Homeschool Discoveries

Sharing a few things I've discovered along the way…

Celebrating the 100th Day of the Homeschool Year February 5, 2013

Filed under: Fun Stuff and Extras — kirstenjoyhill @ 6:01 am

Celebrating 100 days of school is something I’ve thought about doing for at least a couple of years, but I’ve never quite gotten around to actually doing it.   Prior to last year I wasn’t keeping track at all of our number of school days, so it would have been pretty difficult to figure out which was #100.   (I know some homeschoolers track their number of school days or hours carefully, but it’s not a requirement for  in our state, and last year was my first year with a student at the compulsory attendance age anyhow).

DSC00257Last year I was keeping rough track of our school days in my planner.  But I figured out which day was the 100th day…about the night before the 100th day.  And besides, it fell during the same week as other special activities, so I didn’t feel like I could really take time out of our week to celebrate.

I decided to plan ahead this year and let the kids keep track of our days in school.  I gave them a blank hundred-days-of-school chart, and let them fill in a box each day.  As it happens, our 100th day falls on a special day anyway this year (Mr. K’s birthday).  But he was okay with doing some “100th day” celebrating on his birthday, so we’ll spend the morning on Wednesday doing a few fun activities to celebrate #100.

 

I’m still making my final decisions as to what we will do, but here are a few ideas I’m considering:

  1. 100th Day Snack Mix (10 each of 10 trail mix items — cereal, candy, raisins, etc)
  2. Cookies or Jello Jigglers in the shape of 1’s and 0’s to make “100”
  3. 100th day creative writing (What would I do with $100? What will the world be like in 100 years? I would like 100 of..  etc)
  4. An art project: Something creative made in the shape of 100, A “what I would look like at 100 years old” project, or just a 100th Day coloring page
  5. Legos: What can you build with 100 legos?
  6. 100-themed challenges: How many … can you do in 100 seconds?  Can you do 100 jumping jacks? 100 sit ups? and so on
  7. Counting to 100 together
  8. Making a necklace of 100 cheerios or fruit loops
  9. 100-themed math activities — measuring 100 centimeters, doing math problems on a 100’s chart, etc
  10. A 100-themed scavenger hunt around the house — this could be clutter inducing, but it would be fun to count out 100 of a few small food items, 100 buttons, 100 paper clips, 100 books, and so forth.

There are a lot of 100th day ideas out there — I collected quite a few on my 100th Day Pinterest board.  Some of the ideas I saw would work much better in a classroom, but I tried to pin activities that make sense for a homeschool celebration — it’s not quite the same as in a classroom where students can each bring a different 100 items from their own homes to school!

Why celebrate 100 days to begin with?  I guess just for fun!  It’s a neat milestone to mark, and it happens in the cold, dreary days of winter.  What more excuse do we need for a party? 😉

Linking up with Top Ten Tuesday @ Many Little Blessings!
Top Ten Tuesday at Many Little Blessings

 

Neighborhood Fun: 2013 Art Sled Rally February 4, 2013

Filed under: Creativity,Fun Stuff and Extras — kirstenjoyhill @ 3:45 pm

I meant to include this in my most recent Collage Friday/Week-in-Review post, but I forgot all about it in all the other fun and learning we had last week.  🙂

Something I love about our neighborhood of Minneapolis are the many creative people who share their art (and other forms of creativity) with others.  We have a very unique May Day parade, an annual art fair in the park, the Empty Bowls fundraiser for hunger-related causes where all the soup is served in handmade pottery bowls, the Art Sled Rally, and more.

In our six years living here, we’ve never before made it to the Art Sled Rally.  It’s kind of understandable, really.  I mean, who goes out to stand in the park in the middle of January in Minnesota to watch people on sleds?  😉  Well….lots of people apparently, including us this year just a bit over a week ago.

Art Sleds 2013

From what I’ve heard, people come from all over the metro area, not just our neighborhood, to participate.   Sleds and riders were adorned to look like anything from a loaf of bread to a dragon to a tea cup to a sick polar bear (yes, really!).  Conditions were very icy this year, so the sleds were “guided” down the top portion of the hill before being released to travel the rest of the way down the steep hill in Powderhorn Park.

