First few days of school...musings

I am still re-reading Norms and Nobility, and thinking how much it reminds me of Marva Collins' Way (actually, they were both first published around the same time),  and how much it also reminds me of the Free Commot people in the Chronicles of Prydain, and thinking about how what we do in homeschool does or doesn't support that bigger picture.

And please don't think that because I'm in my sixteenth year of doing this, that I'm any more certain or perfectly consistent about those aims, and their application, than any newbie.  How many narrations?  How many experiments?  Are workbooks occasionally a good choice? What do I say, or not say, trying not to interfere but still trying to bring out the important ideas? What books, and what if the kid(s) start off the year already complaining that they don't like them?  There's so much I don't know myself.  Last year when I was reading Marva Collins, I went and read Candide and Emerson's "Self-Reliance" because I didn't want to have read that much less than her elementary students.  Should I admit also that I've never read Plato's Meno (as David Hicks recommends for ninth graders) or a lot of other things I should have read along the way?  We may be keeping our homeschooled kids free from particular educational follies, but does that mean we're immune from creating our own?

(I'm supposed to have answers to those questions?  Sometimes you just have to plunge ahead anyway.)

Answers to the Antique Market

Here are the answers to last week's game:

1. Mr. Fixit:  b. really cool Bakelite radio

2. Mama Squirrel:  e. four vintage Scholastic paperbacks, found in a baby cradle full of children's books

3. The Apprentice:  d. didn't come because of university orientation weekend

4. Ponytails:  c. 1959 cosmetics ad to use as a wall decoration

5. Crayons/Dollygirl:  a. plastic bag filled with tiny dolls, doll furniture, and playdough doll food


Bonus question: which item was (reluctantly) left behind?

The radio...Mr. Fixit says that that particular model was extremely rare and collectible, and the price reflected it.  Too bad.

First Day of School

The Apprentice is back and forth this week to her university, doing orientation activities.  (I just gave that part of the Antiques quiz away...but you could have figured that one out anyway.) 

Ponytails is home from her first day at public high school; the first day always ends early.  Actually, she and Mr. Fixit are out right now buying a backpack and mechanical pencils.

Crayons/Dollygirl is done her first day of Grade Five, and she's trying out the watercolour pencils we bought to go with Artistic Pursuits.  She's put together a poster to go with Math Pet Store, like Jemimah's, and she's figuring out how many virtual hamster cages and bags of shavings she needs.  She tried lifting a big box of books onto the washing machine, but realized that it takes too much Force for her to do that amount of Work alone.   She did dictation from Psalm 1, and only missed one word.  We started Great Expectations, Mission Monde French, and the study of life in Upper Canada.  It's been a busy day but it really didn't take that long...and it was nice having it all laid out!

(Oh. Right. I did that laying out. Well, it's done, anyway.)

CM, big ideas, and co-op learning--yes, it does work!

Some great weekend reading: a post by Jeannette Tulis at the ChildLightUSA blog.

"In agreeing to teach this class, I warned the organizers that I was not going to utilize lap books, notebooking, model building, posters or other popular typical classroom activities. Not that these are not effective ways to teach, they just are not the way I prefer to teach. The organizers agreed to this so I set about planning a class that would be built around living ideas and living books following Mason’s teachings as much as possible."--Jeannette Tulis

Let's play a game: The Squirrels and the Antique Market

On the weekend, most of us (plus Grandpa Squirrel) visited an antique market in a nearby town. Mix and match what you think each Squirrel brought home (or would have liked to).

1. Mr. Fixit
2. Mama Squirrel
3. The Apprentice
4. Ponytails
5. Crayons/Dollygirl

a. plastic bag filled with tiny dolls, doll furniture, and playdough doll food
b. really cool Bakelite radio
c. 1959 cosmetics ad to use as a wall decoration, kind of like this
d. didn't come because of university orientation weekend
e. four vintage Scholastic paperbacks, found in a baby cradle full of children's books

Bonus question: which item was (reluctantly) left behind?

