Sweet stuff at our place and I am so excited!!!

 This has been an exciting week at our "homestead". I have mentioned before on here my dream of keeping bees. I have wanted to do that for several years and I have done some reading up on it but it still continued to feel like a dream. I just didn't quite have the confidence to go into it. I could read books but in this sort of thing I do much better with hands on or visual learning and I was a little afraid to just jump in and do that.

   There was a class on bee keeping offered locally by the academy of life long learning- which is free of charge and usually attended by a bunch of retired folks but my kids and I have had fun joining them a couple of times now. It was on Tuesday morning and we went, me with notebook in hand and a plan to learn just as much as I possibly could.

   There were two beekeepers doing the talk (one of them was the guy that I actually buy our natural beef from but we had never met in person before, just talked on the phone) one has kept bees 4 years and the other 19 years and both of them love it. They brought a hive for us to see and showed us how to put it together. They showed us the equipment that we needed and told us a lot about bees and their care.  Afterwards we visited with them a lot and I told them that I would really love to raise bees and asked if they knew of any disease free used equipment for sale. They weren't sure but Les took my number. That afternoon he called me up and said he had found some. Yesterday the kids and I went and picked them up.

Our beehives!

 The bees are also ordered (Beekeepers in our area order through Les and we all go to get our bees at one time) and we will be picking them up the first week of May. The bee hives are currently stacked in our garage as I need to get a good foundation made and put up an electric fence. My Dad had extra fencing so that was a huge blessing. I had hoped not to fence ( for aesthetic reasons )but it is pretty important in our area for keeping bears and skunks away from the hives.

  This whole experience is pretty unreal to me as this went from being a dream to reality in just a few short days. I am learning so much right now too. There is a whole new set of words that go with bee keeping and I am trying to learn them. Such as a hive/frames being "drawn out". The frames that I got area which will give the bees a huge head start. That means that they already have the beeswax cells on them. (See picture below)

 I also feel so very blessed because both of the beekeepers (older gentlemen) that taught the class have just taken me and my kids under their wing and are very gracious to help and answer any questions I might have. We got to go and explore Les' beekeeping shed and even saw a few hives that he already has going this year. My Dad has also been very helpful with fencing, a smoker he had on hand and other ideas.

 Other sweet stuff around here has included canning Maple syrup. I have 16 jars all sealed up and ready for using on our pancakes and waffles this year. It looks like our season might be pretty much over. The nights have been staying too warm. We had hoped we might get a bit more than we did but we will be thankful for what we do have!!

  My parents have also been getting a bunch of milk which they have shared with us. This week I made yogurt and quick and easy cheese.

Have you ever kept bees? I would really truly love to hear your thoughts on bees or any of the other things I mentioned in this post!

I will be linking this to:

@ Homestead Revival

Also... Don't miss out on a giveaway of 2 Imagination Station books! (I will post the winner on Monday)

Saving money on Laundry

 If you keep track of expenses, have a money plan or budget you know that little things add up. I guess that is why I like to try to pay attention to spending money in every area of our life.... including laundry.

I thought I would share a few quick tips on keeping laundry costs low.

• Don't buy and wear items that need to be dry cleaned or otherwise professionally cleaned.
• Wash full loads using the lowest temperature that will work.
• Hang clothes up to dry when possible. I will admit I only do this in non-freezing weather. I know some people hang clothes up inside to dry but I don't because our house has high humidity and we have troubles with mold already.
• Hang dress clothes up as soon as the dryer stops to avoid having to iron. (This saves time and a little bit of electricity.)
• Encourage your family to rewear clothes that aren't really dirty. This works better in the winter (when we are more often inside) than the summer (when we are gardening and such) but it certainly helps to have less laundry. My kids haven't always done well at this but since I usually have them fold their own clothes now they have greatly improved. The boys are so willing to rewear clothes now that I have to do some moderating so that every once in a while they get clean clothes. :-)
• Instead of fabric softener or dryer sheets you can skip it altogether or use a bit of white vinegar (I put around 1/2 cup in my downy ball) in the rinse cycle.
• Another tip that was shared with me was to soak some small rags in fabric softener and then hang them up to dry and then use them (for around 5 times each) in place of dryer sheets. I tried this not long ago with some fabric softener that a friend had given me along with other laundry stuff when she was moving away. I think it might work okay but I discovered that I have become quite sensitive to chemical smells.  I ended up with a headache for a couple of days.
• Spot treat with Zote soap or Oxygen Bleach. Both last for a very long time and work pretty well.
• Use homemade laundry soap. Making it is super easy (and I think kind off fun). I am not going to claim that it works better than anything else but I do think it works fine and it is tons cheaper!

