11/11/11

Oh, happy 11/11/11!

Ordering with buying clubs

What do you know, here's a little something crunchy for a change.

I am involved in four buying clubs. This may be dropping down to three soon because well, just because . . . something has to go.

The one I've been with for the longest is Azure Standard. A group of friends and I order from them once a month. This is where I buy a lot of organic grocery type items (ie: peanut butter, ketchup, pasta, snacks, 50 pound bags of rolled oats and wheat berries, etc). It depends on what you buy but for the most part their prices beat what I can get at my local co-op.

Then comes Frontier. I buy most of our vitamins and toiletries here (ie: Yummi Bears, deoderant, shampoo, Maggie's Organic, Yummy Earth lollipops). The prices are amazing! This is what my table looks like after I've opened all the boxes. It's so much fun to see all the products that other's order and recommend.

Next is our milk club. Since raw milk farmers are so harrassed I won't be giving out the name of our farm but I'll just say that I'm so grateful to this farm. They have had such a hard time of it and yet they still work hard to provide us with what they/we believe to be a healthy product. I won't go into the praises of raw milk here but if you'd like to you can read more about it at realmilk.com or at the Weston A. Price website. For the record we've been drinking it for about five years now without any problems and my dad has some good stories about growing up with it.

The final club (the one I'll probably be dropping out of . . . again) is the produce club. It's like going to an indoor farmer's market with all the fresh, organic produce. It's a wonderful resource but since I can get apples from Azure, carrots, romaine, and spinach from Costco during the winter months I'll probably be simplifying.

We're always open to new members with Azure and Frontier so if you'd like to order with us get in touch with me.

Expedition Earth: France

Here we come France! Thank you to Confessions of a Homeschooler's Expedition Earth for a great journey!

Bonjour! I have fallen in love with The White Cliffs of Normandy. Breath-taking!

See? I told you so. :) Photo curtisy of Wikipedia.

Here is some of what we studied:

I found this great Kid's French CD on Spotify.

Viewed some of Claude Monet's work.

The Eiffel Tower. Anything that includes Legos is always a hit so I found this Youtube about the Lego Eiffel Tower. The guy did pretty good. He even talked about some facts about the tower. Did you know it was supposed to have been torn down after the World Fair? I learned that one from my dear husband.

And the food. While it may not be exactly French I decided to try out some Nutella. We put it on the remains of those shortbread-like cookies I made during our Isreal week. I love recipies that freeze. The nutella went over VERY well. I went for the cafe experience and I got down the crystal goblets and we had some grape juice.

Here is a link to my Pinterest board for France.

The General and his acorns

The General had a major obsession with acorns this fall. He was forever collecting them and they were always falling out of his pockets. It's a wonder Shortcake didn't swallow a few. You could find him doing this activity at the kitchen table every couple of days for a few weeks. A pie tin, muffin tin, tongs, and frosting knife were his tools of trade.

Expedition Earth: United Kingdom

Here we come United Kingdom! Thank you to Confessions of a Homeschooler's Expedition Earth for a great journey!

Good grief - reviewing what contries make up the United Kingdom was a good study (I honestly have to say I had no idea - have I said lately how much I enjoy learning along with my kids? I do!).

A few of the highlights:

Recreating our own Stonehenge. This being dirty work and boys being boys, off came the shirts. It took some of me just being quiet and letting him observe his brother before Agent E agreed to put his hands into the sand clay we mixed up. He was way too concerned about worm poop. I'm proud that in the end he overcame his hesitations and plunged in.

Making a paper model of Big Ben

Having a tea party complete with homemade scones (recipe via Tea with Grace) and my Grandma's wind-up musical teapot.

We watched some great Youtubes of the changing of the guard on this wonderful blog.

My absolute favorite would have to be putting on the James Bond music and watching the boys dance, dance, dance.

Here is the link to my Pinterest Board for the United Kingdom.

