I read a recipe for Homemade Chewy Granola Bars on the Frugal Family Fun Blog and thought they sounded good, but I didn't have most of the ingredients called for. Not even raisins. And I was a bit short on rolled oats. (Groceries tomorrow.)
But I did try them out, with the not-as-healthy ingredients that I did happen to have here--and they were still very good. I like the idea of the no-bake version; my baked bars have not always turned out so well, and these had a good texture--light and crispy, only a bit crumbly. FFFB also posted a followup to their original post, with other suggestions for variations.
This is what I did--we were going for sort of a S'Mores effect, especially with the crushed cereal. I think I remembered everything I put in them. A bit of peanut butter would have been good in the wet ingredients, but we were taking them to the community centre which is nut-free, so not this time.
Less-Healthy-but-Very-Tasty Chewy Granola Bars
Ingredients:
2 cups oats (I had only about 1 2/3 cups)
1 cup Rice Krispies cereal
1 cup Quaker Corn Bran Squares Cereal
About 1 1/2 cup chocolate chips, divided
1 cup mini marshmallows
3/4 cup shredded coconut
2/3 cup brown sugar (or less--I found these pretty sweet)
1/4 cup honey
4 tbsp. margarine
2 tsp. vanilla extract
Prepare the dry ingredients as follows: Toast the rolled oats, dry, on a cookie sheet, for about 10 minutes (or less) at 400 degrees. Stir frequently and turn off the oven if they start to smell overdone. The reason you're toasting the rolled oats alone is because the bars are no-bake, and all the other dry ingredients don't need to be cooked.
Run the Corn Bran Squares through the food processor until they're broken up into smaller pieces. (Lacking this, you could whack them with something to break them up.)
In a large bowl, mix the broken-up Corn Bran Squares with all the other dry ingredients, including about a cup of the chocolate chips, except the rolled oats, which should still be toasting or at least keeping warm in the oven.
In a small sauce pan (non-stick is good if you use non-stick), combine the brown sugar, honey, margarine (or butter), and vanilla. Heat until the sugar is dissolved and it's all warmed through.
Line a 9 x 13 inch pan with waxed paper (I used a piece big enough to hang over the ends, to make removing the bars easier). Spray with non-stick spray or otherwise grease the waxed paper.
Mix the oats with the other dry ingredients and the wet mixture. Put the mixture into the prepared pan, using a wooden spoon or non-stick spatula. Even if you work quickly, you may find that the chocolate chips start to melt from the heat. If this happens and you want them to look more chocolate-chippy, press another half cup or so of chips into the top.
Take another piece of waxed paper and press the mixture down flat with it. Press down firmly to make sure the bars are well compacted. Let cool completely, about 2 hours; I put them in the freezer for the last half hour.
Cut into bars with a sharp knife.
Friday, February 26, 2010
A slight change to our book list
Ponytails, Crayons and I recently started reading The Adventures of Don Quixote, translated by J.M. Cohen and abridged by Olive Jones.
It started out all right--but a couple of chapters into it, I suddenly had to skip a whole section that was very very unsuitable for young maidens, and that jumped us right into a part about the nasty physical consequences of drinking homemade healing potions. Coming so soon after everyone's bout with a stomach virus, that was a bit more than we wanted to stomach.
We're going to start a new read-aloud on Monday.
It started out all right--but a couple of chapters into it, I suddenly had to skip a whole section that was very very unsuitable for young maidens, and that jumped us right into a part about the nasty physical consequences of drinking homemade healing potions. Coming so soon after everyone's bout with a stomach virus, that was a bit more than we wanted to stomach.
We're going to start a new read-aloud on Monday.
Quote of the day
"I suppose one must make one's peace with cacophony."--Dr. Fugue (the piano teacher) on Arthur
A good book for a snowy day
Anyway--if you're looking for snow books and your kids are a bit past The Snowy Day but maybe not ready for The Long Winter, here's a book that our Squirrelings enjoyed at that age: Oliver and Amanda and the Big Snow. How could we not identify with a snow book that starts out with "Digging Out?" (The Oliver and Amanda books are structured like Frog and Toad, with four or five short stories in each one.)
And if you're really an expert on snow stories, you can always go back to our Carnival of Homeschooling: Snowed-In Edition, and see if you can identify the bits of books there. (Answers here.)
Thursday, February 25, 2010
What's up with the CPSIA?
It's been a year, remember? And all that mandatory testing was supposed to be delayed for a year, remember?
Here's an update.
Here's an update.
Felt food is fun
Felt food (for playing with, not for eating) seems to have gotten very popular lately.
You can buy it, of course.
But if you like to sew, there are lots of patterns online.
There are felt ravioli tutorials all over the place; here's one at One Inch World, along with one for farfalle (bowtie pasta).
A couple of other good links I've come across:
Helping Little Hands has been having a Felt Food Cook-Along. I especially like this banana.
Helping Little Hands also mentioned the list of felt foods in the sidebar at Felt-o-rama, including the Brown Bag Lunch at Skip to My Lou. (Yes, the bag is felt too.), and the original banana pattern at Just Stuff.
Also out of felt, but not "edible": Felt doll armchairs at One Inch World. Looks like lots of work, but they'd be a neat present for a little girl.
You can buy it, of course.
But if you like to sew, there are lots of patterns online.
There are felt ravioli tutorials all over the place; here's one at One Inch World, along with one for farfalle (bowtie pasta).
A couple of other good links I've come across:
Helping Little Hands has been having a Felt Food Cook-Along. I especially like this banana.
Helping Little Hands also mentioned the list of felt foods in the sidebar at Felt-o-rama, including the Brown Bag Lunch at Skip to My Lou. (Yes, the bag is felt too.), and the original banana pattern at Just Stuff.
Also out of felt, but not "edible": Felt doll armchairs at One Inch World. Looks like lots of work, but they'd be a neat present for a little girl.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
A ketchup kind of meal (What's for dinner?)
Dinner's from the freezer--we're low on fresh things.
Frozen cabbage rolls (a small package--they were on sale at Giant Tiger)
Frozen mini-sausages
Baked potatoes (last of the bag--they were getting soft)
Carrot sticks, sour cream, applesauce etc.
Fruity Oatmeal Muffins and Mango Freeze (recipes below)
Fruity Oatmeal Muffins, because the oven was already on at the right temperature:
2 scant cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup rolled oats
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1 cup milk, swished with the bottom bits of two jars of peach and strawberry jam
Mix dry ingredients. Mix wet ingredients. Correct flour if needed (I added a bit more.) Combine gently, scoop into muffin pan and bake 20 minutes at 375 degrees.
Mango Freeze:
Part of a bag of frozen mango cubes (frozen fruit was on sale a couple of weeks ago)
3 small fruit yogurts
Run through the food processor until smooth and fluffed up. If you do this ahead of time, scoop into small dishes or one larger bowl and put back into the freezer until you want them.
Frozen cabbage rolls (a small package--they were on sale at Giant Tiger)
Frozen mini-sausages
Baked potatoes (last of the bag--they were getting soft)
Carrot sticks, sour cream, applesauce etc.
Fruity Oatmeal Muffins and Mango Freeze (recipes below)
Fruity Oatmeal Muffins, because the oven was already on at the right temperature:
2 scant cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup rolled oats
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1 cup milk, swished with the bottom bits of two jars of peach and strawberry jam
Mix dry ingredients. Mix wet ingredients. Correct flour if needed (I added a bit more.) Combine gently, scoop into muffin pan and bake 20 minutes at 375 degrees.
Mango Freeze:
Part of a bag of frozen mango cubes (frozen fruit was on sale a couple of weeks ago)
3 small fruit yogurts
Run through the food processor until smooth and fluffed up. If you do this ahead of time, scoop into small dishes or one larger bowl and put back into the freezer until you want them.
George MacDonald on Making Things Better
From At The Back of the North Wind, which Crayons is reading with Mama Squirrel. The little boy Diamond is wakened in the night by the sounds of an inebriated neighbour and a crying baby, so he goes to see what he can do.
Now the way most people do when they see anything very miserable is to turn away from the sight, and try to forget it. But Diamond began as usual to try to destroy the misery....he knew he could do something to make the baby happy; for although he had only known one baby as yet, and although not one baby is the same as another, yet they are so very much alike in some things, and he knew that one baby so thoroughly, that he had good reason to believe he could do something for any other. I have known people who would have begun to fight the devil in a very different and a very stupid way. They would have begun by scolding the idiotic cabman; and next they would make his wife angry by saying it must be her fault as well as his, and by leaving ill-bred though well-meant shabby little books for them to read, which they were sure to hate the sight of; while all the time they would not have put out a finger to touch the wailing baby. But Diamond had him out of the cradle in a moment, set him up on his knee, and told him to look at the light. Now all the light there was came only from a lamp in the yard, and it was a very dingy and yellow light, for the glass of the lamp was dirty, and the gas was bad; but the light that came from it was, notwithstanding, as certainly light as if it had come from the sun itself, and the baby knew that, and smiled to it....
Better than lacing cards
I really like Filth Wizardry's idea for teaching young children embroidery. (And the giant needle threader is Genius.)
(Featured on Dollar Store Crafts.)
(Featured on Dollar Store Crafts.)
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Monday, February 22, 2010
What's for supper? (Hold the tomatoes)
That subject line wasn't referring to throwing them--just eating them. To avoid the distress that pasta sauce causes to some Squirrels, Mama Squirrel made a spaghetti dinner tonight without tomato sauce. General recipe: brown a pound of ground chicken with chopped celery and mushrooms. Cook half a box, or a whole box, of spaghettini. Drain the pasta and put into the slow cooker. Top with the chicken-vegetable mixture, including all the pan juices. Season with pepper and oregano and add some cheese on top (we used uncoloured old Cheddar). Cook until the cheese is melted (if everything's already hot, it only takes an hour or so in the slow cooker). (If you'd rather put the whole thing in the oven, you can do that instead. Or just serve it immediately from the pan, if you're ready to eat. We weren't. We were busy shovelling snow.) Scoop it all out as is, or scoop the top part out into a serving bowl so that you can pull the pasta out separately.
