Finding a Solution That Works for Teaching MATH!

Don't you love it when you find a solution that works for a situation that was otherwise driving you mad?

So do I!

Or rather, I love it when the Lord graciously shows me a better way - usually after I've spent considerable time banging my head against a stone wall, trying a million and one ways that don't work.

This past month, that has happened with math - and I am very grateful for this!

In our current family dynamic, one ongoing challenge that we have is trying to work with two babies underfoot. Despite the use of playpens, blanket time, bouncer time, etc., getting our seat work done has been quite the challenge, especially as they are usually quite cranky by the time we get around to math. And if you've ever tried to teach math to a very distractable 7yo, with two cranky babies in the background, then you know how much of a problem this has been.

In one of my favorite homeschooling books, "A Mom Just Like You," Vickie Farris mentions one family of her acquaintance that gets up super-early and does all of their schoolwork before the babies and toddlers are up. Like Vickie, I thought, "That's nice, but it would never work for me." But it's been on my mind, and as the math situation escalated, I finally broke down and decided to give it a chance - at least partially - with math!

Thus, I've been getting up super-early with the 7yo to do math for two straight weeks now, and it has been an example of sheer awesomeness. This is an answer to prayer, and the way I plan to do this from now on!

With this method, we are completely free to work in a quiet environment, without interruptions or distractions, and it is a complete - and blessed - change from trying to shout over two toddlers while diving out of my seat every other second to pull one or the other out of whatever trouble he's into now.

Additionally, breaking up our seat work into two sessions - instead of one conglomerate lump - has been a huge blessing. Having a huge list of things to work through (math, copywork, handwriting, etc.) is depressing to both the 7yo and myself. Putting math in one time slot and writing in another really lessens the strain on our patience. It's much more doable.

Of course, when the 7yo gets up, he's not ready to dive right in, still being rather sleepy. To solve that, I simply put out one or two books to read to him, and by the time we're done, he's ready to go. More read-aloud time - an added bonus!

I am now in the process of adding our reading lesson to our morning time-slot, and that is also going well.

The one trade-off so far has been the loss of part of my morning "get stuff DONE" time, but it's worth it. And no one ever said that the home education journey was easy! It's a good trade-off.

With this change, we now have our daily lessons in three discreet time slots - early morning time (math and reading), couch time (Bible, catechism, Bible memory, safety skills, calendar, poetry, picture study), and late-morning seat work (handwriting, copywork, weekly map skills).

(There is also our afternoon read-aloud time, which covers science, history, and literature - but that is so much fun that it doesn't even feel like school! But I guess that you could say that our school day is divided into four parts if you want to count afternoon session.)

And there you have it. Another school problem solved - and I'm so grateful for the Lord's help in remedying what was otherwise a sticky and very troublesome issue in our home education journey.

Has anyone else tried the early-morning solution? Let me know how you like it! 

The 7yo and the 1yo together. The 1yo is cute, but there's no doubt that we get more done when he's SLEEPING!

Learning to Rejoice Over Spilled Milk!

This past week, we decided to head out to our local botanical gardens for their monthly free day, and we decided to combine that outing with our second annual Caramel Apple Party.

Sounds fun, no?

But this trip turned into more than just a double-outing - it turned into an object lesson on the value of rejoicing over "spilled milk" - over circumstances gone wrong.

It all started when we got to the botanical gardens. While waiting in line for our free passes, we noticed that people were... paying. Paying during free hours?? Yup. Without our knowing it, they had changed the free hours from 1:00-8:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. We arrived about 45 minutes after the free time ended.

What a bummer! We had really looked forward to seeing the botanical gardens during what is probably the nicest month of the year, weather-wise. We were really disappointed.

But in trying to find something else to do, we decided to go to a nearby park that we hadn't visited since before we had children - and in doing so, re-discovered one of our city's treasures. Though we had neglected this urban park, it was delightful, and we had a great time - especially DH and our eldest, who did the hike to the top of "Hole in the Rock" Mountain.

"Hole in the Rock" Mountain

The 7yo at the top!

Had the botanical gardens not been unexpectedly closed to us, we never would have re-discovered this awesome park. Score!

The view from the top! (You can see Yours Truly with the babies at the bottom near the picnic tables.)

After seeing the park and climbing the mountain, we headed to a park bench for our Caramel Apple Party. I unpacked the sprinkles, the caramel dip, the marshmallows, but... the apples? Crumbs. I'd left them at home. We had all of the toppings, and none of the apples.

Bummer again!!

Thankfully, though, I had brought a couple of bananas for our baby who can't handle apple-texture yet - and our Caramel Apple Party thus was instantly transformed into a Caramel Banana Party! Though it was a wee bit different, it was every bit as fun.

