Wordless Wednesday

Book Sharing Monday: Paddle to the Sea

Paddles to the Sea by Holling Clancy Holling

I am so pleased with this book!  A good friend of mine recommended it to me as a geography read a loud.   This book was written in 1941 and has become a favorite among readers for many years now.  A young boy carves an Indian and canoe naming it Paddle to the Sea.  He places him into the water, with a note attached giving the Indian and canoe's name with the instruction to place him back in the water.  This journey takes him from the Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence River, to the Atlantic Ocean.  While on his journey he has many experiences and meets many people, braves danger, sees various wild life and gets the lay of the land!  It's a great way to do geography.  The author has three more books similar to this one as well.  

I found this book on a curriculum site called Beautiful Feet Books.  They had some great curriculum with it, including a sturdy map to plot Paddle to the Sea's journey.  It's nice but I will make our own. ;)  On that map page, at the bottom, is a neat link that one of their customers created to go along with the book Paddle to the Sea.  The link is a google earth application with some of the places Paddle to the Sea visited.  If you click on the canoes, you can get more information and such about the place(s) the canoe visited.  I will be utilizing that for sure!

I am happy with how Geography is shaping up for our until study in January.  It will be great fun. :)

Weekly Wrap Up: History/SK Work/Math

This post is linked back to Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers Weekly Wrap Up. http://www.weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers.com/2012/12/weekly-wrap-up-no-words/

Esther working on her Mm page and looking through My First Picture Dictionary for words that begin with Mm.

SK Work

We continued into the third week of Sonlight's Language Arts K Program (Beginning Letters and Sounds).  Esther has been enjoying the work and it quite capable of sitting for the 20-30 minute time it takes.  We are on letter Mm this week! :)

Heather writing out a message in the Norse Alphabet.

History

We have continued with our Viking Study as part of our Canadian History (Donna Ward's All Inclusive Canadian History Bundle).  Along side of the Discovering Canada Viking book  we added Viking Adventure as a read a loud.   The kids have been enjoying this book immensely and will often beg for more chapters to be read from it. 

What I thought was neat was that one of the characters (on older man) from Viking Adventure is trying to convince a young boy to learn to read and write so that the boy can carry on the tradition of writing down Viking events and tales to preserve their heritage.  He is aware that he is approaching the end of his life soon and needs someone to fill his spot.  At the same time we studied some Norse writing and alphabet from the Discovering Canada Viking book.  The kids were very excited about the co-relation and practiced writing out Norse letters, making them into messages to record events.  I love how when the information we are studying comes alive for them and out of their own initiative run with the material.  That's when real learning happens, they embrace the knowledge and make it their own.  I love how we have the freedom to do this in homeschooling!

  

Esther often listens in on all these read a louds but I will pull out some of her books to go along with what the other kids are reading.  She looked through the Viking Section in Usborne's Living Long Ago Book.

Science

The kids trying desperately to find the the camouflaged lizard in its habitat.

We dug into Apologia's Creatures of the Fifth Day with some readings and lap book activities.  They really do enjoy the Apologia's series and had specifically requested Flying Creature for our next science section.  We do science twice weekly with a reading from the Apologia text and follow that up with a lap book activity.

We have also been working through a book we choose for our Book Club called:  It Couldn't Just Happen by Larry Richards.  We are taking that in little chunks with daily readings from it.  There is a lot of information in that book, so we are sifting through it slowly so as not be overwhelming.  

Math

We've been using Jump Math for the two older kids this year.  Heather has completed Right Start from A-D and has a good grasp on math.  She is finishing up her grade 6 math in Jump and will be on to grade 7 soon enough, and ahead of schedule.  She's been working long division this week with no problem at all.  She is naturally gifted in math.

Graham seems to work better with a Jump Math Work Book.  It's components are similar to Right Start and we pull out all the manipulatives and games to compliment his learning style.  He's been doing so much better with this approach and finds it less complex to wrap his mind around.  I like how the Jump Math takes things in steps and breaks it down for them to see it all.  

Wordless Wednesday

Book Sharing Monday: WOW Canada

We had been doing a plain work book for Canadian Geography and it was boring us all to tears so I decided to look into something more engaging and fun.  Geography is not one of my strong suits.  We do it but it's not my favorite subject! I decided I had better spice things up a little: for all of us.  Canada is truly a gorgeous country from coast to coast and I want our children to see that we live in one of the most amazing, versatile landscapes in the world!  