This is the recipe I use:

1 bar soap. (I use about any kind)

1 cup washing soda

1/2 cup borax

Water

Grate (or I shave it with a knife) the bar of soap into a little water in a pot on the stove top.

Cook it until it is dissolved. In a bucket (I use a 5 gallon one) put 3 gallons hot water.

Add dissolved soap water to the bucket. Stir. Add washing soda. Stir. Add borax. Stir.

Let it sit overnight (It will thicken up while sitting) and use one cup with each load of wash.



Math- learning to love it - I hope!

The month of April is Mathematics Education Month, National Poetry Month, National Garden Month and National Kite month. Special designations that hardly anybody knows or cares about but I think they are kind of fun!

  I have been thinking about the Mathematics part and trying to think how I can make that subject more fun, interesting and easy for my kids. My kids all do pretty well at math but it is none of their favorite subject. I don't care if it is their favorite but I would like them to enjoy it more.

  We are using Saxon Math this year (it was ACE for the older two last year) and I think they do a very good job. They are very thorough and explain things well. For the older two kids the books are reusable as well (they write the problems and answers on a separate sheet of paper). So far I like it best of anything I have seen. Mara and Aaron are happy with it too, Jonathan doesn't like it so much but right now I am not sure if he would like any Math book. Some other homeschoolers have recommending both Math-U-see and Singapore Math but I haven't really looked into them.

   One thing I do know is that my kids enjoy Math that isn't in a book form quite a lot more than doing a workbook page. I would think that having fun doing real life math would make the books be much easier to do later.

  Today Aaron and I  (and the other kids joined in some and found it interesting too) had a fun Math project that was recommending in his math book. It was teaching about estimating as well as visualizing tens and hundreds. I had to fill several containers (I used cleaned up peanut butter jars) each with their own different things in it. For example one had beans and others Legos, clothespins, toy cars and rocks. We also had a paper on which to write our estimate of each jars stuff down on and then later to record the actual amount.

 When we were counting the stuff, if there was a lot of anything we used some old juice cups and put ten of the item in each cup and then if we filled up 10 cups we put all of those in a bigger cup to make 100.

Estimating went pretty well on everything but beans. I only had the jar a little way full but there was still a ton in there (they were small). We counted out 100 and had hardly done any. Then we counted 200 and 300. There was still way more in the jar than what we had counted and we were tired of counting. So we decided to skip counting the rest but try to figure out how many we had by weighing (with our handy dandy kitchen scale that we just got at a second hand store) the 300 we had counted and then weigh the rest of them and do the math required to figure out approximately how many there would be.

  All of the kids got involved and we had quite a bit of fun working together on those "math problems". It reminded me again at how much more fun it is to work with something physical when doing math. I am not at the point of thinking that I intend to quit the math workbooks but I do want to really encourage and offer opportunities for my kids to work on math outside of the books. Here is some ways that we can do that:

Learning about money

• Let them work for you and pay them something.
• Have them buy their own treats at the store. My kids use much of their money to buy presents for others which I am quite happy to encourage.
• Let them run or help run a garage sale or bake sale.
• Play games like Monopoly or Life, they don't use real money but you still get used to adding and figuring out what you can afford, etc.
• Teach them how to budget. Last year Jonathan had fun making a whole piggy bank system with banks for each of these categories: Tithing, long term savings, spending, gifts and savings for a big Lego set.
• Get or make play money and let them play "store".

Fractions

• Let them bake or cook. There is lots of practical fraction use in doing that.
• Have them figure out how divide things up (like candy, cookies, raisins, etc.) evenly between themselves.
• Talk about it whenever you have pizza or pie or something else like that that you are cutting up in pieces.

