October's Traffic

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1. Weird Unsocicalized Homeschoolers
2. Well-Trained Mind
3. I Heart Cuppycakes
4. Blog Carnival
5. Multifarious Missives
6. It Matters to Me
7. Here Come the Fifes
8. Cindy's Blog Thing
9. Chocolate on my Cranium
10. The Sunny Side

Thanks guys!

Top 10 most-viewed posts:

1. Felt Pizza Tutorial
2. How to Make a Traditional Japanese Bag
3. Cupcake Hero: Pumpkin
4. Classical Homeschooling Carnival
5. Weekly Wrap-up
6. Pretty Easy Bags
7. Friday Again
8. Tutorial Listing
9. A Busy Week
10. Classical Homeschooling Carnival #2

AND

5 Personal Favorite Posts

1. A Wasted Vote?
2. Citters & Moss
3. Mrs. Mordecai's Wisdom
4. Young Organist
5. Sunday Scripture

School Food

As it turns out, we've done a lot of school with our food the past little bit.

We had scrambled eggs for dinner. Monkey loves to crack the eggs, so I have have him break them into a small bowl, which we check for shells. Then he pours them into the big bowl and we count them.







Today, we used the letter cookies we made over the weekend to practice blending. Once he gave it a shot he got to eat the letters. What's not to love? We're working our way toward that first Bob Book, so we were eating T, M, S, and A, and specifically practicing blends and words he'll need to read the first little book.





Then, after dinner, I got out my fondant toys and was playing around. Of course, Monkey had to do "fondant class" with me. We had a good time.





Here is my fondant inspiration for the evening:

Pumpkins
Rose and cala lilies
Daisy
Snail

There's a definite diference between my creations and my inspiration, but hey, I haven't even finished the class yet, so I'm still willing to cut myself a little slack. And I learned a bit on each one. I did the pumpkin last, and I'm happy with how it turned out. Monkey put some of his creations on the plate to dry as well, which is awesome.

Oops! Thrifted Library Book

I stopped by the thrift shop again today. We were looking for warm stuff for Monkey to wear. I hoped to find him another flannel to wear, "like Bob the Builder." We didn't find any clothes today, but I did get another stack of books. It's a good mix this time: some classics, some fiction, some non-fiction. And a library book. Yeah, that's right. I bought a library book at the thrift shop. Oops. I guess someone wasn't quite paying attention. I didn't realize it until I got home and started putting my books into Shelfari. I got looking at the book, Cool Chemistry Concoctions: 50 Formulas that Fizz, Foam, Splatter & Ooze, and I didn't see anything on it that looked like it was withdrawn. So I called up the library. It's listed as "long overdue." The librarian got a good laugh out of it. So I guess we'll have a field trip to the other library on the south end of town to return their wayward book. Too bad I still didn't find my own library book that's lost. Too bad it's not the same library and I can't get them to cancel my debt with this return. Oh well. At least I get to keep the rest of the books. Here's what I got this time:

O. Henry's Gift of the Magi and other stories
Figure Skating: Championship Techniques
The Boxcar Children #1: The Boxcar Children
Charlotte's Web
A Picture Book of Benjamin Franklin
Hans Christian Anderson's Thumbelina, retold by Amy Ehrlich
Simple Science Experiments with Circles
The Book of Elephants
DK Eyewitness Books: Baseball
Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists: Da Vinci
Coral Reefs: Facts, Stories, Activites

The grand total: about $3. Not too shabby.

Christmas Planning

It's not that long, and Christmas will be here, crazy as that seems. We're making our lists of gifts, and I'm figuring out what I need to make, what I need to buy, and we should probably think about getting our cards ready so we can get them out in the near future. I know from past years that Christmas cards are much more fun if you send them out early: we get many more back the years we do it early. Plus, it's much less stressful.

But all that is secondary to the real meaning of Christmas, and to the things we ought to be thinking about during the Christmas season. It seems like every year we reexamine our traditions to see if they are still serving us well, and tweak them a little bit. This year is no different. I ran across a very thoughtful post, over at The Apple Cider Mill.

