Your Kids Cooking: French Toast

I'm not much of a cook.

Mind you, I *can* cook, or at least I *could* cook, if it was something that I devoted myself to learning, but frankly, I'm more of the "Didn't I just cook you dinner yesterday?" type of parent than the "homemade dinner that we eat all sitting around the table together every night" type.

I do, however, want the kids to learn how to cook, and to learn to enjoy cooking, and since they're probably picking up neither from watching me half-heartedly slog about the kitchen three nights a week (and calling Matt to grab salads and deli chicken from the grocery store on the way home from work the other four nights), I've decided that this semester, we're going to study Home Ec.

Our textbook for this unit is Your Kids: Cooking, a book that was given to me for free by a publicist. The kids used it for the first time this week to make French toast, and they actually ended up with French toast!

Here are some of the lessons that they we learned:

1. You've got to buy your ingredients ahead of time. Is this a thing that all adults do? I go to the grocery store every now and then and buy the things that I think might be used in making meals, but then each day, I sort of just scan the kitchen and figure out what I can make with what I already have. Like... sandwiches.

But with this book, there's a section that has the recipe in brief, and you're supposed to look at that, then look at the ingredients list, and then go buy what you need so that you can make this recipe in a few days. Huh. Who knew?

Oh, and not eat it before you make the recipe. We had to buy bacon twice, on account of I cooked it all the day after I bought it, and then was like, "Crap! That was our French toast bacon, not our bacon and egg sandwich bacon!"

2. You've got to get out everything that you need ahead of time, and it's got to be the right stuff. Is this another thing that all adults do? Will did not want to gather all of the supplies before they begin, probably because she's been infected with my lazy "Okay, 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla... Where's the teaspoon? Where's the vanilla? Shoot, are we out of vanilla? That's okay, because I can't find the teaspoon, either. I wonder if a tablespoon of peppermint extract will work?" (Hint: it will not).

Getting out all of the supplies, too, was a good way to emphasize to her that you do actually need what the recipe calls for. For instance, Will grabbed a mixing bowl for the batter, and was not pleased when I insisted that the recipe clearly calls for a flat-bottomed bowl. She's super stubborn, and although I try to give her the freedom to do what she wants most of the time, sometimes I simply have to say, "Hey. You are going to do this thing the way that I am telling you to do this thing, or I will make bad things happen in your life." This was one of those times.

Math also tends to be one of those times, as does dinner, when the reality that she's basically feral and also tends to grow almost an inch a month is exposed by her desire to pretty much just tip the plate up to her face and inhale rather than, you know, use her fork or, like, chew.

3. You've got to know what you're doing before you start. I'm still not totally sold on this one, but the DVD that accompanies the book has the kids watch the process for each step before completing that step on their own. So, they had to watch the proper way to add and mix all the ingredients to make the French toast batter before they can start adding ingredients, themselves. This was a little slow for Will, BUT it included some helpful cooking tips that they we may not have known ahead of time, such as how to whisk until something is completely mixed, and how to hold the spatula so you can flip the bread.

Her face is probably too close to the burner, but the book didn't say not to put your face right next to the burner, so I think it's fine.

The one thing that I think I will note in the recipe book for next time is the amount of butter that's called for to grease the pan. I don't remember off-hand how much it was, but it was, I think, too much for our smallish pan, and so the French toast came out a little greasy.

To add to this meal, Syd also made the smoothie recipe that's included in the French toast chapter, and I made bacon in the oven. It was an awesome lunch!

Yes, those are dirty dishes in the background. There will never not be dirty dishes in the background.

Well, I say "lunch," but somehow it was after 4:00 pm by the time we sat down to eat our feast. We may have to work on meal timing a little bit more...

There are several more bonus recipes that are free for this chapter (although you have to pay for the bonus recipes for the other chapters--bummer!), so I think that we'll spend our Home Ec lesson next week trying some of them out, but after that?

Macaroni and cheese!

Homeschool Field Trip: The Pink Palace Museum in Memphis

When we have an all-day drive with the kids, we usually try to stop somewhere kid-friendly for a couple of hours at some point during the day. I'd rather arrive at my destination two hours behind schedule than keep two active kids trapped in car seats for 10+ hours of a day.

