HOW TO MAKE BUTTER!

Put heavy cream in jar, add salt if desired (kosher salt is yummy), seal jar tight and shake it baby shake it!! Voila, BUTTER!

Oh My Bread and Butter!!

This week I really wanted to make homemade bread and butter with the kids and we did that today. It turned out really well even if such projects are generally chaotic. Cadey can't keep her hands out or mouth off the product, Ian wants it to be his turn all the time and Will yells at everyone and so do I!! Needless to say we have some kinks to work out of the cooking process!!


I still think they had fun and they really enjoyed eating the final results.

Anne of Avonlea

I finished reading Anne of Green Gables a few weeks ago and now I am reading the second book of the series Anne of Avonlea. I came across this line today that I really connected to. Anne has just finished her first day as a teacher and Marilla her adopted mother asks her how the day went. She replies, "Ask me that a month later and I may be able to tell you. I can't now --I don't know myself. . .I'm too near it. My thoughts feel as if they had been all stirred up until they were thick and muddy."
I love the imagery and metaphor of how her feelings were stirred up and muddy. I feel this way a lot. I feel so much and so many different things all at the same time often it is difficult for me to sort them out. If I don't take time to ponder and weigh things out I usually mispeak or let my chaos of feeling direct me in a mixed up direction as well.
I think I will take Anne's example more often to give myself time to sort things out before expressing myself.

Addition

This week we added a park outing with a group of other home schoolers. Will was beside himself happy that he finally had an opportunity to have "friends". I did talk to him about how friends can be any age and gave examples of some of best friends being 5 years or so younger and/or older than myself. I pointed out that his brother is 5 years younger and that he still could be his friend. Still, it is nice for him to some kids on his level to interact with as well as older and younger so we were all quite happy. Not to mention some social interaction with adults for myself!!! The kids all seemed to get along well and this group plans field trips and such as well so I think we have been blessed to find this opportunity. At every turn even though I feel scared that I won't do a good job, I know this is what we are supposed to be doing for our family. So I will keep building this boat and having faith that Heavenly Father will be helping me do it.
Will is also doing a candy survey to go with the stories we are reading lately (Chocolate Fever and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). He has gotten so many responses from our friends and family so thanks so much for everyone that is supporting Will in his learning and me in my guidance of his learning. I think it will be a good experience as we move through these books and activities. I am even learning. . .did you know they make white chocolate using not the cocoa beans but the cocoa butter they press out of the beans??? Cool huh?

Afloat

This is hard, really really hard. I think I probably make it harder than it needs to be, but still it is hard for me to be doing this. Still, despite feeling this way, I am grateful for the opportunity to be doing it. I know that it is the best for my family and I know that I will be doing this for the rest of the kids as well. I say I want Viv to finish out elementary but I don't know how long I will be able to send even Viv to school. I am most scared of trying to teach her though, so fear might keep her where she is for a few more years. Time will tell I guess.

I think the hardest part right now is taking what others are doing into consideration and then doing what is best for my own family. I think I have found a balance of getting my own daily chores done, but I am still problem solving to figure out how to do activities and projects that will be beneficial for Cadey up to Will. 2-8 is a huge age difference. We have cooked and done some art projects but I feel like Will could do more and I am expecting a little much of the little ones. They do pretty well working out of the closet (pretty much explore and play time) most of the time with the basic sibling issues of sharing and whatnot, so it really just the time of day that they are all awake and all done with TV and needing some quality project of some kind. Any suggestions????

Will is doing pretty well on his individual studies. He seems to enjoy the math and I love that he is self learning that. That is the easiest part of my day and I feel like everyone is happy! He also finally found a cursive book he seems to enjoy. He has a fascination for Roly Poly bugs and so he has created a soda bottle habitat for a few he found in the yard. We looked up information on them and he wrote a little book about them. His book was basically narrative and described the pictures and I would have liked him to go into some of the facts he learned. I think for tomorrows mom share I will talk to him about the questions he asked as he observed his Roly poly and the answers he found and suggest he add them to his book.

He is also working on a Boston Book from our trip but it has taken a back seat since the discovery of his buggy friends.

We have really slacked on his journal writing and I need to find a time that it will fit in better, maybe right after kids go to bed or right before I wake kids up from naps??

I am amazed at how fast he reads, but am noticing that he doesn't think much about what he reads. During Stuart Little I am trying to remember to voice what comes into my own head as I read. We read a little poem today about taking learning slow and not rushing from the Children's Book of Virtues, I need to remember that my self and realize that it's not a race to cram as much as I can into him as fast as I can, instead it's about building a love of learning a desire of learning and a how to go about learning.

