I'mmmmm mmmeeelllltttiiinnngggg

Well, okay, I'm not melting.  But all this snow is.  My yard looks like a lake and we won't mention the driveway.  I hit the gas pedal of the truck and pray that we make it through the mud to get to the street. 

Most of the snow is gone however, the drifts are still here.  Some of them are still almost two feet tall.  We're supposed to get rain today which will help with the driveway.....not.  Tomorrow is wintery weather with high wind.  Perhaps the wind will blow the water away?  At least we won't be in as much of a drought as we have been.  I'm praying that this summer we see showers otherwise we'll be in trouble.  Its been too dry for too many years here.

I thought I'd post some more soup recipes.  These are favorites of ours.  Soup weather is almost over here.......the kids are crying for more sandwiches.  The birds are starting to come out.  I'm going to hang some bird feeders from the trees in the front so that we can watch them while we're doing school.


Cheeseburger Soup

Ingredients

• 1/2 pound ground beef
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  With Johnsonville Italian Sausage.

  

  
  

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• 3/4 cup chopped onion
• 3/4 cup shredded carrots
• 3/4 cup diced celery
• 1 teaspoon dried basil
• 1 teaspoon dried parsley flakes
• 4 tablespoons butter, divided
• 3 cups chicken broth
• 4 cups diced peeled potatoes (1-3/4 pounds)
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 cups (8 ounces) process cheese (Velveeta), cubed
• 1-1/2 cups milk
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1/4 cup sour cream

Directions

• In a 3-qt. saucepan, brown beef; drain and set aside. In the same saucepan, saute the onion, carrots, celery, basil and parsley in 1 tablespoon butter until vegetables are tender, about 10 minutes. Add the broth, potatoes and beef; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 10-12 minutes or until potatoes are tender.
• Meanwhile, in a small skillet, melt remaining butter. Add flour; cook and stir for 3-5 minutes or until bubbly. Add to soup; bring to a boil. Cook and stir for 2 minutes. Reduce heat to low. Stir in the cheese, milk, salt and pepper; cook and stir until cheese melts. Remove from the heat; blend in sour cream. Yield: 8 servings (2-1/4 quarts).

Nutritional Facts 1 serving (1 cup) equals 330 calories, 18 g fat (11 g saturated fat), 59 mg cholesterol, 1,027 mg sodium, 26 g carbohydrate, 2 g fiber, 15 g protein.

Originally published as Cheeseburger Soup in Taste of Home October/November 1996, p29 Recipe

 

 

Taco Soup

 

One pound ground beef browned and drained.

One large can of diced tomatoes

one can beans (any kind you wish: I use kidney or chili for spice)

one can corn

One package taco seasoning

 

Put all ingredients on a pot on the stove.  Heat up and simmer for about thirty minutes until all the flavors are mixed together well.  Serve with shredded cheese, sour cream, and nacho chips.

 

 

Schoolroom photos

You'll have to excuse the poor photos.  I still don't have a camera so I took these with my cell phone and then send them to my husband who emailed them to me.  Crazy, yes, but it gives you an idea of our schoolroom.  I need to paint it a different color. Olive green is a bit drab.

 

My father made all of the desks.

The view into the living room.

As you can see, we have a ton of windows.  The view out the front is really nice.  I enjoy all the sun.

The picture below is taken of our "gravel" road.  As you can see there really isn't any gravel in it.  These ruts are the "good" ones.  There's another section that was worse and much deeper and muddier.  My truck looks like it should be in a monster truck mud show.  Thank goodness they came and grated the road yesterday so it doesn't look like this anymore.

planning next year......

End of March.....can you believe it already?  How's your planning going for next year?  I think I've finally completed mine. 

