How's that for some random topics thrown together? It's all about what we're up to and what I'm thinking about. Things have seemed overwhelming around here lately, but I'm starting to get into the fall groove and find those little pockets of rest that keep me going. Actually, our life is pretty tame compared to others but I think my busy-ness tolerance level is fairly lightweight. I don't like to do much running around. We keep our kids limited to one activity a season or year. I try to limit my driving around in general. Still, we've ended up in two homeschooling co-ops this year, Elijah started karate, and Rose is in a very nice girls choir called Choristers that is sponsored by St. Cloud State University just blocks from our house.
One of our homeschooling co-ops is more focused on fun and field trips. That group of families meets on Monday afternoons. This week we met at our new library (got to take a photo and post it--it's gorgeous, though I don't understand why a "green" building doesn't have a single window that opens--what if there's no fossil fuel energy at all someday?). Our next meeting will be a field trip to a local apple orchard. I'm making the plans for our five or six families to have a really nice tour of the orchard, the apple cooler, etc. We moms are all taking a month and doing the field trip planning for that month so it doesn't end up on one or two people. The kids all voted on what field trips they want to do. In October we are going to see the play Peter Pan at our local community theatre.
Our Wednesday co-op is mainly focused on art and science. We meet at the Greek Orthodox Church just blocks from our house (I really do try to stick to activities we can walk or bike to, same goes for the doctor, dentist, and as many things as I can--it helps that we live in the center of our small city). Yesterday both kids participated in art class. Rose is with the littler kids and they did "cave art" drawing and painting on paper bags using traditional cave art symbols. Elijah is with the bigger kids doing a really nice drawing class taught by a local artist. They meet for an hour and a half and the kids were so into it you could've heard a pin drop in the room. She's using a curriculum that teaches techniques to use the right side of the brain.
It reminds me of the drawing class I took at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C. when I was there for a semester studying through the Washington Theological Consortium. We used the text Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. I found out I could draw in that class, though to this day I don't do it much because it really taxes my brain to go all right-brained and all (even though I'm left handed). I highly recommend that book and method, by the way. I know Eli will learn a lot in this class, to supplement his real talent for drawing. Hopefully I can share with you some of his work, though I'll have to sneak it in. My kids are so tired of me taking pictures for the blog!
Oh, and in the afternoons at this co-op the kids divide up by age group to do science classes. The real funny thing here is that I'm teaching science to four 6th grade boys, including my son. I think it's a joke that I, English and Theology major, ended up teaching science! However, my herbalist training is helping me quite a lot. For the first twelve weeks we're doing Intro. to Biology and since it's a beautiful time to be outdoors we're really focusing on the naturalist thing and taking lots of walks during our two-hour class. I've got one kid, Jonah, who is so into the trees and plants that I said I'd love to take him on as an apprentice herbalist in a few years. Apprenticing is big in homeschool circles so I'll have to make the same offer to his mother and see what she thinks.
Rose is doing science with the other fourth graders and they are learning about electricity and magnetism and how things work, and later they'll do astronomy. They have a full year ahead. As does my 6th grade class, with the second twelve weeks focused on chemistry and during the third section of our year we'll do physics. We'll have a lot of experiments and fun things to try, and hopefully I won't get freaked out too much trying to understand this stuff myself. Help!
Today is bread baking day, part of my quest for independence and clean food free of chemicals. Even the local grocery's bakery buns and bread are loaded with hydrogenated soybean oil, high fructose corn syrup, and other crap. I used to think bakery food was fresh, made from scratch and free of preservatives and junk, but that ended when George spent a few years baking at a local bakery and taking a break from teaching (1998-2001). They used mixes for the cakes, cookies, even some breads. It was gross. Now I read labels religiously and rarely find "clean" food even at bakeries.
Today is the first time I've made buns, so we can have barbecued chicken sandwiches tonight without using bakery buns. They look like they turned out great! We'll find out at dinner time. Due to my Thursday bread-baking routine, I've decided that on Wednesday nights we'll always have potatoes for dinner. That way I can use the potato water to mix up my bread sponge (my bread recipe post here) on Wednesday evening, let it sit all night to mix up in the morning, and we get all the added nutrition of that water into the bread. I remember reading a Depression-era cookbook where they said to always save your potato water and use it in bread or soups because it is so nutritious. Plus, I think the starch feeds the yeast nicely for a better rise.
Lastly, on Ike. Have you seen much media coverage? There are rumors that there are possibly 20,000 people dead on Galveston Island since like 60% of the people didn't evacuate and now the island is in ruins. Where are those people now? Will we ever find out? It seems that there's kind of a media blackout of this due to conditions being dangerous. I believe conditions are dangerous (why in he** do we build biolabs containing dangerous viruses on barrier islands??!!!), but why aren't we finding much out here? I think it has to do with it being an election year, but boy I hope I'm wrong and that things aren't as bad as I fear.
