Easy Art Project

Here are some fun art ideas for you from a friend of mine that has taught art. Here is one she sent me. Easy First Day Art Project. For boys you could have them draw Medieval shields instead of the flowers. What a neat idea!

We start school this coming week, I am excited, nervous, thrilled and not fully prepared yet...lol. We are in the process of finishing up 4-H records and getting the club scrapbook put together. So lots of stuff to do this Labor Day weekend.

Have a good one!

Hear ye, Hear ye: 20 Questions & The Homeschool Planning Meeting.

Summer has flown by and we are almost ready for a brand new school year. Tomorrow will be our annual Homeschool Planning Meeting. We have some pretty neat stuff to plan for. The Homeschooled Young Man has some thinking to do, we ask that he bring his ideas to the table in writing (by doing this he gets to practice real life skills in handwriting, spelling, critical thinking, organization, time management, goal setting skills). Things that I have on the agenda...of course they won't be hammered out in stone because it's just July and we don't follow the public school schedule, so we are good. But I like to get something penciled in, so I can be on the prowl for good deals on our homeschooling materials.

1. What will be our core courses?

2. What will we use for those core courses?

3. What extras will we add in to round it all out?

4. What will be done as full year courses and what will be done as semester courses?

5. Field trip ideas?

6. Will we attend homeschool convention next year?

7. What life/social skills will we work on this year?

8. What volunteering will we be involved in?

9. What career training/skills/shadowing will he be involved in?

10. Will he be a part of TeenPact.org again this year?

11. What classes outside the home will he take?

12. What are some things that he would like to learn?

13. What sort of employment will he take part in?

14. What 4-H projects will work together with our schooling this year? (the 4-H Health Sciences can be used for Health class, the Cooking 101 project can be used for Home Ec credit etc. Homeschoolers are always thinking outside the box with real life skills.

15. What scholarships will he be applying for?

16. Will there be standardized testing this year? Stanford 10? SAT? ACT? ASVAB?

17. What colleges will we visit?

18. What materials do we have on hand that we can use instead of buying more stuff.

19. What church related activities will we take part in?

20. What worked and did not work last school year?

I am sure that more will come up as we chat around the kitchen table. However, this is what homeschooling is all about. Yes, some homeschoolers have a set of state standards that they must abide by, but there is so much more to homeschooling that those standards. We as homeschoolers can focus on so much more right alongside schoolwork. So many more rich life changing experiences that we can afford our children.

Back To College For Me (part 2)

In my last blog post I said we would revisit "How to survive gluten free when you are away from home and there is a slight glitch in the food planning." So here we go...

When you have to be gluten free for medical reasons you just can't cheat. After sending in all my forms for the Academy that we were attending, I thought that food would not be an issue. So I just brought a few snacks with me for the 4 day adventure that we were embarking upon. But there was a glitch.

 

Day 1. My cooler was packed with some string cheese and deli meat just in case (can you tell I have traveled a bit in my day? But when I opened it up the night of Day 1, the ice packs were warm and so was the food. It had been in there about 12 hours and I had to toss out the food. So I had about 1/3 of a can of Pik*Nik original shoestring potatoes, a jar of peanut butter and 3 of the new Aldi Foods Live Gfree gluten free bars on my person. Not enough to live on for four days.

I head to dinner...it was a catered in picnic, I had a plain salad and HUGE baked potato. YUM! that I parked my car 5 miles away from our dorm on campus and one of the Headquarters staff members graciously took me in her own car in the pouring rain to the grocery store. A store that I was not familiar with and I rushed through and grabbed some lunchmeat and canned fruit, we had things to do that night and we needed to get back to the dorms. What I did not notice was that the lunchmeat package (though it seemed large) contained two servings of meat; the slices were thin but folded over in the package to make it look larger. So note to self, look at number of servings on package!

Day 2. Found hard boiled eggs and some fruit on the buffet that was away from anything containing gluten. Got in the lunch line early and got to the salad bar before it got too messy. Grabbed some veggies, black olives, and a slice of deli meat from my stash. Dinner grabbed a slice of deli meat from my stash. The Chef did tell me that everything was gluten free including some sort of a pasta dish with shrimp in it that night. The pasta looked too good to be true to be GF and he turned out to be wrong when I asked another worker, thankfully I did not eat any. Skipped dinner, but later in the night at the bowling alley I was able to buy a water and PayDay candy bar (It was the highest protein candy bar I could find).

