Patriotic food

"What is it about Memorial Day weekend that makes me want to grill up some good ole American food?" I posed to no one in general while standing in my kitchen yesterday.

"You are a product of the culture, my dear," retorted my husband.

"Thank you for that insight, Dr. Horn," was the comeback I should have fired back.  But alas, I thought of it 5 minutes later.  Sigh.

Dr. Horn is absolutely right.  But when it comes to cooking yummy barbecue food, I don't care a bit that I'm a cultural lemming.  It's delicious!  (Summer barbecue that is, not lemming.)

Here's the menu for our Memorial Day cookout dinner tomorrow:

* Bratwurst (Johnsonville, of course)
* Corn on the cob
* Baked beans
* Watermelon
* Potato chips

Nothing fancy, to be sure, but definitely patriotic!  Am I the only one who's culinary cravings are inspired by the holiday?  What are you cooking up for Memorial Day?

Horn homeschool: Week 33

For week 33 of our homeschooling venture, we did a short study on drama and the performing arts. 

During the last few months of our homeschooling co-op, we had endeavored as moms to create more opportunities for our kids to present projects in front of the group.  So, we concocted a few poster-style project and each kiddo got a chance to present his/her work to the others.  It was GREAT to see how they blossomed and grew in confidence through these mini-projects!

Knowing the valuable experience it is for our little students to speak in front of an audience, and knowing the serious cuteness factor involved, we decided to do an end-of-the-year play!

And while organizing 12 children ages 3-8 was, at times, maddening it was also ridiculously FUN.

Another mom and I collaborated to put together a script based on the well-loved story Goldilocks.  I took over as director since I have lots of childhood theater experience (and I also have the loudest voice to be able to get the attention of my rowdy cast).  A super creative crafty mom in our group led the scenery making and stage set-up.  Then each family and their kids were responsible for their own props and costumes.

Our play was titled "The Real True Actual Story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears".  Overall, it really went well and was VERY entertaining.  And I was super extra proud of my Chloe (Mama Bear) and Clive (Baby Bear).  They remembered their lines and delivered them with gusto!  Clive even added his own gestures and improvised a little.

During our mini-drama study we read several books about acting and all the behind-the-scenes work necessary to put on a show.  In doing so the kids learned some drama vocabulary words.  And of course we practiced their parts at home while I gave them a teensy weensy bit of coaching.  Just simple things to help them speak in character and to always face the audience.

Additionally, I took the kids to a performance of the Akron Symphony Orchestra. They've both heard orchestral music before but never live.  Both Chloe and Clive were MESMERIZED!  The concert was geared for kids and included many breaks for interaction with the audience.  There was even a narrator and actors who acted out the story, "The Little Engine that Could".

This unit has made me realize that I need to work much harder at exposing my kids to the wonderful world of the arts.  I know they're still young yet but this seems to be the prime time for generating an appreciation and beginning a love for the fine arts.

The bear family realizes that someone's been eating their porridge.  As you can see, Baby Bear was very animated about it all.

Baby Bear encounters Goldilocks.

Papa and Mama Bear confront Goldilocks about her habit of breaking-and-entering.

The cast takes a bow!  (And Clive gets distracted by a newfound set of toy binoculars.)

Processed pantry

I've been attempting these past few years to cook more from scratch and keep fewer boxes of processed foods around the pantry.

I'm finding there are some food items I just can NOT make from scratch myself.  Bagels, sausage, cheese, potato chips . . . these are all products I have no desire to recreate.  (I tried making homemade bagels once.  It was not pretty.)

But what I'm striving to eliminate from our family diet is the processed starchy snacks that are filled to the gills with refined sugars and additives.  So far, I've only successfully eliminated one major item from our processed food stock -- granola bars.

After trying a few recipes that left me with less-than-yummy granola bars, my sister-in-law gave me a winner.  This recipe is AMAZING.  Literally.  You'll never want to buy store-bought granola bars again!  These granola bars are EASY to make and the results are consistently good.  Even for me who is a not-so-accurate measurer these bars turn out great every time. 

Check out the recipe in full here at allrecipes.  Be sure to read the first couple of reviews for some excellent tips on making these even more delicious!  I've only made these the basic way but according to the reviews you can make several variations that sound fabulous.

Next on my to-try-to-make list is homemade wheat thins.  If cracker making goes well, I'll attempt homemade cheez its.  These look unbearably delicious and cheesy.  And there are only 6 ingredients.  Yeehaw!  Now the real test will be to see if the kids will accept the homemade versions over the store-bought stuff.  I'll keep you posted!

What culinary experiments are you cooking up these days?