Quote for the day: whose psyche?

"....modern criticism is obliged to distinguish between the universal myth (or archetype) of almost all art and literature created before the nineteenth century and the personal symbolism of most modern creativity.  Curiously, this signal fact is assumed by the modern teacher to render three thousand years of art and literature inaccessible to the student.  Instead, students are encouraged to kick around in the private symbolic universes of Yeats, Joyce, and D.H. Lawrence.  Can anyone wonder why psychological survival seems so much more difficult in the modern era?"--David V. Hicks, Norms and Nobility

Analyze that

"In our eagerness to solve the material deficiencies of the old civilization, we imported into our schools a method as humble as the English sparrow--simple analysis--but now, the immensity of our success threatens with Toynbeean predictability to overwhelm us.  Like the thinker whose brilliance we universally acclaim, Alfred North Whitehead, we have cultivated a perverse form of modesty and self-deception that, in the absence of dogma (the working yet scientifically undemonstrable hypotheses of the old civilization), has allowed us to forget who we are and what our purposes are, as well as to neglect to teach these lessons to our children."--David V. Hicks, Norms and Nobility (1981)

"Now you must remember, whenever you have to do with him, that Analysis, like fire, is a very good servant, but a very bad master. For, having got his freedom only of late years or so, he is, like young men when they come suddenly to be their own masters, apt to be conceited, and to fancy that he knows everything, when really he knows nothing, and can never know anything, but only knows about things, which is a very different matter. Indeed, nowadays he pretends that he can teach his old grandmother, Madam How, not only how to suck eggs, but to make eggs into the bargain; while the good old lady just laughs at him kindly, and lets him run on, because she knows he will grow wiser in time, and learn humility by his mistakes and failures, as I hope you will from yours."--Charles Kingsley, Madam How and Lady Why (1869)

Where we went yesterday

Photo of the Kincardine Lighthouse found here, along with the story of the Phantom Piper.

SOME of the Squirrels made it all the way to the top.

And some of us wussed out.  I guess we wouldn't have made good lighthouse keepers.

Hit the Northrop Frye motherlode...or, The calm before the storm

Yesterday was our thrift store volunteer afternoon.  The wind was blowing a bit and there was a tornado warning when we arrived after lunch...but not much seemed to be happening, at least outside.

Inside, there was an absolute wall--we're talking room-divider size--of cardboard cartons of books.  Yow!  Even the book-happy among us quailed a bit at that.  And there were already quite a few books on the sorting shelves needing to be priced and move out to the store. 

But we dug in.  There really was some good stuff in there, all kinds of books...sometimes when there's a big load like that, they're all one kind of thing.  Like somebody's entire self-help library from the 1980's.  This was more of a mix.  Of course there were some many books that hit the recycle box, but there were some neat things too.  A boxed set of the Borrowers books.  Hardcover biographies of Joseph Conrad and Alec Guinness.  A vintage copy of Through Gates of Splendour.  Lots of classics.  One Mitford book.

But the only things that Mama Squirrel actually ended up buying were three Northrop Frye books, ones we didn't have:  Words with Power, Spiritus Mundi, and Northrop Frye on Shakespeare.  Yeah! 

Did the book mountain shrink at all?  Just a bit.  Mama Squirrel estimates that she cleared out between six to eight cartons in three hours, which does not sound like a lot, but we had to spend time pricing and shelving what was already there plus what came out of the boxes.  And then the receiving guys brought more in...

Ponytails helped Mama Squirrel some with the books, and then helped another volunteer price VHS movies...lots and lots of them.  Crayons tidied toys and did some miscellaneous jobs.  I think she helped with the movies too.

