This week’s Carnival of Homeschooling has a Halloween theme. It’s being hosted by the carnival’s creators over at Why Homeschool - a blog worth bookmarking.
What is a blog carnival? Find out here.
Spunky has a post about the decline of recess time in schools. It reminded me of my own situation when my kids were in school.
When Big D was in Kindergarten, they frequently did not have recess. I went in to talk to the teacher about it and she said there just wasn’t time because she had to get the kids ready for the testing that would be done at the end of the year.
This continued for first and second grades, too.
He would burst out the door full of energy at the end of the school day and run around. Big E was the same way. I always let them stay after and play if they had no recess, but this was hard sometimes in the winter because I had Little E with me.
The most frustrating part was that the teachers wanted Big D to sit still all day and were frustrated that he could not. Not only that, but he finished much of his work before the other students and was not allowed to talk. So, this poor kid, having had no outlet for his energy, had to sit still with nothing to do, while the other kids finished their work. I was told that they could not give him extra work to do. He was allowed to read, though.
To top it off, the teachers were frustrated because they saw him as a problem, but they couldn’t really identify the problem. He was not doing anything blatantly against the rules or warranting a trip to the Principal. They admitted that they had a hard time putting it into words. “He doesn’t respect the other kids while they are working” was the best they could come up with.
Basically, my son can be annoying if he has no stimulation. You’ve heard that idle hands are the Devil’s tools, well so are idle minds. Kids with no mental stimulation will think of ways to annoy people. Trust me.
Of course, I have learned this by homeschooling him last year and this. At that time, I did not get what they were complaining about. The fact that they could not explain it didn’t help either.
If they had just let him outdoors to play a couple of times a day and given him enough to do to keep his mind alert and active, they would have found that he is a wonderful kid, even polite and helpful. But when he has nothing to do, or is stuck inside all day, he can be a real pain. And that is what they frequently got.
It really is no wonder that there are so many problems these days with kids in the classrooms.
Concerned parents of public school children can join the recess movement here.
Here at Crafty Mama’s Homeschool, it has been all pumpkins all the time.
We discovered lots of facts about the fall fruit, a member of the vine crop family cucurbits. There are many more pumpkin facts here and here is some interesting history about the Jack O’Lantern.
Don’t forget the recipes. We tried the Pumpkin Pudding, but the kids didn’t like it.
We also made Pumpkin Bars with Cream Cheese Frosting and Pumpkin Muffins, with raisins and walnuts. (The recipes are in this post.)
And what better use for pumpkin seeds than math manipulatives? Well, okay, toasting and eating is the best use.
Don’t want to carve pumpkins? You can make these cute little ones out of egg cartons. (Link opens a “how to” video clip from Family Fun Magazine’s website.)
Here are ours.
You simply cut the cups from an egg carton. Glue two cups together by running a bead of glue around the top of one cup and placing the other cup on top (inverted). When glue dries, paint orange. When paint dries, poke a hole in the top with a paper clip and insert a green curled pipe cleaner through the top. We also used brown for the stems. Have fun drawing faces on with a marker.
The kids got creatively inspired and decided to draw Jack O’Lantern faces on some orange ball pit balls and make really cute mobiles out of them. Being rambunctious little boys, the mobiles were knocked down before I could take a picture, but here is a surviving pumpkin face.
Just throw in some pumpkin literature and a pumpkin creative writing assignment and you’ve got a pretty pumpkin-y theme unit.
When Halloween is over, the learning can continue. Just leave the pumpkins outside in a safe place where you can observe them for the coming weeks and you have a great science opportunity!
Nothing warms the heart in the fall like the cinnamony taste of baked pumpkin goodies, especially when the ice-cold rain falls, as it has been here in Vermont lately.
Here are a few recipes that my family has enjoyed.
Pumpkin Bars
2 cups all-purpose flour
1.5 cups brown sugar (white is okay, too)
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
0.25 teaspoon salt
0.5 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (or 0.25 teaspoon ginger or cloves)
4 beaten eggs
1 16-oz can pumpkin
1 cup cooking oil
~ In a large mixing bowl, stir together the dry ingredients (the first seven ingredients).
~Stir in the eggs, oil, and pumpkin until combined.
~Pour into an ungreased 15×10x1 inch baking pan.
~Bake in a 350-degree oven for 25 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
~Cool in the pan on a rack for 2 hours.
~Top with Cream Cheese Frosting (recipe follows).
Cream Cheese Frosting
~Beat 3 oz. of softened cream cheese, one quarter cup of softened butter, and 1 teaspoon of vanilla until light and fluffy.
~Slowly add one cup of sifted powdered sugar and beat well.
~Gradually beat in another cup or so of sifted powdered sugar to make frosting a spreadable consistency.
Pumpkin Muffins
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
0.25 teaspoon salt
0.25 teaspoon baking soda
0.5 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (or .25 teaspoon nutmeg and 0.125 teaspoon ginger)
1 cup canned pumpkin
0.5 cup milk
2 eggs
5 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon butter, softened
1 cup all-purpose flour
0.5 cup chopped walnuts
0.5 cup raisins
~Grease or spray a 12-cup muffin tin.
