Frugal finds and fixes

Frugal stuff we've been finding and fixing:

I won a book on SewMamaSew's Handmade Holidays, a random draw from the comments section. (Thank you to the providers of prizes!)

I also got a free copy of Canadian Geographic Magazine, their annual Energy issue, along with a poster and some promotional teacher stuff, because somehow I got myself registered as a Canadian Geographic Education member and forgot about it.  It's always nice to get school surprises in the mailbox.

Do you remember how Dollygirl made a doll tutu back in September, and the dolls put on an impromptu Nutcracker show?  This week Samantha (the doll) decided she likes gymnastics better, so the rec room has been taken over with improvised doll balance beams (tissue boxes and yard sticks), bars, and fun-foam floor mats.  We also watched You-tube videos of Nadia Comaneci at the 1976 Olympics.

We went to arts night at Ponytails' school (Ponytails was one of the organizers).  Fun and free, and some unnamed squirrels did some Christmas shopping from the tables of artists and crafters.  Dollygirl decorated a mug with bake-on markers, for $2 (you had take them home and bake them yourself).  I also bought a $15 holiday arrangement from the horticulture class, which doesn't sound frugal, but we needed one, and I would have had to spend more than that at a store, and I would rather support the students' work anyway.

Dollygirl and her friend went to a free Saturday event at the public library, with lots of different things to explore and create.  The Rainbow Looms table stayed crowded the whole time, and so did some of the other most popular stations; but they did dress up at a photo booth, and they also got to see a 3-D printer in operation.

I've been using odds and ends of yarn to make amigurumi animals.

Tonight's dinner menu:  beef burritos, using last night's roast beef and some tortillas that we bought on sale and froze.

Dollygirl's First Term Exam Questions

December 2013 Grade 7 Examination Questions (adapted from original PNEU term exams, available on the Ambleside Online website)

Christian Studies.  Choose two of these:
1. Describe one of the journeys of St. Paul. What was the result of his preaching?

2. Describe Annie and Drew's visit to either the Catacombs, or the Duomo in Milan (the third-largest church in the world).

3.  Describe the portrayal of Jesus  in The Bronze Bow.  Do you think it is accurate?  Use examples from the book to support your argument. (question from Learning Language Arts Through Literature, Tan Book)

Writing.
Write ten lines of poetry from memory.

Dictation.

From The Sword and the Circle.

English Grammar.

The chess club served pop and chips at the end of the meeting.

On the way out, many members stopped to read the posters about the upcoming tournament.

We cleaned the room after the club members left.

Several of the members had stuck gum under the desks.

In the sentences above, cross out any prepositional phrases. Underline the subject once and the verb or verb phrase twice. Place any infinitive in parentheses. Mark any direct objects with the initials "D.O."

Literature.
 1. Write the script for a scene from Coriolanus in which his mother Volumnia appears. (This could be for Sock Puppet Theatre.)
2. Explain and give examples of simile, metaphor, pun, iambic meter.

3. Tell what you know of the life of either Bede or Caedmon.

English History.

      1. What impact did the Roman occupation have on Great Britain (good and bad)?

      2. Why are English people described as Anglo-Saxons? Give some account of the history contained in this term. What traces of it have we still? (from a PNEU exam)
      3. Describe the conversion of King Ethelbert (you may wish to mention Queen Bertha, St. Augustine, Coifi).

French History.
      1. Write an account of (a), Clovis, (b),Charlemagne. (from a PNEU exam)
      2. Describe the coming of the Northmen. (from a PNEU exam)

Citizenship and Economics.
   1. What do you understand by humility? What is false humility? In what various ways should humility be shown?
   2. You are an economic advisor to the Queen. The Queen proposes to end poverty in her kingdom by ordering the royal coin-makers to create extra money. What problems might this cause? What do you advise?

Geography. Choose two of these three questions:
1. "There is nothing in Ely but the cathedral; and the cathedral is a lady." Explain.

2. "In a cosy vale is the village of Stiffkey.  It is a curious little village noted for its cockle women." Tell about the rest of H.V. Morton's visit here.

3. "Do you really? We had another song on the Wall: 'Old soldiers never die, never die, never die; old soldiers never die, they only sneeze awayee.'" Explain where this imaginary conversation took place and what it was about.

General Science

1. What are the three types of rock? Give one specific example of each.

         2. Explain and give examples of physical weathering, chemical weathering, erosion.

         3.  (question about dishwasher additives taken from Apologia General Science test booklet)

Architecture.
1. How would you recognize a Romanesque building? Can you describe or draw one?

