Thanksgiving Madness...Written by Dodger

Meringue

In the last couple of weeks I made a cake, a pie and almond cookies. The cake was coconut-cream topped with meringue. I got the idea for the cake from a Fine Cooking magazine but don’t expect to see it in a recent issue because the one I got it from was dated back to December 2009. It took about three days to make and had me real cranky by the time I was done. The pie only took a few hours and I did it the night before Thanksgiving. Kitten and Sailor were out kayaking with Dad so Mom and I were left to the baking. I worked on my cake filling then did the pie. It was apple pie with extra cinnamon. I made the finishing touch by adding a pastry flower to the top.

Almond cookies with powdered sugar

The almond cookies were actually treats for when we went to our friends Sparrow and Winter’s house and had little to do with Thanksgiving but I want to include them because they are fun and new. They are basically butter cookies, you just substitute half of the butter for almond paste and add almond extract.  

Apple pie

Making advent calendars

We took Thanksgiving week off and on Monday Sparrow and Winter came over to our house to make advent calendars. Rather than taking the little chocolates from behind the doors each day (like the ones Grandma usually buys) we add a star to the calendars we made ourselves (I liked the old way). And on a final note, Mom asked me my opinion on homeschooling vs. public schooling. A couple of things I like about homeschooling are...

• It’s more flexible than public school, for example; if we want to go on a walk or let out some energy we can.
• My family feels closer; I am able to be around them more.
• I get to sleep in more; hey, I’m tired!

November campfire in the sun...Sailor's perfect marshmallows!

The thing I miss most about public school is seeing my friends and my teachers.  I get to see them at basket ball in the winter and soccer in the summer but it’s not quite the same. I also miss getting together and playing soccer at recess, although I do play a lot with my brother and sister. 

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving, personally I never want to see a turkey again!

PS.  Mom had us each memorize a poem to recite for Thanksgiving and mine is below.

FINALLY!  The chickens are laying!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kitten's Thanksgiving roses

A Late Walk By Robert Frost

Family hike during deer hunting season!!

 When I go up through the mowing field,
The headless aftermath,
Smooth-laid like thatch with the heavy dew,
Half closes the garden path.

And when I come to the garden ground,
The whir of sober birds
Up from the tangle of withered weeds
Is sadder than any words

A tree beside the wall stands bare,
But a leaf that lingered brown,
Disturbed, I doubt not, by my thought,
Comes softly rattling down.

I end not far from my going forth
By picking the faded blue
Of the last remaining aster flower
To carry again to you.

Finishing up with Fall

We picked all our flowers to enjoy in case Sandy hit us hard!

 I feel at this time of year that I've trod on a "Slip'N'Slide" and it's one long slip into the next one.  The Fall and early winter are so packed with holidays and activities in the United States that it's hard to relax until you're up to your neck in January snow and winter has truly set in.

"Lela" Kitten's Araucana

On the everyday front we've been doing lots of learning through just simply living.  The kids have been recruited to stack wood, clean up the garden and yard and generally get ready for winter.  Our chickens, who are pushing 7 months, are still not laying well so we've decided to give them more love and attention (since they already have fresh water, organic feed, loads of delicious scraps, and a well insulted coop with a lake view-'cmon ladies!).  I was also motivated to clip their flight feathers to avoid escapees and needed partners in crime.

Sailor's art

Hold still!

We spent an afternoon catching, clipping, naming and photographing all the chickens.  Then the kids adopted some for their own and we've been working on watercolors of our chickens as a sort of reference. I've also added a light to the coop to give them at least 14 hours of daylight now that the days are darker.

Digging for treasured potatoes!

"Hermione" sans poop.

Child labor

More Sailor art

On the subject of animals it was our black cat's 13th birthday on Halloween this year and so he was treated like a king with candles in some (gross, wet) cat food-see the photo!  The kids were all agreed in being scary for Halloween which we wholeheartedly support, even Kitten decided to be a "dead" bridesmaid.  We live in a rural community so there's no real door-to-door candy collection, instead the town does "Trunk or Treat" and folks get themselves and their vehicles dressed up and hand out candy at the school parking lot...it's a fun time and there's a clear end which, as a parent, I appreciate.

Happy 13th birthday Mr. Black Kitty

On the official  home school front we have been working on our usual math and reading but we've been doing more writing which I am happy about since it's an area I think the kids need to practice often.  The kids wrote ghost stories and turned them into books with pictures and a front cover painted.  We also listened to Garrison Keeler's Halloween audio CD and took a spooky walking tour at a local town cemetery.  But by far the most successful creative writing exercise I've initiated so far was having the kids pick characters, locations, and "triggers" from a hat and then giving them a half hour to write a story.

