Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Witch's Brew

Want a fun and memorable activity to add to your Halloween party? This has become tradition in my family and I thought I'd share. I didn't get the pictures I wanted since I was the one doing the Witch's Brew, but it's the idea that matters. =)

I used two pots for my witch's brew. One pot was for homemade root beer. The other for a snack mix. Depending on the size of the group of your party will determine how much to make and how big the pot will need to be. We have a large family so we make quite a bit of root beer. We doubled the recipe. Here's what you need to make it:
  • Big witch pot to make brew in.
  • Root beer extract (2 oz. bottle)
  • 6 cups white sugar
  • 3 1/2 gallons warm water
  • 4 lbs. dry ice
I start with the water already in the pot. Warm water helps the dry ice bubble better. Then I tell the kids that they get to help me make a special brew. As you get the sugar ready to put in the pot you tell the group that it's ground up bones. Stir the sugar into the water until dissolved. I like to have them say some 'magic' words while I stir to make it more fun. Double double toil and trouble is what I used, but you can make up your own.

Next you add the root beer extract and tell the kids that it's something else. I think I said that it was bat juice or something like that. We also had some potion bottles that we bought at the craft store and put potion labels on them (you can find them online). We added food coloring to the water so it looked like strange ingredients. One label said it was truth serum. This was great. The kids were loving it.

I am not an actress by ANY means, but I love kids and I love Halloween so I try to add as much as I can to this little presentation. Add little things to make it more interesting and to keep their attention. After each ingredient I would stir the pot and have them say the magic words with me.

After everything is mixed together I add the dry ice. Be sure to use gloves to protect your hands. DO NOT touch the dry ice it will burn your skin. This should go without saying, but if you've never used dry ice you may not know how dangerous it is. This is the best part of the presentation. I tell the kids that to activate the potion the final ingredient is compressed spirits. As I add the spirits (dry ice) I tell the kids that once it touches the potion the spirits are released. Now, if you have kids that scare easily I would make it as light as you can. Last year we had one little boy who would not come near me or the root beer and was terrified. I felt so bad. This year I tried to keep it as light as I could without making it a scary thing. It went over much better.

As you carefully add the dry ice the vapor rises and the brew will bubble. I like to add the ice a chunk at a time instead of all at once. After about an hour the brew will be ready to drink.
 
 


You can make this as scary as you want based on your audience. It doesn't even have to be an elaborate presentation, but I will tell you that the kids will remember it. It's something we look forward to every year at our family party.

In my second pot I did another mixture with snacks. Here's what I had and what I said it was.
  • Rice chex - spider webs
  • Bugles - witch fingers (we witches lose our fingers and grow new ones)
  • Cheerios - cat eyes
  • Pretzel sticks - bat bones
  • Chocolate chips - Dracula moles (he picks them off all the time!)
  • Craisins - scabs
  • Mini marshmallows - skeleton teeth
  • Candy corn - chicken toes
  • Red hots or hot tamales - drops of blood
You could add just about anything and give it a different disgusting name. Have fun with it!

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Halloween History

Ever wonder why we celebrate Halloween? I've heard bits and pieces of why, but never the whole story. I decided we would research it and find out the details. Here's what we found. On History.com they have lots of information dating back 2,000 years. This was a great site especially for my older kids. I had to explain things a little more to the youngers, but they still enjoyed learning about the origins of Halloween. Another great site that's geared to kids is Time4kids. This has pictures and has pretty much the same information as the other site, but easier for kids to understand.

One thing we found interesting is that the tradition of trick-or-treating may have stemmed from an old tradition called "going-a-souling." Basically poor people would go door to door begging for food. They were given "soul cakes" if they promised to pray for that family's dead relatives. And now we give out candy to kids. Interesting. Funny how traditions get tweaked and changed through the generations and meshing of cultures.

Anyway, we decided to make some "soul cakes" to see how they tasted. Oh. My. Goodness. Yum! Here's the recipe we used. I don't know how traditional the recipe is, but I'm sure the beggars back in the day enjoyed their "soul cakes." They aren't much like a cake. More like a sugar cookie. A really scrumptious sugar cookie with nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, and allspice. Oh and sprinkled with powdered sugar. I think I ate half the batch.
 
 
We also made some haunted house pop-up cards. Find it here. The kids weren't quite as into it as I was hoping. I knew the older two wouldn't be as excited, but I thought the youngers would like it. They still turned out really cute.
 
 
What's a Halloween day without caramel apples and popcorn balls? Yeah, can we say too many sweets? This does not happen often and I was in a treat-making mood so we did it.

What a fun day that was! Not only did the kids get a fun history lesson they also got to do art, cooking, and taste a bit of history. Have any suggestions that I can add to our day next year? I'd love to hear them!






