Dollygirl's School Corner

I think that would be a "no."

Dollygirl, doing copywork:  "Albert Einstein says that imagination is more important than knowledge.  So during math time I'm just going to doodle in my notebook.  Okay?"

What's for supper? Pass the pizza pasta

Tonight's dinner menu:  pizza pasta, a very flexible skillet/casserole meal.  This one is going to incorporate a container of frozen spaghetti-meat sauce, part of a can of diced tomatoes, a few mushrooms, green pepper, a piece of pepperoni, and some cheese, served over pasta bowties.

Plus lettuce salad and carrot sticks, and some oatmeal-raisin cookies that we're going to make this afternoon if we get time.

What's for supper? Shepherd's Pie

Tonight's dinner menu:

Shepherd's Pie, made from a thawed hamburger casserole plus additions
Lettuce salad
Toasted garlic pita bread triangles

Blueberries, or yogurt, or leftover sweet potato cake

Saturday treasure hunting, re-posted with p.s.

Saturday morning was rainy, so the only yard sales were indoor ones.  We stopped at two church sales and found some cool vintage stuff:  electric scissors and a pair of '70's broadcasting-style headphones (Mr. Fixit), a '50's Snowflake-pattern casserole with an aluminum lid and some '70's craft magazines (Mama Squirrel), a Christmas-green pillowcase with hand-knitted edging, and a bunch of mid-century kids' paperbacks, mostly Puffins.

Book titles:

The Family from One End Street (we did have a copy of this, but sold it awhile back)
Bush Holiday
The Little Grey Men by 'BB'
The Fair to Middling
Snow Cloud Stallion
The Young Detectives
Auntie Robbo
The Story of the Amulet
Lad: A Dog, a fairly worn 1940's Pocket Book edition
Two Against the North, by Farley Mowat, Scholastic T145

P.S.  See the McCall's Crafts magazine, with the rag doll with glasses on the cover?  My mom had a copy of this in 1976, and I always wanted one of those dolls.  Maybe I'll collect up the materials to make myself one.  It's only been thirty-six years.

Aunt Sarah Scrap Challenge: the smallest fabric stash around? (Re-posted with more photos)

You've heard the saying, "she who dies with the most fabric wins?"  I've read a variation that says, "she who dies with the most fabric...wasted a lot of time."

I tend to go with the second choice.  Although I like to sew when I do have fabric, I don't keep a lot on hand.  I don't have a handy, inexpensive source of new fabric (even the mill-ends store can be very expensive); I'm not a quilter, or much of a clothes-sewer, so I don't have ongoing large needs for fabric; so it wouldn't make sense for me to stockpile much more than we can easily use.  One carton, maybe.

Lately I've been trying to get even that "stash" down to the minimum.  I used up three large pieces that had been in the bottom of the box for a very long time. 

One was a maternity skirt that I sewed so many years ago that it qualifies as "vintage" fabric.  One was Dollygirl's baby sling.  One was just a piece of flowered fabric that had been there so long that even I didn't remember where it had come from.  All of those became cloth napkins, because we're trying to be frugal like that.  (I think I made about fourteen--I lost count.)

A pair of red corduroy pants, three red and blue placemats, and a piece of calico became Crissy clothes. (More about that in another post.)

I used a piece of fancy pink fabric (from that yard sale back in June) to make a ribbon bulletin board.  If you think it looks a bit lumpy, you're right.  I wanted it up so badly that I kind of jerry-rigged it together with a lot of safety pins.  But I'm planning on taking it apart and straightening it up a bit.

A thrifted piece of red print, plus some white sheeting and eyelet, became a new dress and pinafore for Dollygirl's Abby. 

The rest of the red print, I made into gift bags.

The fabric carton is now about one-third full, and most of what's left, I don't think even Aunt Sarah could make much use of.

All photos by Mr. Fixit and Dollygirl. Copyright Dewey's Treehouse 2012.

When life hands you handmade green, knitted-lace-trimmed pillowcases

As I cashed out of the rummage sale with my pile of Puffins and one handmade green, knitted-lace-trimmed pillowcase, the lady behind the table asked, "Are you sure there was just one of these?"  "I saw only one on the table," I said.  "That's right, there was just one green one!" called over another worker.  The first lady looked at me with an "are you sure you want this?" face.  Don't people sometimes want just one pillowcase? "I want it for the fabric," I explained.  Ohhh...well, that was all right then.

I still wasn't sure exactly what I'd be doing with one handmade green, knitted-lace-trimmed pillowcase (other than putting it on a pillow), but I was open to ideas.  When I measured it, I realized that there was more than enough fabric there for two MCC school kit bags, and it was in great shape, hardly used at all.

The strip that was left, with all its handmade trimming, might make a fancy doll skirt.  I looked at one of our 18-inch doll patterns for the amount of fabric required for an elastic waist skirt: my piece was twice as long as that, but not high enough.  Rather than make an extremely bunchy mini-skirt, I cut the strip in half and overlapped the two pieces to make a "taller" one.  I folded the top over, sewed it to make a casing, threaded some elastic through, and sewed the skirt up the back.  That's all I had to do.

(Dollygirl won the t-shirt in an online doll photo contest.)

