Adventures in Mommydom

Childhood to do list: Eat ice cream for dinner

2012-05-26T07:00:00.000-05:00

When I was a kid my Mom had a shirt from Marie Calendar’s, it said:

Life is uncertain, eat dessert first.

We never did that, that I remember. But my kids did just the other day.

They all had hearty grins, and after brushing their teeth, went to bed quite happily.

Okay, they got a little sugar crazed, but it was a good fun night!

THE Math game for the family

2012-05-25T17:51:00.001-05:00

So, I started to write a post about going to a homeschool convention, but realized I didn’t have anything super helpful to say, and it was mainly going to be lots of hints of things to come. I didn’t want to write that.

So (seriously I use that too much), Instead, I’ll just jump write in.

Math Gym

Here’s the premise, you’re going around the board in either direction to whatever square you want. You get there by building equations from the tiles you have. Your numbers can be positive, negative, or exponents (we took out the exponents), and you get operation tiles as well.

I spent a good hour or so talking to the guy there because I didn’t believe him that my 5 year old could play this. He convinced me, and I bought it.

He was right.

She’s not a huge fan, but she doesn’t like games in general. The boys who are fans. LOVE it!

Your goal is to earn money by either landing on squares that give you money or by landing on a workout square where you do math problems (more on that in a second). Princess worked her way around the board going in a negative direction almost the entire time. The boys went positive, negative, all over.

When you land on a workout square you grab a card based on your ability. My kids are all white belts. That’s first/second grade math. It goes all the way up through early high school with Algebra 1 and 2.

Our first game took about an hour to play, but this was also my kids first exposure to negative numbers, and they grasped the concept fairly quickly and were making up math problems like aces.

It’s on sale right now for $50 (yes that is a lot, but I think it’s totally worth it). Considering most of the strategy games we buy cost about the same, and I’m seeing years worth of math practice in this game. It’s worth it to me.

I LOVE this game (and I’ll have a post up about some of the other games I bought later). I wanted to talk about this one first because I’m going to have a giveaway coming up soon for their computer game.

Go, look at it, try the online version of it (there’s an online version of the board game), and then discover how cool it is.

PS: I was not paid for this, I did not get a free copy, I bought it and loved it, so that tells you how much I like it.

Because I wear flower girl dresses to go grocery shopping

2012-05-23T06:16:00.000-05:00

Don’t you?*

And I’m protected by ninjas.

Let your kids enjoy themselves and be kids while they can. It’s over all too soon.

*When I was shopping for a wedding dress my Mom and bridesmaids kept threatening to make me try on a bridesmaid dress, I was that tiny.

Lewis and Clark explore the park

2012-05-22T06:12:00.000-05:00

Hey, I rhymed. I’ll pretend that was on purpose.

We read about Lewis and Clark ages ago and we’ve had a field trip planned to explore and map out a new playground since that time, but we kept having things get in the way of our ability to do it, illness, inclement weather, you name it.

Finally we made it there. I turned them loose in the park with the instructions of younger kids had to draw 10 things in the park to make their map and label them. Older kids (which was the other family) had to draw 20 items, label them and create a map key.

Of course the boys had to bring their guns, because they remembered that Lewis and Clark both had guns to protect themselves and to hunt thanks to a video recommendation from Phyllis over at All Things Beautiful (Lewis and Clark part 4 post).

I loved the variety of maps they came up with. The younger girls had smiley faces and pictures of people playing at the different parts of the park.

While the boys……..

They did the assignment. Exactly, they did draw some parts of it. But as they got to thinking more and more about playing in the park it became more and more of ……

well, squares with letters in it.

Oh those cries of outrage as I made them draw more. You’d think I announced the end of desert with my requirements.

In the end they got quite a lot of playtime, so I don’t know what they were complaining about.

Oh, and if you’re in the Austin area and you haven’t been to the “Play for All Abilities Park,” then you NEED to get there!

The Battle of the Alamo

2012-05-21T06:51:00.000-05:00

We did this a week or two ago, but I hadn’t downloaded the pictures and my friend I did this with has anxiously been watching for this to be posted, so here it is:
To start go to Junior General and look up their Alamo scenario. From there you can print off their figures, or you can use the massive number of ones you have. Or maybe that’s just me. With 3 men in my house who love to act out battles, and one or two others in the house who have at least a cough cough mild cough cough interest……….. There’s a lot.

In our version the Mexicans had about 65 soldiers divided into 7 groups. Each group had a lieutenant who was in charge of moral (that determines if they can move forward).

