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A Day in the Life in December

12/5/2014

So here we are on the 4th of December, just starting a new year with the Crew.    Seems to make everything busy again, though in reality it just makes it a bit busier if one manages their time well.

BUT that's not why I'm here, today I"m here to walk you through a day in our life.

This morning I woke up WAY too early, I would have loved to have slept longer but I also didn't want to get up so I laid in bed reading and dozing off and on.   Finally got up at 700, started my bunny chores, came in at 730 to wake up our student to get him on the way... I know he heard me, but when I got in at 900 he was still having breakfast so he got to school late.   He mumbled something about falling back to sleep...

The lad finally deigned to wake up when I brought laundry upstairs to his room. "Mom? What???"   I
My response was "It's 930 lad, you might want to get up. I"M HUNGRY!"
While he readied himself I got laundry put away.

After discussing our conversation jar question "what toy did you play with most as a child" (we both said lego), over a breakfast of cereal, we read our missionary story of the day. About a family travelling through the jungle of Belize, getting lost at night, and being protected by an angel. (that's the very short rendition).   The lad and I were quite astounded by the events.

We got a bit of a late start to the day, as the lad needed to care for his mice and snake.As I got our materials ready for our upstairs work, the lad did his 20 minutes of reading. By the time he was done I had printed off some math practice sheets for him and figured out our assignments from Mapping the world with art. Part of the time needed was in using my new map program to make some maps for my lad. He's been struggling with some of the complexities of the maps due to his "it has to be perfect streak". So I thought printing them out would be better and with the map program I could put my dots on the page, and put in mountains and what not. It worked a charm!

My lad was able to focus on the countries and the places instead of working on doing the drawing perfectly. He was able to save his art acumen for creating a Medieval TO map. This project was really enjoyed by my lad. He enjoyed figuring out how to make the letters special even if they aren't done in a medieval font.

We followed this up with some math practice, this took longer than it should have and my lad, when asked to double check his work with a correct answer sheet, said "MOM.. if I do that.. then there's no point in my correcting it as I already know the answer! It's best if you check them for me mom." (what does say in return to that?)

By this time we were getting hungry as it was getting on 230, so we stopped to have lunch and while having lunch finished up our day with Classics for kids. Today our artist was Modest Mussorgsky.

Of course, just as our school day was drawing to a close hubby dear said, "check this video out you two". Isn't science rather neat? My son now wants to go to a friends house and use their pool.. wrong time of year or not. :)

The rest of our day was taken up with minecraft (1/2 hour the lad playing solo), 1/2 hour playing lego Harry Potter with Dad on the Xbox, cleaning the book room (me), having supper (the whole family), the lad writing out lines for venting his frustration inappropriately, the lad attending Cadets at the local Christian Reformed Church and that's about it. :)

So overall, even though the day started sluggishly and none of us had a whole lot of ambition, the day went fairly well.     :)     Now to see what tomorrow brings!

So, do you have a day in the life to share?   If so, I'd be delighted to read up on it.   Leave a link in the comments and I'll check it out too. :)

Review: Dare U 2 Open This Book

12/3/2014

I picked this book Dare U 2 Open This Book by Carol McAdams Moore to review as I thought it might be just the thing to get my lad started on doing devotions without it being a stressful, I have to read lots and lots event for him.   It is proving to meet that end quite nicely. I am reviewing this book on behalf of BookLook Bloggers.

My son has been using this for a couple of weeks now and seems to be learning and thinking as he goes through different bible passages.   This is a devotional written for BOYS. It is very much geared that way.

I have to admit, that the meaning author is not always what I would take, and sometimes the context is lost in the focus on the verse.   But the lad is thinking and this is a good thing.