Photos by Dollygirl.  Copyright 2012, Dewey's Treehouse.

Scenes from a dollhouse

All photos by Dollygirl.  Copyright 2012 Dewey's Treehouse.

Homeschool things to do for Friday

Dollygirl is asking for some extra time today to clean out and organize all those doll clothes she's been acquiring.  Yeah, it's Friday...there may come a point where we just decide to call it a short day and be done.

Opening time: similar to other days, including folk songs

God's Smuggler: read together, narrate.  I think this is one book we will keep reading together as it often does get a bit intense for an eleven-year-old  (i.e. factory workers being verbally harassed; wartime experiences).

Math: see schedule; mark weekend homework in assignment book

Picture study: Emily Carr's early paintings

School of the Woods: read several pages (at least half the chapter) and narrate

Study for dictation

French: lesson 2

After lunch: Dictation; review Grammar & Composition assignment due next week (mini research project)

Sewing: continue doll blouse. We got it measured and cut out yesterday--today we have to make a casing, thread elastic through, stitch the back seam, and then stitch and cut the sleeves.  (They're cut OUT of the sides of the blouse, which you can see if you're brave enough to click on the Tripod link I sent yesterday.)

Virgil's Aeneid retelling:  read the next section and narrate.

Timelines and history pictures: take time to start at least one "person page" for notebook

Extra reading:  write a reminder in assignment book.

Next Friday Dollygirl will be starting an afternoon drama group, so we will have to adjust the schedule a bit.

Homeschool things to do for Thursday

Today's schedule seems kind of long, but we'll see how it goes.

Morning:

Opening:  prayer, hymn, Mensa puzzle cards.  Robert Frost: America's Poet, chapters 1 & 2 (they're short).  "Going for Water," by Robert Frost.



Bible:  Basic Bible Studies, continue Study 1.  (Verses showing that there is more than one person of the Trinity.)  Sing "The Lord Our God is One" from Judy Rogers' Why Can't I See God?

Citizenship:  Uncle Eric Talks about Personal, Career, and Financial Security, chapters 1 & 2 (they're short).

School year discussions:  Introduce The People Notebook Project.  This is an alternative I came up with to a formal Book of the Centuries or timeline, for this year.  Historical, literary, and other people and/or characters each have a page with a few key questions, such as "best known for," "hardest times," and "beliefs about God."  There is also room for pictures--hand-drawn or pasted in.  The choice of which people to include is going to be up to Dollygirl, but I will give her a minimum for the term.

Math:  see schedule.

Copywork:  choose an Albert Einstein quotation.

History: we finished the chapter in Story of the World Volume 4, about the rise of Stalin.  This is of personal interest to us since the famine in Russia in the early 1920's led to the creation of the Mennonite Central Committee, and the conditions there also brought many Russian Mennonite immigrants to Canada--some of whom we know.

Lunchtime activities:  helped drill a hole in the wall for one of Mr. Fixit's new clocks.  Helped make lemon poppyseed muffins, mini-size, for our hobbit teatime (a tribute to the hobbit's "seed cakes").

Afternoon:

Albert Einstein biography--read chapter 1 and narrate.

Crafts and skills:  sewing a peasant blouse for a doll.  (Note: it's an old Tripod site with pop-ups, so be warned.)

(French:  lesson 2--I think we'll leave this until tomorrow.)

English:  begin first unit (see previous post about English).

Teatime:  "An Unexpected Party."  Dwarves are invited (come in your cloaks).

Homeschool things to do for Wednesday

Opening time:  Favourite hymn, prayer, Mensa for Kids puzzle cards. 


Getting-started-with-school discussions:  1.  Going over the full schedule.  2.  Talking about how Dollygirl can keep track of assignments like "please finish reading this book by Friday."  3.  A suggested "term project": since we are studying the twentieth century this term in history, and since Dollygirl loves the 18-inch historical dolls, I am proposing that she do a sort of "creative narration" by designing a new doll (and accoutrements), for a 20th-century decade that has not yet been done.  (That would be just the 1920's, '50's, '60's, '80's, and beyond.)  It might seem out of focus to have a Canadian girl do an American doll project, but the Canadian doll equivalents mostly don't come in historical flavours.  So we'll see what Dollygirl thinks about it.

(Solution to #2:  an assignment notebook.)

Bible Study (together):  I am planning on introducing Francis Schaeffer's Basic Bible Studies by reading a few pages from Susan Schaeffer Macaulay's How To Be Your Own Selfish Pig.  On pages 15 through 17, she describes her own "rebellion" at age eleven, why she suddenly felt that she didn't know what she believed about God, and how her father responded.  The connection, as I see it, is that the principles he wrote into Basic Bible Studies are probably the same sorts of things that he discussed with Susan, and obviously with adults who did the written studies or came to L'Abri for teaching.  We will read through the first three or four points of the first study.

French:  we will start to work through the play.

Math:  see previous schedule.

History (together today):  Story of the World Volume 4, about the aftermath of World War I.

Poetry:  one of Robert Frost's poems.

Inserted by demand:  another part of the first chapter of The Hobbit.

Free computer time and lunch.  (Lunchtime activity:  helping Mr. Fixit put together a new chair for his workshop, that came unassembled.)

