Snow Crystals--Update!

Sorry it has taken me so long, but here (finally!) is an update on our Borax Snow Crystal experiment. As I posted earlier, the crystals started forming right away--within 30 minutes we could see them hanging on the pipe cleaner shape we had formed. The directions I had read said to leave it growing overnight, so here is a picture of what it looked like in the morning--MUCH larger!













We took our snow crystal out of the water/Borax solution and laid it on a paper towel to dry. The crystals are pretty firm--of course, a few came off when we touched it, but most stayed firmly attached. After drying a while, we hung it by a suction cup hook on our window. The one thing I will do different next time is I will make a little loop in one end of the pipe cleaner before growing the crystals on it. This would make it easier to have a firm place to hang from when hanging in the window. Sure, crystals will grow and fill in the little loop, but these could be brushed off. As it was, I ended up wrapping a piece of tape around one of our snowflake arms, and then wrapped this tape around a bent paper clip. That gave me a hanging end. Next time--make the hanging end first! :)

Have fun! We did, and plan on making another one this week!

Honey Granola Bars

Last week I went in search of a healthy dessert recipe, as I was craving something sweet. I found this recipe, and it turned out pretty yummy! No, not the same as a store bought granola bar, but it is very low fat and held together really pretty well! The last granola bar recipe I tried was more granola crumbs, not bars. :) So, hope someone enjoys adding this recipe to their collection as much as I did!





Honey Granola Bars

1 1/4 c. quick cooking oats
1/4 c. whole wheat flour
1/4 c. toasted wheat germ
1/4 tsp. cinnamon (I used corriander)
1/4 c. plus 2 T. honey
1/3 c. dark raisins or chopped dried apricots (I used the apricots)

I also added 2 T. ground flaxseed meal--I think next time I may even hide a bit more flaxseed in them, as it is SO healthy for you!

1) Combine the oats, flour, wheat germ, and cinnamon, and stir to mix well. Add the honey, and stir until the mixture is moist and crumbly. (I gave up and used my hands, which worked great!) Fold in the raisins or apricots.

2) Coat an 8 inch square pan with nonstick cooking spray. Pat the mixture into the pan, and bake at 300 F for 18-20 minutes, or until lightly browned.

3) Cool to room temperature, cut into bars, and serve.

Snow Crystals!

Just for fun, I thought it was time to add a little science experiment into our homeschool day. We have been doing experiments every now and then as we go through our regular homeschool science curriculum (we are currently using Apologias Exploring Creation with Astronomy) but I just wanted to do something for fun. After all--it's January, Christmas is over, Spring Break is still a ways away, so when I saw this idea on-line I knew it was a great "boredom buster".

It is turning out to be a very easy experiment, and my daughter is already making plans to do several more. All you do is pour boiling water into a container, disolve Borax into your water (we found our Borax at Walmart--it was pretty cheap, and only came in a HUGE container, so I think we have enough to make a million snowflakes now!), add a drop of food coloring if you want to, and hang your shape made out of pipe cleaner. We were shocked at how fast the crystals started to grow. This picture was taken only 30 minutes after we started the experiment. I'm not sure how large the crystals will grow. The instructions I read said to leave it overnight, so we will see what it looks like in the morning. So we'll see how much bigger they grow. I can say we have already had fun even if they don't grow any larger than this.

If you are interested in doing this experiment yourself, the ratio is 3 Tablespoons of Borax to each 1 cup of boiling water--so this pint container took 6 Tablespoons of Borax. And just boil water all by itself, then stir the Borax into it. A pencil is a great way to suspend your snowflakes--I just took a piece of tape, put it around one arm of our snowflake and the other end around the pencil. According to what I read, you are supposed to be able to hang these snowflakes around in your windows after they are dry. I'll see how fragile they are, and if the crystals hang on pretty tight, we'll try that!

Have fun!

Bible in 90 Days--Day 20!

Words--I keep wanting to share something I read about words in the Day 20 Bible reading, but you know how it is. Time keeps flying by. I'm actually past this point in my reading, today I'm on Day 25 (YEA, I made it past the 1/4th point!) but I keep wanting to share something I read a few days ago on words. There I was, happily reading along. Trying to make sure my mind didn't wander to the millions of things on my "To Do" list for that day, and all of a sudden there it was, just jumping out at me! 1 Samuel 3:19 is describing the boy Samuel, and it says it like this: "The Lord was with Samuel as he grew up, and he let none of his words fall to the ground."

