How The Dog Starts Our Day

It's a typical morning. Even though we close all bedroom and bathroom doors. Like they caution about leaving kids in cars, "It only takes a minute." The following all took place before breakfast.

Loves Q-tips. Must be used ones. This is what he's after in the trash. 

Simply rooting through the garbage is nothing special. 

For pencils, he also climbs onto chairs. So we have tried keeping them on a shelf next to the school table. He climbs on the table and reaches up to the shelf.

For toothbrushes, he climbs onto the toilet, then to the sink and walks around choosing who's he wants today. (Usually mine, but he has developed a taste for Father R's too.)

 

And then there are Mei's dolls. We have several "Venus di Milo's" with missing limbs. Also faces from "Night of the Living Dead." This is one that narrowly escaped with only chunks of hair ripped out.

It's a dangerous world in our house for anything that's not in a vault.

Bird's-Eye View of the Week: Snow Days: Another Reason to Homeschool

From the looks of posts on Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers' blog  there are LOTS of people's weeks being upended by snow disruptions. I can commiserate. Last year Old Man Winter had the Mid-Atlantic is his sights. Our PS kids lost so much schooltime, there weren't even enough "make-up" days at the end of the year to right the balance. Adjustments even  had to be made for graduation requirements.

Last year. Not to be repeated, we hope.

  At first, our homeschool's plan was to give a "snow day" when the PS closed. But after a couple of times of that, we adjusted to having half-days. This seemed fair since we can get done in about half the time of a PS kid's regular day, so Mei would be able to keep up with her studies and still be free to play with the neighbors who were sleeping in most days anyway!

   I think the Ambleside Online team even posted on their Yahoo Group site how to share AO with those PS families whose kids were getting woefully behind.

   I also feel sorry for the PS families who just don't know what to do with their kids!

"My kids are driving me crazy!" "My kids are bored!"

 "I'm tired of making cookies!"

 What a shame. When I read these things, I'm thankful that MY "blessing" is NOT bored, and that she does NOT drive me crazy--at least by being home anyway! :-D Snow Days: Another Reason to Homeschool.

      We had a "Surprise Snow"last week that caused a lot of chaos in the area, especially where the Grand-Robins live. Hundreds of thousands of outages and commuters stuck on DC roads for many, many hours, our fledged DD included. So once again, keeping to our routines as best as possible allowed school to continue in the midst of it. Yet we were able to flex and assist family members as well.
    This week's weather promised chaos and then didn't deliver, which can be chaotic anyway. Thus despite  the weather's best attempts to disrupt our educational routines, we marched onward. 

    In History, we've been reading about happenings on both Sides of the Pond. On America's side, from  This Country of Ours we read about Jamestown's beginnings through the Starving Time. I contrasted the horrors of surviving when 5/6ths of the population died--mostly from the results of their indolence---to the rather squeaky-clean site we had visited down in Virginia. Nonetheless, the site's webpage has lots of good teaching tools that we may use to advance our study. On the other side of the pond, from An Island Story is James I of England and the inspirational story of Jenny Geddes who stood up to the King and his "reforms" of the early Presbyterian Church in Scotland. Moral: Don't mess with a Scot, especially a woman!

     Enchanted Learning.com provided us with some quick color-and-fill-in-the-blank maps of Virginia to add to Mei's knowledge of the geography of the area. I've been sneaking in more Geography that way.

     Math was about as much fun as a fall on the ice a unit ago when Mei was confronted with Multiple-Digit Multiplication with Regrouping. Even the name sounds daunting.  She struggled so much with the addition part that she failed a test for the first time in her Math "Career." Testing the ideas of Amy Chua ,the now-famous , or infamous, Tiger Mother, I demanded that Mei work and rework each problem until it was correct. One day took four hours of math alone. I could feel the cold, hard stare of Charlotte "Short Lesson" Mason on my neck.   Whether or not it was worth the trouble, Mei has improved dramatically. She only got one problem wrong on the latest test. Because she is a dawdler and dreamer, perhaps knowing how painful reworking will be, she may be paying closer attention the first time around. Close attention. Now that's something Charlotte can agree with.

  Reading and Life

Mei was inspired by a Reading lesson to make the recipe she had studied. I never

would have taken the thing seriously, but

I'm glad she did. The Energy Bars were delicious and the best part was she made them with very little help from me. Masterly Inactivity. Now Charlotte can even be proud of me!

Art and Nature Study were combined through Harmony Art's Year 3 program through which we have lately focused on the works of John James Audubon. I carefully selected several of his prints to copy and hang in our Powder Room Gallery. These included our State Bird, the Little Auk as mentioned in Laura Ingalls Wilder's The Long Winter,  the Passenger Pigeon, a beautiful bird which we will never see in life due to its extinction, and an American Woodcock so we could see what our English Cocker Spaniel was bred to hunt. (We thought it was house cats and stuffed animals.) Mei created her most successful painting assignment yet of a blue jay from a life photo.



Music  Concluding the week was a field trip to the Meyerhoff to hear the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's BSO Kids Mid-Week concert  performance of  works by Beethoven narrated by the great composer himself! Where else are we going to hear concert hall performances for $6?? 

She liked this because it had a dog in it.