Expedition Earth: Russia

Here we come Russia! Thank you to Confessions of a Homeschooler's Expedition Earth for a great journey!

Three generations ago my family journied from Germany to the U.S. via Russia. I pulled out my copy of An Introduction to the Russian Mennonites and spent some time discussing with my dad some of his memories.

Some of our other highlights from the week include:

Visiting a Ukranian shop to purchase some perogies and sweets.

Agent H trying to be positive about his perogi experience.

Reading about the International space station (and eating astronaunt ice cream)

Watching a Youtube about the Trans-Siberian Railway.

Listened to parts of the Nutcracker

Watched parts of Fiddler on the Roof and practiced our Russian dancing.

Crafted some lacquer boxes. These turned out kind of cute. I took mint tins, had the kids use metalic pencils to draw on black paper, then we modge podged the picture to the top of the tin. The idea was to do something like this.

All this was accompanied by the reading and assignments in our E.E. Curriculum.

Here is a link to my Pinterest board for Russia.

Halloween 2011

I didn't think it would bother me to see Shortcake in the boys' hand-me-downs on occasion but soon after this outing I went to a second hand shop and picked out a pink snowsuit. I think it's just that she is assumed to be another boy - no wonder!

Baby kitty (warmly straped to me), clone trooper, Luke Skywalker, and a firefighter. This year we painted our pumkpins instead of the usual carving. I love how they turned out! Agent H's only complaint was that he missed the glowing candle.

Practical Science: Fruit flies

The art of catching fruit flies was mastered by Agents H & E. Agent E carefully photographed the entire event.

Items needed:

Jelly jar(s)

Apple cider vinager

plastic bag(s)

rubber band(s)

tooth pick

Fill jelly jar about 1/4 full of apple cider vinager. Place plastic bag taunt across jar top and secure with the rubber band. Prick 2-4 holes in the plastic top you just created with the tooth pick. Place in a location near your infestation and watch them get trapped inside the jar. Yeah, no more annoying bugs. By the way it IS helpful to keep up with the dishes so that there is not so much sitting about for them to feast on.

Setting up your work station.

Plastic baggie fitted over jar.

Polking the holes. As you can see it was a cowboy hat kind of day.

Asia Review

Let's see here . . China, South Korea, Japan, India, Israel, and Thailand! That wraps up the Asian countries we studied. It's so fun to have real, live friends to go through this Expedition Earth curriculum with. Here is a get together we planned to review Asia. My friend planned a great facts review with Jeopordy. I planned the craft and some Russian foods since we happened to be wrapping up Russia that week. We decorated with all our Asian crafts and they brought theirs so it was a kind of show-and-tell.

I'll give more detail on the craft when I blog our week on Russia.

The General and his sandals

I'm not sure how many times this summer folks pointed out to The General that his shoes were on the wrong feet. I let it go because he insisted that was the way they were supposed to go and HEY it was something he could do HIMSELF and he was proud of it. So way to go big boy, I'm happy for you!

A swing ride

Shortcake delighted in this ride on the rocket swing out back!

Static!

Look at that little tongue - such giggles and delight!

Expedition Earth: Thailand

Here we come Thailand! Thank you to Confessions of a Homeschooler's Expedition Earth for a great journey!

OH Thailand, I'm thinking back here and trying to remember what we did. We stamped our passports, watched the Operation World video so we can know how to pray for them, read books, copied our country facts, crafted, and we had some friends over to dinner. These friends honeymooned in Thailand and our lady friend (that sounds so odd but I'm not coming up with anything better!) spent time there serving with a mission. She brought pictures and even some clothes for the boys to try on. It was wonderful! We watched some Youtube videos about the floating markets (fascinating!). One of our favorite parts was making the Loy Krathong boats and floating them. We made a paper bag version, decorated with organic materials from outside, put a styrofoam cup with candle in the center and floated them in our little kiddie pool. Thai tradition is to float your fears away as the boats float away so I told the boys to think of something they are afraid of and to say a prayer. It was a beautiful experience for our family. (Yes short-lived before the running and usual crazy kid mayhem ensued but it was beautiful while it lasted.)