So, I did some digging, asked advice from a friend and found this incredible book:  Wow Canada!.  It reminds me of an Usborne Book.  The book is built around a family who traveled coast to coast, province by province to learn about this beautiful Country of ours.  It is written from the perspective of 12 year old, Guy, whose humour engages, and his survival tips enlighten the reader with all types of information that kids will hold in their head for years to come.  

Front Cover

This book is eye catching from page to page.  There are gorgeous pictures of landscape, culture and natural resources.  Lot of information about each province abounds.  The author skillfully weaves together cultural history along with geography, natural resources, wild life and the like in each page you turn.   This is a very pleasing book.  A wonderful read a loud that can ignite a desire to learn more about this beautiful Country, definitely a WOW book. :)

I will be using this in tandum with a few other goodies I found.  Including:  Province to Province (I got this one from The Learning House)  , Paddles to the Sea, Scholastic Canada Atlas of the World (or Collins Canadian World Atlas) and Symbols of Canada.  You can get this one for free from our government, providing you have a Canadian address.  See link for that one (allow 2-3 weeks to receive it).  It can also be purchased on the Donna Ward Site: link.  

Inside the book

We won't be starting all this geography until the new year.  I hope we can wait! :)   I threw out our plain white and black workbooks and we will move on! 

Weekly Wrap Up: History Sketches

This week has been a fun one, we really enjoyed our week!  

ADVENT READINGS

We started each morning out with advent readings from Luke.  It has been such a blessing to learn about Christ's life and ministry from the chapters we're reading through.  The kids love to discuss what impacted them about the readings.  I am often amazed by their insights.  

BOOK CLUB

We began Monday with Book Club, which the kids were eagerly awaiting. :)  For the past 6 weeks or so we've been studying Shakespeare's play: Much Ado About Nothing.  The kids loved it and we will definitely be studying more Shakespeare in the years to come.  I usually do a Book Sharing Monday Post but when we have book club I combine the two. I run the Junior Book Club and it has been one of the highlights of my teaching year to do so.  It is a pleasure to watch all the kids' enthusiasm to share and participate.  If you are interested in reading more on our book club you can view the book club post here.

I was excited to pick up a wonderful used book for further Shakespeare study and group activities called: Stepping into Shakespeare.  I was so happy to get this book, as we will be studying more Shakespeare for the book club and it will be a gem of a resource book for teaching at home as well.  

HISTORY

We started in on Vikings as part of our History this week.  We are using a few resources in our study including the Discovering Canada Book: Vikings, along with Usborne's Time Traveler (gorgeous pictures and information in that one), and the read a loud :Viking Adventure.  The kids have been very excited about this part of the unit study.  They were fascinated to learn that the Vikings visited parts of Canada well before the typical Canadian Explores we hear about.  They were equally as excited to learn that a Viking Village was unearthed on the shores of NewFoundland. :)  I had them do some sketching of Viking Ships using an illustration from the Discovering Canada Viking book.  And of course the read aloud for this section is always a hit for them!  

PERSONAL READING

Heather began a new series of books for her personal reading time called:  Elijah Creek and the Armor of God.  She has been gobbling those books up and finished book one already, passing it along to me.  I confess I am having a hard time putting that book down! lol  Heather is on to the second one in the series.  I am so glad a friend of mine recommended them to us.  We love it when we find great reads.

MATH

We've had some struggles in math this week for my eldest.  She is accustomed to getting math concepts on the first try and with very little effort.  We were working on long division and she was having trouble grasping the  concept.  I reminded her that she doesn't have to get a concept the first time that sometimes it takes a bit to grasp something, and that's okay, but she was so frustrated with it that I stopped the lesson. It just wasn't worth it to continue with her that frustrated. I love that we can do that though, take a break when we need to.  Sometimes a break is all we need to refocus and come back with a fresh start.  This mornings lesson went fantastic and she was able to grasp the concept as we tried a couple more different ways to illustrate it.

Graham has been doing great with his math, getting perfect on nearly every work sheet this past week.  He has turned a corner in both math and reading over the past few weeks.  This has been such an encouraging week for him and he was excited to share his work with his Dad. 

