The Bright and Shiny Grade 6 Plan

I love planning!  Planning trips, planning a party, and especially planning our homeschooling.  I've learned that it's a map I'm making, but that I might not necessarily follow the planned route exactly, and that's okay. I work with real children who have ideas and ambitions of their own and I can't force my plan on them; they have to come along willingly.  And that is enough metaphor for one paragraph.

I have the year mapped out with blocks and secondary lessons and breaks.  It is a fairly traditional Waldorf grade 6 year with some of our not-so-traditional resources thrown in.  We aren't giving up Life of Fred and you can't make us!  Here is the block rotation:

Ancient Greek History I

Mineralogy

Coastal Ecology (class trip)

Ancient Greek History II

Nature, Number, and Geometry

Ancient Roman History I

Introduction to Physics

Ancient Roman History II

Astronomy

The Middle Ages

Our secondary lessons are mostly connected to our main lessons.  In some cases we simply do art and music from the historical period we are studying in our main lesson (Fine Arts).  We have a couple of cooking secondary lessons planned; one ties in with Ancient Greek history and the other with Physics (cooking is Vocational Education which I am required to offer beginning in jr. high) .  December is always our month for holiday crafting (Applied Arts).  We have two Health lessons planned: one on nutrition to tie in with Mineralogy and one on public and personal sanitation to tie in with Ancient Rome.  (Aren't I clever ~ take that state of California and your required subjects, because I can make health tie in with Waldorf no problem.)  We'll also have a sewing block, which doesn't really tie into Astronomy but what can I do?  The boys want to learn to sew on machines this year.

Papa is going to expand on our Physics and Astronomy blocks by working with the boys all year using two books: Galileo: His Life and Ideas (25 Activities For Kids) and Isaac Newton and Physic For Kids: His Life and Ideas with 21 Activities.

I outsource Physical Education; we have a great company that comes into town and offers PE classes to home-schooled children once a week.  My boys love it.

In addition to main and secondary lessons we will continue to work with (as I said before) Life of Fred: Decimals and Percents (kind of sort of business math, don't you think?), Daily Grammar (simple, easy to use, and they like it), and Spelling City (they love it and seem to be learning some spelling).  Oh, assigning novels last year worked so well that we are going to do it this year as well.  I'm looking at Newberry Award winners and Honor Books again.

The only thing that is really up in the air is foreign language.  I am required to offer foreign language, but my students aren't required to take it and so far they aren't interested.  We bring in Spanish in a fairly organic manner but at some point they need to choose a language.  Maybe we'll try Mango Languages this year since it is free.  I keep telling them that they had better pick up some Dutch as I am thinking about sending them to their uncle in Belgium as "foreign exchange students" in a couple of years.

There is is, pretty as a new copper penny!

Learning Journal ~ Postal Museum

Homeschool isn't officially in session yet, but this year we are going to document our more organic learning experiences here on the blog.  Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me today and didn't even think about the fact that my phone has a camera.

Today we:

Explored the postal museum and noted that the clerks had more protection/separation from the public in the past, but that it made it harder to handle packages.  We also saw the postmaster's desk, talked about old phones, and looked at how the mail carrier caps have changed over the years.  The boys gently touched the antique scale and old hand-cranked cancellation machine and we talked about what stamp cancellation is.  It would be great to set up a tour at a modern facility. (History)

Went to the public library and chose new books.  (Reading)

Boiled potatoes for shepherd's pie and discussed the boiling point of water, what boiling looks like, why water boils, and how starch in water changes boiling.  (Science)

Played Risk.  (Geography, Math, social skills)

On Sugar

I know that sugar isn't particularly healthy, but I don't know that I believe that it is the devil.  Eating a lower sugar diet makes sense, but I also know that it is the latest health demon.  Remember when fat was determined to be the cause of all heart disease and obesity and the shelves were full of low-fat and nonfat offerings? When cholesterol numbers were obsessed over with the goal being as low a number as possible?

