Category Archives: Homeschooling

Kicking some goals

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We are nearing completion, as far as school is concerned. Each day another goal is kicked; grammar and spelling are out of the way for the girls. We have two history lessons left and one Bible lesson. The end of the math books is a few lessons away for A and an exam away for L. B6 is a few countries away from meeting his 25 countries in 40 days challenge.

B6 had the excitement of kicking a goal the other night for his soccer team the Dragonflies and, as tonight is their final game, A10 is hoping to kick one for the Sharks.

Today is officially the first day of summer and soon our schedule will include gardening, sewing, reading, swimming, a camp, a cottage and a couple of birthdays at least!

Trackmeet

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The annual homeschooler’s track meet was held yesterday and we were able to stay for the whole event this year. In past years it has clashed with both the girl’s senior solo recital and the softball tournament. The day was hot and sunny resulting in a bit of sunburn for each of us. L,A and B gave their best and all came home with at least one ribbon. Alexandra has learnt the strategy of pacing herself during the heats in order to have more in reserve for the finals. Ben was not the jogging, smiling, waving runner we saw race last year, but a single minded sprinter with his eye on the finish line.

The highlights for me were watching my girls and their good friends P and H team up in the relay and make the final, then watching my whole family run the 800m (that’s Andrew and B6 running it in the photo). Of course some one had to forgo the race in order to take the pictures.

Pottery

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Group of Four’s last activity for the school year has been a two week pottery unit with a friend of a friend. She has done a lovely job teaching the children. The photos displayed here were taken during the glazing process. When we receive the finished pieces I will post a few more photos. Each child has finished making and glazing a piggy bank; we just have to wait for them to be fired. Interestingly none of them were actually “piggy” banks. We had three penguins, a teddy, a rabbit, a fish, a car, a log cabin, a coffee bean, a monster and a tree stump.

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Bird watching

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Even though project feeder watch is over for this year we haven’t stopped enjoying the birds on our backyard feeders. Our list has continued to grow. Just the other day we had our first sighting of a male and a female Rose-breasted Grosbeak .

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Our list now includes:

  • cardinal
  • bluejay
  • chickadee
  • downy woodpecker
  • pileated woodpecker
  • hairy woodpecker
  • song sparrow
  • white-crowned sparrow
  • common grackle
  • dark-eyed juncos
  • brown headed cowbird
  • American crow
  • hawk
  • goldfinch
  • house finch
  • robin
  • mourning dove
  • rose-breasted grosbeak
  • wild turkey

Photo guide to birds in Canada

In the cupboard

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Last week Group of four did double duty: a morning field trip and an afternoon unit. When B6 realised this in the morning he declared, “Yay, no school today!” That’s what you think, my boy.

In the morning we headed off to a food bank in our city, the Kanata Food Cupboard, where we were given a tour and description of all the activities that go on there. We were also able to help sort three large collection bins that come in from local supermarkets and make up snack bags for school kids.

The food cupboard is staffed by 500 volunteers, some of whom had come in for an extra morning so that we could see them in action and have some guidance while we were working. We helped sort food into categories, some one else checked the use by date on every item sorted and then the items were shelved ready for another group to make family food packages. It was another reminder to all of us how richly blessed we are to always have enough food and often plenty to spare.

We then spent the afternoon looking at different components of fitness, breaking it down into muscle strength, flexibility, cardiovascular fitness and endurance. We tried to emphasize the importance of setting personal goals rather than comparing yourself to others but our arm wrestling activity did bring the competitive side out in a few of us!

Lamingtons

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As promised B6 and I made an Australian food mentioned in Possum Magic. Lamingtons are blocks of butter cake or sponge cake dipped in chocolate icing and rolled in coconut. The cake is less likely to crumble if made a day ahead so I did that the night before. Making Lamingtons can be a fairly messy activity. I left B6 whisking the chocolate icing at one stage and came back to find it splattered on the wall. This just reminded me of the Lamington drives I participated in as a teen.

Our youth group did Lamington drives as fundraisers. We would collect orders for boxes of a dozen lamingtons and then gather on a Saturday to spend the day making them. The cake part was purchased from a bakery or supplier, then we mixed up the icing and rolled hundreds of squares of cake in icing, then in coconut. You can imagine what our church hall looked like at the end.

We have shared our lamingtons with a few friends and their responses were enthusiastic. If you would like to make them here is the recipe we followed:

Lamingtons

img_2462crop.jpg 125g (4oz) butter
¾ cup castor sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
2 cups self-raising flour
pinch salt
½ cup milk

Cream butter, sugar and vanilla together until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beat well. Fold in sifted dry ingredients alternately with the milk. Spoon into a greased and greased paper lined 18cmx28cm lamington tin (squares tin). Bake in moderate oven 30 to 40 minutes. Allow to stand in the tin for a few minutes before turning out on to cake cooler. It is best to make the cake the day before you want to cut and ice the lamingtons, as fresh cake will usually crumble. Cut the cake into squares about 4x5cm. Dip in chocolate icing, then toss in coconut. Place on grease proof paper while icing sets.