The seventh group was held in reserve and didn’t have a cannon. The first 6 groups did.
I won’t go into big detail about how each round went because the scenario did a good job of doing that on the site. Our modifications: Each figure could move 6 hexes if they were able to move, and there were 30 Texans at the Alamo (that is not the right proportions).

At first things looked good for the Texans. They had several successful canon shots, and they were able to take down most of the Mexican lieutenants. But, then both sides were out of canon fire, several of their canons had been destroyed and there was a breach in their walls.

But then, the Mexicans were able to start scaling the walls and the sheer numbers started to overwhelm the Texans.

If the enemies are able to fire 6 shots for every one you are able to fire it does not bode well for you.
(This shot is actually from earlier in the scenario, but it does have one of the kids playing the Mexicans looking mighty pleased with herself)

And then their heroes died. Davy Crockett, Colonel William Travis, Jim Bowie. One by one each of the heroes died to Mexican bullets.

The boys lost it. They couldn’t handle the heroes they had fought with dying. Which led to a great lesson.

We talked about how the Texans must have felt when they heard the Alamo had fallen and how only a few survivors escaped. No quarter was given to wounded or sick. This was a huge mistake on the part of Santanna because it becamse a rallying cry for all Texans.

At the final battle of the Texas the Texans yelled “Remember the Alamo!” That cry led them to victory. It’s amazing how much morale can be changed by a small thing. Martyrs are a powerful thing.

Science Sunday: Is this a real animal?

2012-05-20T06:00:00.000-05:00

On a recent visit to the Mayborne museum we discovered this little guy. It cracked me up to read about him.

In case you can’t read the picture:
1. It is related to the kangaroo, bandicoot, opossum, and wombat.

2. The only marsupial found outside of Australia.

3. Young are carried in the marsupium (pouch) for three months before showing their face to the world.

4. Mate for life and are loyal to their mate.

5. Orthlocks come out at sunset. The Huoco Indians believed the creatures come out to view the dying sun.

6. The orthlock is NOT to be confused with the Jackalope which everyone knows is a fraud!

The picture to the right is a jackalope. Obviously a fake, while the orthlock is not……

So, we started discussing their opinions, is it a fake, and why? They pretty much all agree it’s obviously a fake because no animal has both fur and feathers. I have to say I think they’re right on that count.

I just got back in town late tonight and the post I had drafted featuring lots of people got all messed up and my brain is fried. So I assure you there were many awesome posts this past week, but the hotel I was at last night did not let me get the post all written up because it decided it did not know "what this thing called an internet is."

Plus side, I got to go to my first ever homeschool convention and it was a LOT of fun!

Maine: Lighthouses

2012-05-18T06:14:00.000-05:00

Our final Maine book, and our second lighthouse one was a fun true story of one girl keeping the lighthouse lit through a terrible storm, and encouraging her sick mother and her two sisters while waiting for their Dad to return with more supplies.

Amazon.com Widgets

After reading the story, I gave them a bit of specific direction on how to draw a lighthouse. We carefully drew out our pictures, and since I had rushed out of the house that day we didn’t have the watercolors to make it look dark and stormy. But, they did enjoy drawing and coloring the lighthouses.

The instructions came to draw it came from Art Projects for Kids Lighthouse lesson

I loved how varied their results were:

I found Superman’s especially interesting because he had a definite plan in mind for his lighthouse, and after a while I realized he was trying to make one like in the book for the pattern.

Maine: The Treasure Chest

2012-05-17T06:09:00.000-05:00

I mentioned yesterday that I didn’t find a whole lot of books on Maine. Most of the ones I found were about light houses. Apparently, there are a lot of light houses up in Maine.

This particular one isn’t exactly a true story, but it is based off a compilation of several true stories.

The Sea Chest is a story about a young girl and her family who live on an island tending the lighthouse. One night a bad storm washes a sea chest up on their island, and what was found inside.

I previewed this book a couple of days beforehand, and fell in love with the story. It’s so touching and is a great multi-generational story of love. I don’t want to give away any of the details, but it was so sweet.

Before we read the book I had them guess what was going to be found in the book.

As you can guess they mostly thought treasure, gold, shells. Batman guessed a manta ray, just to be silly.

Afterwards they drew what was really in the chest.

Finally they drew what they would put in the chest. This related to the key plot point of the story, but I figured you probably can’t guess what Princess drew.

PRINTABLE: WHAT I FOUND IN THE TREASURE CHEST

It was a bittersweet day for us because one of the families in our group is moving to South Austin and so they won’t be joining us regularly. I’m gonna miss getting together with them weekly, but we’re gonna still get together from time to time.