I'm not saying that I think people should eat sugar morning, noon, and night.  I think moderation is good in all things ~ I seek balance.  And overall I think that our health and weight issues are mostly related to activity.  We don't get the kind of activity that we used to get before the information revolution and two-car households becoming the norm, and the kind of activity that many of us try to get to make up for that (three times a week spinning, stepping, running, etc.) just isn't enough.  it isn't that our bodies can't tolerate sugar (did you know that breast milk is mostly sugar?).  Unhealthy bodies have difficulties with all sorts of macro and micro nutrients, not just sugar.

I use sugar in my cooking and baking at home and I don't worry that my kids are getting too much sugar.  They aren't drinking soda or punch and they aren't eating candy, not on a regular basis anyway.  I don't buy packaged cookies or snack cakes.  Their meals consist mostly of legumes, fruits and vegetables, and potatoes or a cooked grain.  There isn't any sneaky HFCS or other sugars snuck in there because I don't cook from packages.

When they were younger it was easier to give them very little (or even zero) sugar but it isn't so easy now.  They want sodas, slushies, popsicles and ice cream just as much as any other child.  I understand it because I did too when I was a child (and it wasn't restricted in my childhood home).  We could fight about it, but I think it works better to give them alternatives that taste great and eliminate the worst food offenders such as HFCS, artificial flavors and colors, and preservatives.

Instead of soda we drink sparkling water (we have a SodaStream) mixed with a small amount of juice.  Slushies from pureed fruit and juice can be made in the ice cream maker or they can be made in a blender.  Popsicles are a snap with an ice pop mold and some pureed fruit.  Ice creams and sorbets are easy at home as well with an ice cream maker. I make all sorts of sorbets with fresh, frozen, or canned fruit depending on the season.

When I bake I am less likely to make a traditional cake or cookies and instead I make muffins or "lunchbox" cakes with fruits and/or vegetables.  Using pureed pears or bananas means I can lower the added sugar content without sacrificing flavor.  I save cookies, brownies, and frosted cakes for special occasions.

My boys drink water (and J-Baby occasionally drinks almond milk) for most meals, with lemonade or an agua fresca being a special treat.  The eat a green salad or other raw vegetables daily.  We choose home-popped popcorn instead of chips.

Too Good Not To Share

So, we are on a new eating plan, which I plan to write about soon.  I had said I wouldn't commit to anything new regarding my diet this summer, but my health demands that I do my best to remove all food toxins, including the plant toxins that I know I have issues with but hadn't eliminated completely.

Anyway (because that really is a different post), I needed to make dinner tonight, and while the chicken noodle soup that I had planned for this evening is very healthy, it didn't quite have the nutritional profile I was looking for (not enough fat and vegetables, mostly), so I decided to make a different soup, a chowder, just riffing off recipes I've made in the past and stored in my head.  I wrote out a recipe I thought would work and got cooking.

Oh my yumminess!  Seriously, this was an amazing soup.  Papa ate it up and had a second (half) serving.  The boys had homemade chicken noodle soup; I'd made them try a new dish last night and eating something new two nights in a row is pushing it.  But T-Guy did try the chowder and declared it very good, although not as thick as he likes it.

Chicken Vegetable Chowder (Serves 6 - 8)

2 T. bacon fat -or- butter -or- coconut oil -or- extra virgin olive oil (I like to give people a choice)
1 medium onion, chopped fine
1 large zucchini, diced
1 medium carrot, diced -or- 10 baby carrots, sliced (in case you want to make it easy)
Salt and Pepper
2. C cooked, shredded (or diced) chicken  (I do this in bulk and freeze it)
2 C. potatoes, diced -or- 2. C plain frozen cubed hash brown potatoes (fresh is better in terms of thickening the chowder, but sometimes you have to hurry)
4 C. chicken broth (I use homemade, but I won't judge anyone who doesn't, and you can use water easily)
1 C. heavy cream
Optional: potato starch

Saute onion in fat for 2 minutes, add zucchini and carrots and saute until onion is translucent, approximately 3 minutes.  Season with salt and pepper.  Add chicken, potatoes, and chicken broth, bring to boil, then lower heat and simmer until potatoes are soft.  Add cream and simmer until soup is as thick as you want it.

