Happy Memorial Day

Wrapping up the Week - 5/27/2010

FIAR ~ This week we have been enjoying Mrs. Rumphius  I am not sure who enjoys the FIAR books more, me or my kids.  Mrs. Rumphius enjoyed quite a nice life!  No meal to report on this week.  We were busy every night with baseball.  We actually the coconut dinner when we read another book, and the story references Mrs. Rumphius eating porridge and we do that quite often here!

Lessons ~ Nothing formal at all this week.  I am happy with our decision to ditch school early, and for the summer.  I need a break and the kids need a break.

Upcoming Plans ~ We are looking forward to a relaxing, baseball free weekend.  Saturday we are headed to the zoo, where we look forward to riding camels and trains.  My parents just purchased a trampoline, so the men of the family are looking forward to putting that together (!), and our neighborhood pool is supposed to be open.

Other Happenings ~

Pentecost Cake.  I have made a better looking cake, but thankfully it did taste really good.

Jonah found a caterpillar.  He is anxiously waiting for his ordered caterpillars to arrive.  It was a much loved gift from Aunt Dana and family.  Everyday he wonders if this will be the day they are delivered.

Jacob built a track for Levi and Leah on our much loved (and worn!) train table.

A picture of our screen door - for no reason other than I had just cleaned it.  The windows will no longer stay clean for any length of time, until October or so.

Jonah and Jacob made fences this week with Grandpa.  He planted a bag full of wildflower seeds in that dirt pit.  We will see if anything shoots up!

Jonah admiring the bees at work.  He has been trying to catch them all week in hopes that they would build a honeycomb just for him.  All it earned him was a bee sting.

the kids shucking corn, practicing their "work-together" skills!

Kids Say the Darndest Things Friday:

Jacob: "We need one of those constipation bins"

Me: "What?, did you say constipation?"

Jacob: "Yeah, you know those bins you put food in?"

Me: "Oh, you mean a compost bin!"

Attachment and Adoption

I thought this was a great post on attachment...

Summer Meal Plan

In my continued effort to simplify life, I came up with a meal plan that we are going to use throughout the summer.  Nothing fancy but it should help with the "what's for dinner" for both me and the kids.  It should also make grocery shopping easier and faster.   We normally hit the grocery store on Wednesday's while Leah is at preschool.  When she is finally done with preschool (yippee!), we will need to find another grocery time.  I like to get in and out, spending the least amount of time as possible.

Here is our very simple week:

Dinner ~

Sunday: Crock-pot Dinner, usually a roast chicken, although I just found this recipe for Fried Chicken that looks yummy.  Plus I can use my cast iron skillet!

Monday: Leftovers or Breakfast Dinner - breakfast dinner for us is usually waffles and eggs.

Tuesday: Crock-pot Dinner - I am going to try Fall Off the Bone Beef from Healthy Meals for Less, it has come highly recommended.  It stays in the crock for 24 hours!

Wednesday: Soup and Bread - this week we are having chicken noodle.  Last week we had Minestrone from Healthy Meals for Less and it was really good, it had a can of sauerkraut in it.

Thursday: Mexican - usually it will consist of tacos or enchiladas with spanish rice.  I also have an Enchilito recipe that I want to try.

Friday: Pizza!

Saturday: Grilled Dinner - for the summer it is going to be hot dogs and macaroni salad

I usually make desserts on the weekend, my kids often request brownies - easy and yummy.  

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Lunch ~

Monday: PB & J/Fruit/Cheese Slices

Tuesday: Egg Salad or Cheese Quesadillas/Fruit

Wednesday: Leftover Crock pot Dinner

Thursday: Leftover Soup & Bread

Friday: Leftover Mexican

Saturday: Leftover Pizza

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Breakfast ~

Sunday: Eggs/Sausage or Bacon/Toast 

Monday: Oatmeal and Banana

Tuesday: Cereal and Yogurt

Wednesday: Waffles

Thursday: Oatmeal and Banana

Friday: Eggs

Saturday: Cereal and Yogurt

Tonight the crock pot dinner is meatloaf.  This afternoon we have TaeKwonDo and Baseball, so we will be gone all afternoon, it's nice to come home to a prepared dinner and minimal clean-up!