It's nice for the adults to stretch their legs and see some sights, too, of course!

We had a LOT of back-and-forth driving over the winter break, so I've got a couple more places to share with you, including this detour that we took to the Pink Palace Museum in Memphis. It's an ASTC Passport Program museum, just like our hometown museum, so being members of our hometown science museum means that we get free admission to this one!

Pro tip: Membership in an ASTC Passport Program museum is 1000% worth the membership fee. We visit Passport Program museums for free every single time we travel--not only is it incredible value for our money, then, but it's also educational, entertaining, and it sure as hell breaks up a long drive!

On this particular winter break trip, we spent a happy couple of hours exploring the Pink Palace. It wasn't as hands-on of a museum as Syd would prefer, but it did have some cool immersive exhibits to explore, as well as the usual informative displays:

I have never seen this before! It uses near-infrared light that doesn't fluoresce on the veins, so you can see them in the contrast! Those are my veins in that image! 

Syd is always willing to pretend to be attacked by animatronic dinosaurs!

 

There was an exhibit on microscopy that the adults found interesting, but it also included this microscope that's exactly like the one that Darwin used. We're currently listening to the Calpurnia Tate series in the car (and it's an AMAZING series--go read it!), so a Darwin-era microscope has excellent relevance!

Will, of course, loves museums even when they don't contain splashy, hands-on exhibits, and I'm pretty sure that she read every single sign and looked at every single display in the entire place. Here she is checking out bird skeletons!

hummingbird vs. emu

 

One of my favorite exhibits was the one on evolution. It includes fossil models that aren't behind a display case, so that you can actually see them up close from all angles, and it even puts many of them into context for you:

We did a human evolution unit early on in our homeschool days, and it's still one of my favorite subjects to continue to explore.

There was also a huge, fabulous FAQ schooling the citizens of Memphis on evolution:

And that's how one of my new fantasy projects is to create a religious-style tract on evolution, and then leave it under people's windshield wipers and pass it out in science museums.

Would I get the same horrified reactions from others that I gave to that horrible religious tract-wielding man at the Field Museum? Karma always prevails!

Junior Ranger Field Trip: Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site

We really did need to make the 11-hour drive from my hometown back to our home town in one day. And yet, the children were both writing an essay the next week, and one of the possible subjects for this essay is the desegregation of Little Rock Central High School...

On this 11-hour drive, we were driving right through Little Rock.

There is actually a National Historic Site, complete with visitor center and museum, for Little Rock Central High School.

And that National Historic Site has a Junior Ranger program.

Obviously, we went there.

My Master's in Library Science with an emphasis on Special Collections requires me to tell you that you really shouldn't write over the displays, but when the children have a booklet to fill out and no clipboard, I generally can't bring myself to enforce this.

 On the way to the site, we discussed the two main points of the essay prompt--the significance of the event, and how it inspires you--and in the museum, I took photos of almost every informational sign, which I've since printed out so that the children can use them as resources:

Since it was freezing outside and raining, we didn't hike around the outside of the school, and since we were on a schedule, we didn't take the guided tour of it, either. I am comforting myself with the fact that it's the events that took place at the school that are important, not the building or its neighborhood.

I still wish I'd taken that guided tour, though!

Nevertheless, the museum was excellent, immersed Will (Syd has less patience for museums, but wandered around mostly patiently while Will read every. Single. Sign), and offered a thorough explanation of the event, as well as the context to help one understand its historical and cultural significance.

You can see the high school in the background--it's still an active high school, and school was, of course, in session on this day.

 The kids did, indeed, earn their Junior Ranger badges--

--and are working on their essays this week. It's an interesting process, writing a research-based essay when most of the research was done in person; I'm encouraging the children to write in the first person, when necessary, and to use their experiences as evidence when relevant. I quickly realized, however, that they still need to look up all the same resources that they would have needed to look up anyway--the Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site's website has the timeline facts and other historical details, all the little things that you need for an essay but that you of course didn't memorize from your visit.