I’m sure God will bring another family to join our little group, that’s how we got the family that just moved. I ran into her at the library while getting books for our geography group.

I’m gonna link up to these fun parties:

Maine: Wakame Gatherers

2012-05-16T06:58:00.000-05:00

I probalby wouldn’t have classified this as a Maine book because it takes place mainly in Japan, but I was VERY short on books about Maine.

VERY short.

But, it does do a comparison of Japan and Maine, and it’s an incredibly cute story. CRAZY CUTE!

The Wakame Gatherers is a story about a girl from two cultures. One of her parents is from Japan and one is from the United States. She spends time with both grandmothers.

This particular time, the grandmother from Maine is visiting Japan and learning about how to harvest seaweed and the many different types and how it is used.

And there was my tie in……

In the book they compare different ways sea weed is used in the two countries. The main thing my kids remember. Sea weed is used in Miso soup and in ice cream.

After reading everyone drew/wrote 4 different ways sea weed is used by people. Then they colored their favorite ways with their favorite color. The boys expanded on this to also color their least favorite way with their least favorite color…… Hence the purple/pink monstrosity up above.

Most common favorite thing: ice cream.

There wasn’t a common least favorite. My boys were all in favor of miso soup, another kid loved sushi. It was a fun discussion.

PRINTABLE: HOW WE USE SEA WEED

Creating Little Worlds

2012-05-15T06:48:00.000-05:00

The other day Princess happily entertained herself creating little play worlds sitting at the table.

She created a bedroom, complete with bed and some cups to drink from (though I wouldn’t recommend it).

And pets to play with and feed.

Do you ever just turn your kids loose to create their own worlds? I loved listening to her play with them.

11 on the 11th

2012-05-14T06:39:00.000-05:00

I actually, don’t think it’s the 11th now. I think it’s the 13th……. I kinda got busy hanging out with Princess and doing other stuff all day…….. Or maybe I’m gonna hit publish on the 14th……..

I have been tagged by Phyllis of All Things Beautiful...

The Rules:

1. Post these rules.
2. Post a photo of yourself and 11 random facts about you.
3. Answer the questions given to you in the tagger’s post.

4. Create 11 new questions and tag new people to answer them.
5. Go to their blog/twitter and let them know they have been tagged.

11 Random Facts:

1. I’m hypoglycemic, which means I really shouldn’t have too much sugar, and I NEED to eat often, and a lot more than you would think.

2. I love cotton candy, this is a problem, see #1. When Jeff and I were first married we went to a baseball game and I ate a whole thing of cotton candy. I couldn’t walk straight out of there and couldn’t see straight afterwards. I act like I’m really drunk when I eat too much sugary stuff.

3. I love s’mores and fudge, and chocolate fondue.

4. I lose things, a lot. For the first several years I had glasses, it was a toss up if I could find them.

5. I also forget if I don’t have glasses on and try to push my glasses up. Jeff teases me about this, mainly because my Mom does the same thing about her reading glasses.

6. I hate cleaning the bathrooms. As soon as I think the kids will be able to, I am turning that over to them. I will pay them well to do that job.

7. I love to dance, especially swing dancing. Sadly the main place to go swing dancing is on the same night as our small group for church.

8. I’m writing a children’s Bible/Bible study right now. I’m up to 1 Samuel. By the end of the year I’ll probably be through 2 Chronicles. At some point I want to publish it, but have no clue how to do this.

9. I have gone through 4 violet Prismacolor pencils in the past year. I accidentally colored two major characters in that color, between the two of them they are in at least 20 stories.

10. I currently have at least 20 books in my bedroom. Okay, I’m wrong, if you count the stash of graphic novels and comic books it’s over 100. I think I have 30 comics in my nightstand.

11. I love Batman comics. I am slowly but surely collecting all the Batman trades, and am not so slowly collecting all of the Nightwing ones. Bonus point if you know who Nightwing is without googling him.

Phyllis’s Questions

1. What is your favorite blog post you have made?

These are hard questions, and I’m only on #1. My favorite is not the most viewed or probably one any of you remember. I thought long and hard about this, but every time I stop to think about it, my favorite was my post about my friend Sam. He died over 2 years ago and I still miss him. I had a whole long list of other ones I thought about putting up, but this was the first one to come to my mind.

2. Do you have a blog post that affected you, made you think, changed you in some way? Include what blog you saw it on, and a link, if you can.

Hmmmm…….. I cheated and check out what the answer was over at Almost Unschoolers and she had a good one, but the problem is I can’t think of one. None that I just went, that’s the one! I’m more of a holistic person in some things, so I think I’m gonna choose these types of posts that got me thinking about Bible story telling: Godly Play Creation and Creation story box. There was a whole slew of them in that genre about a year or so ago that got me to thinking……..