Natural History.
1. Explain the differences and similarities between the amanita ("destroying angel") and the puffball; OR tell how you would identify poison ivy.

Picture Study.
   Describe Corot's "The Bridge at Mantes," OR another of his paintings that you like.

Arithmetic and Algebra.
    1. In the following expression, how many terms are there? And each term has how many factors? 2a + 4ab + 5a(b+c)
    2. How far would a train go in 15 hours at the rate of 48 km an hour? How many metres a minute does this train travel?
    3. Add according to the rules for adding terms. -6 + (-2) =

French.

(see attached page)

Drawing.
      1. A new book cover for Sigurd the Volsung or Lord of the Rings.
      2. Something you have observed on a nature walk.

Musical Appreciation.
      1. What do you know of madrigals?
      2. Describe a concert you have attended, including the instruments used and the type of music played.

Recitations.
      A hymn, a poem, or a scene from Shakespeare, and a passage from the Book of Romans.

Reading.
      Father to choose an unseen passsage, giving marks for enunciation. (PNEU exam)

It's Advent Not Christmas (Day Two)

I move on to an air band.

It's my first year of university, and being done exams early in December, I'm looking for something to do. I drop in on the special ed class at my old school, and end up staying to help for three weeks.

I love it.  I love these kids...if you can call them kids, some of them are my own age.  Most of them have Down Syndrome.  Most will end up in sheltered workshops.  Some can read. A few dream of getting "real" jobs and driving cars.

The big deal right now is the school Christmas assembly.  I don't think this class has ever participated before, but the teacher, an energetic and innovative guy, has come up with something stupendous.  The class is going to do an air band routine to Bruce Springsteen's "Cadillac Ranch," a rowdy song that "could make dinosaurs dance."  Behind the fake guitars, fake drums, fake sax, will be a slide show of photos of the class, taken on a fall day, somewhere out in the country, with the kids running around a barn, sitting on hay bales, riding in a classic convertible.

Every day they practice.  The guys, especially, love riffing along with The Boss.  The girls dance.  Even the less-verbal ones shout out "Cadillac...Cadillac...long and DARK....shiny and BLACK."  But how will it go over in front of the school?  Because this class...they're not exactly accepted by a lot of the students. There are snickers when they go by in the halls, in the cafeteria lines.  They do not seem to have friends outside the classroom. Most of the time they are very much "other."

Finally it's the day of the assembly.  It's time for the song.  From the big loud drum intro, through the guitar solos and the last fadeout chorus, they grab their four minutes and however many seconds of fame.  Everybody sings, the slides flick by, they do just what they practiced. And somehow...they connect.  If only briefly, there is no "other."  The applause is loud. The performers cheer and bow and high-five.

You know there's nothing in that song about Christmas, or Christ.  There's a line about a little girlie in her blue jeans so tight (and a slide to match...but rumor is that's the teacher's wife).  I should be shocked.  But I don't care.

Because for those four minutes and however many seconds, I saw people seeing people.  I think I saw Grace.

Is that Advent?

It's Advent Not Christmas (Day One)

I begin with a white gift.

It is probably a can of soup, it's about that size, and I'm licking and sticking Santa faces and reindeer to cover the white tissue paper. The gift will go to church with us on the Sunday before Christmas, we'll lay it on the steps at the front, and where it goes from there I have no idea.  This is 1974 and I've never heard of a food pantry.  I never imagine some hungry stranger ripping through my stickers, cranking a can opener, flicking a spark to light the gas burner, heating the soup, mashing crackers into it, dropping the remains in the trash.  This is 1974 and we've never heard of Blue Boxes either.  As far as I know, the white gifts are travelling directly to God.  Why He wants our canned soup is one of life's mysteries.

I'm licking the stickers in the kitchen, a kitchen contrived out of a bedroom in my grandfather's old house.  Right now we live with him, but we cook upstairs and eat upstairs.  Grandpa heats his canned stew alone and eats it with the elderly cat for company.  I don't know if we all are happy to be living like this, four of us making do upstairs and Grandpa and the cat consuming their tinned food and livers downstairs.  My limited understanding is that we'd be even less happy if we had to share.  We being my mother, mostly.  It may be the cupboards stuffed with cans, it may be the budgie cages.  Most likely it's the livers.

So Advent is a cardboard calendar, a white gift, the season of colour-T.V. specials and school plays.  My class is doing something about a kid who played Santa.  My mother had to go out and buy me a new nightgown for a costume.  Advent is a time my mother bakes a lot, most years.  I'm third-grade oblivious to any difficulties she might have getting it done this year, in this small space.  Maybe she'll give in and take her cookie cutters downstairs.  It's uncertain.  