Here's what I did...I took small pieces of paper and wrote names on them, all sorts of names like Mr. Fizzy, Drex and Geraldine and put them in a hat.  Then I wrote down locations, for example...the desert, a toy store, a field in winter, and put those in another hat.  And finally I wrote down "triggers" like, "Your main character can time travel", "Dinosaurs have returned", "Money grows on trees" and put these ideas in a hat.  I let the kids choose as many names as they liked and reminded them that the characters didn't have to be people.  Then they each chose one location and one trigger.  I set the timer and they wrote stories.

It may seem that I gave them too much to go on, but the purpose of the exercise (the intended purpose) was to show the kids they can do it.  They can churn out stories and not get hung up on the details such as a character's name.  Picking the ideas out of a hat was really fun and I will certainly use this game again.  The kids are very concerned about getting it "right" the first time and I want to shake that notion from them.  We proof read, we discuss what makes a good story and we talk about the process of flushing out ideas and trying things rather than expecting perfection.  However, I do want them to write with ease since it is an essential skill.  I feel if you can't write well (and quickly) then your learning is seriously impaired.  If you spend too much time in simply translating thoughts to paper you don't have time left to really explore the ideas in depth. 

I see snowy-rain coming as I write so I should go and gather the boys up...they've been outside by the fire playing a game where they are giants.  It sounds complicated.  I wanted to write about the experience of blending with the public school community now that we are home schooling...but I guess that'll have to wait til next time.  For the two of you (probably my parents :) who are reading the blog can you try to leave a comment?  I think there may be issues with this on the blog...though I have been able to leave a comment myself.

The LAST mow..in October

Montpeculiar.

First off FALL!  There are no words that have been left unsaid about this wonderful season in New England.  We took a drive to our state's capital and I couldn't help filling with a sense of pride and love cruising through the mountains with the wild gray clouds above.  Fan-bloomin'-tastic. 

We went to Montpeculiar to go to the History Museum, attending our first official "home school" class was enlightening.  I looked around at the other creatures of home school and felt reassured and intimidated..that's a smart group of kids.  One parent started talking to me about a classical education which I promptly came home and googled.  I had assumed she meant reading classic books and so on but it turns out it's more of a movement including studying Ancient Greece, the Renaissance, and Reformation.  I have barely begun to look into it so I feel very naive at the moment....more on classical education to come I'm sure, since (apart from the learning Latin part) it's piqued my interest..

Sailor and Kitten on the capital steps

Our days are much more peaceful than a month ago.  A typical day now looks like this...

Between 8-9am -up and dressed and breakfast
Math for an hour or so
Work on our ghost stories
Reading with Sailor
Reading a chapter a day of Animal Farm with Dodger-good for discussing topics like socialism vs communism and when he reads out loud I can really get a feel for his understanding and pronunciation of the text.
Lunch
Free time-LEGO, computer time, cooking, art, walks.

Lemon Raspberry Meringue!

Usually an evening soccer game for Dodger.
Dinner
Bath and more reading before bed...still on The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe with Sailor though he's requesting Harry Potter instead.  I can't blame him, C.S. Lewis is pretty dark and humorless.  And, although I'll probably get in trouble for this, I have to say I don't remember enjoying the books much as a child and the movies (like the books) are really violent.  Dodger is working his way through DCF books...voraciously.

I've added some pics of how our fossils turned out as well as our trip to the capital.  We made a couple of fun stops while we were in Montpeculiar, picking out yarn for Sailor's mittens...luminous green and red, at least they'll be easy to find even if they make me queasy!  And a visit to the NECI bakery which was especially fun since Dodger has now decided he'd like to be a pastry chef.  He's always loved baking and I am behind this decision all the way!  Last weekend he made us a chocolate caramel tart...sorry, no pics we ate it too fast.  I think he is newly inspired by the graphic novel we borrowed from the library called "Bake Sale" by Sarah Varon...Cupcake is now Dodger's hero.

Homemade fossils

Impressions in clay of found objects from our walk....

...painted in acrylic and then finished with sparkly Mod Podge.

Rocks...igneous? sedimentary? metamorphic?

The beautiful yarn was a gift from a friend who spins!

Rainy weekend...rainy week ahead.  I had an inkling that this may happen.  That is, we would plummet into the dark days of Fall and Winter and suddenly time would free up for lessons.  Now I'm wishing I hadn't stressed myself out by starting schooling when it was in the 80's!

Brothers...makes me smile.

Outside is a wet shiny world of yellows and greens and the flaming leaf tips are beginning.  It makes me think of Scotland or Appalachia.  There's a mist of clouds hanging over the mountains and the lake has turned to slate gray. Very beautiful.  We started the pellet stove for an hour on Sunday and I've knitted two and half pairs of mittens so far.  As Ned Stark (aka lovely Sean Bean) would say, "Winter is Coming" ;)

Grandma was here at the end of last week and she planned a field trip the Geology Museum at the local University.  It's basically one room with lots of rocks and reading which, to a school group, would probably be really dry.  But since we were able to hang out one-on-one with Dodger and Sailor it was more interesting than I could have imagined.  I felt that we absorbed a lot about the history of where we live and the kids maintained focus for a couple of hours in that small museum.  As we learn more and more about the Champlain Basin it seems important to add some hands on activities.