Horn homeschool: Weeks 28-29

Knowing we had an upcoming field trip with our homeschool group to a local police station, I planned a two week unit study focusing on Community Helpers. 

Our field trip was AMAZING.  The police officer giving us the tour was not busy so he spent LOTS of time and showed us every nook and cranny of the station.  Literally.  We saw the dispatch center, shooting range, detective offices, interrogation rooms, jail, locker room, and police cars.  The officer patiently answered all our questions (from both kids and mommies) and indirectly gave us much insight as to how vital his service is.


At home, Chloe and Clive and I read through MANY books on various community helpers.  We focused on police officers, firefighters, librarians, postal workers, and doctors/dentists.

In studying police officers, we made costumes (ironically, Clive refused to wear his) and role-played with walkie-talkies.  Additionally, we talked about stranger safety at length.  Unfortunately, this back-fired on me.  Instead of creating an awareness and caution of strangers in Chloe, she became transfixed with a newfound fear of unfamiliar faces.  To the point where she would hide behind me in stores and not engage in friendly banter with cashiers or bystanders in public.  It didn't help that during the police station field trip the officer showed the kids a binder full of convicts' photos.  And Chloe thought she spotted one of our local drug store clerks in the mugshot.

THANKFULLY, this intense fear has worn off somewhat.  She's back to her cheerful self and often chats with trusted folks in my presence.  Last week she proudly told the check-out librarian all about her swimming lessons.  Whew.

I didn't forget Clive in this unit study.  I pointedly chose several community helper books of particular interest to him including garbage truck drivers, snow plow drivers, farmers and construction workers.  Anyone driving a machine is very important in Clive's mind!

I really wanted to write up some thank you notes with Chloe for a few local community helpers.  Alas, my dream did not meet reality and we never got around to it.  :(  But thank you notes are never late so I'm hoping to do this with Chloe as part of our handwriting practice in an upcoming week.

There are a myriad of sites out there with valuable resources on this topic.  My faves include:

• Mrs. Kilburn's Kiddos: A wonderful list of ideas, books and linked crafts, songs and activities for this teacher's community helpers week.
• Enchanted Learning:  Enchanted Learning ROCKS MY HOMESCHOOLING WORLD.  It's been a huge aid to me when I'm scrounging for some extra sheets and activities to round out a unit study.  Definitely worth the $20 year-long membership.
• Homeschool Share: Great ideas and printables for lapbooks for community helper themed books.  My kids loved the Community Helpers A to Z book listed. 
• First School: This site is wonderful!  All the activities and crafts use every day household items.  Which is perfect for me since I usually scrounge around last minute in planning out crafts.  This site gave us the police officer costume idea.  Thanks, first school!

And thank YOU community helpers for your valuable service and sacrifice!

 

Horn Homeschool: Week 26

Week 26 of our homeschool ventures found us right around the "official" beginning of spring, March 20.

But alas, spring did not arrive as scheduled here in Northeast Ohio.

Regardless, we still read through stacks of books with springy themes including why seasons happen, signs of spring, and what spring looks like around the world.

We also made coffee filter daffodils, went for rainy cold walks looking for crocuses, and jumped in puddles.  Let me clarify that.  The KIDS jumped in puddles not me.  I watched from the window with Solomon because I don't own rain boots.  :(  A sad fact I'm hoping will change once Target's adorable women's polka dot boots go on clearance come summer.  (Those boots do eventually go on clearance, right?)


Looking for more spring crafts?  DLTK has a super section devoted to fun and easy spring-y projects.  The coffee filter daffodil was RIGHT up our alley since it was using regular around-the-house materials and still involved a new technique (spritzing water to spread the marker color).


As usual, we continued with our regular school work during the week plodding along in math, phonics, reading practice, read-alouds, and handwriting/journaling.

Am I crazy?

With school winding down and my part-time job load becoming lighter for the summer I'm finally planning to tackle some much-needed home improvement projects.

My problem with home improvement is that I'm a dreamer but not a follow-througher.  I want projects to be quick, easy and still produce results that look professional and stylish.

For that reason, I have NOT done much painting in our home and it desperately needs it!  Oh yeah, and I may have been a smidge busy chasing after my three little ones.  (Speaking of which, Solomon has just pulled down all the homeschool books from the shelf TWICE since I've sat down to finish this post).  Matt painted both the kids' rooms but didn't do any trim.  And then I painted the bathroom in one VERY harried day with my mom a year ago.  I wanted it to be a "while-you-were-out" type of project so we crammed the whole shabang into one full day.  With two little kids running around and one big pregnant belly in the mix.