A lot right now is uncertain.

Is that Advent?

It's Advent Not Christmas: Before It Begins

Starting tomorrow, watch for a series of posts called "It's Advent Not Christmas."

Longtime Treehouse readers may remember the story of our toddler-aged Apprentice, who caught on to the idea of Advent so well that she corrected a well-meaning grownup who asked her, mid-December, if she wasn't excited that it was Christmas.  "Save a little Christmas for Christmas," went the words to a song in one animated T.V. special.

Advent, thankfully, seems too hard for the stores to package and the radio stations to overdo. It's a sacred time and space.  It's a place to reflect.  But sometimes even that's hard to pin down.  What is the real deal about Advent?

Maybe we can explore that in the days to come.

In which we finish the fall term (Dollygirl's Grade Seven)

So how's it gong, Dollygirl?  Highs and lows?  Favourite subjects or books?  "Lord of the Rings, Balance Benders, handicrafts, and The Bronze Bow, most of it.  Geography is okay."

Not as good?  "Grammar, French, math except for Balance Benders."

What would you like to do more of?  "Algebra.  Arithmecode puzzles. Writing stories."

Today's school plans:

Poems (each one choose one)

Music history: "The Beginnings of Opera and the Rise of Instrumental Music."  "The time had come to link up music a good deal more closely with human affairs--human characters, moods, stories, situations--and to cause music to be an expression rather than merely a design.  Music moved towards plays and stories, and the result was the 'new music': the twin forms of opera and oratorio." (John Russell, A History of Music for Young People)

Play nature card game

Algebra: continue lesson on signed numbers, using TheMathPage.com

The Sword and the Circle (Rosemary Sutcliff)

Apologia General Science:  review physical and chemical weathering, read about erosion

Exam practice (written narrations)

Return of the King (continuing into next term)

Frugal finds and fixes (and family stuff) (Now with Photos)

Recent frugal finds and fixes:

You know those fancy, fur-trimmed, ear-flapping trapper hats that seem to be popping up in the knitting magazines and everywhere else?  Dolllygirl found some on the weekend at the dollar store, for just a couple of dollars.  She picked out one in houndstooth, much just like the photo above.

Dollygirl has been making a lot of small doll clothes from scraps, and crocheting scarves for the same small dolls.

Mr. Fixit turned an unrestorable radio into a guitar amp. (Actually you can still play the radio too.)

Mama Squirrel made lentil-sausage soup from a smoked sausage and pantry stuff, and we got two meals out of it.  We've also made some of the usual stuff like bread in the bread machine, popcorn in the air popper, and chili in the slow cooker.

Dollygirl found a good sweatshirt tucked away that one of the older girls had worn.

The Apprentice showed us a free online site that teaches kids computer coding.  She and Dollygirl did some work on it this weekend while she was home.  We're also using free algebra lessons from TheMathPage.com.

Mr. Fixit scavenged a vintage kitchen table from the neighbour's curb. The top is ruined but that's okay, he wanted it for the workshop. Actually Mama Squirrel and the Apprentice were the ones who carried it across the street, after getting a phone call from Mr. Fixit who had seen it on his way past but couldn't stop to pick it up.  We portaged it around the house and left it on the patio.  By the time Mr. Fixit came back a short time later, it was covered with snow.  The Apprentice was here for the weekend and was supposed to go back to university last night, but the roads last night were so bad that she drove a few blocks, gave up and came back.  She left early this morning instead.

We went to three free lunchtime concerts this fall, and took bag lunches.

We borrowed several DVDs from the library.  And listened to the radio a lot.

If you click on the "family keep out" Christmas page, you might get a hint of how Mama Squirrel is using some squirreled-away stuff.  But my favourite found thing right now is the Dayrunner I got at a rummage sale a month ago.  I got some extra pages and stuff for it when we were out shopping, and I now feel completely organized and purposeful.  I stuck in a pocket to hold shopping lists and another one for church bulletins.

And Ponytails found a pomegranate-pink planner on the weekend, while we were grocery shopping.  There, I got everybody in.

What's up today? (Dollygirl's Grade Seven)

Tuesday's school plans, a bit mundane but we have some things to finish up in the last week before exams:

Book of Acts

Memory work

French history--short bit about the post-Charlemagne years.  Review of Charlemagne.

The Grammar of Poetry

Math:  talking about formulas (such as the area of a triangle) and how you substitute in for the variables.  (Review the formula distance = speed x time)

Shakespeare:  watch more of the Coriolanus DVD.

Folk songs.

