We have lots of adventures -- schoolwork (especially cooking and arts & crafts!), field trips, and checking out new things to do. Sometimes we'll have lots to share, sometimes we will take it easy, but we are always on an adventure.
This month at So You Call Yourself a Homeschooler?, I'm sharing three recipes. The first two are for easy side dishes, and the third is for one of Celia's favorite sweets.
The first side dish is Creamy Garlic Shells - and it's free of the top 7 allergens (contains coconut milk). This is a dish my mom made often, usually from a mix in an envelope. (Even though I *know* it's a powdered mix and loaded with less-than-healthy things, I still love the stuff.) This recipe is a simple garlic cream sauce and gluten free baby shell noodles - just as good as the dish Mom served.
The second side is a simple wilted garlic spinach. Around here, we call it "Cooked Salad," and it's one of the few veggies the boys will reliably eat. I always make extra - the leftovers are great mixed into pasta sauce or quiche.
Finally, for dessert is Strawberry Honeycomb. Strawberries and sugar are cooked together, and a touch of baking soda is added. Watch the syrup fizz, and then when it cools, you have an airy candy that is slightly addictive.
Come on over, get the recipes, and then stick around. There's lots of great support for homeschoolers, and every day a new perspective!
It's Friday!! AND a holiday weekend -- three days off!!
1. Jude is slowly transitioning to First Grader. He's been working on a first grade Math book for about a month now, and this week moved up to a Secondary Primer notebook for writing. There are 14 school days left in the big kids' school year. I feel like we just started.
2. We had our dryer duct cleaned out today. When the guys blew out the bottom of the line, it looked like it was snowing! But now my dryer actually dries...imagine that!
3. I am in love with our new juicer, and the possibilities. So far, I've
only juiced strawberries and apples for Celia and Damien, but I'm
looking forward to maybe doing some tomato juice (to turn into tomato
soup) and carrot/veggie juice to add to pump up spaghetti sauce.
4. Damien keeps stealing the ripe strawberries from our little patch.
I caught him with the last one in his mouth, and said, "I told you not
to take the strawberries!" His answer, around a mouth full of berry, was
"What? It was a red one." At least he knows his colors?
5. Jude and I made popcorn this week for a combo phonics-spelling-science-crafts project. He declared it the best lesson ever.
This week our household became the proud owners of new juicer. A little backstory:
John Pinette is one of my favorite comedians. I have to admit, I have a similar skepticism of juicing. "Juice is not a verb."
Another mom-friend (Marcy) recently started a juice fast as last ditch to attempt to recover her health. I'm not necessarily sold on juicing as a way of life, but I'm very happy she has found some relief from her pain. Living with chronic pain isn't easy. But following her story made a little light bulb go off above my head. All jokes about juicing a ham for Celia aside, having a juicer would definitely help broaden options for meals. While nutrition isn't an issue (she gets tube feeds of elemental formula), when you only have two foods to work with (pork and strawberries), creative presentation is the key to keeping food interesting. We've been using pureed strawberries for many things, but it's very labor intensive. Zapping them in a blender is easy; straining out all the seeds so you don't have crunchy gelatin is a royal pain. Plus, strawberry puree burns easily and means strawberry flavored candy tastes "kinda strawberry, kinda weird." Suddenly, I thought -- "Hey, I wonder if a juicing machine would make a difference."
I'll give Marcy all the credit for juicer research. I went back to her blog to look at what she was using. She likes her juicer for hard fruits and veggies, but said it was not so ideal for softer produce. Since I wanted mine specifically for juicing strawberries, I opted for amodel that has a "soft fruit" speed. The "package man" delivered it this week, and I set it up right away. Strawberries are FINALLY in season, so we are really gorging on them while we can! I pulled out a quart of strawberries and started juicing.
