Churning Butter

We have been reading "Little House In The Big Woods" and comparing that era with ours. We have been discussing how we would have liked to live back then and also some of the hardships of then and what we would miss from now. We definately like the simplicity back then.
In Chapter two Laura, Mary and Ma made butter from the cream from their cows. We've made butter many times by shaking cream in a small jar. We have a butter churn that has been in my family since it was made. We hadn't used it but thought that we would give it a try today.

Lucy pouring in the cream

We thought that we would start small. We used a half gallon of cream and began churning.

My girlies started churning but only lasted a few minutes each. Then it was my turn. I churned for 20 minutes and check out what our cream turned into. 

We scraped down the sides, strained the contents and got...

two containers of butter and about a quart of buttermilk. We all tried the buttermilk and it actually tastes pretty good. We also enjoyed our freshly made butter on crackers and bread. Too bad we didn't make our own bread today to put the butter on. For any of you who are I Love Lucy fans, like I am, "homemade bread with home-churned butter".

thanks for reading.

Our Presidents

We have had the pleasure of celebrating Presidents' Day today and remembering two of our countries amazing presidents. George Washington was our Founding Father and Abraham Lincoln, who was our 16th president, abolished slavery.
So, in preparation of our vacation day we learned about and did some fun activities about these two great men.

 Washington and Lincoln Books We Read

These are great biographies written for the 3-4 grade level.

Washington and Lincoln Portrait 

When you were a kid did you put crayon shavings between two layers of wax paper and then melt them with an iron? I thought of this the other day and had an idea. I found an image of Lincoln and Washington online and printed them. We put one of the images under wax paper and drew the outline of the facial features.
Then, we made shavings of crayons that were face color, black and greys. You can use a pencil sharpener. Just don't push too hard.

You will want to put a paper towel onto an iron safe surface and place your wax paper on top of the towel. Now, fill in the areas with crayon shavings. Just as Lucy is doing here.

This one is ready to be ironed. (On the first one, we put too much crayon so you may have to play with the amount of shavings.)

When you are done, place a piece of blank waxed paper on top and then another paper towel and iron with your iron on a low setting.

We did Lincoln and Washington. We ran out of white crayons from our Crayon Valentine Hearts so Washington has grey and black hair.

They didn't turn out exactly like I envisioned them but we had fun. Let me know if you make these and how they turn out.

Lincoln's House

We also made a small replica of Lincoln's first house out of "Wooden Skill Sticks". They are popsicle sticks that have notches on them. So you can build like you do with Lincoln Logs.

Lucy's House on left and Mommy's on right

I decided to paint my house brown. So, after we constructed our houses Lucy wrote words on the sides of hers that described Lincoln.

Front: "Lincoln"

Back

Side: "ended slavery!!!!!"

 Happy Presidents' Day! and Thanks for reading and please leave a comment.

Our Gumbie Cats

Last weekend I had the privledge of attending an amazing performance of Cats with my brother. My Sis-in-law was sick and not able to attend with him. I didn't know much about Cats other than people dress like cats and the music is by Andrew Lloyd Webber. I decided to research Cats. Well, as much as I could in the few hours I had before going (which included eating and getting ready to go). What did I find out? Cat's is a musical that was adapted from T.S. Eliot's book "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats", which was written in 1939. It is a collection of whimsical poems about feline psychology and sociology. Well, I love cats so that sounded good to me.

I thouroughly enjoyed the musical. The performers did a fantastic job. In fact, I couldn't imagine that the Broadway performance was much better. Being an owner of two cats, one who is almost 18 years old and one who is almost 14, I was moved to tears and laughter while watching and listening to the poetry.

If you are reading this, at this point you may be wondering how this pertains to our homeschool. Thanks for being patient through this long introduction but I felt that it necessary to explain what we are doing.

The day after watching Cats, I went to the bookstore and purchased T.S. Eliot's book "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats". Initially I purchased it with the interest of reading it myself. My daughter loves music and cats so I showed her one of the songs on you tube. She was hooked.

Today, I introduced the book to her. We read "The Naming of Cats", "The Old Gumbie Cat" and  "The Rum Tum Tugger". We analyzed each poem and compared our cats to the cats in the poems. Lucy decided that she wanted to write her own poem about our Gumbie Cats. My plan was to read one or two poems and talk about them. So when Lucy said that she wanted to write her own poem I was thrilled. I wanted to share her poem with whoever is sharing in our story.

Our Gumbie Cats

   by Lucy Waterbury

            inspired by T.S. Eliot’s “The Old Gumbie Cat”

We have two gumbie cats.
They sit and sit and sit and sit.
And that’s what makes a gumbie cat.

Jakey sleeps in the little house
And he drinks water and meows really loudly for food.
He sits and sits and sits all day.
That’s what makes a Gumbie Cat.

