Running Toward Our Second Week

So, we've finished our first week of school and I have to admit, we don't have a solid routine down. We didn't accomplish as much as I wanted to, school-wise.

You've seen the movie Airplane, right? You know the running gag where unexpected things keep happening and the guy says,
"Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking."
"Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit drinking."
"Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue."

Well, I thought I may have picked the wrong week to start school. But don't worry, there is a happy ending. Read on.

Day 1 of 180, Monday: We had a fantastic first day. The kids got up, got dressed, brushed teeth, went out to the driveway for a water balloon throwing contest, then ate breakfast before we started school. We began our lessons with a prayer and a devotional. Then we checked out our cool new calendar on the bulletin board and did some addition problems (thanks Khan Academy for teaching my kids how to use a number line effortlessly) and designs with the shaped blocks. Both kids sat happily while completing their reading lessons for the day. And the best part was what they found in their workboxes - six for each of them. We had coloring pages, cutting pages, Read with Mommy Time, snacks, felt play sets and a fishing game. It was a wonderful day in every way.

Day 2 of 180, Tuesday: We went to the amusement park with another family and had a second amazing day. Charlie has added vegetables and fruit to his diet, so guess what? He grew tall enough to ride some real rides. A fabulous time was had by all.

Day 2 of 180, Wednesday: We had been having a minor problem with ants coming in through our kitchen window for a few weeks, and with my (and my husband's) paranoia about spraying chemical poison around, my routine was 1) get up, 2) kill an ant or two, 3) make coffee, 4) wash counters, window sill and sink with cleaner and 4) no more ants until the next morning. Wednesday I got up and there were ants in one of my cabinets. Several were trying to crawl inside a bottle of infant's motrin drops. Flipping out mildly, I spent the morning emptying the contents of 13 cabinets and six drawers onto my dining room table, bookcase, buffet and chairs. And then I held my breath and sprayed poison.

Meanwhile, my daughter asked to get on the computer to work on an art game she enjoys, so I let her and called it "computer." This was fine since I was busy and I needed a good place to start on my loop schedule wheel anyway. After lunch, we finally started our lessons and were able to cover all of our subjects; we did Bible, Reading, Math, Computer, Latin and Spanish. The highlight was during the devotional when I asked the kids, "If you could have anything in the world, what would you want? Charlie answered, "I would want to be a flower so Miriam could pick me."

Melts your heart, right there . . .

Day 3 of 180, Thursday: Okay, I forgot that we were going to D.C. for the day to see our dear friend, Pum from England, and her nephew. We can count this as a field trip, but I won't count it as a school day because I hadn't planned and had no answer for my kids' questions. Plus, I was super crabby half the time and I don't want the kids thinking their teacher is a jerk . . .

By the way, another FABULOUS day.

Day 3 of 180, Friday: I woke up and did not anticipate how utterly exhausted I would be after a day of traipsing around D.C. with my two children, who grew increasingly rambunctious as the evening went on. Before starting our two hour journey home, we had driven around looking for food for one child for oh, about an hour (9-10pm), and as soon as we found a McDonald's to grab a milkshake for her, she took three sips and promptly feel asleep. Home at midnight-thirty, I was in dire need of coffee when I woke up. And I'm trying to quit coffee, so I was conflicted.

Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit coffee.

My husband was tired as well and slept in considerably late, not leaving the house until around 10:30, with request that I run a rather long errand TODAY. This was an errand I had sort of done, but not completely, and it had gotten to the point of affecting him negatively, so I really couldn't ignore it. But what about school?? I've already had two cups of coffee I'm not supposed to have, and a large piece of chocolate, which I'm not supposed to have, and it's now noon and we haven't even started lessons. We ran the rather long errand, stopped for lunch at our church youth group's hot dog (which I am not supposed to have) stand and arrived home.

Remember Wednesday? The ants? The poison? I thought 48 hours might be long enough after spraying ant killer to replace my cabinets to their former state of bursting full and honestly, I couldn't take having to walk to the dining room table to retreive a spoon or a dish or a towel for another minute, so I restocked my cabinets whilst the children made Cooties and got along. (happiness)

My husband came home and asked them why they were making Cooties and not playing Cootie. They told him they'd never played, didn't know how. Oops, my bad. He taught them how to play the game, played three rounds and went back to work. I could stretch it and say that was math since they used dice, but I won't. (By the way, I forgot to mention that I forgot to order the math workbooks so we are playing it by ear until next week for math lessons.) Both kids did their reading lessons, with one child having an emotional breakdown one minute and then asking to do another lesson the next. Can you guess if it was the boy or the girl?

Well, by this time the sun was setting and we have a big day planned tomorrow, so I sent the kids to bed, feeling a little bit like I had failed. I wanted our first week to be flawless and smooth, with five full days and a routine down pat. It didn't happen.

