Irish Meal Day

Boy, the lad and I had fun today. Yesterday we did days 2 & 3 of Expedition Ireland put out by Amanda Bennett Unit Studies. We learned prata is potato, that Ireland has beautiful scenery and interesting stories. We had fun colouring their flag and learning about Burren and Crystal.

Instead of doing more studying of Ireland we decided to have a cooking Irish food day.

We started the day off with pancakes of course.

Here is an easy way to make thin pancakes:

---

4 oz/ 125g/ 1 cup plain flour
pinch of salt
2 eggs
1/2 pt/ 250ml/ 1 cup milk
1 tbsp melted butter

---

Put all the ingredients in a blender and blend for about 30 seconds. The batter should then be allowed to stand for 30 minutes in a cool place. Heat a small pan over a medium heat. Grease with a little butter and wipe out with kitchen paper. Fry about 2 tbsp of batter at a time, swirling to cover the base of the pan. Keep them thin and there will be no need to turn. Serve rolled up with sugar.

We did two things with them. MOST we put cinnamon sugar on and rolled them up.
A few we added some gooseberry jam and rolled.
We learned we like the cinnamon sugar best and NOT to be shy with it either. :)

here the lad is learning to apply the cinnamon sugar.
Here I teach him how to roll it. He was a bit hestitant to do it himself as they were quite warm yet.
And the finished product...the cinnamon sugar ones in front, the jam ones behind.
We had thought about dusting them with icing sugar but "Mommy, I think plain is better."

Then off to go grocery shopping for the rest of the days meals....The lad looked hard for the buttermilk, and thought it funny that evaporated milk has a cow picture on the front of the can.

For lunch, due to hunger issues, we decided that the Irish part of our lunch would be GREEN salad. :) The rest we just ate as we wanted to. (sandwiches).

This afternoon we made

Irish Soda Bread

mix together:

4 cups bread flour

1 tbsp double action baking powder

¾ tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

Add 2 c. buttermilk

Mix well

Knead 1 minute

Cut in half and form into two balls

Place on greased cookie sheet

cut an 'x' in the top of each ½ inch deep

cook 350 oven for 45-55 minutes.

We learned that if you subsitute whole wheat flour for white, adding more fluid a good idea.
That it is fun to alternate kneading bread.
That is it HARD for a five year to cut an "x" in the top of a ball of bread with a big knife.

the boy working hard at kneading
I neglected to take a picture of the finished product. Turned out a bit dry, but the inside was yummy. We'll do this again sometime.

I was HIGHLY intimidated by the thought of making candy and was VERY nervous that I would mess it up. BUT it worked!!!! I was delighted.
Grandmom's Irish Potatoes Candy

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups white sugar

• 1 tablespoon butter

• 1/2 cup evaporated milk

• 1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar

• 1/4 teaspoon salt

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon

Directions

1. In a saucepan over medium heat, combine the sugar, butter, evaporated milk, cream of tartar and salt. Mix well and bring to a boil. Cook to the soft ball stage at 234 degrees F (115 degrees C). A few drops will form a soft ball when dropped into cold water. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature. Add vanilla and beat until creamy and stiff. Roll into balls and shape like little potatoes. Roll each ball in cinnamon to coat, then press in pieces of chopped nuts to look like eyes. You can also dust with cocoa to simulate dirt.

Nutritional Information

Amount Per Serving Calories: 62 | Total Fat: 0.9g | Cholesterol: 3mg

They are pretty good. Hubby says they are kinda like fudge, but different. We were supposed to put nuts on them to look like potato eyes, but the lad nixed that idea and I didn't mind since I'm not a huge nuts in candy person anyways. :)

Oh... we also made cookies!

Irish Ginger Snaps

Ingredients

• 1 cup white sugar

• 1 egg

• 1/4 teaspoon salt

• 3/4 cup shortening

• 2 cups all-purpose flour

• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

• 1 teaspoon ground cloves

• 1 teaspoon ground ginger

• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

2. Cream sugar, egg, salt and shortening together. Add flour, baking soda and spices. Mix well. Roll teaspoonfuls of dough into balls and roll the balls in sugar.

3. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 5 to 6 minutes.

Nutritional Information

Amount Per Serving Calories: 87 | Total Fat: 4.5g | Cholesterol: 6mg

NOTE: in our oven... 15 minutes.

