Home Educating, The Well-Planned Day

I am fairly new to the world of Homeschooling.  Last year I started home educating my then 4-year-old daughter for preschool.  I used the year as a trial to see how homeschooling might work out for us.  Not to my surprise, the school year went very well and we enjoyed our experience. 

There are several reasons why my husband and I chose homeschooling for our children. 

1. We made the choice to be a one income family so I could stay home and raise our children.  For us, that includes educating the children at home. 

2. We want to instill Christian values and Godly character in our family.  Homeschooling is one way we can teach our children these things without distractions, and also learn about God and the Bible in school.

3.  There are certain things I prefer to teach my children about when appropriate rather than having someone else teach it to them.  I realize I can not protect my children from everything, but I can prepare them and teach them moral and Christ like ways to handle situations. 

4. As a home educating family, there are unlimited opportunities for learning throughout the day.

5. Although it is not required, I have bachelor's degree in education.  I enjoy teaching, and feel competent in educating my children.

One thing I found in my web search for homeschooling materials last year was a wonderful Home School Planner called The Well-Planned Day.  I purchased one at our area Homeschool Convention to use for the 2010-2011 school year. 



The Homeschool Planner can be purchased from the  Home Educating Family website.

The planner is pretty.  Although pretty is not required for functionality, it does make the planner fun to use and that for me is a must! 

There are two possible ways to use the planner:

1. You can write out what you plan to do each day for each subject and with each student. 

2. You can keep record of what you accomplished each day for each subject and with each student. 

So far in my use of this planner, it is a must have for any home educating family!  I will definitely purchase one next year when the 2011-2012 edition is printed.

The following description is from the Home Educating Family website. 

WELL-PLANNED DAY INCLUDES

Over 200 Full Color Pages

Available in an 8.5 X 11 Spiral Bound Printed Book or PDF Download

Full Year Planner: July 2010 - June 2011

Organize and Plan for up to 4 children in one convenient book.

Four Student Class Plans: Schedule each student's class assignments.

Four Student Time Schedules: Track each day by the hour.

Weekly Schedule: Organize your week with class assignments, weekly priorities, prayer requests, dinner menu, and notes.

Month at a Glance: Plan field trips, enrichment activities and books to read

Semester Attendance & Progress Reports

Perforated Report Cards

Menu Planning: Plan weekly meals and conveniently shop with perforated shopping lists.

Family Worship: Read through the Bible in a year.

Insightful homeschool articles and tips to inspire you throughout the year.

The cost of the planner is $24.95, but definitely worth it!  If you sign up for the E-Newsletter from the Home Educating Family website, they have periodic promotional deals on the planners.  Yes, I said planners.  They also have planners for students, both middle schoolers and high schoolers.  As well, sign up for a free sample issue of Home Educating Family magazine! 

Laugh Out Loud Quote of the Day!

It rarely matters what I make to eat, our girls usually find something on their plate which is unsatisfactory to their tastebuds.  I can almost guarantee complaints and/or refusals to eat, especially if the menu does not consist of chicken nuggets, macaroni & cheese and green beans.  The rule at our house: They must try one bite

or sometimes 3 if it's something I know they've eaten before.

Tonight's menu:  Round Steak with A1 steak marinade, red pepper and zucchini slices.  

Simple and easy, nothing fancy,

but it filled our tummies! 

As my husband and I were in the kitchen finishing the final touches on dinner, me well knowing there would be complaints about the red and green things on their plates, my 5-year-old daughter turns to us and says, "Mommy's food's always good... sometimes."  I had to laugh out loud!

As for the food, the flavor came out great, especially the zucchini.  The meat was rather chewy, especially for kids.  For the next time around, I would definitely choose a different cut of meat. 

For the record, my 5-year-old daughter loves meat, especially a good steak off the grill.  She has expensive taste I guess.  Good thing we buy our beef in bulk!  My 3-year-old daughter rarely eats much meat, especially beef.  It is quite a chore to get her to chew and swallow even one bite!  I have more luck feeding her beans or cheese.  As for my 18-month-old son, once I shredded the meat up into teeny tiny pieces he gobbled it up!  He's going to be my good eater!

Fall Days... baked butternut squash!

 

The first day of Fall was Wednesday September 22, but on Sunday "Fall" made itself known!  It was quite chilly in my opinion and in the opinion of quite a few others at our fall church picnic.  

Monday I woke up to cool weather and rain.  Not my favorite weather combination, but great for baked butternut squash with plenty of butter and brown sugar!  Yum! 