Literature:  Retelling of The Aeneid.  Before reading, look up the following words in the dictionary:  stratagem, roisterers, refuse (the noun), effigy, sacrilege, impious.  After reading, do a written narration (keep writing for 10 minutes).

Music:  new folk songs

Science:  The Great Motion Mission.   Today we are just going to be reading from the new book.  Oral narration to father or big sister (on the phone).

Bright and early on the first day of school, it's... (Last Update)

The 349th Carnival of Homeschooling, up already at Holy Spirit-Led Homeschooling.

Head over to Fisher Academy International for the Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival: What We Love the Most.

There's a Festival of Frugality here, with a link to our funky doll sofa tutorial.

Any other good ones you know of?

Homeschool things to do for Tuesday: figure out what we're doing, finally?

How do you start off your homeschool year?  Plunk the math books down and tell the kids to get to work?  Take a nature walk?  Start right in with an exciting novel?

Lynn Bruce once told a gathering of Ambleside Online parents that there were certain things that needed to be put into place in a school year before you ever thought about getting into the books.  One was making sure that your children understood the need to listen perfectly and follow directions (she had them practice this by making cookies AND cleaning up on the first day of school).  On the second day of school, she had them go through the schedule and talk about why they were studying certain subjects, how math and science and good handwriting glorify God. On the third day, they talked about good habits, and how the teacher and students could work together to make all those transitions go smoothly, such as having the right supplies and equipment ready when it was time to start the next subject.

THEN they started school.

I don't have very little children, and we are not just starting out, but there is still a great deal of wisdom in what Lynn said all those years ago.  So what are we doing tomorrow?

Our opening time:  a favourite hymn; the first chapter of Proverbs; and a prayer together.

As Lynn suggested, we will look at the weekly schedule together and talk about some of the things we will be studying and the books we will be using.  We will talk about the subjects that will be done independently vs. those that we will read or do together; what the expectations are for free reading; what the expectations are for homework (we don't do much, but I do give a few assignments to be done "out of class").  We will talk about our space and our supplies.  What kind of notebooks will work best for which subjects?  What kind of fun things like handicrafts can we do?

Since it's Tuesday and our Tuesday schedule says to start with Geography, Shakespeare, and Math, and Copywork, we will do those subjects.  But first we're going to start The Hobbit.  Dollygirl will be reading this mostly to herself, but  I think it's a good way to start out the year together.

And that's it for the first day.  The high schoolers get a short day on the first day, so Ponytails will be home early too.

(No cookies this time, but maybe we'll make some treats later.)

Linked from Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival: What We Love the Most.

Homeschool things to do for Tuesday: Personal research, library skills

Sometimes homeschoolers ask how to use an English handbook as the core of a language arts or grammar-and-composition course.  This year our main text for grammar and composition is Write Source 2000: A Guide to Writing, Thinking, and Learning, one of the Great Source handbooks.  It's aimed at grades 7 and 8, but since we found a copy at the thrift store, we're using it for grade 6 (we used some of it for grade 5 as well).  Here is a sample of the ways I am planning on using it this month with Dollygirl.

Weeks 1 & 2: Personal Research & Writing

1.  Read sections 265-268, about how Robert Fulghum researches.  "See what there is that interests you, that arouses your curiosity, that gets you wondering."

2.  Look at the part of section 267 with the blue bar.  What is the difference between "traditional research" and "personal research projects?"

3.  Make a list of ideas that start with "I wonder."  "I wonder what it's like to..."  "I wonder why..."  "I wonder what would happen if I..."  Circle three that really get you interested.  Choose one that you would most like to find out about.  (NOTE: this is a SHORT report, due on Friday of the second week of school.  Choose something that you can research and put together in a short time.)

5.  Section 269: Selecting and Collecting.  Do some personal research, including talking to at least one person who knows about your subject.

6.  Section 270: Telling Your Research Story.  You can do this in any way that you would like (be Kit Kittredge writing a newspaper story, do a blog post, do an oral report after dinner...).

Weeks 3 & 4:  Using the Library

1.  Read the introduction and section 290.

2.  Sections 291-293 show you how a "card catalogue" works.  What are some reasons that most public and school libraries now use computerized catalogues instead of actual cards?  Would there be any advantages to a card system?  Disadvantages?

3.  Review of the Dewey Decimal System, sections 294-297.  Re-read the online story "Do We" Really Know Dewey?.   Choose one of the games or quizzes to do, or make one up for someone else to solve.

4.  Go to the library and take out books that interest you from THREE different Dewey sections of the children's room (such as one from the 200's, one from the 300's, one from the 400's).  Now go to the adult section (with your parent) and find books with the same Dewey numbers (or as close as possible).  If you're interested, have your parent sign them out for you.

5.  The Reference Section:  Instead of reading this section, go to the public library and look at their reference books.  (Does the children's room have reference books?)  List five books you see there that might come in handy sometime.  (Better write down their call numbers too.) What are the good and bad things about books being in the reference section?

Homeschool things to do for Tuesday: maps and geography

Dollygirl's sixth-grade geography class--at least the formal part--is meant to be done once a week, on her own.  I am combining some resources we have to make a study guide that will cover the first two terms of the school year.  I'll probably add in things like online quizzes and videos, when we get there.