If you don't want to dump everything in together and then have to unmix it afterwards, then just keep the pasta separate from the chicken and vegetables; cook it separately when you're ready to serve it.
We had this with the Hillbilly Housewife's Garlic Bread Sticks (leaving out the extra salt), carrot sticks, and sliced kiwi fruit for dessert.
If you don't want to dump everything in together and then have to unmix it afterwards, then just keep the pasta separate from the chicken and vegetables; cook it separately when you're ready to serve it.
We had this with the Hillbilly Housewife's Garlic Bread Sticks (leaving out the extra salt), carrot sticks, and sliced kiwi fruit for dessert.
Catching up--again
What's up with the Treehouse? (Did we find a new nest?)
No. But I'll be sure to mention it (preferably with fireworks) if we ever do.
What's the funniest website Mama Squirrel has come across lately?
Cake Wrecks, particularly this post which shows the dangers of following instructions a little too closely to the letter. But don't let your kids on there alone; some of the comments and photos aren't tasteful.
What is Mama Squirrel reading?
Non-school reading has been a bit slow lately other than a couple of Wendell Berry novels and a re-visit to Charlotte Mason's Home Education. However, Mama Squirrel has found that The Bible Reading Program for Slackers and Shirkers fits her reading style very well. (A PDF of the schedule is here.)
What is Crayons reading?
Every horse book she can find. She's also decorated her side of the Squirreling bedroom with horse colouring pages and all her horse toys. You would think almost a year after her Horse Party, she would have lost interest somewhat, but no. You might even think we actually had any horses around here.
What is The Apprentice looking forward to?
A Pi Day party. Pi Day is March 14th. Any guesses why?
How does Ponytails fool Mama Squirrel every time with those card tricks?
We just won't talk about that.
No. But I'll be sure to mention it (preferably with fireworks) if we ever do.
What's the funniest website Mama Squirrel has come across lately?
Cake Wrecks, particularly this post which shows the dangers of following instructions a little too closely to the letter. But don't let your kids on there alone; some of the comments and photos aren't tasteful.
What is Mama Squirrel reading?
Non-school reading has been a bit slow lately other than a couple of Wendell Berry novels and a re-visit to Charlotte Mason's Home Education. However, Mama Squirrel has found that The Bible Reading Program for Slackers and Shirkers fits her reading style very well. (A PDF of the schedule is here.)
What is Crayons reading?
Every horse book she can find. She's also decorated her side of the Squirreling bedroom with horse colouring pages and all her horse toys. You would think almost a year after her Horse Party, she would have lost interest somewhat, but no. You might even think we actually had any horses around here.
What is The Apprentice looking forward to?
A Pi Day party. Pi Day is March 14th. Any guesses why?
How does Ponytails fool Mama Squirrel every time with those card tricks?
We just won't talk about that.
Friday, February 19, 2010
What we did at co-op
(Followup to this post)
It turned out that a couple of the families with preschoolers were out with the same stomach virus that's been going around, and a couple of others are just away, so we had only five little ones today (ranging from ages two through six).
One of the moms (very bravely) read ALL the stories from Tell Me a Mitzi. (puff, pant)
Then we made clown puppets with plastic spoons, construction paper, tissue paper, markered faces, and odds and ends for trims. If you clip a spring clothespin on the bottom of the spoon handle, it gives the puppet a bit more height.
Then we read The Circus Baby, which is about clowns and a couple of misbehaving elephants.
Then they finished off the puppets.
And then they ate their snack and played in the gym.
The bigger kids had gym time, baked cookies, and started a new art unit about drawing comics. Usually both groups do music, but the music teacher was one of the ones not feeling well today.
Our co-op isn't big enough to have to be too formal--which is a good thing when the weather (and the viruses) can be unpredictable. It works for us.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Just read the story already
I was asked to do a story-and-craft session with the preschoolers at co-op tomorrow. I came across one book I liked, and thought I'd do a quick browse online to see if anyone had come up with fun activities to go with it. The book's been around for a long time, right? Some preschool teacher somewhere has probably used it for storytime.
This is the first thing that came up for it.
And that's why we homeschool.
(That also reminded me of the DHM's recent conversation with her young friend Blynken, where she refused to define a big word that she'd used. Sometimes we need more story, less explaining, right?)
P.S. I'm still deciding on a book. I'll let you know what I picked tomorrow.
This is the first thing that came up for it.
And that's why we homeschool.
(That also reminded me of the DHM's recent conversation with her young friend Blynken, where she refused to define a big word that she'd used. Sometimes we need more story, less explaining, right?)
P.S. I'm still deciding on a book. I'll let you know what I picked tomorrow.
Happy 5th Blogiversary to Us
On February 18, 2005:
It was discovered that the tsunami resulting from the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake uncovered an ancient city near the coastal town of Mahabalipuram in India.
A man was arrested by Gardaí in the town of Passage West in County Cork, Ireland, after he was discovered attempting to burn sterling bank notes.
The UK Food Standards Agency orders the withdrawal of over 350 food products from sale following the discovery that a batch of chilli powder used to produce a batch of Worcestershire sauce subsequently used to produce processed foods was contaminated with the possibly carcinogenic dye Sudan I.
And we launched Dewey's Treehouse!
We've raked an awful lot of maple leaves.
We've also seen our Squirrelings grow much bigger, the Squirreling parents grow a few years older, and Dewey lose a little more of his nose. We've had some rocky times. We've had many reasons to give thanks.
We've won a Homeschool Blog Award, and some lovely reader-nominated ones.
We've made great blogging friends, even those we'll never meet in real life.
It's been a blast.
Photo credits: Mr. Fixit and Ponytails
Thirty Years Ago Today in Canadian History: He Took it Back
February 18, 1980
Canada - Pierre Elliott Trudeau 1919- defeats Joe Clark in the general election 146 seats to 103, with 32 for the NDP; wins majority government after nine months out of office; there are now no Liberal MPs west of Winnipeg. Only a few weeks earlier, Trudeau had announced he was retiring as Liberal Party leader.
Fifty Years Ago Today
February 18, 1960
Lake Tahoe California - Canadian team attends ceremonies as Vice President Richard M. Nixon opens the Eighth Winter Olympic Games in Squaw Valley; with 29 other nations and 665 competitors.
Lake Tahoe California - Canadian team attends ceremonies as Vice President Richard M. Nixon opens the Eighth Winter Olympic Games in Squaw Valley; with 29 other nations and 665 competitors.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Lent Devotions
The only "funny" thing about this book is that there are no devotions or activities for the Sundays of Lent. If you follow it straight through ("Day 2," "Day 3," etc.), you'll wind up short. The reason? Sundays aren't technically part of Lent--they're "little Easters." So on Sundays, you're on your own. But I think that might work out all right here, because we usually skip family activities on Thursdays when the Apprentice is working.
Today's activity is supposed to be carving a bar of soap into the shape of a cross, a reminder that our sins were "washed away." We usually use liquid soap, so I was thinking about decorating the pump containers instead. We'll see how it goes--everybody is still feeling a bit tentative today after a couple of Very Yuck sick days.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Blog Cruise: Don't let the baby eat the lesson
The Review Crew question for this week is "How do you homeschool with children of multiple ages? How do you handle toddlers?" (Click on the ship to see more entries--they will be posted on Tuesday.)
Right now we have a middle schooler and a third grader--no toddlers or preschoolers. But I've been there too.
This year, we're using a modified version of Sue Patrick's Workbox system for the girls' individual work (including subjects with Mama Squirrel); each girl has a series of boxes or magazine files holding the work that's to be done next. We try to get together at least once, preferably twice during each school day for group readalouds and other activities. Since we don't have any "littles" who need to be constantly supervised, things usually go fairly smoothly. The girls don't do a lot of subjects together, but if there's something appropriate for both (like nature study) then we do it in "group time." I do try to streamline the amount of reading aloud I do, which means either asking the girls to read some of their own books, or just cutting back on the total number of readings we get done per day.
But school with little ones around? That's a different story. If you have toddlers (say 18-month-olds), about all I can say is be prepared for lots of noise, and try not to let them empty the bookshelves. We actually had to move school up to the (less-distracting) living room for awhile while one of the Squirrelings was in her See Me Empty Shelves phase. Some people use a toddler's nap time for serious school work, but at that point sometimes you feel like you need a nap yourself, so that doesn't always work. Just do whatever works--distract them, include them, use toys, get them to stay in a defined area, use a sibling babysitter for as long as a math lesson takes--and realize that, sooner or later, each of these little people is going to be part of the homeschool group too.
They absorb way more than you'd think, just being part of things (in our case, that included part of a Lauri puzzle and a speedily-intercepted meal of magnetic words. Our Cuisenaire rods also have teeth marks in them.) When Crayons was born and our midwife came over for a post-natal visit, she was a bit startled to hear preschooler Ponytails talking about Mozart and Vivaldi (she called him Baldy, but that's all right).
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Catching up (and Happy St. Valentine's Day)
Last week wasn't a very bloggish week. The weather stayed mostly dry (around here, although not in a lot of other places!) and we did all the usual Squirrel stuff. Mr. Fixit has continued to work on cleaning out some of the dark recesses of the Tree, coming up with some of the most amazing stuff that had dropped down down down. He even managed to find our kids' harp which had gotten (for some reason) put up on one of the joists of the furnace room ceiling (where we keep kites, leaves for the dining table and things like that).
Mama Squirrel went to a church social and played Mennonite Golf, which you don't find mentioned online too much because its proper name is Ten Card Golf. It's one of those very social games like Uno or Cheat that you can learn in a few minutes (because it's easy for other people to help you if you don't have a clue what you're doing), and it can take all evening if you want it to. Although it was cards instead of marbles, it reminded me of the big wooden Aggravation boards that my own Grandpa Squirrel made maybe thirty years ago, much like these. I still have one of his boards, and remember long evenings spent eating snacks and playing "the marble game" with my grandparents and whoever else was around.
