All Things Hold Together

ARGH! I was just about to do a post about a purse that I made and my camera battery died when I was trying to upload the pictures to the computer.

Oh, well.

I am going to enter a handbag making contest and I want to show you the three handbags that I am considering entering. I will have a poll, so you can tell me which one you like the best.

One is the crochet one I was just about to post about. The other two are patchwork, but different styles.

I will try to post it tomorrow after my batteries charge.

I am still planning to post my curriculum reviews - soon!

Finally, for the first time since I started blogging, all of my blogs are under the same account. I merged my Blogger profile with my Blogger beta profile. The only change here is that my name is now listed as Charity, instead of Crafty Mama. I’m still crafty,though, in more ways than one.

We had a great time yesterday.
It was just what we needed.

It was just what I needed.

It was what I needed to remind me why I am doing this.

It was what I needed to remind me that I need to just forget about what I am going to do to prove myself to the state next spring when I re-enroll for the home study program.

The kids learned more on our trip to the woods than from a week’s worth of book work. I will post about it on their blog later and link to it.

When the time comes, I will have plenty of stuff for their portfolios. I did last year. After all, they are learning every day.

I finally put up the categories section in the sidebar. It breaks down the posts into the basic areas I want to post about on this blog. Now all I have to do is make the time to post.

Things have been hectic here this week. The little talked about truth is that homeschooling is really hard and sometimes things fall apart. Maybe not for everyone, but they do for me.

I can’t seem to get the kids to do a darn thing I say. They just keep on, like they can’t hear me. The house is a wreck, they are behind on their work, they fight all day. I haven’t had time to take care of some other commitments I made. I entertain the thought of sending them back to (GASP!) public school. UGH!

I know this is just temporary, but that doesn’t make it suck any less.

How come I never read this on other homeschooing blogs? Don’t other people have bad days, or weeks, when they feel like they don’t have what it takes to continue homeschooling?

Okay, now that I have had my pity party, here is what I plan to do to turn it around. First, we are going to get out our bikes and take a bike ride to the woods. (No, I’m not going to lose my kids in the woods.) Then, we are going to spend some time wandering around and checking out all of the cool things that are happening in nature during this great time of year - fall. If we are going to be behind in our school work, at least we can have an awesome science lesson.

When we get home, we are going to have a snack together. When they have rested, we will get the main living space cleaned up - well. If I get nothing else done today, that will still qualify as a good day.

I think the time away will help us all. Sometimes we just need to get away and what better place than the woods on a beautiful fall day?

(Category: Our Homeschool)

I am sorry that I haven’t posted much lately. Thank you to all who come by to read. I promise, I will start posting more often.

I have been really busy lately with my political blog She’s Right. I just went through a process of setting goals for myself around what I want to do with that blog. I need to do the same for Crafty Mama.

Do I want to focus on homeschool rights news stories? Do I want to focus on posts about what the kids and I are doing? Do I want to talk about how to homeschool? Do I want to talk about educational philosophy? Do I want to post about all of those things?

Then there is the fact that crafting season is coming back. I craft a lot when the cooler weather sets in. That’s why I started this blog originally, before I started using it for homeschool posts. Maybe I should set up some categories like I just did on She’s Right.

At any rate, I am going to think about it this weekend. With She’s Right, setting goals has helped me to be more focused and post on a more frequent basis.

This is my entry to win a camera in the “Capture the Educational Moment” Contest sponsored by Spunky and Academic Superstore.

This year Painter and Jokey are both in grade 4 math. We are using Switched-on Schoolhouse, which is a computer-based curriculum, for that subject. They are both doing well with it. The only problem is that they take forever because they do not have their addition, subtraction, and multiplication facts fully committed to memory. It frustrates them (and me) that it takes so long.

I take care in deciding what I am going to force them to do, and it is very little. There is really no subject at this time that I have not been able to make enjoyable for them. Sometimes they put up a fuss over language arts, but once we get into it, they are fine.

So, when the idea of using flash cards to learn their math facts sunk faster than a lead balloon, I started searching for a better way.

I bought an electronic “game” called Math Wiz, but they rejected that too, saying it was the same as flashcards. Painter called it “baby stuff,” meaning “too easy,” yet he still does not have his math facts down.

This morning, I pulled out a math bingo game I picked up at a book sale. I set it up and we started playing. After a few rounds, the answers started coming so much easier to them. I am going to play it with them every morning (or so) until they get the facts committed to memory. If that game gets boring, I have a couple other math fact games in mind.

It is unbelievable to me that I ever spent hours fighting to get them to learn something a certain way when it is so much easier to find a way that works for them and makes learning fun.

I can’t believe that I haven’t posted since the last Carnival of Homeschooling was up, but alas, another week has passed and another collection of homeschool blog posts is available over at The Thinking Mother, host blog of this week’s carnival.

Stop on over and check it out.