Day 3. Chef tells me that the sausage links (but not the sausage patties, weird I know, why add gluten to sausage, they were Vegan so maybe that is why?) are GF...YIPPEE!! Boy hot food never tasted so good. I think it was Cheri that told me they had Udi's bagels up on the bread bar, they did, (no gluten free toaster for those with Celiac Disease...remember that 1/65th of a teaspon of gluten is enough to cause our small intestinal villi to die off, so skip the regular toaster.). I've never eaten an Udi's bagel before since they cost around $7.00+ for 4 bagels. That morning I had part of a cinnamon raisin one, I wrapped the other half in a napkin to take with me to put peanut butter on later for lunch. Felt like I was stealing until one of the other chaperones pointed out a sign that said "Take a snack for later." But sadly, the bagel did not hold up for lunch, it was hard as a rock and crumbled (yeah, gluten free is not like the real stuff).

We were having Papa Johns for lunch, but thought I better skip that not knowing about the lunch meat being GF or not and if they had changed gloves. So I thought I would pop into the dorm dinning room to see what was for lunch. I talked with the Chef and he tells me that I can have anything on the main buffet except the hotdog buns. YES! Hot fresh food...remember that sheer irony I mentioned in the previous blog post? The sheer irony of the gluten free green beans, mashed potatoes and turkey breast meal that was on the lunch buffet, the one day that was not included in my meal plan card...LOL. I have witnesses that can testify to my saying the night before this meal appeared on the buffet "I want something hot like green beans, mashed potatoes and turkey." Poof there it was! I'm thinking the Lord was trying to teach me grace and humility through all this.

Headquarters staff went above and beyond to get me fed, again one of them took me to the grocery store earlier in the day, I got more lunchmeat and more canned fruit. That night was the big banquet and awards night, they brought me Chipotle's rice and braised carnitas and it was so good!

Day 4. I had bacon and fruit.

So all in all I survived, thought I might have lost some weight, but some how I stayed the same, even with all the walking we did and water I drank. Yes, I could have cheated, gotten very ill...did I mention all that walking...lol...don't want to get ill from gluten when there are no restrooms nearby!!!

A few parting thoughts:

There is nothing more freaky than not having access to food you can eat, I know of all the things to have to worry about in the world, but it can freak you out!

Things might appear safe to eat, but are they? Scrambled eggs were offered pretty much every day, but I was told that they were not GF. So always ask, institutional food is not made the same way we cook at home; it's made to withstand heat and to not dry out on buffet lines. Think about times you have gotten sick eating scrambled eggs at IHOP or other chains, many add pancake batter to make fluffy omlets.

Even when you think all will be well with your trip, camp or other outing, always bring some foods that you can eat, because no matter how well things are planned out, glitches will occur. Glad I got to live through the glitches with a great group of people!

Moe

Back To College For Me (part 1)

We have had some very busy days this summer. We drove over 3,000 miles, visited my Mother in the hospital, packed up all her personal belongings, sold her house and car, spent a day at the Gulf of Mexico, went to the Creation Museum, found some great hotels in the process, attended an academy for 4 days and (taking a big relaxing breath since we are almost done with all our running) spent 2 days at the medical school working on Problem Based Learning. In a later post, I will have some pictures to share.

The Homeschooled Young Man learned a lot at his Molecular & Cellular Biology Academy that was held at a major university and had an AWESOME time. I might add that I had an awesome time too! I got to chaperone a fun group of girls and had a great time with some of the other chaperones on my dorm room floor (and from other floors too). The Young Man met a girl that wants to be a Physicians Assistant, always cool to chat with another teen that has a passion for real life things and not just for playing video games or watching the latest movie.

One of the chaperones on my floor Cheri, homeschools and we were up late chatting about health, kids and of course, a topic that is always close to my heart HOMESCHOOLING! Pretty cool to hear about how others educate their children, each has a different approach, but our hearts are in the same place: creating a learning environment for our children to thrive in, teaching a love of learning for a lifetime and guiding our children to attaining their goals and dreams.

Toss Kruti into the mix (another chaperon on my dorm room floor) and we had it made in the shade! (though we did sweat a lot!!!) The three of us meshed, laughed, chatted until the wee hours of the morning. Then woke a few short hours later to tackle the day and lead our charges. I think the only thing missing was a nice pot of hot tea! Next year girls.

What chaperones look like when they sleep 15 hours over the course of 4 days lol. After the month I had just lived through these two ladies were like a drink of cool water in a dry and weary land. I thank them both for that. My soul has been refreshed and I am ready to tackle life again.

On a side note Kruti lives about 15 minutes from where I grew up and she knows the Mom of a girl (Lana Banana) I went to grade school and middle school with. Pretty neat.

