Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Recent Reads- November



Very inspiring and a great look at unschooling. However, I'm not planning on doing radical unschooling. I still plan some lessons and projects and regulate what the kids eat and the amount of screen time they have. I do enforce house rules and have a daily schedule. There is a lot of flexibility in the subject matter and learning approach.


I like some aspects of Montessori. We will continue with child led learning and having the kids help out with daily household tasks. I would like the kids to come up with their own way of using certain materials instead of demonstrating everything before hand. We are not able to afford all of the Montessori school supplies so sometimes we will need to make our own. 


Too many ideas to skim through at once! One that we added to our week is to write every Wednesday. It could be a list, a letter to someone or chess notations. Recently the boys wrote letters to Santa, to their cousin and grandparents. 


Sometimes I just gotta chill. This reaffirms that parenting doesn't have to be planning and doing every single minute of every single day. Sometimes you just have to be present.

Digital Frame



We are loving the digital frame for homeschooling. Thanks Grandpa! Every month we change the pictures and each morning we play them during breakfast. It opens new avenues of conversation, interesting questions, and inspiration towards starting new projects. This way we can save trees instead of printing out so many pictures for the country and artist of the month. Our photo frame this month contains pictures of Belarus, Rene Magritte paintings, pink dolphins, venus flytraps, angora rabbits, pandas, bottlenose dolphins, ninja and nunchuks.

Snack Mix


One of our favorite snacks is to make a mix of stuff. Here are some things we put in it.

- roasted pumpkin seeds
- raisins
- dried cranberries
- roasted almonds
- sunflower seeds
- walnuts
- graham or chocolate graham bears
- chocolate covered quinoa
- yogurt covered raisins
- kashi crunch cereal
- cinnamon harvest or shredded wheat cereal
- goldfish crackers
- dried tart cherries
- macadamia nuts
- pretzels
- banana chips
- dried coconut
- mini m&ms or chocolate chips
- cherrios

Everything in moderation right?



Friday, November 29, 2013

Weekly Baking Projects- Sage Mini Muffins and Chocolate Cherry Nut Cake



Fresh Sage Grown From Seeds and Picked by Dagan





Sage Mini Muffins and Mini Loaf Using Dried and Fresh Sage



Baking with Israa at Her House



We turned an apple cake recipe (found on the flour bag since we had no recipes or internet access) into a chocolate cherry nut cake. Dried sour cherries from Gourmet Warehouse were sitting in my cupboard just begging to be used. Israa had a mix of different nuts, seeds and dried fruit. The boys threw in handfuls of chocolate chips. This cake turned out moist, yummy and healthy.

Dinner's Ready- Manicotti






We are starting to have a family cooking night once a week. The boys are really picky about food and like most kids they prefer to eat kid food- plain pasta, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, chicken nuggets, grilled cheese, crackers and salami. On the weekend we borrowed Emeril's cook book for kids. The boys picked out the recipe for stuffed shells. Since we could not find pasta shells at the grocery stores, we bought manicotti shells instead. After all their hard work making dinner, they both agreed that it tasted great.

Artist of the Month: Georgia O'Keefe and Current Art Works



Paintings By Georgia O'Keefe



Pom Pom and Eyeball Glue Project


Modeling Clay Temple of Light and Mech


Ninja Drawings by Sage


Pink Dolphins in Lava by Sage

This month we studied Georgia O'Keefe. We loaded images of many of her paintings onto our new digital frame (courtesy of grandpa). We also saw pictures of her taken during different periods of her life. In addition to her popular flowers, we also saw skulls both human and animal, shells, leaves and landscapes. We learned that she took art classes when she was young and decided she wanted to be an artist at age 12. She taught art before becoming a full time artist. Though the boys showed little interest in drawing flowers and landscapes, they did come up with their own art projects.








Fall Leaves








Fall Craft Projects






Apple Shrunken Heads


Jingle Bells



Wizard's Reticule


Little Potato That Grew From a Planted Sprouted Potato Piece


Our Christmas Tree



 Jonah and the Whale Cup Game For Yom Kippur