Did you get the same thing I did? Samuel let none of God's words "fall to the ground." First of all, I love how that phrase is translated--words falling to the ground. I think of books falling, pencils falling, groceries falling to the ground, perhaps, but I have never thought about words falling to the ground. Yet I knew exactly what the Bible was trying to say in that word choice. Don't we talk about how sometimes the things we say to someone go "in one ear and out the other"? Or sometimes we tease that they don't even go in the first ear? We have all been guilty of this before, knowing that we "should" do something, but not doing it. Sometimes it is a thing of little importance--like maybe you put off doing the laundry for a day. It has no important, long term effect on you or your family. But if it is God's words we are letting fall to the ground, well, that is entirely different!

Several chapters later in that days Bible reading, I found myself in chapter 15. Samuel is grown now, and is talking with King Saul whom has turned away from the Lord and not followed instruction. God has at this point rejected Saul as King of Israel, and has said that He will appoint a new King. In the message that God had Samuel deliver to Saul, he says "To obey is better than sacrifice." 1 Samuel 15:22 God is not some heathen god, that if we only bring a certain offering or gift we can then do whatever we want to in our evil hearts. God simply wants us to obey. Why? Because He knows what is for our own good. Like earthly parents with their children--only sometimes WE do make mistakes and do not always know what is best.

Have a wonderful day--and hold tight to God, so that none of His words fall to the ground!

Bible in 90 Days--Day 19!

Something beautiful. Have you ever seen an ugly, thorny rose cane when it's dormant, and then again when it is covered with lovely blooms? It has been transformed from it's ugliness into something beautiful. It did not do this transformation by itself, for if it was cut off from the original bush and thrown away it could not bring about blooms. No, it was from being connected to the roots--fed by the nutrients in the soil, refreshed by the rain, nurtured from the sunshine. And something completely ugly was--by God's power--turned into something beautiful.

This morning I read through the book of Ruth. There are ugly thorns there, that's a reality. Naomi lost not only her husband in death, but both of her sons as well--and she did not even have any grandchildren to still bring her comfort in her sorrow. I know most parents would much rather die themselves, than to see one of their children experience death. Naomi lost her life partner, and all of her children. Ruth had thorns given to her as well--her husband gone, no children. And to top it all off, she had learned to worship a different God than the one her surrounding countrymen worshiped. Which made her even more "different".

But God. God led these women--who had lost everything--back to Naomi's homeland. And once there, He led and directed their lives until both women were surrounded by happiness once again.

Don't you just love those words? But God. Those are my favorite words in all the English language. Because He can take something utterly and completely ugly, and turn it into something beautiful.

Record Keeping--Easy and Flexible!

Record keeping is one of those things that homeschoolers either tend to go over board on--recording every single workbook page or educational activity their child does, or the opposite--keeping no records whatsoever. To add to the complication of it all is the fact that state laws of what you are required to keep for records varies greatly. Some states have no requirements of records being kept at all. Other states tell you what subjects you must teach and how much time you must spend daily. So what is a homeschooler to do?

As a classroom teacher in my "former life" before I turned into a homeschooler, I have been trained to make those wonderful things called LESSON PLANS. In fact, not only was I required to write them up, but I was required to write them up a full week ahead of time and submit them to my principal. There is good reason, of course, for this this type of record keeping. When a classroom teacher is sick, it means that any substitute teacher may walk into that classroom and know exactly where in each subject the class is. But this type of record keeping does not always work so well in a homeschool setting--trust me, I know!

There are too many days where "something" happens, and it eats up your school time. Perhaps your husband forgot some papers at home, and calls asking you to bring them to his office. A pet gets sick, and you need to take them to the vet that day. The car needs repairs. Or medical appointments for family members have to be made and the only time the doctor has available is during your homeschool teaching time. I discovered early in my homeschool life that teaching at home was NOT the same as teaching at school. There is a reason why I could make up lesson plans weeks ahead for my classroom, and after the time passed, there we were--right on schedule. It's because I had no outside interruptions to my teaching day. I walked into my classroom, closed the door, and--taught! Can you imagine that? No cooking lunch, running laundry through, and answering the phone at the same time you are teaching math class!