Saturday, October 19, 2013

On a budget

Last week the kids were able to learn about budgeting. Even though my husband and I talk to them about this topic on a regular basis I wanted them to experience it. I gave them the task to make a menu for an entire day. Each child would come up with their own food choices for a full day. I told them that I wanted them to choose healthy options though and not just something that would be cheap and taste good. My kids aren't huge fans of macaroni and cheese so that's not what I was worried about, but pop tarts for breakfast would have made it to at least one of the lists.

I also encouraged them to think about how much it might cost. PKB would have chosen steak and potatoes, but once I gave them a budget, he quickly changed his mind. They went to work going through recipes and jotting down ideas. It was so fun to see their minds at work. They each showed me their menus and for the most part, they chose good foods. Next, I had them make a list of the items they would need to buy from the store. As I went through their menus and compared them to the lists, they were missing items that were essential to making their meals. For instance, PKB wanted to make sausage breakfast sandwiches (not the healthiest choice, but I wanted them to make the choice) and he had biscuits and eggs on his list, but no sausage. =) They had to keep adding things to their lists until they had everything they would need for their meals.

Once they had their lists ready I wrote an estimate of the cost next to each item. They added up the costs of each of their items and had a lot of revising to do. Most of them were $10 -$20 over their budget. I told them that they could compare their lists to see if their were duplicate items. They circled all of the duplicate items and talked about whether or not the item could be shared between multiple meals. This dropped their cost quite a bit.

These are the moments moms live for! To see my children all working together to figure out how to make it work was so awesome!! They finally got their lists in order with their budget and decided they would just put all of their money together when they went shopping.

Looloo stayed with me so I could let the older kids focus on making their lists work. I let Looloo do what she could in finding what she needed, but she did need a bit of help. Baby was happy to be along for the ride.


At the store I wanted them to go by themselves to figure out where things were and what they should buy. I did give them some advice before sending them off. I told them to check the prices of the different brands of the item they would be buying. The first one they see may not have the best price. I showed them how to compare prices by looking at the tags that have the price per item. They did a pretty good job. They spent an hour going back and forth through the store trying to find everything they would need. Obviously this was good for them to find out where things are in the store. All the times they've been with me didn't help much.

They passed me several times in the store. Always going the opposite direction from the last time I saw them. =)

 
 
Although this isn't exactly how my cart would have looked, they worked hard and did great! PKB took their cart to the checkout on his own. I was worried they might be over their budget, but I didn't jump in to try to help. He was clearly confident about their budget because he didn't hesitate one bit. After he paid I went over to see what the total was and they were $15 under their budget! 
 
After loading the groceries into the car we talked about their experience. They said that it was more fun than they thought it would be. They had to change their menus as they shopped because they were worried about going over. I came to realize that they scrimped so much that the meals may not be enough to feed our family of 7. Two of the kids have done their days. They were so excited to be able to make all of the meals for the day. We did have to add to a few of the meals for them to be filling enough, but overall they did super! I'm so proud of their hard work.
 
This was basically a trial run to see how they would do on their own. I will now add to their knowledge and see if we can make it even better next time. I'm thinking we may do this once a month to give them lots of learning opportunities. We will be learning more about nutrition in the coming days to help them come up with even healthier menus. 
 


Thursday, October 10, 2013

Feel the flustration

Ah, where to begin? Frustrated and flustered is how I am feeling...obviously as my title suggest. The struggles that accompany homeschooling are not what has me flustered lately. Although, they do add to it. =) My flustration comes from feeling like there are never enough hours in the day. I know I'm not alone here. At least, I don't think I am. Help me out here. Tell me you're feeling it too.

Homeschooling clearly takes all of my time during the day so I have to utilize my time before and after school. My 'plan' was to get up around 5:30 so I could exercise, shower, plan the day, and make breakfast before waking the kids up at 7:00. Ahem. This hasn't exactly happened that way, yet. There have been a few days that I am able to get myself out of bed and get a small workout in, but these days have been few and very far between. Oh who am I kidding! Not you, I'm sure. It's only happened a couple of times since we started school.

I do make breakfast nearly every day though. That's something right? When we first moved here (about 9 months ago) I vowed that I was going to make the kids a good breakfast nearly every morning. I still allow them to have cereal maybe once a week. Mostly on Saturday when I have to work in the morning. I have to say that I'm doing fairly well at sticking to it. (I'm grasping at anything I can get to boost my attitude about how out of whack the rest of my life feels right now.)

Part of the problem is that I work a few nights a week. Some nights I don't get home until around 11:00pm. Then it takes a while to actually get to sleep. I just need to get into a better routine during the day so that I am able to get a little done here and there. I haven't quite figured out how to do that yet. With 5 kids needing my attention at different times during the day I don't get anything other than school done.

I have been trying a lot more crock pot recipes so that I can get that ready in the morning and just leave it to cook all day for dinner. This has helped tremendously. Otherwise, we may not ever have a home cooked meal. We'd be eating sandwiches and top ramen. Some days I have to leave for work around 4:30pm so having dinner in the crock pot is the best, and maybe the only way, we would have dinner ready. I hope to buy a deep freezer to put in the garage so I can make freezer meals. Before I had my baby last year I made a bunch of freezer meals and loved having so many meals made. Here's a link to a great blog about freezer meals.
You can make 50 Freezer Meals in a Day - Amazing Menu, and recipes are "normal" foods I would eat. Best menu out there for freezer meals recipes.