Met some other chaperones along the way that we spent evenings visiting with while the teens enjoyed their playtime (bowling, billiards, giggling, dancing, did I mention giggling? LOL)

I so enjoyed meeting the chaperones that had graduated from the university, I liked hearing about what it was like back in the day and how things had changed, such as less grassy areas, new buildings, a sorority house no longer on campus etc.) I also enjoyed hearing about what their teens were interested in and their goals in life and what they were doing to achieve them.

Kruti and I had a chance meeting (you know me, nothing is by chance it was providential) with a young man that we found out lives near me. He has friends that attend the medical school program with the Homeschooled Young Man. Please pray for the teen we will call him C, he has some dreams and desires for the future, but needs some good guidance to get there. Several chaperones had to walk I would say about a mile with C (Kruti & I hung back with C) and just about the time we got to our destination, I asked him something like "So what did you think of being stuck with these two moms on the walk over?" C says "Well at first I was thinking, gee I'm stuck walking with these 2 Moms, but now after spending time with you both I am glad I did, I learned a lot." What a blessing to hear a teenager that is going into his senior year of high school say this. Remember the saying "People don't care what you know, until they know you care!" I said goodbye to this young man on the last day, shook his hand and told him "I expect to hear great things about you in the future."
 

Another blessing of the academy was seeing some kids that were loners, who liked to listen to Ipod, watch sports on TV or read by themselves brought out into the fun by some other teens who took the time to approach them, spend time with them and help them to enjoy themselves. Remember the saying "People don't care what you know, until they know you care!" I'm thinking that this blog post might have an underlying theme to it. To see these teens laughing, smiling, and having a new spring in their step was awesome to watch.

Here is my top 10 list for the academy...

1) Late night gatherings in the lounge (why do we always get a second wind when we put the children to bed?) LOL

2) Texting to Kruti but accidentally sending it to the case manager of the hospital that my Mom is in...lol. And the case manager sending back a text answering what I texted for Kruti...lol. Texting my husband saying "2am bathroom break, missing you and I love you, can't wait to be home with you!" and sending it to my Pastor by accident, who replied that even though it was 2am he was happy to see that my husband and I were still in love! Note to self  DO NOT TEXT late at night when you are tired, because bad things can happen. My SIM card is all goofed up.

3) Meeting "The Other Guy" one of the chaperones that I nicknamed when we were playing board games with the teens, he had stepped out for a minute while I was writing names down on the score sheet and I did not know his name. He was homeschooled all the way through high school and talked to me about his life growing up and his college experience (if I remember right electrical and/or mechanical engineering). I am refreshed and ready to jump into the coming school year full force because of "The Other Guy." I got a free homeschool convention to boot (I think Kruti did too).

4) The topic of raising poultry came up at the academy and here is a picture showing the difference in a meat bird and a laying hen.

One of our meat birds (fryer) we call them Frankenstein Chickens

Our laying hens resting up in the pine trees.

  5) Getting rides in the mini busses that they called "Turtles", my tired brain found that funny. One of the teens had on a backpack that was a green turtle shell (she wore it for several days) and I would picture that backpack every time someone would mention the "Turtles". LOL

 

6) The sheer irony of the gluten free green beans, mashed potatoes and turkey breast meal that was on the lunch buffet, the one day that was not included in my meal plan card...LOL. I have witnesses that can testify to my saying the night before this meal appeared on the buffet "I want something hot like green beans, mashed potatoes and turkey." Poof there it was! I'm thinking the Lord was trying to teach me grace and humility through all this. Headquarters staff went above and beyond to get me fed. I got Chipotle's rice and braised carnitas that day. More in a later blog post about how to survive gluten free when you are away from home and there is a slight glitch in the food planning.

7) Seeing the teens work together (delegates, planning committee and others) to make things happen.

8) The Awards Night was really neat for the Homeschooled Young Man because he had just this week finished reading the book Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations by Alex and Brett Harris. I think that this book should be required reading for all 13-17 year olds.

What it's all about! Thank you 4-H!!!

9) For the chaperones that are interested here is the blog post on favorite gluten free recipes. There are other recipes on my site, but these are my top ones that I rotate through on a monthly basis.
Adoptive Mom Homeschooling An Only Child: My Favorite Gluten Free Recipes from 2012:

10) My favorite gluten free brands Better Batter (expensive but makes WONDERFUL breads & dinner rolls that freeze well), Hodgson Mill, Schar, Bob's Red Mill and Bisquick Gluten Free.

Moe
(hope this all made sense, going to bed now  ;-)

Surgery tomorrow..............

Well, friends I'm signing off here for awhile. I have to be at the hospital tomorrow morning for my surgery. After years of being misdiagnosed with stomach issues, doctors had always told me it was nerves, depression or stress causing my stomach issues......well they were wrong. So now I have to have part or all of my colon removed. They will decided once they get in there and get a better look at things.