We spontaneously decided to invite gramma up to share our Irish meal. Apparently all the ladies at the bank wanted to come and share it as well. Gramma turned them down. :) Our Irish meal was ham, potatoes, and bread.
The brown furry guy in the forefront is "super Jeff". He's an all powerful rabbit who helps make all types of things. This time he helped make cookies! He was a VERY curious rabbit and got flour on his nose in the process. :) He isn't the lad's favourite stuffy, but he is a good comrade in arms. :)

Tuesday Learning - Feb 15

This was a typical Tuesday for us. Play for 20 minutes, work for 20 minutes, play for 30 minutes, work for 20 minutes and so forth. We had a lot of fun, and got a fair amount of learning done as well.

Today we did four pages in this book. Writing out ending sounds to words, matching words to pictures and so forth.

We worked on a couple of workbooks upstairs as well. Math, letters, matching and what not.

We continued to go through a Kumon math book for 4-5-6 year olds. We did another four pages.

We sorted through pencil crayons and sharpened them. The lad spent about 20 minutes working through Time4Learning. You can read my review of the program here.

And to finish off our learning time.. we went for a walk outside. We had fun pretending to be watching out for made up animals and how to avoid them. :)

Valentines and more

Different lapbooks etc.

Jesus Loves Me

Heart File Folder

Bible File Folder

Love file folder

achy breaky hearts

Homeschooling in Ontario

Rules to know

information to read through.

Letter of intent

Lego Contest and more

I know I'm a bit late in posting what we've been doing this week.

We are now back to saying and pointing at the different letters in the alphabet. We do this once or twice a day. This in an effort to combat that "but I forgot what that letter looks like mommy". :) he knows them if I show him, but when it comes to writing them "i forget".

We are starting to work on telling time. He's really pretty good with the o'clocks and he's starting to get the 1/2 hour but that is still very much a work in progress. We use an old clock that we got at a yard sale or something for 25 cents. We also have a reader rabbit tell the time book that we do exercises in.

We've started going through a Kumon math book for 4-5-6 year olds.

He finds it amazing that in time he'll be able to count to 120! :) he's having fun doing the book though "why do they want me to hold the pencil that way mommy?" (the book shows him the proper way of holding a writing implement). he'd rather write in his hamfisted way but that isn't the correct way to hold it, so I'm using the book to teach him the correct method (as well as practice his numbers). :)

On Friday we focused on doing Lego. We had a lot of fun building and playing with Lego. Then in the evening we went to the Stratford for a Lego Contest with HOPE (my homeschool group).
I thought some of the designs were quite interesting, and one young man did stop-action photography with his. The lad thoroughly enjoyed it, and parts of it were funny too. :) IF I can figure out how to download the photos off my camera's memory I'll post of the contest entries. OH...before I forget...one of the fascinating things at the contest were these puzzle houses made of lego. You make a path in them...one two or three stories high that have mazes in them for a marble to roll through. Quite intriguing and fun they were. :)

Oh, on Thursday we started to work on a unit study that has been produced by Unit Studies by Amanda Bennett..about Ireland. We're having some fun with it, we just did Day One. Have to admit though that Justin DID NOT like that the word of the day meant Pony...as he said "I don't like ponies mommy". But he did find it fun learning some of the stories of Ireland and he thought the Great Causeway was quite fascinating. Watching the videos of Ireland and seeing the castles was simply a cause of lots of exclamations! MOMMY!!!! it's a castle!!! So we might try building our own castle next week as we work on more of the Ireland study. ... wouldn't that be fun?

It wasn't a great week last week for homeschooling, but we managed to keep busy and we did manage to learn a thing or two so overall...that's what counts right? :)

Teach Art at Home

looks to be an interesting site.

you can find it here.

Your art instruction resource for self-learners and home schoolers. You will find homeschool art curriculum, online art courses, and free art projects.

Freebie of the Day

You should go here if you don't already... you get helpful stuff for your homeschool needs.. FOR FREE!

yes, once in a while they ask if you want to buy something...choose to or not..it's up to you. (I mostly don't but I did get the kindergarten book from them.. worth the $7 I paid for it). But mostly I just ignore those emails and just get the free stuff.

Today the freebie was PDF's the periodic tables and more. So go there, get it. :)

Sites I would like to look at again

Story Sites

The Story Home.

Here you will find original and classic children's audio stories. Every other week, The Story Home will offer a brand new story read to you by a very special storyteller named Alan, for FREE!

Kids Audio

We have over 200 audio stories in MP3 format for you to download and enjoy with your family and friends

Why not try our Reading Books? Or if you enjoy Colouring, choose from the Colouring Books section

teaching sites

Illuminations

I got the above site through Teach-nology.