Note:  If you want a thicker chowder combine 4 T. of water and 2 T. of potato starch and add to boiling soup.  Cook until it reaches desired thickness and then remove from heat.

I did the food analysis and when divided into 6 portions this soup comes in at 350 calories a (generous) serving, with 19g carbohydrate, 21g protein, and 22g fat.

This is my very simple homemade chicken soup, a dish I can make almost any night since I keep the stock and shredded chicken in the freezer, noodles in the pantry, and almost always have carrots in the fridge.

Homemade Chicken Soup (Serves 4 - 6)

6 C. homemade chicken broth
20 baby carrots sliced
2 C. cooked, shredded chicken
4 - 8 oz. rice noodles
Salt to taste (we use Real Salt)

Heat broth to boiling, add carrots and cooked chicken, return to boiling, then turn down heat and simmer for 10 minutes.  Add salt to taste, then add noodles and cook another 8 minutes or so until noodles are soft.

Note: To make chicken and rice soup instead I add 1 - 2 cups of cooked rice to the broth instead of noodles.

A Midnight Gift

There I was again, up and outside with an unsettled dog.  The Big Dog is subtle and patient when he wants out during the day, often sitting nearby and looking at me, or perhaps being more affectionate than usual.  It took us awhile to learn his cues (luckily he can hold it for a long time).

When the Big Dog came to live with us he was already five years old, if not older.  His understanding of the English language was poor; so poor that we looked up commands in German wondering if he'd been trained in that language.  (Nein, he hadn't been.)  I remember the excitement we all felt the first time he responded to the word potty by running to the door.  Over time he learned more English and along with potty he seems to understand Mama, Papa, bone, water, and ball, plus his basic commands of sit, down, stay, heel, come, wait, no, and okay.  Unfortunately, he either fails to understand the word quiet or else he chooses to ignore it.  His vocabulary is smaller than the Girl Dog's was, but we'd lived with her since she was a puppy and she spent twelve years learning with us.  She was practically telepathic.

At night the Big Dog is a little more insistent when he wants out; it is rather unsettling to have a large dog at the level of my head staring me down intently.  Sometimes I will tell him to GO SEE PAPA, and he will trot over to that side of the bed and stare at Papa, but I know that once Papa is in bed I am the one who will most likely get up with a dog.  Big Dog knows it too; after a few seconds of directing his gaze at Papa he will trot back over to me and resume the staring, occasionally glancing at the door and willing me to understand.  At this point I try to get him to SETTLE DOWN which works sometimes, but not this time.

Out of bed I climbed, on went my sandals and sweater, and together we padded down the hall, Big Dog turning in circles (he is still completely over the moon when I understand Dog).  I slipped the leash over his head and we stepped into the cool of midnight.

This story really isn't about a dog needing to go potty and a human taking him out.  He actually didn't go, he just sniffed at the grass and air.  Then I heard it, a sound I'd been catching in the bedroom but not taking conscious notice of.

Whoo ... whoo ...

(pause)

Whoo ... whoo ...

The owl was nearly on top of me, clearly up in the larger of our Coast Redwood trees.  While I have seen an owl up close I have never had one serenade me at such close proximity.

Whoo ... whoo ...

he said, and I was mesmerized.  We stood out there, Big Dog and I, listening to the owl in the cool of the evening for at least ten minutes.

We went in.  I tried to tell Papa how amazing it was, to get him to come outside, but he was snug and warm and wanted to stay in.  Within 30 minutes the owl moved on, but he had already shared his gift with me, one that lingers and still brings a smile to my face.