We only saw the first handful of sleds go down the hill before the boys got too cold.  But it was a fun experience! Miss M aspires to build/decorate a sled with her best friend to launch next year.  We’ll see if the parents are up for helping with that endeavor.  😉

 

Of Book Reports and Ninja Christmas Carols February 2, 2013

Filed under: Books,Creativity — kirstenjoyhill @ 6:15 am
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A little over a week ago, Miss M and Mr. E gave book reports at our co-op.  One of the reasons I really like participating in a co-op is opportunities just like this.   The kids get up in front of their class (a group of 8 or 10 students about the same age) and talk about a book they’ve read.  While we can discuss books all we want at home (and we often do), it is a growing experience to organize your thoughts into a few sentences or paragraphs someone else will understand, and getting up in front of a group to share those thoughts.

Miss M is really never nervous to speak in front of anybody, but writing out her book report has caused some stress in past years.  She narrated to me and I wrote it down as a first grader (we were in a different co-op when she was a K’er), then last year as a 2nd grader I thought she should probably be able to write it down for herself — a process which caused a few more tears than I was expecting.  Some of the tears were due to stress at not knowing how to spell what she wanted to say, and some of the stress was due to the difficulty she discovered in explaining the book she selected — she picked a mystery, which was hard to explain without giving away the whole ending!

This year, Miss M made an easier book selection (one of the “Caroline”  American Girl books), and has gained a lot more confidence in her spelling abilities.  In the book report process she mostly needed a bit of help to organize her thoughts and decide which details were important to communicate in order for the plot to make sense.

This was Mr. E’s first year to give a book report at co-op.  He wanted to pick The Way of the Ninja, a favorite Lego Ninjago book I’ve read to him several times.  He didn’t have too much trouble summarizing the plot, with me writing down what he wanted to say.  Prior to book report day, Mr. E was pretty nervous about giving his report in front of his class of K through 2nd graders.  I reminded him that I could listen in and prompt him if he got stuck on a word, and that his friends would enjoy listening to him give his report.  In the end he did a great job, reading some complicated words that he wanted to use and only getting stuck once!

We heard a lot about Ninjas over the last couple weeks with Mr. E thinking about and then practicing his book report.  By book report day, Miss M was inspired to write a Ninja Christmas Carol.   I guess she still has Christmas on the brain!

All of us ended up contributing to this unusual song, written from the perspective of a Lego Ninjago Ninja who has a “True Skeleton” sending him gifts instead of a “true love” — so the gifts take on a bit of a different flavor:

The Ninjago 12 Days of Christmas:

On the first day of Christmas my true skeleton sent to me: One creepy guy

On the second day of Christmas my true skeleton sent to me: 2 fights in the rain

On the third day of Christmas my true skeleton sent to me: 3 dead ninjas

On the fourth day of Christmas my true skeleton sent to me: Orders to find the 4 weapons of Spinjitzu

On the fifth day of Christmas my true skeleton sent to me:  5 rotten fruits

On the sixth day of Christmas my true skeleton sent to me:  6 more skeletons

On the seventh day of Christmas my true skeleton sent to me:  7 explosives in my house

On the eighth day of Christmas my true skeleton sent to me:  8 annoying parrots

On the ninth day of Christmas my true skeleton sent to me:  9 scary monsters

On the tenth day of Christmas my true skeleton sent to me:  10 balls of fire

On the eleventh day of Christmas my true skeleton sent to me:  11 skull motorbikes

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true skeleton TOOK from me: my 12 favorite weapons

(And my apologies if you now have the 12 Days of Christmas or this variant stuck in your head for the rest of the day!)  😉

 

Collage Friday: Games, Pioneers, Rocks February 1, 2013

Filed under: Weekly Highlights — kirstenjoyhill @ 12:00 pm

It’s the end of another week and we are back to sub-zero chill here in Minnesota, at least for the day.  I think by next week we’ll get above freezing again.  Meanwhile, I am sitting warm inside while not looking forward to (eta) having survived bundling everyone up to go to Miss M’s guitar lesson this afternoon.   I’m comforting myself with the fact this might be the last below-zero cold snap this winter, if we’re lucky!

 

Here are a few of our school work highlights for this week:

 

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1.  History: Miss M (age 8.5, 3rd grade) loves our current history unit — We are studying the time period of US History between about 1815 to 1860, with a focus on the pioneers and westward expansion.   Our history book basket is full of books she is excited to read.  I didn’t get as much history read aloud done with all the kids as I had hoped I would, but I did finish a bedtime read-aloud with Miss M faster than expected. Look for a review of Birchbark House next week!

