Week of the Trojan Horse: October 8-14

In My Life This Week
Relaxing school days and fair fall weather! Homemade wheat bread, sweetened with molasses. Scents of farm fresh apples and cranberries with cinnamon coming from the oven. Raking dry pine needles off the lawn. Reading "Backyard Poultry" in the sun with the chickens dust bathing in the woods nearby. Folding laundry off the backyard line. Watching the red-tailed hawks fly overhead and the red squirrels chase each other up and down the pines. Lazy lunches outside under the sun. And missing my middle one who is off on a wonderful vacation with family.

Lake View from the Mountain - Fall 2010

Whatcha Making Wednesdays!

Jag and Sprinter made apple-cranberry pie this week, using local apples and cranberries. It was delish! (How I wish I could share a photo!) Want a New England fall twist to the apple pie? Try this recipe!

INGREDIENTS

2 pre-made pie crusts

4 c sliced apples

12 oz cranberries

1/2 c white sugar

3 T flour

1 t cinnamon

2 T butter

Milk

White Sugar

Optional: whipping topping or ice cream

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Place one pie crust in the bottom of a pie pan and cover with 8 oz (1/2 c) of crushed cranberries.

3. Put apple slices on top of cranberries.

4. Sprinkle apples and cranberries with white sugar, cinnamon and flour then add dabs of butter on top.

5. Cover with other pie crust, pinch edges closed and poke with fork.

6. Brush top with milk and sprinkle with white sugar (or brown sugar in our case)

7. Bake for 1 hour. Serve cold with whipped cream or warm with ice cream.

Oh, and don't forget to share recipes you and your kids whip up at The Ramblings and Adventures of a SAHM on Wednesdays!


Homeschool Happenings
Jag made green-dyed, mint-flavored rock candy to start his Earth Science study of crystals. He studied the Mohs Scale, crystal formation, and looked at halite and Epsom salt crystals under a hand lens.

Sprinter started an Ocean study while Sweet Tart is away since they study Astronomy together. He's been learning about mountains, valleys, caves, and cliffs UNDER water.

And I FINALLY pulled out the microscope and taught the boys how to make slides!

The boys started construction on a "fort" near the chicken coop out of salvaged boards, MY WINDOW SCREEN, fallen tree branches, a can of old, various-sized nails, a saw, and hammers, but the chickens have decided it's a GREAT spot to roost during free ranging. (Oh, and they build under supervision with tools.)

Sprinter made a Cat Activity and Nap Box. Using a cardboard box, he lined it with MY PILLOW CASE, taped plastic cups for food and water to the side and stuck chicken feathers to the top for "play time".

And the usual: Grammar, Writing, Copywork, Handwriting, American History, and Math.

Helpful Homeschool Hint

Play Math games! I've seen this simple, fun take on War floating around the blogosphere lately: using Math facts flashcards, homemade or bought, play War by finding the answer to the problem. Split the "deck" into 2 equal piles, calculate, and the card with the highest (or lowest) answer wins those cards. Play until someone has all the cards. For younger kids, start with addition facts to 5, adding in higher sums as they learn the facts, then move onto subtraction or even lesser than, greater than or equal to. And for older kids, try multiplication, division, fractions, or even DECIMAL conversions. You can make flashcards for many Math concepts!

Places We Went and People We Saw

• My family arrived Friday night, visiting for the weekend.
• Sprinter and Dad spent Saturday at Trailblazer Day for the Cub Scouts.
• Soccer, soccer, soccer!
• Saturday night ball for Jag!
• Sweet Tart off on a TERRIFIC Florida holiday with my in-laws!
• Jag and the Boy Scouts off for a weekend of fall camping.
• We conquered the corn maze at the apple orchard...in 5 minutes flat. (I guess we need a bigger challenge!)

On Our Bookshelf 

Check out this library sale find for a buck! George Washington's World not only describes our first president's life, but we learned about John Hancock, Daniel Boone, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Marie Antoinette, James Cook, Paul Revere, Catherine the Great, and many more historical figures AND events from 1732-1793! A VERY detailed, but readable book of a piece of World History! If you can find it, snag it!

Sprinter also brought down Tornado for a read aloud. Tornado is a story about a family riding out a storm in a cellar, listening to stories about a dog found after a -  Yup! - tornado. It's a favorite around here!

Our Favorite Thing(s) This Week
Relaxing! It's been one of those weeks where we needed to soak up some of the last WARM rays of the sun outside. We spent HOURS reading and playing under the trees.

What's Working/Not Working For Me

My laptop! ((sigh)) Leave it to me to click on a bogus link that uploaded an annoying, but not "deadly" trojan onto my computer. It only blocks all my programs, except for internet. ((grumble)) So, no photos this week. Perhaps next week it'll be cleaned up. I hope.

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