But when it’s night time,
He sneaks out
And teaches the guinea pigs to behave.
He teachers Bear to be the boss.
That’s what makes a gumbie cat.

Eddie sleeps in the computer room and
sewing room on top of the desk.
He sits upon the windowsill
and sits and sits and sits and sits
And that’s what makes a gumbie cat.

When we’re asleep
Eddie will creep out into the living room
He chases bugs and teacher the baby bugs to fly.
That’s what makes a gumbie cat.

In the morning he creeps back into the computer room and
That’s what makes a gumbie cat.

------------

If you haven't read this book, we highly recommend it. We will read more poems tomorrow. When we are done we plan on watching a production of Cats on dvd. We'll see what more inspiration comes to us.

Learning In A Non-Traditional Classroom

We used a park as our "classroom" today to study math, science, history and p.e. Plus, we had a great time learning. You may be wondering how one visit to the park allowed us to study so much. Well, let me explain. We are studying English measurements of length. We took a 12 inch ruler and a yardstick and went on a hunt for items we could measure. Being that it's Autumn, there are leaves of all types on the ground, unless it's an evergreen tree (in comes science and learning about deciduous trees and evergreens). Lucy found different types of leaves and measured them. The smallest she found in the park was 1/4 inches long while the largest leaf was 12 inches long. We recorded the information that we obtained and will make a graph.

P.E. and Math: We played on the basketball court and shot hoops. Each basket we made counted for 2 points. Then we started over and each basket was 3 points, then 4 points each and then 5 points each. This reinforced multiplication and division. She divide the score that we were shooting for and divided it by 2 and found out how many points we each needed to make and then divided that by the point count and figured out how many baskets we each needed to make.

She played on this whirly-twirly thing and made a hypothesis as to whether she would spin faster pushed away from the center or when she moved in closer to the center. She guessed moved into the center. She was right! We then talked about why that is. Just like ice skaters, it is because of angular momentum.
On the playground is a huge "pirate ship" that the kids can climb on on slide down the slides. One of the fears of the earlier explorers, such as Christopher Columbus was pirates. On the "pirate ship" was this sundial. Before clocks, people used the sun to determine the time of day.

Thanks for reading about our educational adventures.

Our First Field Trip

One of the advantages of belonging to a home school group is that we get to go on field trips with other kids and moms (and dads). Yesterday we went on a fantastic field trip to Riley's Farm in Oak Glen. Being that it was on a school holiday, Megan and the girls that I nanny were able to come too. What a great experience we had! By "going" back in time to the colonial-era we learned about homesteading and were able to lend a hand in chores such as washing clothes, sawing wood, peeling, coring and cutting apples, writing with a feather and ink, and building a log-cabin home with real logs. The girls made their own corn husk dolls, went panning for gold, and made fresh apple cider from apples grown on Riley's Farm. We wrapped up our trip with a hay ride around the Farm. We saw different types of apple trees, Indian corn, chickens and potbelly pigs. A great day was had by all! Lucy and I are certainly enjoying the path of home schooling. She was able to meet some new friends that are also home schooled and I was able to meet some moms who love home schooling their children. 


Lucy slicing the apple that she peeled and cored.





Megan and Lucy enjoying the apple cider that they helped make. It was yummy!!



Our First Day was a success!

We had a great first day of school today. We are waiting for our English curriculum to arrive in the mail but we were able to do other subjects today. Lucy and I are really enjoying this time together.
As I sit and reflect on career choices and decisions that I've made over the past couple years, I really see how God has orchestrated my decisions to get me where I am right now. He is awesome!
Last year I loved teaching second grade at a Christian school and I started working on my ACSI Christian teaching credential. (The teaching I did counted as my student teaching) At the end of the year there were changes with the school and we chose not to return this school year.
I pray that I will be able to follow God's will. I really felt that He was calling me to be an elementary school teacher. At the time, I really wondered if I didn't realize what God's will was. Now that I am teaching my daughter I understand how He was using me to be the best teacher that I can be for her.

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

Ok, after a week of reading as much as I possibly could and talking with other homeschooling moms, my hubby and I have decided how I would home school my daughter. We are homeschooling though Anaheim Magnolia Christian Schools. We have friends who homeschool through this group so it will be nice to know others. After reading about the group and talking with the administrator we know that this is where the Lord wants us to school through. I am my daughter's teacher and we'll be schooling at home. The group keeps track of our records and offers many classes, meetings and activities (such as field trips). We will be going on our first field trip to Riley's Farm in Oak Glen this Friday. We are really excited and feel at peace with the decisions that we have made.

A New Adventure

My youngest daughter is experiencing numerous health problems and is missing a bit of school due to her illnesses. After much prayer and talking with doctors, my husband and I feel that the best avenue for her education is for me to home school her. My daughter and I are very excited about this new path that we are starting on. As a mom new to home schooling I am feeling over-whelmed as to the correct legal ways to start our home school. I am in the process of researching the best avenue for us.