It’s in the Box

A few weeks ago I mentioned inspiration resources. Today, I created a learning box. Mary Ann Johnson was right- part of the magic of the box is the anticipation and the limited availability. She talks about locking it but that even if it isn’t locked, kids know how important that “lock” is to preserving the magic. My box is a large clear tub with a lid that snaps on. Butterfly commented that the box had “magical properties that would zap anyone other than mommy who opened it.” She asked me to open it when it was time to use the contents so she wouldn’t get zapped.

Today’s magic? Soap. I put my melt and pour soap supplies, a list of websites and experiments, frontier girls badge requirements and books into the box. I also told the children that the box would only be available until lunch time and then it would be closed up. They were so excited, they flew through cleaning up the rest of their room and eagerly gathered to learn.

First, we talked about safety, types of soap, read some books about soap, and then we watched a video of a science experiment on eScience (review of eScience coming soon). The girls were so excited. We learned about different types of colorants and ways to scent soap as well. Then, after watching a few short tutorials, we took some of the ideas we learned in the books and made some small bars of soap. After that, it was time to clean up and put the box away. The girls couldn’t wait to do more learning box the next day.

Strawberry was quite anxious to embed a toy in soap after seeing a picture in a book. She watched the video of how to do it and brought be a large Duplo to embed. When I told her that wasn’t going to work, she was not too thrilled. I promised to take her to the store to buy a rubber eraser toy to put in soap. The girls each picked a small eraser and we came home to embed toys. We then spent the next morning using our learning box and experimenting with colors, layering, embedding, and toys. True to personality, Butterfly created a soap sculpture. She chose an egg with a hatching chick and then created the next out of melt and pour soap. She carefully held her egg as still as possible as it set in the soap and then she twisted it ever so gently to form wrinkles across the top of the soap to resemble sticks. Strawberry made her soap with a toy in it, and Pumpkin Pie wanted to hide her toy completely in several layers of green. I wanted to play with a soap in a soap.

Then it was time to clean up and put the box away.

I wonder what the box will bring next week.

Make it Monday- Onion Honey Cough Syrup

I am going to try to create a “Make it Monday” post each week. Try being the operative word here! So, for the first Monday, here goes!

Cough syrup is nasty stuff. It tastes bad, has artificial colors and flavors, and usually is meant to suppress a cough. Given that coughs are the body’s way of expelling harmful elements in the lungs, I don’t believe suppression is the answer. I believe that soothing and healing as well as supporting the cough to be productive is a better way to handle a cough. So, I make onion honey cough syrup for my family. It is super easy and contains a minimum of two ingredients everyone has in their kitchen: Onion and Honey.

Chop 1 large onion.

Place in the top of a double boiler.      

Cover the onion with honey. The onions just need to be covered by about 1/4 inch or so.

Place on the stove and simmer the water on low for 2-4 hours or until the onions are done. I like to use a lower heat and cook longer so mine takes closer to 4 hours. You will know the onions are done when they are translucent, papery, shrunken, and have little to no flavor.

After 1 hour: 

After 2 hours:

3Hours- Still large chunks but they are getting a little more shrunken.

4 Hours: Notice the onion is now shriveled a bit and if you look at the pot behind, they are not as closely packed. Strain and bottle. Store in the refrigerator or ad d 25% vegetable glycerin to extend the shelf life and store in the cupboard. 

Additional herbs can be added to this syrup when it is placed in the double boiler. Thyme is one I sometimes use. Generally speaking, I recommend only using herbs not roots or bark since honey doesn’t extract roots and bark very well.

Learning to Sew

Butterfly wants to learn to sew. This week she had a goal of making something for Saige. She has done a lot of hand sewing, so today I decided to start teaching her to sew on the sewing machine. She will be 10 in December and has been telling me every single day that she hopes Santa will bring her a sewing machine for Christmas.

Step 1: Learn to sew a straight line, wavy line, and zig zag!

Step 2: Learn to sew 1/4” away from a given line in straight, wavy and zig zag.