Here's a sample:

Week 1
Cool Geography, by Jane Glicksman: Read the Introduction: What's So Cool About Geography?

Hammond Discovering Maps. Read pages 4-9 and narrate.

Question:  This book assumes that you live in the United States. How would you rewrite the "Your Country" section for Canadians?

Week 2

Cool Geography, chapter 1: Cool Maps: The World At Your Fingertips, to page 10
Keywords: map, scale, legend, compass rose

Hammond Discovering Maps. Read pages 10-12 and narrate.

Week 3

Hammond Discovering Maps. Read pages 13-15 and narrate.

Cool Geography, chapter 1: Cool Maps: The World At Your Fingertips, pages 10-14
Keywords: types of maps, gazetteer, atlas, marine chart

Cool Geography Activity 3: Map questions about the United States (page 20)

Week 4

Cool Geography, chapter 1: Cool Maps: The World At Your Fingertips, pages 14-22
Keywords: absolute location, Equator, Eratosthenes, Greenwich, hemispheres, latitude, longitude, degrees, International Date Line, Ptolemy, time zones

Cool Geography Activity 2: Make a grapefruit globe.

In which we will begin our seventeenth year of homeschooling...on the second day?

In September 2007 I posted the following:

Becky's Book Reviews posted the poem "First Day of School" by Judith Viorst. An excerpt:

And what if they say, "Do this," and I don't understand them?
And what if there's teams, and nobody picks me to play?
And what if I took off my sneakers, and also my socks, and also my jeans, and my sweatshirt and T-shirt,
And started the first day of school on the second day?

My comment:  Hey, now there's an idea...

That was five years ago.  We have been officially homeschooling since 1996, when the Apprentice started kindergarten...or didn't start kindergarten, if you want to put it that way.  Our homeschooling took her through ninth grade at home, and Ponytails through eighth.  (Dollygirl will still be home this year for Grade Six.) When people ask me to write or say something about why we homeschool, it's hard not to choose the obvious: after all this time, we just do.  Put on socks, make breakfast, start school.

There's got to be a better reason, right?  I mean, we could stop homeschooling this week.  The public elementary school is only a few streets away, and an extra backpack wouldn't set us back too much.  In fact, considering the Squirrel finances this year, it's not something that hasn't crossed our minds.

So why are we sticking with it?

"This year we are going to read, talk, figure, walk, hike, draw, recite, narrate, write, paint, sing, listen, listen some more, look, notice, see, will, plant, sow and reap.....We are going to live our lives together doing what humans do."--Cindy Rollins, Ordo Amoris Blog

Short answer: I want to raise kids who care more.

Long answer:  I believe in Charlotte Mason's principles of education (I'm not reciting a creed, I really do), and in how they relate to a Christian worldview that says that ideas have consequences, that the God of the Bible is there, that He created human beings as individuals, and that His truth makes sense...among other things.  I want to build a home life that...frail and mistake-ridden as it is and as we are...reflects that.  Days at home give us more chances, different opportunities than we would have if daily life centered on an outside school. 

So this year Dollygirl will skip, one more time, the fear of dropping lunch in the toilet or the locker door sticking or the teacher not liking us or whatever it is that hangs all the in-school kids up about the first day of school (read the poem), and move directly on to the second day.

(Ponytails, in high school, is the one who gets to deal with the locker.  The Apprentice has gone beyond lockers and now gets to have anxieties about things like new housemates.)

Linked from the 349th Carnival of Homeschooling.

Homeschool things to do for Tuesday: French play we're reading

I did some prep work on this during the summer, so we're ready to go with Le Voyage de Monsieur Perrichon.  This is a 19th-century play that lends itself really well to breaking down into small "French bites."  In keeping with some of Charlotte Mason's ideas about teaching language, I'm planning on reading short sections out loud, encouraging narration wherever possible, and emphasizing a few--only a few--key phrases from each lesson.

I also made up a set of paper people to go with the story.  We used to use characters like this for Our Island Story, and all the girls really remember them even years later.  I didn't draw them myself--I just looked for images of 1860-ish people online, pulled them into a Word file, and squished and pulled them so they were all about the same size (so that we didn't have a giant lady with a tiny man).

Homeschool things to do for Tuesday: Robert Frost's poetry

In the that-was-easy department:   We will be reading the 51 poems in Robert Frost's You Come Too: Favorite Poems for Young Readers.


(Warning: there are extremely rude comments below this video.)

We own the 80-page junior biography Robert Frost: America's Poet, by Doris Faber.  What do you do with a junior biography, a sixth grader, and a homeschool curriculum based mostly around just reading the poems?

Taking a leaf from the Ordo Amoris tree, I think the best way to include things like this is to put them in a "Morning Time."  A gathering where maybe you don't always have to stick to the regular books.  Even if you are homeschooling just one, you can make a habit of getting together for some reading, maybe singing or memory work, close to the start of school or at another time that works well--maybe even at tea-time, if you have a regular time for that.  We have gotten out of tea-time in recent years, but what I remember was that by that time of the day, the Squirrelings were often impatient if I tried to thrust yet another book on them.  Individual poems, yes, but not whole chapters--they were ready to go and play.  So I guess it depends.

