Getting Ready for Turkey Day...

Thanksgiving is just about my very favorite holiday! I love that we, as a nation, set aside one day of the year to be with family and friends and just be thankful for our good fortune. I love that Thanksgiving is the one holiday that (so far) our materialistic culture hasn't been able to corrupt - there is no frenzy of greed, no pressure to buy anything (at least until the day after!) It's about taking the time to create a wonderful feast for your family and friends, and I think that is just fabulous.

So, I am busy getting ready for our Thanksgiving. I wish that we had some family or friends coming over to share our feast with us. We thought up until a couple weeks ago that dh's mom would be joining us, but unfortunately she is fighting cancer and is too ill to travel. So, this year it will just be us. I do love creating a special day for my family! Yesterday and today we're doing some heavy housecleaning, and today I'll start my cooking, too. Here is our menu for Thanksgiving, 2006.

Breakfast: Sandy's Sour Cream Coffee Cake (a delicious family recipe!)

Lunch: Appetizers! Crab dip, assorted cheeses and crackers, a relish tray with pickles and olives, and chex mix.

Dinner: Roast turkey and gravy, sausage stuffing, mashed potatoes, corn casserole, green bean casserole, cranberry relish

Desert: Apple Pie and Pumpkin Pie

Last night I made a special breakfast treat for dh to take to work with him to tell his co-workers "Happy Thanksgiving", and for us to enjoy this morning, too. The Pumpkin Butterscotch Muffins over at Tammy's Recipes are absolutely delicious. So easy, they come out looking pretty, and it only takes 15-20 minutes to get them into the oven, so it's a perfect "extra" in the busy days leading up to Thanksgiving. The only issue I had with the recipe was that it made *far* more batter than 18 muffin's worth. I made 18 muffins *and* a 9 inch round cake pan. *Not* that I'm complaining, lol! :-)

While I'm busy cleaning and cooking, I'm going to be thinking of ways I can include the boys in our preparations. Obviously, they're (grudgingly) helping with the clean-up, but I want more than that. As a family, we are woefully craft-phobic. Oh, don't get me wrong, I love to knit and stitch. I mean the school-type crafty things. I see pictures of my virtual homeschooling friends doing lovely notebook pages, lap books, etc, and I just shake my head. Even if I managed to pull something together like that, my boys would look at me like I grew a third eye if I asked them to do that sort of thing. That said, they do love the scissors and glue stuff, and I believe we need to do more of that sort of thing as I think it would help with their fine-motor control issues. So, I am looking around for fun Thanksgiving crafts! I just love these leaf turkeys, and if only I had some googly-eyes laying around I would do this as I think the boys would love it. I might try to get something similiar going with just some construction paper cut-outs. I also really like the thankfullness tree, and we're definitely going to work on it today and tomorrow - what a lovely idea!!

Now, I need to go and actually get to work. I will post pictures of the boys and our crafts soon!

Menu Plan Monday

It's Thanksgiving Week! I love Thanksgiving, it's definitely one of my favorite holidays. We're having a very low-key day this year. Originally, dh's mom was going to come down to visit this week, but she is ill and it ended up she wasn't able to make the trip. So, it looks like it's just going to be us this year! I'm still working on my Thanksgiving menu - I'll post it when I have it all finalized. The rest of the week looks like this:

Monday - Pork Roast, Baked potatoes, Broccoli and carrots

Tuesday - Beef Enchiladas, salad, chips and salsa

Wednesday - Pizza

Thursday - Thanksgiving! Details soon...

Friday - Tuna noodle casserole, salad

Saturday - leftover turkey pot pie, salad

Sunday - BBQ beef sandwhiches, coleslaw, chips

Head on over to Organizing Junkie to see what others have planned for this week!

Way too funny!!!

OK, I just have to share - in the midst of my busy preparations for our homeschooling family Thanksgiving potluck this afternoon - I've been giggling all morning over this!