So--I quickly learned, I think around the first week of homeschool with our oldest, that making lesson plans ahead of time was not going to work out the same way it did in the classroom. Over the last 13 years of homeschooling I have tried various methods of record keeping, including computer programs that were supposed to make my life easier all the way to a plain notebook and simply recording what we DID, not what we were going to DO. I have pretty much settled into the plain old notebook method, and just recording what we did--but I think that is about to change!

Today I was introduced to a record keeping product called Homeschool Daybook. I first looked at it quite skeptical, due to other experiences with complicated computer record keeping programs that only added more work to my already full day. Not so with the Homeschool Daybook! It is a very simple program to use, but it has everything you need and not a bunch of stuff that you don't. If you follow the link above, you will be able to see samples of the pages available and the company is even providing a free limited-use program, so you can sample using it and see if it really works for you.

In a nutshell, you enter the different students in your homeschool along with the subject areas you are teaching. That's all there is to the set up--takes all of three minutes. After that, you can pick a date on the calendar, and click the boxes next to each student name to show that they did school that day--that's your attendance record. Then, for each student, you quickly and easily enter what subjects they did that day, and--this is my favorite part--there is a box where you can enter your own description of what your lesson was. For instance--if you are doing a hands-on type of project that does not have a book name and page number for you to record, it is NOT a problem with this program. You simply give your entry a name--"Cooking" for instance, and I would click on the box next to "Math" since that is the subject I am counting this activity under. Then in the box I would write up however much or little I wanted to--maybe "Today we baked cookies and divided them into groups to practice fractions."

The advantage of this computer program over my simple paper and pencil record keeping is that I can quickly find and print out reports for whatever I need to. If I need to see what a child did for math for the past month, I can print out a report that will show all math entries. Or I can print out a report showing all subjects, reports showing just the subject names or the subject names along with the detailed description of the activities. A report showing attendence can be printed, if you live in a state where you are required to keep track of attendence. One HUGE advantage of using this program would be to those who live in states where they are required to keep track of the TIME they spend homeschooling--this program will take all those hands-on activities you entered, and collect for you all of your entries that you marked as "Math", showing a total number of hours and minutes spent on that subject area. On the other hand, if your state does not require a record of time to be kept, you can simply leave that spot blank.

I hope this review has helped give some ideas to those of you out there struggling with record keeping. With a free trial version available, I think this is a great program to try!

Disclaimer: This review was written in response to the offer by Homeschool Day Books to provide a permanent license, free of charge, to any bloggers willing to write a review of the trial version. No other compensation was received and all opinions are my own.

Bible in 90 Days--Day 17!

Cities of Refuge--
Today I was reading along in Joshua, and came to chapter 20. It is very interesting, because God instructed the Children of Israel to have what was called "Cities of Refuge." If there had been some kind of an accident, and someone had killed another person but it was not at all on purpose, that person could flee to the nearest city of refuge. Once there, he was supposed to stand at the entrance of the city gate, and state his case to the city elders. They would then admit him into their city, and were to give him a place to live with them. That person would stand trial before the assembly, and if it was decided that he had really killed his neighbor unintentionally he would continue to live in that city of refuge until the high priest who was serving at that time died, and at that time the person could return to his original home town, and he was to be completely cleared of the crime and no one was to harm him in any way.

Our society today does not have cities of refuge set aside for situations such as this, though we do have trials and jurys to try and determine if a crime was intentional or an accident. But as I was reading this Bible passage, the thought occurred to me that we do still have a need for a refuge, and our city of refuge is Jesus. But it's not the same. We are not innocent of the crime--in fact, quite the opposite. We are ridden with sin, and if we stood trial before the universe there could be only one possible outcome--we would be pronounced "guilty!" Guilty of breaking all of God's perfect laws. So there is no hope for anyone to determine that we are innocent. But God.

But God loved us so much, that He sent His Son Jesus to die for our sins. Jesus took our verdict of "Guilty!" so that we could have His verdict of "Innocent!" His righteousness covers our sinfulness up, and we are taken into His refuge. And THAT is a place I never want to leave!

Bible in 90 Days--Day 14!

Hi Everyone!

Yes, I truely am still around here. Just have not been taking much time to post anything lately. Don't usually post too much anyway, but when I determined to participate in the "Bible in 90 Days" program, I knew something would have to go in order to fit it in--so decided that the most "optional" part of my life was probably my computer time!