Weights and Measures

• Help them or let them build something where you need to measure.
• Let them use scales and measuring tapes. My kids (boys especially ) love just playing with them. Just having them available will help them learn. Last week the boys wanted to rearrange their room. I gave them permission and then went in to find that they had measure each piece of furniture and measured all the spots where they wanted to put them before they started moving anything.
• Teaching them how to sew and either use a pattern and measure to make sure it will fit or design your own pattern.

Basic Math

• Play Dominoes. Great for adding and knowing how to count by 5's.
• Notice "story problems" in your life and ask them to help you figure them out.
• Have them help out as you go shopping and figure out how much 3 lbs. of apples would be or how much something costs per ounce.

There are many, many more ways to use math in everyday living but I am running out of time to write, So...
Please leave your great ideas in the comments!

A nest necklace

 Are you enjoying Spring? I have been, even though I woke up this morning to fresh snow and then after melting some in the afternoon it started snowing again. I am enjoying that too but I am still excited about the real coming of Spring with birds singing, nest building and flowers blooming!

  I love this season, mud and finicky weather and all!

A while back I saw the idea for a nest necklace in a couple of different places online. I thought it was quite sweet and didn't think it looked to hard to make and I had everything I needed to make it.

I decided to make one for my sister Martha's birthday.

 I used decorative wire and coiled it up and twisted it around to make it look like a nest, then I took 3 pearl beads for eggs (my sister has 3 children, so one to represent each of them) and threaded a wire through them to secure them in place. Then I threaded a ribbon through the top. It was fun and easy to make. I think I might make one for me too.

Have you been making any projects lately? Has Spring really come to your area? What do you like about Spring?

 

Homesteading fun!

   I am once again joining Homestead Revival's homestead Barn Hop. We have had a lot of fun "homesteading" activities this week, for the most part in thanks to my parents. We are so blessed to be able to live near them and get to enjoy their homestead with them. They are way more advanced in "homesteading" than we are and we enjoy spending time over there and are blessed that they share much of the harvests with us too.

My Dad's goats having been kidding (that means having their babies) the last couple of weeks. I believe there are 13 babies so far. Last week we went over for a morning so the kids (my human ones) could have fun playing with and helping name his kids (the goat ones).

 Megan wanted to hold a baby. I helped her get it in her arms and then it decided to suck on her ear. She wasn't too fond of that but found it rather funny when Grandpa told her that the baby was trying to find some milk. That baby had "lost" it's mother. No mother was claiming it and Dad had been very busy when the goats were arriving (with church work) and so had somehow gotten mixed up on which baby went with each mother. The baby goat (who Megan named Daisy Flower) is now getting bottle fed.

Mara got to help give Daisy her first bottle.

 All of my kids have fun holding the babies. They each named one and left the others for cousins to name.

   With the coming of baby goats, my parents now have goats milk again. We are very blessed to have them share with us. When the goats are dry I drive 20 minutes (each way) to a natural dairy farm to get milk but I am happy to have that chore over with again for a while.  Mom and Dad also share eggs with us. Farm fresh eggs taste so much better than the ones from the store! Also in the picture is garlic which also came from Mom and Dad's. They raise a big crop.

 I took a picture of the meal above because I had fun thinking about how I knew where basically everything came from. The milk is from Dad's goats, The chicken were raised at Mom and Dad's and the kids and I helped to butcher them, The broccoli came from Mom and Dad's garden, The potatoes we gleaned at fields in our area, The wheat in the bread came from our area and I ground it, the bread also has pureed Swiss chard and pumpkin in it which both came from Mom and Dad's gardens.

 My seeds came last week! I will be starting some inside pretty soon. The beginning of the gardening season is always so exciting!

Today we went over to my parents to help some more (we had gone over at the beginning of the season too) with maple syruping. Today was our first boiling day. I would guess nearly 100 gallons of sap has been collected so far (today and earlier) and it was time to boil.

  We cleaned up the boiling pan, set up the wood stove and then poured the sap in.

 The boys and Megan enjoyed working on the fire.