So, we're leaving mass this morning, and S3, my 6 year old, says
something - "Mom! What about the cr(..mumble, mumble...)pot?" Dh
looks at me - "What did he say? Did he just say, "what about the
crackpot??" S3 says, "No, what about the crockpot?" I ask him to
repeat himself again, thinking I *must* have misheard him - what
crockpot?? No, he insists, over and over, "What about the crockpot?
When are we going to the crockpot?" Then the light dawns - he means
our *potluck*!!

On the way home, we stopped to get some brown and serve rolls to take
with us. We sometimes get Sunbeam bread, and A2, my 7 year old,
often remarks that it's his favorite bread because there's a picture
of a girl praying on the bag. Well, the brown and serve rolls we
picked up happened to be the Sunbeam brand. And A2 says, "Oh, good,
it's praying bread!"

So, looks like we're taking praying bread to the crockpot this afternoon!

Odds and Ends...

Good morning! Thought I'd update on a few odds and ends that we've been doing (or not doing, lol!) over the last couple of weeks.

We had a fun nature study moment this weekend. We found a beautiful praying mantis on our heat pump!



N4 was the only one brave enough to pose with the mantis...



Here's one more view - such a beautiful creature!




We've had a couple of very "relaxed homeschooler" kind of weeks lately. A2 has been working with the Rainbow Rock CD-Rom math game from Singapore Math. I asked J1 to work on some Tangram Puzzles. He struggles a bit with spatial relations, and I thought some games with tangrams and pattern blocks might help stretch his brain a bit. J1 agreed that he could feel his brain growing. N4 had to join in, of course...




I'm still feeling scattered - there's so much to do! In fact, I'd better go get doing right now! J1 needs some papers corrected, S3 is begging for schoolwork, A2 is in a "sponge" stage where he wants to soak everything up and I'd better take advantage of it. Plus, I'm behind on laundry (again!), there's meals to cook, the bathrooms need cleaning...

Life is good! :-)

Menu Plan Monday

Wow, am I late this week! Time really got away from me today - but I am so glad to have this incentive for getting my menus organized, it is so very helpful to have those meals planned out! Head on over to Organizing Junky to see what others have on tap for this week!


Monday: Pasta and meat sauce, garlic toast, salad

Tuesday: Chicken Gravy and Rice, broccoli - I'm making extra of this and taking it to a new mommy friend. I'll also take along some Triple Chocolate Bread as a special congratulations! YUM!!

Wednesday: Easy Chuck Roast, Mashed Potatoes, Brussel Sprouts

Thursday: Hamburger Rice Soup, Cracker Bread, salad

Friday: Fish Tacos, chips, salsa and queso

Saturday: Hamburgers, homemade mac and cheese, vegies and dip - I'm still looking for a homemade mac and cheese recipe the kids will eat! I'll let you know how this one works out!

Sunday: It's our annual Homeschool Thanksgiving Potluck - our entire homeschool co-op gets together and we have a huge potluck. Tons of food, tons of kids, it's just great fun. I'll be making my mom's sausage stuffing, and an apple pie. Can't wait! :-)

Have a fun week, everyone! Thanks again to Organizing Junky for hosting Menu Plan Monday!

A little more on my school binders...

Awhile back I described how we organize our schoolwork using binders (see here and here). I based this system on something I read a little over a year ago called "The Avilian Home Learning Organization System", but I couldn't find a current link. But this morning, someone over at the 4Real Learning Boards pointed me to a working link, and I'm so happy to be able to share it with you!

The Avilian Home Learning Organization System

The link is a bit unreliable, so if you come across a screen that says "This link is unavailable", please do try again a little later, because it really is a live link! I'm so glad I've finally found this and can give all the credit for my school binders to this family's system!

A beautiful A-ha moment...

This morning I had one of those completely amazing, joyous a-ha moments. The kind of morning that makes all the frustartions, all the hard work, all the worry of homeschooling - it's all worth it!!

I've been really struggling with our handwriting instruction, especially for A2. I'll admit I've had a feeling of panic this year as I contemplate my 7 year old son who can't read or write - or so I thought!