School-wise, I think we could have done better. I could have planned better.

But life-big-picture-wise, this week was unforgettable and wonderful. We had enormous fun and lots of laughs, frolicked with precious friends and had great family time. I realized tonight that my children never once mentioned or asked for television all day. The got along and loved each other well. All in all, I call it a success and I wouldn't change a thing. We're looking foward to Week 2.

Loop Schedule Wheel

This is our loop schedule wheel so we don't miss any subjects. Reading, Math and Bible are not on the loop because we hit those subjects every day most of the time.

The Ants Come Marching

The ants come marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah.
I squish them with my great big thumb, hurrah, hurrah.
They picked the wrong day to mess with me;
I'll send them screaming to their knees
And they all go falling down to the ground,
Oh get out of my house. Boom Boom Boom

We are going to have to do school in the afternoon today since this morning I get to remove everything out of my cabinets for the Great Ant Massacre of 2011. Unless they want to pay rent or help with the dishes, they have got to go.

Bursting Into Our First Day

Is there a better way to celebrate the start of school in the heat of summer than with a water balloon throwing contest? We don't think so.

First Week! and 2011-12 Curriculum

The day has almost arrived and there is a buzz of excitement in the air as we prepare for our first official day of home education of both children tomorrow . . . Kindergarten and First Grade, hoo-ray!

Thankfully, I got the organization bug recently so I have been plowing through my school room, getting rid of old papers and other treasures that no one treasures or even remembers anymore. We need more shelves, baby! I re-vamped the room in May and truly cannot believe how trashed and overstuffed it has gotten over the summer months. This is what it looked like before we started "living" in it.

It is pretty much the same now, furniture-wise, but I have added several organizational elements which I will show you later.

The subjects we will cover this year are reading, language arts, math, science, geography, history, Latin, Spanish, fine arts, typing, computer skills and health.

I'm a total control freak and didn't want to buy a cookie-cutter curriculum, so I have put one together myself, with the guidance of the Classical Conversations focus for this year (cycle 3). The following is a list of books we will use for first grade. The kindergarten curriculum is the same, minus First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind. Charlie is ready for Saxon 1, so we are going to skip Saxon K for him. His math skills are beyond Miriam's at this point and I don't want to stifle him. His language arts book is Language and Thinking for Young Children by Ruth Beechick.

Reading:
Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons by Siegfried Engelmann (Simon and Schuster)
Bob Books series, Collections 1-3 by Bobby Lynn Maslen (Scholastic)
Language Arts:
First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind by Jessie Wise (Peace Hill Press)
Horizons Penmanship One Manuscript by Mary Ellen Quint (Alpha Omega Publications)
Spelling Workout A by Phillip K. Trocki (Modern Curriculum Press)
Math:
Saxon Math 1 by Nancy Larson (Saxon Publishers)
Science:
My Body Book by Patricia Carratello (Teacher Created Resources)
Lyrical Life Science Volume 3 – The Human Body by Dorry Eldon (Lyrical Learning)
Janice Van Cleave’s 201 Awesome, Magical, Bizarre and Incredible Experiments by Janice VanCleave (Jossey-Bass)
Geography:
A Child’s Geography Volume 1 by Ann Voscamp (Bramley Books)
History:
The Story of the World Volume 3: Early Modern Times by Susan Wise Bauer (Peace Hill Press)
The Story of the World Volume 4: The Modern Age by Susan Wise Bauer (Peace Hill Press)
The Story of the World Activity Book 3: Early Modern Times, edited by Susan Wise Bauer (Peace Hill Press)
The Story of the World Activity Book 4: The Modern Age, edited by Susan Wise Bauer (Peace Hill Press)
Foreign Language:
Song School Latin by Amy Rehn (Classical Academic Press)
Instant Immersion Spanish Level 1 software (Topics Entertainment)
Fine Arts:
Drawing with Children by Mona Brookes (Tarcher/Penguin)
Discovering Great Artists by MaryAnn F. Kohl and Kim Solga (Bright Ring Publishing)
Story of the Orchestra : Listen While You Learn About the Instruments, the Music and the Composers Who Wrote the Music! by Robert Levine (Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers)
Computer:
BBC Schools Dance Mat Typing
Various age-appropriate computer games
Bible: Bible Study Fellowship, I Can Read God's Word by Phil A. Smouse, Devotions for the Children's Hour by Kenneth N. Taylor, Children's Illustrated Bible and Awana

Additionally, we are using the Classical Conversations Foundations program, along with the Classical Conversations Foundations Curriculum Guide for Grades K4-6, Third Edition by Leigh A. Bortins (Classical Conversations, Inc.), to enhance our home school lessons. Subjects include Math, Science, English Grammar, History, Geography, Latin, Bible and Fine Arts.