French

The Sword and the Circle: "Sir Gawain and the Loathly Lady"

Quote for the Day: When it's Time to Run

Quote for the day:

"The only thing I can say is that if you are buying a product or following a leader because they are making you afraid not to, then run. Better to get up each morning, look at the sunrise with your children, drink hot cocoa, and read than buy that load of lies. Never buy a product because some smarty-pants kid made you feel your home was inadequate. At no time should our goal be to make our children into artifacts. There is a difference between a soul and a product."  ~~ Cindy Rollins, "Homeschooling and the Fear of Man" on Ordo Amoris

Quote for a Sunday

"There is of course a sense in which no one can give to God anything which is not already His, and if it is already His, what have you given?  But since it is only too obvious that we can withhold ourselves, our wills and hearts, from God, we can, in that sense, also give them."  ~~ C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

Engineering, yes, what every tot dreams of at Christmas

"...a few exciting, against-the-grain developments: Toys R Us’ announcement in September that it will put an end to gender-specific marketing in the UK; Lego’s recent introduction of a female-scientist mini-figure to its lineup; and a just-gone-viral video from startup toy company GoldieBlox encouraging little girls to ditch sparkly pink pretend for play based on engineering."

 Oh brave new world.

 (Found here.)

Is it Friday already? (Dollygirl's Grade Seven)

How about we run through the day's plan backwards?  Maybe we'll even do it backwards.  Except for the first thing.  Or the last thing, whichever way you look at it.

At around dinner time, Dollygirl will be leaving with friends to go to a theater in another town.  Her friend's father is a drama teacher, and he's directing a production of Macbeth.  Dollygirl and her friend helped paint and plaster scenery a couple of weeks ago, so now they're getting to go see it put to use.

Using the book Alfred the Great, Dollygirl can choose one of "Alfred's Artifacts" to draw in her Book of Centuries.  (I think she might choose this one.)

Geology Study:  Start an experiment using alum to grow crystals.

Copywork from The Bronze Bow.

Read a chapter of The Bronze Bow.

Finish the last two Balance Benders in the book.

Read another section of In Search of England.

Practice Memory Work.

Read The Book of Acts together, from chapter 19.

Sing O Canada since it's Friday.

What's for supper? Homemade stuff

Tonight's dinner menu, in which I let the kitchen slaves do most of the work:

Sausage-lentil soup (slow cooker)
Whole-wheat bread (bread machine)
Fruit
Raisin-granola bars (a new recipe I wanted to try).

Dollygirl's Thursday School Plans

Opening Time

Ourselves:  Finish "Love's Lords in Waiting: Humility."  "There are so many interesting things in the world to discuss that it is a waste of time to talk about ourselves.  All the same, it is well to be up to the ways of those tiresome selves, and that is why you are invited to read these chapters."

Copywork, from Ourselves

Alfred the Great, by Brenda Williams:  read for twenty minutes and narrate

Special online picture study:  Stormy Weather

Math:  continue lesson on TheMathPage.com, and do one Balance Bender (almost finished the book!)

(Twenty minutes of cleanup!)

Geography--we switched and read about the Grand Canyon, strata, and sedimentary rocks instead.

Exam Practice, also called Written Narrations  (That was enough!)

French

Watch more of the Coriolanus DVD.

A short Charlotte Mason thought

I've always liked that quote from For the Children's Sake, about asking yourself how, if certain famous thinkers sat in on your class (school, homeschool, Sunday School, whatever), would they be engaged or fall asleep?

So does it follow then that the job of a Charlotte Mason-style teacher is to make it interesting?

Yes, yes, yes...and no.  "I am not a Performing Bear," says Mary Poppins in Mary Poppins Opens the Door.

It's more like...let it be interesting.  Let it stay interesting.  Don't drain the interesting part out.

"This is an interesting planet.  It deserves all the attention you can give it."  ~~Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (2004)

Wednesday School Plans (Dollygirl's Grade Seven)

What are we doing in school today?

Writing...Dollygirl is writing a story for a contest, so I may let her do that instead of other writing.

Book of Acts 18:1-18  Paul meets Aquila and Priscilla, stays in Corinth for awhile, is arrested and beaten, and eventually leaves for Syria.  Who was Gallio?  Note that this is one of the few events of Paul's life that can be give a definite date.

Math

History of English Literature:  about Bede.

Folk songs.

Sigurd the Volsung.

How to Think Like a Scientist.

French.

And whatever else comes up.

