I don't know that I'll ever be able to replicate this stew or not...but it turned out really well.. so well that even the lad liked it!!!!    I will tell you what I put in it (roughly speaking) and see what happens in the future.  :)

I will tell you that this was a family effort.   All three of us did chopping and peeling and cutting and mixing.    Family efforts make the food taste better.  :)

Into one large crock pot put in

• 1 container of chicken bouillon (or use beef if you have it)
• Turnip/rutabaga - 1 medium, peeled and chopped
• White Potato - a few..chopped, peeled as they were old potatoes, don't need to if new ones.
• Sweet potato - one regular sized one, peeled and chopped
• Carrots - four I think
• Onion - one big one
• Sausage - couldn't tell you what kind, they came from the foodbank and were a touch freezer burned when I got them.  Cooked them, and froze them, pulled a small bag out... six I think???   and chopped them up.
• Tomato... wanted four... ended up with 1.5 as the lad who was chopping them up said "MOM!!!  There are soft spots!!!!"   and he couldn't cope.  :)

Tossed in some thyme (the lad said it smelled good) and some oregano and basil. 
The lad put in a bunch of garlic salt and some black pepper.

Let it cook for a good spell in the crock pot.
Hubby said "hmm.. tad bit thin yet lovey, and it's missing something".
So.. took out two cups of broth and added two tbsp of cornstarch to that.  Mixed it up and then put back into the pot.  Tossed in a bit of no salt seasoning.   and let stew a bit longer...

I honestly thought hubby dear was going to finish the whole crock pot himself!   He went back for bowl after bowl..  okay... in retrospect.. I was REALLY not feeling well last night and it only appeared he was going to finish it off...hubby read this over to make sure I wasn't too incoherent (dealing with bad headache) and he said that he only had two extra bowlfuls.  :)

We had just enough stew left for us each to have one bowl for supper tonight.

Did you know that it is shark week?   Yeah, I know, go figure that eh?   On my, resurrected old blog I recently posted about a book called "Shark Week".  Fascinating book, and I was thinking about how sharks also live in Coral Reefs, not just in volcanoes, or in the Arctic.    So I wanted to tell you about this neat little book called Coral Reefs, written by Jason Chin ...and I think that he is also the illustrator. 

I have to admit, when I started reading the book I thought it would be about a girl exploring the coral reef since she is pictured on every gorgeously illustrated page, and I was confused that it wasn't.   As I continued to examine the illustrations closely I realized that the girl in the images was holding a copy of the book Coral Reef itself.

Jason Chin has written a fact-filled, carefully illustrated book about the Coral Reef, based on his experiences visiting the barrier reef in Belize.

Check out the detail from the very first page.  See how the girl is reaching for the coral reef book?   (yes, I know, sometimes I'm slow on these details).  :)

The book proceeds telling us how corals grow.  

The coral just keeps growing and growing, ever expanding upon itself, providing food and shelter for 1,000's of marine life.   Can you imagine that Belize Barrier Reef is over 180 miles long, and the Great Barrier Reef system is over 1,400 mi long.

A whole web of life is connected to the coral reefs.

It's all a giant food chain that can be found in all the parts of the coral reef and the areas surrounding it like lagoon and the ocean beyond.

I appreciated that the author took time to talk about individual animals and how one might be able to hide from this animal by going to this part the reef, but while doing so needs to keep an eye out not to be trapped by another animal.  Showing how the grouper is helped by the gobies, and the gobies are helped by the grouper.

As the book progressed we learned how the coral reef is like a city with all the different parts interacting with each other, sometimes in good ways and sometimes in not so good ways, but always somehow interacting.

At the close of the book, we learned about some of the dangers coral reefs are facing and learned some additional facts about coral reefs.

Did you know that the coral reefs in Indonesia are the most diverse?  There was lots of good information provided for me in this book, even pictures with sharks in them (YEAH for shark week).   But it always amazes the diversity one can find in the coral reefs, from the coral itself which grows in many different ways, to the plants and animals that dwell in and around them.