So Faber's book can go into some kind of a "Morning Time" reading basket.

What else can you do with poems beside read them, memorize them, copy them out, sometimes sing them?  Ruth Beechick has lots of ideas:  experimenting with word choice, changing verse into prose, and so on.  We also have a copy of Rose, where did you get that red? Teaching Great Poetry to Children, by Kenneth Koch, which has some good writing suggestions based on poems by Wallace Stevens, John Donne, African tribal poems, and more.

You can illustrate them.  We recently acquired several volumes in Scholastic's Graphic Poetry series, in which each book takes one or two poems by one author, and sets them up in what's basically picture book format--but for older readers, not little ones.  I think this would be a fun project in combination with the simpler book-binding and booklet-making ideas in Erin Zamrzla's At Home with Handmade Books.  Is that art, literature, handicrafts, or what?  Does it matter?  We'll work it in to an afternoon time.

In the bottom of the Treehouse: Mr. Fixit's Man Cave

Photo by Mr. Fixit. Copyright Dewey's Treehouse 2012.

Crissy's new clothes (with link to online patterns)

For Crissy fans, one of the best sites out there is CrissyAndBeth.com. Beth has very generously scanned in all the commercial patterns that were made for Crissy (and Velvet) from 1969 through the early 1970's--that is, the actual tissue-paper pieces.  My mother had some of these patterns and made clothes for my own Crissy and my sister's Velvet; I don't think any of ours are still around, though--the patterns or the clothes.  The CrissyAndBeth sewing page also has photos of Crissy and friends modelling hand-sewn clothes.

I tried printing out some of the pattern pieces a couple of years ago, but the printer we had at that time kept shrinking the pieces to fit the page, even when I asked it nicely not to, so I gave up.  Recently we got a colour printer that is more co-operative (remind you of our sewing machine?), so I tried again.  The pattern pieces printed out beautifully, especially in colour.  The Simplicity patterns are very, very easy to follow...well, some of them are a little bit fussy with getting elastic in the right place, sewing lace on, and so on, but generally they're meant to be easy to sew.  Almost too easy in some places--where some doll clothes books would have you turn under an edge and then turn it under again and hem, these patterns just say to turn edges under a quarter inch and sew them down, which can leave a bit of a raw edge.  Elastic on pants is just sewn across a turned-down waistband, rather than put through a casing. If you are a fussier sewer, you could do more than the minimum for things like that.  But I think a lot of the appeal of these patterns is in the choice of fabric and trims, rather than in detailed sewing techniques.

From Simplicity pattern 8519, I made a "dress" (or a smock top), a vest, and two pairs of flared pants.  If you put the vest with the top, they go together in kind of an unexpected 1970ish way.  A little bit Russian, a little bit Sunshine Family.  The dress or top is supposed to have lace around the neck and wrists, but we went with rickrack instead.

I remember my mom sewing one of these capes (Simplicity 9698), so it was a step back in time for me to recreate one for Dollygirl's Crissy.  The fabric is red corduroy, from a rummage-saled pair of pants.  There was just enough useable fabric to cut the back, two fronts, and two hood pieces.  The ribbon trim is craft-type, not meant for clothes; but I liked the old-world vibe of the print, plus its stiffness gives a bit of structure to the cape.  I've seen this cape made up with softer lace trim, but I like it better with this edging.  The pattern instructs you to turn back the edges of the cape and sew the trim along the turned-back piece, but with the stiff ribbon I just sandwiched it along the edges and topstitched it down.

About the only thing we think Crissy still needs is a nice maxi-dress, peasant style, maybe in green to go with her shoes.  But that will have to wait until we replenish our fabric a bit.

All photos by Mr. Fixit.  Copyright Dewey's Treehouse 2012.  Simplicity patterns made available by CrissyAndBeth.com.

Making the most of Treehouse collections: dolls and more

We are Squirrels, and don't forget it.  We may not be parts-stashers, but we do like to collect things.

These are Red Rose Tea Figurines. Some of them were Mr. Fixit's grandma's. Some were Mama Squirrel's. The shelf had hung in a corner of our rec room for a long time, kind of hidden and dusty. We decided to move it up to the kitchen.

Dollygirl's TY Teenie Beanie Boppers. (Also here.) She has been collecting these at yard sales and thrift shops for several years; I think only one was bought new.  Mr. Fixit helped her spray paint and frame a piece of pegboard, so now the Boppers can all hang out together.

Mr. Fixit's restorations are part of our living room decor--they come and go, and we make room for them while they're in the Treehouse.  The glass-fronted cabinet was the grandparents', and it holds a group of dolls handed down from both sides of our family.

All photos by Mr. Fixit, copyright Dewey's Treehouse, 2012.

Quote for the Day: Virginia Haviland on dumbed-down books

"We must all recognize that factors other than word count-the look of the page, the space between lines, the amount of illustration and size of margins-contribute to making a book easy to read.

"Again we may ask whether we are being attracted to fool’s gold by a false snob appeal of the term 'classic,' if we accept abridgements and watering-down of texts because we believe that the slow or lazy child must read Alice in Wonderland or Treasure Island in one form or another. Is it not dishonest to allow children to think they are truly reading the classics when they read them in abbreviated form?"