Dollygirl's Grade Seven: Tuesday plans, with or without a concert

We are still trying to decide whether to go to the weekly lunchtime concert.  The program is good this week (jazz piano), but it is still a chunk out of our school day, and besides that, the weather has been bad and is getting worse.  Not as bad as the places in the U.S. that got tornadoes yesterday, but just enough to make you not want to be out much.  I think even Charlotte Mason might draw the line at horizontal sleet.

So here's the school plan without the concert, and if things line up well, then we'll go and skip something else.

Daily opening time:  hymn, prayer

Current events
Ourselves

Grammar of Poetry: Continue Lesson 10, Iambic rhythm.

Short Math Lesson:  continue the first algebra lesson on TheMathPage.com

Writing time (written narrations and sample exam questions)

The Other Math Lesson: Making Things Out of Cardboard

English History: The Reign of King Alfred (from Arnold-Forster's history). Mark relevant dates in Book of Centuries.

Music history (or go to lunchtime concert)

French: follow review schedule

Watch some more of the Coriolanus DVD

Dollygirl's Grade Seven, Term 1, Week 11 (Exams are coming!)

The schedule is probably overloaded today, but we'll just have to see what fits in.

Opening time:
Hymn, prayer

Poems in iambic form (not as hard as it sounds. Emily Dickinson wrote poems with iambic rhythm.  A Child's Garden of Verses also works).

Current events
Ourselves 

History of English Literature: How Caedmon Sang

 Math: Begin "Skill in Algebra," on TheMathPage.com

Science: Re-read How to Think Like a Scientist, by Stephen P. Kramer

French:  follow review schedule

Geography, In Search of England

Christian Studies: Book of Acts (finish chapter 18 or 19 this week)

Writing time and Exam Practice (a.k.a. written narrations)

Watch some of the Coriolanus DVD

Thrifting like a Homeschooler (and a freebie if you read closely)

We made it down to the new location of the thrift store where we volunteered for the past couple of years.  It's definitely bigger, definitely fancier.  But there are still good deals on books (yes, I miss being in the back).  I found some really good stuff on the children's shelves, and it made me think (yes, yet again) about the great books that have been published, that are still out there, and that get bypassed or given away.  I don't mean The Great Books, necessarily, just things with lots of educational potential.

Christmas with Maud Lewis, by Lance Woolaver. A perfect Canadian picture-study topic for December!

How about a book of just science questions, no answers? (The Flying Circus of Physics, by Jearl Walker, 1975.)  Why do Rice Krispies snap, crackle and pop? Why, if you pour water into a coiled hose, won't it come out the other end?  If some of the sand in an hourglass is in free fall, won't the weight of the hourglass be less?  Yep, those kinds of questions. (There are some pointers towards further reading and answers in the bibliography.)

"Well you can just rock me to sleep, tonight!"  ~~ Berke Breathed, Bloom County comic strip (Binkley's response to the problem of whether Adam and Eve had navels)

Word Works: Why the Alphabet is a Kid's Best Friend, by Cathryn Berger Kaye.  One of the original Brown Paper School Books.  "This book is about words--why we have them, why we need them, how we use them."  There are sections on poems, on writing stories and plays and letters to the editor, and bits and pieces of language lore like slang and word origins.

The Meaning of Music: The Young Listener's Guide, by Jean Seligmann and Juliet Danziger.  (You can download this for free on archive.org.)

The Puffin Do It Yourself Book.  I'm thinking of a cousin, my age, who used to spend a fair amount of time at our house; and I'm thinking of how much trouble we could have gotten into with this book.  Not that we needed the book to get into trouble, we did enough of that on our own, but it certainly would have given us extra inspiration for "are you sure your mother won't get mad?"  Actually, now that I think of it, we could have written this book  Build a burglar alarm!  Grow mushrooms!  Scoop things out of the pond!  Make mud bricks!  Put squishy things in bowls and play "haunted house!"  Put things on your shoes and tap dance!  Most of the activities are, if you follow the directions, harmless if often slightly messy. (That's where my cousin and I usually went wrong.) There are one or two somewhat surprising pages, such as how to restore an old bike, and what to do when your dog or cat gives birth; and a few skippable suggestions (like putting a ketchup-smeared finger through a hole in a matchbox, a la Van Gogh), so don't say I didn't warn you.

What's for supper? Something we do with tortillas

Tonight's menu:

Skillet dinner made with ground pork (browned first with onion), cut up tortillas (doesn't matter if they're a bit dry), salsa, cheese, chili powder, cumin, and a bit of milk.  Layer in skillet and cook until tortillas are soft and everything is hot.  Cut in wedges to serve.

Corn.  Green pepper strips.

Blueberry-cranberry crisp and vanilla yogurt.