Already, the bathroom needs to be redone in some places.  I didn't sand the vanity or mirror so the paint is peeling off.  We also didn't use moisture-resistant paint so it's bubbled up near the shower and my curious 1 year old enjoys picking it off whenever he gets the chance.

So, that's my brief and sordid history with painting.  And now I'm scheming to add these painting projects to my summer to-do list:

* paint front door and window trim
* repaint worn spots on front porch
* touch-up needed spots on bathroom wall
* sand and repaint mirror and vanity
* strip old paint layers from inside window trim and restore wood

It's that last project idea that prompted this blog post.  I've NEVER stripped paint before and I'd like some advice from folks who have.  Is it worth it?  I have at least 5 window trims and 5 door trims I'd like to strip and restore. There are two layers of paint over most of the trim that I'd have to peel off before restoring the wood.

There are many high traffic spots around the house where the paint is peeling on its own.  I've been chipping away at this spot by Clive's door for a few weeks now.  Doesn't the wood underneath look nice?

Am I crazy here?  Or is this a doable summer project?

Happy First Birthday, dear Solomon!

My baby Solomon turned one last month!  ONE. 

Did someone push the fast-forward button on life lately?   Seriously, it's ridiculous.  Every time I look at Solomon it seems he's sprouted taller, interacting more and getting into fresh mischief. And he's getting too big to snuggle up and fall asleep on me!  That's the saddest aspect of baby growth in my mind. 

So, what's Solomon like?  He's the BUSIEST boy I've ever seen.  He's generally very laidback and unflappable.  Predictably, Solly follows closely on his older brother's and sister's heels to try and be a part of whatever they're doing.  His motor skills are amazing for his age.  He attempts to put his own shoes on, he thrives on picking up tiny items from the carpeting, he can throw a ball towards you (better to his brother and sister most times), and he's a whiz at the shape sorter toy.  

Since reaching the one year milestone, Solly has come alive!  He's interacting a lot more and starting to use sign language.  He loves board books -- especially any tactile or tab books.  He's also very keen on music.  Solly's got his own little bopping dance he does when he hears a peppy tune. 

In spirit, Solomon is definitely a happy guy.  Not like he's laughing bubbling-ly all day long but he's a contented quite happy.  Lately he's been doing a funny squished up kind of grin when he's extra pleased with himself.  And that's usually after he's caused destruction somewhere.  He excels at creating massive entropy (Definition: Entropy is the quantitative measure of disorder in a system.)

I'm so thankful God brought Solly into our family. He completes us.  He's a true joy and blessing to our home.  

We love you, Solomon Asher Horn!  Here's hoping the next year doesn't go by quite so fast as the first one did!

Peepy Science

In an attempt to rid our house of excess sugar (aka Easter candy) I hastily threw together some Peeps-themed science experiments.  I love how dual-purposed homeschool activities can be!

Get rid of sugar - check.
Introduce basic science concepts - checkity check. 

Using these websites as my inspiration (peepsresearch and geekmom), I set up the following simple experiments with the kids.

1. Soaked a peep in water to see if it would dissolve
2. Melted a peep in the microwave (watch closely or it will explode! ours lasted about 30 seconds)
3. Cooked peeps on the stove (the melted results of which I mixed with butter and rice krispies to make peeps krispie treats)
4. Lit a peep on fire

Peeps are really just marshmallows with coated with dyed-sugar.  And marshmallows are pure sugar.  So these experiments are more about sugar than anything else.  


I also remembered quickly as I started explaining the properties of sugar to the kids that they are still only 5 and 3. They just need to know that sugar gives a burst of energy and then crashes (visually displayed in the peep-lighting-on-fire experiment).  It was an excellent visual for making the case to less sugar intake and more protein intake in a stable diet.

We had the most fun watching the peep grow and almost explode in the microwave.  You've gotta try that!  Just take care not to let the peep explode.  Unless you enjoy scraping off dried hardened marshmallow that is. 

I experienced that first hand -- not on the microwave walls but on the sides of my pot.  In melting the peeps on the stove top I neglected to watch them carefully and went off to do something else.  The peeps burned creating not only an awful smell but a horrible dried layer of marshmallow goo.  :(  Thankfully boiling water did the trick to remove the crusty burned peep remains.  And I had 1/2 a bag of marshmallows in the cupboard to throw into our peeps krispies treats in place of the charred mess. 

I'm not an eater of peeps.  Way too sweet for my palate.  But I certainly enjoy the cuteness and mystique surrounding peeps candy.  Have you seen the Washington Post's annual Peeps diorama contest?  Hilarious!