Chocolate icing for lamingtons: Sift 500g icing sugar and 1/3 cup cocoa into a bowl. Add 2 teaspoons melted butter to ½ cup warmed milk. Add sufficient milk mixture to icing sugar mixture to make a smooth consistency; beat well.

img_2465crop.jpgIt is quite a messy process rolling the lamingtons in chocolate icing. We used skewers to hold the pieces of cake and roll them in the icing. We also put our bowl of icing in a larger dish of hot water to keep it from setting too quickly. I didn’t pour all the icing into the bowl at the beginning because after a while it thickens and gets bits of coconut and cake floating in it. At the end you have some chocolate icing with cake and coconut in it so you can’t really use it for anything else. You also have some coconut with globs of icing in it so you can’t really use it for anything else. So you have to just eat it, really, don’t you?

Possum Magic

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possum_cover.gifWhen I was teaching in Australian schools all those years ago Possum Magic was a classic, I’m sure it still is. I owned a Big Book version which I kept in the class room to read to the class. Today B6 and I read the big copy and enjoyed it very much. He knows many Australian animals but probably not as many as the girls did at his age. I think it made it a little more fun to read as he recognised some and puzzled over others.

Possum Magic is about Grandma Poss and Hush, her little grand-daughter. Grandma Poss has some basic magic skills, enough to make Hush invisible but not enough to change her back when the novelty wears off. She has a hunch that the magical remedy involves food.

In order to become visible Grandma and Hush set off around Australia in search of quintessential Aussie cuisine. B6 knew many of the foods mentioned (because we make them) but not all. He had never heard of a Mintie and wasn’t clear on what a mornay was either. Tomorrow we are going to make one of the foods which restored some of Hush’s visibility so I’ll let you know how that goes.

Julie Vivas’ watercolour pictures are beautiful. The rainbow serpent in particular caught our eyes, especially in the big book version as it takes up the whole double page spread. B6 recognised the famous landmarks dotted through the pages and was entertained by the whole book. It hasn’t changed his opinion of Vegemite though, it must be the Canadian coming out in him.

Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia

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B6 has had a whirlwind tour through the above countries, I wish I had been organised enough to provide authentic cuisine for each of the stops but I wasn’t. We did read some good books to give us some glimpses of life in South East Asia. I didn’t plan it that way but for each country I had a book which featured the daily life of a child. In Thailand we read of a small village where elephants are trained as work animals and the children who own one particular elephant. The book An Elephant in my Backyard by Richard Sobol had great photos to give us an idea of a child’s life very different from B6’s.

While in Vietnam we read about the twins, Huy and Vinh, in A Child’s Day in a Vietnamese City. Both B6 and I thought it sounded cool to buy a spicy noodle dish for breakfast on the way to school and visit the beach each afternoon after school. We were introduced to Yati in Malaysia while reading Children of the World: Malaysia. B6 enjoyed the Malaysian folk tale Kancil and the Crocodiles where a little turtle and a mouse deer outsmart a river full of crocodiles.

He’s off to Australia next, although he is an Australian citizen he has only spent one month there, much of which he doesn’t remember, he told us the other day. Believe it or not, I do have a few books and photos so perhaps I can jog his memory.

Looking for ways to give

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After Group of Four finished the unit on our sponsor children we wanted to think of some ways to give of our abundance to those who did not have as much as us. We tried to think of a project which would not require the children to ask others to sponsor them or buy from them. Although we are still looking for ways and opportunities for our families to give to others we did get involved in a couple things during the last two weeks. Last Thursday we visited a down town mission here in our city. We arrived late morning in time to serve the cookies we had made to those who were there. The children were able to serve and chat for a while to the lunch time gathering.

One of the volunteers then took us on a tour of the premises explaining to all of us exactly what goes on at the mission. He explained the hours of operation and what was offered when they were open. It is not a mission which provides accommodation but is open daily serving snacks, lunches or Thursday night dinner. They also provide computer access and assistance, classes, counseling, clothing, laundry coupons and visits. They keep a stock of non-perishable food and other necessities to give away where needed. Our guide was fabulous, keeping up an English accent for the children (in order to sound like a tour guide), covering the reasons why a mission is needed very sensitively and talking about the opportunities to serve Christ in serving others.

This unit and this field trip has got me thinking about what I can be doing for the “poor who are always with us”. I have been blessed with so much. Perhaps we will be able to go back to the mission down town and get involved there, I’m not sure, but I am praying about it. The family who lined up the visit for us have been involved there on an occasional basis, making and serving food, as well as playing music at the Thursday night dinners.

After we left there we wandered around at the tulip festival for a while snapping photos and enjoying the sunshine.

Group of Four paints

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With a name like “Group of Four” we had to do some painting sooner or later.

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I had been thinking how nice it would be to have someone else come in and teach our group. All four of the mothers have had something extra in their lives over the last few weeks and I just thought we could all do without the preparation of another lesson. Well, as often is the case, God knew what I hoped without me ever voicing it. One of the grandmothers of our group was visiting her grandsons and kindly agreed to give the whole group a lesson.

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First she covered colour mixing, then did a demonstration with acrylic paint in order that the children could all do their own simple landscape. Before we finished she gave the older ones some pointers in sketching. It was an excellent lesson which everyone enjoyed. At the top is the landscape by B6, in the middle is A10’s and below is L12’s.

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