The one nice thing out of all this was when I had a doctor that saw my CT scan tell me that he was very sorry that I had suffered for so many years. I told him "Oh, so it's not really all in my head?" And he told me that he could see from the CT scan that it was definitely not all in my head. Another specialist had a good laugh when I told him that I was told I was depressed and that was causing my stomach issues. He said with much sarcasm in his voice "Well having chronic diarrhea many times a day for years might make a person a touch depressed." lol. The doctors also apologized for me being one of those "medical mishaps" as they call it. Where someone slips through the system and is not treated correctly. Glad there is a name for this.......lol. As our Pastor always says "Doctors practice medicine." It's all just practice........EEEKKK!!!

Fear not if things don't go well and I end up in Glory. I know that Jesus has gone before me to prepare a place for me, John chapter 14 verse 3. The book of 2 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 6 says "Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord:" 1 Corinthians chapter 15 verse 55 says "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" Do you have this same view of your own future death? Or do you fear death? Having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ can remove this fear. To find out more ask me or go to NeedHim.org or call 1-888-NEED-HIM.

Love ya all,
Moe
p.s. I'm not even worried about our homeschool. We have gotten all the 4-H books out and plan to have our son read over those, sketch out his projects for the year and stuff like that. Lots of reading, cooking and enjoying time with his 80+ year old Grandpa. He plans to set up a tent in Granpa's dining room and camping out for the week.

Laying down on the job!

Our girls are really laying down on the job! They have not laid well in weeks. Most of our girls are molting and looking pretty shabby......LOL.....Is that where the scrapbooking and rubber stamping industry came up with the term Shabby Chic?

If you don't know what molting means, it's when a chicken's feathers fall out and new pretty fluffy ones come in, it must be stressful on the body since they don't lay many eggs when they molt.
I found these 3 chicks resting high up in the pine trees, they were safe from our beautiful red foxes that like to hang out around our place.

We actually had to buy store bought eggs last week, we got the jumbo ones from Meijers and they were the size of our normal sized eggs that our hens lay. The price of feed has really increased so these girls had better be getting back to work in the hen house to earn their keep!

A little chicken humor for you. LOL

Moe

Exciting News for 2013!!!

I am really excited to announce that I have been chosen to be part of the Review Crew of The Old Schoolhouse Magazine. The Old Schoolhouse Magazine was first introduced to me by my friend Lori, she began home educating way back before homeschooling was fashionable.  lol. She has 1 college graduated daughter, 1 daughter in college and 1 senior in high school left. Lori has been a wealth of knowledge over the years and I'm so glad that she introduced me to The Old Schoolhouse Magazine.  The magazine is REAL, with REAL people and not full of just happy homeschooling articles. They share the good, the bad and the ugly of home education. You will read the magazine and come away with ideas, hope and blessings. Not a feeling of failure or envy of what others are accomplishing.

I'm thinking that January will be the first month of reviews. I am pretty excited!

Our 2013 is starting to take shape on our calendar. We have some fun 4-H activities coming up like our Christmas party, cupcake decorating and a sewing class. I know I have a boy, but every boy/man gets holes in his clothes and needs to learn to sew.  I'll being hanging out in the class too, maybe I can pick up a few tips. I'm also teaching some gluten free cooking classes at a local college. 2013 will be here before we know it! What do you have planned for the new year?

Moe

LEGOS, LEGOS, LEGOS!!!

Can any child have TOO many Legos? Well with having an only child, I'm thinking that we have too many here! lol.
This week was the 'cleaning of the Legos' here. They were all dusty and really needed cleaned up. Our son likes to keep his Lego creations out on display, well guess what? Dust loves Legos and we have dust mite allergies around here.

So into the bathtub went the Legos.

 Now they are all drying, this is just one small batch......LOL.

Through all this we learned about buoyancy and how things float or sink. We learned just how much dust can accumulate and how dust ends up acting like mud in water.

There are some great learning opportunities for our only children that we homeschool, in regards to Lego products. There are Lego 4-H groups, Lego Robotics 4-H groups, Lego Library Clubs,  and so much more!  There are also some cute builds to make over at Lego.com. Join the mailing list and they will send you a monthly item to build: make sure you print out the instructions when you get them, since the build will become locked after that month and you can't print it out after that. And of course there is the field trip of a life time LegoLand!!!  We have been to one of the LegoLands and had a lot of fun.

How have you incorporated Legos in to your homeschooling? One thing that we have done is purchase one of the Lego Sticker books such as Lego Minifigure Ultimate Sticker Collection.