Score again!

None of these circumstances was life-changing or tragic. They were just minor inconveniences. But all of us are quite capable of letting small inconveniences translate into bad moods, snippy words, and a ruined afternoon full of lost tempers and irritation. This time, however, we let our circumstances transform our afternoon into something quite different but just as fun.

If only we could do that every time - we're working on it!

Have a wonderful night, everyone!

A Cure for Extreme Morning Sickness, Coming to a Blog Near You!

That sounds a bit far-fetched, doesn't it?

But, as a matter of fact, I'm not joking.

More details will be published soon, and in the meantime you can read the initial summary here. I can testify that yes, this is for real. This mama is a repeat-HG (six-time) mother, and she is just finishing up her first trimester... with no HG. I'm anxious for all of the details to be published (*hint*hint*hint*), but I wanted to link to the teaser so you can all be waiting on tiptoes!

Have a great night, everyone!

I've Found a Homeschool Schedule! {*Wild Celebration Ensues*}

For the first several years of our home education journey, I have not had a set yearly schedule - i.e. a pre-set schedule of start dates, end dates, and vacation times. I simply did what many people have told me that they do - go until you want a break, and then take a break.

Thus, we simply "did school" until I was so burned out that I couldn't take it any more, and then I'd throw up my hands and declare a holiday. It worked. Sort of.

But there were many disadvantages to this system.

Firstly, I am an organized-type of person. I like having a plan and knowing where I am. And with this random type of schedule, not only was there no plan (which always makes me uneasy), but I have had no idea of whether or not we're ahead, on schedule, or behind with our books.

Additionally, and perhaps more importantly, not having a schedule has robbed me of many joys - the joy of anticipating a vacation, the joy of having a vacation time that is well-planned (with crafts, activities, outings, etc.), the joy of celebrating the beginning of a vacation. Instead of coming to a Friday and being able to celebrate the beginning of a break, for example, with perhaps a special dinner and dessert and an outing, it's been mainly a matter of waking up on a Monday morning (with school previously planned) and realizing that I am too tired and worn-down to continue. Thus, we end up with vacations that are half-wasted and completely unprepared-for.

I needed a schedule!

As we go through our school years, I am realizing that a "Sabbath schedule" seems to fit our needs. This is basically a six-weeks-on, one-week-off type of schedule - it seems to be what comes naturally.

Last week, therefore, I sat down with my Outlook calendar and started marking down weeks on and weeks off to see what I ended up with, and I actually came up with what seems to be a wonderful schedule based on the Sabbath schedule model. It consists of six six-week terms, with a one week break in between each - except for summer break, which is six weeks, and Christmas break, which is four weeks.

Additionally, because I prefer to take our break-times during our more temperate Phoenix fall-winter time, our "summer" is in March/April rather than actual summer (when it's too hot to do anything outside around here!).

There is some additional tweaking I'd like to do - our summer break is still too late in the year for my liking, and I'd like to move some of our off-time to October (our most beautiful month!). Additionally, I'll have to give this schedule a whirl for a year or two before I'll know if it truly works.

But for now, here's what I've worked out!

Two additional benefits of having a schedule are (1) knowing my approaching deadlines, such as when I need to have year summaries written and lesson plans completed, and curriculum ordered, and (2) knowing how well we are keeping up with where we need to be in our books. For example, in figuring out (based on the schedule below) that we are now two weeks into our fourth term of the year, I find that we're just a wee bit behind - nothing to worry about, and nothing that we can't quickly make up. That was quite reassuring, and much to be preferred to the "I have no idea where we're supposed to be, and I sure hope we can finish before the end of the year" way of doing things!

Hopefully this chart is fairly clear - I have given the approximate dates of each term, then the length and timing of each subsequent break. For example, the first line shows that our "First Term" of the year is a six-week term occurring during May/June, ending in a one-week "Summer 1" break that will be in June.

Going by this calendar, our first day of school for the 2014-2015 school year will be May 19th, 2014. I may try to move that up a bit, so we'll see how it goes!!

Term	Term Dates, approx.	Term Length	Vacation/Break	Approx. Date
First	May-June	6 weeks	Summer 1 (1 wk)	June
Second	Jul-Aug	6 weeks	Summer 2 (1 wk)	August
Third	Sept-Oct	6 weeks	Fall (1 wk)	October
Fourth	Oct-Dec	7-8 weeks	Christmas (4 wks)	December
Fifth	Jan-Feb	6 weeks	Winter (1 wk)	February
Sixth	Feb-March	6 weeks	SUMMER (6 wks)	April - May

Homeschooling friends, I'd love to hear about your schedules! What have you worked out for your family? What works, what doesn't?

