Making Butter

John wanted to make homemade butter. I had some leftover cream from making a fabulous peanut better pie, so I said we’d give it a try. It actually was really easy. I was so glad daddy was here when we did this, because we shook the container for 30 minutes. We used these directions.Above is what our butter looked like after shaking it for 30 minutes, and then rinsing it until the water ran clear. We then added some salt. I only used an eighth of a teaspoon though. John really enjoyed shaping it down into the bowl. He told me it was going to be our butter mold :) Anyway, we tasted a little on our fingers and it is really, really good. We didn’t try it on bread because we ate the last of it this afternoon. I was the only one too chicken to try the buttermilk, but I’m not a fan of milk to begin with.

John insisted that we save the "recipe" to do it again later.

Week in Review 10-11/10-22 (Weeks 6 & 7)

Week 6:

We continued to read the Stories of the Pilgrims. Every day we read this John and Gracie ask for me to read more. Wonderful thing about Charlotte Mason, it leaves them wanting more and not leave the children with that glazed over look. This week we talked about Life in Holland. The Hollanders had a weekly scrubbing day. We decided to attack my white kitchen cabinets. The fun thing is that John and Gracie wanted to continue into the rest of the house, but school had to be finished. Ha!!!

We discussed storks as they were really prized in Holland. We did a simple, experiment to understand webbed feet. We wrapped a spatula in saran wrap and paddled it through the bathtub. It just really helps us see the wisdom of our Creator as cranes don’t even need webbed feet. We also discussed what a food chain is talked about what a stork eats. This led to us discussing other animals as well.

We talked about the storks migrating as well and did an experiment to help us understand what kind of clothes we should wear in cold weather. We put an ice cube in a mitten as well as a dish cloth. It seemed a little confusing for them as they thought the one in the mitten would melt faster since. They were wrong of course wrong because they thought the mitten would be warmer since it would keep you warmer.

In the geography plans we talked about canals. We did a little experiment to show how water runs through canals.

We also added King James Bible, 1611 to our timelines. I love, love, love these timelines. So easy and I really think the children drawing their own pictures really helps things to stick in their minds even more.

This week in Bible Study we reviewed the previous 5 weeks of memory verses and songs. I really enjoyed this and it was a blessing to me that they both still had everything memorized.

For the poetry plans we memorized, The Months, by Sara Coleridge. So far we’ve memorized two of her poems and we all really like both of them.

In the art part of the plans, they made hearts with strips of paper going through them. We talked about how the Pilgrims wanted their children to worship and glorify God with all their hearts. John and Gracie added more to the artwork in the sense that they added an extra heart on the white strip of paper. The heart was white with a small black spot on it. John said this is how we are after we get saved and then sin. We then need to confess that sin and get clean again. I love that they made the project their own.

Week 7:

In history this week the Pilgrims move from Amsterdam to Leiden. I was very interested to hear that the Pilgrims actually stayed in Holland for 11 years. As a result the Pilgrim children started to act, talk, and dress more like Hollanders. This plus other things helped prompt the Pilgrims to plan to move to America. We had fun trying to speak in Dutch. I was thinking it would be tedious, but John and Gracie really enjoyed it. I just had to let go of my perfectionism.

In Geography, we found England, Holland, Europe, North America, the Atlantic Ocean, the English Channel, and Virginia on our maps. What a fun way to learn geography right along with history.

In the Science plans we talked about ramps being used as levers. The Pilgrims had all kind of barrels to load onto the Speedwell. We had fun rolling soup cans up the steps then using a cookie sheet as a ramp over the steps to see how much easier it was.

In the Bible Study plans we memorized Psalm 119:9-11, ⁹Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word.

¹⁰With my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy commandments.

¹¹Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.

It’s suggested in the HOD manual for the child to share their memory verse with someone each week. This week John decided to call his daddy at work and quote his memory verses to him.

The poem we memorized and used as copywork this week Mother’s Jewels by Eugene Field. You can see John’s below.

Our artwork this week were pictures of themselves. You can see their pictures have pockets on them. Inside their pockets is a written copy of Psalm 139:14, “I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.” We talked about the Lord making us each special, and we should praise Him for that and want our lives to glorify Him.

Gracie finished reading Frog and Toads are Friends this week. I’m going to have to find some way to video tape her reading and download it on this blog. She is just so sweet and animated. It must be the way God created her because her brother wasn’t this way and still isn’t.

John finished reading The Courage of Sarah Noble this week as well. Next week he is starting Drawn Into the Heart of Reading. I am both excited and nervous. It looks like a wonderful program, but I feel a little overwhelmed (just because it’s new). I’m just trying to cast those worries on the Lord.

We’ve had a wonderful two weeks. The Lord has been so good to lead me to Heart of Dakota. It really does make my school weeks so much easier. There’s nothing I don’t like about it. You should really check it out if you’re not familiar with it.

