Arts Week Project #1

We're having Arts Week!

Today we studied the paintings of Georgia O'Keefe. She liked to paint flowers that covered the canvas. Carrie, Thomas, and Abby enjoyed painting flowers, too. We found the project in Discovering Great Artists.

We also listened to part of a new Mozart CD and read about him in Spiritual Lives of the Great Composers.

Thomas looked up and drew some English wildflowers to go with his chapter in The Door in the Wall.

Carrie worked on Around the World in 80 Days, reading about the Reform Club and making a minit book for her notebook. We also sewed a notebook cover this afternoon and she hemmed a pair of pj shorts.

Abby and I started reading Mirette on the High Wire for her FIAR book. We read Madeline, too, for comparison and looked at the atlas and Children Just Like Me. She helped Rachel make the eggrolls at lunchtime, too.

More tomorrow.....

Mr. Gumpy's Motor Car

This week we've been reading Mr. Gumpy's Motor Car. Besides the lessons in the manual, we've read How's the Weather by Melvin and Gilda Berger and Flash, Crash, Rumble, and Roll by Franklyn M. Branley. The weather here helped us out by raining a lot yesterday and today.

Today, Abby made currant buns, which are like drop scones. Here's the recipe:

Current Buns
1 1/3 cups self-rising flour
Pinch of salt
6 T. butter, softened
1/3 cup sugar
About 2 T. milk
1/3 cup currants or raisins
1 beaten egg

Mix flour and salt in a medium bowl. Cut in butter with a pastry blender until mixed well. Add the sugar and raisins, mixing well. Add egg slowly with a fork. Then slowly add milk until mixture is stiff and ready to be dropped off the tip of a spoon.

Grease a baking sheet and place teaspoonfuls of mixture on sheet with room to spread. Bake at 425 until lightly browned, about 8-10 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

Diary for Tuesday, July 28, 2009

My friend, Shonda, asked me a few months ago to tell about our typical school day. We were out of school at the time and I promised her I would do a diary one day.

This looked like it was going to be a fairly typical week, so I decided to keep a diary for Tuesday, the 28th.

If you are wondering what we're all working on, you can read about our school plans for Abby, Thomas, Carrie, Anna, and Emily.

5:30 AM - I'm up and reading my Bible and prayer book. Rachel is up, too.

6:00 - Emily and Katie are up now, too, having quiet time. I'm getting dressed now.

7:00 - Anna is making muffins for breakfast. I'm cooking eggs and bacon. We eat soon after and Dad reads the scriptures for today and prays with us. He leaves for work.

8:00 - Right after breakfast, everyone starts getting dressed and doing chores. We check email, too. I fold a load of clothes, clean my bathroom, straighten up my bedroom and the living room and do a general check of the house.

9:00 - Time for school to start! Rachel is practicing fiddle with Abby in my room, Anna leaves to go to Dad's office to help him with a blog they are making for one of our churches, Thomas is practicing competition music on his fiddle in his room, Emily is practicing guitar and piano in her room, Carrie and I are working on grammar and Bible. When Abby finishes practicing, she plays for a few minutes, then she does her daily copywork.

10:00 - Emily is still practicing piano. Carrie is working on spelling alone. Thomas is reading to me, then we do grammar and spelling together. Carrie finishes spelling and starts practicing fiddle.

10:30 - The girls are in charge of music at VBS this weekend, so Emily is working on putting the songs together and planning motions for some of them. Abby and Thomas stop for a some crackers and cheese and I read a chapter from his missionary book to him. Carrie goes to hang out clothes on the line and makes popsicles out of some Kool-Aid lemonade and some sorbet that needs to be eaten up.

11:00 - Emily is working on VBS and biology at the same time. Abby comes to read to me and I read a couple of character stories to her. Thomas is playing for a while.