2 and 3.  Mr. E (age 5.5, Kindergarten) and Mr K (age almost-4, Pre-K) loved the new Angry Birds printable packs from Homeschool Creations — so much so that they did almost all the activities on Monday, the day I printed them out!

4.  Science: Miss M asked me on Monday, “Mom, why haven’t we done a lapbook in a long time?”  I reminded her that the last time we were working on a lapbook (near the beginning of the school year), she told me she was tired of lapbooks and didn’t really like them so much any more.   She had no memory of telling me that, and asked to do a lapbook for history or science.  We decided together that she would do a science lapbook first to go along with our current unit on Rocks and Minerals (conveniently enough, I already had a Hands of a Child lapbook on that topic just waiting to be used!).

5. and 6. – Math:  We played a couple of RightStart math games this week.  “Rows and Columns” was suggested in one of Mr. E’s lessons for RightStart B (Miss M asked to take my place as his game opponent), and Miss M asked that I find a new multiplication game to try from the RightStart game book, so I found one called “Ring Around the Products” that was pretty fun.  We didn’t finish either game — it would have taken a couple hours! (I guess that means we started with too many cards in our stock!).  I love math games but even when you cut them short, they are time consuming.

Besides the games, Mr. E worked on lessons 76-83 in RS level B (we didn’t do all the exercises in all those lessons — he was catching on pretty fast, though we may go back and do some later for further practice and review). Miss M worked through a lot of the Geometry chapter in Math Mammoth 3-B (she is currently on a “break” from RS level D) — a lot of it was review from RightStart, but I am finding some of the same concepts are presented differently, so it is good for her to see things from this different angle.

7.  Spelling/Phonics: Bigger boys working on the table…little boy playing under the table. 🙂  Mr. E is working on a Logic of English worksheet here.  He worked on lessons 54-58 of Foundations — a number of the concepts here were review, with some new.   I didn’t do as much Foundations work with Mr. K this week.  This is a beta- test product and new teacher’s manual files were released for lessons 1-20.  I tried to jump in where we should have been with the new file in lesson 11…but the order has changed up a bit, so I had to back up and figure out what was new.  So, I worked on a couple of new phonograms with Mr. K, but I guess we are still somewhere around lesson 9 or 10?  🙂  Miss M did the next lesson in Logic of English Essentials this week, Lesson 24.

8. My mom, Grandma Karen to the kids, comes to visit once every couple weeks.  When we don’t have a field trip planned we often try and incorporate Grandma into our school day.  🙂   Here, Mr. E is practicing reading with Grandma.  He read a level 1 book he picked out for this week called, “Space Cat.”

9.  Everyone gathered around the table with Grandma — the two older kids playing Corners (a RightStart math game), Mr. E coloring and stickering, Baby J eating a late lunch after nap. 🙂

More “Just for Fun” Highlights:

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1.  We made Maple Sugar Snow Candy at the beginning of the week — read more about that here.

2.  Given our success with that project, we started some Rock Candy on Tuesday…hopefully we will have something positive to report about that project in a week or two!

3.  Siblings having fun together!

4. After a weekend snowfall, we had nice (above freezing!) weather for a couple days early in the week — perfect for snowballs and snowmen.  This potential snowman got too big, too fast (no one could lift the midsection on to the base), but the big snowball in the backyard makes a nice…leap frog obstacle?  😉

5. Baby J is now 15 months old, and inching ever closer to being a toddler.  He takes a few steps now before falling down, but definitely prefers scooting to walking.   Here he tells me, “all done” — he put all his fabric scraps back in his fabric fun box.

6. This is Mr. E’s favorite Lego accomplishment of the week.  He loves Star Wars legos and we have several sets — but not very many Jedi or Sith.  He spends hours pouring over his Lego Star Wars Character encyclopedia.  This is his “homemade” version of some of his favorite Jedi and Sith — made from pieces we already own.  🙂

 

I’m linking up with Collage Friday and The Weekly Wrap-Up!