Family Life

Families with purpose.

From the joyful celebrations of family nights to the wild and wacky fun of science experiments, our family fun section offers a host of great ideas for every family.

George Washington - DNG - A review

ICE CREAM!! This was a favourite food of George Washington. "It's not as good as a sprinkle sandwich though, is it mommy? Though it is pretty good isn't it?"


This is a unit study that has been produced by Unit Studies by Amanda Bennett..

The lad and I did this unit study over the course of three days. We took a day to read a couple of books about George Washington, then a day to do day one and two, and then another day to do days 3-5.

We discovered how difficult it is to find books on George Washington. This despite the fact that Amanda Bennett lists several in the unit study, we couldn't find a single one! Part of that's living in small town Ontario, but we couldn't find but the two in the London (and that's NOT small town Ontario), neither of them was in her list of suggested reading. We enjoyed the one book on George, it was written in a fairly engaging story style. It had some pictures as well so the boy could see some of how it was back in the day of George Washington.

I know that he enjoyed some of the study on George and that he learned something because suddenly Bunny Town (a make believe world that all that is good in the world occurs there) had a "bunny washington" in it. :) Made me smile. Here's a lad having 'Bunny Washington' explain that cutting down trees will make your dad angry, and that sometimes you have to help people even if you want to do something else (aka George wanted to be a farmer, but instead because president of the USA).



Amanda Bennett unit studies are laid out in such away that it makes it very easy to do the study. They have lap book elements and fully printable pages for notebooking, drawing and such like. The graphics are child-friendly. If you want to go off on rabbit trails, it is easy enough to do. If you want to skip certain sections, you can do that too. :) We skipped ALL the stuff that had to do with American government or that I thought too difficult to do with a wiggly five year old. ALL I wanted to do was touch on the basics, and that's what I was easily enabled to do.

Day 1: Who Was George Washington?
Day 2: People and Places in George Washington’s Life
Day 3: The Accomplishments of George Washington
Day 4: Lessons to Learn From George Washington
Day 5: Remembering George Washington

One thing I like is that I can copy the questions into my own word program and instead of printing out five pages of material, I can print out two. Save on the printer ink. I can pick and choose what pages I want to copy in their original format as well.

I was given a copy of this unit study for my honest review.

The blog tour is over here. Go there to read some excellent reviews.

Download N Go is having a number of specials on right now. Go here to learn more about them please. :)

Fun 4 Mom Giveaway

The Winner will receive his/her choice of either a $75 Amazon gift card or a Be Mine Spa and Chocolate Valentine's Gift Basket from Amazon.com with an approximate retail value of $99.95.

To enter the Contest send your full name and mailing address to contestentries @ unitstudy.com with a subject line reading "Fun 4 Mom Entry" no later than 11:59 p.m. (EST), February 13, 2011. The contest rules can be found here. A winner will be chosen on February 14, 2011.

Blog is being weird lately

not sure what's up with the blog lately, but it seems to be displaying incorrectly.

Will have to see if I can figure out just what is up with it.

Experimentation!

The name of the game today was "let's experiment" and so we did. :)

We'd gotten a number of books out of the library that had to do with science experiments and so we played around with the books.

We started with Everyday Science Experiments in the gym

All we did was work our way through the book. The one on learning about a curve ball was quite interesting to boy and cat. I will post a video if I can get it to upload. :)



We listened to our heart beat, leaned hard against a wall and learned that afterwards our arm will go up all on it's own! We stood really close to a wall and learned how hard it was to lift the outside foot from the wall.

Then we moved on to Everyday Science Experiments in the Kitchen.

In this book we learned that lemon juice can turn dull pennies into shiny pennies.
Before


After

What we found interesting is what we thought was grime on the one penny, turned yellow and flaky after it was in the lemon juice. It wouldn't come off..it just looked flaky but wasn't really. The lad was quite intrigued by it, and I was at a loss to explain why.

We had fun learning about surface tension by adding 30 pennies to a small jar of water that was full to the brim. Hardly any water was split and the boy was quite fascinated by this. "look mommy! the water is all floaty! Look mommy it pops up at me!". :)



The one that elucidated the "let's do that again Mommy" was the balloon experiment. Take one balloon, small water bottle, vinegar and baking soda and you have an intensely curious lad. "MOMMY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It blowed up the balloon!!!!" "Let's do that again mommy!"