He is also progressing through his faith in god pretty well and as done 3 projects already. Scouts is a bit of another story. He has been working on a 2 week chart of healthy habits for about 4 weeks now!! He forgets to do it, I forget to remind him. . .I will be glad to pick a different project! Our plants are growing pretty well, I need to figure out how and will best to transplant them. I really want some cucumbers and zucchini and the kids will be thrilled if we get a pumpkin even if it is in November!!!

So that's it from our Boat, so far we're floating so that's good.

Keeping Up

Today was better and smoother. We didn't have any appointments other than picking up Ian from his home school workshop/pre-school that he has started so we were able to just take the day a little less chaotically. One thing I am seeing as an advantage and slight disadvantage is that Will loves to learn and is SO curious (I should have named him George). It's an advantage because he has the desire to learn and that takes care of a lot of problems. I don't have to coerce too much to get him to want to participate, if anything I am having a harder time keeping up with him. The disadvantage is he wants to learn about everything. Every day it's a million questions that could be turned into research and projects. For example, he found some Rollie-pollie bugs outside while playing and decided to create a little habitat for some in a plastic container. He told me he wanted to learn more about Rollie-pollies and so we looked up things on-line and he adapted the habitat to fit the "pill bug" better such as adding moisture and fruit/veggie scraps to the container. This has been great and he has learned a lot from this little 2 day project. However, I am a planner and it is hard for me to jump from one thing to the next. In addition, my learning and how I know how to teach includes a lot of writing and other demonstrations of showing what you have learned. Most of what we are doing is verbal and so there is not much documentation of what is going on. I know I need to let go of this and realize that Will is learning even if I don't have a report he wrote to show it. My favorite thing is the safest thing and that is his math. Concrete, documented and has a clear start and finish. I guess for now I will hold on to that for my sanity and have faith with the rest!

I wonder what it's like living in Hawaii?

So today I feel discouraged. It's the 6Th real day of being at school at home and so far while I know we have accomplished things and Will has been learning none of the days have followed the same pattern and most days if not all we have not accomplished all that I want to get done. I am finding it difficult to know what is OK and what isn't. What is critical and what to be OK with letting go. Is it OK that he didn't write in his journal yesterday and may miss it again today? Is it OK that I put in half of the pictures for his Boston Report (details of that later, his first big project)? Is it OK that I am dictating this report? I sort of let him choose the format of his presentation, I definitely guided him. He is also going to have to present his Revolutionary War information as well and he chose to write a poem about it, I don't know how he can get all his learning into a poem? Should I suggest he write several poems? Is one general poem OK? I want to do some art projects but am finding it difficult to pick something that relates to other things he is learning so it's not just random. But, I am also finding it hard to do something with Will and the younger kids at the same time. He is so much more advanced than they are. I just feel overwhelmed. I feel like I can't possibly do it all. We have missed chores the last 2 days so a thick layer of dust is lounging about on all the surfaces of my home, my carpet is screaming to have it's fur cleaned and I won't even mention my bathrooms. I am also behind on my personal reading, my diet is out the window and I have gone running once this week. It's been a horrible, terrible, no good, very discouraging day. I know some days are like this, but I wonder if days like these occur in Hawaii?

Day 3

I probably won't blog each day, but surprisingly I have had a bit of time to do so. Today brought its own challenges simply because Will and I have a buzzing energy about us in anticipation for our big field trip we are leaving for tonight!! Still, we accomplished quite a bit.
We read 2 more chapters of scripture, Will completed another 2 math lessons, some typing and read for about 4o minutes from Sonic and Falling Up (I was excited he picked a poetry book, YAY!). We also read a few more chapters of Stuart Little, and completed 2 more science projects. Today he was a little distracted and found little interest in the "why" of the experiments and preferred to just enjoy the doing of them. I still think they were worth while. Will also sent an email to his Baba and started a conversation about what he read in the Book of Mormon. I think that will be a good way for him to write and think about the Book in addition to just finding me as a resource.

This week overall went well especially considering all the interruptions and such we have had. Next week should be a little more mellow once we get back. I hope we can maintain our momentum and that we can both continue to learn and grow. I am eager to see how his projects turn out such as his Revolutionary War report and Boston Report. We haven't discussed fully how he will present what he learns but I am sure we will figure out something great.

Next post from Boston Massachusetts!!