--Virginia Haviland, "Search for the real thing: Among the “millions and billions” of books," Library Journal, 1961. Quoted in "Initiative and Influence: The Contributions of Virginia Haviland to Children’s Services, Research, and Writing,"  by Karen Patricia Smith.

Pineapple cake for a potluck

Tonight was our homeschool group's annual picnic/barbecue. The group provides burgers and hot dogs, and everything else is potluck. I brought Tortellini Salad--the same dressing as the one I used here, but with slightly different salad ingredients. I used a package of dried cheese tortellini, cooked until just tender; a package of grape tomatoes; a package of little tiny mushrooms (they were the same price as regular-sized ones); a chopped red pepper; and a few canned black olives. I left out the extra cheese as I didn't think it would hold up well, and it was fine without it. At least it was all gone by the end of the picnic, so I guess that meant it was all right.

I also took a pan of Ruth's Pineapple Cake, from the Harrowsmith Cookbook. This recipe has been around for years but it's still good, and it's very easy to make. It does get a bit sticky, though, so it's best eaten the same day you make it.

Ruth’s Pineapple Cake

2 cups flour
1 ½ cups sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups crushed pineapple, un-drained (= 19 oz. can)
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional--our homeschool events are nut-free, so I leave them out)

Combine all ingredients and beat until smooth (just with a wooden spoon is fine).

Scrape into greased jelly roll pan (a 10 x 15-inch pan) and bake at 325 degrees F for 35 minutes or until brown but not too brown. Cut in squares for serving (use a sharp knife and try to work around the bits of pineapple--otherwise you'll get ragged pieces).

Funky Doll Sofa, Almost Free (Tutorial)

Dollygirl's 18-inch dolls have lots of clothes, but they're short on furniture.  To help them out, I made this oversized chair, or sofa--depending on how many dolls (or guinea pigs) are squeezed onto it.  It requires a bit of sewing, but no gluing or nailing.

Start with one rather old hinged-lid chicken wings box, or anything else of that sort.  If you don't have an old hinged-lid chicken box but do have a box with its own lid, about the size of a child's shoebox, you can tape the lid to the back of the box and use that. 
Add one cut-down cereal box, stuffed with newspaper.  The cereal box needs to be the same size as the first box.  Stuff it inside, tightly.  Or you could just stuff the first box and then cover the seat with a piece of cardboard.

Now you have something that resembles a bed with a bookcase headboard.  Stuff the "bookcase" part with more crumpled newspaper.

Now it's time for some cutting and sewing. Take a child-size skirt, or the equivalent in other fabric. (Dollygirl had an old corduroy skirt she'd grown out of a  long time ago.)  Sew it into a tube that will fit nicely around the box.  When you slip it over the box, it should give you almost, but not quite, enough fabric to completely slipcover the sofa.  Sort of like a fabric tissue box cover, or a tea cozy.  It doesn't have to be perfect, because you're going to make a second piece to fit over the top. 

Here is the second piece of fabric (photo below).  I don't know how well you can see this in the photo, but I hemmed around the bottom and also wrapped it around and sewed in two places, making two corners that stand up.  It's not mandatory, but I thought it gave the top piece a better fit.

Now you slip that piece over the back of the sofa, tucking it in behind the seat.

If you have any fabric left, you can make cushions for the sofa. I made two tube-shaped pieces that work as arms for the couch, and two square ones. I machine-sewed them, leaving one side open; stuffed them with quilt batting (you could use any kind of stuffing), and hand-sewed the last side of each.

That's all!

Photos by Mr. Fixit, Dewey's Treehouse, 2012

Linked from Mad Skills Link Party #118 at Mad in Crafts, and from the Festival of Frugality.

What dolls do on a hot day

Lemonade stand made by Dollygirl.  Crissy's bellbottoms and Abby's sweater by Mama Squirrel.

Photographs by Dollygirl, Dewey's Treehouse, 2012

What's for supper? Pizza chicken

Tonight's menu:

Pizza chicken (cut-up chicken breasts cooked with canned pizza sauce, green peppers, and mozzarella cheese)
Whole-wheat spaghettini

Banana-Bread Sundaes (a fancy-dessert-glass concoction of a bit of banana bread, a bit of mostly-thawed banana, a bit of mostly-thawed yogurt, a spoonful of peach jam, and some frozen strawberries warmed in the microwave)

Quote for the Day: "Call forth its riches"

“If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for to the creator there is no poverty and no poor indifferent place.”

― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

What's for supper? on the frugal side

Tonight's menu:

Spicy Lentil Soup with Kielbasa
Pita bread from the bottom of the freezer, cut in triangles, sprayed with olive oil, and crisped in the oven

Fruit crisp made with leftover cereal (run through the food processor), frozen blueberries, leftover cranberry sauce, and the end of a jar of jam

What's for supper? Turkey Fajitas

We've been making the same Chicken Fajitas recipe for years--when we actually do use a recipe.  Sometimes we just cook chicken or turkey with salsa and call it done. 