I can sum up this machine in one word. AWESOME. It made short work of the berries, and extracted almost 13 ounces of ruby-hued juice from a scant quart of berries. And there was not a single seed floating in it! I wouldn't say the pulp was bone dry, but when I tried to run it through the hopper again, nothing more was extracted. I switched out the pitcher for a bowl, and ran a couple of Granny Smith apples through it to make strawberry-apple juice for Damien. The pulp left from the apples was very dry - the consistency of damp sand. So yes, if there is juice to come out, this juicer wrings every drop!
Celia drank a glass of strawberry juice with her dinner, and we used the leftover to make strawberry flavored marshmallows. I've tried to make strawberry marshmallows before, first using berry puree (how we learned it burns). Then I tried making strawberry extract by macerating strawberries in rum. Despite a very strong flavor when I tasted the extract itself, that candy barely had a strawberry aroma. Celia and Damien love plain marshmallows (we go through two or three pans a week), but the I-can-outsmart-EoE side of me was on a mission to make strawberry marshmallows. I was hoping that the strawberry juice would do it. So Celia and I made marshmallows with the remaining juice.
Verdict -- these are Strawberry marshmallows. Yes, with a capital S and italics. When I open the container, you can smell strawberries. When you bite the delicately pink marshmallow, you get a burst of berry on your tongue. Celia says they are perfect for a Princess Party. Or Valentine's Day. Or Lunch. I like them plain, and Celia likes them roasted. Damien doesn't care one way or the other -- just keep them coming!
Note: You can use any powdered sugar. We purchase Tate & Lyle Icing Sugar from an online import shop. It's only sold in the UK, and it is pure cane sugar with no added starches. You can use any brand of "10x" or powdered sugar.
Special Equipment:
no-stick foil (not totally necessary, but added insurance when removing marshmallows from pan)
candy thermometer
electric mixer
silicone or rubber spatula
This is a good project to do with kids, but a grown-up should do the thermometer and pouring parts.
Line a 9x13 pan with (no-stick) aluminum foil. Sift powdered sugar generously, coating the bottom fully and the sides as best as you can.
In a heat-proof mixing bowl, place 1/2 c. juice and gelatin. Mix to combine and allow gelatin to soften for about 10 minutes.
If you're using a stand mixer, use the whisk attachment.
In a small saucepan, mix remaining 1/2 c. juice with the granulated sugar. Over medium heat, melt the sugar into the juice, stirring gently. Bring to a full boil, place a lid on the pot, and set a timer for 3 minutes. DO NOT STIR THE SUGAR MIXTURE AFTER THIS POINT. You don't want to create any crystals that will make your marshmallows gritty.
After 3 minutes, remove the lid.
Carefully insert a candy thermometer into the syrup, and continue cooking until it reaches the soft ball stage (235* F). Carefully remove the pan from the heat.
Start the mixer at low speed, and begin beating the gelatin mixture to break it up. Carefully pour the sugar syrup in, trying to avoid the side and the beater(s). DO NOT SCRAPE THE PAN - this can introduce crystals to the marshmallows. Just pour what comes out of the pan freely.
Slowly turn the mixer speed up to full speed. Beat until fluffy, the volume of marshmallow nearly fills the bowl, and the bowl is mostly to the touch. (A little warmth is OK, but you should be able to comfortably hold your hand against it.)
Pour the marshmallow into the sugared pan. Gently scrape the sides with a spatula. You don't want to scrape the bowl clean (you may introduce crystals), just get what comes off easily. There will be a thin film of marshmallow that clings to the bowl.
Coat the top of the panned marshmallow with powdered sugar. Gently press the marshmallow out so that it fills the pan and the top is mostly smooth. Allow to cool for 1-2 hours.
Find volunteers to lick the spatula and beaters. There's never a shortage of those here.
Lift the foil out of the pan, and turn the marshmallow over onto a cutting board. Gently remove the foil.
Sift a bit of powdered sugar into the marshmallow pan. Cut the marshmallows with a pizza cutter, sharp knife, or cookie cutter. (If using a cookie cutter, dust in sugar first.)
Roll the cut edges in the powdered sugar to keep them from sticking. Store in an airtight container. Enjoy!
