Tonight hubby made supper, he was all.. hmm.. I don't know what to make so I suggested meatloaf and he agreed it was a great idea. :) He found this recipe and modified as per some of the suggestions in the comments.
Ingredients 900 grams (almost two pounds) ground beef 2 egg 1 cup milk 1 cup dried bread crumbs salt and pepper to taste 1.5 tbsp of worchestershire sauce 1 onion, chopped 3 tsp Minced garlic
2 tablespoons brown sugar A good squirt of ketchup and yellow mustard Sprinkle of Parmesan Cheese on top Directions Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). In a large bowl, combine the beef, egg, milk, worchestershire sauce and bread crumbs. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Fry up the onion and garlic together, add to the meat mixture. Place in a lightly greased 5x9 inch loaf pan. In a separate small bowl, combine the brown sugar, mustard and ketchup. Mix well and pour over the meatloaf. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 1 hour.
Results: Everyone loved it and said "Dad should make this again". :) We served with mashed potatoes and peas.
Welcome to week S of blogging through the alphabet. So glad that you can join Amanda and I. I do hope you will join us by hopping in with a comment or blog post. :)
Skating. It's a part of life when you live in Canada. When you have snow and cold and frozen water.. why not enjoy it eh? We're aren't big into ice fishing, and I grew up skating on the family pond, so teaching our lad to skate seems a natural thing to do. My hubby likes to skate as well so, he learned to skate. :)
We started off using a skating aid. I cannot tell you how much we liked this aid. So many of the other ones we saw were these big bulky things that would never have fit in our car without be completely disassembled. This one folded down flat and we could take it ANYWHERE. The local park to skate on the small pad, the pond to skate on the hard frozen ice, the bigger city to skate on outdoor rink and also to local town arenas to join in the mom/tot/senior skate times. It was GREAT.
As time went on the lad learned to skate with just holding my hand. I have to admit, I LOVE skating with my lad. Even if he pulls me a bit off center (and I am NOT the world's best skater). But we could skate together and ....
He learned how to fall. and then how to get up. First one leg up, then the other. We started with using mom as an aid, but now he can do it all on his own. He skated, but he often complained, "can I stop now, do I have to do this mom? Skating isn't fun, I don't like it". Most of the time we chose just skate as a family, but one year to increase his confidence AND his love of skating (I really really wanted to foster that) we decided to join in with our homeschool group at a group skate every Friday. It costs more than the free skates we've been doing, but... this has the HUGE added side bonus. He can skate with friends. He liked it! :)
Do you see the happy grin? The lad no longer thinking...how long MUST I be on the ice. He now thinks.. do I HAVE to get off? This is fun skating with friends.
He can stop and talk with other parents and learning skating skills from them (for some reason he listens better to the Dad's saying, hey.. if you do this it works better). I don't understand it, but I'll certainly take it!
Play tag is so much fun, and it's great to hear "Your boy is skating better Annette". It is just so good to hear. He's really seeing that skating IS fun and not just something your folks make you do.
So should you ever be up in our neck of the woods on a fine Winter's day, come join us in skating. You'll meet a happy lad who actually LIKES skating now. :) It's just the finest thing. :) Though lately, I have to admit, I don't skate much anymore. I hurt my ankle badly two winters ago while skating and it took me much too long to recover. I might get brave again next winter though. :) I keep wanting to skate on the Rideau Canal in Ottawa.
Hello! Today I want to tell you about a typing program the lad and I have been working on for the past few weeks. You see the lad is currently writing a book called Space Cats and the work goes a bit slower than he wants so he wanted to learn to type faster... he's getting some great typing practice using The Typing Coach Online Typing Course and put together by The Typing Coach.
This online audio based typing program for children comes with PDF's to download. Two ebooks, one that's the manual and the other the workbook. The manual breaks the keyboard down into different sections with practice sections. The workbook has the quizzes and tests to take to show proficiency. The online portion includes an audio component that breaks down the fingering and helps teach accuracy right from the start.
Admittedly we used the audio component in a limited manner. We liked that it emphasized how to sit properly and how to strike the keys. Teaching that finger movement was helpful to the lad as he had expressed a curiousity about how I could hit the q and the z so easily.
The audio had some good basic instructions but we stopped using it because I found my lad arguing with it and talking back to the computer in a less than .... pleasing manner. It provided a talking point as, up until this time, I'd been setting him up and basically letting him work through it. The end result of our talking was this, the lad listened just enough to get the basic instruction but once the basic instruction was over he switched to just practicing and memorizing key placement. Then I would call out the letters of the row (s) he was working on (thanks Mr. Kimball for the idea) and he would type them OR tell me where the letter was on the keyboard. This made for a much more pleasant learning environment. It enabled us to cover the part of the audio that he found vexing, while working the program as suggested.
My son is working on memorizing key placement, doing the practice session and, when he is ready, taking the quizzes. He has learned it isn't failing if he has to go back to do more memorizing. Happy child learning to type.. which is exactly what I want for him.
Would you like to know what the course outline is? Here it is:
Course Introduction
Before & After Snapshot
Having Good Posture
Home Row
Top Row
Bottom Row
Shift Keys
Evaluating Your Skills
Typing Practices
Number Row
Serious Practicing
Final Assessment
Conclusion
We are not working through the course speedily but I am seeing progress and his confidence being boosted in his typing abilities. I would say that more importantly HE can see that he is making progress and that is the important thing. The tests that he takes tell him how he is doing and he'll come down and say "MOM! Guess what! I got the first top row quiz right!! I made no mistakes!"
As the tests etc are all done on-line it's admittedly difficult for me to show you some of the lad's completed work but... I can show you the book he's working on. :) He types for 20 minutes every day and I find that his daily output is getting longer the more confident he gets. :) I can't say he LOVES doing his keyboarding practice to get to this point, but he is starting to see the value.
We have a goal in mind you know. To learn how to touch type quickly, but until then, the lad has figured out that it doesn't matter how long it takes, as long as he eventually gets there. He eventually wants to type as fast as his mom does without looking at the board. It's a good thing that eh? As Dave says:
As we go through the course, we find the initial learning is done using your computer's word processor but all practices and tests are done in the Typing Coach Practice and Testing Center. It's starts testing from the moment you press down the first key. All lessons and tests are in a pull up menu. You just need to input the students name and email and select your item along with a time limit and it sets it all up for you. You can find the correct time limit in the PDF.
The student knows immediately how they did, and you can get a copy sent to your email immediately. As you can see, they spell out just what the error was, even if it was too many spaces, or a word spelled incorrectly. The lad liked the immediate feedback, though occasionally found it frustrating if he accidentally put in one too many spaces and it threw the whole thing off. But for my accuracy minded lad it made sense to him. :)
Our Opinions: It works! That's the good thing right? Mr. Kimball works hard to ensure that his students are learning well. In the end, the lad is seeing progress, I am seeing progress and that makes for a usable, workable program. Just make it work for you.