Wrapping up the Week - 5/21/2010

FIAR ~ This week we read Wee Gillis we had our FIAR meal on Wednesday.  I didn't take any pictures because we had oatmeal and turkey sausage, a hearty scottish breakfast, for dinner and although it was good, oatmeal isn't that exciting!  I used the grain recipe from Nourishing Traditions which the kids all love, we even had it again the next morning.  I put some add ins on the table so they could fix up the oatmeal however they liked.  

Lessons ~ I had grand plans for summer things I wanted the kids to do, and yesterday morning I bagged the whole thing.  I decided that even though the formal part of our day doesn't take that long, we all really need a break.   I packed up books, workbooks, the whole kit and kaboodle.  I am glad that I went to the homeschool conference in April, now I don't really have to think about anything for the summer.  We have all of our stuff for fall.  Of course I will do some tweaking and modifying, but that is the fun part!

Upcoming Plans ~  We really have had an awfully busy nine months.  We need some down time to do a whole lot of nothing.  Five more sessions of preschool, one more month of baseball and then we can really do nothing.  So, what will we do?

some gardening....

 

annual trip to the beach.....

and a whole lot of reading poolside...

Other Happenings ~

Levi, Jonah, Leah

Levi, Jonah, Leah, & Sarah

Anna, Sarah, Leah, & Levi

doesn't Levi look a little like Little Bill with his new shaved head!!!

 

Creating a Timeline

Levi & Sarah - my helpers

Using a timeline is such a good visual reminder and reinforcement of history.  It has taken me quite a while to figure out a way to use a timeline in our home.  In the past I tried printing out pages from different resources and keeping them in a three ring binder, but out of sight out of mind, and I really wanted to be able to see "at-a-glance" what was going on.  We don't really have space on our wall for some of the very large timelines I have seen.  I asked the question to some fellow homeschooling moms at Kind Conversation and received some excellent responses.  St. George Books has some great resources. I loved the idea of creating a nice book that can be a family keepsake, but again I knew if it was out of sight we would forget about it.  Plus, all the kids are still fairly young and still need lots of reminders to add to the timeline.  Then someone suggested using a poster board for a timeline.  We have room for a poster board.  I put it on the cork board in our kitchen where we can refer to it often and easily.

I am not sure why I went with the old fashioned theme, except that those were the stickers that I had available, the kids are reading Little House on the Prairie and Davy Crockett and I am reading about Helen Keller.  It's not fancy but it should do the job!

Strewing for Girls

I had a question about the specific things that I put in each girls strewing basket.  My girls are 6, 5, and 4.  I bought the baskets at Hobby Lobby.  They almost always have a 40% off coupon available on their website, so don't forget to print that out before you go!  I think it is my new favorite place to pick up little crafty things for the kids.  So, on to the contents of the baskets....

Sarah, 6:

Where Butterflies Grow
The Deer in the Wood
Fancy Nancy Tea Parties
The Complete Book of the Flower Fairies
Flower Fairies Paper Dolls
A Beatrix Potter Treasury
Plain spiral notebook, pencils
coloring book
My Calendar Book
Bead Girl-Darling Jewelry Kit
Sticky Mosaic

Anna, 5

Mess Free Wow Doodle Book
Museum ABC
A Flower Fairy Alphabet
Curious George ABCs
Easter ABCs
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
Dora coloring book
Rosary coloring book
Alphabet handwriting book
Sequencing Cards
Stickers

Leah, 4

Mess Free Wow Doodle Book
Dora coloring book
Tomie dePaola's Nursery Tales
Sequencing Cards
Stickers

Regarding the Sticky Mosaic it does say for ages 4+.  I only put it into my 6-year-olds basket.  Our 5-year-old doesn't yet know her numbers by sight (she joined our family in December) and our 4-year-old wouldn't quite have the fine-motor skills to pull off the stickers by herself, nor the attention/patience to complete the project.