Pepper Paints

Thursday’s Recipe… Raw Apple Crumble & Banana Ice Cream

OOps I see it’s been a week since I last posted. We have been busy skiing, cooking and eating and trying out some new homeschool classes. I have been spending way too much time in front of the computer changing email addresses and joining a new blog group (more on that soon).  I hope to post more projects in the coming weeks.

We have been eating this for breakfast and dessert this week. It tastes like a home baked treat but really it is healthy enough to enjoy any time of the day. Or even multiple times!

Apple Crumble

You will need a 9×13 pan and about 10 apples

In a food processor puree 1/2 cup of raisins (I used 1/2 dates and 1/2 raisins), 2 lbs apples (about 10 small apples) with skin on, 1 tsp cinnamon

Line the pan with this mixture

For the crumble process 4 oz almonds, 5 oz pecans, 4oz oat groats soaked 8 to 12 hrs and 2-3 oz honey or agave. Add more dry oats if this is too wet.

Crumble over top of apples.

For the banana ice cream break up 4 frozen bananas into the food processor and blend until they reach a creamy consistency. This will take a while so be patient.

We added 1/2 a scraped pod of vanilla beans and a few squares of dark chocolate for chocoalte chip ice cream. Even my picky, junk food loving, husband like this ice cream!

I have seen many different additions to this ice cream–chia seeds, nuts, fruit–frozen or dried, carob powder or almond butter. I think next time I will add some mint leaves to make a mint chocolate chip.

This ice cream is really smooth and creamy and the banana flavor is not overwhelming at all.

Leaf Print Tablecloth

This is sort of how this project felt…crazy.

First off  you will need some flat leaves for this project. Next, you will need a tablecloth to decorate. A quick trip to my local thrift shop got me a gold tablecloth-perfect!  You will also need fabric paint. So,  a hopeful run down the one craft aisle at my grocery to find fabric paint and save me a trip to the craft store,  revealed fluorescent colors. Boo!! But then out of the corner of my eye, on the clearance rack, I spied the perfect Fall colors of permanent acrylic paint. Score again! I love when things are easy and work out that way! It doesn’t usually happen, so I was indeed happy with my lucky finds!

So I cleared the way in my kitchen to spread the table cloth on the floor. My kitchen is small and my floor isn’t spic and span-eww- and the tablecloth took up all the available floor space. That meant we were constantly walking all over the tablecloth–eww again-it also meant the material kept getting wrinkled up. I begin to get annoyed.

OK-next I spread out some newspaper and paper plates with the paint, leaves and brushes.

You will also need more newspaper and a rolling pin for this project.

Paint the underside of the leaf—the veins will give you a better print.

Then carefully put the leaf, paint side down, on the tablecloth and cover it with wax paper or a sheet of newspaper. Carefully so that the paint that is all over your fingers doesn’t get all over the tablecloth.  Then again-carefully, so that the leaf doesn’t slide around, roll over the top of the newspaper with your rolling pin a couple of times.

Remove the newspaper and then carefully peel your leaf back up-so that you don’t just drop it back down creating paint splots on the tablecloth. And watch were you throw your cover piece of paper-it has wet paint on it. Are you feeling my blood pressure rising??

Can you see that I was a little too invested in the product of this project!!! Part of it was this was a little messy for my kitchen floor and tables. Water colors or tempra are one thing but permanent acrylics are another. As Ginger walked over the wet paint back onto the wood floors and I am yelling, “Don’t step in the paint, wipe your hands off, don’t get that paint on my rolling pin, you’re wrinkling the tablecloth” etc… etc….  But surprisingly-they endured my fussiness  and the leaf prints came out great. We plan on using this on  our Thanksgiving table.

So the moral of this story is…if your looking to make this a really perfect looking tablecloth…do it your self. If your looking for a fun project for your kids…protect all surfaces and  shut your mouth. Allowing the kids to make it without being over supervised (and probably taking most of the fun out of it)!! It will look great either way! Another lesson learned!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

A Much Too Long, Very Biased Unschooling Post

Last week, my husband and I  were with our homeschool friends Amy and Brad. My husband has been on a kick lately of telling me to send Ginger to school. Partially because he believes it and mostly because he likes to annoy me. Amy and Brad know my husband likes to yank my chain (a lot!!)  so they mostly just laughed at him but also tried to set him straight!

I have sort of become anti-school. If my older kids decided to go to school I would support them but I would have a really hard time with all the rules and regulations that I guess need to be in place for crowd control reasons. The homework–what the heck do they do in school all day that they need to do more when they get home????    Grades?  You are “smart” if you get good grades  (know how to work the system) or your dumb and lazy (bored) if you don’t get good grades.   Arbitrary awards like pizza parties for being quiet and getting high test scores? Now that’s a true love of learning not just a love of pizza! The longer my kids are home, the more happy I am with the choices we (I) have made. I am pretty sure I  have become one of those homeschooling snobs. I’m sorry.  I don’t really look down on you, but I do feel my kids are lucky. They have it pretty good. Obviously, I don’t hold book smarts high on the list of proof of being “smart” or proof of getting a good education.  (Right here insert my super excitement to see John Taylor Gatto at our Annual Unschooling Conference in Feb!!!!!!!!!!)