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Advent literally means "coming," and it is a four-week season that precedes Christmas. It is meant to be a season of penitence, reflection, and fasting, but as we all know, this is hardly the tenor or focus of the four weeks that precede Christmas for most people. Usually, the season of Advent can be categorized for contemporary Americans by business, exorbitance, indulgence, and stress. Many Christians try to step back from the temptation to follow the crowd in this regard, but all too often what they end up with is a period of time that doesn't feel preparatory; it merely feels ordinary. We know that we don't want the weeks before Christmas to feel "ordinary," and so we feel torn between cutting back and giving into the secular siren call. In either case, how we usually feel by the time Christmastide rolls around is exhausted and dissatisfied.

Advent provides a wonderful balance. It is not ordinary time; it is a season set apart in anticipation of the great feast and celebration of Chistmas to come. The very penitent nature of the season prepares us to surrender completely to the celebration of Emmanuel, God with us. The more we surrender to Advent, the more our hearts will be ready to receive the gift of the Christ Child, just as Lent prepares our hearts for the gift of our Resurrected Lord.

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Now we, not being Catholic, don't celebrate Lent. But I think that she's onto something here. There is merit to the idea of planning, and her analogy about preparing for a baby coming (see the next quote) is an interesting one. I don't know that I want to separate "Advent" into its own season, but I can understand why she does and I think that we can take from the ideas. Actually, when you explain Lent like this, there may be more to it than I was previously aware of. I'd never had a good Catholic explain what it's all about before, and it never made a lot of sense to me. There is reverence and beauty in the symmetry of Bethany's celebration of Advent and Lent.

She has several suggestions for how to go about celebrating Advent - that is, how to focus on Christ during the Christmas season. I like quite a few of them. The first thing that Bethany suggests is an attitude adjustment.

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Remember that Advent is a season of PREPARATION for Christmas. Advent is not Christmas. This distinction may look different in different homes; it's the principle that counts. So start thinking about how your Advent can differ from you Christmastide.

For those who think Christmas just comes of its own accord and requires no preparation, I offer the analogy of a birth in the family. Of course, the baby is going to come at the end of gestation whether you prepare for it or not, but you do prepare. You go to lamaze classes, you set up a nursery, you pray, you reflect, you journal, you anticipate. At Christmas, we celebrate the birth of Christ. Moreover, we are looking forward with hope to His Second Coming. He's going to come, anyway, of course. But, it will be better for us if we're ready for the celebration!

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Go read the rest of her post. It's got some cool ideas for creating a lovely Christmas season and filling your home with the spirit of Christ.

One of Bethany's friends tried to leave her a post-length comment, which blogger wouldn't accept because it was too long. The friend emailed it instead, and Bethany posted it. It has some more great ideas, including this that would be great for the season:

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If you like classical music, there are so many wonderful pieces written for the celebration of Advent. Start with Bach's Cantata BWV 140. Read a translation of the text first (it's in German) and then listen to the cantata (really sit down and LISTEN without doing anything else - if you are out walking with your ipod, or riding in your car, it doesn't count...) and meditate on what the music and the text say about Christ, our relationship to him, and his second coming.

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An interesting thing that I notice in both these women's writing is the intertwining of not only Easter and Christmas themes, but also, within the Christmas celebration, an awareness of the Second Coming, and excitement about that. What a cool idea! Bethany's friend had some good ideas for this as well.

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Speaking of the second coming, which I was a few points ago, because Advent is a time of preparing to celebrate Christ's first coming (incarnation) as well as looking forward in anticipation and preparation for the second coming, I like to use Advent as a time to study parables about the kingdom of heaven and Bible texts about the wedding feast that is to come. Start with the story of the virgins and the oil, and go from there.

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Sunday Scripture

And it came to pass that they came many times against us, the Nephites, to battle. But our kings and our leaders were mighty men in the faith of the Lord; and they taught the people the ways of the Lord; wherefore, we withstood the Lamanites and swept them away out of our lands, and began to fortify our cities, or whatsoever place of our inheritance.