Crayons and Ponytails both used the sewing machine, Crayons for the first time by herself. Mama Squirrel helped her make a felt doll pillow and then a fabric book cover--Crayons sewed all the seams. Ponytails experimented with the fancy stitches that Mama Squirrel never has time for, and dressed up a dish towel with machine-embroidered scallops. (An afterthought about that...we have two volumes of a popular children's sewing machine series, which spends a lot of time having kids follow mazes on paper and do non-fabric crafts to get them used to the machine. Crayons and I read through the first book, but she was distinctly uninterested in anything that didn't actually involve "sewing something." The Real Thing. Mama Squirrel had no problem with that.)
We went to a library sale which wasn't at a library, it was at one of their "service buildings," which basically means a warehouse, and that's what it was--boxes of books all over the place, stacked up on racks and in big wobbly piles, with strollers blocking the aisles, toddlers running in between the boxes, and little kids crawling under the racks with parents calling things after them like "do you see any books on renovation under there?" We did find a few books, but it wasn't the sort of place where you wanted to stay very long.
Monday is the Family Day holiday in Ontario. We're not sure yet how we're going to spend it...stomach viruses are still making their way around this area and have criss-crossed through the Treehouse more than once, so we're keeping things open.
Mama Squirrel went to a church social and played Mennonite Golf, which you don't find mentioned online too much because its proper name is Ten Card Golf. It's one of those very social games like Uno or Cheat that you can learn in a few minutes (because it's easy for other people to help you if you don't have a clue what you're doing), and it can take all evening if you want it to. Although it was cards instead of marbles, it reminded me of the big wooden Aggravation boards that my own Grandpa Squirrel made maybe thirty years ago, much like these. I still have one of his boards, and remember long evenings spent eating snacks and playing "the marble game" with my grandparents and whoever else was around.
Crayons and Ponytails both used the sewing machine, Crayons for the first time by herself. Mama Squirrel helped her make a felt doll pillow and then a fabric book cover--Crayons sewed all the seams. Ponytails experimented with the fancy stitches that Mama Squirrel never has time for, and dressed up a dish towel with machine-embroidered scallops. (An afterthought about that...we have two volumes of a popular children's sewing machine series, which spends a lot of time having kids follow mazes on paper and do non-fabric crafts to get them used to the machine. Crayons and I read through the first book, but she was distinctly uninterested in anything that didn't actually involve "sewing something." The Real Thing. Mama Squirrel had no problem with that.)
We went to a library sale which wasn't at a library, it was at one of their "service buildings," which basically means a warehouse, and that's what it was--boxes of books all over the place, stacked up on racks and in big wobbly piles, with strollers blocking the aisles, toddlers running in between the boxes, and little kids crawling under the racks with parents calling things after them like "do you see any books on renovation under there?" We did find a few books, but it wasn't the sort of place where you wanted to stay very long.
Monday is the Family Day holiday in Ontario. We're not sure yet how we're going to spend it...stomach viruses are still making their way around this area and have criss-crossed through the Treehouse more than once, so we're keeping things open.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Today's must-read post
Reading Like a Grownup, at A Peaceful Day.
(But Jeanne--could I point out that, though it's beside your point of having adults read books that aren't written for children (notice I avoided saying "a---t books"--oops, I just did)--that the list of books you're reading with Jemimah--Swallows & Amazons etc.--is way more than a lot of today's kids are ever going to get? Seems to me that one of the best ways to get them to eventually move on to "grownup books" is to give them the foundation you're building now.)
(But Jeanne--could I point out that, though it's beside your point of having adults read books that aren't written for children (notice I avoided saying "a---t books"--oops, I just did)--that the list of books you're reading with Jemimah--Swallows & Amazons etc.--is way more than a lot of today's kids are ever going to get? Seems to me that one of the best ways to get them to eventually move on to "grownup books" is to give them the foundation you're building now.)
Thursday, February 11, 2010
We know all about those Barbie Breaks
Baby Blues has been running a thread about homeschooling. Here's today's strip. You can click on "previous" to see the buildup to "we want Mom to homeschool us."
UPDATE October 2010: the link has changed. You can see the strip here instead.
UPDATE October 2010: the link has changed. You can see the strip here instead.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
We do make dinner, so there
I was so annoyed with that "nobody cooks" news story that I spent extra time cooking today. We got a good dinner and I probably won't even have to cook tomorrow night. Double stars.
What did we have?
Bread from the bread machine. A big pan of brownies, half of which went in the freezer for Valentine's Day. Apples.
1 slab of frozen Alaskan Pollock, baked in a casserole with some no-salt seasoning mix and margarine.
1 butternut squash, cut up, and 1 sweet potato, cut up, both put into another casserole with some water and baked along with the fish.
Half a can of pasta sauce, most of a bag of spinach (rinsed), a few mushrooms, and two zucchini (sliced thick), all put into a small casserole and baked along with the fish and squash and sweet potato, to make a sort of ratatouille.
Now this is the tricky part, or maybe not so much. About twenty minutes before we wanted to eat, I took the casserole of vegetables out and noticed that a) they were done and b) there was a lot of liquid from the pasta sauce and the vegetable juices. I drained off the liquid and put it in a pot on the stove, and added a drained/rinsed can of kidney beans and some ditali (small pasta rings), thinking I would just let that simmer and have it be minestrone for tomorrow. I sprinkled some Parmesan cheese on the spinach/mushrooms/zucchini and kept it warm until everything else was done.
What actually happened, though, was that by the time we ate, the beans were warmed through and the pasta was done, and most of the liquid was absorbed too. So we just ate the beans/pasta along with the vegetables, and the fish, and your choice of squash/sweet potato, and the bread, and the brownies. If you didn't like something, you didn't have to take any.
And we do have leftovers, but that's fine too.
What did we have?
Bread from the bread machine. A big pan of brownies, half of which went in the freezer for Valentine's Day. Apples.
1 slab of frozen Alaskan Pollock, baked in a casserole with some no-salt seasoning mix and margarine.
1 butternut squash, cut up, and 1 sweet potato, cut up, both put into another casserole with some water and baked along with the fish.
Half a can of pasta sauce, most of a bag of spinach (rinsed), a few mushrooms, and two zucchini (sliced thick), all put into a small casserole and baked along with the fish and squash and sweet potato, to make a sort of ratatouille.
Now this is the tricky part, or maybe not so much. About twenty minutes before we wanted to eat, I took the casserole of vegetables out and noticed that a) they were done and b) there was a lot of liquid from the pasta sauce and the vegetable juices. I drained off the liquid and put it in a pot on the stove, and added a drained/rinsed can of kidney beans and some ditali (small pasta rings), thinking I would just let that simmer and have it be minestrone for tomorrow. I sprinkled some Parmesan cheese on the spinach/mushrooms/zucchini and kept it warm until everything else was done.
What actually happened, though, was that by the time we ate, the beans were warmed through and the pasta was done, and most of the liquid was absorbed too. So we just ate the beans/pasta along with the vegetables, and the fish, and your choice of squash/sweet potato, and the bread, and the brownies. If you didn't like something, you didn't have to take any.
And we do have leftovers, but that's fine too.
All in the attitude
Crayons and I are reading At the Back of the North Wind. The boy Diamond's father has had to find work in the city, which means moving to a small, shabby apartment over the mews where he parks his cab. Diamond, his mother and the new baby have been away staying with his aunt, and they are now arriving at their new home for the first time.
IT WAS late in the afternoon when Diamond and his mother and the baby reached London....when he got to the mews, he could not help being a little dismayed at first; and if he had never been to the back of the north wind, I am afraid he would have cried a little. But instead of that, he said to himself it was a fine thing all the old furniture was there. And instead of helping his mother to be miserable at the change, he began to find out all the advantages of the place; for every place has some advantages, and they are always better worth knowing than the disadvantages. Certainly the weather was depressing, for a thick, dull, persistent rain was falling by the time they reached home. But happily the weather is very changeable; and besides, there was a good fire burning in the room, which their neighbour with the drunken husband had attended to for them; and the tea-things were put out, and the kettle was boiling on the fire. And with a good fire, and tea and bread and butter, things cannot be said to be miserable.
We're forgetting what we knew
In today's news: more and more Canadians are depending more and more on packaged dinners.
Wow, like, who knew?
This is the part I didn't like:
And that's from a girl who spends more time perusing chemistry textbooks and hair magazines than she does food blogs. Who needs to be Julia Child? We're just forgetting what we used to know, and those coming along behind are going to be even more clueless. Do we want a whole generation asking at what point we, figuratively, add the playdough? (Or worse--not wondering at all?)
We have slow cookers. We have microwaves. We have frying pans. Some of us even have pressure cookers. There are ways to get real food on the table. Keep trying; you don't have to be the French Chef.
Wow, like, who knew?
This is the part I didn't like:
"NPD analyst Joel Gregoire said most households see food in a practical utilitarian way and the economic downturn doesn't appear to have had a major impact on spending for packaged foods at the grocery store.What's with the Julia Child snark? I don't do French cooking either, and I manage to get dinner on the table. Last night The Apprentice came home from school and, in a burst of creativity as well as sympathy for Mama Squirrel whose tail was dragging a bit, she offered to cook dinner. What did she make? Chicken breasts with paprika, mushroom and sour cream sauce (from the Beany Malone Cookbook); salad, and whole wheat toast triangles. All the Squirrelings liked it, and so did Mr. Fixit when he came home (much) later (he's had a couple of late nights at the office, dealing with phone systems and computer problems).
""What this tells me is that even in tough economic times, people really are still looking for convenience," he said in an interview.
""Just because times are getting tough doesn't mean we're all turning into Julia Childs and we're all learning how to cook.""
And that's from a girl who spends more time perusing chemistry textbooks and hair magazines than she does food blogs. Who needs to be Julia Child? We're just forgetting what we used to know, and those coming along behind are going to be even more clueless. Do we want a whole generation asking at what point we, figuratively, add the playdough? (Or worse--not wondering at all?)
