What's for Supper? Chef Earl's Soup

We've posted the link to Potage Paysanne before and also blogged about it. It's the perfect soup for a fall day after you've been to the vegetable stand.

(However, I've learned by bad experience not to give turnip scraps to the hamster...he likes munching them, but the atmosphere afterwards is not pleasant. Is that more information than you really needed?)

What did Mama Squirrel do today?

In no particular order...

1. Covered seven crochet hooks with masking tape and foam pencil grips (which we had sitting around doing nothing). Free comfort hooks! (This is where I found the directions, but I saw it here first , and I think I might have linked there from Frugal Hacks.)

2. Found out what lizards eat.

3. Taught fourteen homeschoolers how to make sock critters.

4. Made my Squirrelings laugh hysterically at my attempts to hop along with the Spacewalk exercise. (Don't ask.)

5. Read a chapter of Lassie-Come-Home, two Blake poems, and part of a Mr. Pipes chapter. (That was a very low-reading day.)

6. Watched Ponytails inflate a marshmallow in the microwave.

7. Took two Squirrelings out for a quick and rather cold Outdoor Challenge in the backyard.

8. Watched a very beautiful sunset out the back window.

Church Sale Morning

We went to a rummage sale this morning, at one of the churches that always has good annual sales. I picked up a box with a bunch of yarn and stuff in it, filled it up with a few books and other things, and made a reasonable offer at the door. Considering the 32 pairs of knitting needles in there, I think we did very well. Ponytails found a mini stereo, Mr. Fixit found a magazine rack that he's going to spray paint he's already spray painted, and Crayons found a small bag and a couple of mini animals.

(The royalty books aren't for me, they're a gift for a family member.)

Perquackey game
Piece of black Pellon
Assorted pieces of white interfacing and cotton scraps
Large piece of white muslin
One souvenir bandana decorated with a "Tourist Map of National Park Mt. Kyeryong". (Really.)
Two other bandana-size hankies
New package of 5 x 7 Stretch 'n Stitch bars (I had to look those up to see what they were for)
10 feet of braided nylon rope
Half a carton of assorted balls of yarn and crochet cotton
32 pairs of knitting needles
1 circular needle
1 set of 4mm double-pointed needles
A More Fridgies design leaflet
Make the Most of Town & City Gardening
Charles & Diana's First Royal Tour
The Prince & Princess of Wales on Tour in British Columbia, Canada
Diana, Queen of Hearts
Invitation to a Royal Wedding

We also stopped at a yard sale and found some Sculpey, trivia cards, and a picture book all for a dollar.

Wooh!

Crayons' Math this year (last year of Miquon)

I really think this might be our last, ever, ever year of Miquon. Unless I adopt triplets or homeschool my (future) grandchildren or something...Crayons is in her Purple-and-Yellow year, so that will be it.

I'm trying a bit different system of scheduling Miquon this year, using index cards and a recipe box. I went through the page list for the two workbooks and set up a schedule by week (about half the year per workbook), then wrote each week's scheduled pages on a 3 x 5 card along with specific topics, page references and comments from the Annotations (and comments I'd jotted down from previous children, like "this one was really hard!"). Some weeks have more than one card, if one topic is to be finished and another one started during the same week.

I also went through some of the other math books we have, like Math for Smarty Pants, Family Math, and our 1978 Childcraft Mathemagic book, looking for similar topics, wrote those page references out on more index cards, and slipped them behind the main cards in the box. So when we get to the co-ordinate geometry pages, I have references as well to the Co-ordinate Tic Tac Toe and other games of that sort in Family Math; and when we do perimeter, area and volume, I have extra activities and explanations marked from our books.

Then all we have to do through the year is work through the file box. Even if we get a bit behind, we can just pull out the next card and work on that. This week we spent a couple of days doing the fun stuff in chapter 1 of Mathemagic (like the old story of the man with the boat who has to carry a wolf, a goat and a basket of cabbages), and now we've started the Yellow workbook as well.

Snowball the hamster

I've noticed several people clicking on "Snowball" lately.

Yes, he's still here and still furry. But in hamster years he's getting quite ancient (well over two), and he's definitely feeling his age. Even exploring the grass or playing with his "toys" takes more effort than he can really put out.

But thanks for thinking of him. (I'm going to get Ponytails to post a couple of recent photos.)