Tonight we had some leftover white turkey meat, and green peppers, and tortillas...so we had Turkey-Pepper Fajitas with Cheddar cheese, sour cream, and olives for those who like olives (me).  I cooked a pot of rice to go with them.  (I know fajitas aren't supposed to be served with cheese, but too bad.)

Here's the recipe, since I don't think I've ever posted it here.  It was clipped from a newspaper years ago, so I don't know whose it was originally.  It's online here, but I don't think the contributor created the recipe.

Chicken Fajitas (or Leftover Turkey Fajitas)

3 to 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (or leftover chicken or turkey meat)
2 tbsp. lime juice (we use lemon juice because it's what we usually have around)
2 tbsp. salsa
1 clove garlic, minced (or garlic powder)
1 tsp. chili powder
1/2 tsp. ground cumin
Few drops hot pepper sauce (optional)
8 7-inch flour tortillas
1 tbsp. olive or vegetable oil
1 large onion sliced, and/or 1 green or red pepper, sliced in strips (we often use just one or the other)
Black pepper (optional)
Toppings:  salsa, sour cream, etc.

If using raw meat:  cut into thin strips, place in a bowl, and add lime juice, salsa, garlic, chili powder, cumin, and hot pepper sauce.  Stir well and set aside.  (Because we had already-cooked turkey meat, I just sprinkled the mixture on the plate of turkey and let it sit while I got other things ready.)

In large skillet over medium-high heat, heat oil.  Saute onions and peppers until tender-crisp, three or four minutes.  Remove from skillet and set aside. 

Add chicken and any juices in bowl to skillet.  Cook, stirring, until chicken is cooked through.  Return onions and peppers to pan.  The mixture should be quite moist; if necessary, add a little more salsa.  Add black pepper if wanted.  Stir over high heat until very hot, about one minute.  Spoon chicken mixture onto warm tortillas.  Add desired toppings and roll up.

Cooked Turkey Variation:  I stir-fried the green pepper strips for a few minutes, then added the chopped, cooked turkey that had been sprinkled with the salsa mixture.  I just let it all heat through and that was it.  I did add a bit of water so that it wouldn't get too dry.

Linked from Easy Back to School Meals at The Common Room, August 2013.

Yes, it's been a slow week

What's up in the Treehouse?

Mr. Fixit is fixing (and selling) as many things as he can.  Unfortunately, that didn't include our water heater, which suddenly quit after fifteen years, or our mattress, which gave its last bounce after twenty-plus.  Even Mr. Fixit has his limits. But clocks and radios--that, he's very good at.

The Apprentice is still cutting hair and getting ready to go back to classes.

Ponytails is getting geared up for Grade 10.

Dollygirl is trying to ignore the fact that school is around the corner.  Well, actually her school is in the basement, not around the corner, but you know what I mean.

Mama Squirrel is working on a lot of small projects.  Mr. Fixit and Dollygirl have one in progress too (not a radio). When a few of them are done, we'll do a photo post.

Till then...

Quote for the day: "The best year ever."

"I think this is going to be the best year ever all because I reread Towards a Philosophy of Education."--Cindy Rollins, "The First Day of Year 25," at Ordo Amoris.

Go, Cindy!

What's for supper? Chicken and dumplings.

I realized I have a lot of chicken so thawed some this morning without knowing what I was doing with it. I've been stirfrying a lot lately so I wanted to try something a little different. Martha Stewart's Chicken and Dumplings recipe looked promising. I halved the recipe and used mixed peas and carrots with some onion flakes for the vegetables. I would watch the salt as I feel I oversalted a bit, and wasn't a big fan of the broth I used. Make sure you stir more often than the recipe requires...mine wanted to stick to the bottom of my Corningware. I used chicken thighs...the nutty flavour really added to the dish but breast would have been better in terms of texture.

What's for supper? Enchiladas

Tonight's dinner menu (just three of us here): chicken-cheese enchiladas, made with the leftovers from last night's chicken.

A sign of the times: the packages of large flour tortillas, that used to contain eight, have been cut to six. Large humph for that.

What's for supper? Hot chicken on a bun

Tonight's dinner menu:

One chicken from the freezer, cooked in the slow cooker with a little barbecue sauce, served on hamburger buns
Green beans

Brannies (brownies made with chocolate and bran cereal)
Pears

Vanilla Magic Milkshakes

We all might have books inside of us

But not all of us manage to get them out.

Exceptions: 

Melissa Wiley:  Fox and Crow are Not Friends, and two others coming out at the end of this month.

Bryana Johnson:  Having Decided to Stay.  Bryana is the daughter of Lindafay at Higher Up and Further In.

Congratulations to both.

What's for supper? Sausage and Bean Helper.

Today I cooked up a batch of Miss Maggie's Family Favorite Pinto Beans.  I started them in the pressure cooker, because I worry about putting red beans straight into the slow cooker (do pintos count as red beans? Probably not, but I would rather be overcautious than sick).  Then I decided not to do them in the slow cooker anyway, but just cook them for the afternoon on the stove with Miss Maggie's spices.  (Because of time, not worry about toxins.)

That worked.

When they were done, I took about half the beans and liquid, and mixed them in a skillet with the remains of last night's sausage, sliced up, and last night's pasta, two little garden tomatoes, and some chopped celery.  I let that cook about half an hour, and added a bit of cheese on top.