Ok, so I'm feeling totally stretched to my limit with my time. I'm happy that most of my time is spent with my kids though. It would be much worse if they were at school all day and then I had to go to work 3 nights a week. I am grateful for that part of my crazy life. I would rarely see my kids if we weren't doing homeschool. This is not a complaint about being busy. Rather, a release and a beginning of trying to organize my time. If you have any suggestions I would LOVE to hear them. I have tried a few different ideas, but sticking to them has been a bit difficult. I guess the biggest thing is finding a daily schedule that will work for me and my family. I'm open to suggestions. =)

I feel so unorganized in my life that it's making me nuts! I keep telling myself that 'tomorrow I am going to force myself to get up early and get things done!' I'm still waiting for tomorrow. =/

Thursday, October 3, 2013

Keep Moving forward

For some very strange reason my last post disappeared. Weird. Rather than try to go back and post it again (not likely that I will remember everything, or anything for that matter) I will do as Lewis always says and "keep moving forward." Love that movie.

This is also something that I try to remember as we are doing our homeschooling. I want me and the kids to keep moving forward as we learn. I can't get caught up in trying to make my kids do their school work. I don't want to be bossy...no one likes to be bossed around. I've been trying a new strategy to get them to do their work. They have more choices when it comes to what they are going to do with their school work. For instance, Looloo can choose whether she wants to do math or literature, or writing or vocabulary. Giving her the choice seems to make it go smoother instead of telling her that we're going to do math (or whatever subject I decided she needed to do at that time). When she didn't have the choice she was less cooperative.

Yesterday I gave her the option of working from her math book or practicing time on her clocks. I bought some dry erase clocks at a yard sale so she can use her markers to practice time. One of the best yard sale purchases ever. ;) She, of course, chose to do the clocks and did a great job with a happy attitude. Success!
Photo: One of the best purchases from a yard sale....blank clocks that looloo can use dry erase markers on to learn time. Love seeing her learn! #happyhomeschoolers #gooddaysofar #lovemylooloo

Looloo has struggled the most so giving more choices has helped her more than the others. At first, I tried setting up a schedule for each of the kids. Each hour they would work on a certain subject then move on once that hour was up. If they got done early they could go back and finish something that they didn't get finished earlier. This worked ok, but I decided to change things...again. I've realized that I may never feel like our routine is perfect. I feel like I'm going to be changing things a lot as we make this journey together. I think it's good to keep things fresh instead of staying the same all of the time. Not to say that we won't have consistency so they will feel secure. We will be consistence in the general aspect of our schooling, but I will be changing little things here and there so we can get out of ruts we might get in. Not only that, but some things might work for a while and then not. Changing things when they aren't working is a must. Now, I have their schedule for the day on the white board with everything they need to complete for the day. It is up to them to get it done. They can do it in any order they want as long as everything gets done. This gives them more responsibility and more freedom to do their work. Except Looloo. I still give her options, but not as much freedom since I need to help her more than I help the others.

I have also changed their daily schedule to include double lessons in some areas so that we can take Fridays off to do other activities. They stay on track to finish all of their lessons in each subject area by the end of the year, but they get a day off from lessons every week. When I first told them of the plan, they thought they would just get a day off completely. Umm...not so much. I will still utilize the day to include learning, but in different ways.

On one Friday a month we will be getting together with one of our homeschool groups for a field trip. This won't take the entire day so I want to add another activity such as visiting someone who might be lonely. Maybe someone at the assisted living place or at the hospital who doesn't have family close that can come and visit. This is out of my comfort zone, but I am determined to teach my kids compassion and the joy of serving.

Another Friday we will be learning about the culture of another country or area in the world. I want to find some recipes we can make together and maybe watch a documentary and read books about the culture. I'm super excited to learn about different areas with my kids. I want to expand their knowledge of our world to teach them to embrace the many different ideas, styles, abilities, etc. that different cultures experience. Not only will they learn to accept the differences of others, they will also learn about the cultures. Learning tolerance is not something that I want to teach. It's one thing to tolerate the differences in our world, it's another to embrace them. I want my children to learn to embrace the world, not just tolerate it.

We will have a project day on another Friday. This could be for art or science and it would be a major project that we would work on together. I want my kids to learn from each other and enjoy working together. The goal is to become united in their efforts when working on and completing these projects.

The Friday that is left will be another field trip day. If it's possible we might travel to the city and go to some museums and have a brief visit with family and friends. If a city visit isn't possible we will find something local that we can do for a field trip.

The goal is to build on what they have already learned or are currently learning in their lessons. Also to grow closer together and have a fun time together. I hope they will look forward to Friday and will learn while having fun.