My intention at the start was to blog about what I was reading as I went along--but that hasn't happened either! But that's o.k., because the most important thing IS happening--and that is that I am keeping up with my Bible readings! I am thrilled about this, and I know it is not because of me that I am doing this, but only because of people praying for me and the Holy Spirit helping me. I'm sure "life" will happen, and there are bound to be some days that I just cannot get that day's reading in--in fact, the whole 90 day program even "officially" has two grace days built into it. If you stick to the reading schedule, you actually read the Bible through in 88 days. But I am worried about using those grace days up too soon in the program, so I am holding them close and savoring the fact that I still have them--for when needed! One day, I even read both morning and evening, so therefore gained myself a third "grace" day!

So, where am I? Currently, Deuteronomy. But not for long--I'll be finishing that book tomorrow morning. I am really enjoying this Bible reading program. No, it's not what I would want to do ALL the time, because not enough time to stop and delve further into things that perk my interest. But I really am enjoying my little zooming along. Genesis and Exodus were fascinating, speeding from the perfect world that God created, on into things being so sinful that God destroys the world with a flood--but the next minute people are building and worshipping idols again! Leviticus and Numbers were not as interesting to me personally--all that accounting! Listing laws and different details that God instructed the Children of Israel in--yet at the same time, the thought occurred to me that the details must be pretty important to God, since He saw fit to have them all written down in His Holy book for us to have record of. Deuteronomy I am loving--so sad, since Moses knows he is going to die and not proceed into the Promised Land with the rest of the Children of Israel. Yet at the same time, it is so beautiful how Moses carefully goes over everything with the people again. He doesn't want them to forget how God has led them, after he has died and is no longer their leader. Of course, Moses had no idea of the wonderful plan God had of not having him remain in the grave.

I think my favorite verse from Deuteronomy is chapter 10, verse 12. Moses, of course, is the one speaking, and he says "And now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the Lord's commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?" What does God ask of us? 1)Fear (Honor) God. 2)Walk in His ways. 3)Love Him. 4)Serve Him. 5)Obey Him. And it will all be for our own good. It's not about how we earn our way to heaven. It's not about how many "good deeds" we did. Or about how many people we helped. It's not about our being the perfect parent--good thing, because I'd never make it to heaven if it was. No. It's about Him. Just us, and Him.

The Felt board is your Friend!

Leftover from my teaching days, I suppose, comes my love of felt boards. Or maybe from enjoying seeing the Bible stories come alive as I sat in Sabbath School each week. But whatever it is from, I have to admit that I LOVE felt boards! No, they are not high tech. They do not pop or whistle or demand children's attention. But in their own way, they are wonderful teaching tools. Over my years homeschooling our son, I made two different felt boards, both from scraps of wood left over from a house project, covered with felt that I found at a thrift store. But now that we are basically starting homeschool all over again with our six year old, that old desire came back pretty strong--for a LARGE felt board! So. I warned my husband in advance. I checked out prices of felt and boards--I am admittedly a frugal person. And I scouted out the house for where I would put it, finally deciding that the play area in the basement would be perfect. Yes, it would cover up our Bible time line that is in progress, but I could always slide it over somewhere else when we wanted to focus more on the time line. Besides that--so far, our time line has not progressed very far downward on the wall, so for a while anyway the felt board would not be covering anything at all.

I actually found felt on sale at a fabric store before I had settled on what type of board I was going to place it on--therefore, I purchased enough felt to cover a 4 foot by 8 foot board (3 yards of felt). The cost of the felt (sale price) came to a bit under $15. It was a week or so later before I could get to the lumber store to survey their options for boards. I finally settled on this one that is very thin--only around 1/4 inch thick. I have covered plywood before, and it is wonderfully sturdy--but in a large board size, plywood was just too heavy for me to imagine moving it around by myself if I needed to get to the wall behind it. The only down side of this type of board is that the larger it is, the more it kind of wobbles--therefore my husband (probably very wisely) suggested that I have it cut to a 4 by 6 foot size. At the last minute--as the clerk was literally getting ready to cut it to size for me (out of a 4 x 8 sheet size), I cast out "Give me six more inches!" and had him cut it 4 x 6 1/2. I know he thought I was crazy, but hey--it was worth it because it gained me six more inches of felt board and you never know what you can do with that extra six inches! ;) This board was $12 at our lumber store.