11:30 - I stop school to cook lunch with Carrie and Rachel. Thomas is practicing music for fiddle lessons on Thursday. Whoops! It's starting to rain and we have clothes on the line. Carrie has to run out and gather them up and into the dryer they go.

12:30 - Lunch. Dad and Anna have come home, but Katie is going out to lunch with someone today. After lunch, Thomas and I clean up the kitchen. Thomas is singing and talking the whole time. I fold a load of clothes.

1:30 - Emily is working on biology. Carrie is doing geography and Anna has started math. I clean up around the living room. Thomas and I look up some vocab words for his Door in the Wall unit study and we go into my bedroom to read aloud. Abby is playing outside on the porch with some cars and little people. Rachel leaves to go to the church to teach a couple of fiddle lessons and practice where it's quiet.

2:30 - Thomas goes to read his Bible, since he slept until 7 this morning and skipped it then. I do Five in a Row and read history to Abby. Anna is reading chemistry now. Emily is working on economics.

3:30 - Tuesday is movie day for the younger kids. We have a Little Women movie from Netflix and they start watching it while I take a short nap.

4:30 - Emily and Anna are working on VBS music for a few minutes. Rachel, Emily, and I pick butterbeans. Anna is practicing fiddle.

5:30 - The movie is finished, so Carrie, Rachel, Emily, and I exercise with a DVD. Supper is every-man-for-himself-whenever-he-wants-it, so some people are eating now. David runs in and leaves again for a meeting. Everyone slowly starts evening chores.

6:30 - Rachel, Emily, Anna, and Thomas go to the church to practice some music with someone. Katie and I shell the butterbeans. Abby takes a bath with my lemon soap and I let her use the lemon body spray, too. Katie fixes supper for Abby and Thomas, who has finished his part and come back home. I'm cleaning up the kitchen for Emily and fixing the beans for the freezer.

8:00 - Everyone is home. Some are on the porch, talking. Some are reading in the living room.

9:00 - Bedtime for almost everyone, including me.

Blueberry Goodness

Yesterday we picked blueberries from the neighbor's bush. We froze almost a quart and we made blueberry freezer jam with the rest.


We just followed the recipe from the pink (low sugar) Sure-Jell box. It had jelled this morning and tastes wonderful!

For Today (July 27, 2009)

Outside my window...
It's cloudy, but we need some rain.

I am thinking...
About nothing, really.

From the learning rooms....
We're going to be adding a couple of things this week as we ease into our school schedule. I just wrote off Abby's copywork for the week, which is taken from our FIAR book, Mr. Gumpy's Motor Car. And Thomas is loving his unit study for The Door in the Wall!

I am thankful for....
Relatively good health.

From the kitchen.....
Someone brought me two bags of corn yesterday. We'll eat some for lunch today and freeze the rest. If it doesn't rain, we need to pick peas and blueberries.

I am wearing....
Moss green capris and a khaki/white striped t-shirt.

I am re-reading...
What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Menopause by Dr. John Lee

I am hoping....
For a quiet week.

One of my favorite things....
Little boys who are absorbed in the things they are busy imagining.

A few plans for the rest of the week....
Dental appointment for Emily, doctor appointment for me, week-end VBS at one of our churches.

A picture I'm sharing....

Got Tomatoes?

We made something today that was super-yummy! Paula Deen's recipe for tomato pie!

As usual, we changed the recipe a little. Rachel cut the slices of tomato very thin and drained them on paper towels so we wouldn't have soggy crust. We didn't have fresh basil, so we used dried (we didn't measure). And we didn't have any mozzarella, so we substituted Parmesan. This recipe is a keeper!

Today Abby enjoyed drawing with chalk, like the illustrations in Climbing Kansas Mountains.





I thought you might like to see a couple of photos of the garden, which has been keeping us very busy. We've been shelling a lot of peas and butterbeans (but didn't take time to make pictures). We're thinking about canning some salsa, if I have time to hunt a recipe. And aren't Rachel's sunflowers pretty?