Homegrown Learners
 

Book Discoveries This Week: Cheaper by the Dozen January 31, 2013

Filed under: Books — kirstenjoyhill @ 5:45 am
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When I select our chapter book read-alouds for the year, I typically reference several different lists of literature to find some of the best titles recommended for a particular age group.  I’ve very rarely found myself in the position of feeling like I had made a potentially questionable choice as far as the appropriateness of a book for my kids.

I picked up a copy of Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank B. Gilbreth and Ernestine Gilbreth cheaper by the dozenCarey at one of the many book sales I’ve attended in recent years — I think I vaguely recalled having seen it on one of my book lists…then seeing it on my shelf when I was making my list to read-aloud to Miss M, I added it since we already had a copy.

Overall, I guess it was an okay choice to read — Miss M thought it was really funny (as did I).  But if I would have known a bit more about the content of the book, I think I would have saved it for when Miss M was just a bit older.

Cheaper by the Dozen is a biographical tale about the family of famous efficiency experts Frank and Lillian Gilbreth.   Mr. Gilbreth has many useful ideas for improving efficiency in factories and other workplaces, and he tries to incorporate some of those ideas at home…with predictably funny results.  Of course, life in general with a family of 12 kids is bound to be funny!  The book takes place in the early 20th century, and some of the antics of the Gilbreth family seem especially funny now, considering “modern” sensibilities — like tonsils removed assembly line style at home, and the whole troop of children piled seemingly one on top of another in the back of the family car with two crying babies on mom’s lap.

The chapters of the book are somewhat thematic, while there is also a bit of time progression as the book continues on — stories of first dates and learning to drive are found more toward the end of the book.

Speaking of those first dates…this gets into a few things I found “questionable” about the content of this book — at least when considering at as read aloud for an 8.5 year old.   As the girls of the family get to be teenagers, there is discussion about what they might be doing with their boyfriends.  Nothing graphic of course…but I really don’t need to be explaining “necking and petting” to my 3rd grader.

There’s also a “peeping Tom” who wants to watch one of the girls through the window as she puts on her pajamas, and a lady on a birth control crusade who is sent to the Gilbreth home as a joke by a friend who has a large brood of children herself.  Not awful topics to be discussing with my daughter…but definitely different than the topics our read-alouds usually bring up.

Members of the family take the Lord’s name in vain regularly — luckily this is pretty easy to edit out, though I forgot a few times and saw a pretty surprised look on Miss M’s face (since that’s not something that would be acceptable in our home)!

After we finished the book I started to wonder whether I imagined ever having seen Cheaper by the Dozen on a list of recommended reading for elementary age students.  A little bit of research revealed that this title used to be included on Sonlight’s Core E list (for approximately 4th grade), but was discontinued from their curriculum.   Too many complaints about the content, perhaps?!?

And, in case you were wondering, it seems like the more recent Steve Martin movie of the same title bears little resemblance to the classic book.  A film of the same title made in the 1950s is apparently more faithful to the original — I have have a DVD of that movie waiting for me on the reserve shelf at the library.  🙂 I’m assuming a 1950s movie will be pretty family friendly for a movie night this weekend (but I probably should research that a bit more just to be sure!)

I’m linking up with Read-Aloud Thursday @ Hope is the Word!

 

A “Day in the Life” in early 2013 January 30, 2013

Filed under: Getting Organized — kirstenjoyhill @ 6:10 am

It’s been about a year since my last “day in the life” sort of post, and I never got a “daily schedule” post written last fall, so I thought I might share a bit about what a “typical” homeschool day is looking like for us at the moment.

For anyone just joining us, I have a 3rd grader (Miss M) and a Kindergartener (Mr. E) this year, plus a preschooler (Mr K turns 4 in early February), and an older baby/young toddler (Baby J is about 15 months…but not walking yet, so not exactly a toddler per say).

I started out the school year last September thinking we might try a timed schedule (I think I’ve said that every year, actually!), and having short subject blocks of 15-20 minutes for everyone.  There are some merits to that sort of schedule, but I think I have finally learned once and for all at least for the near future that running our school day with any sort of firm time schedule to switch from subject to subject just produces an excess of stress.

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Morning Routine:

Early in the school year we fell into a routine that has served us fairly well.  Everyone is usually up around 7 or maybe 7:30am.  I try to get up between 6 and 6:30am…but we all know how that goes.  Some days I’m the one sleeping in if everyone else is too! The idea is that breakfast, getting dressed, and otherwise getting ready to face the day should be done by 8:30am (or maybe 9am at the latest!).  We’ve been pretty good about all making that one this year!