We have slow cookers. We have microwaves. We have frying pans. Some of us even have pressure cookers. There are ways to get real food on the table. Keep trying; you don't have to be the French Chef.
Monday, February 08, 2010
You too, on the Crew?
The Old Schoolhouse Review Crew has announced some of its plans for next year--and they'll be looking for new crew members. Some of you have asked me how we got involved in this year's Crew, or how you can enlist your own family (because it really does become a family commitment); so here's what you need to know if you'd like to be considered.
How come your kids don't know that?
The Review Crew has started a sort of mini-carnival each week, with a homeschooling question to answer. The question for this week is "How do you know if your kids are keeping up with their peers?" (Click on the ship to see more entries--they will be posted on Tuesday.)
I guess you could rephrase that "How do you know they know what they're supposed to know?"
I've never worried much about that. First of all, it depends on who's making the list of what kids are supposed to know. Maybe their list isn't the same as mine, but who's to say that theirs is better, even if "they" might be the provincial government? Better for whom? I was never that interested in having standardized kids.
Second, even people who have gone through a whole education system have often missed something. Or a lot of things. How else to account for all those surveys that show how many of us don't know the most basic facts of geography, or physics, or about the Bible? I was reading something just this weekend from someone in New Mexico who kept having phone order takers insist that New Mexico wasn't a state. Someone else added that they'd had similar trouble living in Delaware.
Third, even if we do miss something, it's usually fairly easy to fill in or catch up. I may have posted before about Ponytails' teacher last year (when she was in public school) having a "thing" about graphing--it's not something we spend a lot of formal time on here, but it doesn't take a lot of time to explain. When The Apprentice started tenth-grade math in public high school, we had covered most of the elementary algebra topics at home (mostly using PurpleMath.com and a couple of library books), but again hadn't done much co-ordinate geometry. She knew the concepts as far as quadratic equations; just had somehow missed out on the "rise over run" part. But no big deal--have you ever known a high school course not to start with a quick review of last year's work? She caught up quickly and has gotten high marks in math ever since.
Finally, the Squirrelings (and most other homeschooled kids I know of) usually know about a lot of interesting things that aren't on the "standardized" list, or sometimes aren't even in the homeschool plan. Crayons just called me a few minutes ago to say that a whole bunch of chickadees were outside the window. She got all interested awhile back in John Haywood's Atlas of Past Times. (She's also one of the youngest kids I know who can tell you about "a master bedroom with an ensuite." Too much experience with open houses?) Ponytails' grade seven curriculum includes logic, money management, photography, nineteen-century world history, French verbs, and Plutarch's Life of Poplicola; but she's also following her own interests, right now mostly in things like design. She also made us ham and cheese crepes for lunch.
So do I ever get worried enough to look through the provincial standards and wonder if we're doing it wrong? Honestly, no--well, hardly ever. With Ponytails being home right now for one or maybe two more years before high school, yes, I did have a look through the middle school topics. I printed out the guidelines for French, and considered whether or not it would be worthwhile adjusting our history and science to include what the public schools were doing. (We decided not to.) But we were more interested in using this time to work on what Ponytails needs to work on. And what she's interested in. And what our homeschool curriculum suggests. That's more than good enough, in Mama Squirrel's opinion.
Friday, February 05, 2010
Yes, we drink milk out of bags too
Sheryl Ng's video "How Canadians Drink Milk" made it to the newspapers today--and, as pointed out there, milk-in-bags doesn't apply to provinces west of Ontario. But yeah, we have been getting milk-in-bags for years. (And if we don't need to buy a whole four litres, we do get a carton.) Actually I didn't grow up on milk-in-bags; I grew up on powdered milk mixed in a Tupperware jug. And before that we got milk delivered to our house in glass bottles, so now I know I really am an antique.
Math Mammoth (TOS Review)
Treehouse Review Week
Free Samples Download
Placement Tests
FAQ (including ordering information)
and worktexts for grades 1-12.
Incredibly affordable!"
I mentioned a few weeks ago that we would be trying out Maria Miller's Math Mammoth series with Crayons this term. We received both grade 3 books in the Light Blue Series (more specifics on the grade 3 books here), and I printed out the first chapter.
"The first chapter in this book deals with addition and subtraction strategies. The student does a lot of mental math, learns addition and subtraction terminology, touches on algebraic problems in the lesson about addition/subtraction connection, practices borrowing, and more."
What else do you do in Grade 3? "Then we tackle the multiplication concept in chapter 2. After that come multiplication tables in chapter 3, so multiplication does take a big part of book A. Then comes a chapter about clock and time (chapter 4) and a chapter about money (chapter 5).
"In part B, we study place value with thousands (chapter 6), then measuring and geometry (chapters 7 and 8), followed by division in chapter 9. In chapter 10, we study a little about multiplying bigger numbers, and finally in chapter 11, it is time for some introductory fraction and decimal topics."
Why do I like this so far? As I've said before, I like the three-year curriculum we've been using with Crayons, but in its final year it does get a bit esoteric with Fibonacci numbers, measurement, and graphing concepts--and I've felt that she really did need more work this year on basics. I wanted to be sure that those arithmetic "acorns" she'd stored up didn't get buried under a lot of other leaves and nuts--nice leaves and nuts, but not what she most needs right now.
It might be that Timmy-Tiptoes part of being a Squirrel: dropping those nuts down deep through the hole in the tree, but not being sure exactly what went down there, or how you're going to get them out again later.--previous Treehouse postI also like the balance we're getting between a bit of "mom teaching time" and then a reasonable amount of problems for Crayons to do alone--this works very well with the way we like to learn here, and seems to go at about the right pace. I like the uncluttered feeling I get when we work through these pages--they're not fancy, but they offer enough variety to keep things interesting, and include self-checking activities like finding all the answers in a long line of numerals. (If the answer isn't in there, you did it wrong.)
"When you use these books as your only or main mathematics curriculum, they can be like a "framework", but you do have some liberty in organizing the study schedule....This curriculum aims to concentrate on a few major topics at a time and study them in depth....This is opposite to the continually spiraling step-by-step curricula in which each lesson typically is about a different topic from the previous or next lesson, and includes a lot of review problems from past topics. This does not mean that your child wouldn't need occasional review. However, when each major topic is presented in its own chapter, this gives you more freedom to plan the course of study and choose the review times yourself."
This works for us.
An important question for our family: do you need a colour printer? In the third-grade workbooks I downloaded, the colours do make the pages prettier; but they also seem to work fine in black and white. If you're looking for material for younger children, you might want to check out the samples for those years to see if you want them done in colour. [Update, October 2010: We printed out the 3B book in colour because it has several chapters about geometry, measurement etc. which use pictures of rulers, measuring cups and other things that show up better with different colours.]
What is Math Mammoth like in general?
Math Mammoth offers a whole array of downloadable workbooks, from full curriculum, to collections of worksheets on single topics. At first the different series may seem confusing, but the website pretty much explains the differences, for example, between the Blue and the Light Blue books. The Blue series is more remedial or supplemental; Light Blue is designed as a full, largely self-teaching curriculum for grades 1-5.
What is there for older students? Very glad you asked: check out the middle-school and high-school stuff here, including the Make-It-Real series of workbooks. "Make It Real Learning products are workbooks that contain activities or problem situations taken from real-life, with real data. Some examples of the situations are: cell phone plans, autism, population growth, cooking, borrowing money, credit cards, life spans, music downloads, etc. etc. Each activity-lesson starts with basics and goes into more in-depth and challenging evaluations and questions."
What does this cost? It all depends on how much you want to get at one time. You can get the whole Light Blue series, for example--that is, all five grades plus answer keys, a worksheet maker etc.--for US$99 as a download or $104 on CD. Prices of one year's Light Blue curriculum (including the support materials) vary slightly between the Math Mammoth page (it says there they are $29.50) and the Kagi store download page (it's listed there as $33.36). You can also order printed workbooks through Lulu.com. General ordering information is here.
Final Take: Over the past few years, I've often noticed Math Mammoth's generosity in offering samples and prizes (I've won a couple of their other products myself), and their interest in working with homeschoolers. I think it's their flexibility that seems to make them a good choice for homeschooling--you can get what you need to start with, get more pages or more help if you need it, and even make up some of your own stuff with the support materials. There is no fancy encryption or stuff that makes printing limited or difficult. And the book we're using has been pretty much print-out-and-use--there's no big learning curve for the parent. I don't know how the materials for the upper years compare to other curricula, but I'd certainly include them in the possibilities for math in the years to come.
For more reviews of this product, see the Review Crew Home Page.
Dewey's Disclaimer: This product was received free for purposes of review. No other payment was made. The opinions expressed in this review are our own.
Thursday, February 04, 2010
Homeschooling with Remaindered Books (Volume 2)
Last year I did a post about picking homeschool-friendly books out of the discount/overstock/remaindered book catalogue we get each month or so from Hampstead House Books in Thornhill, Ontario (near Toronto). I got their new catalogue today and thought there were enough good school-type books in there to do another post on finding non-traditional stuff to teach with. The inventory at HH Books changes all the time, and by the time I get this typed, some of the books may already be sold out; the point of the post is more just to show what kinds of things you could look for if you get catalogues from places like HH. It might also give you ideas for books to look for at the library.
Since HH isn't a homeschool catalogue and its books aren't marked by grade level, I'll do what I did last year and roughly divide things between littlest kids, grades 3-6, and grades 7+. The same warnings apply as always: I'm just looking at the catalogue, I'm not necessarily familiar with all these books, and if there's something inappropriate in one of them, it's not my fault. It's sometimes hard to tell, even if I can find better descriptions somewhere online.
Littlest Ones
The Klondike Cat, by Julie Lawson. Little Ballerina (about dancing in The Nutcracker). Whale. A Child's Treasury of Best-Loved Prayers.
Grades 3-6
Language skills: Winnie the Pooh: The Pooh Dictionary. Berlitz Kids Adventures with Nicholas: A Visit to Grandma (bilingual French/English story and CD).
