Finger Knitting

This semester has turned into a major hand working focus. I did not plan it that way, it just happened. One of my favorite websites http://heartsandtrees.blogspot.com/ had shared a link to learn how to finger knit http://youtube.com/watch?v=t3LKAlDz9ig . I could not wait to teach the girls. Our friends Lilith and Maura thought it was so cool they too wanted to learn!

It is so easy. I found myself "knitting" while watching TV and especially helped pass the time while waiting at doctor offices. :0)

I don't think this would fit the Charlotte Mason ideology for hand work. But as far as we are concerned, we love it! While we were in Seattle Emily, Sarah Elizabeth and I learned to knit. Both the girls and I absolutley love it!

Update on our window garden

You can imagine our surprise when came home from Seattle and found the girls seedlings had become full fledged plants! Sarah Elizabeth's sunflowers were huge. Unfortunately it appears that several days of watering was missed. Her plants are quite sad and droopy. I am in hopes that if we transplant them into better drainage pots they will come back. If not it is off the Greens Feed and Seed to try again. Our turnip had all but dried up~the growth on top however had been saved by draining all the moisture from the turnip top.

We have a new addition to our window garden peonies. Aunt Barbara gave each of the girls this really cool kit called an eggling. The kit came with seeds and a "egg" pre-filled with special soil. The girls cracked the egg, removed a little of the shell and placed the seeds on top of the soil. Add water and watch it grow. The girls had a lot of fun cracking their eggs and are anxious to watch them grow.

When I was at Target last night in the $ bins I found tiny little seed starters. A few more herbs, marigolds, lavender and a tomato plant. What luck! We are almost set with our garden. the girls would like to grow a few pumpkins, a strawberry plant, cucumber, zuccini and a red and yellow peppers. The girls are starting to get a little carried away!

Splatter Faries

Spring is in bloom in West Virginia!
Today was such a beautiful day! It was partly sunny and into the 70's, way to warm to focus on math and reading.

Somewhere I stumbled upon a great website: http://www.magicalchildhood.com/index2.htm I love it! When looking at the spring newsletter I found this great art idea. We were babysitting my girlfriend's 5 yo daughter, Maura (will be 5 tomorrow but she has started telling everyone she is 5! :0) and I thought this would be a good one to span the ages.....My 10yo and 14 yo would love it as well. I was right!
http://lapazfarm.homeschooljournal.net/2006/06/07/splatter-fairies/

We used card stock and tempera paint. I placed the colors they choose on a foam plate so that they could add colors or start again at their leisure. The girls also loved to swirl the colors and mix colors on the foam plate. Sarah took a piece of card stock and gently laid it on top of the mixed paint. it created such a cool design. Right after she set in down to dry the wind picked it up and smushed it against the house. The picture was ruined but the house has a cool design. Good thing it is washable!

I will post the finished product for you to compare. The girls can identlify objects in their pictures (kinda like when you look at clouds~I was never very good at that)I sorta see what they see if I squint real hard and turn the picture upside down! :0)

Scones

As so many homeschooling families do, we use cooking for many things: home ec, math, science and down right fun. This is one of those occasions! On our AmbleRamble group, Dana shared this wonderful recipe. I could NOT wait to make it~usually we have a "special" breakfast...aka meat (bacon or sausage), french toast, or a coffee cake. The reason behind this was because Saturday mornings in the winter have a wonderful slow mode. We are all home and have time to really spend time on breakfast. I will definitely be adding this yummy recipe to our Saturday morning breakfast menu. Thanks Dana Wixson wixsond@hotmail.com

Basic Biscuits & Scones
Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon butter, chilled
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup chocolate chips for scones (optional - NOT!)
1 beaten egg plus 1 tablespoon sugar for tops of scones
Makes 12 biscuits or 8 scones

Helpful Hints:For light, flaky biscuits and scones, be careful not to mixor knead the dough too vigorously. Biscuits and scones arebest when served warm.

Directions:Preheat oven to 450 degrees for biscuits, 375 degrees for scones.
Stir together flour, sugar, baking powder and saltin large bowl. Cut in shortening until mixture resemblescoarse crumbs. Stir in milk until soft dough forms.Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface; knead 7-8times, just until dough is smooth. (For chocolate chip scones, stir in chocolate chips before kneading.)

FOR BISCUITS: Flatten to 1/2-inch thick and cut into2 1/2-inch rounds. Place 1 inch apart on large ungreasedbaking sheet. Bake until golden, 12-15 minutes.
FOR SCONES: Transfer dough onto ungreased baking sheet.Shape dough into flat, 8-inch round. Cut into wedges, butdo not separate. Brush with beaten egg and sprinkle withsugar (YES!), if desired. Bake round until golden brown, 20-25 minutes.Separate into scones.

Monk food

Yesterday we read Chapter 3, volume II, Story of the World. This chapter addresses the spread of Christianity to Britian. One of the suggested activities was to prepare Lentil soup. I have never had lentil soup but loved the idea of eating as the monks would. We ever pretended it was butter so we could have butter on our bread! Emily could not get over that the monks were not allowed butter on their bread nor that they were not allowed to meat at breakfast. "No sausage or bacon? Poor them!"

Emily loves to help in the kitchen and this was no exception. She loved chopping all the veggies, adding the lentils and watching the spinch wilt. The lentil soup was wonderful and easy to make. Emily on the other hand has a different opinion, can you say YUCK! Did I mention that Emily is an extremely picky eater? At least she tried the lentil soup.