Sometime before that 8:30am mark, I write out Miss M’s independent work for the day in her daily planner.  Back in August, I asked her if she preferred a checklist, chart or planner this year for her independent work.  She selected a basic student planner from Target.  Each day’s work for Miss M starts out with Bible reading, daily calendar notebook, and something for history — either her choice from our book basket or an assigned historical fiction selection.   Miss M likes to “cross it off” on the list, so I write down even the items that are the same each day.   Beyond these items,  Miss M’s independent work often involves math practice worksheets, spelling or math practice on the iPad and reading or notebooking for science.

“School Day” begins:

By 8:30 am (on an ideal day anyway) Miss M has consulted her list and started in on her independent work for the day.  Some days Mr. E and Mr. K and I are ready to start on their daily agenda at this point as well.  Other days, they are already in the middle of Legos, blocks or some imaginary game involving anything from super heroes to angry birds.  If they are in the middle of something, I let them play.  I often let them know that I will set a timer for them for 15 minutes or half an hour and that’s when “school starts” for them for the day — it’s really more for Mr. E’s benefit since most of the “school work” that needs to happen is for him, rather than for his younger brother.

I used to start Mr. E’s Kindergarten time with his reading practice.  Since the beginning of the new year, we’ve made a commitment to have everyone listening to or reading the Bible in the family.   Mr. K sometimes (or maybe even often) wanders away, but Mr. E really enjoys listening to a couple chapters everyday of the YouVersion app’s NLT audio Bible.

Then comes reading practice for 10 or 15 minutes, followed often by me reading aloud to the boys from books they select.  Mr. E may take a short break at this point (especially if we’ve done his reading practice and story time).  I have to hope he doesn’t get TOO involved in anything else during the break time — but sometimes he does and a 10 minute break extends to 30 minutes or an hour!  We typically tackle math next — Mr. E’s favorite subject.  Lately this is looking like anywhere from 10-20 minutes doing RightStart B, plus about 10 minutes or so to read a chapter of Life of Fred.   Mr. K sometimes sits and listens in on Mr. E’s math, but more often than not he goes off to play in the boys’ room.

By this time (unless math was preceded by a long break), Mr. E is definitely ready for a snack and longer break.  Meanwhile, on a good day, Miss M may be close to finishing up her independent work by this point!

Snack time and Switching focus to my 3rd Grader:

If so, it’s an easy choice to suggest a short break and a snack for her, and then move into doing her “together” work with me — this sometimes involves spelling and usually involves math. If she’s not quite done with her independent work, she may leave it to finish later (usually not her preference), or continue working until it’s done and have a short break and snack later.

If everyone is ready for snack at the same time, I try to read aloud to all the kids.  This may be a fiction or non-fiction selection for history, The Sentence Family (a story-based grammar program we started recently), or just another family read-aloud.

When Miss M is ready, we work together.   Baby J used to almost always be ready to take a nap by this point…I miss those days! Now that he is an almost-toddler, he rarely is ready for a nap in the morning (maybe by 11am if he is extra tired).    Especially while I am working with Miss M, I try to either distract J with a favorite toy, or convince the other two boys to please play with their brother (instead of playing Legos which distinctly leaves the baby out!).  The boys are most often playing while I work with Miss M — but I am not above keeping them out of our hair by letting them play an educational game on the iPad every now and then!

After I’m finished with Miss M’s math, spelling and anything else she needs help with, my next effort is often to consider if it’s time to start lunch — I might need to get something started in the kitchen. Sometimes I take a break and for a few minutes too!

Back to focusing on the boys…

Then (assuming it’s not already too close to lunch time…on a good day, we usually still have a bit of time until everyone will be super hungry) I attempt to coral the boys for their Logic of English Foundations lessons.  This is something new we’ve added since Christmas.

Usually they are pretty receptive, though it can be hard for them to stop playing at times.  If Mr K really isn’t interested on a given day, I don’t push it.  Preschool activities for almost-four-year-olds are pretty optional in my book. 🙂

Lunch and Reading Aloud…

Now it’s time for lunch.  If I haven’t made lunch yet, the kids play for a bit while I take care of that.  I’m trying to get in the habit of reading to the kids during lunch time — usually from a history read-aloud.  If we didn’t get any reading aloud done during lunch, we will try and do some reading shortly after lunch.   “Official” school work is usually done at this point! Yeah!