This post is linked to:

HOD’s Weekly Check-In

The Weekly Wrap-Up

HOD Blogroll

Multitude Monday

66. A gracious heavenly Father

67. An understanding husband

68. Forgiving children

69. The Word that convicts, encourages, and heals

70. Preaching

71. The Holy Spirit (how undervalued He seems to be)

72. Christian friends who understand

73. The beautiful fall trees ablaze in all their glory

74. Music, oh, how it ministers to me

75. Singing with my family

76. Being able to bless others who have been a blessing to us

77. Men of God who are still preaching the Book

The past two weeks have been hard for me. There’s been a lot of tears, a lot of grieving, and a lot of prayers. The Lord is so good in the midst of this. I know I shouldn’t throw out a fleece, but I did this week. Amos gives me personal money every two weeks. Most of time (well, almost always) it’s spent on others and I’m fine with that, but this week I saw this necklace and decided I was going to buy it for myself. Sarah Mae said she would later be drawing two names to be reimbursed the money they paid for their necklaces. I just prayed to the Lord and explained I didn’t need the money but it would just make me feel special to win this necklace to know that He was still there in the midst of all this sorrow I’m feeling. That He was there amidst all these things I can’t control, there when we don’t know where to turn and just have to wait on Him. Saturday I was so low, crying and praying and not seeing an end in sight. I decided to check my e-mail that evening and I had an e-mail from Sarah Mae saying I’d won!!!! The Lord is so good and gracious to me. I don’t deserve anything. I know He cares about me and loves me and then I have the gall to ask Him to show me in a special way. Even though I didn’t deserve it He showed me in an extra special way. Some would say it was luck, I say, I’m blessed. Now to wait patiently to receive that pretty necklace.

78. A beautiful necklace to remind me of my awesome responsibility as a mother and as a picture of God’s care for me

Week in Review 9/27-10/1 (Week 5)

Okay, the photo above has nothing to do with our week necessarily, but I thought the kids were really sweet. My post is mainly what we did with Heart of Dakota with a few extras at the end. We are continuing to chug along with our regular studies even though I’m not posting specifics on them.

This week we introduced a new genre of book: the Adventure. To kick it off, we did a treasure hunt of sorts. I took a 24 piece puzzle and wrote a message on the back of it giving a clue where the treasure could be found.

I then hid the puzzle pieces throughout the living room and dining room. John and Gracie had such a fun time finding the pieces. They then had to put the puzzle together.

The back of the puzzle read: The treasure can be found ________. Hint: I keep things cold and I am pretty small.

Their first guess was the refrigerator, but knew it wasn’t small. They then thought maybe our window air conditioner, but didn’t know how treasure could fit in there. Then John remembered the small refrigerator in the basement. Can you see his smile in the photo below?

They each got a small piece of candy and our book was in there as well. Our new adventure book we’re reading is A Lion to Guard Us. We’ve been talking about fearing the Lord and conflict with this book.

In our science plans, we talked about how sound travels through the air like waves.

We also talked about how amazing our hearts are. John and Gracie pumped their hands for 30 seconds and soon found that they were tired. Our God is amazing and our hearts beat without us even thinking about it and the heart never grows tired.

Our poem we memorized this week was Song for a Little House by Christopher Morley. Heart of Dakota suggests cutting the poem apart, mixing it up, and allowing the the child to past it back in order. I’ve actually never done this with John and Gracie (blush), because I thought they wouldn’t enjoy it. When I asked if they wanted to do it, they both enthusiastically answered yes.

In the history plans this week we read Boys and Girls of Colonial Days and Stories of the Pilgrims. We really like these books. It really brings the history to life. This weeks focus was the pilgrims settling in Holland. We learned much about the Dutch homes (how they are different than our own) and that they loved tulips.

We memorized Psalm 139:13-14, “For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.”

John finished reading Bears on Hemlock Mountain. Each day he was asking to read more. We have one more book to read before we start Drawn Into the Heart of Reading. He’s ready now and has been, but I just want to ease our way into it.

Gracie wrote her name in cursive this week. This is the first time she’s written it with a capital “G”. We’re officially learning the capital letters in cursive now. She’s doing so well. She’s making it easy on me :)

In John’s separate science program, he was learning about seeds and plants. You can see our bean seeds were a success. It’s amazing because you can see the tiny roots on these plants. Again our God is great!!!

This post is linked to:

HOD’s Weekly Check-in

Weekly Wrap-Up

HOD Blogroll

Multitude Monday

54. A good chat with my mother-in-law

55. Hearing my children sing and quote verses at the nursing home

56. Gracie getting to play with a little friend who is usually in Mozambique

57. School going so well

58. That I can make John happy by printing him a timeline of Kings Island

57. Celebrating family’s birthdays this week (3 altogether)

58. Seeing Gracie hug the elderly

59. Time to go through clothes for the upcoming cool/cold weather

60. Hearing Gracie use words from the books we read aloud

61. When I’m overwhelmed I can run to Him

Psalm 61:2, “ From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I.”