Later we took a balloon. Added some vanilla to it (the lad poured it in). We blew up the balloon and placed it in a shoebox. After two hours we opened the shoebox. It smelled like vanilla. We put it back in and six hours later the smell was even more potent. Very lovely smell. :) The lad was impressed. Dad thought it rather neat too as we shared it with him.


We did a few other things but I can't remember them. It was just fun having a blast in the kitchen with the lad. :) Oh.. we made ooblek. The boy didn't like touching it, so I stirred it around and showed him how it acted both like a liquid and like a solid.

Oh...and he made another volcano. :)

After we cleaned up a bit from all the experimenting we did a book "Jonah and the big fish". It was sticker fun, doing mazes and learning the story of Jonah. How he ran away from God because he didn't want to do what God said. The lad said "Doesn't he know that running away from God doesn't work mommy? God always knows where we are. "

In the late afternoon he went to the London's children's museum with Dad while I did some chores around the house and took time to read a book for a moment or two.

It was an excellent day all round.

Time 4 Learning

I've been invited to try Time4Learning for one month in exchange for a candid review. My opinion will be entirely my own, so be sure to come back and read about my experience. Time4Learning can be used as an online homeschooling curriculum, afterschool tutorial or a summer skill builder. Find out how to write your own curriculum review for Time4Learning.

REVIEW

The lad enjoys this program for the most part. He finds it fun, and relatively easy to do.

What he doesn't like is the constant repetition of do this and then that. He likes..."MOMMY! I already know what they want me to do! Why do they keep telling me? Don't they know that I'm five and I know how to listen already?" A new one I heard today was "why do they have to show me? I know what to do!!" AND "Mommy!!! I did it right! Why did they tell me I was wrong and then do what I just did?" (my response was...probably a glitch in the computer bud - as it had done the same to me earlier).

I find the kindergarten work a bit too easy but it's hard to know what to expect each lesson and if they will hit on something that he already knows and understands. I am considering jumping up to grade 1 materials and seeing if that will offer him a bit more of a challenge.

I consider purchasing the program, but quite frankly...at $20 a month I simply can't afford it at this time. I will continue to review it and make a hopefully informed decision if I think long-term it would be of benefit to him or not.

George Washington - DNG

Today we worked on the last three days of the George Washington Study. I made a worksheet over at ESL Writing Wizard on Mark 10:45 to go along with the study.

We did days three-five. George Washington is a unit study from Amanda Bennett's Unit Studies.

I have to admit, we really picked and chose what we wanted to do. :) We, as Canadians, teaching a five year old, really aren't too worried about learning constitutional stuff about the United States. It was FUN learning that Washington's favourite food was ice cream, so we rewarded ourselves when all done doing our work with having a bowl of ice cream. We talked about what it means to serve. George Washington spent his life serving people in one form or another. Jesus calls us to live a life of service as well. So it was good to see this and think about how we can serve God and others in how we live our lives and the choices that we make.

After we enjoyed our icecream we watched some TV (about the megastructure they built in Dubai) and then we enjoyed this you tube video


Though Justin quite determinedly said "I don't DANCE, I GROOVE!" :)

Ground Hog Day

Today we studied ground hog day.

We pulled information from the web to do this study.

The history of Ground Hog Day: Groundhog club

A pop up ground hog. We added a flashlight to be the sun and had a cloud shape as well. Will the groundhog see his shadow?

We learned abit about the groundhog.

We tried to make shadow puppets...but well... let's just say it was an attempt. :)

We read this book:


We played this memory game of animals that hibernate. and tic-tac-toe ground hog here.

And we learned about Wiarton Willie (the Canadian groundhog). :)

and I went here to print off some PDF's for the lad to work on. Took a bit of figuring to get them to print off as my computer is being fidgety today.

We did another craft, but I can't find the link to it anymore.

TOS - homeshool expo and more

The 2011 Schoolhouse Expo

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Mark your calendars:
Monday, May 16, to Friday, May 20
Bonus Preshow Sessions: Tuesday, March 15, and Tuesday, April 12

Right now, you can buy your ticket to the live 2011 Schoolhouse Expo for an amazing price! We're thrilled to offer you a savings of $20 off the regular ticket price during the Early Bird Sale. This special offer won't last long! The Early Bird Sale ends February 9 at 11:59 p.m EST.

Homeschool Dollar Store

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Browse our huge selection of over 300 products!
Enjoy convenient shopping—NO shipping costs!
Check back often—products change, and new items will be continually added!
(If you see it and want it, don’t wait—it might not be there next time.)