And tomorrow I'll probably puree the rest of the cooked pintos, and freeze them in small amounts.  Instant refried beans, if tortillas ever go on sale again or if I get ambitious enough to make my own.  Multicultural food note:  around here, pita bread is often cheaper than tortillas, and, depending on what style you get, it can work just as well for things like fajitas.

What's for supper? Mrs. S's Curry Casserole

Mrs. S. was the grandmotherly lady who lived beside us for many years (the lady who was entertained by the Geography Songs being belted out on the swingset).  The first week we moved in, she showed up with a curried chicken casserole...which I thought was kind of funny, since she was Irish through and through.  No matter; this kind of chicken dinner always makes me think of her. 

It was too hot to bake tonight, so the chicken casserole became a chicken skillet.

P.S.  Yes, I know this is not an authentic curry.  But it's good anyway.

Tonight's dinner menu (cleaning out the fridge):

Mrs. S's Curry Casserole/Skillet, with optional garnishes of slivered almonds, raisins, chow mein noodles
Brown rice
Sweet potatoes (peeled, cut up and cooked in a pot)
Cottage cheese, applesauce

Chocolate microwave cake with vanilla yogurt and/or rasberry sauce mixed with frozen blueberries

Chicken Curry Casserole/Skillet (this is a very approximate recipe)

Cooked chicken--about two cups, cut up
Any vegetables you want, cut up in the food processor (onions, green peppers, carrot)
Chicken broth, or water plus bouillon powder
1 cup milk
2 tsp. curry powder
2 tbsp. cornstarch
Salt and pepper
Rice and garnishes

If you're making this on the stovetop, combine the chicken, vegetables, and broth or water plus bouillon in a skillet.  Cover and simmer until the vegetables are starting to get tender.  In a measuring cup, whisk together the milk, curry powder, and cornstarch.  Add to the hot mixture and continue cooking until thickened and heated through.  Add salt and pepper as needed.  Serve over hot rice, and pass raisins, nuts, or whatever other garnishes people like.

If I were making this in the oven, I'd probably make a sauce of the broth, milk, curry powder, and cornstarch on top of the stove, pour it over the chicken and vegetables, and then bake it for half an hour.

Book Review: Toss, Keep, Sell!

Toss, Keep, Sell!: The Suddenly Frugal Guide to Cleaning Out the Clutter and Cashing In, by Leah Ingram.  About $US10 on Amazon.com, in either paperback or Kindle format.  (I borrowed a copy from the library.)

Over the last two or three decades, I have read a lotta, lotta, lotta clutter and organizing books.  Some inspired me to get busy and do something; some were interesting, some were boring.  Some had good ideas, and a lot were the same old stuff.  Recently I've downloaded several free Kindle books about organizing, home management, and clutter, and most of them are the same old stuff.  One of them might grab you at the right moment and become your friend, but really there isn't much new to say about "toss what you don't need, organize the rest."

So I know I've found a keeper when a) I enjoy reading it and b) I actually get a couple of new ideas that c) work.  Someone named Books and Chocolate already reviewed Toss, Keep, Sell! on Amazon.com, and that's pretty much what they said, too.  There are a few ideas I couldn't exactly relate to, like making money reselling Tiffany and Prada stuff that you might have gathering dust (??), but overall I liked her ideas, particularly about re-purposing unused items in other rooms.  Of course we've done that lots of times, but reading the book sparked a couple of new ideas I hadn't thought of before.  Yesterday I did some cleaning out in our dining room--not where we eat all our meals, this is more of a space where we have holiday dinners and sew and do homework in between, so it gets messy.  I cleaned out the buffet, got rid of a couple of old tablecloths and a bunch of polyester napkins that we never use, and realized that I could use the built-in cutlery tray in the top drawer for our good cutlery.

Why I never thought of that, after living here for almost fifteen years, I don't know, but I had always kept the "good" set of cutlery (wedding gift) in a wooden box (wedding gift) on top of the china cabinet.  But the knife holder had broken loose inside the box, and half of the good cutlery had migrated into the everyday drawer in the kitchen anyway because we were short on spoons.  So...short end of the story...the good cutlery, what we don't need for every day, now lives in the buffet.  Which gave me a nice empty wooden box...which was twice the size of the small jewelery box I'd been stuffing my beads and earrings into for years.  So now I have a bigger jewelery box, and Dollygirl has my old box since she didn't have one at all.  Everybody wins, and the top of the china cabinet is suddenly clear too.

The format of the book is room-by-room, which is pretty typical.  But I think what it sets it above the norm are the personal examples and the sum-it-up charts, as well as the up-to-date suggestions such as using Craigslist and E-bay.

So...this is a new addition to my short list of favourite clutter/organization books.  (Others are It's Here...Somewhere, by Alice Fulton, and Don Aslett's For Packrats Only.)

What's for supper? Spaghetti-style sloppy Joes

Tonight's dinner menu:

Whole wheat hamburger buns with tomato-meat sauce (leftover sauce I had frozen) and mozzarella cheese
Peas
Leftover salad and raw veggies

The remnants of the Crockpot Applesauce Cake I made last night, with vanilla yogurt and raspberry sauce