We then take a notebook and our son puts stickers on the notebook paper and then writes a Lego story about the Mini-figures. It's been a lot of fun for us. And it helps with spelling, handwriting, creative writing and grammar  :O)       All in an easy fun format, it does not even feel like school. Yes, hahaha, it's that sneaky homeschool learning that our kids get in and don't even know it. Sometimes I will just have him grab the notebook and put a few stickers in and take off in the car on a busy day. I don't grade for penmanship on the days he is writing in the car though, as it's hard to write neatly in a moving car. Sometimes the stories conclude that day and other times the stories continue on. Why not write out a Lego lesson plan today! Surprise your child with some Lego fun.

  

Now for the million dollar question, how do yo organize all your child's Legos? We have been just dumping them into Rough Tote containers. But we are looking for something new and different. Our son wants those Lego drawers, but I refuse to pay $40 for them!

I can't wait to hear from you and get some organizing ideas.

Have a great week!

Moe



Where has Summer gone?

Well, here we are almost to July and I can't figure out where Summer has gone. We are getting ready to send Grandma back home after her long stay, she was suppose to be here about a month, but then decided that she needed to stay until her grandson's birthday (she got here April 11), so we are sending her off the day after.

Where have we been? Well we spent an incredible week at a Joni & Friends camp with our son's birthfamily, spent 4 days visiting with some friends out of state, attended my 30 year junior high class reunion, spent a few days in Chicago visiting friends, went to 6 Flags Great America, placed in the
4-H food show and 4-H food demonstration contest and took our son to a few days of technology day camp. To say that I am ready to fall to the ground, would be an understatement.......lol. But we are having fun.

Our son met a little girl at the Joni & Friends camp, so they plan on writing to each other. She lives in another state so the pen pal thing should be fun. I need to get our pictures developed so he can send them to her, but silly me, I used a disposable camera instead of my digital, so I have to mail these off to get them developed. Pray for this little girl and her family, they are being raised by grandparents and two of her siblings have special needs. Her brother is in a wheelchair with Cerebral Palsy and her sister has a seizure disorder. So life is not easy for this family, but they are relying on the Lord.

Had a few tough things to deal with like EATING! lol......everything at the Joni & Friends camp revolved around FOOD! I got terribly sick 2 nights because they were popping corn, and for those who don't know, I'm allergic to corn and that includes popcorn!! lol. The hardest part of all this traveling was getting food that I could eat. I did eat at Chipotle Mexican Grill twice and did fine. I just had the rice and chicken. All gluten free, dairy free and corn free. Just had to make sure that they change gloves before making my food since they do serve corn tortillas. Most of our hotels had kitchenettes in them and I was able to do some cooking while at our friends home. I even brought along one of our farm fresh chickens to eat and a few dozen farm fresh brown eggs. YUM!

In getting back to life in the real world, my home is totally trashed! LOL. To say the least, we have been dropping and running, so next week we will be getting things back in order and up and running. I came across this great website and wanted to share it with you. Homemaking: The List of Must dos.
It was a real eye opener to me. I know, I only have 1 child, but laundry does still pile up and I still have tons of dishes to do from cooking from scratch each day. Take a look at the link and tell me what you think.

Have a great rest of the summer and plan NOW for your upcoming school year. Relax outside while the kids play and have your planner book out and jot down some ideas, ask the kids what they would like to accomplish this school year and go from there. It's not too late to hit a convention, just Google and find one near you.

Moe

I said I would NEVER do it again, but I did it again.......

We got 10 new baby chicks today! They are sooooo cute! I know I said I would NEVER get more chickens, but we were at the farm supply store the other day and I ordered some. They told me it would be Friday before they would ship. Well guess what? I had to take hubby to the dentist this morning and they called, so I drove over to the feed store and picked them up. Tried to hide them in the backseat, but hubby noticed the little cheeping....lol. He was numb on both sides of his mouth, so he was not into talking much and she just said HHHMMMM, with some sarcasm in his murmur.....lol. Meaning "This is your project and I am not helping you with them this time."

These will be ready for the freezer in 6 weeks. So we are not naming these little cuties

so hear me now........

I AM NOT GOING TO GET ATTACHED TO
THESE LITTLE SWEETHEARTS!!  Look closely at the picture above, especially at the beak, you can see the 'egg tooth'. That is pretty cool, because they normally fall of pretty quickly. It's on the top of the beak and it's a very special tooth that God gave chicks. It's the tooth that they use to peck out of the shell to be born. It looks like a little piece of dark yellow with a bump on it. It will fall off very soon. I'm off to check on my new brood.

Have a great day!

Moe