like himself:
And last, but not least, the ship herself:
Here are instructions for how to make the arms for the bendy dolls:
One skein of embroidery floss will make 2 sets of arms.
1. Fold one tan or brown pipe stem cleaner in half, to mark where the middle is.
2. Fold each end inward, so the two ends meet in the middle. Press firmly on the folds to mark their location.
3. Beginning in the middle start wrapping skin toned embroidery floss arounf the pipe stem cleaner. When you come to the bend, wrap about 1 centimeter beyond that point and then fold the pipe stem cleaner's end down tight against the wrapped part and continue wrapping, catching a double thickness of pipe cleaner until you reach the middle again.
4. Repeat with other side.
5. When both sides are finished, tie off the tread in the middle.
New Years Eve in Clearwater, Florida, Dec. 31, 2006
Nika and Blaze
We set sail aboard the ship "Pirates Ransom" for a sunset cruise
We really did have fun on this silly pirate cruise, which included a water gun fight. If you want to know more about the ship, here is their website: www.captmemo.com/
Blaze at Kingsley Plantation, Fort George Island, Florida, wearing his pirate costume for no particular reason:
the barf machine
the urine game
THE END
house on a shell midden
It took some convincing to get Blaze to put his hand in a slimy pumpkin to get seeds.
She also let the children each pick out a stuffed animal to play with during the program. Blaze chose this very cute little mouse in a shoe puppet, which was perfect for him yesterday, because he was acting shy, too.
This little guy just sat there in the water and let me take his picture. 
pretending to fish
We were able to find a few leaves that were changing colors
We sat in a clearing and made this crown of leaves and Blaze pretended to build a campfire.
Here I am wearing the crown while Blaze took my picture
Blaze crossing the creek
We took a tiny side-path we had never noticed before and found all these lovely wildflowers.
For the ones on the right, I sprinkled a little cinnamon sugar in the bottom of the pan before putting the muffin batter in. The ones on the left were left plain.
The Captain's lovely wife Brigantine Fopp and their baby boy Jean-Pierre
Nika and Blaze