Literature: Hiawatha and Megissogwon. Out of the Everywhere: Tales for a New World. Ramona the Brave. Boys and Girls of Bookland. Narnia Classic Editions of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian. The Complete Chronicles of Narnia (all in one volume). Pleasant Fieldmouse (strangely enough, that was in the catalogue I searched through last year). Dick Whittington and His Cat. 4-CD set of Prince Caspian, read by Lynn Redgrave.
Nature Study: The Young Birder's Guide to Birds of Eastern North America.
Geography: Idaa Trail: In the Steps of Our Ancestors. The Kingfisher Student Atlas of North America.
Sports History: The Kid Line (a hockey story).
Canadian History: Catherine Parr Traill: Backwoods Pioneer (preteen biography). Alexander Mackenzie (same bio series).
World History: CAstle: Medieval Days and Knights (pop-up and pull-out book by Robert Sabuda).
History of Technology: Oars, Sails and Steam, by Edwin Tunis. (That's a homeschool classic!)
Family History: The Art of the Family Tree Kit.
Art History: see the older level.
Art and Crafts: You Can Draw.
Music: see the older level.
Just for Fun: Puzzellations Magical Gardens. The Amazing Family Game Board Book.
Grades 7 and up
Language: Maximum French (CDs and CD-Rom). The Dictionary of Disagreeable English. Why do We Say It?
Literature: The Mouse Woman Trilogy (Haida legends retold by Christie Harris). The Complete James Herriot boxed set. The Dog in British Poetry. Boxed set of Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Phantom of the Opera. The Lakeland Poets.
Nature: Timeless Wonders: A Fantastic Journey Through the World's Natural Beauties. Peterson Field Guide to Hummingbirds of North America.
History of Technology: The Encyclopedia of Ships.
History of Science: Milestones of Science: The History of Humankind's Greatest Ideas.
Science Biography: Beyond the Outer Shores: The Untold Story of Ed Ricketts, the Pioneering Ecologist.
Geography: Maps of North America: The Unveiling of our Continent. Exploring Canada's National Parks. Spirit of the Polar Regions. Philip's Quick Reference World Atlas. Satellite World. Geographica: The Complete Illustrated Atlas of the World.
Canadian History: Haidi Gwaii: Journeys Through the Queen Charlotte Islands. Native Universe: Voices of Indian America. The Acadians.
Sports History: As the Puck Turns: A Personal Journey Through the World of Hockey.
World History: Historica, 1000 Years of Our lives and Times (this is huge, 576 pages). Atlas of World War II. (Lots more war books too.) Battles of the Medieval World. Simon Schama's A History of Brtain at the Edge of the World. William and Mary (biography). Ancient Rome: Voyages Through Time, by Peter Ackroyd. (That one might be suitable for younger readers as well.)
Art History: Inside the Vatican. Michelangelo: The Complete Sculpture, Painting & Architecture. El Greco. Art Master Series: Durer, Raphael, Van Der Weyden.
Home Skills: First Aid Companion for Dogs and Cats. Joey Green's Fix-it Magic. Joey Green's Gardening Magic. Make It Last: Over 1,000 Ingenious Ways to Extend the Life of Everything You Own. How to Zest A Lemon: Basic Cooking Techniques.
Physical Education: 6 Minute Morning Workout.
Art and Crafts: Decorating Eggs: 15 projects. Beautiful Crochet for Head, Hands and Feet. (Lots of other adult-level craft books.) Pop-up and 3-D Cards. Fleecie Dolls. Fleecie Pets. Painting Nature's Treasures. (Lots of books on painting and drawing.)
Music: Who's Afraid of Opera? Who's Afraid of Classical Music? The Complete Gilbert and Sullivan. Mozart: Letters & Manuscripts.
Are we going to order anything this month? Still thinking about it.
Since HH isn't a homeschool catalogue and its books aren't marked by grade level, I'll do what I did last year and roughly divide things between littlest kids, grades 3-6, and grades 7+. The same warnings apply as always: I'm just looking at the catalogue, I'm not necessarily familiar with all these books, and if there's something inappropriate in one of them, it's not my fault. It's sometimes hard to tell, even if I can find better descriptions somewhere online.
Littlest Ones
The Klondike Cat, by Julie Lawson. Little Ballerina (about dancing in The Nutcracker). Whale. A Child's Treasury of Best-Loved Prayers.
Grades 3-6
Language skills: Winnie the Pooh: The Pooh Dictionary. Berlitz Kids Adventures with Nicholas: A Visit to Grandma (bilingual French/English story and CD).
Literature: Hiawatha and Megissogwon. Out of the Everywhere: Tales for a New World. Ramona the Brave. Boys and Girls of Bookland. Narnia Classic Editions of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian. The Complete Chronicles of Narnia (all in one volume). Pleasant Fieldmouse (strangely enough, that was in the catalogue I searched through last year). Dick Whittington and His Cat. 4-CD set of Prince Caspian, read by Lynn Redgrave.
Nature Study: The Young Birder's Guide to Birds of Eastern North America.
Geography: Idaa Trail: In the Steps of Our Ancestors. The Kingfisher Student Atlas of North America.
Sports History: The Kid Line (a hockey story).
Canadian History: Catherine Parr Traill: Backwoods Pioneer (preteen biography). Alexander Mackenzie (same bio series).
World History: CAstle: Medieval Days and Knights (pop-up and pull-out book by Robert Sabuda).
History of Technology: Oars, Sails and Steam, by Edwin Tunis. (That's a homeschool classic!)
Family History: The Art of the Family Tree Kit.
Art History: see the older level.
Art and Crafts: You Can Draw.
Music: see the older level.
Just for Fun: Puzzellations Magical Gardens. The Amazing Family Game Board Book.
Grades 7 and up
Language: Maximum French (CDs and CD-Rom). The Dictionary of Disagreeable English. Why do We Say It?
Literature: The Mouse Woman Trilogy (Haida legends retold by Christie Harris). The Complete James Herriot boxed set. The Dog in British Poetry. Boxed set of Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Phantom of the Opera. The Lakeland Poets.
Nature: Timeless Wonders: A Fantastic Journey Through the World's Natural Beauties. Peterson Field Guide to Hummingbirds of North America.
History of Technology: The Encyclopedia of Ships.
History of Science: Milestones of Science: The History of Humankind's Greatest Ideas.
Science Biography: Beyond the Outer Shores: The Untold Story of Ed Ricketts, the Pioneering Ecologist.
Geography: Maps of North America: The Unveiling of our Continent. Exploring Canada's National Parks. Spirit of the Polar Regions. Philip's Quick Reference World Atlas. Satellite World. Geographica: The Complete Illustrated Atlas of the World.
Canadian History: Haidi Gwaii: Journeys Through the Queen Charlotte Islands. Native Universe: Voices of Indian America. The Acadians.
Sports History: As the Puck Turns: A Personal Journey Through the World of Hockey.
World History: Historica, 1000 Years of Our lives and Times (this is huge, 576 pages). Atlas of World War II. (Lots more war books too.) Battles of the Medieval World. Simon Schama's A History of Brtain at the Edge of the World. William and Mary (biography). Ancient Rome: Voyages Through Time, by Peter Ackroyd. (That one might be suitable for younger readers as well.)
Art History: Inside the Vatican. Michelangelo: The Complete Sculpture, Painting & Architecture. El Greco. Art Master Series: Durer, Raphael, Van Der Weyden.
Home Skills: First Aid Companion for Dogs and Cats. Joey Green's Fix-it Magic. Joey Green's Gardening Magic. Make It Last: Over 1,000 Ingenious Ways to Extend the Life of Everything You Own. How to Zest A Lemon: Basic Cooking Techniques.
Physical Education: 6 Minute Morning Workout.
Art and Crafts: Decorating Eggs: 15 projects. Beautiful Crochet for Head, Hands and Feet. (Lots of other adult-level craft books.) Pop-up and 3-D Cards. Fleecie Dolls. Fleecie Pets. Painting Nature's Treasures. (Lots of books on painting and drawing.)
Music: Who's Afraid of Opera? Who's Afraid of Classical Music? The Complete Gilbert and Sullivan. Mozart: Letters & Manuscripts.
Are we going to order anything this month? Still thinking about it.
Homeschool Library Builder, and Super Bowl Special for Haiti (TOS Review)
Treehouse Review Week
Homeschool Library Builder Home Page
All About Homeschool Library Builder
Want books? Homeschool books?
"What we sell: We stock new and used, hardcover and softcover titles. Most of our new titles are publisher’s remainders and overstocks."
"Our desire and delight is to assist you by offering selections to enrich your child’s education, from preschool through high school, and beyond....We want to help you build your own excellent library and create memorable reading experiences for your family!"
You can even search HLB's site by the curriculum you use: Ambleside Online, Beautiful Feet, Five in a Row, Heart of Dakota, Sonlight Curriculum, Tapestry of Grace, and Veritas Press. If you can't find what you want, they offer a book search service; they also have a product marketing service and other special benefits for members.
When I clicked on "Ambleside," I was taken to a page with Ambleside Online's years, from "K" (year 0) to year 11. (I'm not sure how they handle books used in more than one year.) For year 3, HLB currently offers copies of A Little Princess, Alice in Wonderland (several editions), Good Queen Bess, a Marco Polo book, a Little House book, and The Jungle Book. For year 7, they're offering Beowulf, More than a Carpenter, Ivanhoe, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Gammage Cup, and The Story of Rolf and The Viking Bow. So as far as AO goes, HLB is offering mainly books from the "extra reading" parts of the curriculum; but of course that would just depend on which books became available. It would probably be helpful to do a more general tour of the site as well, rather than limiting your search to only the curriculum and year you're doing.
There are many other ways to search the site--by newest arrivals or books recently added, or by categories including African American Culture & History, Award Winners, Bible Discipleship Ministries, Clearance, and Curriculum/Teacher Helps.
