Homeschooling Summary for the last couple weeks

All 3 kiddos came down with croup last week. That was followed by ear infections. We spent a lot of time in our jammies doing art projects. The peg people had some fun adventures

 We watched this cool educational video (from the library) about learning to tell time:

Baby S is trying to tell us all kinds of things lately - all in his own language

Baby S learned how to feed daddy- notice his new top teeth, not to be confused with the odd bits of cookie!

Baby S is a little stinker. He pulls things out of cupboards and climbs in. He loves climbing up the furniture too

 Here are some projects the kiddos made at art class and the Nature Center classes.

Big sister A took this picture of her clay fairy house

Frame decorated with beans and seeds from a Fall themed class at the nature center

Everyone is finally done with their antibiotics and feeling better. Here they are dancing with daddy:

Recommended Reading: The High King

The High King is the 5th and last book in the Chronicles of Prydain series. It was my favorite of the series. The story has lots of twists and turns and had me completely engaged. It included a lot of battles and preparations for war, but unlike so many similar stories the writing was clean and straight forward enough for a child. I think this book and the series in general would be great for kids as young as 7 or 8.

The 5th Book of the Chronicles of Prydain Series

Reuse Recipe: Fabric Scraps

Aaron made me this gorgeous new dining room table over the summer. He used mostly salvage lumber from Community Forklift. He carefully designed it so that our black dining chairs could tuck under completely on all sides.  I requested a farmhouse style table so it has breadboard ends (hard to see in this picture), a lot of tongue in groove, and nice straight lines. Here it is the day that we brought it in from the garage:

Whitewashed Farmhouse Table

 I love it! I have been using a vinyl table cloth to protect it when we do art projects, but I hate to cover up the whitewash the rest of the time. We have been using plastic placemats from Ikea to protect it from the kiddos food messes, but those are a pain to rinse off after every meal and I wanted some that I could just throw in the washing machine.  I decided that fabric placemats (soon to be spotted with food) did not deserve to be made with anything fancy.

I dumped out my scrap bag and tested out the quilt-as-you-go fabric method for the first time.
These two pictures/sites were my inspiration:
Log Cabin Style Placemat
Mug Rug - Quilt as you go Tutorial

I made 18 quilted placemats so that I would not have to worry about washing them everyday. There are 2 groups - yellow, grey, and black made from leftovers of my little sister's wedding quilt mostly

Quilted placemats after first washing

And the second group of bright tropical colors are fabric remnants from pieces picked up on my travels

All the backs are the same fabric - in case we have a big group over for dinner and want matching placemats.  The fabric is called "Sewing Seeds" by J. Wecker Frisch.  I LOVE this fabric because of its old timey style, but then I noticed that the text includes inspirational scriptures. Awesome! That way you can read your scriptures while you eat your cereal.

Sewing Seeds Seed Catalog Cotton Fabric in Cream designed by J. Wecker Frisch 

Garden Progress: Harvesting the Lemongrass

Unfortunately, I waited too long to dig up and bring in my lemongrass plants. The temperature dropped pretty early this year and apparently they cannot stand freezing temperatures!  Now I'll have to start over again with them next year. In the meantime, I figured that I might as well harvest and store what I have. If you missed my rant on how wonderful lemongrass is and the mild thai curry recipe that my kids love - follow the link and try it!
I think 2 lemongrass plants was about right for our family of 5. We had plenty all summer and I filled about 1/3 of this large ziploc with shoots harvested from one plant. That and the other plant still to be harvested, should last us for the winter.
While outside, I dug the plant out, clipped off the grassy ends, split off the shoots as close to the rootball as possible, and pulled off the outer covering. Then all I had to do indoors was wash it and trim it close to the tender base. Some people recommended pureeing it before storing, but I am going to try to just freeze it in longish stalks. That way it will be easier to remove the stalk before serving the curry and I can better control the level of spiciness.

Sew Special: Actually, holiday painting instead

I recently became obsessed with peg people. It all started when I saw these in the Magic Cabin Toy catalog. It seemed simple enough that I could make them myself. I found this lovely book about Making Peg Dolls. 

Then I saw these Waldorf Story Eggs. And that was enough to convince me to finally place an order from Bayer Wood. They have tons of fun wooden goodies to choose from and very inexpensive. For the past week our table has looked something like this:

Wooden Snowman Family - aka future Christmas Decorations

Painting wooden story eggs

 Here are my Thanksgiving Project results:

A few hints on making Peg People (based on my experience so far):
- Draw everything in pencil first
- Use a fine tip permanent pen for the eyes and to outline details in black
- If you are not planning to put a coat of beeswax or other protection on it - use acrylic paint. We had an incident with the pilgrim lady when one of the children picked her up with damp hands (she smeared) - I had been using some strong (aquarelle) water color paints on them. I will probably use more diluted water colors and some beeswax coatings to make the rainbow people
- Use non toxic paints. Babies LOVE playing and chewing on these! At least mine do.

Home Schooling Summary For the Last 2 Weeks

These last two weeks have been full of celebrations. (Read: Lots of partying not much formal education) We had baby brother S's first birthday, my nephew  (the first grandchild on both sides) got baptized, and my parents were visiting for these events.  

Riding on a princess pumpkin

Baby S's birthday party followed a familiar pattern - the little guy tries to figure out what these presents are good for with LOTS of demonstrations from older more experienced siblings and cousins.

Here are some great pictures that my dad snapped the day of the big Baptism party:

Apparently sticking out your tongue when you are happy is genetic in our family

Recommended Reading: The Black Cauldron Series- Chronicles of Prydain Book 4

The Chronicles of Prydain Book 4: Taran Wanderer by Lloyd Alexander

Funny story about this cover. The whole reason that I started reading this series is because my daughter brought this set to me. She liked it because she thought the covers looked "scary"! She is kind of obsessed with reading "scary" looking books. We read a lot of Halloween books as you might guess.  Lucky for me the children's section is pretty safe.
I was about to put this book back and then recognized the "Black Cauldron" title from the Disney movie.  I am glad that I decided to read this series for myself.  I recommend it for children ages 7 and up for all the reasons that I mentioned in my previous posts about the Chronicles of Prydain. 
Book 4 is still an adventure story, but lacks Eilonwy, which is sad for female readers. It is also more introspective and philosophical as Taran is seeking to discover his true parentage. For all the "finding yourself" philosophy that it included, it still kept me on the edge of my seat.  I don't want to spoil the ending for anyone, but I was hoping for a bit more myself. Hopefully, Book 5 will clear it all up.