Coral Reefs was provided to me by Raincoast Books.
It is 40 pages long, about 9 x 12 inches, a softcover picture book aimed at children 5-9 years old, but would serve well as an introduction to coral reefs for any age.

Jason Chin is the author and artist of the award-winning book Redwoods , which Kirkus Reviews called, An inventive eye-opening adventure." His work also includes illustrations for Simon Winchester's The Day the World Exploded . He and his wife Deirdre, also an artist, live in Vermont. 

If you are interested in learning about Coral Reefs, do yourself a favour and check out

A picture of an Iris from my mom-in-law's house.   Isn't it so pretty?  I just love the depth of the purple in this flower.

Oh.. my sweetheart made me laugh tonight.  I am NOTORIOUS for messing up my pronunciation of words.  I held up George M. Ella's book entitled William Cowper and said "you need to read this book on William Cow-per".   He smiled with his "ever so patient smile" and said "It's William Cooper and glad you liked it hun".   I just laughed and then we got into a discussion on Old English and how they pronounced things differently.  

ANYWAYS... As I said.. Good book, it's not what I call a novelization of William Cowper life, it's more of a factual treatise.  An interesting book and I learned so much about the man, his struggles, his joys and most importantly his faith.   Books like these help broaden one's faith as you see it lived out in the lives of others.

Scattered throughout the book are little pictures.   Most of them were images of people that were part of his life.   A few were of building that were an important part of his life.

I have to admit, I found it interesting to read about how Cowper was one of the people featured in the Olney Hymnal.. I keep running into that hymnbook as I work through my hymn studies.  This hymn below was one of his.

Lover of nature, William Cowper saw it as an expression of God's wonder, and had no problem with combining those two thoughts in his poetry.

From dearth to plenty, and from death to life,
Is Nature’s progress when she lectures man
In heav’nly truth; evincing, as she makes
The grand transition, that there lives and works
A soul in all things, and that soul is God.
The beauties of the wilderness are his,
That make so gay the solitary place
Where no eye sees them.   No fairer forms
That cultivation glories in, are his.
He sets the bright procession on its way,
And marshals all the orders of the year. (p.100)

William Cowper was not bound to the conventions of the day, preferring to write his verse without flowery text or societal expectations.  Fighting against the slave trade, aiding the poor, criticizing the church, translating the classics and more.

There is much more William Cowper than one might expect and it was a pleasure to learn more about this man.

Seeing how others lived out their life of faith helps me to broaden my horizons.  :)

I have a distinct fondness for chicken wings.  Not because I LOVE chicken wings, but because I often like picky food.  Stuff I can nibble on slowly... like ripple chips where I can slowly eat a chip ripple by ripple, or fajita's that have lots of bits that need to be put together.  Chicken wings I can just nibble all the yummy goodness off and has twisty bones I can fiddle with until all the meat and gristle is gone.  It meets a need.  :)

Hubby dear has been after me to simply learn to make them myself.. can't be that hard he says.  I scoffed knowing it can be hard to get crispy wings if you don't want to do the whole oil fryer thing...

But he persisted, and so I gave it a shot.   Took me a while to find a recipe I wanted to try but I found one...AND>>> drumroll.... it not only passed MY inspection, but it also passed hubbys!!!!   Imagine that!  He likes a completely different wing than I do, so to find a recipe that works for both of us was great!

Ingredients:  We did a 1 kg recipe.

• 4 lb/ 2 kg chicken wings, cut into wingettes and drumettes (tips discarded)
• 2 tbsp baking powder (NOT BAKING SODA / BI-CARB SODA!!)
• ¾ tsp salt  (you could add other seasonings if desired)
• Oil spray

Directions:

1. If you are organized enough, uncover the chicken wings and leave them in the fridge for a few hours to dry out. Otherwise, use a paper towel to pat the wings dry.
2. Adjust oven racks to upper-middle and lower-middle positions.
3. Preheat oven to 250F/120C.
4. Line a baking tray with foil, then place a rack (like a cooling rack) on the foil. Spray the rack with oil spray. I forgot this step, didn't make a difference.
5. Place wings in a large bowl or in a ziplock bag. Add the baking powder and salt, then toss to coat evenly.
6. Place the wings on the baking tray in a single layer with the skin side up. They should just fit snugly. They will shrink when they cook because the fat renders out so don't worry if they look too snug.
7. Place wings on the lower middle oven rack and bake for 30 minutes.
8. Move wings up to the upper middle rack and increase the oven temperature to 425F/220C. Bake for 40 - 50 minutes, rotating the tray halfway through. I admittedly oops on this step too.  Cooking them for an extra 1/2 hour at 250, and then for 45 minutes at 350.  They turned out good.
9. Remove baking tray from the oven and let it stand for 5 minutes.
10. Toss wings in sauce of choice (or serve it on the side to dip / drizzle on the wings), then serve.   I had mine with sweet/sour sauce and hubby had his with  hot sauce.

IF you want to understand the science behind this recipe, CLICK HERE.

Are you an eclectic homeschooler who touches on a variety of subjects and often does homeschool your own way?   Well have I got a product for you from NotebookingPages.com, called the Lifetime Membership.  Journalling, note-taking, picture drawing... so many options to supplement your learning.

So what is notebooking you ask?
According to the Homeschool Mom: Notebooking is related to lapbooking, but notebooking is a bit simpler, with the information inserted into simple 3-ring binders ..... Notebooks are put together using maps, lab reports, scrapbook pages, worksheet pages, drawings, essays, timelines, and any other relevant work that your child creates.  (source)

There is SO much information on this site.  It's totally surprising.   So once you have your membership, you will have this for a dashboard:

As you can see, there are numerous categories you can choose from.   Within each category you will find a number of sub-categories.

Each of these categories opens into additional files.    One of the things that is rather cool is you can choose how you download the files to your computer.   In the mammals folder below you will see a "mammals zip file".   This holds the entire contents of this file.   But let's say you just want to look more in-depth at say...just the African buffalo, then you scroll down the page until you come to that file and it will open into a PDF so you can print it off.

As I scrolled through this list, reading off random ones to my son I came across Mouse.  My lad's ears perked up and he said "Can I write about them mom?"

If you look closely you will see this file comes with regular lined notebook pages as well as print line style.

You can choose to print off individual pages, or the entire unit.   I choose to print off the entire unit and let my lad look it over and choose what he wanted to do.  He can do this better with the pages in hand.  I honestly expected him to pick the print-lined sheets with a spot to draw a picture, but he surprised me.

You know, it's good to be surprised by a boy child.   It really is.  :)  

AND THAT my friends is why I can recommend NotebookingPages.com to you, the lifetime membership is worth it. 

With so many different options (over 600 pages) available to intrigue your child(ren), you might end up being surprised as well. We also worked on music, snakes, biographies and more, so much information it was hard to pick.  It will fill a gap, allow for creative expression, fill a need in a child to tell why he likes something, or just peek a child's interest to look into something more deeply.  

And that's a good thing, is it not?

You can learn more about NotebookingPages.com  and the Notebooking Pages Lifetime Membership by clicking on the image below.

In case you wonder if we covered other areas, check out these pages the lad did as well.  :)  Music, snakes, biographies and more.  Good stuff from a boy child who really isn't into copywork,but sometimes CHOOSES to be, and NotebookingPages.com has encouraged that in my lad and I am happy.

Games, people, characters, facts and bible....Tie it all together and you get Veritas Press Bible...my son's all-time favourite bible (or for that matter.. any type of learning other than hands-on science) program EVER.  Over the past several weeks my son has been happily reviewing Old Testament 2 by Veritas Press. This Self-Paced Bible online course contains the stories Judges to Kings.

I have to admit, my son got hooked on Veritas Press when we reviewed a history program for them a while back.   Since then we've purchased a couple of programs for use as well as the first of the bible series.  So to say we are fans is a bit of a understatement.  :)   Anyways, let me tell you WHY we like this program so much.