Afternoons: Free time, fun, chores, and ???

Let’s face it…Mom needs a bit of break too after a morning of focusing with the kids on school.  I have never figured out how to develop that clever “quiet time” habit some moms have of sending the kids to play quietly in their rooms for a certain amount of time.  Instead, I encourage the kids to pursue their interests and hobbies many afternoons.  For the boys this may mean playing more legos, drawing, pretending, or playing outside.  Miss M often reads or does a craft project of some sort.

I try to grab a few minutes to relax, and then spend some time doing chores or cooking (often with Baby J following me around and playing near me, if he isn’t playing with his brothers!).  Miss M often has chores assigned to her as well that she needs to complete sometime in the afternoon.

Of course, some afternoons I have a project in mind for the kids — whether it be arts and crafts, cooking, or maybe even a longer science activity.  And some afternoons we snuggle up on the couch and read together.

Usually about two days a week we are going somewhere in the afternoon — typically one day for an extra-curriculuar activity, and the other day for errands of some kind (library, Target, grocery store, etc).  That shapes our afternoon of course, though there is still time for free time and fun.

By late afternoon, we have some clean-up time to attempt to tame the chaos around the house.  We also often have some screen time in the late afternoon — “fun” iPad game turns (no educational games required during a “fun” turn) or a Netflix/DVD show of some sort (I try and encourage at least semi-educational choices).   I will often be making dinner or dealing with kitchen chaos while this is going on…or relaxing if it has been a hard day!

The end of the day…

After dinner finds us doing a variety of family activities or needed chores depending on the night.  Bedtime brings one final piece of our “school day” in a sense — I almost always read aloud to Miss M for at least 30 minutes at bed time — this is when we read longer chapter books (history related or otherwise) that are beyond the boys’ interest or understanding at this point.

While no two days are exactly the same in our family, this represents the way our basic routine looks as of early 2013!

I’m joining in with the “Day in the Life” link-up at simplehomeschool.net!

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Maple Syrup Snow Candy January 29, 2013

Filed under: Books,Fun Stuff and Extras,History — kirstenjoyhill @ 6:06 am
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This is an activity that has literally been years in the making for our family.  🙂 I’m not sure if it was after I first read “Little House in the Big Woods” out loud to Miss M or if it was on a later re-reading, but we found this passage inspiring:

“They all hurried to the kitchen for plates, and outdoors to fill the plates with snow…Grandma stood by the brass kettle and with the big wooden spoon she poured hot syrup on each plate of snow.  It cooled into soft candy, and as fast as it cooled, they ate it.  They could eat all they wanted, for maple sugar never hurt anybody.”

Two winters ago, we had plenty of snow.  Miss M asked me several times if we could buy real maple syrup to make the maple sugar candy.  I never quite got around to buying the maple syrup.  Then last winter we had very little snow, and not much at any one time when we did get any.

For months before this winter, the kids were asking, “Mom, is THIS the year we’ll make the maple syrup snow candy?” I resolved to finally make it happen.   I found real Maple Syrup at Aldi after our first snow of the year had mostly melted (yea for bargains!), and then we just had to wait for another significant snowfall.  It’s been a dry winter, but we finally got a few inches of snow on Sunday.

After reading a recipe or two, as well as the comments about those recipes…I decided that maybe it didn’t really matter exactly how I made this maple syrup snow treat.  Microwave the syrup? Use room temperature syrup?  Random people on the internet made me think this easy solution would work just as well as the complicated idea of boiling the syrup on the stove to a certain temperature.  Here’s what it looked like on our first effort:

 

Maple snow candy take 1

The result was more like…maple-flavored snow cones? Or maybe a bit like a maple “ice cream” of sorts?

I didn’t want our memory of this activity to be so un-candy-like, so I thought we could try again the next day. After a bit more reading, I decided maybe the recipes were right — We needed the syrup heated up to a higher temperature for the syrup to turn into candy.  I don’t own a candy thermometer, so I had to rely on the cold water test to determine if my syrup was hot enough.