On a positive note, my cousin and his wife and daughter who live between Galveston and Houston are back in their home. With power, without much damage except to their fence, and with lots of neighbors and friends to feed and house for now. Jessica's blog is here if you want to see some photos...
One of our homeschooling co-ops is more focused on fun and field trips. That group of families meets on Monday afternoons. This week we met at our new library (got to take a photo and post it--it's gorgeous, though I don't understand why a "green" building doesn't have a single window that opens--what if there's no fossil fuel energy at all someday?). Our next meeting will be a field trip to a local apple orchard. I'm making the plans for our five or six families to have a really nice tour of the orchard, the apple cooler, etc. We moms are all taking a month and doing the field trip planning for that month so it doesn't end up on one or two people. The kids all voted on what field trips they want to do. In October we are going to see the play Peter Pan at our local community theatre.
Our Wednesday co-op is mainly focused on art and science. We meet at the Greek Orthodox Church just blocks from our house (I really do try to stick to activities we can walk or bike to, same goes for the doctor, dentist, and as many things as I can--it helps that we live in the center of our small city). Yesterday both kids participated in art class. Rose is with the littler kids and they did "cave art" drawing and painting on paper bags using traditional cave art symbols. Elijah is with the bigger kids doing a really nice drawing class taught by a local artist. They meet for an hour and a half and the kids were so into it you could've heard a pin drop in the room. She's using a curriculum that teaches techniques to use the right side of the brain.
It reminds me of the drawing class I took at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C. when I was there for a semester studying through the Washington Theological Consortium. We used the text Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. I found out I could draw in that class, though to this day I don't do it much because it really taxes my brain to go all right-brained and all (even though I'm left handed). I highly recommend that book and method, by the way. I know Eli will learn a lot in this class, to supplement his real talent for drawing. Hopefully I can share with you some of his work, though I'll have to sneak it in. My kids are so tired of me taking pictures for the blog!
Oh, and in the afternoons at this co-op the kids divide up by age group to do science classes. The real funny thing here is that I'm teaching science to four 6th grade boys, including my son. I think it's a joke that I, English and Theology major, ended up teaching science! However, my herbalist training is helping me quite a lot. For the first twelve weeks we're doing Intro. to Biology and since it's a beautiful time to be outdoors we're really focusing on the naturalist thing and taking lots of walks during our two-hour class. I've got one kid, Jonah, who is so into the trees and plants that I said I'd love to take him on as an apprentice herbalist in a few years. Apprenticing is big in homeschool circles so I'll have to make the same offer to his mother and see what she thinks.
Rose is doing science with the other fourth graders and they are learning about electricity and magnetism and how things work, and later they'll do astronomy. They have a full year ahead. As does my 6th grade class, with the second twelve weeks focused on chemistry and during the third section of our year we'll do physics. We'll have a lot of experiments and fun things to try, and hopefully I won't get freaked out too much trying to understand this stuff myself. Help!
Today is bread baking day, part of my quest for independence and clean food free of chemicals. Even the local grocery's bakery buns and bread are loaded with hydrogenated soybean oil, high fructose corn syrup, and other crap. I used to think bakery food was fresh, made from scratch and free of preservatives and junk, but that ended when George spent a few years baking at a local bakery and taking a break from teaching (1998-2001). They used mixes for the cakes, cookies, even some breads. It was gross. Now I read labels religiously and rarely find "clean" food even at bakeries.
Today is the first time I've made buns, so we can have barbecued chicken sandwiches tonight without using bakery buns. They look like they turned out great! We'll find out at dinner time. Due to my Thursday bread-baking routine, I've decided that on Wednesday nights we'll always have potatoes for dinner. That way I can use the potato water to mix up my bread sponge (my bread recipe post here) on Wednesday evening, let it sit all night to mix up in the morning, and we get all the added nutrition of that water into the bread. I remember reading a Depression-era cookbook where they said to always save your potato water and use it in bread or soups because it is so nutritious. Plus, I think the starch feeds the yeast nicely for a better rise.
Lastly, on Ike. Have you seen much media coverage? There are rumors that there are possibly 20,000 people dead on Galveston Island since like 60% of the people didn't evacuate and now the island is in ruins. Where are those people now? Will we ever find out? It seems that there's kind of a media blackout of this due to conditions being dangerous. I believe conditions are dangerous (why in he** do we build biolabs containing dangerous viruses on barrier islands??!!!), but why aren't we finding much out here? I think it has to do with it being an election year, but boy I hope I'm wrong and that things aren't as bad as I fear.
On a positive note, my cousin and his wife and daughter who live between Galveston and Houston are back in their home. With power, without much damage except to their fence, and with lots of neighbors and friends to feed and house for now. Jessica's blog is here if you want to see some photos...
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