3. Have you ever met in real life anyone that you knew through their blog?

Sigh, no. I almost have twice, but things fell through. There’s a group of Austin bloggers who are talking about getting together in June sometime.

4. What is your favorite subject to teach? Why?

History, I love history, it’s fun to make it come alive.

5. What is your least favorite subject to teach? Why?

Ironically enough, reading. I love to read, but teaching my kids reading is like pulling teeth sometimes.

6. What type would you say your teaching style falls under? It can be more than one.

Eclectic? Which is a cop out, because it’s a bunch in one. I like the idea of Classical, but one of the big components of it is narration, and I’ve figured out that just doesn’t work for us. So………. We go through the history cycle of it and I agree with their theories on kids’ abilities to learn, but I’m very hands on. I like to do and go, which doesn’t seem as present in classical. I wrote a long babbling post about my teaching style a few years ago.

7. Is there some project in your homeschool that you would like to do, but haven't been able to do it yet? Why do you want to do it and why haven't you been able?

Hmmm……… I’m sure there is, and I’ll probably think about it as soon as I hit publish, but most things I haven’t done yet are because we haven’t covered the topic yet, or because it’s not age appropriate. Though I do have a mystery I want to do with my kids, that I just need to clear the time for……

8. What do you consider the most important goal for your school?

To turn out kids who are life-long learners and are running hard after Christ. I want them to be able to excel in society. I want my boys to be leaders and gentlemen. I want my daughter to be a Proverbs 31 woman. I want to be that woman.

9. What is the favorite blog post (you have written) of your readers? Were you surprised?

My Phonics Reading Game, followed up by How to Make a Rapunzel Dress from scratch. The phonics game does because It was a silly little thing, but the Rapunzel one doesn’t because it’s one of my most pinned posts.

10. What is something you have since learned that you wish you knew when you started homeschooling?

Get your hands on the curriculum and look at it in person with lots of time to look at it. The two things I got that didn’t work for us were because I got into a “I must get this now,” and was sure it would work. If I’d stopped and looked at them more thoroughly I would have seen where it wouldn’t have worked. Or, I’d like to think so. Either way, my philosophy now is to only buy things I have looked through myself.

11. Is there a blog that shows a homeschool that you are striving to be more like? What do you admire about their homeschool?

Hmmmm……. I’d have to say Phyllis’ blog All Things Beautiful and Leah’s with Almost Unschoolers. Both of them do a wonderful job of constantly bringing in hands on ways to teach. I’ve used so many ideas from both of their blogs.

My Questions

1. How did you meet your husband or fiancee (since I’m going to tag a friend who’s engaged)?

2. What is the hardest thing about being a parent?

3. Are any of your children just like you? I swear at times Princess is a carbon copy and there are times Batman is really similar too.

4. What was your favorite subject as a kid? If you’re homeschooling or teaching, is that your favorite subject to teach?

5. When you travel what is the one thing you have to have or do? I love to stop at Visitor’s Centers for different states.

6. What one food do you absolutely love? I must be hungry, because I swear I don’t think about food all the time.

7. What type of books do you tend to read?

8. What book were you required to read in school that you absolutely hated? cough Charles Dickens cough cough

9. What is your favorite play by William Shakespeare?

10. What book or play have you seen made into a really good movie? Other than their butchering Puck’s monologues there was a great rendition of Midsummer Night’s Dream about 10 years ago. I only had to be mildly restrained when they butchered it……

11.If practicality was not a problem, what kind of pet would you have?

Now who shall I tag……. Many of the people I thought of had already been tagged and answered or are going to answer soon if they’re so inclined……….

I think I’ll tag:

Christy from Snacks and Stories

MaryAnne from Mama Smiles

And I’m honestly now drawing a blank on people who I read and comment on regularly who participate in these types of things who haven’t been tagged yet. Oh wait, I was gonna tag my college roommate:

Dannie over at It’s You and Me Kid!

And if you like these types of things and you haven’t been tagged by someone yet, consider yourself tagged, let me know you’re answering and I’ll be sure to read it and comment with ridiculous comments.

Science Sunday: starfish

2012-05-13T06:04:00.000-05:00

You remember how ages and ages ago I asked for recommendations about starfish, and then I lost my camera with the pictures of what we did?

Well I found it. Or more accurately, when I made the kids clean out the dog’s toy box of all of their stuff they found it. My guess, I had them clean and they put it all in the dog’s toy box.

Needless to say I was not a happy Mommy.