Clicking on a course opens it up showing what you see in the image below.   Every five lessons is a test covering that unit as well as a bit of the previous lessons.   This helps the student to retain information learned.   I have to admit, he's not doing as well in the Judges to Kings program as he is in the Genesis to Joshua program, but that is due to needing to know dates and as my son says "dates are boring mom".

We love this online bible course because it has interesting characters in the interactive video, the lessons are clear.  The set up is that it will quiz with six or so questions to see if you know anything about the subject matter to be talked about, and at the end of unit it will test you on everything presented in the material, plus questions from previous lessons.. focusing on the dates.

Games, activities, questions and answers... presented in different ways.  I won't tell you that every game is going to be hit, but there will be sufficient variety to maintain interest. The song is a great way to aid in remembering the order events happen in... he'll hum along when he is struggling to remember the order something happened in.

My son likes doing the maps since they allow him to keep trying until he gets it all right.  I like that it forces him to keep trying so he has to remember this important geography.   Currently we are reading through a book on Ancient Civilizations and when we are on Israel my son would pop up with "MOM!   That town is here and did you know _____________?"   As he spills out information he learned through Veritas Press.  I LOVE IT!   I love how he is learning all this stuff and remembers enough of it to tell me about it.  It's great!  :)

Our morning routine is get up, take care of the critters, catch up on tablet stuff and have breakfast.  My son has taken to modifying this routine in that he gets done taking care of his critters long before I do and he pops into the house to work on Veritas Press.  He loves doing it first thing because "Mom, it's fun and I learn stuff!".    This is a familiar scene for me....coming in to find my lad sitting in my chair listening and learning.

My laptop is a touch screen which apparently is THE BEST for playing the games.

I've offered to sit with my boy and learn with him, but he has nixed that.  "Mom, I like learning it.  Then I can tell you later and surprise you with what I know."   I do occasionally get called to help him with the odd game though but get told "DON"T answer the questions mom.... I want to!"    That speaks volumes to me about how much he likes this online bible curriculum.

My pastor hubby appreciates that they haven't sacrificed knowledge in the pursuit of a fun learning environment.  The bible stories and the history around them are presented clearly without fudging details.  Scripture references are always included.

Visit Veritas Press on Social Media

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest.
Twitter they are @VeritasPress

I sit here tonight with two round ups on my brain.   One for evaluating/looking back over the school year and considering the good, the bad, the sad... and the other about gearing our schooling according to the child(ren) we teach.  As I sit here I think, I could combine those two topics... at least I think so.  :)

Greatest Pleasure of the Year:
Take for instance a win-win in our schooling.  Over the past year we started studying Europe.  This started out as a review for drawing our way our Europe.. it involved repetitive drawing and simply wasn't working for my boy.  He for the life of him, couldn't see the point in day after day drawing the outline of a country and finding where it went on a map and ergo, being the lad he is, fought me on it.   I needed to change it up.  I liked the overall concept... drawing a country, learning some basic facts, and then finding that country on a map.  Really LEARN where that country is.   So I switched it up in a way that would appeal to my lad.    We watched videos, learned geography and made a meal to which we would invite people we cared about.   And my boy learned.
Not only did he learn.. we had fun AND he still learned country facts AND drew the country and found it on the map.  Finland.  Georgia. and more.

Unexpected Delight of the year:
Finding two math programs that work with how my boy learns!!!   Yes, can you believe it?   MATH has been another highlight of the year!!!!
1. A+ Interactive Math gave him some confidence in geometry and division.
2. LearnBop... he gets a tad upset with this program at times, but by the end of his session he's pleased as punch and learning has happened.

Why do they work?   My lad is able to use technology.. aka.. the computer to do his math learning, without colourful figures or poorly executed drawings impeding his learning methods.

Struggles of the year:
Can't say I've done well with language arts this year.    In fact... I would have to say I more or less gave up.    It's hard to find something that will work with my boy in a way that works with how he does things.   I'll be restarting Logic of English next year and doing it as a formal program.. in fact I may pull it out to work with our French Student in July and just have the lad join us in the lesson.  I am suspecting I will simply have to talk with him and say "this has to be done laddie boy, so just buckle down and do it"... despite his protestations to the contrary.