More Art Appreciation  Then we made it a double trip by stopping into the Walter's Art Museum and viewing the Renaissance and Baroque exhibits along with a quick trip through the special exhibit focusing on animals in  Medieval manuscripts. Seeing those books in person is so awe-inspiring! Impossible to imagine the hours and years that would go into the creation of ONE book! No wonder the printing press changed history!





We found a Rafael!



  



Anthing can make a jump,
but watch your step in the
Livng Room!

So with rain on top of snow Mei will get her exercise at the barn and then spend the afternoon riding around her own outdoor and truly  "indoor  arenas".  And that's how you get an education despite "snow days".

So how do you deal with bad weather?











My Multi-Tasking Dog: A Chew Toy and Toothbrush in One!

Too bad the toothbrush is mine!!

Menu Plan Monday

Hi, all y'all,
I jumped back on FlyLady's bandwagon a couple of months ago and her Habit of the Month in November was ---ta-da---Menu Planning! After 2 months now I feel I'm really getting the feel for this after having had false starts in the past. As a homeschooling mom (read full-time volunteer educator) I have to get routines like this going to save my skin.
But this is the first time I've posted to MPM since last spring, so here goes for this week:


Monday: We travel to coop. Need a meal ready on our return. Therefore Crockpot to the Rescue!

Beef Stroganoff in the Crockpot

DD slices the shrooms. Check out the manicure!

Nothing challenging; I'll just follow the directions on the Lipton Beefy Onion Soup Mix package. This took about 5 minutes to put together because I bought beef already cubed. I speed-sliced my mushrooms (with the 10-yo's help!) using my egg slicer, a tip I learned from my Pampered Chef consultant.

Here's the recipe if you want to know if it's something you'd want to make (or if YOUR package doesn't have the recipe on it).
2# boneless chuck steak, cut into 1-inch pieces
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
10 oz. mushrooms, sliced
1 envelope Lipton Recipe Secrets Beef Onion Soup Mix
1/2 tsp. dried thyme, crushed
1 can (15 0z.) diced tomatoes
1 container (8 z.) sour cream

1. In slow cooker, toss beef with flour. (This tip alone was worth trying the recipe. I've always gotten another dish dirty doing this separately.) Stir in remaining ingredients EXCEPT sour cream. Cook covered  on Low for 8-10 hours or HIGH 4-6 hours until meat is tender.
2. Stir in sour cream. Serve over hot cooked noodles.


Tuesday : A busy day at the barn AND a busy night at Pioneer Girls Club with a staff meeting for leaders this week. We need quick and easy. It's usually the night I treat (myself) to a frozen entree.
This week: Lasagna a la Stouffer's and a green veg and crusty bread.


Wednesday Bible Study in the morning and some errands ( or not if we get the predicted messy weather :-o  )
Either way, this looked good and easy:
Grilled Bruschetta Chicken
scalloped potatoes, a green veg


ThursdayA stay-at-home day.Yeah! I want to try new vegetarian dishes. I had most of these ingredients on hand.
Vegetarian Moussaka


Friday TGIF!
D-I-Y Pepperoni and Anchovy Pizzas using frozen bread dough. Salad.


Saturday
DH's Choice. He loves to cook and I love to let him!


Sunday
Acorn Squash Soup. We had this in December and I've been thinking about it ever since.

We'll see if the Mid-Atlantic gets snow this week. If so I better stock up on bread and milk NOW!! (LOL)

Head over to Menu Plan Monday for lots, lots more dining ideas.

Starry, Starry Winter Nights: HNS Winter Wednesday Challenges

Pop quiz! What is the best season to star-gaze? No, not summer, but WINTER! The freezing cold air, if you have any where you live, makes for super-clear skies free of moisture and its attendant pollution. Think about it. When do most cities issue air-quality alerts? Good, you got that question.

Besides, star-gazing in winter encourages us to get outside for fresh air when we're wanting to the least. The days are shorter so you don't have to keep the kids up nearly as late to see stars as you would have to in summer. And it's kind of a hoot to be walking around in the dark bundled up like polar bears!
So along comes one of the Queens of homeschooling helps, Barb the Harmony Arts Mom , with her Winter Wednesdays to give us lots of nature study in a season when we least expected it.
We are following Ambleside Online's Year 3 schedule, and have been enjoying Charles Kingley's The Heroes (which you can read here free online) about some of the human (or part-god, part-human) heroes from Greek myth such as the stories of Perseus,and Jason and the Golden Fleece. Once again, I am surprised and delighted at MeiWei's enthusiasm for this book after just a couple of readings.

To expand on her learning, we have added some casual study of the constellations that correlate with the characters read.

The Dover coloring book, Constellations of the Night Sky by Bruce LaFontaine has many outline drawings both illustrating scenes such as Perseus with Medusa along with drawings of the constellations that would be found in the night sky.
I have Mei color while I read, then if it's a constellation, she places star stickers where the stars would be--indicated on the coloring page--in various sizes associated with the magnitude of those stars. Some of the more important stars she labels such as Sirius.

We will be looking for some of theses constellations using simple locators like Klutz's laminated pocket-size pullout, "Backyard Stars". The plastic and portable size would make this a great thing to bring along to a camp-out.

Another online resurce for constellation outlines is Crayola.com's connect-the-dots coloring pages.


We always enjoy Handbook of Nature Study's "classes". The new Winter Wednesdays will encourage us to get outside even in winter, the best time of year
for sky-gazing!