Imagine being without a home, and in a shelter. Now imagine that the food they served could cause your child to experience anaphylaxis. You'd survive the tornado, only to be killed by a sandwich. Please join us in supporting the Oklahoma Food Allergy Support Group in providing allergy-friendly foods to food banks in Moore, OK and the surrounding area. An easy way to help - without even leaving your living room for the post office - is to go to Amazon.com and order items to be shipped directly to Oklahoma. While anything easy-to-prepare would be appreciated, some suggestions:
Enjoy Life Foods products -- including Sunbutter bars and Individually Wrapped Cookies
(Note: By clicking through any of these links, Amazon will donate a portion of the proceeds to the Kids with Food Allergies Foundation, and help fund KFA's Disaster Support Team.)
Donations can be sent to:
The Cherokee Hills Church of Christ 6724 NW 63 Oklahoma City, OK 73132 Attn: Becky Matlack and Oklahoma Food Allergy Support Group
PHONE: 405-305-3009
Email: tessasmomy (at) yahoo (dot) com
or cami62 (at) sbcglobal (dot) net
You can also go toPeanut Free Planet, and place an order. They will cover the SHIPPING of your donation and see that it gets to the OKLAHOMA REGIONAL FOOD BANK.You may also DONATE $ to purchase products to fill in the gaps of other donations via a gift certificate. To order or donate:
Choose the item(s) you wish to donate
ENTER THE PEANUT FREE PLANET ADDRESS AS SHIPPING ADDRESS:
15252 Stony Creek Way, Noblesville, IN
and choose IN STORE PICKUP and put ‘OKLAHOMA” in the comments section.
All donations will be shipped
THURSDAY MORNING. Please help to get the word out by copying and pasting
this portion on your FB page.
Our love and prayers are being sent to Oklahoma.
When sorrowful, be steadfast, and in crushing misfortune be patient; For in fire gold and silver are tested, and worthy people in the crucible of humiliation. Trust God and God will help you; trust in him, and he will direct your way.
Sirach 2: 4-6
Just like the appearance of
the rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day so was the appearance of
brilliance that surrounded him. Such was the appearance of the likeness
of the glory of the LORD.
Ezekiel 1:28
Last Saturday morning, Matthew called me to say he threw up and needed a
ride home from play practice. When we got in the door, Celia bolted for
the bathroom. I thought we were going to spend the weekend passing a
virus around, but by mid-afternoon, everyone's stomachs seemed to have
calmed down. Neal and I went out to dinner (it was the 18th anniversary
of our first date) and to run errands (isn't the traditional gift "a
bathroom sink"?), but our date was cut short by a text from Luke: "When
are you coming home? Celia just puked on the couch." That seemed to
start a rapid spiral downward. She was sick all night - she'd fall
asleep, wake up vomiting, and then fall back over. I stayed up with her
until close to 1 am; Neal woke up and took the graveyard shift so I
could get some sleep. By morning, she was a sad little pumpkin. By
lunchtime, I was starting to get nervous, because nothing was
staying down. She desperately wanted to drink, but it came back up. We
kept turning her tube feeds of rehydration solution down and ran them slower and
slower, in the hopes that something would stay. As a last ditch effort, we turned her down to 30 ml - one ounce
- per hour, and even that didn't stay put. We raised the white flag
and took her to duPont. You know it's bad when the 8-year-old patient
says to the triage nurse, "Can you just put an IV in already? My tubey
isn't working."
Bottom line, she was dehydrated.
Severely. She had just been to the GI clinic on Tuesday, and hen they
weighed her in the triage room, her weight was lower than it was then.
