Eats for the equinox

I made this in late spring, when spinach was everywhere.  But now fall is approaching, and spinach will be back.  This is super easy.  The most expensive part of it is the bacon, so a splurge for the good stuff is definitely warranted, if you feel so led.

Penne, Spinach & Bacon

1 (12 oz) package penne

2 tbsp. olive oil, divided

6 slices bacon, chopped

2 tbsp. minced garlic

1 (14.5 oz) can diced tomatoes

1 bunch fresh spinach, rinsed, torn into bite-size pieces (The Flour Children tore the spinach)

Cook pasta according to package directions.  Heat 1 tbsp. oil in skillet over medium.  

Place bacon in skillet, and cook until brown and crisp.  Add garlic, and cook about 1 minutes.  Stir in tomatoes (with juice) and heat through.  Put spinach in colander and strain pasta over it.  The cooking liquid will wilt your spinach.  Toss all ingredients together with 1 tbsp. oil.

I like it when they're tricked into learning

Unschooly day.

Week in Review--Week 3

Spelling

Continued working through our spelling book. 

Language Arts

Oh, Emma Perl, how I love you.  I really like Primary Language Lessons, though we have not memorized anything.  I know they are capable of memorizing; they do it for AWANA.  So I don't know about the poems.  Maybe when we get to one that I think would be super nice to know.  I do like memorization.  Hub can still recite Jabberwocky and I still know the preamble to the Constitution.  Does it help us in day-to-day life?  No.  Does it make us awesome?  Yes.

Also, we continued working on proper vs. common nouns.

Social Studies
Turns out there are two Augustines.  Who knew?  Not I.  We read Chapter 3 in Story of the World about the spread of Christianity throughout Britain.  We're also reading Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.  All of the kids love this book!  We also read a few medieval tales this week as well, The Sword in the Stone and Finn MacCoul.

Science

We finally made our ocean boxes.  All year long, we'll be adding creatures to our "ocean."  We're going to try to make them out of clay, and if that doesn't work out, then we'll do cut outs from magazines and such.  We did an experiment where we learned that cold water is heavier is warm water.  We also started reading about whales.  We watched a number of videos.  Here's one you might enjoy.

Math

Scrappy has really nailed double digit addition, so now he's onto double digit addition with carrying.  Funny did a great job on her quiz this week.  I finally got Goofy to slow down at math, mostly by saying, "not now."  Isn't that terrible?  I think if I let him he'd finish the book by the end of September.  I don't know, I suppose it's not a bad thing.

Art

The kids turned in their block lettering practice.

We still didn't get to music and health this week.  That's all we're behind in now!  Yay for catching up!

Want more ideas?  Check out Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Week in Review--Week 2

Good thing homeschooling is flexible.

We had friends in from out-of-town, and they surprised us (yay!) by staying an extra day. Monday was spent running errands and celebrating Goofy's 6th birthday (the "kid party"). Tuesday I babysat and had many, many friends over, as the out-of-town friends arrived Tuesday evening. Everyone seems to converge on my house for social gatherings. Why? I don't know. It cannot be my wicked good entertaining skills. I don't have any.

Afore-mentioned friends left on Thursday. I was sad. The kids were sad. It was just sad. We missed our friends. So we went out to lunch and then shopping for a few things at Target. When we got home, we snuggled up and read a book.

Friday morning was go time. Oh dear, I was a week behind, almost! We finished our book, The Light at Tern Rock. The kids really enjoyed the story, and I remembered that I had read it as a child. I borrowed it from a friend who was lucky enough to have an entire SonLight curriculum given to her. GIVEN! I know, right?

We also watched a rather bizarre video called, "A Child's Introduction to Musical Instruments." Yeah, it was weird. It was oddly animated and about some farmer who wanted to conduct an orchestra. They sat and watched it all, though. I wish I had had time to preview it, as I would've passed on it. Lesson learned!

We spent Friday catching up on a lot of math. Goofy is still flying through math. I have to say, his rather unschooly Kindergarten year is really paying off. He just magically knows stuff. Funny and Scrappy both knocked out a few days of math work, and Funny took a quiz and got everything right. Whew! I am not a miserable failure, naysayers!

Saturday we listened to our Social Studies chapter in the van while out running even more errands. Everyone needed new shoes. I would've rather been at the dentist, I must admit. Not much is worse than trying to get 4 kids plus a husband to choose shoes. Ugh. We also went to Target (yes, again!) where the kids spent a loooong time decided how to spend their birthday money. First, everyone wanted Silly Bandz. Then Funny decided she could get a really cool toy if she put her Silly Bandz back. It was like a little light went off for her. Ultimately the girls and the boys, respectively, pooled their money to buy 2 big toys. I promise I didn't turn it into an educational torture, but I did note to Hub after, "This totally counts as economics. If that was a subject for us." Homeschoolers are crazy, man.

Next week we all have dentists appointments and a carpenter coming to (fingers crossed) finish up our bathroom so the tile can be installed soon. I am thankful that I've been homeschooling now for a few years because I figure a couple days behind is pretty good! We'll see how the week goes.

There's a book for that--Math

I am a librarian.

Well, I am a librarian by degree, and formerly by practice. I have learned that once a librarian, always a librarian. It's like a sickness. I rearrange books at every library I visit. My homeschool shelves are in Dewey decimal order (mostly). And best of all, I love to incorporate all types of books into my homeschooling.

Let's start with math.

You may not think that math lends itself to picture book and juvenile non-fiction supplements, but it does. How much drill can our poor children take? I'm bored just assigning it.

Anno's Magic Seeds

Anno's Math Games

These are just a few math books written by Matsumasa Anno. A number of questions are asked about each illustration. The reader is asked to add, subtract, compare, estimate, etc.

A Pair of Socks

Stuart J. Murphy is, in my opinion, the king of math non-fiction for young readers. Pick a math concept, and he has likely written a book about it. This is just one example. In this book, the reader looks for matches to socks. It's useful for matching, pairs, and even numbers. As a bonus, this particular book is illustrated by Lois Ehlert.

How Much is a Million?

We actually watched a Reading Rainbow video of this book, where the original illustrations were shown while someone read the text. A great book for your math student who is obsessed with giant numbers.

Domino Addition

This is a simple, repetitive introduction to addition. My 5 year old loved it, and by the end had figured out the pattern to the text and was "reading" along.

Shapes, Shapes, Shapes

Is it Larger, Is it Smaller

So Many Circles, So Many Squares

I love Tana Hoban! When my kids were in preK and K, we read her books every chance we got. They are so simple, with everyday things that are familiar to kids. Highly recommended.