Homeschool Library Builder also offers a number of promotions (this month it's 20% off everything in the store) and special events such as the following:
"We are also giving customers an opportunity to save an additional 15% on Super Bowl Sunday, for a total of 35% off! We are asking people to make a donation of any amount to the Heartline Ministries, serving Haiti. We will then send an online coupon for an additional 15%, good for Super Bowl Sunday only."
HLB has run other similar events "to raise money for those in need, such as a young autistic boy living near the Alaskan wilderness who needed a service dog, Samaritan’s Purse Operation Christmas Child or the victims from the Chinese earthquakes or the Gulf hurricanes."
Final take: I'd probably use this website if I didn't live in Canada--ordering things across the border is sometimes more complicated than I like, especially for books that are fairly easy to get here. But it looks like a good resource for homeschoolers in the U.S..
For more reviews of this product, see the Homeschool Review Crew website.
Dewey's Disclaimer: No payment was made for this review. The opinions expressed in this review are our own.
Beehive Reader (TOS Review)
Treehouse Review Week
See inside the book
Correlation with All About Spelling
All About Spelling Home Page
If you've followed the TOS reviews here, you'll already know that we like the All About Spelling program, written by Marie Rippel.
Review Crew members recently received a copy of Beehive Reader 1, by Marie Rippel with Renée LaTulippe, which was written to correlate with All About Spelling (see the link above). The book, published in 2009 by Takeaway Press, has already won a Moonbeam Children's Book Award, and from the customer comments it sounds like it has been a hit with both young and older children. More readers and a teacher's guide are in production and should be available by the end of this year.
Cost: $19.95 from the publisher.
For more reviews of Beehive Reader 1 and All About Spelling, see the Review Crew home page.
Dewey's Disclaimer: This book was received free for review purposes. No other payment was made. The opinions expressed in this review are our own.
Ray's Arithmetic (TOS Review)
Treehouse Review Week
Dollar Homeschool Home Page (publishers of the Eclectic Education Series)
Ray's Arithmetic
"The Ray's CD is a complete collection of the Ray's Arithmetic textbooks. The Ray's series includes a total of 38 books. These include the 12 core Textbooks, + Answer Key's, Teachers Editions, and several intriguing books of mathematical pursuits for the aspiring student, such as Surveying and Navigation, Astronomy, Book Keeping, and Physics. Click here to view a list of the entire collection of Rays' Arithmetic provided on the CD."
"The entire collection of Ray's Arithmetic is now available on CD for only $59, less than the cost of an average textbook--- and your satisfaction is guaranteed."
The Charlotte Mason homeschool movement has been faulted on more than one occasion for making too much of "dusty old Victorian books." My third grader is learning geography from a vintage 1930's book, and Canadian history from H.E. Marshall's equally vintage (and sometimes terribly non-PC) Canada's Story. We read Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare, Kipling, Dickens, and Anna Botsford Comstock. My seventh grader has started Plutarch. I don't even laugh when the Squirrelings occasionally use literature-learned phrases and British-isms like "he looked about him" or "Shall I fetch it for you?" I say that so that you know we don't have any undue bias against using old books, and in fact you might expect that, if anything, our preferences would be slanted the other way.
Many homeschoolers, including CMers, enjoy the challenge of teaching with reproduction Ray's Arithmetic textbooks. Mary Pride wrote admiringly of the honest mental effort that it required from children, and there's obviously real enthusiasm in the online homeschooling community for using at least the first couple of levels, including an e-group. (An active e-group for anything is always a good sign.) It's easy to admire the concentration and mental dexterity that allowed clerks to make change without a cash register readout, and farmers to calculate amounts of seed without a calculator.
However, like Emily Litella, I can respect Eagle Rights without wanting to sit next to one on the bus, and I can appreciate the interest in studying the methods of certain old textbooks, particularly those of a technical nature, without seeing much use for resurrecting them as-is in our own homeschool. In mathematics, particularly in the upper years, I believe there are alternatives to the current scandal of "fuzzy math," without having to resort to outdated terminology and small scanned pages. I also wonder--and I'm saying this carefully, not trying to fall into the trap of saying newer is better, not trying to mindlessly echo the "this is the 21st century" mantra--if our children's environment now calls for a new approach, rather than trying to fit today's feet into the math equivalent of button-up boots.
The focus in the first book (Primary Arithmetic) on "number" and on oral teaching does line up quite easily with Charlotte Mason's methods for primary-level arithmetic, and it seems there's enough information there to at least give it a good try. But my admittedly brief excursion around the Ray's support material (e.g. the extra schedules available at the e-group) seems to indicate that most parent interest is focused mostly at the lower levels. If I'm wrong about this and there are high schoolers using Ray's all the way through Calculus, I'd be interested in knowing how that's working out for them. The Apprentice, who just finished Grade 12 Functions and Relations, looked through the Higher Algebra book, and pointed out several places where either the terminology has changed, or the method of working out a problem has been simplified in the hundred-plus years since the book was published. Some problems that used to take pages just aren't done that way anymore. (Not to mention that we no longer need logarithmic tables.)
Perhaps it's just a minor matter of vocabulary, but I'm still concerned that an older student moving from one of the higher Ray's books, such as Algebra, into a current high school or college math text would have a real and unnecessary need to re-learn a great deal of what he/she had been taught.
Final take: I would consider using Primary Arithmetic, for Crayons, or possibly the next book, for Ponytails, to provide supplementary work, particularly in oral work and mental arithmetic. But I'm not sure that the whole program would be a good fit for us. As a homeschooling parent, especially one whose gifts are not in maths and sciences, I would prefer to stick with something more current.
The price: For $59, then, you get the impressively long list of e-books (including answer keys and original teachers' manuals) that I've linked above. (The cost and time of printing them out will be an issue, unless you read from the computer or have some kind of reader.) The real question, though, will be how many of those books you'll actually want to use with your students. If your plan is to use only the first couple of books, then $59 for three or four years' arithmetic teaching is not a bad deal at all.
And you might want to pick up a slate to go with it.
To read more reviews of this product, see the Review Crew Home Page.
Dewey's Disclaimer: This product was received free for purposes of review. No other payment was made. The opinions expressed in this review are our own.
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Treehouse dinner: empty the freezer
What did we have for dinner tonight?
1 bag of ravioli (quick sale for $1 a bag), cooked and then heated in a casserole with some pre-cooked ground beef (from yesterday's dinner) and half a can of pasta sauce. Treehouse adaptation: by layering instead of stirring, those who don't like much tomato sauce could scoop their ravioli from the top.
Frozen peas (end of the bag)
Frozen french fries (end of the bag)
Reheated sweet potatoes
Pear and apple crisp made with a can of pears and four chopped apples, 1/2 cup of flour, 1/3 cup brown sugar, sprinkle of cinnamon, 1 cup rolled oats, and 1 shredded wheat biscuit.
1 bag of ravioli (quick sale for $1 a bag), cooked and then heated in a casserole with some pre-cooked ground beef (from yesterday's dinner) and half a can of pasta sauce. Treehouse adaptation: by layering instead of stirring, those who don't like much tomato sauce could scoop their ravioli from the top.
Frozen peas (end of the bag)
Frozen french fries (end of the bag)
Reheated sweet potatoes
Pear and apple crisp made with a can of pears and four chopped apples, 1/2 cup of flour, 1/3 cup brown sugar, sprinkle of cinnamon, 1 cup rolled oats, and 1 shredded wheat biscuit.
Math Tutor DVDs (TOS Review)
Treehouse Review Week
Math Tutor DVD Home PageAbout Jason Gibson (the Math Tutor)
Sample clips to watch
From the website:
Math Tutor DVD offers Math Help via DVD tutorials in all subject areas.
What makes our video DVD tutorial content different?
- Money Back Guarantee!
- Taught through example problems.
- No boring lectures.
- Immediately helps with homework.
- Improves exam taking skills.
- In-depth, detailed courses.
- Courses are inexpensive.
- #1 Best Selling tutorial DVDs in their respective subjects!
We received two DVDs to review: "Young Minds--Numbers and Counting" and "The Basic Math Word Problem Tutor." Those links give you very thorough descriptions, screen shots, samples and so on.
Obviously "Numbers and Counting" wasn't something our own Squirrelings (grade three and up) could use...and Mama Squirrel has mixed feelings about letting baby Squirrels spend a lot of time watching people count things on a DVD, even with beautiful music and photography. It seems to her that little ones would do better learning to count real objects--cars in the parking lot, spoons for the table, acorns in the bowl and so on. However, this DVD has won several awards (and, according to the site, has appeared on the Rachael Ray show!), so obviously there are parents and educators who disagree. If you want "brighter baby" material to run on your DVD player, this is certainly eye-catching and well produced.
On the other hand, we really liked "The Basic Math Word Problem Tutor." It came at just the right time for our middle schooler who has been doing a lot of geometry but needed to review upper-elementary arithmetic. This is not hi-tech stuff; there's no music, no fish photography, no distraction: it's a teacher and a whiteboard. Ponytails whizzed through the first few lessons (operations with whole numbers and decimals) but found that the work on fractions, percents, and ratio and proportion was just what she needed. It took her about three weeks to get through the 15-lesson, 8-hour series.
As the website says, there is no abstract theory in these lessons. "Every section is taught entirely by example word problems which helps the students learn these skills in the most efficient way possible." Ponytails thought that Mr. Gibson explained things pretty well, especially the percents section, and the lessons went at a good pace. The one small thing that both she and Mr. Fixit (who watched some of the lessons with her) noticed was that there were several small errors, typos, verbal slips and so on that could have been fixed with a bit of editing. You knew he really meant to say "six minus six equals zero" instead of "six minus zero equals zero" or whatever it was, but it would have been less distracting if the errors had been caught beforehand.
Overall, we were pleased with this product, and think it's a good choice for review work. We'd consider purchasing the upper-level math or science DVDs if we have high-school-aged Squirrelings (at home or at public school) who need a boost. (You might also check the library for some of the titles.)
The Price: "The Basic Math Word Problem Tutor": List Price $34.99, Our Price [that is, from their website] $26.99. "Young Minds--Numbers and Counting": List Price $29.99, Our Price $19.99.