First we looked as the starfish my Mother-in-Law had given us from a trip she took and picked up for them. I’ve been holding on to these for quite some time. We noticed the little bumpy things on the bottom and talked about how those are little suction cups that let the starfish move around.

After we poked around and looked at them under a magnifying glass, I said we were going to try and see what it was like. Then one at a time I ushered my unsuspecting kids into the bathroom and they got to play with the plunger in the toilet.

After I was suitably disgusted by their fascination (and they now think of the least excuse why the bathroom needs the plunger, racing downstairs to get it), and they managed to not cover my bathroom floor with water. We continued on to the next part.

Then we cut out a starfish from sandpaper and recorded our observations of what it felt like to try and move like a starfish. We did a similar craft before, a couple of years ago for our ocean animals book.

I’d like to thank: Fantastic Five, Alex Nguyen Portraits, Books 4 Learning, and Enchanted Homeschooling Mom for all coming up with some fun ideas to do. Between all of their ideas, links, and suggestions I could have spent a couple of weeks on starfish, unfortunately my kids interest level was not as high as mine.

Does anyone else ever run into the problem of being more interested in a topic than their kids are?

Let’s see what others did this week:

Fantastic Five combined science and art for a fun astronomy lesson.

I loved the idea of using a rolling pin for a pulley from Quirky Momma.

Next Gen Homeschooler did a great job of trying to earthquake proof buildings.

Dottie’s Homeschool Universe shared about rocks and how they’re formed.

Don’t forget to have a link back here somewhere on your front page.

Oh, and one last request: If you have any posts, old or new, about land animals I’d love to see them linked up. We’re going to be studying land animals next and my land animals pinterest board is rather sparse.

War of 1812

2012-05-11T08:50:00.001-05:00

One thing that amused me when we were studying the states on the East Coast were the number of books I was able to find set during this war, and they all had amusing stories that the “family swore was true.”

It’s an interesting war, not many people remember it, because it didn’t change a whole lot. It didn’t end because we were such amazing tacticians. It ended more because some of the causes ended.

Causes:

1. Impressement of American soldiers onto British ships. This also was happening with French, but the British were also causing other problems.

2. Blockade of American shipping.

3. British encouraging Natives to attack Americans.

Many of these were the result of the Napoleonic Wars in Europe.

We fought many battles, both at land and on sea. At sea the American ships often did better against bigger and better armed forces because the ships were more maneuverable.

We did end up winning many impressive battles, but it was mostly because Britain was engaged fighting off Napoleon in France. Come 1815, after Napoleon had been defeated we knew we had to end the war.

A peace treaty was signed and agreed to, basically leaving things as they were before the war started.

2 WEEKS AFTER THE TREATY

A British fleet came to attack New Orleans, they vastly outnumbered and outgunned the small American army led by General Jackson.

General Jackson assessed the situation and told the governor he was pardoning Jean Laffitte, a notorious pirate in the area and drafting him for the battle. Next he armed the freed blacks in the city and they joined the army, and finally he drafted all of the Natives who were not with the British into the army, and gained a miraculous victory.

Shortly afterwards the British general sent him a letter congratulating him on the war they had already won. Jackson opted to continue to “monitor” the general until they remembered they were not in their own waters.

Well, I have now covered this battle and another post about it (tangentially) all the times I’m planning on covering it. I wasn’t going to go into such detail again with the kids, but they really like acting out battles.

Our next war to cover in a week or so: The Mexican American War, can you guess who fought in it and when? True trivia here…….. And the Battle of the Alamo!

Don’t forget to enter my giveaway of Mom Connection!

I’m gonna link up to these fun parties:

Review and Giveaway: Mom Connection

2012-05-09T15:39:00.001-05:00

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, if you have pre-schoolers you need to get in a MOPS group.

I've just been sent another one of their books to review and again I just have to say it was a wonderful experience. The last book I reviewed, MOMsense, was all about finding who you are as a Mom, what makes you tick, and how to be the best Mom.

Mom Connection looks to something else we all are starved for. How to grow and develop friendships. I’m not a big extrovert, so developing friendships for me is always a dangerous river. I enjoy people, but I have a quirky personality, that doesn’t always click well with people in real life, it’s not that they dislike me, but I’m not sought out as a friend.

And I’ve struggled with that at times, but I’ve found some great friends over the years, both online and offline.

This book talks about how to grow relationships, and how to make sure you’re becoming the person you want to be.

Things I’m taking away from it:

1. I think we’re ready to find some volunteer work outside of our family. There’s a chapter on making a difference in your community, and thinking about when is the right time. If you’ve got 3 pre-schoolers and everyone’s in diapers, that might not be the time to “make a difference in the world.” But, I was realizing my kids are now all old enough we can probably volunteer somewhere.