This morning, the kids and I biked about a mile to the electric department, where I voted in the primary election. (Actually, it was 1.1 mi. each way, according to Yahoo! Maps.)

Civics and gym class all in one. Sweet.

And I got to cross “voting” off my list of things to do. And I got some exercise.

I love this homeschooling thing.

Speaking of loving homeschooling, be sure to stop on over to the 37th Carnival of Homeschooling and see what other homeschoolers were up to this past week. It’s over at Principled Discovery.

On August 18, I finally got around to mailing in my enrollment to the Vermont State DOE Home Study Office.

It had to include a detailed curriculum for each child. I described the legal requirement and what I included this year in this post.

It also had to include an assessment of last year for each child. I decided to try doing a parent report and a portfolio of the children’s work. That is one the options we have. The others are: an assessment by a licensed teacher or standardized test results (from state approved test) and parent report.

I am very much opposed to state regulation, so I was not going to give them too much information. I included about six math samples from different times in the year, some language arts and phonics worksheets, four multiple-choice science quizzes, the names of a couple of history books we read and a picture of one project we did, a maple sugar house we visited, a couple of pictures of artwork, and a partial reading list - all for each child. I also listed in the parent report what we did for art, music, health , and phys. ed., but did not include anything in the portfolio for those topics.

I felt that this wasn’t very much information, but that it was enough to see that we did something and that they made “appropriate progress” for their ages/abilities, something that is required by statute.

Still, I thought they would ask for more information. I did not believe that they had a legal right to require more information, but I really thought they would ask for it.

I also had concerns about the curriculum because I was not specific with the topics, since I am doing some subjects in a child-led sort of approach. I was, however, specific with the skills that I wanted them to attain.

The state has 14 business days to respond, plus mailing time. I tried not to think about it, but as their time was almost up, I was rushing to the mail every day.

The envelope finally came on Saturday night. I got it Sunday morning, since our mail comes late and is delivered at a common location in our development.

I knew based on how thin it was that the impossible had occurred. Sure enough, when I opened it, my enrollment was approved on the first try!

This was awesome news since this was my first year of doing an assessment and only my second curriculum.

After reading the frustrated parents on the homeschool message boards, who got requests for more information, this was a pleasant surprise.

I still think that the state has no right to require home educating parents to submit a curriculum and assessment to them, but now that I have been through it and I know that I do not need to feel stressed about having enough samples for the state, I don’t resent it quite as much as I did before.

I am just glad to have it behind me so we can focus on this year!

There comes a time in every woman’s life when she NEEDS some chocolate and there is none in the house.

For me, that day was today.

I have been dealing with a head cold/sore throat/headache for days and my husband came home early from work to take the kids off my hands. I rested for about an hour and then I wanted some comfort food to make me feel better. (Yes, I know. That’s bad.) I was really craving chocolate, partly for the comfort and partly for the energy my body was lacking, I think.

Since I have been watching what I eat lately, the only chocolate we had was an old square of baking chocolate, unsweetened.

I decided to play around with inventing a no-bake cookie recipe.

First, I melted the chocolate square and a half-cup of butter in a double boiler. You don’t have a double-boiler? That’s okay, neither do I. I actually placed a metal mixing bowl on top of a sauce pan with a couple of inches of water in it. Boil the water, then turn down the heat to a simmer. The steam heats the bowl and melts the chocolate without burning it. You can also microwave it, if you are into that sort of thing.

Then I added 2 T of peanut butter. You can add more or less depending on your taste. I added a small pinch of salt, too. Use more or less depending on how much PB you use, since PB is salty.

At this point, I took it off the heat.

Then I played around with the sugar. I added it until I liked the taste. I ended up with 1/2 cup of sugar.

Last, I stirred in some rolled oats. You can use instant or quick cooking if you want it less oaty. They are thinner sliced. Personally, I like to be able to taste the oats. I ended up adding 1 1/2 cups of oats.

I then lined a baking sheet with wax paper and sprayed a tiny spritz of cooking spray on it. I used an icecream scoop to scoop out the mixture onto the wax paper. It needs to be pressed together tightly to hold its shape.

Baby Smurf loved them. So did Painter. Jokey thought they were too oaty. Papa Smurf said that it took a couple of bites to really appreciate them. I thought they were great - especially since there was no other chocolate in the house.

Here is the recipe:

1/2 c. butter
1-1.5 oz unsweetened baking chocolate
2 Tbsp peanut butter
pinch salt
1/2 c. sugar
1 1/2 c. rolled oats

Melt the butter and chocolate in a double boiler or a metal mixing bowl placed on top of a pot of boiling water. Add peanut butter and salt. Stir until smooth. Remove from heat. Mix in sugar until smooth. Add oats. Stir to coat completely. Shape with hands or ice cream scoop onto waxpaper lined baking sheet lightly sprayed with cooking spray. Chill until firm. Makes approx. 8 cookies.