The kids have been working on timelines and the concept of scale with Grandma, creating their own time lines with photos.  And this has been a fun exercise beyond reading, writing and listening.  Over the past weekend we decided to stretch our legs and we went on a hunt for things in nature to bring home and make our own fossils out of.  As usual it was a challenge to motivate folks at first but by the end of the walk I was shivering and desperate for a cup of tea, whereas the kids had found "rock entertainment" they didn't want to leave.

Kitten was busy throwing rocks and collecting "puzzle rocks", basically ones that have broken into pieces and can be fitted back together.  Sailor found an old railroad tie and smashed rocks...testing Moh's hardness scale I guess!  Eventually he decided to bring home some shale to grind to powder and try to make ink.  And  Dodger made rock sculptures.

Choosing bumpy, textured leaves.

Smashing rocks!

Dodger's art with found objects ;)

Back home in the warm!

The clay was very stinky, despite being non-toxic!

After hot chocolate, pie and  healthy dose of LEGO play we made our fossils in clay...we'll see how they turn out once they are dry, I'm thinking possible Christmas ornaments.  They remind me of ornaments my stepmother made when I was a teenager...maybe that's where I got the idea!

I'm thinking about making homemade geodes next....and we'll be taking a field trip to the oldest coral reef in the world when Grandma comes back next time.  Luckily, it happens to be about 15 miles from here :)

Yummy Enchiladas-Written and Cooked By Dodger

 

 Tonight we made enchiladas. They are completely made out of local food, at least the veggies are because they are from our garden! It was a lot of fun making them because I got to help. Plus I got to use our new bowling ball handled knife! I was cutting onions but refused to stop for so long that when I was done my eyes burned.

Here’s our recipe…

All the tomatoes green and red left in the garden, about 10 large and 30 smalls-sliced

Peppers, green and red from the garden-sliced

3 cloves of garlic smashed

1 small onion sliced

1 bunch of cilantro-chopped

1 tsp of cumin

1 tsp of coriander

Salt and pepper

2 Tblsp of olive oil

2 cups of water or broth

Sauté onion, garlic, spices in olive oil.  Add tomatoes, peppers, and water and simmer 30 minutes.  Purée into a sauce.

In other words we mixed it all together.  Then dip corn tortillas in the sauce, filled the sauce covered tortillas with refried beans and cheese or a filling of your choice.  Wrap and place in an oven dish.  Once you have filled and rolled all the tortillas cover with the remaining sauce and grated cheese and bake at 350F for 35 minutes.

Serve with rice and salad!

“If God dwells inside us like some people say, I sure hope He likes enchiladas, because that's what He's getting”-Jack Handy

The famous bowling ball handled knife

Puppets, long division and learning to read!

Keeping busy on the boat, Dodger reads out loud.

Dodger has been working on his narrative about our sailing trip so we'll post that soon!  The multi-day sailing trip was a success, if only that we learned that it is possible to live together, cook together, weather high winds together and even floss our teeth on our boat without a murder.  We sailed south and it was a mini adventure.  What impressed me so much is that the kids never seem bored even though we sailed hours and hours and hours.  Not that they don't crank and bicker and do what kids do (and grown ups too).  But I'm noticing that they seem to get along better these days and I can't help but think it has to do with the slower pace of life now that we aren't on a traditional school schedule.  It isn't uncommon these last few weeks to find the kids playing card games together or kicking the soccer ball around outdoors together or just generally being more supportive of each other and less competitive.  It could be the change in seasons or who knows what and its early days to say it is due to home schooling, but life has been more peaceful than usual on that front.

Searching for treasure on land

How have we been learning?  Well, a variety of ways.  We do math everyday we can...even weekends sometimes and Dodger is working on long division puzzles this week, I've included a photo of his "workings out book" which he seems proud of since it looks to him like a mad scientist’s lab book!  We are working in Math Mammoth, which is going well.  The kids have a clear idea what they need to accomplish and we do it.  Sailor has been storming through addition 1-10 and we've switched to telling time for something new before we begin subtraction 1-10.  We'll also be focusing on money this week since we are planning to sell baked goods (pumpkin pasties as a nod to H.P.) at the "Home School Bake Sale" to benefit a local homeless shelter on Friday.  This opportunity segues into learning about homelessness in our community.  Which is a subject worth understanding and changing, in my opinion.