 Mara thought she would try a taste of the sap.

 We did a lot of hauling! It was so fun to get out in the sunshiny weather and get some exercise and fresh air.

Those are some of the fun activities we have done in the last week. We have more fun things lined up for this week. God has certainly blessed us with a wonderful life.

If you have kids that love to read (or if you would like them to love to read!) don't miss my current giveaway of two Imagination Station books!

Imagination Station Series {Review and Giveaway}

 A while back I was asked if I would like to do a review on Focus on the Family's "Imagination Station" Series books 1 and 2. They are geared for kids ages 7 and up, good moral books and also were historical. In my mind that is a pretty winning combination. I have sometimes had trouble finding good easy chapter books for Jonathan to enjoy. So I said I would be happy to review them.

  Well after a week or two "Voyage with the Vikings" and "Attack on the Arena" arrived. The kids were quite excited- especially Jonathan (who is 9). He ended up reading both books twice the very day that they came in the mail. They each have 15 easy chapter (just over 100 pages) with a few illustrations thrown in every once in a while and they were fun!

  Later on I read them out loud to all the kids (especially for Aaron's sake as he isn't ready to read them on his own yet) and they were enjoyed by all even Jonathan though he had read them many times by then. We enjoyed following Patrick and Beth on the Imagination Station to Greenland where they met Eric the Red and Lief Ericsson. In the second book we went with them in the Imagination Station to Rome and learned about Christians being taken to the arena to be gladiators and the end of that practice.

  The books had lots of action which was quite appealing to both of my boys. The girls and I enjoyed the books too however. Jonathan is impatiently waiting for more in the series to come out! I thought you might enjoy reading this interview with Marianne Herring:

Paul McCusker

Marianne Hering



Imagination Station Blog Tour


Q&A with Marianne Hering






1. What inspired you to write the Imagination Station series?


Paul (McCusker) had always wanted to write stories about the Imagination Station. When looking to do a kids’ series about it, we chose early elementary to introduce new readers to the Adventures in Odyssey world. We also wanted to touch on a group of kids that didn’t have many Christian books written for their level. There seemed to be a gap from picture books to later elementary readers.


2. The Imagination Station device is well-known to fans of the radio drama Adventures in Odyssey. Why did you and Paul decide to use it in a book series?


It lends itself to stand-alone adventures. It’s a fascinating device. Why wouldn’t he want to write about it? It allowed us to write about settings outside of Odyssey. We’d like some of the books to augment the history kids learn from public school textbooks or TV. The Imagination Station radio dramas are also among the most popular. We thought that kids would like them, that’s all!


3. The first two books focus on the Vikings and ancient Rome. The next two books focus on Kublai Khan and the War of the Roses. How did you and Paul decide which historical events to write about?


They just seemed interesting and we thought they’d be popular with boys. I also looked through the Bennett books on core knowledge to make sure the things we write about would be taught in schools. Also, the Rome book is based on an actual Adventures in Odyssey radio drama. It is one of our favorites, and so we wanted to retell the story. The Kublai Khan book started out to be more about Marco Polo, but Kublai took the stage. He was a fascinating character. We don’t always decide with concrete objectives. Most times the story just sounds plain old fun.


4. How true to history are the books?


Now, this is a spoiler. Mr. Whittaker isn’t real. Neither are Patrick and Beth. Though they are named after Paul’s children. Patrick and Beth are his children’s middle names.


Most of the events are based on sagas, legends, or some sort of historical base—except for book 4. All the characters in the War of the Roses story are fictional. For plot purposes, I sped up the storytelling. For example, the events in the Kublai Khan story took place over months, not hours. Same with the Viking book. I wanted Leif to leave for the New World shortly after he brought back the gospel from Norway. In reality, a lot of time passed between the events.


I did make some vocabulary exceptions. For example, Marco Polo was Venetian, but I called him Italian—a more familiar term for the readership. But the basic events of books 1 to 3 are true, and the War of the Roses did occur in England with Lords fighting their neighbors, etc. We really just wanted to write about the jousting. Paul did a lot great research for the jousting scene. I had to cut a lot of it, and that made me sad.