For more reviews of this product, see the Review Crew website.
Dewey's Disclaimer: This product was received free for purposes of review. No other payment was made. The opinions expressed in this review are our own.
FactsFirst (TOS Review)
Treehouse Review Week
FactsFirst sign-in page
Ordering Page
Demo Page
"The factsfirst™ online math program builds math confidence and helps children develop instant recall of basic facts in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Children are engaged in performance-based learning through interactive, real-world scenarios that make math facts meaningful and fun....In just minutes a day, factsfirst enables children to build computational fluency to build a strong math foundation and to focus on higher-order problem solving skills."
What's this about? This has been one of Crayons' favourite math websites so far. It is distributed by Saxon Math, but was created by Skills Tutor. It's geared for younger children, and teaches only basic number facts (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division). The cuteness and girl-friendly factors are high here: kids get a customizable avatar (you pick the clothes, you pick the hair etc.) who shows up in many of the lesson scenarios.
Ease of beginning: There are no pre-tests or required assessments; nothing to download here. You just sign in, create your avatar, and start the first lesson.
How it works: Students aren't expected to master many facts at once; when we started with addition, I was somewhat surprised that only two facts were taught in each story-type lesson. After each lesson, the student gets several minutes of drill (which, depending on your child's stamina and ability with the number pad, may be either a bit tedious or a bit frustrating), and then five minutes of "arcade time," which can also be used to work on the avatar. A warning: those five minutes go fast, and you can't freeze things while you look up game instructions or deal with other distractions. Some kids, especially at the beginning, might not be too happy if they feel they're getting "cheated" out of their five minutes of play.
After a few sessions with addition facts, I had Crayons switch to multiplication, which seemed more suitable for her grade level. You can decide which operation to work on each time you log in, and the computer keeps track of which facts you have completely mastered and which ones you still need some work on.
What does this cost? US$49.99 for a one-year household subscription (up to four children).
Final take: At first I was concerned that the fun/play image of the site outweighed the math learning; but considering the focus on mastery (including the fact matrix), and the proportion of drill time to game time, I'm reassured about that. In fact, as I said above, some children might even find the amount of drill required to earn arcade time to be too frustrating. However, Crayons says she really does like this program, and, if she had the choice, would like to continue with it.
For more reviews of this product, see the Review Crew Home Page.
Dewey's Disclaimer: The trial membership for this product was received free for purposes of review. No other payment was made. The opinions expressed in this review are our own.
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
Making everybody happy: Treehouse dinner
We had kind of a made-up dinner tonight that incorporated several of the Squirrels' food needs and idiosyncracies.
Main dish: Stuffed Peppers. The stuffing was half a pound of browned ground beef, mixed with some chopped pepperoni, about a quarter cup of grated Parmesan cheese, and a small amount of no-salt tomato sauce. Mama Squirrel cut and scooped the seeds out of three large green peppers, filled them with stuffing, and placed them in a pan filled with the rest of the (15 oz.) can of sauce, then covered and baked it till the peppers were soft. This worked for the Squirrels who can't tolerate much tomato sauce, because they could have their pepper halves scooped out without any sauce. It worked for those who complain about carbs. It worked for those who have to watch sodium. It worked (more or less) for the small Squirrel who doesn't like anything Strange. You would think we had a whole treeful of Squirrels here, but no, that's just us.
Side dish: Steamed Cauliflower and Baby Carrots. Plain, baked in a casserole along with enough water to keep them from drying out. Could have been done on the stove top except that the oven was on anyway. Small Squirrel got a serving without cauliflower. Everybody else ate both.
Side side dish if you wanted carbs: crackers.
Dessert: Chocolate microwave cake (took 11 minutes in our microwave while I cleaned up some dishes), yogurt, and tangerines (bought on the quick sale cart).
Main dish: Stuffed Peppers. The stuffing was half a pound of browned ground beef, mixed with some chopped pepperoni, about a quarter cup of grated Parmesan cheese, and a small amount of no-salt tomato sauce. Mama Squirrel cut and scooped the seeds out of three large green peppers, filled them with stuffing, and placed them in a pan filled with the rest of the (15 oz.) can of sauce, then covered and baked it till the peppers were soft. This worked for the Squirrels who can't tolerate much tomato sauce, because they could have their pepper halves scooped out without any sauce. It worked for those who complain about carbs. It worked for those who have to watch sodium. It worked (more or less) for the small Squirrel who doesn't like anything Strange. You would think we had a whole treeful of Squirrels here, but no, that's just us.
Side dish: Steamed Cauliflower and Baby Carrots. Plain, baked in a casserole along with enough water to keep them from drying out. Could have been done on the stove top except that the oven was on anyway. Small Squirrel got a serving without cauliflower. Everybody else ate both.
Side side dish if you wanted carbs: crackers.
Dessert: Chocolate microwave cake (took 11 minutes in our microwave while I cleaned up some dishes), yogurt, and tangerines (bought on the quick sale cart).
Carnival of Homeschooling: What Matters Most
As For My House hosts this week, with a thoughtful theme that puts things in perspective.
Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival: Stuff CMers Like Edition
Welcome to the Groundhog's Day/Candlemas edition of the Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival! If Coffeemama had been hosting, she'd probably have made it the Winter Olympics Edition. But since I couldn't choose between them, I decided to make it the Stuff CMers Like Edition. A little of everything, and we'll start with the most thought-provoking education quote I read this week, from Wendell Berry's novel Hannah Coulter (review and excerpts here):
"[Danny and Lyda, a farming couple] wanted the children to study and learn and behave themselves reasonably well, but I don't think they felt any pressure from the future. I don't think they had the idea that they owed it to the children to send them to college.PLANNING AND REVIEWING
"When the children got old enough to quit school, if they wanted to quit, they were allowed to do as their father had done....Every one of them seemed to have a perfect faith in the education they got ouside of school, which they didn't even call 'education.' Out of school, they learned what they evidently thought they needed most to know: to keep house, to raise a garden or a crop, to care for livestock, to break a mule or shoe one, to fix a motor and almost anything else, to hunt, fish, trap, preserve a hide, hive a swarm, cook or preserve anything edible, and to take pleasure in such things. To learn things they didn't know, they asked somebody or they read books....When they need to, they do a little custom work on the side, they trade and contrive and make do, getting by and prospering both at once. It doesn't seem to bother them that while they are making crops and meat and timber, other people are making only money...."
Lizzie presents School Update posted at A Dusty Frame.
Coffeemamma presents Winter Homeschooling, posted at A New Day.
The Holistic Homeschooler presents Year in Review: A Charlotte Mason Curriculum (and a thank you!).
HONEST EFFORT
Adventures On Beck's Bounty presents Daily Effort Of Education.
Apples and Jammies presents Just Do It.
BUT LOW PRESSURE
Queen of Carrots presents "Teaching" Reading and Writing, posted at Introducing the World. "CM comments that a child may have taught himself to read and write before six, but that it shall been when and how he chooses. This post gives details of how I support my preschoolers' desire to read and write in a way that lays a good foundation for the future without pressuring them."
Our Crazy Adventures in autismland! presents Gotta love the zone! "This is what we are doing to work in our child's zone and help him to learn."
PERSONALITY
Sage Parnassus presents Motto (etymology: Italian, from Late Latin "muttum" - grunt!). "This post discusses CM and The Sacredness of Personality from Vol. 6, Chapter 4."
HABIT TRAINING
Sacred Appetite presents The habit of paying attention (or not) and the role of eating in forming it (or not). "One daily opportunity to teach children the habit of attention is at the table, where there a dozens of way to train them for better or worse."
COMPOSERS
Established Work presents A Broad Education--The Arts, featuring composer Jean Sibelius.
ARTISTS
Dewey's Treehouse presents Who was Herr Cižek? A puzzle for CMers.
GEOGRAPHY
Jeanne presents Living geography, posted at A peaceful day.
BOOKS--OR SOMETIMES NOT
The Holistic Homeschooler presents Charlotte Mason: All About the Books?.
Sage Parnassus presents Firsts (about beginning narration).
PLAYTIME
Here's a little more from "Danny and Lyda's school of parenting":
"The children were allowed to be as rowdy as they pleased as long as they were outdoors. And outdoors they had pretty much the run of the place, along with a regular zoo of cats and dogs, orphan calves and lambs, pet coons and squirrels and groundhogs. They followed the grownups around at work. They played with Danny's tools and whatever was cast off and lying around: old wheels or tires or inner tubes or rope or string or pieces of chain. When they went into the house they were expected to quiet down, 'for the sake of survival,' and they did. And that didn't mean that they sat in front of the television, either. It meant that they read or played quietly or went to sleep. The older ones helped with the younger ones. They played at work until they old enough to work, and then they worked. This is what Lyda and Danny expected of them, and this seems to have been what they expected of themselves."Bugs, Knights, and Turkeys in the Yard presents Play the CM Way....
BIRDS
AnnieKate presents Winter Bird Study: Preparing for the Great Backyard Bird Count posted at Tea Time with Annie Kate.
Adventures On Beck's Bounty is also participating in the 2010 Great Backyard Bird Count.
AND OTHER PARTS OF NATURE
The Mommy Earth presents October Nature Walk.
"[Danny] would follow Burley for hours, hunting or rambling in the woods, Burley saying almost nothing, Danny nothing at all. Danny grew up with the knowledge of the old economy of the natural world that, for nothing and for pleasure, yielded in its seasons game and fish and nuts and berries and herbs and marketable pelts....you might say that Danny....gathered the woods and waters into his homelife as a robin gathers mud and straw into her nest."BETTER LATE THAN NEVER ADDITION TO NATURE NOTES:
In the Sparrow's Nest posted February Nature Notables. (Sorry we missed that one!)
That's the end of this edition of the CM Blog Carnival! Thanks, Jamie, for inviting us to host this time. The next edition will be hosted on February 16th at Established Work, and you can submit your posts here.
