Poppin’ It Up

When we moved here I was a bit apprehensive to not have a microwave. I do not like them but let’s face it, they are super convenient and if this place would have come with one I never would have given it up. But I guess the years have changed me and I have become just a tad bit stingy, and do not want to spend the money on a microwave of all things.

But I do have this one little weakness, this one thing that I absolutely love to devour…. Popcorn! I have never had popcorn other than from a microwave, but now is the time to change that 🙂 I was given an old fashion stove top popcorn cooker!

Heat it, turn the handle, turn the handle, pop, pop, pop…. Drizzle with some melted butter, sprinkle with a little sea salt…. And voila, the best popcorn I have ever had 🙂 stove top beats the microwave hands down!

Roasted Rooster Red

Another interesting day in our homeschool…

We have lost many a chicken to different circumstances, this time we were about to loose our Roster Red. About a week ago he dislocated one of his wings, we did some research and decided to give a go at trying to bandage him up. Unfortunately he lost all his spirits and became utterly depressed 😦 so we decided to butcher him.

Never having butchered a chicken, rooster or any other animal for that matter (ok maybe a frog when I was a kid), we found ourselves delving into the YouTube archives for guidance. I was not prepared for the emotional charge I felt when life vanished from that animal, I cried like a baby.

As far as it come to homeschooling we had prepared the children for this event. They opted to not participate in the actual butchering… But both were involved in feathering and preparing the rooster for roasting. My husband scooped out the intestines and organs for a study on what kept this rooster alive.

Our daughter surprised me with her active interest in the feathering, her enjoyment in the quality of meet and interest in raising chicken for meet production. Go figure that a six year old can be so inclined to such reasoning. I on the other hand did cook our rooster but definitely was challenged by eating him, which was also the case with out son.

Curriculum Choices for Kindergarten

For this first year of homeschooling I have chosen the following curriculums and trains of thought:

I have three young children to tend to so I chose to go with unit studies for the simplicity of being able to apply them to all children at the same time.  I picked the Five in a Row curriculum. Which seems to be a great fit for our young age group.

The unit study with FiaR covers all five subject areas that our state of Georgia requires to be educated: Reading, Language Arts, Science, Math & Social Studies. I have supplemented the Math, Reading and Language Arts with additional materials.

For Math I chose BJU Press K5 Math.

For Reading and Language Arts we a doing Charlotte Mason, which in my opinion resembles a little the Montessori style of teaching which we are already familiar with. I am more than happy with CM!

MammaRuu Homeschool Week 1

We are now done with the first week and enjoying our well deserved days off 🙂

Our Kindergarten curriculum for the past week:

Our story of the week from our Five in a Row curriculum was The Story about Ping, which is about a duck in China. Through Ping’s journey we got to know many aspects of the Chinese culture among which we learnt about discernment in our Bible studies. Ping took us on a road trip through the geography of China, we sailed on the Yangtze river with our water paints and 67 ducks (if I remember correctly) which also included some math of counting, we ate rice cakes and rice with chopsticks and studied buoyancy. Our science studies also included learning how salt and sugar are soluble in water, where as oil does not dissolve.

Math simply consisted of revisiting the numbers that the children were already familiar with. More or less review.

English and writing was also a week of review and for me figuring out where the children are at with their alphabets. Also I have been reading about how to implement the Charlotte Mason method of learning how to read into our studies. I feel a bit out of my water with teaching English, it not being my mother tongue and all, but I will do my best and see where God takes us from here 🙂 I have also been using the narration technique with the children, which seems to work amazingly well when you I do it in an atmosphere where the children are not thinking of narrating the stories back to me, but rather just doing it.

We went on several nature walks, learnt about some of the local trees including the Hemlock, Paper Birch and Oak. We also learnt about the Monarch and Tiger Swallowtail butterflies. To our amazement we also found a Maypop, it has an incredible flour that just sweeps you into the world of Dr. Seuss, and the fruit is apart of the passionfruit family! And it was on the walk near our house 🙂

The week also included arts and crafts, reading lots of books and many many laughs 🙂 Best quote of the day was from Freja at the dinner table tonight, after a field trip to a local organic garden:

“I am so happy!”

That is worth everything, it makes my heart smile!!!! Thank you God, thank you for answering our prayers in a way unimaginable to us!!!!

MammaRuu Homeschool Day 1

We have officially had our first day of homeschool PreK and Kinder, woohoooo!!! It was pretty darn cool and the kids loved it.  Loved it so much that the few hour curriculum for the day was stretched out for the entire day.  Ok I know it was the first day, but it was just so amazing! Children are incredible! I am so amazed by how different the kids are, how different we all are.  Our little girl is enthralled with the folders, pencils, erasers, dividers, rulers etc. then there’s our littler boy who doesn’t really care for all of that but is captivated to tears, overwhelmed by fear for the main character, in the Real Book story that my husband is reading them.  I am floored by how amazing God is in His creation, in us!