On the website The ImaginationStation.com, I’ve listed what’s true and what’s exaggerated for each book. There are also nonfiction pages for the kids to read about Leif Ericsson and the other Christian heroes.


5. These books are geared towards young readers, ages 7 and up. What is the number one issue that children learning to read struggle with?


Speed processing. The kids who are slower reading learners usually need more help with sight words and fluency. That’s just practice at an accessible reading level. These are just slower readers in general—I’m not counting kids with true auditory processing issues or other learning disabilities, which represent between 3 and 10 percent. Most kids can learn to read better with one-on-one instruction and a loving atmosphere. I’ve posted reading tips on the website for each book and lists of words to practice before tackling a chapter. See TheImaginationStation.com.


6. What kinds of books do you recommend children read?

I don’t only recommend books. There are fabulous magazines out there for this age group. Not all kids like fiction, so magazines draw them in with nonfiction and pictures. There are some good book series out there—I personally give my children the tried-and-true series written years ago, like Beverly Cleary’s Ramona books. My boys enjoyed the Horrible Harry books by Suzy Kline. My daughter was a Gertrude Chandler Warner/Boxcar Children fanatic. Parents can ask librarians to recommend books. One of my sons loves anything about animals in the nonfiction section—I don’t make him read fiction unless it’s for school. I do have to review their books first, and that can take a lot of time, but it’s worth it.

7. What are some ways that parents can help their children develop their reading skills?


(Get their vision checked for not only vision but for tracking issues as well.) Turn off the electronics and make reading a fun time. You can read to them or they can read to you. Make reading an event. Your kids will complain for about two weeks while the electronic addiction wears off. Then they will be better able to engage in literary pursuits. For free reading, let your kids read “easy” books. Don’t judge. If they want to read Hop on Pop twenty times, that means that’s where they are comfortable. If you push your kids beyond what they perceive to be the right level, they will rebel. Better a lot of fluent reading at an easy level than choppy reading at a higher level. Reading with starts and stops is a bad habit to let them get into.


8. What encouragement can you offer parents who may have reluctant or struggling readers?


I can encourage parents by letting them know that there are GREAT reading programs for kids. Most kids, 60 percent, need extra help at home to make it to the fourth grade reading level. That extra help can come from parents who gently and lovingly make reading a family hobby. There is no lack of teaching material, and your school districts should be able to help you find the right tools. The biggest factor in children’s success at school is a loving parent who takes the time to work with their children. One of my sons could not learn to sound out letters quickly enough to “hear” the word. I couldn’t help him, and so I hired a reading specialist who was more of a cognitive trainer and we worked through his auditory glitch. There are some terms to search “phonemic” awareness and “phonograms” that will help parents read more about how to help emergent readers. When the kids know how to sound out words, speed training on sight words can jump start their reading fluency. On the website, TheImaginationStation.com, I’ve prepared this long essay on how use a metronome to speed up your child’s reaction time to sight words. It’s under the book The Attack at the Arena. Don’t give up. Virtually every kid can learn to read well enough to go to college if his or her parent(s) invest in them.


9. What do you hope kids will walk away with after reading Imagination Station?


A smile and a desire to learn more about history and faith in Jesus Christ.


10. Can you give us any “sneak peeks” into what we can expect in future books?


Book 5 is a Bible story, a familiar Bible story. The title is “Showdown with the Shepherd.” I think that’s a fairly strong clue.


Book 6 is about Miles Standish and William Bradford and Native American relations. It centers on a certain holiday in November.


That will end the first story arc. As for the next set of 6, that may depend on sales of the first set. (That’s a strong hint to readers to buy the books so we can keep developing the series.)


Be sure to check out the click book for book 1 at TheImaginationStation.com. That way you can tell if these books will be at the right level for your kids.

If you have young readers, especially boys, I highly recommend these books!

And guess what? One of you gets to win a set (books 1 & 2)! If you would like to be entered to win, please leave a comment below and tell me who you know that you think would enjoy these books. Be sure to leave me a way to contact you (and not just a link to a blog that you never use) should you be the winner.


This giveaway will end on Sunday, April 10th.

And the winner is.....Sue D.  Congratulations Sue!