2011 Freebie Directory

Who says there is no such thing as a free lunch?

In the homeschool community, it's a reality, particularly when you come to The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine's annual Homeschool Freebie Directory. In these pages (and on our website) you will find a good number of freebies and samples to get you familiar with what this vast community has to offer. Start contacting these companies for YOUR freebie gifts today. And tell your friends! It's all FREE!

Wannabe/Curiosity Files CDs

Did you know that TOS has put your favorite unit study resources on CD? Right now YOU can enjoy a 9-pack unit studies bundle from Curiosity Files™ for just $49! The WannaBe Series™ CD pack includes 10 unit studies for only $39! These are exceptional items at extraordinary prices.

Sketch Tuesday - Science

This week's assignment due Monday, January 31, 2011:
Sketch something you study in science.



They will be posted next Tuesday at Harmony Art Mom's site.

We also played an oceans card game.
And practiced writing numbers and letters on a chalk board.

Oh... And we did an experiment inspired by mommy drawing out an experiment we did a while back of how does water and oil affect how things float or sink. When I'm feeling more brain awake I'll try to write out the experiment and what we found interesting about it.

We had fun just playing as well. Good to do things like that. :)

What we Learned today - January 27, 2011

George Washington unit study from Amanda Bennett's Unit Studies.

We did parts of day one and day two. We learned his favourite subject, the story of the cherry tree, where he was born and much more. Lots of drawing and gluing today. :)

We also learned that Virginia has a state fish! We thought that was funny. :)



Later on we played with Lego. Then the lad chose to work on building a cat trap... an invention out of his own head. When he was done that we listened to three books from this site, and then listened and answered questions about two different books. MightyBooksJr looks to be an interesting site and I am happy that a fellow homeschooler directed me to it.

Our exercise for the day was tobogganing at the Pinery and our first attempt at skating. :)

St. Mary's Museum

Yesterday we went to the St. Mary's Museum with a part of our homeschool group HOPE.

We learned about the toys that children used to play with.

We learned they played with marbles "Ring Taw", slappers (metal toys that made noise), corn husks dolls, wooden dogs, thumatrope, and zoetropes. Hoops and graces were another game. These games often had the side benefit of teaching important skills of hand-eye coordination, body-eye coordination and so forth. Skills important to survival. Tops was also a game they used to play.

They also had these really neat wind-up toys that were a big hit with the children.

The children all had a chance to make their own thumatrope.

Yesterday and Today

This week we're going to work on lesson two of this kindergarten curriculum book. I'm starting to teach him the "I'm a little teapot" song which actions. It's a good "T" letter song and the focus this week in the letter "T", the Number "0" and something else I can't recall at the moment.

and we did another five pages in this book on Tuesday. Matching of upper and lower case. We did this in the basement as that's where our alphabet chart is. he pretended he was a little rabbit learning the alphabet and that I was the teacher rabbit. Made it fun for him. :)

Yesterday for exercise we did Cardio Fit by Billy Blanks Jr.

I'm doing two things with Cardio Fit. I'm trying to teach the lad that through perseverance that he can master any skill he sets his mind to, and get us exercising and using our bodies. After we finished exercising...which involved moving and twisting our bodies and stuff...hard work, The lad played with some building toys while I did my back and stretching exercises.

Then it was time to go to a funeral.

Today I have bible study in the morning, so the lad will go to story hour where he will play, hear a bible story, and make a craft. I can't recall what we're doing for bible study.

This afternoon we are going to be busy! We have time at a museum in St. Mary's with the homeschool group, and then off to London so I can get my shears and then go the children's museum there for an hour or so. Busy day, but tomorrow is a stay at home day so it will all be good. :)

Friday activities

Yes, I know I'm posting two days late, ah well. :)

Friday was a fix the computer day. It finally decided that having the internet was optional, and was moving dead slow so... Jim "killed it"(my language). I saved everything I could to the external drive and he saved the rest there as well. We mostly have it working again.

Justin and I worked on a Moses activity book and played a game or two. We also practiced some letters. He had to think and memorize. He asked lots of questions about why would God send all those bad things to the Egyptians?

Bible Sticker Activity books : The story of Moses (isbn 0-8423-2017-2) is the booklet that we used. I got it years ago from Focus on the Family I THINK. Hmm... the book came up on Amazon, but without a price so not sure if it's still available through them or not.