The Apprentice (who had been working all day at the hair salon) picked us up after four, Mama Squirrel slid some fish sticks in the oven to go with Crockpot vegetables and salad, Mr. Fixit came home, and we all went out to look at a potential new Treehouse (don't get too excited, it was just a look) and to pick up bananas and milk.  The wind was starting to blow and it was just spattering rain when we got home.  Mr. Fixit and The Apprentice started putting together a new bookcase for her room that arrived yesterday morning (the bookcase, not the room).  (Mama Squirrel is getting the old bookcase, and she's happy about that.)  Mama Squirrel found some funky jazz to listen to on the CBC.

And then our real evening entertainment?

Leftover cereal...leftover cereal boxes

Yes, we buy cold cereal. It may not be frugal but it's part of our life. We do try to stick to the healthier/cheaper varieties, and there are certain sugar limits beyond which Mama Squirrel will not budge.

What do you do with the end-of-the-box crumbles and bits? I save them in a plastic container and use them for baking...usually pulverized in the food processor. Works very well in dried-fruit balls and chocolate-raisin balls, but you can also use them in muffins or oatmeal cookies. I figure we paid for that shredded and puffed stuff, so we may as well use every bit of it up.

What do you do with the boxes? You can use the cardboard for gluing patterns to. You can cut them down a bit to make magazine holders. But if you really want to see how good cereal boxes can look, check out this link at Frugal Family Fun. Wow!

What's for supper? Roast Beef Ratatouille

Tonight I invented a skillet pasta casserole, and since the major ingredients were leftover roast beef and zucchini, I'm calling it Roast Beef Ratatouille.  Dessert was Crockpot Snack Mix, yogurt and fruit.  (Not all in the same bowl, just on the table.)

This is an approximation of the main dish:

Roast Beef Ratatouille

Small amount olive oil
Small amount (2 cups?) chopped cooked beef
Half a dozen fresh mushrooms
2 garden zucchini, cut in fairly large chunks (so they didn't overcook)
A handful of garden cherry tomatoes
A third to half a cup of zucchini relish  (I don't think regular pickle relish would be a good substitute)
A big spoonful of sour cream
Grated cheddar cheese
Hot pasta (rotini is good)

In a non-stick skillet, heat the oil and add the cooked meat and mushrooms.  When the mushrooms start to release some juice, add the other vegetables and zucchini relish.  Let cook gently until the vegetables are done but not mush, the tomatoes are popped, and the meat is heated through.  Stir in a bit of sour cream (optional) and top with cheddar cheese (put the lid on and keep cooking until it's melted).  Either serve with hot pasta, or (what I did) stir the cooked, drained pasta into the meat and vegetables to soak up some of the liquid.

What's for supper? Bits, pieces, and barbecued chicken

Last night's dinner menu:

Barbecued chicken
Vietnamese Fried Rice (from the More-with-Less Cookbook)
Chocolate-Raspberry Cake, grapes


I hardly ever make fried rice, and it doesn't always turn out that well for me, but I was happy with this batch, and it went well with the chicken.  I used part frozen Oriental vegetable mix, part fresh zucchini, green pepper, garlic, and mushrooms.  Instead of mixing in the egg at the end, which I've never liked much and which isn't good for Mr. Fixit's egg sensitivity, I beat up two eggs and cooked them in the frying pan first, omelet-style.  I rolled up the omelet, cut it in small strips, and served it along with the rice.

The cake?  That was an experiment. We had exactly a cup and a half of bulk-purchased gluten-free chocolate cake mix in the cupboard; I wanted to use it up, but it didn't have to be used in a GF way.  So I mixed it with half a cup of all-purpose flour, half a cup of brown sugar, two teaspoons of baking powder (there was some in the mix, also some sweetener, but just in case), a cup of milk, a third cup of oil, an egg, and a teaspoonful of vanilla.  This is more or less a standard muffin recipe, except that it's chocolate. 

