Posted by Cindy on March 14, 2007
This meal was brought to us by Edith, a homeschooling friend, after Eli was born. She recently shared the recipe, and I thought I would pass it on…. It’s so quick, so easy and so good!
PENNE HAM SKILLET
1 lb. cooked penne pasta
3 c. cubed fully cooked ham
1 sweet red pepper, diced
1 med. onion
1/4 c. minced fresh parsley ( I used dried)
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 tsp. dried basil
1/2 tsp. dried oregano
1/4 c. olive oil
3 Tbsp. butter
1 can chicken broth
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
Saute ham, red pepper, onion, parsley, garlic, basil and oregano in oil and butter for 4-6 minutes (until veggies are tender.) Stir in broth and lemon juice. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, for 10-15 minutes until liquid is reduced by half. Stir pasta into mixture and heat through. Serve with Parmesan cheese sprinkled on top. Yield: 6 servings
Posted by Cindy on March 8, 2007
This is what I was tryin’ to say the other day! http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/jaminacema/228122/
I ran across this by chance today and knew it would be very helpful to those of you who were interested in trying lapbboks. Now, if only I had been this organized the other day, right? I have an excuse I didn’t find out I was teaching until Sunday. 
Posted by Cindy on March 6, 2007
What a pleasure this group has been! This summer, a few moms of girls ages 8-12 got together to organize a Keepers At Home group. We meet twice a month and use the Keepers At Home Handbook as a loose guide when planning what to teach the girls. The moms take turns teaching classes – choosing what we feel most comfortable with. After the class, the girls and moms get to sign off in the Handbook that a certain skill was learned and the girls earn a little bracelet charm (handmade) to add to charm bracelets we gave them in the beginning.
This picture is from our decoupage class.
The girls are having a ball! Each meeting starts with the Keepers At Home song, then one of the girls prays. The mom who is leading the lesson usually begins with a short devotional first. So far, we’ve had classes on decoupage, soap making, cleaning, horses, dessert baking, yarn doll making and hospitality/tea party. Some of the classes yet to come this year are cake decorating, safe computer downloading and cookie baking.
This picture is of two moms who “helped” during a cleaning relay. Lucky for me, I was pregnant at the time and couldn’t take part!
Our biggest goals when putting the group together were (1) to teach the girls unique skills and (2) keep it cheap! Most of us had looked into Girl Scouts or American Heritage Girls and liked the concept, but not the price tag or the large amounts of time each took. So, we found this alternative and have been very pleased. We keep it casual, small, simple and try to make most projects/lessons free or cheap.
What’s so wonderful about this program is:
*it can be used by any age girl.
*any size group (even one girl and her mom) works.
*the projects/lessons can be as in depth or simple as you see fit.
*the handbook gives you tons of ideas, but you aren’t tied to any particular order or curriculum.
*it teaches skills that are not only fun, but useful for a future woman/mom/wife/keeper of the home.
There’s more, but I’ll let you check it out for yourself! http://www.keepersofthefaith.com/Catalog/KeepersClubsIndex.asp
In case your wondering, they have a boy’s program, too called Contenders For The Faith. I would love to see the dads of our group put together some of these activities for our sons.
Posted by Cindy on March 4, 2007
Jelly Beans
* Give kids a handful to sort and create a graph showing what they have. They can make a pictograph, bar graph, pie chart or spreadsheet.
* Estimate how many are in a jar, then create arrays from each color to make counting easier.
* Give handfuls and ask kids to make “fair shares” with the beans. “How many beans would each person get if there were five friends coming over? Or two friends? What about eight friends? Will there be any leftovers? Is there a way to fair share leftovers?”
* Older kids can find the mean, median and mode in their handful of jelly beans.
* Create 3-dimensional shapes using jelly beans and toothpicks – cubes, pyramids, etc.
Plastic Eggs
*Put magnetic letters inside eggs. Have kids pick several eggs out of a basket and create as many words as possible from the letters.
*Create simple matching games for little ones. For example, write number words and numbers on small pieces of cardstock and place in eggs. Kids open eggs and try to make correct matches. You could do this with any number of skills: contractions, math problems, clocks, money, homonyms/synonyms/antonyms, etc.
*Put vocabulary words in eggs. Have your child draw a few eggs and create a great sentence, paragraph or story using the words.
Art/Crafts
*Cut small squares from tissue paper. Mix 1 cup of warm water with 1 TBSP of vinegar. Dip a piece of tissue paper into water, then lay on the shell of a hard-boiled egg. Add more tissue paper to the egg. When dry, peel off tissue paper for very fancy colored eggs.
*Save your colored shells after eating the eggs. Crush them into small pieces and create mosaics by gluing the crushed pieces onto stiff paper.
Rabbits
Whether you do the Easter Bunny or not, spring is a great time to do a mini-unit on rabbits. We’re going to put our info together in a lapbook. Here’s what we plan to research:
*What’s the difference between a rabbit and hare?
*What is a rabbit’s habitat?
*What do they eat?
*When are they active?
*Do rabbits have predators?
*What defense mechanisms do rabbits use?
*What parts of the world do you find rabbits?
*Do rabbits live as families?
We’ll also:
*draw rabbits and label their parts
*create a diorama of a rabbit habitat
*create map showing where rabbits are found
*write a rabbit tale
*do some sort of rabbit food recipe
*check out lots of rabbit fiction and nonfiction from the library