Monkey-preschool
The Rod and Staff preschool books

Miss Trouble-first grade
Horizons phonics and readers
All About Spelling level one
Printing from Handwriting without tears
Explode the Code book 1 and two
Horizons math
Science: Teacher Created Resources unit on Human Body and Evan Moor units on Weather and Animals.  Not sure what else we'll add in to make the year fun yet, but that's a good start

For all the girls, I will be using the Egermeier's Storybook Bible.  Our pastor's wife showed it to me and I fell in love with it.  Miss Trouble and Bug a Bug will be studying for Junior Bible Quiz Team.

All the kids will be studying Tapestry of Grace.  We have one unit left of year three and then year four.

Bug a Bug-Fifth grade
Teaching Textbooks
All About Spelling
Trail Guide to US Geography
Elemental Science-Biology
Easy Grammer and Daily Grams
Vocab Connections
Classics to include Wizard of Oz, Anne of Green Gables, On the Banks of Plum Creek, The Long Winter, three of the Narnia stories, and Mr. Poppers Penguins

Princess-Sixth Grade
Same as Bug a Bug but up one level
They will be studying Geography, Science, and Classics together

TL-tenth Grade
undecided on bible
Trail Guide to Bible Geography
Saxon Geometry
Biology (not sure which program we will use yet)
SAT daily warmups and vocabulary study
Easy Grammer
Classics to include: Diary of Anne Frank, All Quiet on the Western Front, Animal Farm, Great Gatsby, Old Man and Sea, Glass Menagerie, Fahrenheit 451, To Kill a Mockingbird, Romeo and Juliet, another Shakespeare play (we will watch them not read them), and poetry study

How's your coming year shaping up?

snow snow snow

Monday we got another snowstorm.  We've had one every Monday this month with almost two feet of snow falling so far this month.  We only had about four inches fall but had these horrible wind gusts that made these huge drifts of snow.

The snow drift is level with the deck

These drifts are about waist deep.  The side of the barn is covered with another drift.  This is where the door is, I guess I should be glad we don't have any animals in there yet.

The kids love when the neighbor comes to plow.  He makes huge piles for them to play in.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Weekly review

School this week.....

Went really well.  We did end up taking a snow day when we had the ten inches fall.  The kids are still enjoying the snow and its only the second good snowfall we've gotten this year.  The public kids were out too, so I figured it was worth it to let them play.  Plus, I had a ton of homework to do.

The girls have moved out of space and onto other Earth Science topics.  In Tapestry of Grace, all the kids studied the Alamo this week.  Next week we're onto the Victorian era.


Our house.......

I'm so behind in cleaning and organizing. The big girls help alot, but this class has killed me this last eight weeks.  When we moved in, I threw stuff into the closets and started homeschooling right away.  Then I got sick and then it was Christmas.  The closets and my desk need a good over haul and I plan on spending the next two weeks doing that.  I also need to try to get the dining room painted and put kilz on the living room ceiling from that big stain from the water leak in the bathroom. 


Myself.......

This class was horrendous.  My first C and I don't really care.  I think I have a bad case of senioritis.  One more class and I'm all done!!  I plan on working hard to get a decent grade this last class.  I'm going to spend some of the two weeks off working on my notes and outline for my 25 page term paper that I have to write.  If I can get those done before class starts, it will be a little easier on me.

The littlest was up most of the night last night with an ear ache.  I went to bed after 2 am and she was restless all night long.  I sent the big girls to church and the rest of us are hanging out until they get back.   She was finally in a restful sleep so I didn't want to get her up.  In fact, its 10:30 and she just woke up.  I got to catch up on three episodes of Dallas last night while up with her.  I know, I know.....but its Dallas y'know?

I thought I would post two recipes that I've gotten off of pinterest that we just love.  My kids absolutely love this ham and potato soup.  They would lick the pot clean if I let them.  I don't add the carrots though.