Heather working on her Viking Ship Sketch.  She loves to add lots of detail!

Graham working on his Viking ship sketch.  He loves to add colour and create scenes.


SK LEARNING

My youngest has continued to work steadily through her Language Arts Program from Sonlight. (Beginner Sounds and Letters), her Right Start Math Level A along with one of her favorite books right now: The Berenstain Bears' Big Book of Nature and Science.  She loves that book. :)  

She also wanted to do some Christmas Drawing and Cards.  She had me take a picture of that. LOL  I told her I would put it up on my blog this week.  She was pleased with that.

Esther drawing a Christmas card for her little friend next door. :)


This post is linked back to Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers Weekly Wrap Up!

Wordless Wednesday

Silly Yak Bake Day: Blueberry Cobbler ~ Breakfast Style

 This is a nice treat on a cold winter morning.  I make this every once in a while for a morning breakfast or mid morning snack.  We all love it, the kids get very excited when I tell them what's in the oven!  It's super tasty and easy to make.  I make this with Gluten Free Flour but you can also use whole wheat or white flour.  Honestly, though: using various flours for baking, even if you are not GF, is a good way to add variety and health benefits to your diet.  It's not as hard as it seems - really! :)

Blueberry Cobbler - Breakfast Style

1 1/2 cup uncooked rolled oats
1/2 cups GF flour (could be almond flour/rice flour/ all purpose flour/ sorghum flour)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp of salt
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cups of cow milk OR rice milk OR almond milk
2 eggs
1/4 butter
1 cup of blueberries

1. Preheat oven to 350 F and prepare a 9inch x 9inch pan.

2. Mix the first six ingredients together in a bowl and set aside.

3. Whisk together milk, egg, butter.

4. Pour wet mixture into dry mixture, mix well and then fold in fruit.

5. Pour into the baking pan.

6. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until it has a nice golden colour.  Cool on wire racks.

*This dish can be served with some a dallop of yogurt or kefir on top!

ENJOY!

Book Club: Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

Our monthly book club met today to discuss Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing!  Much Ado About Nothing is a comedy about love, a plot to destroy love, a plot to trick a couple into love, betrayal, loyalty and the truth coming to light.  For more on the play, here is a great summary.

 I had wanted to end this study with a Shakespeare production of Much Ado About Nothing but as it happened they saw the production first.  This actually worked out very well.  The play was in Stratford. The kids LOVED the production and it sparked a great deal of enthusiasm to study the play once we got home.  The production was incredible and the acting superb!  It peeked an interest in theater for my children along with a wonderful introduction to Shakespeare.  

For the study of our play we began by talking about who Shakespeare was, where he lived and the time he lived in.  There are some nice books that help with this but I did not have them on hand so I used the good old internet to help us out.  But if you are looking for books:  Usborne Internet-Linked World of Shakespeare along with Shakespeare for Kids are good ones, We also discussed various aspects of the theater of that time period along with Shakespeare's contributions to theater and acting.  I felt like this set the stage well enough for them before we actually read through the play.

To delve in to the play I began with Charles and Mary Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare to introduce the kids to the basic plot of the play. I would have also used Illustrated Stories From Shakespeare but that book did not have the Play Much Ado About Nothing.  We did have on hand Much Ado About Nothing from the Shakespeare Can Be Fun Series, so we read through that as well.  We then followed that up with reading through the actual Shakespeare play.  The kids really enjoyed each part of the process and came away more then willing to see more Shakespeare and study more of his plays. :)

BOOK CLUB for MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

I have been running a Junior book club for a number of months now.  It is proving to be a most enjoyable experience for all of us!  The kids are happy to participate and share their insights about the works we are reading.  Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing was no exception.  

We began by talking about Shakespeare, his works, his time period and the theater.  The kids were more then happy to share thoughts, impressions and what they learned at home about the life and times of Shakespeare.  I read through some of the Usborne Internet Linked World of Shakespeare with them.  The picture in that book are amazing, so we took in some of those as well.

Then we talked about the play.  They were eager to answer questions about what they liked about the play, what scenes were their favorite and why, what they learned etc.  They shared what they did at home to help the play come alive: watching a production of it, listening to a version on audio, acting it out with play mobile,  reading through it, and acting out various parts were among those shared.  It was exciting to hear how they made the play come alive as they studied it!