So--I ended up having a bit extra felt that I had to cut off. If I had done this the "right" way of purchasing my board first, I would have known exactly how much felt I needed to buy. But hey, when it's on sale, you grab it! Besides that--I can always use the strip of felt I cut off in other projects.... But I could have shaved a couple dollars off my total project price if I had known at the start what size I was going to end up with. All I knew was "As big as I can get!"


Normally, tacky glue is a good way to go for gluing your felt down. If you are going to glue on the actual side of the board that you are going to be using, then I recommend rubber cement. Hot glue will hold well, but will also leave hard lumps, so it's fine if you are only gluing on the back side of your board, but you don't want to use it on the front. In keeping with my frugal self, I took inventory of what I already had and I had LOTS of regular school type glue I had purchased for one cent at the start of the school year--so I wondered if I could use that. I figured it didn't hurt to try, and the worst that could happen was that it wouldn't hold and I would have to reglue it with tacky glue. But might as well try. So that is what I used, though I wouldn't specifically buy this type of glue for this project--just using up what I already had. I used one complete bottle on each side of my board--but remember, I was gluing a 4 feet by six and a half feet board, so it took a lot!

I glued two sides, using clamps to hold it tight so it wouldn't slip. Then I let it dry overnight.

And finished the remaining two sides the next day, cutting off the extra felt at the corners. It's just like wrapping a present!

The new felt board was finished, just in time for Sabbath! So I couldn't resist putting up Jesus and the children, and a "Happy Sabbath" message. My daughter happily added a wise old owl sitting on top of the "T".

And now comes true confession time. My daughter and I both love the new felt board SO much that I started thinking of how I would absolutely LOVE to have it upstairs. We do 99% of our homeschooling upstairs, for a variety of reasons. First, in the winter time, it is definately warmer than down in the basement! And second, I am usually multi-tasking and doing dishes, cooking, or folding laundry while she does different homeschool assignments, so most of MY work is upstairs. Well, my wonderful husband not only agreed to let us move it upstairs, but actually encouraged me to do so. So guess what lives in my living room now? What can I say. My husband always did say that he lives in a "One house school-room!"

This picture shows our board being used for math class. Jesus is there because He is our teacher. My daughter is showing that she knows the amount that each number represents. Above that used to be the math problem 8 + 8 = 16, but we had to take the two "8"'s down to use down below later--and the large white thing is actually a piece of felt with the numbers 0-100 written on it, used for skip counting.

Well, hope this post has triggered some ideas for other homeschoolers. You may not want a felt board as a living room wall, but there ARE many fun and creative teaching things that a felt board can be used for! :)

Fasten your Seat Belt!

Well, it's time to fasten all seat belts, because tomorrow morning things are REALLY going to ramp up--FAST! Not only because vacation time is over and work/school beginning again (students do not understand that the teachers love vacation time as much as they do!) but also because I am starting my "Read the Bible through in 90 Days" program.

As I posted about before, I don't know for sure if I can keep this pace up, but I'm going to try and get what I can out of it anyway. I don't have anything to lose, and I have only to gain. According to what I have read, it will take between 45 minutes to an hour and 15 minutes each day to do that day's reading assignment. I have no idea where this time is going to come from, but I'm praying about it. Perhaps some in the morning which I already have established (but not enough time there right now) and then a bit more after lunch and some in the evening? I'm not sure, but I will be playing around with it and see what I can come up and what works out for me.

I don't know yet what will be squeezed out in order for me to accomplish my goal--perhaps my e-mail time or Facebook or blog reading/writing? Maybe not all of it, but part of it? Don't know. But I know whatever it is, it will be worth it.

My desire is to blog--even just a sentence or two--about what I am reading or a thought that strikes me. I do not imagine that I will be able to do this every day, but will post when I can. If anyone out there would like to join me, please do! A Bible reading plan can be found at http://www.biblein90days.org/ , and the site that is doing the read-a-thon specifically starting tomorrow, January 3, 2011 is http://www.momstoolbox.com/ . If you think of me, send up a prayer for my success! :)

And for my sis who has agreed to join me in this crazy endeavor, grab hands and lets go--One, Two, THREE!