Which makes sense. Then I pulled out my phone to enter her weight in,
and realized she had lost almost 3 kg in 4 days. The ER docs were
shocked. I was concerned at this point, because that was a lot of
weight for her, but focused on getting her better. ER docs
ordered labs, a huge bolus of fluid (I didn't know infusion pumps could
click that fast) and an x-ray to rule out any kind of bowel
obstructions, and then we were heading up to a room. We were admitted
on the GI service - I think general peds was afraid of her, so we got to
see some old friends. We didn't have too exciting of a reunion,
because now it was past 4 am and I just wanted a nap before rounds. GI team finally came, and I mentioned
it was pretty obvious from her weight that she was down a lot of fluid,
and gave the doc the two weights. We've known the GI who was on inpatient service since Celia was
toddler, and know that very little fazes him. His eyes rolled upwards as he did
some mental calculations, and then his face fell and went pale. He
remarked that she had lost 10% of her body weight in four days.
At this point, I start to think, "If he's getting worried, is this where
I start panicking?" Our day nurse was subbing in the unit for the day;
normally he is assigned to the PICU. He looked at our labs, and then
showed them to me. She had some numbers that were seriously
off-kilter. We knew she was sick, but didn't realize just HOW sick she
was.
Finally by late Monday afternoon, she seemed to have
turned a corner. After a liter of plain saline and most of a liter of
potassium IV, she seemed to perk up. The docs finally let her have
fluids by mouth, and she immediately demanded club soda. (And yes, I
hustled down to the cafeteria to get some seltzer.) She was still tired,
but starting to look for things to do. First, she commandeered my
laptop so she could do some of her home math program. She was slower
than usual...it took her ten minutes instead of eight. Thankfully, Child Life came by with some paint, so that kept her occupied for a while. Among the things she painted was this rainbow. It was amazing to me, to see her so sick on Sunday, and then less than a day later almost recovered.
We wound up staying until mid-afternoon on Tuesday. The doctors didn't trust her because, bad as she appeared, she didn't look as bad as the labs showed. After making sure she truly was better, they let her go home. By Wednesday, she was back to school and back to normal! I chose this verse from Ezekiel for this picture and story, because to see her sitting up, painting a rainbow, shows just how good and glorious God is. This was one very sick little girl who had so many people praying for her, and God showed just how speedy and magnificent a healer He is.
1. There is nothing like going on a date with the hubby to celebrate 18th years since your first date and getting a phone call from your babysitting teen: "When are you coming home? Celia just puked on the couch."
2. There is no Mother's Day gift like healthy kids, even if it is a bit late. That bug knocked Celia for a loop and we spent 2 1/2 days in the hospital.
3. The next few weeks are going to be crazy with
performances. In the next three weeks, we have Matthew's play, Luke's
spring concert, and Celia's violin recital.
4. It looks like we have made a decision for Luke and school next year. His current school is closing, and other local schools just aren't the right option for him, so he's going to be a homeschooler too.
3. The last of Jude's new bedroom decorations came. His room
now is "officially" an Avengers/Spiderman big boy room. Where did my
baby boy go?
Spanish for You! is a theme-based multisensory program for teaching students in grades 3 through 8 how to speak Spanish. It incorporates listening, speaking, reading and writing. Rather than being a single-grade curriculum, it can be used throughout the age range. It is divided into age sections (grades 3-4, 5-6, 7-8) so a larger family can use one program simultaneously (using the individual grade sections/worksheets), or a single student can use the same book for several years. Each themed curriculumincludes materials (downloadable textbook, workbook, and .mp3 sound files) for all grade levels is $64.95; while individual grade units are available as well ($39.95 each). Currently, there are two full courses available - EstacionesandFiestas, with a third (Viajes) set to debut in June 2013. The program is set up to be used 4 days per week; the entire course
takes 24-30 weeks, depending on grade level. However, it is very easy
to work at a faster pace. Each lesson is planned to take from 10 to 30
minutes, so it is easy to add in some of the suggested games, or even do
two lessons in one sitting. Celia studied the Estaciones (Seasons) program, working on the grade 3-4 section. It contained five units, with several daily lessons for each unit.