2. I think God must really be hitting me over the head with this one, but we need to clear out and clean up our home. It’s a big struggle for me, but one of the chapters talked about having the home everyone wants to hang out at. I want that home, so I need to take steps to have that. One is my continued drive to clean and purge and organize. The other, figuring out snack foods to have available for kids to eat and drink. I don’t tend to have lots of them, and I need to find a good balance on that.

3. Establish who we are as a family. I think we already have a momentum started on that, but I want to firm it up and make sure it’s clear. One thing that’s clear, we’re a little silly at times.

What will you find in this book:

1. Each chapter ends with 5 suggestions for implementing it, and they’re five different suggestions, it’s not all “go out and do,” some are stop and think or evaluate.

2. Each chapter ends with a here’s more section. What I liked about that is it’s not all go buy this book. Some of it is articles on the internet or videos or things to listen to. I’m a big fan of listening to things while cleaning. I learn a lot that way.

Who do I recommend this book for: Any Mom who is looking to form a connection with another person or better themselves.

Giveaway:

I’m keeping it super simple, only two entries, you can do either one or both:

1. Again look up your nearest MOPS group and tell me when and where it meets.

2. Tell me what you’re doing to encourage strong relationships in your family or with friends.

Technical stuff:

1. INCLUDE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS, I can’t send it to you if I can’t contact you. Very important.

2. It’s open to international, and it’s open for 1 week.

3. I wasn’t paid. I really like MOPS, I think everyone should join it. I joined it willingly and enjoyed it a lot. GO JOIN NOW. Okay, enough threatening, they did give me a review copy, but since I’m giving one away and will probably loan the other out, that doesn’t really count as payment.

And now I’m going to go investigate the thud coming from my supposedly sleeping child.

Alabama: Last Mule of Gee Bend

2012-05-08T09:26:00.001-05:00

I learned something with this particular book, actually there are a couple of books about Gee’s Bend by this author/illustrator, but still I learned from them.

I learned there were many ways people were affected by the Civil Rights movements and how they worked to change how life was.

In Gee’s Bend they sewed quilts to support themselves after they lost their jobs for participating in the Civil Right movement. That was the first book in the series, but I knew my mostly boys group wouldn’t want to hear about sewing.

So, we went with the mules from there, they became known for standing up and being stubborn and when Martin Luther King Jr. was shot, those mules pulled his coffin for the funeral procession.

I wanted something 3-D, since I saw Glittering Muffins’ Sweden craft, this had been on my mind.

I did a Google search and found a picture of a donkey I liked, then mirror imaged it. The kids happily colored it and then cut it out and glued them onto clothes pins to be able to stand, or that was the theory……..

The only one that actually happened with was the one I glued for Princess, otherwise…..

Around the World in 12 Dishes: Russia

2012-05-07T02:44:00.000-05:00

Welcome to "Around The World in 12 Dishes". We will be taking you on a journey around the world, (loosely) following in Phileas Fogg's footsteps, exploring 12 different countries with our children, by cooking 12 dishes with them. One for each country visited.

Adventures In Mommydom, Creative Family Fun, Glittering Muffins, Juggling with Kids, Kitchen Counter Chronicles, Make, Do & Friends, Mom 2 Posh Little Divas,Mummymummymum, Rainy Day Mum, Red Ted Art, The Educators' Spin On It and The Outlaw Mom have come together to help you on your food journey and will each cook a dish with our children and post about it - to help inspire you to have a go! Then go out there, cook, blog, and join in the linky fun!

So, Jeff and I have different tastes in meals. Usually if I absolutely love a meal, then he’s rather indifferent or dislikes it (spaghetti), and vice versa for me. So, I’m always happy to find meals we can both like, beef stroganoff is one of those.

Now, I am quite sure that my way of making it has absolutely nothing to do with Russia, but it’s popular here, so that’s what counts for dinner. Now for learning about other cultures………

Ingredients: 3 pounds or so of stew meat, 2 cans of cream of mushroom soup, 2 cloves of minced garlic (1 teaspon of the pre-minced kind), 1 cup of sour cream, egg noodles

1. Brown the stew meat, then pour it into your slow cooker.

1b. Pose as a soldier, and explain to your Mom that you plan on being a soldier or a hero when you grow up. This is a VERY IMPORTANT STEP.