For our book club the activity was sketching a comic strip of their favorite scenes.  Not only did they participate in the sketching but there was some wonderful conversation among them as they talked about the scenes they were recreating.  We just used pencils and plain paper!  That was all that was needed to get them going.  It was a great book club. :)

Working on his Comic Sketch

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Forming out her page for the individual scenes.

Look at all these kiddos! :)

Weekly Wrap Up: Catch Up and Snow Play!

We've been catching up on a lot of seat work this week as last week was such a short week!  Despite catching up on everything, we had a nice relaxing week.  In addition to their regular readings, the kids pulled out tons of books throughout the day and looked through them.  The maze books from Usborne captured Graham's attention so he made several mazes on his own.  He features one of them below.

Esther has been doing well with her beginning reading program from Sonlight: beginning letters and sounds along with the primer for Explode the Code Series: Get Set for the Code book A.  My eldest, Heather, has taken it upon herself to teach her a little extra at night before they go to bed and most nights Esther is happy to oblige!  She loves to look at books before she drifts off to sleep, taking a huge stack of them with her on her bed.  I often find a couple books right beside her after she has fallen asleep.  

The kids all received mail this week from their cousins.  Their cousins are homeschooled and as part of their grammar program they wrote letters to us and the kids were more then happy to write back! :)  It was great practice for them.

Piano lessons this week included Christmas Carols.  This is one of the highlights of their piano experiences for the year.  They love to help pick out the music and practice their carols for us and others to enjoy. Graham has shown an interest in stringed instruments, specifically the violin.  I'm not sure yet when or if we will switch him from piano to violin but I am mulling it over for him.

This year we are delving into Canadian History using Donna Wards All Inclusive Canadian History Bundle.  We finished up our unit on the Natives of Canada and will be moving on to Vikings this coming week using the Discovering Canada Series.  After the unit on Vikings we'll make a 'news paper' about vikings and Canada as part of their history program.  It will be similar to the Usborne Newspaper books.  We have a few of those on hand and will use them as examples of how to create a newspaper.

We started a new book for book club this week:  Jason's Gold.  We just finished up Shakespeare's play Much Ado About Nothing.  I will blog about that on Monday when I combine my book sharing Monday post with Book Club.  The kids are looking forward to Book Club, this will be our forth one and it is nice to see them eagerly awaiting it!

We are starting the advent reading today using Blessed Beyond a Doubt's advent reading schedule.  We will do it during our first fruits devotional time.  I love to do the advent readings with the kids come December. :)

The kids enjoyed some snow up north while having our Christmas with my parents.  They were sad to leave all the beautiful white, winter wonderland behind.  I can't say I blame them, snow is so much fun to play in and we don't see nearly enough of it where we live.  

My parents back yard up north.

The girls before they head out for a now ball fight and fort building.  I didn't catch a picture of Graham in the snow but he was there alright! lol


This post is linked back to Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers Weekly Wrap Up!

Wordless Wednesday

Tasty Tuesday: GF Power Packed Pancakes!

These pancakes are by far our very favorite!  This is a recipe I have come up with as I modified other various recipes to our liking.  It's a tried and true favorite.  We eat pancakes often at our house.  These ones are home made with nutritional flour and charge us all up for the mornings work.  I will often serve them with a fruit smoothie, making a nice complete breakfast for them. 

Recipe:

Place all dry ingredients into a bowl and set aside:

1 cup arrowroot flour OR tapioca flour

1 cup brown rice flour or sorghum flour

3/4 cup of oats or quinoa flakes (I grind mine up into a flour because my kids don't like the texture)

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

Blend together all wet ingredients:

2 tbsp of coconut oil OR butter OR any other light flavoured oil

2 eggs

1/2 cup of apple sauce (you can omit if you don't have this on hand)

2 cups of buttermilk OR milk OR almond milk

1.  Place wet ingredients in a stand mixer or hand mixer and blend.

2.  Pour in little bits of the flour mixture and continue to blend in until nice and smooth

3.  Pour about a 1/4 cup of mix into a hot skillet until the one side bubbles, then turn to finish baking.

4. Serve with maple syrup, a dallop of yogurt or kefir or even some jam!

YUM!  ENJOY!