Why Eating Our Main Meal at Noon Didn't Work For Us

Everyone loved eating a full meal at noon.  I was happy to get the heavy cooking out of the way early in the day, Papa was happy to come home to a hot meal at lunch time, and the boys liked the novelty of it.  We felt full for hours afterwards and didn't need an afternoon snack (or, in the case of the boys, could get by with a snack of fresh fruit or raw vegetables).  So why didn't it work?

Consistently, evening would come and there would be a collective groan at the idea of eating lunch foods.  Papa was tired from working all day and while he had always partnered with me to make lunch prior to our experiment, now he didn't want to.  The boys whined that they didn't want salad.  Because I hate conflict I would cave easily and either cook another full meal or suggest getting take out if I was tired.

We get into such well-worn ruts.  Eating the same thing for lunch everyday (or at least a basic variation of salad/sandwich/soup) seems normal, but eating the same meal each evening doesn't, even if we have variety at the noon meal.  We also get idea in our heads about what constitutes dinner and when it should be eaten.  I suspect that Papa rarely had breakfast for dinner growing up as he loves pancakes for breakfast but would rather they not show up on the table at 6 p.m.

The salads were the biggest issue.  The children that never make a peep when salad is part of their lunch meal ~ because it is part of the routine ~ made a huge fuss in the evening, and that combined with a tired Papa who didn't feel like making the salads (always his job) resulted in far less salad being eaten.  We are big on the nutritional benefits of eating salad daily and I was getting upset at the dearth of salad eating.

(Think I'm kidding about salad, or exaggerating when I say my children eat it regularly?  Twice in the past month T-Guy has requested a salad as his side dish at a restaurant.  Servers don't even know what to do when a child asks for a side salad instead of French fries or white rice.  One brought him a regular side salad from the adult menu and admitted that she had never had a child choose salad.  More astonishingly to her, when presented with the listing of available salad dressings T Guy asked if she could bring him extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar.)

I am perhaps the most adaptable when it comes to meals, but I also eat lightest of the four of us when it comes to the "lunch" meal.  I'm happy with some mashed avocado on toast or a piece of burrata drizzled with extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, kosher salt, and capers.  If it is very hot I might choose to make a smoothie or just eat some fresh fruit.  My salad is always simple, just some greens with a light dressing, whereas Papa loads his with greens, tomatoes, avocado (if we have it), cucumber, raisins, nuts, cheese, and even leftover meat if there is some to be found.

So now I have two options.  Go back to how we ate before (which is what we've done for the past week) or make both meals by myself (including the salads) and make sure the evening meal is different every night.  Honestly, that sounds like more work than I want in the kitchen.

When Life Gives You a (Not So Sweet) Watermelon ...

... don't give up!

I started by serving it cubed at lunch (our main meal) anyway.  The fact that it wasn't very sweet was remarked upon, but didn't stop anyone from eating it.

Next I blended the cubed watermelon with baker's sugar and Meyer lemon juice (my Vitamix pulverizes any white watermelon seeds), poured some of the mixture into ice pop molds, and poured the rest into my ice cream maker for watermelon sorbet.  Experience from the last time I made watermelon sorbet taught me that it isn't a sorbet that you can eat right away (too soft) but that it freezes beautifully and isn't too hard to scoop or eat.  I'm pretty sure it's because of the added sugar; when we make pear or peach sorbet from fruit canned in juice it is much firmer after the time in the ice cream maker and it gets very hard in the freezer.

I still had a huge bag of cubed watermelon (it was a big watermelon) so I decided to blend some of it with water, sugar, and lemon juice to make an agua fresca.  I put it into a pretty Pyrex juice carafe and will serve it later.

There is still enough cubed watermelon to serve as a snack this afternoon.

Here's hoping that the second watermelon I purchased is sweet sweet sweet.  Not that I mind eating watermelon in other forms, but nothing beats perfectly sweet watermelon just as it is.