62. A fun field trip at a real castle

63. Seeing my children enjoy God’s creation

64. A granny and grampy who took John and Gracie to a fall festival

65. Hugs and kisses

Week in Review 9/20-9/24 (Week 4)

We thankfully had another great week of school here. We had a little busier week as we went on a field trip to a castle with some friends, family, and fellow homeschoolers (maybe I’ll post about that later when I have more time).

This week I’m just going to wrap-up only what we’ve done in Heart of Dakota.

In the science plans we had two fun experiments that John and Gracie both wanted to do repeatedly. One we predicted whether things would block light or allow the light to travel through it.

The next experiment had to do with surface tension. Here we also predicted how many drops of water would fit on the surface of a coin. I’ll tell you they were much closer in their predictions than I was. John was actually only one away.

In geography we talked about the directions, on a compass including some of the trickier ones like northwest and southeast.

We have so much fun memorizing our week's Bible verses the Heart of Dakota way. It includes so many actions it’s just bound to be fun. I was a little doubtful that they’d have all their verses memorized from this week, but they did. They memorized Matthew 6:19-21. Gracie is definitely more auditory and so picks up on these so quickly.

In the history plans this week we continued reading in the Stories of the Pilgrims. The pilgrims left England for Holland. I must have some gaps in my education :) as I don’t remember learning about the pilgrims going to Holland before coming to the new world. I’ve definitely been enlightened.

Even though it wasn’t necessary, we got online to view pictures of present day Holland. It’s very beautiful. We also saw videos online of the huge windmills.

When learning about Holland, we learned it is actually below sea level. We all enjoyed building a dike in the bathroom sink. Granny was over and even got in on the hands on learning.

We added to our timelines that the Pilgrims arrived in Holland in 1608. I’m so loving the way Heart of Dakota does this as well. In the past I’ve always wanted to do a timeline with John and Gracie, but have always felt overwhelmed and implementing it. HOD’s way makes it easy-peasy.

Our poem this week that we memorized and John used for copywork was entitled Daybreak by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. This poem was so easy to add hand motions and dramatize our voices on. Daddy even got in on the action in the evening. I think he should start teaching the poems. I’m not nearly as dramatic as he is.

Gracie finished up her first Emerging Readers book from the Heart of Dakota schedule. She’s such a great little reader. Even I felt some of the well known Bible stories were maybe revealed in a different light to this momma. The Lord used some of the stories to convict me. Owl at Home here we come.

Today we finished up our Biography, Benjamin West and His Cat Grimalkin. We all loved this book. To be honest, none of us liked the very last chapter, I guess because it just ended. Gracie says it’s because Grimalkin wasn’t in it. We read one chapter each day and every single day both children would ask me to read more (and I wanted to read more as well, but I was a good girl and didn’t). So despite the above criticism, we loved the book. I’m super excited about starting our new adventure book next week.

Gracie’s (Age 6) Narration of a chapter in Benjamin West and His Cat Grimalkin: There was going to be a lot of people coming to Door Latch Inn. Benjamin and the others were getting ready for the people, and when they came, there were thousands and when each one came in they shook Benjamin’s hand or nodded their head, and then when all the people got in, Papa pulled in the latch string so no one else could get in. And, we stopped.

This post is linked to:

HOD’s Weekly Check In

Weekly Wrap-Up

The Heart of Dakota Blogroll

Autumn 2010 OHC #1: Nature Journals

I recently purchased Barb’s Autumn 2010 e-book. I really love having the challenges ahead and the notebooking pages are beautiful. She’s really done a fantastic job and I believe it’s really worth the little extra money that you would have out of pocket. I know she posts them up each Friday, but it helps me plan ahead and I just feel more prepared.

I gave John and Gracie their new nature journals and they were so happy with them.

We went out for about 20 minutes. We have new mums in the front, so we started out by smelling them.

John and I smelled each cluster of mums that we have. Gracie on the other hand went about examining all kinds of things on her own. To be honest, she continued to do this pretty much the whole time we were outside.

We then discovered this cobweb that had some kind of beetle(?) stuck in it. If you look real close the spider is there too.

We went on a little walk and found many fallen leaves and acorns. Gracie again on her own picked up rocks, blades of grass, and sticks. When we came in I told them they could draw, paint, do a rubbing, whatever they wanted to do. They decided on rubbings, so I joined in with that as I’m a little intimidated by the drawing thing, but I won’t let them know that. Again below you can see where Gracie was doing her own thing gluing her rock on paper and the caps from the acorn along with some kind of grass or weed. She eventually outlined a leaf and colored it pink. I just let it go as it’s her journal. This goes against my very nature, but I want them to love studying and observing God’s creation.

(Gracie’s Journal Entry)(John’s Journal Entry) (Momma’s Journal Entry)

To be honest, I’ve always thought John kind of marched to a different drum and that Gracie was more of a follower. My little girl was definitely doing her own thing with no worries of having to stay inside a neat little box. I so enjoyed seeing this side of her, and I look forward to the coming weeks to see if she continues on the same path in our nature study time.