I'm hoping, though, that the first-person experience will add depth to the children's writing, as I hope, and do feel confident, that it added depth to their understanding of US history, Civil Rights, politics, and ethics. Will, in particular, seems really interested in government and politics, and I'm eager to offer her the enrichment, whenever possible, that will give her an ever more nuanced understanding of these subjects.

And as a side-effect of her primary source research, she can now do a killer impersonation of a 1950s-era racist Southern politician. Seriously, Faubus, we can HEAR the entitled smugness in your voice!

Work Plans for the Week of January 11, 2016: Back to Work!

Well, I now know exactly one good way to find yourself excited about getting back to the regular schedule of a homeschool week.

Over our extra-long break, I did require the kids to work on their Math Mammoth regularly, and Will to continue memorizing her spelling words (she has a spelling bee this weekend!), and the kids managed to earn TWO new Junior Ranger badges (Syd chose to re-earn a third one!) and visit a new-to-us science and history museum. Nevertheless, I'm happy today to be back on a regular schedule.

Well, I *say* I'm happy, but Syd didn't wake up until 10:00, primarily because I kept them both up until 11:30 last night to watch the new Sherlock episode, so we'll see if I'm still happy when we're doing most of today's schoolwork tonight.

You'll notice that I reworked our work plans over the break. I had been giving out a second sheet just for the kids' chore list, but two sheets are easier to lose and more inefficient and wasteful than one sheet, so I figured out how to squeeze everything onto one page. Now the kids' daily chores are listed in their plans to check off along with their schoolwork--

This is what unloading the dishwasher looks like--they never *quite* put the dishes away where I want them to.

--and the space for special chores is at the bottom--I tend to handwrite in at least one of the chores on the day of, because I like to have the kids help with whatever I especially need help with that day. The chore that's already written in is usually something that's been nagging at me for a while. So, for instance, one of today's chores is written in as refilling the fish tank completely, because the sight of that 3/4 full fish tank has been bothering me, but I decided just this morning that I also cannot STAND having the Christmas decorations up for one more day, so I wrote that in this morning.

I also have been wanting, for a while now, to encourage the children to do more independent studying in projects of their choosing, so I've tentatively incorporated a Project of the Week for this semester. The idea is that over the weekend, the kids, with my help, each choose a project or area of study or activity that they'd like to work on independently over the week. I then have time set aside every day that week for work on that project. This first week, Syd decided that she wants to create three of the recipes from The Nerdy Nummies Cookbook, which I have checked out from the library. She and her dad bought the ingredients for all the recipes last night, and she'll make them this week, probably with adult help. Will's project is to research the perfect flight simulator computer game to buy with the money that her Uncle Chad gave her for Christmas, then to learn how to play it using the joystick that he also gave her--this is a handy way to work around the fact that she's grounded from all non-school screens until Friday, on account of she pitched the world's most ridiculous fit about modeling fraction division with Cuisenaire rods last Friday. We'll see how these projects go!

Books of the Week include a couple more biographies of Martin Luther King, Jr., a couple more books about World War 2, and a few random books that I thought the kids would like--Amelia Bedelia for Syd, horses for Will, etc.

And here's the rest of our week!

MONDAY: Syd is in another time unit in Math Mammoth, while Will is finishing up dividing fractions. I have been surprisingly disappointed with the calculating fraction lessons in Math Mammoth--I feel like I have had to extensively supplement every single one, including making my own lessons in Adobe InDesign that model the calculations in understandable ways. I put so much work into these that I may put them up on Teachers Pay Teachers, so stay tuned!

We do a lot of writing, but I thought that it might be nice to try a more guided unit, so I'm going to experiment with the NaNoWriMo's Young Writers program--unseasonably, of course, but who says that you only have to write your novels in November? Lesson 1, which we'll do today, covers the definition of a novel, asks the kids to describe the characteristics of some of their favorite novels based on this definition, and then has the kids create an ad for one of those favorite novels. I'm curious to see if my two will want to videotape or write our their ads.

We're also going to spend one week a month using the MENSA A Year of Living Poetically curriculum, primarily because I like that the vocabulary and comprehension components of each poem are included. I'll introduce the kids to the poem today, then give them the rest of the week to complete the packet and memorize the poem.