We will do Reading, Math, Penmanship, Bible and our Classical Conversations memory work every day and will use a loop schedule for the other subjects, planning to hit each additional subject one to two times a week. Here is the little contraption I made so we won't forget which subject to study next:



We are really looking forward to a lot of learning and fun this year! And I use the word year literally. We will have a year-round schedule, with four weeks on, one week off, plus extra weeks off for the big holiday seasons. Oh, and don't tell anyone, but Glenn already has us playing hooky one day this week to go to an amusement park . . . we'll make up the day on Saturday. You've gotta love the flexibility!

Okay then, here we go . . .

Lemon Chicken Bake

This week I bought a bag of lemons and had most of a leftover tub of ricotta, so this Lemon Chicken Bake is what I came up with. It's good. My five year old ate three helpings and so did the hubs, who usually is not a fan of cream-based pasta dishes. I, on the other hand, live for them. Yum.

Lemon Chicken Bake

1/3 pound small pasta, like mini bowties or mini penne
3 chicken breast halves, pounded to ½ inch for faster cooking
Salt and Pepper, to taste
2 T. butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
½ cup onion, diced
2 lemons
1 c. chicken broth
2 t. Italian seasoning
2 T. flour
½ cup half-n-half or heavy cream
½ cup parmesan cheese, freshly grated, plus extra for sprinkling
10 oz. fresh baby spinach
1 pint grape tomatoes, halved
½ c. ricotta cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray 9X13 pan with cooking spray.
Cook pasta in salted water according to directions on package, al dente.
Meanwhile, heat butter in medium-high skillet. Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper on both sides. Sautee until browned and just cooked through. Remove from pan, set aside, covered.
Add garlic and onion to pan and stir. Add chicken broth and scrape up browned bits. Squeeze the juice one whole lemon into pan, add Italian seasoning and cook 5 minutes.
Whisk in flour and half-n-half and cook one minute, stirring constantly.
Add parmesan, stir until melted.
Coarsely chop chicken and place in a large bowl with spinach, tomatoes, ricotta cheese and hot pasta.
Pour sauce over chicken mixture and stir gently. Pour into baking dish and sprinkle with more parmesan cheese. Squeeze one lemon over entire casserole.
Bake for 15 minutes until cheese is melted.

Chocolate de Mayo

The kids and I made Mexican chocolate covered strawberries today in honor of Cinco de Mayo so they have decided to rename the day "Chocolate de Mayo." Loosely translated, this means "Mommy, come quick! I have chocolate all over my sweater!"

We mixed a bag of ghirardelli milk chocolate chips, 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon and 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper, melted the mixture in a double boiler and dipped strawberries in it. Oh my, yum with a kick. I bet they would taste great with an icy cold margarita.

Look! Charlie is eating a strawberry! It's a Cinco de Mayo miracle!

My Greece-y Spoon

"For my birthday I want a pinata fulled up with that bread so I can eat it all." - Charlie

The children watched a short documentary as I made dinner, which was pretty much the extent of our study on Greece today. We talked a bit about it, pointed it out on the globe, listened to a little bit of music. The first part of the day was lost in the excitement of a Dollar Tree run to get rewards for sticking with my nighttime-stay-dry-plan, which is going well in the sense that the kids are happily complying with it. One kid is having real success and we are quite excited about that. The other one is going to take a lot of patience, determination and prayer.

Dinner was spanikopita, souvlaki, tzatziki sauce, Greek salad, pita and Portokalia me Meli (oranges drizzled with honey) for dessert. The kids enjoyed making the pita dough and watching me fumble around with getting the spanikopita to look like actual triangles. The meal was delicious and I thought the chicken souvlaki tasted just like the one they serve at the local Greek place we used to frequent before we had children. Miriam stuffed her face with chicken and pita so much that after she ate, she walked away from the table and fell into a heap on the floor saying, "ooooo, my tummy huuurrrts." A far cry from "What is this? It's disgusting. I'm not eating it." We will all look forward to having a Greek night again . . . the food is so scrumptious and nourishing as well.

Links to recipes:

Spanikopita: http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/mini-spanakopitas-greek-spinach-pies-10000000643348/

Pita Bread: http://www.bobsredmill.com/recipes_detail.php?rid=693

Greek Salad Dressing: http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/absolutely-fabulous-greekhouse-dressing/Detail.aspx

Chicken Souvlaki (I only used the chicken marinade from this recipe.): http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/chicken-souvlaki-salad-10000000347741/

Tzatziki Sauce: http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/classic-tzatziki-10000001097067/

Portokalia me Meli: http://greekfood.about.com/od/fruitdesserts/r/portokali_meli.htm

China, Made in Virginia

"Chinese Food? Chinese Food? YOU want to talk to ME about Chinese Food?"
- Carol Seaver, Growing Pains

 Dessert: Homemade fortune cookies, ice cream cups (like at our favorite local Chinese buffet), orange slices and pocky sticks.