I certainly wouldn’t tell someone that was thinking about homeschooling that it’s easy or the perfect choice. My kids don’t cooperate all the time or get along well even 50% of the time.But they are in command of their time,  their choices and their learning the majority of the day. And by learning I don’t mean workbooks or texts. I mean real life learning. Part of being an unschooler is living a rich life. Which is one of the not so easy parts of being an unschooling parent.

What does that mean, to live a rich life? For years I struggled with thinking we needed to move to a farm or my kids needed to have deep seeded interests that took them passionately to the library to research their interests or mentors and daily lessons in music or dance. But the reality is that most kids are not that driven or have a passion that will engulf their lives. It’s those driven kids that ruin unschooling for the rest of us mediocre chumps. The other 95 % (that’s a guess but I bet it’s high) of us  just live and play and learn in our day to day lives.  You hear about those driven kids and think your homeschool life needs to look like that or somehow you’re failing. When in reality…those are just the unschooled/homeschooled  kids you hear about. It makes for a boring read that your kids played a game or two, colored, made cookies, read books or played on the computer for hours before going to the playground with friends while the Moms discuss the following days field trip to a different park for some creeking and a picnic only to run to the rec center for break dancing class then scootering home to  stuff your papers that need to be delivered after dinner. See just day to day boring stuff.

No, we don’t live on a farm. That means I have to look for enriching things for us to do….catching and feeding monarchs before they migrate to Mexico for the winter: (Science, History, Geography, Math)

Watching the navy jump out of airplanes: (Physics, History)

Also, giving them lots of opportunities to cook, create, talk to professionals,  have pets to take care of, visit both local and different libraries, museums, local landmarks and traveling both near and far. (History, Math, English, Art, Science,Literature)

We are getting ready for a trip to Dog Island, off the coast of Florida. For us an event or a trip is the perfect reason to seek out information about things. We have gotten out maps to track our drive and globes to compare our little trip to the great big world. We have read countless  books on the ocean, coral reefs, tides and tidal pools, food chains and the gulf of Mexico. We have watched movies about sea turtles, dolphins and many magic school bus episodes on ocean life and water. We built our Galileoscopes and have our sky maps ready. This is all fun, enriching foot work that we often do before a trip to the apple orchard or camping at a local park. I learned that we don’t have to be boarding a plane or driving across the country to learn or experience something interesting, fun or real life.  But it certainly helps! This is real life learning. (For those that are looking for the learning, that’s-Science, Biology, Geography, Math, Astronomy, Literature)

Remember this post from about a year ago? (the part about all the buckeyes)   Well, a few weeks ago,  Molly shelled, drilled, purchased beads, created the necklaces, got change, biked to campus and sold $90 worth of those buckeye necklaces in less than two hours.  (For those that need to compartmentalize learning that’s-Art, Math, gym, shop)

Molly even gave her helper some money!

She  spent a good chunk of that money on an expensive Halloween costume. Yes, it made my stomach turn to see her dole out that much cash for a few hours of wear but it it is her money.  Of course I put my 2 cents in. But in the end it is her money and deciding when, where and how to spend it is also real life learning. She has a paper route so she has income coming in. She set aside money to spend on vacation and some more to purchase a hair straightener. Oh, and  don’t worry about her future because she puts half of her paper route check in a savings account!  I would say she is learning more than any text book could teach her. (Mucho Math)

Many schooled kids do these same things but homeschooling allows us more time for these learning  opportunities. We don’t have to cram them in when there is time. They are just part of our day to day lives.

Now, back to my husband. I sort of wear the educational pants in our family as my husband wears the financial pants. We may discuss things but the one with the knowledge makes the ultimate decision.  So Ginger going to school is completely out of the question! I may  halfheartedly support my older kids curiosity about school but not so much my early elementary grade kid. What could school possibly teach my wiggly 5 year old that she can’t learn by snuggling up with us reading books, playing games, painting, playing with friends, outside, inside and at parks and museums?   She is experiencing life first hand, with her family and friends. Not at a kindergarten level or in  a specific time frame. She is one lucky 5 year old!

Look–More science!!    See learning is everywhere!!!!!!!!!!

Galileoscopes

Did you know that 2009 is The International Year Of Astronomy? Well it is!!

In honor of that, the IYA is offering these high quality, low cost telescope kits. One of our local homeschool groups ordered a bulk quantity of these at a  lower shipping rate that we were able to take advantage of.

We finally put ours together the other night…(in anticipation of some great star gazing on our trip to a remote island in a few weeks-more on that later!).