So this morning, I was thinking about the handwriting issue. A few weeks ago I ditched the handwriting program we started out using this year as too advanced for my fine-motor-control-challenged boys. But, I haven't been able to find my teacher's manual for Handwriting Without Tears, and I desperately need a review, so, what with our birthday extravaganza and my lack of preparation, I haven't really done *anything* for a few weeks. But I've been thinking a lot about Montessori methods, especially after reading Kim's blog (check out her sidebar links!!). I've been checking out some of the Montesorri websites (like Montessori Materials and this one) and got it in my head to make sandpaper letters. Only I would use glue and glitter, since we have no sandpaper on hand. I printed out all the templates, only to discover I could not find the glitter I *know* I still have packed away somewhere!

Incidently, while I was searching for the glitter, I managed to unpack our Cuisanaire Rods, our pattern blocks, and our bear counters. S3 and N4 spent most of the morning playing with the bear counters, sorting, counting, and making patterns. I took a picture of them playing with the bear counters with incredibly cheesey grins!


So I stood in the middle of my kitchen, wondering what to do. I was just determined to do something different today, and I remembered reading (somewhere!) that tracing letters in a tray of cornmeal or rice can help kinestectic learners. Well, the last time I went to the store I got some fairly expensive organic cornmeal, so I decided to use the grits instead. I poured about a cup of grits onto an old cookie sheet, and put it on the dining room table. S3 and N4 were busy playing with the bear counters, and I called A2 to the table. I showed him how to make an "E", and he was intrigued. We used the Handwriting Without Tears mini-chalkboard and did our "E" there, too. Finally, we did an E in the HWT kindegarten book. A2 did *really* well. But I could tell he was distracted. He was so excited about the tray of grits! He begged to do more letters. Every letter, in fact. And every number. And most of the little letters. And a few words (his name, and oh, a few monster names like "zilla" and "gamerra" - my Godzilla loving child!). And it was just so completely and utterly awesome to see his excitement. I managed to catch it on film, I think!



The look on his face - isn't it beautiful? I wish you all could have been there - just to see all this excitement bubbling out of him as he was finally freed to write the way he obviously has been wanting to. It was just so awesome, I'm in tears just thinking about it!

Incidently, it was fascinating to watch my other children with the cornmeal/grits tray. A2 just soaked it up like a sponge, it obviously freed something inside him and was a HUGE help to his learning. Then, N4 insisted on going next. Those of you who know N4 know he is just a wee bit, well, obsessive-compulsive. He HATES his hands being sticky. He can't stand tags on clothing. He is distraught if he gets a cut or a bruise. So, he drew his first letter in the grits tray. About halfway through, he picked up his hand, stared at his fingertip covered with little bitty grits, shook them off, looked disgusted, and went back to his letter. Repeat this process for every single letter of the alphabet. Then, he was done, and went off to wash his hands. It was obvious from watching him that the grits tray did *nothing* for his comprehension of writing and instead completely distracted him. Isn't that just so interesting, to see how different two brothers can be??

And about that reading issue with A2. A little while after our success with the grits tray, I called him in to do some math. Now, A2 loves math. He talks about how math is his favorite all the time. Well, today there happened to be word problems. I decided to let A2 read the problems - just to see what he would do. I was just completely stunned when he read about 90% of the problems to me with no hesitations, virtually no stumbles at all. Things like, "I have 6 bottles of milk. I give away 4 bottles of milk. How many do I have left?" He just read it, the only prompting he needed from me was with the word "away". Of course, later I took out our Explode the Code phonics sheets, and he struggled mightily (yeah, right!) with telling me which picture began with an "a" sound. And his easy reader book "Pig Sits" - he could only read about half of it. I was talking to dh about it during our date night tonight, and he pointed out that when you're reading a math story problem, you actually use a different part of your brain then when you're just reading. So that could explain why A2 breezed through reading his story problems but struggled with the easy reader.

No matter what, I'm taking it as a very positive day, one that showed me my child will really read and write someday - someday soon! :-)