We managed to combine art, literature and writing into our Flint Heart project.  We read the book "The Flint Heart" which is on the Dorothy Canfield Fisher award nominee list as well as about to become a movie next year!  After reading the book Dodger and I broke the story down into the 8-point-story-arc and then made a puppet show script.  The kids all made the puppets and we put on a show for Sailor and Kitten's birthday party.  We made a "doorway" theater in our kitchen using fabric and cedar decorations.  The show was a hit and the kids now have puppet skills under their belts.  By creating the characters into puppets we had lots of talks about what type of traits each character has e.g. magical, mean, kind, curious and all in all it added so much more to the story for us.

Fum and the Magical Zagabog!  Gotta love those acorns!

To continue to tie our study of the lake together we have been reading Abenaki stories out loud and learning more about the native people of our area.  Popasquash has been working with the kids on their knot tying skills, hierarchy on a ship and nautical flags.  I came home from work on Sunday to find they’d spelled out “Hi Mom, We Love You Sugar” from the mast of our boat! And I replied “Whisky-Oscar-Whisky!”

Watercolor postcards ready to send!

Sailor and I read every day and it’s getting easier.  I can’t believe how much I’ve had to relearn in order to teach Sailor how to decipher words.  Curse the dratted English language and all its nonsense!!  Our favorite books so far?  Dr Seuss’ “Up!” and “I’m Not Getting Up Today!”  Which fits in perfectly with our sleepy heads…another added benefit of home schooling is sleeping in ‘til 8am!  8:30am in Dodger’s case ;)

The infamous "workings out book" of Dodger's

Yens and Euros and Dollars and Cents or "Stay in your own lane in the pool"

I realize I’ve referred to our year ahead as a “small and affordable vacation”.  In comparison to what I thought the future would hold as I daydreamed in my twenties this statement is true.  I saw us jet-setting around the world babies in tow, learning foreign languages, driving a rust free car…you know, those “when-I’m-a-real-grown-up” dreams.  A decade later, that didn’t happen.

Old pencils, sharpened and arranged to look like new!

The truth is that home schooling is not so affordable.  I find myself wishing for some of that school tax money back as I fork out for math text books and theater tickets and now that the “official” school year has begun I’m getting emails from all sorts re: classes for home schoolers.  They sound fun and they’d force us out of the house and I’m eager to sign up, but there’s the money question.

A couple of recent articles interviewing home schoolers have sparked my interest in discussing the affordability of home schooling.  The families interviewed are able to pay for their home school kids to attend multiple lessons outside of the home and in one case even pool together with another family to hire outside help to facilitate a home school co-op.  Yep, that’s not me.  Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think all home schoolers necessarily have "money".  If you live in our lovely state and can raise a family on one income you are way ahead of the game.  And I don’t claim that we can do it.

So far I have spent the following on home school…

$88 for 1^st & 5^th grade workbooks, tests and reviews for the entire school year

$120 for tickets for the family to attend 4 matinee performances at our local theater over the school year

$50 general paper supplies and I expect this to increase fast as we start to use up art supplies we already have and purchase new ones.

Of course the big money deficit is what we are missing now that I only work per diem.  

That may or may not seem reasonable depending on your point of view.  And point of view is what it all boils down to.  If you are like me, and I’ll admit I am overly curious, I am interested to know how other people are doing “it”.  I am the type of person would be quite happy to discuss the intricacies of your grocery shopping list and budget.  I am entertained by children who come to our house and naturally want to poke through our fridge.  Of course, who on earth is as interesting as other people?  Not to be immodest but I’m sure folks are wondering, as I have about others, how we plan to pull off home schooling when school provides the care for our kids so we can earn.

Money is that odd concept that we all have very specific views on, views that may seem like madness to the next person.

How are we going to do it?  Well, we’re taking a gamble.  We’re gambling that we can take on some debt and risks now in order to enjoy our youth and our kids, since, let’s face it, this youth and young family thing will end.  And because however far away fleeing the nest seems...it’s getting closer everyday. 

We spend money on time; in other words we lose money by not working so that we can have time with our kids.  Some of the places we save would probably make some squirm…

2^nd hand clothes…I don’t mean Salvation Army-that’s ritzy, they have price tags now!  I’m talking church basements. 

Eat out almost never, that includes coffee at gas stations. 

2^nd hand furniture

No cable

Hats in winter…I mean indoors.

What we spend big bucks on

Our mortgage

Our food and drink

Sailing

Being home with the kids

I had an instructor in nursing school who used to say “stay in your own lane in the pool”, she was referring to fear of bad grades but it works for money too.  It is next to impossible not to, but I try not to compare myself to anyone else.  It’s an uphill battle, especially when it comes to money.  But it just isn’t a linear process, money and feelings about money are too complicated.  Maybe you can pick up some tips from others but that’s about it.  It’s going to be a lean year and I hope we can catch up when it’s done.  I’m thinking a lot of art with found objects….