I spread half the batter in an 8-inch square pan, dribbled the end of a jar of thin berry jam over top, sprinkled that with frozen raspberries, topped that with the rest of the batter, and sprinkled the whole thing with a small handful of chocolate chips.  I baked it in the toaster oven at 350 degrees for about forty minutes, when it tested done.  It worked! Good with plain yogurt.  Probably best stored in the fridge, because of the fruit.

Ouch quote for the day

"She glanced at her watch.  It was a little after eleven o'clock.  An hour ago she and Rusty had set out.  Pity Robert wasn't here.  He was the one who loved history.  Robert had brought Plutarch along on their honeymoon.  And worse, had found time to read it."--from Abraham Lincoln: a novel life, by Tony Wolk

Another side of thrifting...the Squirrels volunteer

What is this thing?

It's a Swift Attacher.  Did you know that?  It's the plastic thingie that holds the price tag on clothes in a store.

For the past few months, Mama Squirrel and the two younger Squirrelings have been volunteering at a thrift store.

Why we never thought of doing it before, I don't know.  The girls have been raised on almost-weekly church sales, yard sales, and thrift shopping.  But the opportunity to volunteer never came up until this year, and we suddenly realized that even Crayons is old enough now to really help.  So the three of us now spend a couple of afternoons a month sorting and pricing clothes, books, or whatever else we're asked to help out with.

Ponytails dresses mannequins.  Mama Squirrel and Crayons load up bookshelves.  Mama Squirrel unloads garbage bags full of clothes.  Crayons cranks out sticky price tags for books, and Ponytails shoots Swift Attachers/plastic thingies through blouses and jeans.  It's a busy place and there are usually at least a few other people working in the back room, at the cash, hanging clothes, or unloading boxes outside the back door.  Plus the customers--who says homeschoolers don't get socialization?

The book corner has also been educational for Mama Squirrel in other ways...but that's a post in itself.

Favourite read right now: Guy Mannering, by Sir Walter Scott

How do you manage to spruce up someone's clothes when they can't be bothered to notice what they wear, but would be insulted if you asked them to change?

Honest Mac-Morlan received this mandate with great joy, but pondered much upon executing that part of it which related to newly attiring the worthy Dominie. He looked at him with a scrutinising eye, and it was but too plain that his present garments were daily waxing more deplorable. To give him money, and bid him go and furnish himself, would be only giving him the means of making himself ridiculous....On the other hand, to bring a tailor to measure him, and send home his clothes, as for a school-boy, would probably give offence. At length Mac-Morlan resolved to consult Miss Bertram [a young lady whose late father was a friend and employer of the Dominie], and request her interference. She assured him that, though she could not pretend to superintend a gentleman's wardrobe, nothing was more easy than to arrange the Dominie's.

'At Ellangowan,' she said, 'whenever my poor father thought any part of the Dominie's dress wanted renewal, a servant was directed to enter his room by night, for he sleeps as fast as a dormouse, carry off the old vestment, and leave the new one; nor could any one observe that the Dominie exhibited the least consciousness of the change put upon him on such occasions.'

Mac-Morlan, in conformity with Miss Bertram's advice, procured a skilful artist, who, on looking at the Dominie attentively, undertook to make for him two suits of clothes, one black and one raven-grey, and even engaged that they should fit him--as well at least (so the tailor qualified his enterprise) as a man of such an out-of-the-way build could be fitted by merely human needles and shears. When this fashioner had accomplished his task, and the dresses were brought home, Mac-Morlan, judiciously resolving to accomplish his purpose by degrees, withdrew that evening an important part of his dress, and substituted the new article of raiment in its stead. Perceiving that this passed totally without notice, he next ventured on the waistcoat, and lastly on the coat.