And we multiplied exceedingly, and spread upon the face of the land, and became exceedingly rich in gold, and in silver, and in precious things, and in fine workmanship of wood, in buildings, and in machinery, and also in iron and copper, and brass and steel, making all manner of tools of every kind to till the ground, and weapons of war—yea, the sharp pointed arrow, and the quiver, and the dart, and the javelin, and all preparations for war.

And thus being prepared to meet the Lamanites, they did not prosper against us. But the word of the Lord was verified, which he spake unto our fathers, saying that: Inasmuch as ye will keep my commandments ye shall prosper in the land.
-Jarom 1:7-9

Remedy

I've had a very icky cold for at least a week now. It's included a nasty cough that gives me a sore throat. It's not very much fun. But I have learned a new trick for dealing with it: my lemon honey stuff. Here's what you do.

Fill your favorite mug with water. Leave a bit of space, about like you would for making hot chocolate, so you have room to add stuff later. Nuke it. I do a minute, and it works out perfectly. Next, add a generous slosh of lemon juice. I have some left from canning and it works great. If I was guessing on the measurements, I'd say I probably add 2-4 T of lemon juice. Something around than 1/4 a cupish. But I've never measured. Then add a generous squeeze of honey. If you're smarter than me, you'll do the honey first, and then you'll be able to see the pile of honey in the bottom. Make a good pile. Stir it up. Now, taste it. I like my lemon-honey stuff to be a nice balance between sweet and tart. I often have to add just a bit more honey. It really hits the spot.

Bagels

I decided to try bagels this week. They were fun. Pretty easy, actually. And quite tasty. I used these instructions, but modified the recipe from one I found... and have since lost. So no link to the original. But here's what I did:

Homemade bagel recipe

4 cups whole wheat flour
1 Tbls honey
1 1/2 tsps salt
1 Tbls vegetable oil
2 tsps instant yeast
1-1/2+ cups of hot water
1 Tbs lemon juice
1/4 cup warm water

I'm experimenting with soaking my grains, so I ground the wheat (hurray for food storage rotation), and put it in a bowl with the honey and 1 1/2 cups hot water, and the lemon juice. It was really dry, so I added more water until it looked better. Then I left it sitting on my counter overnight. The lemon juice was supposed to break down an acid in the wheat, so that it was more readily digested... I'm still learning about that soaking thing. In any case, it wasn't really a factor in the final taste. It tasted like... bread.

The next morning, I did the bread thing. Added the yeast, which made things REALLY runny, probably because I'd added that extra water before. But I added more evil regular white flour until it was a pretty normal bread texture. The wheat flour was really coarse, which I think has more to do with my tiny little grinder (what can you expect, for $15?) than anything else. So I needed some regular flower for a decent bread texture. Cut the dough into 8 balls, and let 'em rest. Just like my bagel instructions said, I rolled them out into snakes, turned them into a loop (the dough was quite sticky still, so that was easy), and left them to rest a few more minutes. Then I plopped them into a vat of boiling water.



This was tricky. They were sticky, I was worried they'd look weird because they were a bit deformed, going in. No biggie. One minute each side, drain on a dishtowel. Park the boiled, drained bagels on a greased cookie sheet to wait for their companions. Throw the towel down the laundry chute when you're done because it's sticky.



The only snag I ran into was the instructions say your cookies sheet ought to be "lightly" oiled, so I decided that I had too much and wiped some off. Bad Idea. They stuck and tore when it was time to flip them after 10 minutes at 425. It was very sad. But I transferred them to another cookie sheet. This time I used Pam & they were sliding around all over the place. Of course, they were cooked-side-down at this point too. But the other side finished cooking and they were delicious. I should have taken a picture in the 20 minutes that you have to wait for them after they come out of the oven. But I didn't. And then I realized they were all gone and I had no pictures of the finished product. But let me assure you, even though they were not beautiful bagels, they tasted amazing with homemade pumpkin butter on them.