Ham and Potato Soup

Ingredients:

7 c. diced potatoes (about 4 medium)
1 c. diced onion (about 1 medium)
1 large carrot, chopped
2 c. ham, diced
5. c. hot water
1 Knorr Chicken Bullion cube (extra large size that
makes 1 quart broth or 4 small cubes that make 1 cup each)
1 c. 2% milk
1/2 c. sour cream
Salt and Pepper to tasteDirections:

Add diced potatoes, onion, carrot, and ham to a crock pot. Dissolve chicken bullion in 5 cups hot water, then add this to the crock pot also. Cook on low 7 hours, or high 3 hours. Then add milk and sour cream. Stir and cook an additional 15 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Makes twelve 1-cup servings.

If you'd like a thicker soup, just before adding milk and sour cream, remove 2-3 cups of the potatoes and slightly mash, then return the mashed mixture to the crock pot.

Makes 12 Servings (About 1 Cup Per Serving


Bourbon STreet Chicken   **I added less red pepper flakes because it was too spicy for the kids

2 poundsboneless chicken breasts; cut into bite-size pieces

1 tablespoonolive oil; (1-2)

1 garlic clove; crushed

1/4 teaspoonginger

3/4 teaspooncrushed red pepper flakes

1/4 cupapple juice

1/3 cuplight brown sugar

2 tablespoonsketchup

1 tablespooncider vinegar

1/2 cupwater

1/3 cupsoy sauce

1 tablespooncornstarch; (if thick sauce desired)

 

Bourbon Chicken Preparation

Heat oil in a large skillet.
Add chicken pieces and cook until lightly browned.
Remove chicken.
Add remaining ingredients, heating over medium heat until well blended and dissolved.
Add chicken and bring to a hard boil.
Reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes uncovered.
Serve over hot rice.



And I'm making these for lunch today:

Sweet Ham and Swiss Sliders

Ingredients

• 16 White Dinner Style Rolls, cut in half
• 24 slices Honey Ham
• 16 slices Swiss Cheese
• 1/4 C Mayonnaise
• 1 1/2 Tbsp Dijon Mustard
• 8 Tbsp butter, melted
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1/2 tsp Worcestershire Sauce
• 1 Tbsp poppy seeds
• 1/4 C brown sugar

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400°
2. On a rimmed baking sheet place bottom half of dinner rolls and top with 1 1/2 slices of ham and 1 slice of swiss cheese. Spread about 1 tsp of mayonnaise on each top-half of roll and place on top of ham and cheese. You want the rolls to be snug together, kissing just a bit so the sauce can soak up into all of the nooks and crannies.
3. In a small bowl combine the mustard, melted butter, onion powder, Worcestershire sauce, poppy seeds, and brown sugar. Mix until combined and evenly pour over the assembled rolls. Cover with foil and refrigerate until ready to bake.
4. Bake covered with foil for 10 minutes, remove the foil and bake for an additional 5-10 minutes or until the tops are browned, and cheese is good and melted.

Ugh!! Its time to make dinner and I don't want to!!

Just grab the phone and call for pizza right?  Wrong....at least in our house.  Right now, we're running two households with hubby stationed in CA.  Every single dime counts and I don't have money to throw away on pizza.  It can cost up to $30 to feed our crew......how many pizzas can I make at home for that?

I plan out every single meal and snack, but need to be flexible.  So, I grabbed a calendar wipe off board from the store and put it up.  Now, I use sticky notes to plan our meals on.  Breakfast is blue, lunch is pink, dinner is yellow....or whatever I grab to write on.  If I need to switch meals around for some reason, I use move the sticky notes around.  I also plan out snacks and desserts, which I list on the side of the board.  Cookies, breads, and bars are also listed and made whenever I have time.

I don't buy any ready made snacks or junk food anymore.  Honestly, we don't have the money and let's face it, although its convenient, they're horribly unhealthy.  We eat yogurt, fruit, veggies and dip, and cheese and crackers.  I won't even buy chips anymore......they just devour the bag in a single sitting! 

I go grocery shopping once a week.  I'd love to switch that to two times a month.  I hate grocery shopping after all.  I'm going to work on doing this and try to shop at Hyvee the second week for fruits and fresh veggies.  I usually shop at Walmart because I get more bang for my buck and with all of these mouths to feed, I need to save where I can.