2. Add in 2 cans of cream of mushroom soup, do not add in broth like we’re doing here. This will lead to runny sauce, and help you remember to CHECK THE RECIPE, NOT MAKE IT FROM MEMORY. my bad, it’s a wonder my kids don’t die of food poisoning sometimes. Okay, not really, I’m not that bad of a cook, but there are times……

3. Add in the garlic, and whatever other random spices you decide to add in. This is where I drive Jeff nuts because it really is random. My go to: basil, oregano, or thyme (not really appropriate for Russia, more Italian).

4. TURN ON YOUR SLOW COOKER. This is a very important step. If you don’t do this you will come back at the end of the day and discover raw meat. That doesn’t work so well……….. You think I’m kidding, dinner that night was going to the grocery store and picking up frozen food. Low for 8 hours, high for 4.

5. Shortly before serving add in the sour cream and stir.

6. Serve over hot egg noodles.

It earned 3 thumbs up when I asked their opinion, and the boys went back for seconds. Nothing left at the end. Total win.

Science Sunday: where we rescue a bat

2012-05-06T06:20:00.000-05:00

We went to a new park in the area on Friday and as we were leaving I saw something crawling across the road to leave the park. I had to stop and rescue it.

Isn’t he cute, in an unbelievably ugly sort of way? That’s certainly what my kids kept saying over and over again.

We kept guard over him (without touching, I know that much for sure) all the way to the side of the road. Then we talked about what type of bat he is and where he lives.

Austin is home to a colony of Mexican Freetailed bats, it’s even one of the “things to see in Austin.” I personally like the bridge up in Round Rock better to watch the bats come out, but either way it’s a fun site.

After looking up at the bridge above us (the picture above) to remind ourselves where he probably sleeps, then we talked about what he eats. MOSQUITOES, lots and lots of them. That’s what we love bats, they eat bugs. This is good. I haven’t figured out what use there are for mosquitoes yet in God’s Creation. I can figure out uses for most other things I don’t like or find annoying, but haven’t found one yet for those.

We also caught a quick video of the bat crawling so you can see it in action. I wasn’t aware bats could move so well on the ground, but then I remembered that young bats do that.

Mexican Freetail bat crawling

Let’s see what others did this week:

Wine Cup Christian Academy did a variation on the volcano experiment I’ve never seen before. Can you guess what she used?

Lionden Landing created a fun model of the solar system (this isn’t the actual model, I just really loved the illustration).

Switching gears, Almost Unschoolers has a great anatomically correct cookie making experience about ladybugs.

Highhill Homeschool had a lot of fun trying to find the best way to make an electrical circuit.

Come back tomorrow to check out my contribution to Around the World in 12 Dishes! We’re going to Russia!

Building forts

2012-05-05T11:09:00.001-05:00

My children have become quite the expert at building forts. While I was laying downstairs yesterday and feeling icky and sorry for myself and burning through the book I decided to read, they were busy.

They eventually had every blanket, pillow, and dollie up in that fort. Then they spent the remainder of the morning, when I wasn’t pulling kids to read or do school, playing in it.

The kids took over my computer

2012-05-03T08:34:00.001-05:00

So, instead of posting about what we’ve been doing or finishing off Alabama (because I apparently only took pictures of 2 activities), I’m gonna put up some favorite pictures from my trip.

Splashing in puddles.

Making faces.

And more faces.

Now, I think I’m going to go curl up somewhere with a good book for a few minutes. It’s one of those days where I’m gonna be running slow.

Alabama: Helen Keller

2012-05-01T06:51:00.000-05:00

When I was growing up I was absolutely fascinated by Helen Keller. She showed such amazing strength of character and will power. I can probably trace my fascination with sign language back to then. I read a biography about her in 4th grade and taught myself how to finger spell. In high school I read her autobiography, fascinating book.

But I digress

We read the picture book of Helen Keller, which like other books in the series, gives a nice concise timeline of her life and why she is important.

Afterwards we talked about the challenges of being blind and having to have someone lead you around, and how hard it must have been to not be able to tell what you want for so long.

Then we wrote our names out in Braille, which took tremendous concentration.

One of the things that tickled me about this lesson was during our trip the kids kept trying to imitate Helen Keller and the signs she used for her parents and for bread during the trip. I guess it made a fairly deep impact.

Colonial games and pasttimes

2012-04-30T08:02:00.000-05:00

We got together a few weeks ago and played some of the games that colonists played, but since I had a migraine and the other Mom had two million things going on that day our GRAND AND OVERARCHING PLANS failed……

Instead we did two easy to reenact games, especially if you’re a former teacher who did the old “marble in the jar trick” for every time you caught someone being good. Seriously I have a big huge box of marbles……..