Kinderbach (TOS Review)
Treehouse Review Week
KinderBach Home Page
Scope and Sequence
Free sample Student Activity Book for Level 1
Free Online Trial
"The Year Membership gives access to 6 Levels of entertaining music education for 3 to 7 year old children through about 22 hours of video and interactive coloring pages. Miss Karri introduces preschoolers to the keyboard characters, as well as the Grand Staff clefs. Kids will enjoy playing simple songs, identifying music direction, learning new rhythm notes and their beat value. Level 1 to 6 covers proper hand and finger position for the music scale, as well as staff note reading by pattern for voice, and keyboard."
KinderBach is piano/keyboard and music theory for little kids (aimed at ages 3-7). It can be used by classroom groups (see the website for details) or by parents. It's the online equivalent of sending your children to one or another of those preschool music groups: big on fun, but with a purpose as well. In style, it's reminiscent of Blue's Clues, particularly in the combination of real people with colouring-book backgrounds. There are fun story characters, each one associated with certain elements of the keyboard or of music; for example, there's a donkey whose house is built between two black keys, and a train station built over the groups of three black keys. The characters also have songs to reinforce the concept; sometimes the children help "play" the songs on the keyboard, for example by pressing the three black keys at once and getting a sound like a train whistle. There are many colouring/activity pages to print out, and they're usually completed along with the lessons. (They can be printed out all at once from downloadable files, or one at a time as they come up during a lesson. Have lots of paper handy if your kids are enthusiastic about colouring worksheets) The company is also very active with things like extra newsletters and seasonal colouring contests.
What equipment do you need for this? Some kind of a musical keyboard: it doesn't have to be a large or fancy one. If you're using an actual piano, it will have to be close to the computer you're using for the lessons. You'll also need a few basic things like crayons and "rhythm instruments" (a pot or something is adequate). The program incorporates lots of opportunities for movement, such as stretching up when high notes are played and getting down low for low notes./p>
Do you need to know anything about playing the piano? No, it's all there for you; the onscreen teacher teaches the lessons.
How fast do you go? Very young children would probably do just one session at a time; Crayons, who's slightly older than the target age, went faster and usually did a week's worth at a time. She got through several weeks of lessons before Christmas.
Then what happened? Some of the videos stalled on us partway through; this hadn't been a problem before, but we couldn't seem to make them work successfully after the first while. It turned out not to be a Kinderbach problem at all, but the result of changing to a wireless router; it just took us awhile to make the connection, and by the time we got it fixed, our trial subscription was just about over. So we didn't get through as much of the later material as I had hoped.
Any other downsides? Crayons really did like the lessons, even though much of it was geared for younger children; she says she liked something called "finger puppet basketball." (Mama Squirrel liked the Beat Bugs). The one thing that kind of set her back was a "tantrum" that the teacher had in one of the later lessons. It was meant to be about not getting frustrated with your efforts and making better choices about how to handle it when you don't like how your project is turning out; but it came across kind of strangely. Kind of like watching Mr. Rogers freak out.
How far do you get? By the end of Level 6, children are doing some of the following:
- Finger exercises, playing the C major scale with correct fingering.
- Play familiar songs with all notes both pre-staff and staff reading.
- Addition of note patterns both on and off the staff.
- Progress with composition methods.
- Read music on staff by pattern and by recognition of ‘C’ and ‘D’ locations.
What does it cost? An online membership for a year is $7.99 a month, paid in a 1-time annual payment of $95.88, or a $19.99 monthly subscription, billed monthly for a year. There are also DVD and audio packages (see the website for details).
Final Take: Using this regularly with a young child would be much like watching continuing episodes of an educational T.V. show, with the interactive components of filling out the printable sheets, playing movement games, playing along on rhythm instruments, and gradually using the keyboard more. Children as old as eight or nine might still enjoy some of the fun aspects of the program, although the music instruction would probably move too slowly for them.
For more reviews of this product, see the Review Crew Home Page.
Dewey's Disclaimer: This product was received free for purposes of review. No other payment was made. The opinions expressed in this review are our own.
Monday, February 01, 2010
Hey, I hadn't even thought of that angle (CPSIA)
If you can't MAKE yarn goods (like knitted hats) for children's use without having them tested etc. etc....
Then how are you even supposed to teach children under twelve to knit or sew or crochet or whatever in the first place? They're handling the tools. They're handling the textiles. That big bad ball of yarn has joined the criminal element.
Overlawyered explains more.
And I suppose it stands to reason that a lot of other handicrafts would be just as suspect--Scouts doing woodworking, kids using certain kinds of paints...even maybe some of those favourite craft-class recyclables...
The net pulls a little tighter.
Then how are you even supposed to teach children under twelve to knit or sew or crochet or whatever in the first place? They're handling the tools. They're handling the textiles. That big bad ball of yarn has joined the criminal element.
Overlawyered explains more.
And I suppose it stands to reason that a lot of other handicrafts would be just as suspect--Scouts doing woodworking, kids using certain kinds of paints...even maybe some of those favourite craft-class recyclables...
The net pulls a little tighter.
Who was Herr Cižek? A puzzle for CMers
"Forms V and VI are asked to,––"Describe, with study in sepia, Corot's 'Evening.'" Beyond this of a rough study from memory of a given picture or of any section of it, these picture studies do not afford much material for actual drawing; they are never copied lest an attempt to copy should lessen a child's reverence for great work. We are shy in speaking of what we do in actual drawing since Herr Cizek came among us and shewed what great things children could do with scarcely any obvious teaching and but little suggestion. But probably such work is only to be done under the inspiration of an artist of unusual powers and I am writing for teachers who depend upon their children rather than upon themselves." --Charlotte Mason, Philosophy of Education, page 216
Wikipedia says that Franz Cižek (12 June 1865 – 17 December 1946) "was an Austrian genre and portrait painter as well as a teacher and reformer of art education."
"Cizek regarded himself as a man liberating children from slavery to copying. Adult influences were banned from the Juvenile Art Class; Cizek considered that these were actually harmful. He did not allow pictures by adults although pictures by children were constantly displayed. His pupils were expected to rely only on their own memory and imagination."--from "Christmas: pictures by children, 1922 Special Collections featured item for December 2006" by Ruth Gooding, Cataloguer
Some of the children's Christmas-themed paintings are included in that link, and they're amazing.
Does that theory contradict the idea of having children do picture study of famous paintings by adults, and sometimes do quick memory sketches of them? Apparently not completely, since Miss Mason seemed impressed by what Cižek had brought to art education.
But she also seemed to be saying that our own limitations might force us to adopt a different approach to art instruction--possibly in the same way that a teaching parent who isn't fluent in French would have to approach lessons differently from a native speaker, or someone a little shy of the outdoors would do nature walks from a different perspective from a born naturalist. A symphony musician will likely depend less on commercial music education materials than someone who needs everything spelled out. I kind of like Miss Mason's thought here that "I am writing for teachers who depend upon their children rather than upon themselves." I think she's saying that we're not all going to be able to offer our children such a magical experience as classes with Herr Cižek. Or--we're not going to be able to treat ourselves to an education class with Charlotte Mason!
And some people take that as an argument against homeschooling at all. Shouldn't everything be taught by specialists, experts, people who have made each subject their life's joy?
As homeschoolers, we may sometimes lack live, right-here teachers; but the world of books, not to mention DVDs, television, radio and the Internet, is open to us. The world of creation speaks to each of our hearts, and those who have gone before have recorded their discoveries. Through all the varieties of recorded music, we can learn from the best performers of the last century. We have community-based opportunities of all kinds, if it's live experts we insist on; or, lacking that, we can do what Binky Barnes had the foresight to do before our family even had an Internet connection: email the experts. Politely, of course.
Nobody's an expert in everything. But curiosity and enthusiasm may make up for what we don't think we know enough about.
Homeschooling isn't always an ideal world.
But you know what we have? An idea world.
Wikipedia says that Franz Cižek (12 June 1865 – 17 December 1946) "was an Austrian genre and portrait painter as well as a teacher and reformer of art education."
"Cizek regarded himself as a man liberating children from slavery to copying. Adult influences were banned from the Juvenile Art Class; Cizek considered that these were actually harmful. He did not allow pictures by adults although pictures by children were constantly displayed. His pupils were expected to rely only on their own memory and imagination."--from "Christmas: pictures by children, 1922 Special Collections featured item for December 2006" by Ruth Gooding, Cataloguer
Some of the children's Christmas-themed paintings are included in that link, and they're amazing.
Does that theory contradict the idea of having children do picture study of famous paintings by adults, and sometimes do quick memory sketches of them? Apparently not completely, since Miss Mason seemed impressed by what Cižek had brought to art education.
But she also seemed to be saying that our own limitations might force us to adopt a different approach to art instruction--possibly in the same way that a teaching parent who isn't fluent in French would have to approach lessons differently from a native speaker, or someone a little shy of the outdoors would do nature walks from a different perspective from a born naturalist. A symphony musician will likely depend less on commercial music education materials than someone who needs everything spelled out. I kind of like Miss Mason's thought here that "I am writing for teachers who depend upon their children rather than upon themselves." I think she's saying that we're not all going to be able to offer our children such a magical experience as classes with Herr Cižek. Or--we're not going to be able to treat ourselves to an education class with Charlotte Mason!
And some people take that as an argument against homeschooling at all. Shouldn't everything be taught by specialists, experts, people who have made each subject their life's joy?
As homeschoolers, we may sometimes lack live, right-here teachers; but the world of books, not to mention DVDs, television, radio and the Internet, is open to us. The world of creation speaks to each of our hearts, and those who have gone before have recorded their discoveries. Through all the varieties of recorded music, we can learn from the best performers of the last century. We have community-based opportunities of all kinds, if it's live experts we insist on; or, lacking that, we can do what Binky Barnes had the foresight to do before our family even had an Internet connection: email the experts. Politely, of course.
Nobody's an expert in everything. But curiosity and enthusiasm may make up for what we don't think we know enough about.
Homeschooling isn't always an ideal world.
But you know what we have? An idea world.
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