Cooking Through ENGLAND: Stottie Cake!

(Note: This article was written some time ago, which is why it may seem a bit out of order.)

As part of our unit study on ENGLAND, we have been cooking a ton of British food! Oh, goodness - it is so fun!

I know that England has a reputation for dull food, but I don't mind a bit - I love British food! In fact, I haven't tried anything yet that I haven't absolutely loved.

And so, to share our adventures with you, I thought I would provide brief write-ups - and pictures! - of some of our culinary adventures.

One of our first cooking adventures was Stottie Cake. Like many British foods, this has a confusing name - it's not a "cake" as Americans think "cake" - rather, it's a moist, heavy, unsweetened bread. The name comes from "stott", which means "to bounce" - which it is assumed that the bread would do if dropped! (It has a very heavy texture.) We absolutely loved it!

Stottie Cake is from the north of England, and it's often served stuffed with either Pease Porridge or bacon and eggs. We decided instead to be uncivilized rebels and serve it with butter and jam instead, and it was awesome.

(See more history on Stottie Cake here. I'm too lazy and tired to summarize it right now, so you'll have to go read it for yourself.)

We used this recipe, and it turned out very well. Note the following: (1) There is one error in this recipe - it never mentions what to do with the milk. Add it with the yeast/water. (2) You can let it rest a bit after shaping, before baking. (3) A half-recipe makes one large flattie. A full recipe will make two large flatties. If you want smaller flatties, it will, of course, make more!

Before baking, pricked with a fork and with the traditional hole in the middle:

After baking (it smelled delicious!):

Smothered with butter and jam. YUM.

For a slightly different recipe and a delightful video, see the following:

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Enjoy, everyone!!!

Cooking Through ENGLAND - Hasty Pudding!

In our current culinary adventure, "Cooking Through England," one of this week's projects was Hasty Pudding!

This, truly, was something I'd never had before. I didn't even know what it was!

But no matter. I quickly found a promising-looking recipe, and we gave it a whirl. I wasn't expecting anything amazing, so it was to my complete amazement that this dessert was a huge hit in our household, rocketing to the #2 spot in our family recipe rating system, garnering a 4.5 out of 5 score! (I believe that Stottie Cake is still holding the #1 position in our tour of English recipes, with a score of 4.6 - close!)

For the above recipe, I consulted the comments and made the following changes:

• I reduced the water and brown sugar to 1/3 cup each, and added 1/2 tsp. cinnamon to the sauce.
• We omitted the nuts (family preference only).
• I increased the flour to 1 cup.

As I said, it was a hit!

But then things got a bit confusing. Firstly, I noticed - after the fact - that this recipe reads, "It's an old German recipe my family has made for many holidays." 

German recipe? Oops.

And when I consulted our trusty Wikipedia on the subject of hasty pudding, I read:

"Hasty pudding is a pudding or porridge of grains cooked in milk or water."

Okay, that was definitely not what we made - the dish we made is basically sweetened biscuits in a sugar sauce.

(And, as a side note, I have no idea why someone posted a picture of chocolate pudding to go with this recipe. It has nothing to do with chocolate pudding!)

Upon reading further, I found that hasty pudding is a dish of many faces - it has many different meanings, and is present under many guises in many different countries. In American cooking, for example, it is a dish of cornmeal porridge. And:

"Polenta is the Italian version of hasty pudding, with corn substituted for the wheat originally used by the Romans. Mămăligă is the Romanian version, also made with corn."

Thus, one could spend quite a bit of time just making different ethnic versions of hasty pudding!

In the meantime, the version that we tried was excellent, and it was highly enjoyed by the entire family - everyone had seconds!

Enjoy!  

Hey, You! Wanna Play CHICKEN? (Zaycon Foods)

{Post contains a referral link - if you click on the link below, please use "ZF190988" as the referral name so that I can earn a dollar for referrals!}

Ladies and gentlemen, I want to put out a quick promotion for Zaycon Foods, purveyors of fine meat products (as well as milk, honey, and various fruits). We just picked up our second order of Zaycon boneless, skinless chicken breast, and again, their quality is excellent - as is the price! After our super-quick pick-up process (it's a literal drive-through meat pick-up!), we take home our chicken, spend an hour popping it into freezer bags, and voila! Chicken for the freezer!

Forty pounds of chicken! 

Chicken is sold in 40-lb. boxes, and the chicken event is held twice annually. I'd like to pick up two boxes (one wasn't quite enough for a whole half-year), but for now we're sticking with one - and the quality is awesome.

Zaycon has tons of awesome products and locations in almost every state.

If you don't know Zaycon Foods yet, definitely check them out!