I plan 2-3 crockpot meals a week.  I can get the meal in the crockpot in the am and forget about it the rest of the day.  This is fabulous because three days a week, I'm running around with the kids.  One night is pasta and one night is usually pizza (we usually do pizza on Sundays).  This means realistically, I only have to plan other meals on 2-3 nights a week.  Depending on our schedule, I might do a casserole.  The casseroles can be prepared during lunch break and put into the fridge until its time to pop it in.  Its such a relief knowing that I'm not trying to throw together dinner at 5pm.

Once I get a new camera, I'll show you the calendar so that you can see it. 

We got about ten inches of snow on Monday night.  The kids are loving it.  They played in the snow most of the day yesterday.  It was a blast for them.  I put a pot of homeade chicken noodle soup on the stove for them and they ate a bowl every time they came in.

Hope your week is going well.

Michelle 

Curriculum Review -Tapestry of Grace

We switched to Tapestry of Grace about five weeks ago.  I absolutely love it!!  As a history major, I've never found a history program that I love enough to get.  History needs to be studied chronologically and this is the one I would definitely choose!!

First, you decide the year.  This is a four year program that includes a lower grammer, upper grammer, rhetoric, and dialetic level for each year.  The year is broken down into four nine week units.  Each week has about seventy pages of information.

The first pages are the threads pages.  This goes over all the objectives for each level for history, writing, literature, geography, fine arts and activities, church history, government, and philosophy.  Yes, it really covers all of these subjects.

The reading assignments pages are next.  Each level is broken down with book recommendations for each subject.  I love the flexibility.  You can grab a book from another level or find a different one if you have it.  The weekly overview is next, divided up the same way.  It lists important people, timeline, vocab words, and basic topics to hit on.

Writing assignments is next.  This is broken up into 12 different levels.  You can put your child in whichever level you prefer them to be in.  Move up one week and down the next.  ITs all up to you. 

Student activity pages are next.  This breaks down by level the activities and discussion questions that you should go over.  It also has the activity pages for you to do with your child.

The last section is the teacher's notes.  What a fantastic source this is!!  Its about five pages of reading a week with all the background information that you need to teach you children.  This section also breaks out the dialetic and rhetoric discussion questions with answers and additional information.

There are several different things you can purchase along with the program.  I recommend the map aids because all the maps are set for each level and ready to go for you.  I could probably do that on my own, but I'm strapped for time and just can't do it.  The other part that I purchased was the writing assignments.  This goes over in much greater detail and has the assignments all ready for the kids. 

We follow some of the literature portion.  Right now, TL is supposed to be reading Les Miserables, but I though Swiss Family Robinson would be more fun.  He'll be following their reading schedule  more next year when we hit the 1900s.

Like I said, this program is very flexible.  There is no need to cover absolutely everthing, its up to you to decide what to do.  The cost can be an issue, it is a little expensive to get the books and the program.  You have two options with the program.  You can get the download file or get it in print, or actually a third option is to get both.  I've been lucky to have a bunch of books that I could use instead of the ones listed or have found books on Heritage History's website to use.   The cost for books then has been low for me.  You can also use the library to obtain the books for the program.  I recommend keeping a library list though so the next time you go through the program, you have the library list handy.

This program is easy to use and I just love it. 

One of the things that I really love, is that its definitely a project based learning approach, which makes learning more fun!!  The kids are really enjoying the projects and learning so much more!

Have a wonderful week!

Curriculum review-Home School Tracker

Okay so technically Home School Tracker is not a curriculum, but it sure makes your life sooooo much easier.  I highly recommend this program.

I first bought Homeschool Tracker back in 2006.  I had used their free version (which they still have) and was looking for a little more beef to my lesson planning.  Homeschool Tracker Plus was it!! 