 I don't have tons of time for complicated recipes, so I attempt to keep my cooking simple.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit.  Choose a nice butternut squash, wash and dry.  Next, cut the squash in half lengthwise with a large knife, and scoop out the seeds.

Fill a 9x13 glass baking dish with 1 inch of water, and lay squash halves cut side down in the dish.

Bake squash for 40-60 minutes, depending on size of squash.  Bake until soft. Test softness by poking a fork into the thickest part of the squash.  Once baked, flip the squash over and fill the empty seed cavities with butter (or your favorite non-dairy butter substitute) and brown sugar.  

Return the squash to the oven for 3-5 minutes to melt the goodness!  Once the butter and brown sugar are melted, remove the squash from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes.  Get a spoon out, and enjoy! 

Berrylicious Sweet Tea

At our house we usually keep our drink choices simple: water, coffee, tea, juice, milk, and for my non-dairy husband we have rice milk and soy milk.  As the last few warm days of summer came to a close, I decided to make Sweet Tea for some friends coming over for dinner.  Since I rarely make sweet tea, I started out with a little internet search to make sure I knew what I was doing.  Most people who drink sweet tea on a regular basis are quite partial to their sweet tea, so I didn't want to serve anything sub par.  I found Perfect Sweet Tea, and I must say it was quite good.

Of course I never follow a recipe to a tea (pardon the pun), so I couldn't resist to "modify" and make it my own.  The Perfect Sweet Tea used Lipton Orange Pekoe tea, but I had Snapple Wild 'Bout Berries tea in my cupboard.  So in my mind I thought, "Modify! Why not? Could be tasty!"

Here's my version of Berrylicious Sweet Tea.

Supplies:
Tea pot, a 4 cup glass measuring cup, a glass or glazed pitcher, a 1/4 measuring cup, and large mixing spoon
4 cups water, and 2 cups very cold water
5 Snapple Wild 'Bout Berries tea bags
3/4 cup Sugar In The Raw (Natural Cane Turbinado Sugar)

How to make Berrylicious Sweet Tea:

Measure exactly 4 cups water into the tea pot and heat until boiling (I used filtered water from my Brita pitcher).  While the water is heating, open 5 tea bags and tie them together.  This keeps the tea bags manageable.  

Place the tea bags into the glass measuring cup.  Once the water is boiling, pour it over the tea bags.

Allow the tea to brew for at least one hour.  Then squeeze the last bit of tea and water out of the tea bags into the measuring cup, and discard the bags.  Add 3/4 cup turbinado sugar to your glass or glazed pitcher, pour in the hot tea, and stir until sugar is fully dissolved.

Add two cups very cold water, and stir.  (Again, I used refrigerated water from my Brita Pitcher.)  If you like your tea really cold, refrigerate for about two hours.  If you're pinched for time, cut the cold water amount in half, and add some ice to the pitcher. 

Finally, add a little ice to a glass, pour in the tea and enjoy!

Apple Crisp Modified

I enjoy spending time in the kitchen whether cooking or baking.  Somehow it's relaxing for me to get my creative cooking juices flowing. In my 6 years as a domestic engineer, I've adopted my own cooking motto.  When lacking an ingredient or two, "modify."  When there's an undesirable ingredient or two, "modify."  And so, my cooking motto has become "modify, modify, modify."

Many times I have a general idea what I want to make, but can't find a recipe that is exactly what I'm looking for or that I have all the ingredients on hand.  So, I modify the recipe until I get the desired results, and then jot down my new and improved modified recipe! 

As I entered my kitchen purposed to make apple crisp, I began my usual modification process.  I won't bore you with all the in between details other than I first tried a recipe called "Best Apple Crisp Ever" and it was by far Not the best ever!

In my opinion, Not the "Best Apple Crisp Ever"

  However, I will provide my successful final results.

Apple Crisp Modified, out of the oven and ready to eat!

Apple Crisp Modified!
(This recipe is enough for a very full 9x13 glass baking dish, and is non-dairy.)