Book Sharing Monday: Trailblazer Books

I bought these from a Homeschooling Mom who has her last child in college. We have about 8 of them now.   The books are called Trailblazer by Dave and Neta Jackson and are historical fiction gems!  My daughter read her first one and couldn't put them down, she was hooked. There are 40 titles in the series.  They present the life of missionaries and other Christian figures in an exciting, action packed way that holds the young reader to the very end of the book.  The Christian figures include:  David Livingstone, Florence Nightingale, Martin Luther, Hudson Taylor and more!  These are great living books.  A fantastic way of weaving adventure, history and people together.  

Some of these books came with a Curriculum Guide as well.  They have a little lesson for each chapter that include a Praise and Prayer section, vocabulary, some background information, activities and suggestions of what to discuss.  We haven't used those though.  My daughter just loves to read them and narrate back to me what she has learned about any number of things that impacted her about the book.  But the guides are there if I would like to read over them for some reason or another.

On the trailblazer site they are offering all 40 titles on ebook format, as they are not all in print any longer.  They are also offered on amazon.com, and you can certainly pick them up used on there or other used book stores.  I will likely get more for my Kindle Reader.  I find that format nice for a huge series like this.  They are keepers for sure.  I'll be keeping them on the shelf for my other two to pick up and read at some point.  Whether for a read aloud or an individual free read, they are fantastic. 

Weekly Wrap Up: November 23rd

This week was a short one! We did some seat work and the kids worked on their speeches for their homeschool speech workshops and competition. Graham didn't end up doing his though because he got a dental appliance in that made it more difficult for him to clearly pronounce his words. Heather did great despite her nerves. This is apart of their curriculum for the year, so I've had to push a little but they are rising to the challenge. It's that delicate balance; gentle encouraging pushes that help to build confidence while building a new skill. Public speaking can be intimidating! It is such a good skill to learn and the more they do it the more comfortable they will become being up there in front of others.

We ended the week with an amazing camping trip to a stunning Provincial Park in Northern Ontario. We went on nature walks, taking in the complex Eco systems, saw a screech owl, some bald eagles and other wild life. We had fun building a camp fire and staying in a yurt (a tent like structure built for camping). It was a truly incredible time of learning and making memories that will last a life time!

It was awesome walking through the forest!

Campfire!  It was such an amazing end to a perfect day!

This structure over looks the marsh and protected wetlands below.

Ahhhh, beautiful provincial park, so quiet and peaceful.

Heather working on the outline of her speech.

The girls walking back from the sunset at Sunset Point.

Esther had me take picture of her progress along the path.  This is one of many! lol

Wordless Wednesday

Tasty Tuesday: GF Donut Muffins

These were so yummy!  We made them as a special treat for morning breakfast.  They made an even dozen and were gone in no time.  The kids told me they tasted just as good as regular donuts.  And the best part:  they don't have all the fat and calories of store bought donuts!

Here's the recipe:

3/4 cup all purpose GF flour (I used El Peto's corn free all purpose flour)

3/4 cup sorghum flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/2 cup milk

1 egg

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup sugar

1.  Preheat Oven to 350F

2.  Mix all the dry ingredients (except for sugar) together in a medium sized bowl and set aside

3.  Place all the wet ingredients along with the sugar in a blender and blend for 1 minute

4.  Pour wet mixture into dry mixture and mix just until it is moistened.

5.  Pour into buttered muffin tin/stone 

6.  bake for 20 minutes or until the 'donuts' have a nice golden look

7.  You can toss muffins lightly in cinnamon sugar while still warm (a mixture of cinnamon and powdered sugar).

A First Book of Fairy Tales

A First Book of Fairy Tales came with Sonlight's P3/4.  Child friendly timeless tales retold with gorgeous illustrations grace the pages of this book.  From well known tales such as Sleeping Beauty to not so well known but wonderful stories like Diamonds and Toads make this book a delight.  My five year old loves to take this one to bed with her at night and reaches for it during the day as well.  

The introduction to this book is fascinating as well.  It gives a good glimpse into the world of fairy tales:  how they came to be, how they were passed down and how they were preserved to bring others the pleasure of reading them and enjoying them.  Both for their story and for their timeless lessons!

A great read! :)   

Weekly Wrap Up

Friday's are always so busy for us, so doing a weekly wrap up has been difficult. :)  I'll manage to squeak this one in though.  I haven't posted one for a couple of weeks as swimming, nature class (both on Friday's) along with heavy weekend activities have been interfering with my wrap ups.  I think I will need to do them on Thursday's. 