Unfortunately, with our many moves and craziness with being a military family, I never used it to its full potential or even finished out a complete year.  As I was looking over this last week, I realized that I was very much behind in grading, record keeping, and resourse lists (which lists all the books we use during the year).  I was not looking forward to sitting down and doing all of this manual record keeping when I remembered that I still had this program.

I put the disk in, but it wouldn't download.....it was from 2006 after all.  I emailed the company and in one minute had an email back with a link to download the software and assurance that my old download registration code would still work. 

I waited with eager anticipation while it downloaded and then started looking at the many videos online for instructions on how to use the program.  As I stated, I never really used it to its full potential and there are a ton of new features.

First, you set up your school year.  You can name your school and put in the contact information.  Then you enter your student's data.  After this you set up your school calendar.  You can enter vacation days and holidays onto your calendar.  It will allow you to see how many days will be in your school year.  If you need to have a certain number of days, this is fantastic.  You can record attendance manually or have the program track it for you.  When an assignment is completed on a day, the program will automatically record that day as "present".  I'm sure that you can do an hours feature in there.  I know I saw it on the list, but I don't need to record hours so I don't use this part of the program.

The core subjects are listed on the program and you can then set up additional subjects and courses under each subject.  For example, under Math I have set up Math 6/5, Math 5/4, and Algebra I.  The absolutely wonderful feature of this program is that it saves all of your lesson plans!  No more doing the work over and over or looking for those lesson plans from two years ago for the next child in line.  Its all done for you.

After you set this up, its time to set up your year.  You can use the program to its full potential or only do what you want.  It allows you to list goals, resources, and supply lists; and it links them to your lesson plans.  I set up a lesson plan for each child.  I use the core subjects and then courses to differeniate the plans.  It helps me stay organized and a fantastic feature is that you can copy lesson plans from one child to another.  For subjects like history or science that you may do together, this is a great feature.  I like each child to have the information that we did during the year and this keeps everything together for me. 

Lesson planning is easy.  There are three different ways to do your lesson plans.  I put in one plan per child as I stated earlier, and then make lessons for each core subject and course.  You can link the goals, resources, and supplies that you need for each lesson.  Under directions, you can write instructions for the student to have on their assignment sheet.  There is also a space for notes for yourself to remind you to gather supplies that you may need in a few days or to make copies.  This note list is not printed on the student assignments if you don't want it to.  You can print a seperate list for yourself.   Another option is to enter assignments after they are already completed, but I like this way better.  After I enter the assignments in to the lesson planner, I go week by week and move them over to the student assignments.  I generally do this at the end of the week for the next week.  This way, if we get off task one day, I don't have to change all the due dates. 

When the assignments are completed, I can check that they are finished and they move out of the current assignment grid into an archived grid.  I can record grades that they received at this time.  There is also a place on the tracker to make journal entries each day or week if you wish.

One of the best features is the reports.  I can print seperate lists for each child for goals, resources, supply lists, grades, attendance, and transcripts.  There is a place to record field trip information, student activities and achievements, standardized test scores, memorization, and reading logs.  They have truly thought of everything.

When I purchased this program years ago, I wanted more flexibility than the free version.  The new plus version is now $49.  Its a steep price, but well worth it, especially if you have several children.  It will take time to set up but once you get the information in there, your year will run much more smoothly and record keeping will be a dream.  I've already been eyeing the transcript feature for TL and daydreaming about how easy it will be to do when the time comes.

Since I just put this program on this week, I am backstepping a little.  Yesterday we finished our second term.  I am going to do in and record one assignment for each course for each term to put their grades in.  I am not going to manually input each assignment and grade.  The only thing I am going to focus on for the first part of the year is making sure the TL's books are all recorded in there so that they will show up on his transcript.

 I am really looking forward to using this with our Tapestry of Grace program.  Under history, I have set up Year 3 with both a Rhetoric and an Upper Class course.  So the next time we go through using these levels (which will not be for many more years) I will have access to my lesson plans and not have to redo them or find them somewhere!

I encourage you to check it out!!  I'm sure that you will love it as much as I do!