20-30 Apples (I used apples from our trees of course, but you may use whatever types of apples you prefer.)
4 Tbsp. lemon juice
1 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. ground nutmeg

Topping: (Courtesy of my Aunt Sabrina)
2 cups flour
2 cups brown sugar
2 cups quick oats
a couple pinches of salt
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 cup vegetable oil

Preparation:
Core, slice and peel apples.  I use one of those handy apple coring/slicing tools, then peel the slices and cut out any undesirable parts of the apples.  Since the apples I use are from our trees and we don't use pesticides, I cut out any bad spots from bugs, bruises, etc.  Next, toss the apple slices in a very large bowl with lemon juice.  You may want to toss them periodically as you slice them.  This keeps the apples from turning brown.  However, if the apples turn brown it shouldn't change the taste of the apple crisp.  In a small bowl, combine the granulated sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg.  Add the mixture to the sliced apples and toss until apples are evenly coated.  Pour the coated apples into a 9x13 glass baking dish.
In a large bowl combine flour, brown sugar, oats, salt and cinnamon.  Add oil and mix until the topping is crumbly.  Sprinkle the topping evenly over the apples.

Apple Crisp ready for the oven!

Bake at 375 degrees fahrenheit for 30-45 minutes on the center shelf of the oven.  I fill my baking dish very full, so I bake the crisp for the entire 45 minutes.  The topping should get a little brown, but not burnt.  Serve the apple crisp warm or room temperature with your favorite vanilla ice cream.  I am partial to Breyers Vanilla Bean.  My husband uses an organic soy non-diary frozen dessert called So Delicious creamy vanilla.  I've even been known to eat the leftover apple crisp cold out of the fridge.  Yes, it's that tasty! 

You will find what you prefer, and perhaps you will "modify" my recipe!

Time to Make the Applesauce

As a kid I always looked forward to eating my mom's warm homemade applesauce.  There is nothing in the store bought realm that can compare.  Since we have apples this year, how could I resist making my own?  It's time to make the applesauce!

I didn't have one of those cool apple corer slicer tools, so I went about things the old fashioned way, I used a knife.  What I learned, making applesauce is a labor of love.

Once I got all the apples peeled, in the pot they went!  I used a large 8.5 quart copper bottom stock pot, and added about 6 cups of water.  I read to use about 1/4 cup water per apple when making applesauce.  I wasn't so exact as to count how many apples I had peeled (Really I forgot), so I used my best guess and eyeballed the amount of water.  Apples, are you ready to meet your destiny?

I heated the apples on high until they began boiling.   Then I reduced the heat, keeping the apples still bubbling, and put the lid on the pot. 

Still cooking...  I checked the apples periodically with a fork to see if they were soft.  I didn't time the apples, but I kept checking them once in a while.  There's plenty of liquid, so no burning to worry about.

Here they are, soft and ready for applesauce!

Last year my oldest daughter and I made a small batch of applesauce for a home school experiment.  We used forks to mash the apples.  This works easily and requires no special equipment.  The applesauce is chunky, but still very tasty!  (My husband laughs at me every time I use that word.  Tasty!)  Since my kids are quite picky, I decided to go with smooth applesauce this time.  My food processor is pretty small, so blender was my appliance of choice for ease of use.

I put the apples in with a ladle, making sure not to overfill the pitcher, and allowing the apples and liquid room to blend.  Within a few minutes I had warm homemade applesauce!

Some for now, and some for later.  Yum... makes you want some right now doesn't it?

Apples, Apples, and More Apples!

Although we've lived in our 1928 farm house for three and a half years, this is the first year I've purposed to pick apples from our three apple trees. 

Aren't they pretty?

 I vaguely remember our first year here.  Could it possibly be due to sleep deprivation?  We moved here in the late winter with our one-week-old and 21-month-old daughters.  I doubt picking fruit from the trees was on the top of any of my lists that year.  Our second fall we had a big storm which wiped out the apple blossoms, no apples that year.  The third fall, another storm with ridiculous wind which literally knocked all the apples to the ground.  I remember taking the girls outside, attempting to pick up apples, but most of them were bruised beyond being usable for anything.  I think I made one small batch of applesauce and an apple pie.  

Which brings us to fall 2010.  This year we have Apples!

This is our Gala Apple Tree

I am not an expert of apple varieties whatsoever, but I did look it up and there are hundreds of varieties grown in the United States.  If you're interested in learning more, check out All About Apples.

Of our three trees we appear to have a Gala apple tree, some sort of tree with an identity crisis, and another that may be a variety of Red Delicious?

Identity crisis, Red Delicious or Golden Delicious?  My best guess, it may be a grafted tree.

  In an effort to make best use of the resources God has given us, I decided to make applesauce and freeze it in our deep freezer this year. 

Apples are you ready to meet your destiny?

More to come... making Apple Crisp and Applesauce!