Other work on this day includes our volunteer gig at the local food pantry, studying the spelling lists from the Scripps 2015/2016 spelling bee study guide, and a page from each kid's cursive workbook. We've also got a snowy playdate with a friend at the park this afternoon, and there will 100% be the selling of some Girl Scout cookies at some point. My kids are serious about their cookie goals this year!

TUESDAY: I'll likely be combining geography and history quite a bit during our American Revolution unit study, so before we even begin the history component, I'm having the kids simply memorize the states that were once our 13 original colonies, along with their capitals and geographic locations. I think this will add valuable context to our history studies right from the beginning.

Finally, both children are old enough to compete in the many essay contests that rule our winters--mwa-ha-ha! Happily, one of the possible topics for this particular Black History Month essay contest is the integration of Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Can you guess what city we drove through to and from my hometown last week? Little Rock! Can you guess where one of the places that the kids earned a Junior Ranger badge is? The Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site! We discussed the questions posed by the essay promote both before and after our visit, and so I think they'll be well-prepared to write this essay.

We've got a sledding playdate today, and I wouldn't be surprised if our homeschool group's playgroup on this day also involves sledding!

WEDNESDAY: I had a little time over the break to do some Girl Scout badge research, and so I have a plan to do some badges together as a family, sneaking in yet more academic enrichment as we do so--don't tell! The first badge we're doing together is the Animal Habitats badge for Juniors and the Animal Helpers badge for Cadettes, combining them so that each project that the kids do will count for each badge. On this particular day, we'll be watching episodes from PBS' Nature series (to meet a requirement for the Animal Helpers badge that asks children to research animal/human interactions), and then filling out this animal habitat form for three different animals found in the series (to meet a requirement for the Animal Habitats badge that asks children to research animal habitats).

I am REALLY excited about our cooking lessons! I was given a free copy of Your Kids: Cooking to review, and on this day we start with lesson one, French toast. There's a DVD tutorial that kids can follow along, and extension recipes that kids can cook afterwards that build on the specific French toast skills. Frankly, this book is going to teach me how to cook, too!

Following my essay-writing plan, this is the day that the kids will each write the rough draft of their Little Rock Central High essays.

THURSDAY: Will wants to study rocks and minerals, so I found a 9th grade science textbook that we'll be using for this study. I chose this particular textbook because it begins with a chapter on atoms and elements, and then moves on to chapters on minerals, sedimentary, and igneous rocks. I'd been wanting to cover atoms and elements with the kids, so I'm happy that I don't have to wait for a unit on chemistry to do it. Some of the information in the textbook will be over Syd's head, particularly, but I can help her distill the most important facts while Will absorbs more of the material. As part of this chapter, we'll be making atom models for various elements using beads and wires (and perhaps also using them to explore isotopes and electron energy levels), and the chapter's experiment on isolating the iron from fortified cereal for our STEM lesson on this day. The kids will enjoy picking out some sugar cereal from the grocery store!

FRIDAY: I am VERY excited to study the 2016 election with the kids, especially as Will is super into politics and government. We'll be using Election 2016: A Guide for Young People as our spine, but with a LOT of supplementing. For instance, after reading about all the candidates on this day, I'll be having the kids research each candidate online, finding their photo and main stances, perhaps watching a campaign ad, then making an infographic about each one that will allow us to track their progress throughout the year.

We need to study health this semester, particularly women's health, and most particularly puberty, so on this day the kids will be making a kid-sized model of the human body, complete with organs, just so we know where everything goes.

SATURDAY/SUNDAY: Ice skating, a spelling bee for Will, and rock climbing for our Girl Scout troop! Also hot chocolate, I think. Maybe a Family Movie Night. Definitely a lot of reading on the couch. Brownies? Perhaps...

As for me, I'll be spending the week working on that health unit, making a couple of etsy orders, dyeing wooden beads for atomic models, doing TONS of Girl Scout cookie sales prep, and rethinking the bedroom nook where the children have their bunk bed. After all, Will needs a place to store her sword collection AND her dragon collection, don't you know?