One thing I liked about this program is the intense focus on a specific topic. The student thorougly learns the vocabulary associated with a specific topic, rather than a few words about this and then some about that. Celia also used these words in sentences/conversation, so that what she recalled wasn't rote memorization but critical thinking. For example, to answer the question, "Cuando hace calor?" she needed to understand the question ("When is the weather warm?") and then recall the correct month and grammar (for example, "Hace calor en junio," or "It is warm in June.") The text employs both reading, writing and speaking for learning in the workbook. It also recommends that the student create index cards with the vocabulary and common idioms used in the course. This definitely can help the student work on drilling vocabulary. However, this particular angle did not work so well for us, because flashcards are not particularly efficient for her. She found greater success just reading and re-reading the pages, and listening to the included .mp3 files.
I liked that the conjugation sections contained all six forms of a conjugated verb. When I learned Spanish (multiple dialects), I was taught all six. Even though only Castillian dialect Spanish uses the vosotros (plural you familiar) form of verbs, to pass the courses, I needed to be able to speak in any dialect. Celia is currently learning Spanish in her school, and her teacher instructs in her native dialect (Puerto Rico)is a native Puerto Rican, and teaches her native dialect. Celia has not learned much about this form of conjugation, though she knows it exists. Working on this program gave her greater exposure to this form of the verb. She is aware that it is not commonly used by most Spanish speakers, but it is still good for her to learn it.
However, I did not like that there was little explanation of WHY things were the way they are. For starters, the way to conjugate verbs was shown as simply memorizing the conjugations. While this might be fine for learning only a few verbs (the units we studied each introduced a fewverbs in each one), it did not explain the patterns and when Celia comes across a verb that hasn't been memorized yet, she would be unable to conjugate it. The conjugated forms were clearly labled, but the endings were not clearly explained. For example, in the "yo" form, most verbs drop the "ending" (-ar, -er, -ir) and and the letter "o" to the root. However, the text did not explain the difference in verb endings, or how the ending patterns were the similar but not identical for "you" and "they" and "we" etc. A particularly intrepid student might be able to eventually figure out the pattern, but it is a difficult way to learn a language. I think it would be like expecting someone to memorize "I jump, you jump, verbhe jumps; I walk, you walk, he walks" without saying clearly "The general rule is if it is he or she, add an "s". One of the verbs used is ir, "to go." Ir is an irregular verb and does not follow any of the usual rules, and there is no mention of "This verb just is different, memorize this because it doesn't follow a pattern." It also does not explain idioms well. It *teaches* them, but it does not *explain* them. For example, in English, we say "It is hot," but Spanish does not use the "is" verb but "hacer" which translates as "to make" and the sentence is "Hace calor." A beginning student easily may substitute "hacer" when they really mean "is" -- for example, the lesson "Hoy es lunes," ("Today is Monday,") could easily confuse a beginner who doesn't understand that weather has its own idioms and is not a literal translation. I would have liked to see lessons include more grammar rules, rather than just examples.
As the instructor, I struggled with the organization of the download. I think it would have been much more helpful for the worksheets to be organized by grade, rather than Unit/Lesson. To print out the workbook, each page had to be individually sent to the printer after having to sort through the list for the correct grade. In addition, I went over the lesson plans and text several times and for some reason still had extra grade-appropriate worksheets that I couldn't figure out where to incorporate. We just saved them for the end of the unit and used them as a review, but it was frustrating to not be able to figure where they belonged.
Many days' lessons include one or more multiplayer games. We wound up skipping many of these, because Celia was the only child utilizing this program. This part of the program is probably better for group/family study, or for the
parent who is able to be extremely involved with teaching the lesson.
Celia really enjoys learning Spanish, and takes a twice weekly class at school. We will probably continue to use this program as a supplemental/summer activity for her. Although it is meant to take up to 6 months to complete, I think it is possible to complete the course in three to four months, and so will probably also use it with Matthew over the summer (for practice and so there is more than one student to play some of the suggested games.) However, for a full time/core foreign language program, I would opt for something that has a similar unit study style but provides a more structured grammar frame, and that is easier to do independently.
¡Por favor,ven a verlo queotros miembros piensan acerca de este programa!
(Please, come to see other Crew Members thought of this program.)