 Today's theme was China. The menu for dinner was Chicken-On-A-Stick that turned into just regular chicken when all my bamboo skewers torched and disintegrated on the grill, sesame-ginger-clementine-veggie stir-fry, shrimp egg rolls with duck sauce for dipping, homemade fortune cookies and vanilla ice cream cups for dessert. We may never go out for Chinese again.
I had extra egg roll filling left over, so I ate it for lunch. Then I had to have another bowl. I will be tooting around the house for the rest of the week, if you get my drift.
Miriam thought the filling was pretty great too. (Charlie decided to wait for dinner. Well, what he actually said was, "That is food for Chinese people and I am not a Chinese person." He didn't eat a thing at dinner, just licked his chicken a couple of times and called it a day.)


Here's a list of a few things we did today to, as my children put it, "celebrate China."
....googled "Baby Panda" and oooh-ed and aaaahhh-ed at the adorable little beasts
....read a story book about a Chinese girl who lost her hen- "Daisy Comes Home" by Jan Brett
....tuned into Pandora for some traditional Chinese music...watched Kung Fu Panda in the afternoon
...watched one episode of "Wild China" on Netflix after dinner. They were mesmerized by the scenery and cool animals as well as thrilled to stay up until 9:30.
...kids took their butterfly nets and stripped the plastic, showing the bamboo so it would be more "Chinese"
....hung paper lanterns on the light above the dining room table
....found China on the globe
....talked about what kind of animals people eat in China and pretended to catch fish with our nets
...made homemade eggs rolls and fortune cookies and laughed about what fortunes we would like to receive in our cookies
....shared our meal with friends...if you would like to eat with us on a "country theme night" sometime, just say the word. Next up is Greece.


Links to recipes:
Egg Rolls (I substituted shrimp for the turkey and stirred in some sesame oil after cooking the filling): http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/easy-phyllo-egg-rolls/f16ec989-d84a-42f9-8f25-700cdc4f5d89
Fortune Cookies: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/fortune-cookies-recipe/index.html

Moroccan Night!

Before dinner:
It surprised me when Glenn picked Morocco for our first "dinnertime country" because I remember him telling me that of all the countries he has visited in his world travels, Morocco was his least favorite. Maybe he was just in an exotic mood the other day when he suggested it.

To complete my nervousness about preparing a lot of new foods and recipes, we are having dinner guests tonight. Thankfully, they are great friends and will still love us even if the food is horrible. (I have a feeling that it will be pretty good though . . . just a hunch.)

The main dish on the menu is a pork kebab. Now, WAIT! Before you get in a huff about pork in a Moroccan dinner, let me tell you about how expensive lamb is. It is VERY expensive. And I am tired of chicken. And I didn't know what kind of beef to get. So we are having pork. If our friends coming over tonight were Muslim, I certainly would have not considered serving pork to them. I would have sucked it up and shelled out the bucks for some nice lamb.

For those of you who took geography at public school like me, I wasn't exactly sure of the whereabouts of Morocco. Thank goodness for the internets. The main religion in Morocco is Islam (something I should have realized before I went grocery shopping ;) and the country is situated in the northern part of AFRICA, very close to SPAIN, which is in EUROPE. It almost looks like the two countries are about to kiss. It's just adorable. Tonight we will make a super big deal to our kids about the location of Morocco on our globe so they will never be embarrassed when a random late night talk show host approaches them for a quick "man-on-the-street" geography pop quiz.

The kebab meat is marinating in olive oil, lemon juice, lemon zest, lots of pepper, salt, coriander, cumin, garlic and fresh mint. On the side we will have a chickpea-tomato salad with parsley, onion and more lemon juice and fresh-baked authentic Moroccan bread. Erma is bringing her green beans and I have to tell you, her green beans go with anything. They are magical. And then for dessert we have Ghirardelli brownies . . . obviously not Moroccan, but I was at Costco yesterday and our friend Dave always swears he won't come back if I don't give him chocolate. I understand that fresh fruit is a common sweet ending to Moroccan meals, so we will throw some grapes, strawberries and clementines on the platter for good measure.

(I do feel just a little bit bad that I'm making homemade bread since Glenn is on a low-carb kick these days, but this will be a good willpower test for him. It's rising now and looks soooo gooood.)

After dinner:
Wow. That meal made the Top 5 Best Meals of My Life List. The flavor combinations were incredible. Our guests raved; one of my kids loved it. The other one took a lick of the pork and then refused to eat it after he got a big wad of mint on the tip of his tongue. (Mint is green. He doesn't eat anything green.) My husband told me it was "excellent" and you can quote him on that.