Here’s take two:

Maple syrup snow candy 2

Our result was much better, but still overcooked.  I under estimated the time it would take Miss M to retrieve a pan of snow from outside.  Meanwhile, my syrup got hotter and hotter — almost to the point of burning.  It was probably at stage 5, the hard crack stage, instead of stage 1 the soft ball stage!   But luckily, hotter produces candy of some variety!

Our candy was not taffy-like at all, but hard and brittle…yet still tasty (if a bit burnt tasting!). I also realized as I was making this that using a sheet of ice would produce pretty much the same result.  Of course, in the pioneer days of Little House in the Big Woods, no such sheets of ice were conveniently available in the kitchen.    But in this modern day and age, if it is just the maple candy taffy “result” we are looking for, there’s no need to wait for a snow day! 🙂

There is a lot of potentially interesting science study involving the science of sugar and candy-making.  I found this unit study on candy to be very interesting! I didn’t spend a lot of time looking, but I’m sure there are many more candy science resources to be found.

I may try the maple syrup candy yet again with a candy thermometer, just to say I’ve mastered this generations-old treat…or maybe we’ll move on to making the best-possible rock candy.  That’s what the kids are voting for!

 

“The Year of the Horseless Carriage 1801” by Genevieve Foster January 28, 2013

Filed under: Books,History — kirstenjoyhill @ 6:00 am

Inventions and inventors are often a topic of interest for our family, so I was intrigued when I ran across The Year of the Horseless Carriage 1801 by Genevieve Foster.   In this book Foster weaves together a narrative of  early 19th century progress and invention with threads of world history that were occurring at the same time.

The “horseless carriage” in this case is essentially a stem engine on wheels — more of a precursor to the locomotive than the automobile (the device more commonly referred to as a horseless carriage).  Richard Trevithick is an English engineer with plenty of ideas about how to use the steam engine to make a useful vehicle.  He may have been a little ahead of his time,  but his ideas paved the way for more modern locomotives.  At about the same time American inventor Robert Fulton wondered what would happen if he put a steam engine in a boat, and had a bit more long term success from his endeavors.

While telling the stories of Trevithick, Fulton and others that collaborated with them, Foster also tells the stories of a few major socio-political events of the first two decades of the 19th century — including Napoleon, Lewis and Clark and the War of 1812. She also weaves Beethoven into her story — I hadn’t exactly realized he was contemporary to this time period.  An interesting note here is that apparently Beethoven greatly admired Napoleon at one point and originally dedicated his 3rd symphony to him — but rescinded the dedication after it became apparent that Napoleon was turning into a cruel tyrant.

I read this book aloud to Miss M and Mr. E.  They enjoyed it enough to typically ask me for more after I read a few pages.  🙂  Some of the material in this book was repetitive for us since we were also reading A New Nation by Betsy Maestro at the same time.  I skipped a few pages and paragraphs here and there to make sure the kids didn’t get too bored with the repetition.

Overall, we all enjoyed Foster’s very engaging narrative style.  She is really telling a story with history.  Because we were reading other books about the same time period as well, I might have enjoyed a book just about the inventors and inventions written in the same style a bit more — but especially for anyone looking for just a brief introduction to this time period (1801 to 1821), this book is a good choice. At only 92 pages (which include quite a few nice black and white illustrations drawn by the author), it didn’t really take us too many sittings to read this book.

I’ve checked out a few other of Foster’s books from our library, but those were a bit longer both in page length and amount of time covered — I’ll be keeping those in mind for the future when the kids are a bit older.

 

 

 

Tiny Treats January 26, 2013

Filed under: Creativity,Fun Stuff and Extras — kirstenjoyhill @ 8:00 am

Miss M just loves finding interesting craft and activity books from the library and working on the projects in her free time.  She recently found an American Girl activity book called Tiny Treats, and was eager to make a few of the miniature goodies.

We’ve had sub-zero weather the past several days here in Minnesota, so we stayed home as much as we could — we really didn’t even leave the house on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday this past week! It was the perfect time to work on a couple of these projects.  Miss M selected “mini donuts” made from cereal and “watermelon” made from jello and limes:

 

Tiny Treats Jan 2013

 

The kids had a “tea party” with apple cider in tiny doll-sized cups to go with the “donuts,” while Miss M served us the “watermelon” another day as a dessert after dinner.  Did you see my “Tiny Treat” in the collage?  I’ll take an Espresso Con Panna and a dark chocolate kiss as a treat any day!