 My youngest has been keen to start reading and asked to be 'taught' to read.  We've been working with her in every day life but because she has asked to do some sit down work, I started her on her own reading program this week.  I am using Sonlight's Beginning Letters and Sounds Program.  She has been enjoying the activities.  In the picture above, she is working on a letter Ff page.   This program is strong on phonics as well as offering a complete Instructors Guide.  I have found it easy to follow and very complete.  

She also wanted to do math like the older two!  I started her on her math program a couple of weeks ago.  I have worked through Right Start with all of my kids as I love their approach to math.  She is beginning with their Level A.  

A half hour each day (if that) is all it takes with her.  We do tons of reading with her using Sonlight's P4/5 Core Program.  The books are delightful and timeless.  I have been purchasing Sonlight's Cores since we started home schooling with my eldest at the age of 5.  I have used this core twice now and I have to confess I have been looking forward to doing it again with my youngest.  The books are so much fun!  All my children love these books and they are favorites around here.  Not only do I get to read them again but my eldest girl (11yrs) will pick them up to read with my youngest (5yrs).  I listen to her read with enthusiasm, adjusting speed, tone and tempo as the stories change and I find myself so thankful that we use curriculum rich in literature. :)  I can tell, it's been working!

I picked up a few books from the Trailblazer Series from a Homeschool Mom who is selling a lot of her curriculum.  Her youngest is going in to College now.  These were gems for my eldest daughter.  There were four of them and she has read all of them!  She said she would love more from this series so I will keep my eye out for more.  We have read a loud a number of The Christian Heroes Then and Now Series but these were just perfect for her age group to read.  They even came with a guide for extra activities and what not.  She didn't use them, as she was using them as free reads but they are here if I want to pull it off the shelf for suggestions on further study.

We continued work on Apologia: Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day and their Lap Book Study.  These are coming along.  They both enjoy learning about birds and other such creatures, so this was a good fit for this year!

Finally!!!  Jenny Cote's The Roman, the Twelve and the King   in the Epic Order of Seven was  released!  We had it pre-ordered for our eldest.  She has read all of Jenny Cote's books (see Book Sharing Monday for a peek at the first one:  The Ark the Reed and Fire Cloud). and was waiting for this next one to be released.   It's a thick one!  I love the look on her face!  We didn't hear from her for a while after that, the little book worm was busy reading! 

The last few weeks have been full of activity but they have been good, challenging at times but also have found myself thinking a number of times how thankful and blessed I am to be homeschooling my children.  

This post is linked up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers Weekly Wrap Up.

Wordless Wednesday

Tasty Tuesday: Gluten Free Banana Chocolate Chip Bread

Mmmmmmmm What a treat on a cold overcast fall day!  The whole house smells fantastic.  This loaf won't stay around long but that's the test of true yumminess! :)  I love making delicious GF baked goods.  If you are concerned about the amount of sugar in the recipe substitute it for maple syrup, agave or even stevia!  This is a great recipe and the alternative flour adds variety and health benefits for anyone, not just those who struggle with wheat intolerance or celiac disease.  You can also omit the chocolate chips and add nuts.  (which personally I prefer but I sometimes put them in as a treat for my kids).  

Gluten Free Banana Chocolate Chip Bread

- Preheat oven to 350F

Cream together:

I cup sugar

1/2 oil or melted butter

2 eggs

1 cup mashed ripe bananas

1 tsp vanilla 

1/2 cup sour cream

In separate bowl sift together:

1 1/2 cups of GF flour (read the flour package, as it will tell you what the measurement will be for 1 cup of wheat flour.  I used El Peto's Corn free All Purpose Flour: 2/3 cup = 1 cup white flour)

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

Blend liquid and dry ingredients together and add in 1 cup chocolate chips.  Pour into buttered loaf stone.

Bake at 350F for 50-60 minutes or until toothpick come out clean.

ENJOY! 