My son's favourite over the past year?
Veritas Press ... have to admit, he didn't even have to think about this at all!  :) 

Least favourite? 
Copywork.  This took more thinking on his part to come up with.   He liked practicing cursive, but he didn't like having to put it to work.  

I THINK... We have discovered our new Math Program, created by LearnBop, says mom quietly to herself, as she listens to her boy asking questions and figuring out what he knows and doesn't know in a new math program.  As much as he struggles, he ACTIVELY learning... and I think FINALLY a program has been made that is testing my son's mettle and he's learning.. and I couldn't be more pleased.

The math program?   LearnBop for Families.  My family received a years single subscription..which means my son can use it under his name, and I can use it under my name.  

Now I have to admit, my son has a love-hate relationship with LearnBop.  He really does.  He loves to do it, but he hates that it teaches him differently than he has learned in the past, but ... that VERY DIFFERENCE is what makes it work for him.

"MOM!   Why does it teach me this way?    Don't they know that I learned it this way?" (and then he proceeds to teach me how he learned it) and in the process proves to me and to LearnBop that he does indeed know his stuff.  And then he smiles.. oh my boy he smiles... and it is GOOD.  :)

What is LearnBop?
LearnBop for Families is an adaptive online math program offering an annual subscription for up to four students.  It gives parents the ability to select the level for each student and monitor their individual progress.  You can get a single student version or the family version. 

It is a self-paced program that works for Grades 3-8 along with high school Algebra 1, Algebra II, and Geometry.

LearnBop offers warm-ups, in-lesson videos, and practice questions which are called “bops.”  Each student has a roadmap that they follow.

This multi-student subscription is available for $199.95 annually or $19.95 monthly.  There is also an option for a single student plan for $149.95 annually or $14.95 monthly.

So how does this challenging program push my boy?  
Let me walk you through a lesson.
My son sets himself up on my laptop and his tablet.  Sometimes MilkyWay (his pet mouse) joins him for a lesson.

LearnBop works on a system of roadmaps.  My son is using grade five.  He's completed 2 of 13 roadmaps.   For this lesson he's working through Add/Subtract Fractions with Unlike Denominators.   When working through a unit, you are first given some warm up questions which introduce questions and concepts that will be covered in the unit.   My son is NOT thrilled with his marks in the warm up section but has learned they are only there to get his brain working about the next math area.

Each unit follows the same format.   Watch three videos, watch a fourth if you want to, and solve some Bops.  Bops are questions about the topic at hand.   They are very specific to topic.

The amount of Bops needed varies we have found.   At first my lad was distressed by this, thinking the program was lying, until we realized that the end goal of LearnBop for Families was for the students to reach a 90% grade.

This means if you choose not to watch the videos (which counts as part of your grade) then you get to do more questions (more Bops) as a result, so it was a bit of a toss up and meant my son had decisions to make.   Most often he chose to watch less videos and do more questions.   You can get a higher grade if you watch the optional video as well.

The bops are presented in different ways.  The ones I saw always came as word problems, but the solution was answered in different ways.   Sometimes as a multiple choice, sometimes as a click and drag, and other times as a write it in.

One thing my lad struggled with in this lesson was the need to not only have the smallest fraction, but the larger fraction that the small fraction would come from.   My lad didn't understand as every time he's worked on fractions before the smallest fraction was always correct and anything else was wrong.    We eventually decided it was a training tool, another way for students to see that large or small it was the same number (which made sense to us).   It's just another way to appreciate how a program makes you think the answer through.  

Another training tool is how they handle missed questions.   On the occasion that my son either misunderstood the question or filled in an answer in the incorrect order, he would be bumped to the option of restarting the question OR to work through the question one step at a time.   This ensures that the student understands all the incremental parts to the question and working through the answer.

Seeing this screen always elicited a YAY!!!   from my lad. "Yay, mom!   I did it!" along with a smile and then he was off to do his daily reading.  :)   Tis a good thing to see a lad happy about math.