Step 3: Learn to lay out a pants pattern.

Step 4: Sew pants.

Step 5: Finish and celebrate!them.

Holiday Cooking

What is a holiday without special holiday cooking? When we moved far away from family and it was just me, BC (my husband) and 2 kids, I didn’t want to cook a big Thanksgiving dinner. What was the point? It was just for us! They all protested and I got roped into hours in the kitchen.

So, what was the point? The point was that traditions are important. In a lot of ways, we have established new traditions for our Thanksgiving meal, but we have kept a few old favorites from when BC and I were younger. Now, our children are growing up with their own traditions for Thanksgiving and Christmas. 

I became vegetarian/vegan about 8.5 years ago when I realized our daughter was allergic to all animal products other than fish. So, what were we to do without the turkey BC and I grew up with? (BC still is not vegetarian but eats a mostly vegetarian diet). He didn’t care what we did as long as he could have mashed potatoes and gravy and stuffing. All I cared about was the cranberry sauce made from scratch… Thank goodness for the internet. I found recipes for vegan gravy, an incredibly yummy not too sweet yam and apple baked dish so we could have special yams without being overly sweet (I have never liked candied yams), a lentil and grain loaf, stuffing (which I make with sprouted grain bread from scratch) and a vegan pumpkin pie that does NOT have tofu in it. We also add in a salad and are quite happy with our meal. Last year we added a really delicious Brussels sprout recipe as well. We just omit the bacon.

I was going to share some of the other recipes, but I can’t find my cookbook! Oh dear, I better start searching because my family just might mutiny if they don’t have their traditional fare.

I did manage to find the Pumpkin Pie recipe though.

This recipe really should be made the day before so it can set and get firmer but I have succeeded the day of. Also, it is a very flavorful filling. You may wish to reduce the spice- I don’t.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Have ready, one 9" unbaked pastry crust (I make my own with sprouted grain a pinch of sugar, and a sprinkle of pumpkin pie spice)

Blend in blender:
2 c. solid-pack canned pumpkin (if you use home-cooked pumpkin, drain it for
several hours hanging in a cloth bag, so it's thick like canned pumpkin)
1 c. non-dairy milk (preferably a rich soymilk) (I make rich almond)
3/4 c. brown sugar or Sucanat
1/4 c. cornstarch
1 T. molasses or blackstrap molasses
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. EACH ground ginger, nutmeg and salt
1/4 tsp. ground allspice or cloves
Pour the filling into the pastry and bake 60 minutes, covering the edges with foil if they begin to brown too quickly. Cool on a rack, then refrigerate overnight before serving.

Recipe by Bryanna Clark Grogan from www.vegsource.com

 

As for Christmas, we don’t have our menu as set in stone, but we usually have a southwest pea soup made with yams, chili, and lime juice.

So what do you do?

Decorating for the Holidays

I love the holidays. I don’t do a whole lot of decorating for Thanksgiving, but I do enjoy decorating for Christmas. Our decorating begins the day after Thanksgiving. In our home, the day after Thanksgiving is the day to start our Christmas traditions, even if Thanksgiving falls early in November. The first thing we do is get out our tree and set it up- this takes a few hours as each branch must be shaped and the lights strung.

As I wrote this post, I took a trip down memory lane and found some old pictures of us decorating. These first 3 are from 2009.

 Tiger 2009Butterfly 2009   Pumpkin Pie 2009 Pumpkin Pie 2007

There is always someone who gets tangled in lights. Butterfly & Tiger 2007Strawberry 2010 All the girls 2010

Sometimes someone will climb in one of the boxes that the tree pieces are stored in…Pumpkin Pie 2007!Strawberry 2009

Ultimately even the smallest one gets to put something on the tree, even if it is with some help from Daddy…

We also put up our nativity scenes around the house. For some reason I have never taken pictures of that- maybe this year. One goes in on the piano, one goes on the table in the living room, one goes on the napkin hutch in the dining room, and there are a few more small ones scattered throughout. The mantle also gets treated with nativity scenes intermixed with the pine boughs and lights I string there.