Book Sharing Monday: The Lion Storyteller Bedtime Book

The Lion Storyteller Bedtime Storybook has  been a well loved favorite read for all  three of my children.  It came to me from Sonlight Curriculum's JK Core.  The stories are whimsical, delightful and teach strong character lessons.   The illustrations are eye catching and beautiful and  just the right length for young listeners.  I had misplaced it on a shelf for a while and was so disappointed because I knew my 5 year old daughter would love this book!  When I found it (on a the book shelf tucked behind other books?) , all the kids were so excited.  We stopped everything and read a few stories.  Even the older kids will sit down to listen to the readings.  My eldest daughter willing read it a loud to her little sis. :)  

Not only was I pleased to find it as a read a loud for my youngest but I was hoping to use it for my oldest two children's speech Workshops.  They are each doing a Storytelling Speech for this years speech competition.  This book is an excellent book to pull a story from.  It also helps that the kids love these stories so much, it will make it easier to tell in a speech format.

One of the stories.  

Wordless Wednesday

Tasty Tuesday: Curried Toasted Pumpkin Seeds

These were good!  I searched on line for a good recipe and found one called: Toasted Pumpkin Seeds Three Ways Recipe.  I choose the curry one because the kids and us really enjoy curry.   We carved our pumpkins for Halloween and kept all the seeds to make these little bits of yummy goodness.  It's the only time we have toasted pumpkin seeds and this recipe was fantastic.

Wordless Wednesday: Autumn Morning Sky

Gluten Free Apple Crisp

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Gluten Free Apple Crisp

First set of Ingredients/instructions:

- 10 cups of all purpose apples (peeled, cored, and cut)
- 1 cup of white sugar
- 1 tbsp of GF all purpose flour (I used the El Peto corn free all purpose flour)
- 1tsp of cinnamon
- 1/2 cup water

1. Pour apples into a 9x13 baking dish.
2. Mix the dry ingredients together and spread evenly over the apples
3. Pour the water evenly over the apples and mixture

Second set of Ingredients/instructions:

- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1 cup of GF all purpose flour (I used the El Peto corn free all purpose flour)
- 1 cup of quick oats
- 1/4 tsp of gluten free baking powder
- 1/4 tsp of baking soda
- 1/2 cup of melted butter

1. Combine the above mixture until nice and crumbly
2. Pour mixture over the apples
3.  Bake at 350F for 45 minutes, until crust on top is golden.

ENJOY! :D

Weekly Wrap Up: Detroit 5K & Lap Books

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Science: LAP BOOKS

Our week has been pretty good!  We worked on our Apologia Exploring Creation with Zoology: Lap Books.  This has been a welcome change from the notebooks.  We just keep adding to their year long project using the lap book method.  I think I will have them show them off in some way to their peers or extended family once they are done.  They are working hard on them. :)  

SHAKESPEARE STUDY

We've also been reading through the Shakespeare Play:  Much Ado About Nothing using Tales From Shakespeare .  They enjoyed the Stratford Production a few weeks ago.  I am actually glad that they saw the production first because they seem so engaged and taken with the story.  They will chat about the scene they saw as we read through the story.  I have been waiting on a book to use for some back ground on Shakespeare called: The Usborne World of Shakespeare.  I had an opportunity to look through it and it is amazing!  Just what we need to give us a solid introduction to the life, times and plays of Shakespeare. 

Detroit Free Press 5K

My 11 year old daughter and I trained from spring until last weekend to run our first race!  The Detroit Marathon held a series of different races so we decided to train for the 5K this year.  We used a Cool Running: Couch to 5K Program.  This was truly an incredible experience for us, all the way from the training to the end of the race.  We spend some amazing quality time as mother/daughter while on our runs.  We got to connect with some solid one on one time while at the same time achieving a fitness goal.  Our race was on the 22nd at 7:25am.  What an AMAZING time!  The energy of all the people in downtown Detroit about to embark on their own fitness goals was catchy!  We ran our race together from start to finish.  My 'little' girl took a fall about a mile and a half in but she got back up and we finished!  She took a skinned knee but wasn't hurt so badly that we couldn't continue the race.  We made out with a pretty good time 44min, which I thought was good with the fall she took!  We will definitely do it again next year but in the meantime we'll run some 10K's together while working to decrease the time it will take to run the 5K.  A friend of my daughter's brought her a bouquet of flowers to congratulate her for doing her first race!  So sweet.

Right after the race!  :)

With our metals! :)

Flowers for Heather from a good friend.

This post is linked back to Wierd Unsocialized Homeschoolers Weekly Wrap Up. (http://www.weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers.com/)