So what do you get?   You get a book that encourages children to draw and write what they think a passage means and how it affects them. Large writing in simplified language.     Each devotional is a two page spread. One side introduces the passage or verse with verse focused on written out. Then a short "this is what it means" writing is given. The next page starts with "what if..." Then instruction to draw or write what that means or how it affects the child is given.

a typical page spread

my son was supposed to draw an orchestra here, but asked if he would write what he wanted instead. I said "it's your book, you do what works best for you.". That eased his frustration (of not knowing how to draw it) so that he could actually think about what he wanted instead. I can spell words that he can't. :)

My son has learned that this book is his. What he writes or draws in it is between him and God. That if he wants to share it with me he can, but he doesn't have to. My goal is to encourage him to think on God's word, and to dwell on what it means to him, how the things in his life are affected by whom God is.

here he is taking time to think abit. Considering what unbelievable thing he knows about that God has a hand in. This took some thought.

My son's responses when asked if this would be a book he would recommend to other children his age (he is age 9). "Yes. It's a good devotional book. I can do it. There's not a whole lot of reading and I understand what it says."

My recommendation: Since I help my son find the bible passage, and I help him read it when he can't, it gives me a chance to talk with him about it, and then to be a sounding board when necessary. I don't mind that the explanation of the passage sometimes misses what I see as the point (it's an issue I struggle with, with most devotionals). But my son is thinking and learning, and THAT is what is most important for his first "on his own devotions".

Christmas traditions

12/1/2014

Every family that I know has them, do you have a Christmas tradition? Perhaps even one or two?

I grew up in a family where gift giving was kept separate from the understanding of the Christ child being born. Mind, it was always somehow connected in the minds of us children, but my parents tried to keep it somewhat separated. My hubby grew up with gifts on Christmas morning and then heading off to church. As a family we sometimes don't quite no how to make it work, but we generally always have a good time a Christmas regardless. :)

One of the things I did when I was single was to make plates of goodies for my neighbours. Doing that now is a tad difficult so we've changed it to an almost annual Open House.. we miss sometimes due to health factors and what not, but generally we Open our doors to friends, family and church folk to visit us. I put out a spread of food, clean the house really well, and will get out stuff for the children do if any come. :)

We put up a real Christmas tree every year. This year my boy helped me with quite a bit of it. That was so fun and quite nice. This year our tree came from a very local farmer. It's a big rather heavy tree, but it's smells up the house quite wonderfully and the decorations don't fall off as they have on some of our previous trees. Oh shucks, I thought I had picture it it but I don't. :) When I get one I toss it in here. In the meantime let me introduce to you one of the favourite things to do at Christmas. Put up my village. :)

I've been collecting pieces over the last 15 years. It makes me smile and my boy loves to add his own little touch. This year it was numerous lego spiders and various Harry Potter figurines. Our student made me smile. You see, he's been heavily into basketball and has been coimng home exhausted. After a nap, while I set things up, he came down stairs, saw my village and gave me the biggest grin and then had to check out my train. ) He gave everything a good going over and then said "is nice". :) I agree.. it is nice. :)

I have to admit, it's been a bit odd this year. Normally the cats take out a claim in my village but this this year they are totally ignoring it. Not sure why, but I don't mind the lack of knocked over or broken village pieces.

We also do a advent. Sometimes I buy the cheap calendars with chocolate in them, this year we went with the Lego Advent Calendar. It's not a true Advent as it's just the 24 days before Christmas. But we do readings along with it. We are alternating this year between Professor Carol's advent reading and reading Bible passages. Keeps things a bit different you know. :) We tried doing a Jesse' tree one year but found it didn't work for our family well.

So tell me please.... what are some of YOUR Christmas traditions?

Recipe: Boterkoek

12/1/2014

Being of Dutch heritage I grew up with Boterkoek though I can't ever recall my mother making it. Ergo I always thought it was difficult to make. Why I connected those two thoughts I don't know as my mother was a good cook and did make some complicated recipes, but this just wasn't a normal one for her.

ANYWAYS, it's easy! And now I have a recipe that I can make for myself whenever I want to. :) This recipe comes from Dina at church.