When fully metamorphosed, and arrayed for the first time in his life in a decent dress, they did observe that the Dominie seemed to have some indistinct and embarrassing consciousness that a change had taken place on his outward man. Whenever they observed this dubious expression gather upon his countenance, accompanied with a glance that fixed now upon the sleeve of his coat, now upon the knees of his breeches, where he probably missed some antique patching and darning, which, being executed with blue thread upon a black ground, had somewhat the effect of embroidery, they always took care to turn his attention into some other channel, until his garments, 'by the aid of use, cleaved to their mould.' The only remark he was ever known to make on the subject was, that 'the air of a town like Kippletringan seemed favourable unto wearing apparel, for he thought his coat looked almost as new as the first day he put it on, which was when he went to stand trial for his license as a preacher.'

Best thing from the weekend paper: On Aristotle, Churchill, and magnanimity

Seen in the New York Times Book Review (thanks, Grandpa Squirrel): Harry V. Jaffa's review of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (translated by Robert C. Bartlett and Susan D. Collins, The University of Chicago Press).

"Some time in the 1920s, the Conservative statesman F. E. Smith — Lord Birkenhead — gave a copy of the “Nicomachean Ethics” to his close friend Winston Churchill. He did so saying there were those who thought this was the greatest book of all time. Churchill returned it some weeks later, saying it was all very interesting, but he had already thought most of it out for himself. But it is the very genius of Aristotle — as it is of every great teacher — to make you think he is uncovering your own thought in his. In Churchill’s case, it is also probable that the classical tradition informed more of his upbringing, at home and at school, than he realized.

"In 1946, in a letter to the philosopher Karl Löwith, Leo Strauss mentioned how difficult it had been for him to understand Aristotle’s account of magnanimity, greatness of soul, in Book 4 of the “Ethics.”

"The difficulty was resolved when he came to realize that Churchill was a perfect example of that virtue. So Churchill helped Leo Strauss understand Aristotle! That is perfectly consistent with Aristotle’s telling us it does not matter whether one describes a virtue or someone characterized by that virtue. Where the “Ethics” stands among the greatest of all great books perhaps no one can say. That Aristotle’s text, which explores the basis of the best way of human life, belongs on any list of such books is indisputable."

Menus this week: fun in the kitchen

This week's menu started out by accident.  I printed out a sample menu page from the Hillbilly Housewife's free PDF Menu Planning 101, and left it in the kitchen.  The Squirrelings saw it and got all excited about the Quick Cinnamon Rolls, Garlic Breadsticks, and other things I haven't made for awhile; they were disappointed when I said it was just a sample I'd printed out.

Aww.

Well, we do have most of the ingredients called for, if we shifted some of the meals around, and I think most of us would like most of the meals.  But it's going to be kind of a crazy week, with different people in and out for different things.  How about everybody helps cook this week, when they are home, so that we get to try some new things/old favourites?

Okay.

To make it easier, Mama Squirrel printed out every single recipe from the menu and put them into a three-pronged folder.  Everybody responsible for a particular dish can easily find the instructions.  And if we want to do the same meals over again, it will be easy.

So here's this week's menu plan, with most recipes available on the Hillbilly Housewife website:

Sunday (Father's Day):  Breakfast:  Banana muffins, fruit, cereal.  Lunch:  Dad's choice.  Dinner:  At a relative's (that was easy).

Monday (a day when a couple of people have to leave early in the morning):  Breakfast:  Cereal and toast.  Lunch:  Macaroni salad.  Dinner:  A skillet rearrangement of Company Chicken Casserole, served with rice or maybe perogies.

Tuesday:  Breakfast:  Homemade granola or other cereal.  Lunch:  Vegetable Lo Mein, or it might turn into fried rice.  Dinner:  Impossible Cheeseburger Pie, vegetables.

Wednesday:  Breakfast:  Cheese Pancakes.  Lunch:  Pigs in a Blanket.  Dinner:  Green Spaghetti (my own addition--I have the ingredients for that, but not for the Stuffed Peppers originally on the menu), Garlic Bread Sticks, Bean salad, Peach Crisp.

Thursday (a day when people are eating at odd times):  Breakfast:  Hot or cold cereal.  Lunch:  quick sandwiches.  Dinner:  Italian Beans and Rice, Cheese Puffs.