LearnBop has a few other aspects to it that I wanted to talk to you about.

Learning accomplishments and recent progress.   As a mom, I found this helpful, my son was somewhat less than enthused.  :)  He's just glad to work through and learn different math items (and to show me that he knows them).  And this online math tutor did an excellent job of showing him this.

This is something my son and I discovered today and that he really likes.  :)   It tells him what is next on the agenda... decimal place.  "MOM!!!   I know that!   That will be an easy lesson to do.   Do you think they will show me a different way to do it this time?   Or will they show me the way I already know?" 

"I guess we will wait and see eh?"   That's the only response I could make.

When I signed up for this review I did so thinking that I would be working with LearnBop as well.   I wasn't sure how my lad would take to it and was prepared to pick up the slack and do a higher grade math myself, but my lad eagerly dug into this wonderful on-line math program 4 days a week with the exception of a week that he was at day camp and even then he fit in two days!  

Needless to say, I haven't spent a lot of time using LearnBop for Families.  I could have used my dashboard to work on lessons, but chose not to as it very much became my son's math program as we'll be using it through the rest of the summer.   (or until the 13 units are done).  Then if he chooses to, we'll move up to grade six.

So we liked LearnBop for Families, if you want to see what others of the crew thought, click on the link below.

Social Media Links:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LearnBop
Twitter: https://twitter.com/LearnBop @LearnBop

Usually I store these open windows in a file on my blog task bar, but some of these are posts that I was wanting to share with folks, so I figured I'll temporarily.. well permenantly.. store them publicly.  :)

SmartKidz Media.
This was a review I did last year and I recently discovered they've extended my subscription for another year!   Pretty cool eh?  Today we learned about the geography of Turkey.. rather fascinating.
e in Christ
This is a well
Made Whol written poem by the author of the blog Call to Witness.
An excerpt
Jesus Christ is the only One who can plug the gap in my spirit.

Before He came, I was a slave to sin,

Learning the power of saying I don't know.
A short quote: There are at least three reasons why admitting ignorance is good for you as a person and a ministry leader:  You will have to go to the post to discover those three reasons.  :)

Twittter page for Homeschooling World.
I found some links on this page I found intriguing and wanted to find the time to follow up on them.  

Gosh, Golly, Gee...
I have to admit that I am not sure if I agree with the innocence of using these words. I think more care needs to be given when using these words, as that lack of respect for God is also disrespect... it's hard to figure sometimes....

Neuter your rabbit.
I have to admit that most of my readers WILL NOT be interested in this post.. but it's one that intrigued me.  not sure that I am brave enough to try any of the methods with my rabbits though.... 

Moving beyond the page.
Someone recommended them as a great science program so I thought I'd check it out.  Won't be using them, as I have a science program already that is working for us.  BUT they do look interesting.

Three Bravewriter Products.
have to admit, I haven't really looked at this page, it's on my "to-do" list which I haven't really managed to shorten (at least that's how it feels).   I hadn't heard of bravewriter before but something about the post intrigued so .. I'll get to looking at it sometime.  :)

Meet the masters.
Still haven't signed up for this... but it's supposed to be free for the summer or something like that.  :)

10 YouTube Channels to supplement homeschooling.
Hey.. the title says it all.  Wouldn't you save it to look at later????

Of interest to fellow Ontario-ians.  :) 
Coupons for Ontario Attractions! 

Vows.
Hubby suggested I read this.   I felt VERY sad when I finished it.   Our denomination is under such a battle.   Political statements made during communion.   If the church is supposed to be so welcoming then why make such a political statement during a time when we are to see our sin clearly and our need for Christ be felt more dearly?   Sometimes, all this stuff makes me just want to weep.

Wedged:
This one wasn't open in my browser at the time, but I think it deserves to be read as a counter-point to the one above.

Anyways, closing ALL those tabs will make my laptop run better so I can close my last two windows...LearnBop and The TOS Forum when I get this review done.  :)