Because we are a larger family I doubled the recipe for lunch tomorrow. Well that was the plan, for evening snack Jeff, Sarah Elizabeth and I had another bowl. At Sarah Elizabeth's suggestion a few bowls were shared with their Godmother and Godfather, they called to say the soup was yummy! So there was no soup left over for lunch! ;0)

Lentil Soup

1 onion (we used a vidalia)

2 carrots, chopped

2 cloves of garlic

1 bay leaf

1 (14.5) can crushed tomatoes

8 C water

2 Tbs. vinegar

1/4 C of olive oil

2 stalks of celery, chopped

1 tsp. dried oregano

1tsp. dried basil

1 C lentils

1/2 C spinich, rinsed and thinly chopped

Salt and ground pepper to taste

*Note: I added 2 Tbs. Johnny's Season (we sprinkle this on about everything!)

In a large soup pot, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add onions, carrots and celery; cook until stir onions are tender. Stir in garlic, bay leaf, oregano and basil; cook for two minutes.

Stir in lentils, add water and tomatoes. Bring to a boil. reduce heat,a nd simmer for atleast one hour. When ready to serve, stir in spinach and cook until it wilts. Stir in vinegar, and season to taste. Enjoy!

This makes about 6 servings.

What a truely amazing day!

Oh my golly spring is really coming! Today has been absolutely totally fabulous. I awakened to the sound of song birds and a cloudless blue sky. After breakfast I immediately re-evaluated the plans for the day. While Jeff is home with us we are trying to include everything we can because he has missed out on so many occasions and outings with us when he was working.

It took an 1 1/2 hours to get the girls out door for some reason...yikes they were grouchy. Sarah Elizabeth announced that the time change was not the sharpest idea from the crayon box!! I just chalked it up to teenagerness and the need to sleep forever at this age, LOL. I love you Sarah Elizabeth <3!>

Finally, we were out the door to explore. We went to Little Creek Park because it is close to home. Gas prices are really dictating where and what we do these days, especially with Jeff not working. Once the girls arrived at LCP their spirits changed completely......yeah!!!!!!! We drove around trying to decided where to explore and decided the creek was a great place to go. Dad was not happy thinking we were going to forge the creek! Silly Daddy.

I gave Dad the task of searching for tree buds and Emily did a great job sketching while Sarah bear was off exploring for a place to get into the creek without getting wet. She actually found this cool overhang rock that allowed her the opportunity to get as close as possible. All around the creek were shoots of one particular plant coming up. I was not able to zoom in close enough without getting wet, so I made a mental note that we would need to come back again a few times to see what blooms. My minds eye is showing it might be Lillie's of the valley. If so the creek bed will gorgeous next month.

Sarah Elizabeth commandeered the digital camera and off she went. She does have a great eye for pictures and I cannot wait to upload them to the computer but that will have to wait until our main computer comes back from the computer guru, aka their godfather David. Lately it seem to spend more time at his house than our. Gotta remember to cover the off/on switch so that Joseph will stop turning off the computer so that he can change sites rather than asking for help. Meanwhile Emily went searching for signs of a troll who might live under the near by creek bridge. (Hmmm~do you think that Emily has watched way too many episodes of watching Dora with her little brother, Joseph?!) No troll but there was a cool water fall under the bridge and old oak tree with a huge hole in its trunk beside the bridge. I took the opportunity to remind Emily that flying squirrels nests are usually inside tree trunks (We are reading Mystery in the Night Woods, about a flying squirrel). Much to her dismay there was no nest in the tree but she did spot several squirrel nests in the trees overhead. Sadly, deep inside the tree some litter bug dropped a water bottle in the hole. Sarah Elizabeth was just about to extract it but Dad nixed that idea. All in all it was a great time.

I LOVE HOMESCHOOLING! It is days like this that deepen my love of homeschooling. Emily loves field trips even more today: on our walk back to the car she found a very worn, dirty $1 bill. Her comment, "Homeschooling can really pay off!" Gotta love her. :0)

Well, dinner is not going to cook itself and kids will be home from choir practice soon. Tonight we are having lentil soup. This is suggested by History of the World to go hand in hand with studying the Byzantine Empire..."We are eating Monk food, yuck." according to Emily. When reminded she and Sarah are cooking dinner (big grin on my part :0) ) she cheered up. Did I mention Emily is the pickiest eater in the whole wide world???

Ever have one of those days...

Well it has only taken three days to make and plant our herb terriariums and start our flowers. The girls forgot to water them after they were planted..oops. The beans started on Saturday are already making progress. The seed covers have popped open on Sarah' Elizabeth's pinto beans as well as her navy. Emily forgot to set hers in the light and stuck them in her cubby...another oops.

Sarah Elizabeth planted Mamouth sunflower seeds and moonshine sunflower seeds. Emily planted daisies and sweet peas. I had the girls examine and compare their seeds in size before they planted them. I made copies of their seed packets and they glued these into their notebooks. As usual Sarah Elizabeth took hours designing her notebook pages and Emily finished in under 2 minutes! Typical.

The girls will keep a diary of the progress their indoor gardens make and eventually move them outside. I sure hope the girls have better green thimbs than I do! :0) If so we should have the prettiest flower bed on the block.

The gentleman in the picture is from Greens Feed and Seed. Check out the size of the seed started bag. Did we really need a seed starting bag that ummm.....big?