We discovered that it was super easy on our paved concrete driveway with a slight tilt downhill to get marbles out of the circle. Not so easy on the not completely level and bumpy mud that the colonists probably played on. The kids all agreed they did not like playing it like this.

They all enjoyed playing hopscotch, which we couldn’t agree on what the rules are, which led to a discussion on variations on rules in different areas.

Then I challenged them to come up with a game of their own involving chalk and marbles.

The first group with a lot of eye rolling and “Do we have to’s” came up with a sort of pictionary with marbles.

The second group came up with a combination of hopscotch and marbles. You rolled the marble and got that many points for the number your marble stopped in.

Science Sunday: Popping Popcorn in Illinois

2012-04-29T06:07:00.000-05:00

I was trying to think what I wanted to do with popcorn late one night, and all I kept thinking of was charting what their favorite flavors were, and that didn’t sound exciting. It sounded boring, mainly because I’d done that a lot when I was teaching public school.

Then in a flash of insight I popped out of bed and grabbed some bowls and pour 1/4 cup of popcorn into three bowls. I started soaking one in water, another in oil, and left the third plain for a control. About halfway through I had a vague memory of Almost Unschoolers doing something similar, so I looked up and they did an experiment with strawberry extract. Interestingly enough we had very different results.

The next day at geography co-op we read about popcorn and how each one has a little drop of water in it. Then we predicted which would pop best.

The majority thought the water soaked popcorn would pop best, but we had one holding out for our control and one for the oil.

There was a lot of very excited watching of the popcorn popping. It amused me to see my kids who normally ignore our popcorn popper absolutely enthralled by it.

From left to right: oil, water, control. The oil and control popped about the same amount (I got flustered getting ready to leave and left my giant measuring cup at home). There was mixed feelings on which of them tasted better, but it leaned more towards the oil one.

Everyone was very surprised by the result of the water one. It didn’t pop at all. The kernel size was noticeably bigger and apparently it didn’t react well to absorbing all that water.

Our results are different that the google results I got when trying to find the science behind this. Or the “best popcorn secret,” I’m guessing the difference is don’t soak it for over 12 hours, that’s the difference.

So, do you think I’m right, it’s the extra time soaking that makes the difference?

Let’s see what others did this week:

Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational shared Origami Bats, I wish I was good at origami.

Enjoying the Journey shared her tips for making rock candy. One of the rare times someone has shared it and the project worked right.

Homeschool Mo shared her preschool flower studies, I love the flowers they made to go with it.

My kids amuse me

2012-04-28T22:48:00.001-05:00

We’re in the process of driving back and I have a lot of pictures to go through, but I wanted to share these which cracked me up from the kids visit to a salad bar:

Superman created a salad about 6 inches high, of cheese, lettuce, and the equivalent of a can of olives. He actually ate a fair amount of that.

Princess got exactly 3 slices of cucumbers, 3 pieces of pineapple, and 2 scoops of cheese. It was only two because I wouldn’t let her get 3.

Batman got a fairly normal salad and then proceeded to drown it in about a cup of ranch dressing.

I love my kids, they make me laugh almost every day.

Yorktown Victory Center

2012-04-25T22:24:00.001-05:00

Whereas yesterday was little girl heaven with the carriage ride, today was ~~little~~ big boy heaven, with lots of pretending to be soldiers and firing of weapons.

The boys even got to participate in the “firing of a cannon."

1. The Sergeant (the man with the clipboard) gives the order to prepare to fire.

2. Add in your carefully measured scoop of powder and then add in the cannon ball or in this case bomb.

3. Set the range using what looked rather similar to an astrolabe (no picture because of poor angle).

4. Clear the cannon and set the fuse.

5. Light the fuse.

6. BOOM! (this shot is of course from the actual trained people firing it)

I’ll write a more concise and what we learned type post on another day. For now I’m going to read a little bit and then go to sleep…….. Maybe even before midnight, what a novel concept.

Taking a carriage ride

2012-04-24T22:27:00.001-05:00

On Princess’ list of things to do since we got here: TAKE A CARRAIGE RIDE, well she’s only young enough to really want to do this once, so we decided to let her do it.

First we had to pet the horses and take some time to enjoy them.

Then we rode around town in it with a grinning 5 year old.

She did have to be reminded on a fairly regular basis to sit back down. Then we went on the “Bits and Bridles” tour, which will be the subject of a Science Sunday post later on, but that was not as fun because she didn’t get to pet any of the animals. However her day was made when one of the carriage drivers offered to give us a ride back to the historic district.

And SCORE it was a “pretty carriage that the princess rides in when she marries the prince.”

Batman was just happy to be allowed to bring his gun and be a soldier.