Friday (we have a church event in the evening):  Breakfast:  Peanut Butter Bread for those who can eat it, other options for those who can't.  Lunch:  Banana Carrot Salad and leftovers.  Dinner:  5 Can Bean Soup (with bacon added), leftover bread sticks and cheese puffs, fruit.

Saturday (the adult Squirrels have to have a quick dinner because of another event):  Breakfast:  Cold cereal, and maybe the Quick Cinnamon Rolls.  Lunch (after grocery shopping):  Maybe hummus with vegetables, maybe sandwiches.  Dinner:  Either Slow Cooker Pulled Pork Sandwiches (from A Year of Slow Cooking rather than the Hillbilly recipe), or Sloppy Joes, and cookies.

What's for supper? Red, yellow, orange

The colour theme wasn't deliberate--we weren't having a paintbox party--but last night's dinner did turn out to be colourful.  In a good way.

Meat sauce (ground beef, mushrooms, green peppers, a bit of tomato sauce, basil)
Polenta slices, baked and topped with mozzarella cheese and parsley
Sweet potato oven fries
A bit of lettuce from the garden

Sliced watermelon
Apple-butter muffin cake with apple chopped into it (I had promised muffins, but it was too hot to turn on the big oven, so I made a pan of "cake" in the toaster oven instead)

What's for supper? Slow cooker ranch potatoes

Tonight's dinner menu:

Creamy Ranch Mashed Red Potatoes, from More Make it Fast, Cook It Slow
Mini sausages, peas
Lemon-poppyseed cake made from muffin batter and using up leftover lemon pudding

The potatoes tasted fine, especially with the homemade ranch dressing substitute given in the cookbook; but I didn't cut them small enough and they weren't cooked soft enough to really mash.  So we had Creamy Ranch Cut-up Red Potatoes instead.

Rosie Backstage: neglected Shakespeare gem?

Some things are just hard to figure out.

Kids Can Press is a very popular Canadian children's publisher.  Non-fiction books they've published have become standard resources in many classrooms.  Their craft books are particularly well done.

Tim Wynne-Jones and Amanda Lewis are decent writers.  Bill Slavin has illustrated over sixty children's books. (Although I think he could have made Rosie look a bit more appealing.)

And, especially in southern Ontario, you would think that a book designed to open up Shakespeare and the Stratford festival would be an instant classic, especially with classroom teachers and homeschoolers.  (Think field trips.)  Lois Burdett's "Shakespeare Can Be Fun" series is one example of something that has been very popular for the past decade. So why is it that Rosie Backstage came out in 1994 and immediately went out of print?  Wouldn't any resource that makes Shakespeare more accessible be enthusiastically snapped up?  It seems like the sort of book that teachers would have designed unit studies and stuff around.  Maybe they did, but online searches for the title+unit study and +lesson plan didn't uncover anything.

Rosie is set up much like the Barbara Greenwood Pioneer Story books (in the U.S., the first book is A Pioneer Sampler).  A story chapter, some facts, another story chapter, and so on.  The book is packed with information about all aspects of theater production:  a page on what a costumer does, a props person, a stage manager, a lighting person, and so on; there's also basic information about Shakespeare's life and the Globe Theater.  The Rosie story itself is okay--not thrilling, but it works as a vehicle for the rest.  Stuck backstage while her mother works on props for the Stratford Festival, Rosie meets a "mysterious man" who--wow, who'd have thought--turns out to be Shakespeare.  This particular Shakespeare seems to be at the theater in order to cause mischief (more like Puck or Ariel?), but in the end it all turns out okay.  (Some parents may not like the section about theater superstitions, particularly regarding The Scottish Play.)

So--a well-designed book with some useful information about the theater, in a format designed to attract kids' attention, seemingly lost in book oblivion.  Like the missing jewels on the duke's costume--it's a mystery.