These are pics from Isaac's Cubbie class (he'll be moving on to sparks next yr.) and Elsah's first real smile for the camera!!!

This week was a busy week. Trying to get organized for the "next school". We had a friend Kevin, who was in our wedding come down from VA to visit. He is riding his motorcycle all the way to California. His blog is on my "favorite blogs" below. What an exciting trip.

I went to the curriculum sale on Saturday and Im sooo glad I made a list. It is so easy to pick up stuff that looks sooo good for your kids. I'm planning on having a "composer/artist" table where they look at pictures while listening to Narrative on Bach's life/Mozart's life. Or any of the other composers I have at the table. My science table is going to include hands on experiments, bird calling and how to recognize the calls, and science books with lots of pics. So, this is my plan. Whether or not it flows like I want is up in the air.

Rebekah had a swim meet this Sat/Sun too! She swam a 200 IM in 3:27. That's two laps of each stroke. I think her best stroke is Butterfly. It's beautiful when I watch her. It's amazing that since she has been on the swim team (since January) she has totally progressed in her times.

So, what's on the agenda for this week???? Hmmm....Planning, organinizing. I have a class tomorrow for work, have SEEK on Thursday and then I work Friday so I think that'll be it.

I need to order a couple of more books for our curriculum and then we'll be set to start.

The closing of Learning Adventures...moving on

Ok....So we had a great time trying out all differents foods during this time period. I'm sorta sad but excited for finishing this unit up. It was lots of fun and educational and I have to say not at all the dullest. Rebekah enjoyed learning about different artists (her favorite Leonardo Da Vinci) during this time and her favorite scientist, Isaac Newton.

Now, it's time for myself to get ready for the next unit of study. I've chosen something different after researching all different styles of teaching. We were already doing something like this before in Learning Adventures but the narration, copywork, and dictation was missing. We use living books with learning already but I am now convinced this is an awesome way to learn with all different styles of learning. I m planning on using the "Charlotte Mason" approach. Charlotte Mason lived in England in the 1800's and had devoted her life to children and their education. She never married. "The Charlotte Mason method uses living books with an emphasis on quality rather than quantity, narration instead of comprehension exercises or composition, copywork for handwriting, spelling and grammar modeling, nature observation as the primary means of early science, and literature, poetry, art and music to give children's minds beautiful ideas to feed on."

Narration is a skill that is learned. I've tried it with Rebekah to see where she was at and we do need some work. Rebekah has great comprehension skills but narration is difficult for her.

Isaac starts school with us too in a couple of weeks (once I have all the books to start)! We are going to use Ambleside Online Curriculum which some awesome mothers have put together and have used the Charlotte Mason approach. I've changed my school room around to have some centers for Isaac. One is a reading center with all different styles of books (for Rebekah too) and a art/science center. We are going to do a nature study on birds in our area and learn how to identify them and their habitat. (Currently Isaac is intrigued with caterpillars so we'll learn the caterpillar cycle and watch the caterpillars change.

We have a busy busy month of May! Rebekah has her musical, recital, swim meet (once every month now), her birthday and Craig is taking her on a special three day trip to Atlanta GA. In early May Rebekah and I have a special mother/daughter day. What a busy month it will be!

Elsah is now 14 lbs at her 6mth appt. All of my babies are tiny. She is sitting up for short periods of time, turning over from her back to front now, moving toys from hand to hand and sleeping (yes!) for 7-8 hours a night! We started her on some oatmeal at night for dinner and then she has her normal feeding at 9-930pm. She is such a good baby. God has blessed me with easy babies. We'll see how she is at walking stage and crawling. I bet she'll be different from Isaac though. He was all into computers and gadgets. Toys were a bore to him. So, he kept me on my toes.

Finally, here is Isaac's favorite recipe from the renaissance!

Toad in the Hole:

1 Cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
pinch pepper
2 eggs
1 cup milk
8 oz sausage links (already cooked)

combine dry ingredients then add 2 eggs and milk. Chill 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 425 and then pour into 9X9 greased pan. Place sausages on top of batter. Bake 25minutes or until golden brown.

Renaissance and Reformation recipes YUMMO!

Well, yesterday we started our week long of cooking Renaissance food! We enjoyed the recipes soooo much that we thought we'd share them with you.

Cholermus Pancakes:

1/2 cup cream
1/2 cup, plus 2 T butter
3 eggs, well beaten
2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
sugar

Beat the cream with 2 T of melted butter and eggs. Sift flour and salt. Add the liquid to the dry ingredients. Blend until smooth. Add 2 T of butter into large skillet. Pour large portions about 1/3 cup into skillet. Brown on both sides. With two forks, tear pancakes apart into bite size pieces. Melt remaining butter in skillet. Add pieces of pancake. Brown until crusty. Sprinkle with sugar and serve hot with fresh berries (we used strawberries)

Spaghetti Bolognese

1 1/2 lb. Ground Beef
1 large onion
2 sticks celery, chopped
1 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp basil
2 cans Italian plum tomatoes (I used 280z of diced tomatoes)
2 tablespoons of tomato paste
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1 Tablespoon olive oil
12 Oz spaghetti
1/4 cup grated parmigiano

Heat oil. fry onion, celery and garlic for 3 minutes. Add Ground Beef. Cook until meat is cooked. Add everything else except spaghetti and parmigiano. Simmer for 20 minutes. In the meantime cook spaghetti. Place spaghetti on plates. Top with sauce and parmigiano. Enjoy!
Serve with greens.

Chocolate Fondue:

6 oz of semisweet chocolate morsels
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup milk
Banana's, strawberries and apple

MMMMMM Good!!

Today Rebekah is making Toad in a Hole for breakfast, Antipasto with homemade Italian dressing (if time permits) and hot cross buns for desert! Yummm! If we enjoy it then I'll post it.

Isaac's hockey, Elsah's feet and Rebekah classes

Tuesday was Isaac's first day playing Hockey! That was all he kept talking about. The kids are ages 5-7yr olds. Isaac is one of the youngest. Craig has taught him the correct stance on the skates and he is learning how to keep the stick on the ground as he skates.

Elsah is all about her feet. I wish I could get a picture of her but have yet to do it. We started her on a little bit of oatmeal at night right before her night time feeding. She is actually sleeping from 10-530 sometimes 7am.!! Wow! Elsah reminds me a lot of Rebekah. Instead of trying to crawl she scoots on the back of her head to get somewhere! Amazing!

Rebekah is almost done with the Renaissance and reformation unit! For the next two weeks we'll be cooking all different types of renaissance food! That's one of our favorite things to do. Eat different types of food especially deserts! Her climateology class is over and we have learned a lot. There is sooo much to digest in such a little amount of time. However, in Rebekah's lego group this fall they will be truly refocusing and learning much more about it since that is the main topic. We will be starting the Age of Exploration soon!

I always find it somewhat refreshing to feel like we have accomplished a unit of study and that feeling of going into a new one with "new" excitement!