What special decorations do you put up for the holidays?

Everyday Family Chore System- Schoolhouse Molly Crew Review

The Molly Crew is a division of The Schoolhouse Review Crew and focuses on non-homeschool curriculum reviews. As a member of the Schoolhouse Review Crew, we occasionally have the opportunity to review for the Molly Crew too.
As homeschooling families, we have so much more than just the academic education of our children to worry about. Among other things, homemaking and home management are often on the educational agenda. The products the Molly Crew reviewed for Everyday Homemaking are designed to help families accomplish this.

Vicki Bentley, a homeschooling mother of 8 and foster parent to over 50 has written a book to help others teach their children household management skills. Everyday Family Chore System which is published by Everyday Homemaking  is an 88 page book on the basics of setting up a family chore system. It also includes a bit of child training help as well.  The book is divided into three sections. The first two sections teach the whys and hows of family management including several pages on what can be reasonably expected of a child at various ages. These two sections also outline how to set up a family chore system for your family and stress the importance of teaching the child to do the job properly and having well understood expectations including instructions that the child can easily refer to for all chores. The third section is a reproducible series of chore cards and how to do it cards that are, in theory, fill in the the cleanser and go.

We have done various forms of chores over the years and I have read many books on how to train up self-sufficient children, hard workers, etc. Everyday Family Chore System didn’t really present anything new to me, but it did condense a lot of what I have read over the years into a few quick-read pages. Unlike many chore system type books, this one doesn’t say, “do your chart this way because it is the  only way that works.” Instead, it speaks of the importance of clear expectations, a way for the child to know if all the steps are completed, and gives suggestions as to ways different families have adapted the chore system to fit their family.

A few years ago, I had bought a peg board to hang chores from. It was used for a while and then fell by the wayside. I adapted the chore chart suggestions using the board I already had. I also made up the how-to-do it cards and attached them to the board so that they were easy to find in one place. Here is our board:

Each child has a column of jobs. The majority are daily jobs and include things like pick up room, pick up toys, etc. They each have a couple of family jobs. Then at the bottom there are weekly jobs to do. The weekly jobs need to be done once a week. The tags on the right side are the instructions for each job. Green circles are placed over the chore when the child finishes the chore. I later go through and check their work. If greens are placed up before the job meets the requirements for the job, I will remove it and tell them what needs fixing. If a job is neglected for the day, when I get to the board at night, I place a red beneath the chore. Extra chores are required when jobs go undone. For completing all jobs, a green goes under the name. Then I can see at the end of the week if children are getting their jobs done consistently, what jobs need more practice or supervision, and what jobs are being neglected. If a child is neglecting the same jobs, we will not rotate until that job is mastered.

We have had mixed results with the chore chart. Tiger loves it. He gets up, gets going and finishes it all so he can move on to other things. The girls are not doing as well though. There are days they get their chores done and there are other days they shirk their work. We are still working on the positive and negative consequences. We have mixed feelings about allowance and rewards for work that should just be done. On the other hand, intrinsic motivation does not develop in a vacuum and sometimes needs some extrinsic prodding to begin to develop.

Overall, I liked the reminders of the things I know to be true regarding teaching children to work. I also liked the suggestions for how to do the chores, chores I hadn’t thought of assigning, and other ways to present the chores visually for the children to learn to do them on their own. I did have to make my own chore cards though because the ones in the book had different steps than the ones I wanted my children to take. Seeing the author’s cards helped me to structure mine though. Everyday Family Chore System is available for $19.99 for a spiral bound book or $17.99 for the ebook. While I liked Everyday Family Chore System, I am not sure that I would have paid $17.99 for the ebook, it seems a little expensive, but if it will help get your family working together, then it is worth it.

Be sure to check out what the other Molly Crew members thought of Everyday Homemaking’s Everyday Family Chore System as well as Everyday Cooking by clicking on the button below.
Disclaimer: As a member of the TOS Crew, I received this product, at no cost to me, in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are mine.