My husband showing Jake which direction to assemble one of the many pieces!

The kit comes with three different magnifications. And don’t be surprised when you look through your eye piece and everything is upside down! The FAQ tab explains the reason why!

I would love to say that we went out side and saw the rings of Saturn with these babies…but no. It has been cloudy for days here in Central Ohio,  so my kids have been using them to see what our neighbors are having for dinner.  But they seem to be working really well!

Jake used the kit directions while we used the following “on-line” directions.
https://www.galileoscope.org/gs/sites/galileoscope.org.gs/files/Galileoscope-Instructions-20090710rtf.pdf

http://unawe.org/joomla/images/materials/instruments/galileoscope.pdf This one is just pictures, but good ones!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1iByPaAG0U This is from You Tube

I felt so much better after hearing on the You Tube video that the model Galileoscope has been assembled and disassembled over 250 times and dropped several times and yet it still works! That means, destructo Ginger’s telescope may actually still be working by the time we go on our trip! She literally dropped and banged the thing 20 times during assembly!

Here I Am

I am still sorting and cleaning and not feeling very creative so that’s why no blog posts as of  late.  But all of that may soon change-I have found a great new (to me) blog that has certainly stirred some creative thoughts. No actions yet-but my mind keeps going back to the work this family creates. I am in awe of their talent and am so intrigued by there lifestyle choices. I didn’t see it mentioned anywhere that their kids homeschool-but I have a feeling they are living the unschooling dream of a rich life. I have told so many people about the Beerhorst family that I thought I would post the link here. Enjoy!!

Studio Beerhorst

Deja vu

Shhh, never wake sleeping kids!

If you know us IRL or you follow my blog you might think this is a previously taken photo of Jake with the arm he broke on 2/2/09. But it’s not. It was taken early this morning. Jake re-broke his humerus yesterday, diving for a Frisbee in his homeschool gym class. His teacher summoned me from the playground with, “I don’t know if it’s broken but he said get my Mom.” That was enough to tell me it was broken. Jake is not the kid that unnecessarily calls for his Mom.  At our weekly potluck we talked about how this unfortunate event maybe a bit of a wake-up call to Jake, a boy not in close touch with reality or his mortality. A boy who still thinks he can fly. I blame this on his Grandfather!

He doesn’t seem to be in as much pain this time and it is not as swollen-yet. But he is crabby. The thought of living a restricted lifestyle for another 8 weeks has got him mad. And the reality is, I’m a little annoyed about it too. That means my main helper around here is out of commision again. The  bigger, stronger, faster puppies are all my responsibility again as well as his  paper route.

But also, a  part of me smiles.  I get to spend more time with my independent teen. He will be back to hanging out in our bedroom at night again to watch TV with us. You never think the day will come that your kids will move out, but suddenly it’s in the not, hugely, distant future of about 4 years away.  In those next 4 years his friends will become more important, he will become more independent and won’t be hanging out in the bedroom watching late night TV with his Mom and Dad.  So, selfishly, I’ll take what I can get!

Annual Unschooling Gathering

Sometimes a quick trip way from the everyday is a little cure for what ails you.  Even the ailments you didn’t know you had!   Especially in the gray days of Winter and the too long month of Feburary.

This is the second year that we have gone to the Unschoolers Winter Waterpark Gathering (UWWG) held at Kalahari waterpark. I am not sure of the number of attendees but families came from all over the US and Canada.  Again a good time was had by all. It is always so nice to be around so many like minded people.  And it serves as such a great reminder to me to really accept, trust and love my children unconditionally.  It doesn’t matter what other people are doing, how they are homeschooling / unschooling or how we look or how they percieve us. What matters most is that I stay true to what is good for my family and reevaluating what works for us and what doesn’t work.

It is reaffirming to hear other families that have worried about the unschooling path they have chosen and have grown kids who are happy and successful. With happiness really being the ultimate success. Not all kids are college material, some will end up in a trade, some with a job, others have the entrpreneurial spirit. And some will go on to higher education. But taking away societies assumptions and expectations and living for what makes better sense for your family is not always an easy road to follow. It certainly helps to be around like minded people.  We are really lucky that here in Columbus not only is there a large homeschooling community but a large unschooling community also.

I attended a couple of discussions on unschooling led by some veteran unschoolers and a raw food demo. Bethany is a 17 year old who has found medical healing through her raw food diet. Her story was very inspiring and again re-affirming that a raw food diet is so healthy. Check out her story here.

But I found so much inspiration from her Mom’s discussion of living through her families crisis while homeschooling and realizing what was important in their lives and what wasn’t. Together,finding their way to a real life, hands on education and not one through school books was so wonderful to hear.

Our kids showed off some of their break dancing moves at the talent show.

There as lots of hanging out with both old and new friends!

And a rockin dance the last night of the conference.

I can’t wait until next year!!