Another Week

OK, this hasn't been our best week ever. We were sicker than last week, so we got less accomplished. But what we did was good.

Reading: We tried out the Bob books; Monkey's not quite ready. But he's close. Oh so very close! Sadly, we then got sicker still, and haven't done anything with practicing blending all week.

Math: I got my Math Expressions teacher's edition last week, and I've read a good chunk of it now. Who knew that reading a teacher's edition was so engrossing? It looks like much of the manipulatives I can make for the felt board - things like the "tiles" with dots that I mentioned last week. They do "daily routines" that I'll need to make up some sheets for. I think those can be covered in contact paper and put in a sturdy folder or a binder, though I haven't decided for sure what exactly it will be. I still need to get a copy of Anno's Counting Book, which is on the agenda for this afternoon, and then once that gets here we'll be full steam ahead for math. He's already much more secure in his concepts of what the numbers are. ME focuses on 1-5 for a long time, then 1-10. But it looks like we're going to have fun. I have got to get some video of him jumping in circles and doing animal noises to practice counting! It's just sooo funny. He did a picture of one today:



One interesting thing that I'm seeing is the value of Charlotte Mason's council to do short lessons, but insist on doing it well - perfectly, if possible. Here are her words:

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“[N]ever let the child dawdle over a copy-book [penmanship] or sum, sit dreaming with his book before him. When a child grows stupid over a lesson, it is time to put it away." (vol.1 p 141)

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With Monkey, this idea means that when he's no longer engaged, we put it away. My Mom gave me very similar advice, once upon a time, to put away toys before they're uninteresting. This keeps things fresh for Monkey, and keeps me from getting so very frustrated with normal 3 year old behavior, and also gets the lesson I'm trying to teach into his head. Works for me!

Read Aloud: In the Book of Mormon we're in 3 Nephi 14 - just finishing up the Sermon on the Mount, as given in the Americas. Monkey knows the song "The Wise Man and the Foolish Man" and wanted me to sing it today after we finished reading. I think that he's really going to enjoy reading about the life and ministry of the Lord when we finish the Book of Mormon. I had hoped to be working on that by now, but we're not. However, we are making steady progress to the end of the book, which is something.

We made a little progress in Little House on the Prairie. He loves to look at the pictures in the book that we've got. And he's clearly engaged in the story, which I love. I find the language intriguing. Laura Ingalls Wilder has an interesting turn of phrase and it's got a lovely rhythm to it. I remember enjoying the story when I was younger, but I hadn't realized that the language itself that she uses is so spare and effective.

Nature Study: Nothing. We were all too sick to go outside much. Though I did try to use some of the nature words in conversation with Monkey so that he'll remember them. He knows that the "oval" moons are gibbous moons. We talked about the mallard ducks we saw last week. I'm making manipulatives for him to use in making his pictures of numbers, and the current batch is birds we've seen. He recognized the mallards and named them without prompting, which pleased me to no end. But as far as getting out there and being in nature, not so much. We'll do better again next week. We may even get some done tomorrow, in our yard. We really need to put the gardens to bed for the winter.

Memory: Monkey is finally able to say Romans 8:16 end to end, though he likes it better if he can get away with just saying the end: "We are the children of God. Romans 8:16." I've been trying to teach him the meaning of front end of the verse, and I think that it's helping. But with or without the first half, it sure is sweet to hear him say "we are the children of God!"

Mom's Ed: I'm taking a fondant class. And I'm reading Nourishing Traditions, which is an interesting read.


Happily, everyone but Daddy is on the upswing now, and feeling better. Hopefully Daddy will follow quickly! Next week should be better. And in the mean time I'm learning that I'm going to need to cut back on outside activities: it seems like doesn't take much to derail the whole day of school. Which is ridiculous. We're not doing that much for that long. But you add very much extra into our day and things don't get done. Important things. So I'm going to have to learn to say NO. That, I think, is going to be a tough lesson for this mama. Though I find I am more and more of a home-body all the time. Home is nice.