Now I know it was only our first day, we are bound to have those days of dragging ourselves out of bed, forcing the subjects down with a frown on our faces.  But hey, lets be positive and try to not have those days 🙂  I am so hyped about our Charlotte Mason and Five in a Row curriculum that I just can’t wait for all the fun that we are going to have!

It took me a lifetime to figure out which curriculums to go with.  But I must say that I have wonderful friends who gave me valuable information, I also read a book 101 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum which was a push to the right direction. So I have started the year out with what I feel is best for us…

Five in a Row – Social Studies, History, Geography, Art, Literature, Math and Science

BJU K5: Math

Charlotte Mason – Reading and Writing

 

Almond Milk

6 cups of water and 2 cups of almonds. 2 minutes of blending in the Vitamix.

Separate the nuts from the milk…

… And Voila you have a jug full of fresh raw almond milk 🙂

Not to be wasteful and throw away all of that pulp, oh so tasteful… You can make it into almond butter, hummus…

Here’s one website I found with great recipes for the pulp
home.health.love

And The Floodgates Opened

That’s what it has felt like the past three days. Rain, rain, rain and more is coming. I already feel like I’m tromping through a swamp when I walk through the yard. Thankfully we’re at higher elevation so we don’t have to worry about the yard or house flooding, it all runs downhill.

Garden struggles

Well this is frustrating, we have fungus on our tomatoes due to the extreme humidity and rains, bugs are devouring our kale and our one cucumber resembles a water balloon…

Thankfully we have now come to the end of three days of downpour and once again we can see the sun shining. This was by far the longest stretch of rain during my short stay in Georgia. Otherwise it has been sunny, sunny, sunny and humid, humid, HUMID! So humid that when I hang dry clothes in the direct morning sunshine, they are still damp as the day comes to its end. Not to even mention problems with mold, arghhh…

This requires ingenuity 🙂 So I wouldn’t mind getting some ideas especially for the gardening problems!!!

Lemon verbena, basil, rosemary, oregano are doing amazing, as well as lettuces and jalopeno. So not all hope is lost 🙂

No Knead Loaf

My version of the No Knead Loaf

I recently found this bread recipe from a Finnish women’s magazines website.
http://www.menaiset.fi/artikkeli/reseptit/tee_itse_rapeaa_ja_mehevaa_leipaa

What attracted me to it was that it is like a slow cooker bread. There is no time consuming kneading involved, you simply mix the ingredients and let the dough sit for 12-18 hours. And that is great for me! I hardly ever made bread, other than in the bread machine, because I never had the time to knead and comply to the time requirements. Now 12-18 hrs I can work with 🙂

So here is my version of this recipe (I only changed the amounts of different flours used)

No Knead Loaf
1 Loaf
Time: Preparation time 10 minutes + Rising time 12-18hrs + Baking time 50min

4 dl (1 3/4 cups) Unbleached Bread Flour
2 dl (7/8 cup) Whole Wheat Flour
2 dl (7/8 cup) Rye Flour
1 1/2 tsp Fine Sea Salt
4 dl (1 3/4 cups) Cold Water

In a large bowl mix together all of the dry ingredients. Add the water and mix rapidly into a dough, do NOT knead. Cover the bowl with cling wrap and set aside for 12-18 hours. I usually prepare the dough last thing in the evening.

Spread a clean kitchen towel (Finnish: leivinliina) on a countertop and sprinkle a good layer of flour on it. The pour the dough onto the towel. Spread the dough into a level square or rectangle, at the same time pushing out some of the air bubbles. Then lift the edges of the dough sheet toward the center, like you were folding a handkerchief. I simply turn the right side to the center and then fold the left side on top of it. Sprinkle some flour on the dough and wrap the towel loosely around it. If you sprinkle too little flour, the dough will stick to the towel. Let rise for another 2 hours.

Heat your oven to 225C/435F and put a deep sauce pan or a casserole pot inside to heat. You can use any oven proof dish that will hold the bread dough with some room for rising. Once the oven has reached the set temperature take the pot out and pour the dough into it. Don’t freak out about the funky appearances of the dough ball, it’ll look great once it’s done 🙂

Cover with a lid and bake for 30 minutes. Take the lid off and bake for an additional 20 minutes. Once the bread is done, let it cool on a wire rack.

Enjoy!