Last Christmas

This holiday season was long and wearisome, and it still doesn't feel over, as Pappa's funeral was just this morning. Funerals are good only in that you know that after them, you can start to figure out how to feel okay again. It's officially after the funeral, now, so tomorrow I will officially start to figure that out. Feel free to post helpful tips.

And for as much as the New Year's holiday was spent mourning Pappa's death and even the Christmas holiday was spent hospital-bedside--

On Christmas morning, Pappa naps as Syd plays with her brand new Ponies.

--I am requiring myself to remember that quite a lot of it was joyful, as well. We baked a truly astonishing number of Christmas cookies, and decorated some epic gingerbread houses:

We did our usual tour of the most elaborately decorated house in Arkansas, and the town park with a Christmas lights trail and a Christmas train that runs through it:

We have seen every single member of our family currently living in the state, I believe, and even a few other out-of-state family members. The kids' favorite member of our family, however?

This new puppy of my mother's.

We ate ice cream floats from an old-fashioned soda fountain and visited the national historic site again so that Syd could show off her 4th Grader National Parks Pass and earn their Junior Ranger badge for a second time:

Such nice little lions...

...until they're not!

And we did, of course, have a lovely Christmas day:

Time for Daddy to wake up! 

My sweet girl is always the most excited to see others open the gifts that she gives them.

And I love that I caught Will's excitement watching Syd open a gift of her own.

Will, herself, mostly received dragons.

 See? It was a nice Christmas.

At some point, I know, the grief will fade from these memories of this holiday, and I'll remember again the happiness and contentment that I also felt. It will be easier to think of the last days that I spent with Pappa, without feeling sad that those were my last days with him. I know, intellectually, that this will happen.

For now, however, I'll just say that I will be very, very glad to see tomorrow.

Pappa

You might recall that I write about my Pappa in this space sometimes. Since my kiddos were born, one of my favorite activities of going home to Arkansas has always been watching the relationship between Pappa and these great-granddaughters of his grow. 

Pappa died yesterday, peacefully and at home, just as he'd wanted. 

Although I was his grandchild, he raised me as a daughter, so that I didn't have to know what it was like to not have a father in my life. He renovated the entire house so that I could have my own bedroom. He made me a fried egg sandwich for breakfast every morning, and when I was to be gone overnight, he'd make one for me to take with me. He drove me to school every day, but stayed home when I competed in the county spelling bee, because watching me in person made him too nervous. He taught me how to bake biscuits, how to change the oil in my car, how to drive, and how to fish, and when my own daughters came along, even though he was even older and even more tired by then, he baked them biscuits and taught them how to fish, too. When I was a kid, he didn't like me to ask him questions about the war that he'd fought in, but just this summer he let Will and Syd interview him about it, on camera, just to indulge the lot of us.

Pappa was 96, and we all knew that this moment was coming. Nevertheless, I have recently discovered that I still need him desperately, and I can't quite imagine how my life is meant to look without him now.

Cool Math Games: Winter Edition

You might remember that I like to supplement the children's math curriculum weekly with cool math games or projects or activities. Some work well at any time of the year, of course (Syd and I still play Multiplication Touch regularly--even after you've got the facts memorized, it's still fun!), but there are some that are especially fun when done seasonally. Here are some good winter math games!

3D paper evergreen. This is a geometry, STEM, and fine-motor skills project that makes magic out of a single sheet of paper. The tutorial includes a printable that makes the cutting easy, but you could turn it into more of a challenge by simply giving verbal instructions. When I was a kid, a project very similar to this was given to me with the instructions merely to "make a hole in a single piece of paper large enough to fit your entire body through."

Want to know how to do that one? Get your scissors and figure it out!

bean mosaic. Since it's winter, I'm imagining that you've got loads of dried beans on hand. Kids can play with pattern-making and symmetry while they make their own mosaics using the wonderful variety of sizes and colors of dried beans out there, and then you can cook them up for dinner and they can taste all those varieties, too.

build-your-own calendar. The time before New Year is a great time to get kids thinking about how months and years work, and therefore a great time to have them build their own calendar for next year!

Christmas-themed printable mazes. These aren't super challenging, but they give kids who can't stop thinking about Christmas something engaging to do on a car ride or before the big feast.