~In mixer bowl, combine the first seven ingredients.
~Add the pumpkin, milk, eggs, and butter and beat with an electric mixer on low until blended.
~Beat on medium-high speed for 2 minutes.
~Add the remaining 1 cup flour and beat until blended.
~Fold in walnuts and raisins.
~Spoon into muffin pan.
~Bake 25 - 30 minutes in a 350-degree oven, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
~Cool in pan for 10 minutes on rack.
~Enjoy hot or cool longer.
Today was our eleventh day without a TV in our living room.
This morning, I woke up and came out into the living room to find Big D on the couch reading and Big E in the chair drawing a new superhero he invented. It was so quiet.
No TV is such a good thing.
(Even though I have no time to blog.)
Thinking about homeschooling and want to find out more?
New to homeschooling and looking for tips and people to connect with?
Or are you a longtime homeschooler, who just wants to find out what other homeschoolers are up to?
Well, you can find all that and more at the Carnival of Homeschooling - a collection of links to the best the homeschool blogging community has to offer.
This week’s carnival is hosted over at About Homeschooling, which by the way is a great homeschooling resource.
I hate Mondays.
Not so much the day itself, but the evenings. Monday is the night that Not-So-Crafty Daddy goes to Bible study. It’s not that I have a problem with him growing in the Word of God and all that good stuff, but it totally stinks to be home with the kids all day, then all evening. Ugh!
This night was particularly pleasant. First of all, there must have been something wrong with my voice because not only did the boys not listen, but it was like they couldn’t even hear me. I mean not even an eye-roll or a dismissive nod.
Then, when I had sufficiently convinced them I was at the end of my rope, they decided to clean the kitchen. I told them thanks, but what I really needed was for them to go to bed. Of course, since they couldn’t hear me, they kept on going.
When they were finishing up, Big D wanted to refill the dish detergent bottle. I told him which soap to use and he remarked, “Oh, it’s the same stuff that you use in the dishwasher.”
Ummm, no.
It took a second for me to realize that he had just started the dishwasher and if he thinks that is the soap we use in the dishwasher…crap!
I opened the dishwasher to find soap everywhere. I shut it off while I figured out what to do and herded them into their beds.
When I came out, I found that the soap compartment hadn’t opened up yet. The bubbles must have been from some soap he spilled. I cleaned the soap compartment out; washing it with a wet cloth to get all the soap out, and turned the dishwasher back on. Luckily, we use the all natural stuff so it doesn’t foam too, too much. I kept checking it every ten minutes and it was fine.
Crisis averted.
I still hate Mondays, though.
I was writing a post on my political blog this morning that included the fact that 42% of Americans think that the President is controlling gas prices to affect the election.
I commented that Basic Economics will be a required class here at Crafty Mama’s Homeschool, since obviously there is a lack of understanding of the basic economic principles that drive prices. (Just so you know, the President is not controlling the gas prices.)
When I did an internet search for the book Basic Economics, by Thomas Sowell, for a link in that post, I stumbled across this handy-dandy primer on basic economics for kids. The subject, not the Sowell book.
It includes want vs. need, supply and demand, scarcity and choices, goods and services, interdependence, the stock market, inflation, and other helpful resources, too. The economics main page is here. The basic economics topics are in a drop-down menu. You can also go to this page for the basic economics article descriptions and links.
Even if you don’t agree with my politics, I think we can all agree that an education in basic economic principles is a must.
This series is from the website Social Studies for Kids. It is written by David White, the former About.com Guide for Social Studies for Kids. It looks like a great site for all things social studies.
The one in which Shannon, aka PHAT Mommy, tries to give us the answer to everything, or at least most of our homeschooling questions, is now up at her new blog: Homeschool Hacks.
Yesterday was a pretty good day. Not-So-Crafty Daddy stayed home to take the boys on a homeschoolers field trip. They went to the Audubon Society for a homeschool program about the Abenaki. It sounds like they had a good time. There were a couple of boys they know there and they got to use the atlatl!
I got to go to the library - by my self! It was great. Even the youth librarian was surprised to not see a troupe of antsy boys trailing behind me.
After the library, I walked downtown to Church Street, the pedestrian mall, and window shopped. I was actually looking for a winter coat, but they were all too trendy and fur-lined-hooded for my taste.
In the afternoon, Big D was being kind of annoying, so I told him what I thought he was doing. He thinks if he annoys us enough, we will decide he needs a TV to keep himself busy. He admitted it.
We informed him it is the opposite - the fact that he can’t behave appropriately without a TV there to hypnotize him reinforces our opinion that he was watching too much TV and will cause us to not buy another one.
He got it.
The only complaint I have so far is that in the morning, which is my blogging and news reading time, they are noisy and rowdy because they can’t watch TV. I picked up a book on CD a the library yesterday and I am going to try that out.