Here's a link to my Pinterest board for Thailand.

She waves!

It was naptime and as is our routine I carried Shortcake to the window and we said "night night" to all the critters outside. I thought that maybe she tried to give a little wave to the squirrel outside but I wasn't sure. Then when my mom, who had stopped by for a quick visit, was leaving I waived goodbye and there she went lifting up her little hand and moving her fingers in and out as in a wave. I think it was her anniversary gift to EH and I and it was predictably sweet!

Expedition Earth: Israel

Here we come Isreal! Thank you to Confessions of a Homeschooler's Expedition Earth for a great journey!

Shalom! Paint and tin foil transformed into a couple Dome of the Rocks.

Agents H & E defending their sukkah. It's a shelter used at the end of harvest. They snacked on some homemade almond cookies (I'm nearly out of vanilla thus the almond) and Agent H played us some after snack music (he doesn't play yet but it was pretty).

A few other things we did (all links are on my Pinterest board):

We watched

-a clip of the Israeli version of Sesame Street

-some kids do traditional Hebrew dance & a local Israeli dance team

-how to build a shofar

Read and learned about Petra.

Baked pita bread (well it's on today's to do list)

Looked at Israeli cloths and carpets that a traveling Arab salesman sold to my Grandma years ago.

Here is a link to my Pinterest Board for India.

A few late added photos:

And an Israeli game similar to tic-tack-toe.

Our pita and an embroidered napkin from my Grandma T's supply.

She's up and crawling

A quick break in all the geograpy to announce that Shortcake is up on all fours and moving forward! She is one happy girl!

Expedition Earth: India

Here we come India! Thank you to Confessions of a Homeschooler's Expedition Earth for a great journey!

Rolling out our clay and setting stones for our mosaics.

A visit from Ga brought special items to admire as she gave an account of her visit to India.

A look at the globe,

An Indian child's practice bow & arrow,

An ornate jar with perfume,

A fan,

A toy ball,

Yards and yards of fabric . . . all tucked in place.

We studied the formation of mountains (Mount Everest in particular). I love how Netflix usually has a little something that I can show the kids. This time we watched a bit of National Geographic: Everest, 50 years.

Youtube was good for some clips on henna and then National Geographic again for footage on peacocks. One of my favorite places to share with the boys has been Operation World. We go there for each country and we watch a beautiful movie about the country and learn how we can pray for them.

Okay, the food . . . We smelled curry but that's as close as we came to anything authentic. The Kid's Multicultural Cookbook recommended macaroons so I made this recipe and dipped them in chocolate. They were delicious!

Here is a link to my Pinterest board for India.

Expedition Earth: Japan

Here we come Japan! Thank you to Confessions of a Homeschooler's Expedition Earth for a great journey!

Wood block painting by Agent H & Agent E (printables found here).

Our meal: the main dish was fettuccini alfredo (ahem . . .not so Japanese), but I also served rice balls from The Sneaky Chef, and tea in little tea cups. Mostly we went for ambiance with this one. The boys and I cut paper lanterns, EH strung the white lights and found an Asian station on iTunes. Paper fans that the boys made decorated their plates. We bowed lots and repeated "Konnichiwa" over and over. :) As we were half way through with the meal, Agent H said "These are the best manners I've ever used!". It was accompanied by a great slurping noise as apparently that is considered polite in Japan.

Dessert! My inspiration for candy sushi was found at Not Martha. I don't recall the last time I bought anything made by Hostess. Yes the boys have been dutifully informed that it was terrible for us. So now they ask "what's the name of that stuff that is SO terrible but is SO tasty?" Twinkie honey, twinkie.

Here is the link to my Pinterst board for Japan. I really wish we had gotten around to the Samurai hat and sword!