Ingredients:

1 cup butter, soft not melted. NOTE: use REAL butter
1 cup icing sugar
1 cup white sugar

3 eggs, beaten NOTE: you will need retain some to brush on the top

2 tsp almond flavouring

1 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Sliced almonds

Directions:
1. preheat oven to 325
2. cream butter and sugars. Add beaten eggs (all bit enough to brush on top). Add eggs ones at a time. Then add the flavouring.
3. Mix together the dry ingredients, gradually add to the creamed mixture.
4. place in pan, brush with egg, sprinkle with sliced almonds.
5. bake for 35-40 minutes. Cut when cool.

This recipe makes enough for two 8" round tins or 1 12" oblong pan.

Review: Birds of a Feather

12/1/2014

Homeschool Legacy put together these neat once-a-week unit studies. Today I have the opportunity to tell you about Birds of a Feather that I had a chance to review with my son. :)

y boy has been getting more into studying the birds that come to our feeder and I thought it would enhance that study. :)

Since we already have an are in our background for attracting birds we pretty much decided to ignore week one. We did do the weekly devotional but we didn't need to do the work of creating a backyard set up for the birds. Below you will find one of our guests over the summer. We had a variety of birds visit us this year that we haven't had other years so it was neat to have the birds feeders there so we could see them up close. The feeders are set up right outside our back yard window.

We had thought about putting up a bird bath (a simple one to construct is included in the unit study) but on hubby's suggestion we decided that our fish pond would be good enough for the birds... we just put in a floating piece of wood for them. Once the birds figured it out, we had more more of them hanging around. :) It is certainly fun watching them bathe thoroughly though we noticed that some birds very much prefer taking dust baths. So having some find sand near the feeders has proven to be a nice thing for the birds as well. My son thinks they are funny.

These Unit studies are designed to last about a month, with little or no prep needed by the teacher (as long as one has the needed supplies on hand). :) Biblically based, with a variety of activities to attend the needs of different learners so the whole family can work together on them.

In week two they suggest we look through a book called "birds of America". We chose instead to go to our "go-to" book about birds from Canada. :)

As we attempt to identify which birds are at our feeder we have learned to look at colour placement, size, beak type and even which feeder they prefer.    We have had woodpeckers, nuthatches, kinglets, sparrows, finches, crows and blue birds at our feeders. The grackles like to come by in the spring (they make a huge mess). It's been so much fun watching them all come and go.   We been encouraged to consider why a bird might have a particular beak shape as well, and why their feet are different.

What purpose might God have in designing this bird in that particular manner?

For week three of our study we were to get bones and compare them...but we had the joy of finding a dead bird. In the summer heat the maggots cleared away fhe flesh rapidly leaving us with a clean carcass to look at.     We were able to closely examine how a birds feathers were designed, how they functioned, as our unit study said, like a zipper.   Able to be put together in order to keep a bird nicely dry.   We could see and feel how very light-weight birds are put together.   From when we had a chicken my son was able to see how they had different feathers...pn feathers, down feathers, and outside feathers   We've been able to make cat toys out of the feathers giving my son a chance to see how cats would catch a bird on the wing and how the wings move in the air..It's actually quite fascinating.

AND our study of birds has brought us to owning a finch.   Catching and holding the finch and comparing it to a similar sized mouse my son was amazed at how light the bird was and why it was so easy for them to fly quickly away.

Week four lead us into a discussion on birds of prey. Woot woot1 We got to dissect owl pellets. This was quite fascinating.

i have to admit, my son nows a fair deal about birds of prey at this point.   He raises mice for the raptor rescue centre.   Doing the owl pellet dissection brought home to him what parts of the mice the owls leave behind.

So did we like the study?

it was an excellent base of study for us. Gave us lots to discuss and do. I have to admit, we didn't do much of what was in the study practical wise, but we did learn a lot and it was a good base of study for us.     The sheer number of resources listed was helpful.   The variety of activites and research projects listed were great and gave us opportunities to look up the answers together and learn all the more.

It lays things out in a very systematic way which took us a bit to get used to. And I was glad I was able to be flexible in how we used the material. Good job the creators.

Some facts about Once-a-week unit studies.
Bible based.   Designed to work well for badges for boy and girl clubs. Low prep. Designed to fit into a school week well. Topic based unit studies covering a wild gambit of study areas.