 

I’m linking up with…

Highhill Homeschool
 

Collage Friday: New and Fresh January 25, 2013

Filed under: Weekly Highlights — kirstenjoyhill @ 10:02 pm

I’m really enjoying how our “second semester” is going so far.  I hadn’t planned ahead of time to make a lot of changes to our curriculum line up, but a few small changes have added up to a feeling of “freshness” to the new calendar year and the second half of our academic year.  No winter blahs for us, despite the sub-zero weather!  Here are a few highlights from our schoolwork this week:

2013-01-25

1.  We’ve been a bit slack on our family science lessons with BFSU this school year, for a variety of reasons.  But this week we started a Rock and Mineral unit, using some inspiration from a couple different BFSU lessons, Rock and Mineral study kits, and books and videos from the library.  Besides having fun with the study kits, this week I also read a Magic Schoolbus chapter book to the kids entitled “Rocky Road Trip.”

2.  Miss M probably got the most out of the experience with the Rock and Mineral kits.  She found a favorite rock from her personal collection, and wrote “My rock study” on a blank piece of paper, and and tried to identify her rock using the tests we learned about in the kits.  We didn’t quite get to the bottom of  her rock’s identity though.

3.  I’m teaching 1st/2nd grade science at our co-op this year, and my lesson this week was on inertia (BFSU lesson C-5).  My kids enjoyed helping me practice my activities and demonstrations.

4. Mr. E continues to enjoy the challenge of two digit plus two digit addition in RightStart B.  This week he did lesson 75 and most of lesson 76.  We also read 4 chapters of  Life of Fred Apples (The level is appropriate for Mr E, but Miss M listens in for fun).   The kids would probably do the entire book in a week if I would let them!  Miss M continued with lots of  multiplication practice (via iPad apps, music, games, and worksheets) and finished up a section of Math Mammoth 3-B on rounding and estimation.

5-6.  We started Sentence Family this week for a fun introduction to grammar and it was a HUGE hit! Sentence Family takes a fun “art and storytelling” approach to basic grammar.  I intended it to be just for Miss M, but after the boys overheard a bit of the first chapter and saw the drawing Miss M made, they insisted on listening as well.   After that first day, all three kids old enough to draw came to listen when it was time for this study.  You’ll see in picture #6 I made some very basic notebook pages to go along with each character.  I don’t think Mr. K (Pre-K) is getting much out of it — he just likes to draw.  But I think Mr. E (K’er) is “getting it” just about as much as Miss M (3rd grade) is.  I’m sure I’ll have more to say about this fun program in the near future.

Not Pictured: 

Spelling/Phonics: Everyone had another great week with Logic of English.  Miss M finished lesson 23 of Essentials, while Mr. E finished lessons 51-53 of Foundations.  I worked with Mr. K on lessons 9-10 of Foundations — I didn’t quite get as much quality time with him this week on his phonograms and writing.  That’s okay — there’s no rush with my not-quite-4-year-old.  🙂

History: We started our next unit in our US History studies.  We’re now up to the period of time between the War of 1812 and the Civil War — So essentially about 1815-1860.   The main focus of our study will be the Pioneers and westward expansion, but we’ll hit briefly upon other major events of that period like the Trail of Tears, the Alamo, etc.   We’ll save some of the major topics about slavery as a prelude to our study of the Civil War.   I don’t have a spine text or key text I’m super excited about for this period, but we are trying out a bit of This Country of Ours by H.E. Marshall.  This is an older work and requires an occasional bit of “editing” as I read for dated (aka somewhat racist) language, but I like how it gives an overview of American history while still being engaging in its tone.   Of course we also have an overflowing book basket of books for Miss M to read independently or me to read out loud.

And finally…Guitar Lessons: Miss M had her first-ever guitar lesson this afternoon.  We got the two older kids a guitar for Christmas, but we’re going to wait on formal lessons for Mr. E until his hands are just a little bigger and he has a bit more patience for practicing.  Miss M is very eager to learn and we found a teacher that I think will be a good fit for her, at a location that is a very reasonable drive from our house.   She has been asking for music lessons for quite a while, and I am so excited for her to be starting this journey.

Have a wonderful weekend!

 

I’m linking up with Collage Friday and The Weekly Wrap-Up!

Homegrown Learners