Friday, October 14, 2011

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.

Linking Up With
Hip Homeschool Moms ButtonWeird Unsocialized Homeschoolers
Science SundayThe Homeschool Mother's Journal

23 comments:

  1. Your view is beautiful. I think your kids would have a lot of fun with some of mine. They seem so much alike! Your daughter might enjoy the pictures on my blog of our new baby pony (she arrived just three days before Irene did). It sounds like you all had a wonderful week. What a blessing.

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  2. I'm so glad you stopped by, and I'm looking forward to following you. Thank you for the math games idea. We do a lot of these with Dominoes and the typical games, but I'm excited to try the War math game.

    Love your blog. Blessings!

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  3. How kind you are to share a recipe! Yum! Sounds like a wonderful week of soaking up the last of summer. Love how you've shared your week.

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  4. What a wonderful library find! I would be so geeked! Thanks for stopping by (Homeschool Mother's Journal)

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  5. Sounds like a great week! :-) I am definitely going to try your recipe. I love fall and apple recipes are so much a part of it. :-)

    The math game definitely sounds like something my kids would enjoy.

    I'm sorry about your computer. Hope you get the problem resolved. If some people used their genius for good instead of evil, the world would be a much better place, that's for sure!

    Have a great weekend!
    Many blessings,
    Lisa

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  6. That recipe sounds awesome, I think I have had something similar before. I will definitely be trying it. What a wonderful treat for your daughter to be in Florida!

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  7. I have the Columbus one from Foster...love that too...so I've been debating on picking up some more. Love library sales! Just went good-willing for a bunch of HS books and was very blessed.

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  8. Sounds like you all have had a great week. We've been enjoying some beautiful weather in AL also. It has been so nice that I've only wanted to relax & read. Just sit outside and let the wind gently blow in my face. Your recipe sounds delicious.

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  9. ohhhh...i may have to find that book! i love good finds!

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  10. Great find on the Foster book! Sounds like a wonderful, colorful, cool fall week. Here in Texas it's getting cooler but still HOT!

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  11. I made an apple pie this week too. It's that time of the year for baking and delicious smells wafting through the house! Thanks for stopping by my blog.

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  12. What a wonderful week. We are going to start earth science next week.

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  13. That's a wonderful book you found. We have almost the entire set, and the kids have learned so much from it. So have I!

    You make your fall week sound so lovely! We don't read enough under the trees. That's something to do once the rain stops... it isn't snowing by then.

    Thanks for stopping by my blog. And, by the way, we don't butcher our pet chickens, only the birds we bought especially for meet.

    Have a blessed Sunday.

    Annie Kate

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  14. Thanks for your comments on my blog :) I have been lurking on yours for a while now, ashamedly not leaving a comment :) We just finished George Washington's World too.. I love all the books in this series, well maybe not an "official series" but I think you know what I mean. I think your apple pie might end up on our table for Thanksgiving, it sounds yummy.

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  15. What a beautiful View :) What an amazing week :) :) :) .... Thanks for sharing your week with us !!!!!! :)

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  16. Wahhh on the virus. Major bummer. We've enjoyed that issue more times than I'd care to count. Such a pain.

    Now we only own Macs. LOL

    Hope it's fixed soon.

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  17. Sounds like a full week! We are going to our first corn maze this week and can't wait. There aren't a lot of corn mazes here in Florida! lol

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  18. that pie sounds so YUM!! Thanks for linking up to the blog roll!

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  19. I just awarded you with the Versatile Blogger Award! I hope you'll join in on the fun! :)
    http://nikkit3.blogspot.com/2011/10/versatile-blogger-award_18.html

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  20. Looks like an awesome week. And I've added your pie recipe to our must try fall treats. Thanks for sharing.

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  21. What a wonderful week! I love the science ideas. I'm always lacking in inspiration for science........the rock candy idea sounds perfect! And I bet the pie was yummy too. Tornado was a favorite read aloud at our house. Thanks for visiting my blog : )

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  22. What a yummy sounding pie! Thank you so much for linking up :-) Have a great week!

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