Christmas-themed online games. These aren't hands-on, of course, but if you had a Christmas like mine, and you and your kids spent a lot of time visiting relatives in hospital rooms or nursing homes, then some easy and festive online games are handy to have in your toolbox.

circular perpetual calendar. This is a different kind of calendar to make that focuses less on the mathematical progression of days and months, and more on the circular progression of the months and the seasons.

DIY dominoes. Plaster of Paris isn't so messy that you can't do it indoors, and yet it's still a good, gloopy sensory experience for the kid who loves to make a mess. You can make these plaster of Paris dominoes look traditional, but kids would also love to create dominoes with other symbols or patterns or imaginative beasts--and then they can create their own games, too!

embroidered Christmas cards: The kids and I embroidered Christmas cards this year, but I was actually the only one who made these mathematical ones, mostly because I wanted to test that they worked before asking the kids to try them.

Verdict: They work!!! They are super fun, pretty simple, good practice measuring, and the patterns that they make are magical. They're a little fiddly, though, with the embroidery floss and needle, etc., so I'm considering setting the same activity up on a pegboard, or with nails, to let the kids try it out on a larger scale.

Fibonacci art project. Here's another really cool number concept for kids to explore through process-based play.

homemade Hex. I love that you can make every single component of this game, from the game board (Sharpie on cardboard) to the pieces (paint and clay).

m&m wreath. The kids made this one year when Syd was a preschooler, and it was super cute. If you've got a little one, it's great for one-to-one correspondence and fine-motor skills. If you want to discourage excessive munching, have the kids use white glue to glue the m&ms to the wreath.

number Scrabble. This game is a fun DIY version of Scrabble. Grab an old Scrabble game from a thrift store, and rig it up for this.

prime numbers game. Kids who have just discovered prime numbers will enjoy exploring them in more depth with this game.

printable hexi cards. Ugh, the weather today! We might go bowling later, or to the indoor pool at the Y, but we're certainly not playing outside! These hexi cards or other similar pattern-making cards make something new and different to pull out for the kids on a miserable winter day.

printable mazes. I LOVE these sets of printable mazes. I've been using them with the kids since they were wee, and because there are several levels of difficulty, we're still using them!

rounding practice snowball fight. Use up the backsides of previously used paper for this game, which I think could also be easily adapted to practice different concepts.

Tenzi. Scrounge up the necessary dice from your other board games for this fast-paced game.

toilet paper tube snowflakes. You can't find a better demonstration of rotational symmetry than in snowflake crafting! These toilet paper tube snowflakes are a cheap craft, since the material comes from your recycling bin, AND you can leave them up all winter, since snowflakes are festive even after Christmas. Add more to the project by painting the snowflakes, adding glitter, hanging them with fishing line from the ceiling, or even making them into a mobile.

Or, if your kids are as obsessed with Perler beads as mine currently are, make your snowflakes out of Perler beads, instead!

window stars. Winter is when I always want to make window stars! They require instruction following, pattern-making, and fine-motor skills, and the finished product always displays something beautiful and geometrically fascinating

There are basic window stars, and plenty to play with as far as size and color with just that one template, but for the adventurous crafter, there are tons of more sophisticated window star patterns out there.

winter-themed pattern block templates. Pattern blocks are always fun to play with! My kids use them for pattern-making and problem-solving, but it's also fun to follow patterns using templates like these. To make the activity more challenging, trace out only the overall outline of each shape, and have the kid try to figure out how to make each one, as well.

woven snowflakes or stars. This craft is especially on point for any kid learning or practicing skip counting, since that's what you need to make these stars, and in fact this circular skip counting method is used to teach multiplication in the Waldorf method--Waldorf loves its pretty patterns! Regardless, the patterns that you make are so interesting that anybody will love this project, and you can easily add more intricacy to it, change up the craftsmanship by using more colors, etc.

Anything strike your fancy as a fun winter project? I'm a mean mom making my kids continue their regular math curriculum this week (AND spelling, AND Book of the Day, AND their newspaper project), but we'll also be setting aside plenty of time for sneaky math, too.

Window stars? Definitely Perler bead snowflakes!