Posted by Cindy on August 12, 2008
DIng Dong, the schoolroom’s done!
The schoolroom’s done!
The schoolroom’s done!
Ding Dong, the big ol’ schoolroom’s done!
This little tune from The Wizard of Oz has been going on in my mind ever since we finally tackled the schoolroom this morning! School was supposed to start this week. I don’t know about you, but I just can’t wrap my mind around a new school year until everything in the house is in place. Instead of a pregnant woman nesting before birth, I nest before school! LOL
Anyway, we decided to hold off for one more week on our studies while we tackle some much needed areas of the house. By the time the week is finished – Lord willing – we will have a fresh, clean and organized house through and through!
This morning’s big job was the schoolroom. Remember the picture I showed you at the beginning of summer break? Well, I’d picked and poked at it off and on over the summer, so it wasn’t quite that bad, but we still had A LOT to do.
Clean school desks.
Organized books.
Organized resources.
Organized craft supplies, manipulatives, colored paper and folders and science kits.
Remember the bookshelf? It’s now home to our chapter books and basic school and art supplies.
A semi-organized play area for little guy.
A new toy jail downstairs so little guy can’t break in and free the captives while we do school work.
And a new spot for linens since the new toy jail used to be my linen closet.
The last task for the schoolroom may or may not be done any time soon. Hubby has promised to put in florescent lights (or some other lighting solution) in place of the very dim “regular” lights. Our schoolroom is in an upstairs bonus space. It’s a wonderful room, but very dim because we only have four small windows, two at either end of the room. Come winter time, I *need* more light. I believe I suffer from SAD anyway, but I think anyone might with the lighting in our schoolroom. Hopefully, hubby will tackle the lighting project soon.
I’d love to go on a “tour” of your schoolroom. (I’m always looking for wonderful organizing and decorating ideas!) Let me know if you post about your schoolroom any time soon, or if you have already!
Posted by Cindy on August 9, 2008
Candace asked for these recipes. I thought others might benefit, too. So here ya go…..
Both of these recipes came from the cookbook I found at the www.msgmyth.com website.
Shake-n-bake Mix
- 4 1/2 cups dried bread crumbs, finely crushed
- 1/2 cup + 2 Tbsp flour
- 6 Tbsp paprika
- 2 Tbsp + 2 tsp salt
- 4 Tbsp sugar
- 2 Tbsp onion powder
- 2 tsp oregano
- 2 tsp thyme
- 2 tsp (or less) red pepper
- 1 tsp sage powder
- 1/2 to 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
Mix well and store in airtight container.
To uses: Dip meat (chicken or pork) in oil, then shake in a cup or two of the mixture that has been placed in a plastic bag. Bake approximately 1 hour in a 375 degree oven. Turn halfway through baking.
White Sauce (aka Homemade Creamed Soup)
- 2 Tbsp butter
- 2 Tbsp flour
- 1 cup milk
- salt and pepper to season
Melt butter and add flour. Cook on low heat, stirring at all times, for 1 minute. Add milk and whisk smooth. Cook, stirring until thickened.
Variations:
- Add 1/2 tsp dry mustard, 1 additional cup milk and 2 cups cheese for cheese sauce to be used with vegetables or mac-n-cheese.
- Add parsley and minced onion, then add to sliced potatoes for scalloped potatoes.
- Beat 1 or 2 eggs with 1 cup milk and add to cream sauce, then cook until thickened. Add to top of casseroles, pasta dishes, cooked vegetables, stuffed peppers or eggplant. It’s a tasty substitute for cheese. A tsp of parmesan cheese or nutmeg is a good addition.
- Add curry, paprika, garlic powder and any favorite herbs.
- Add 4 large chopped mushrooms to the butter, then saute for 2 minutes before adding the flour. Thin with water to desired consistency for mushroom soup.
Posted by Cindy on August 8, 2008
School is just about up and running again and schedules are getting back on track. I sure love the freedom that summer brings, but I’m always ready to get back on schedule. School schedules, chore schedules, weekly engagement schedules. Somehow, life is just calmer when it’s scheduled (around here anyway.)
Here’s a rough sketch of this year’s daily schedule and school routines.
- Breakfast
- Praise, Prayer, Bible
- Chores
- School Work
- Lunch
- Free time for big kids while mom gets little man down for nap
- While little man naps – read alouds and/or game time
- Free time for big kids to explore nature, handicrafts, projects, play, cooking….
School time is shaping up to look something like this:
Mahayla
Mon Tues Wed Thur Fri
Bible w/all Bible study Bible study Bible study Bible w/all
Saxon Saxon Problem solving Saxon Problem solving
Spelling Nature Study Spelling Spelling Spelling test
Journal Artist Tea Writing Blog Foreign lang
Grammar Lap Club meeting Grammar Grammar
Typing
30 min reading 30 min reading 30 min reading 30 min reading 30 min reading
Piano Piano Piano Piano Piano
History History Chemistry History
Caleb
Bible w/all Bible study Bible study Bible study Bible w/all
Math Math Math Math Math
Phonics/Read Read Alone Phonics/Read Phonics/Read Read Aloud
Spelling Nature Study Spelling Spelling Spelling Test
Journal Artist Tea Cursive copywork Cursive copywork Foreign lang
Grammar Club meeting Grammar Grammar
Piano Typing Piano
History History Chemistry History
You can see many of our curriculum choices here. We will do the following subjects together as a family:
- Some Bible
- Nature Study
- Artist Tea
- History
- Chemistry
Our small county homeschool group already meets for Creation Club and 4-H. Since both groups already meet on Tuesdays, we decided to add two more clubs to round out the month. We’ll have a club four Tuesday afternoons a month. The other clubs will vary between art, chemistry, a book of the month club and play dates thrown in for good measure.
Oh, and I got the wonderful idea to dedicate a morning to nature and art (integrating other subjects) from my beautiful friend, Melissa. Our Tuesdays should turn out to be wonderfully rich and exciting.
Posted by Cindy on August 3, 2008
Summer break has officially begun for us, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to do. Have you ever met a bored child in the summer? That’s one of the worst types of children to be around! 
Children homeschooled Charlotte Mason-style are usually good at keeping themselves busy, but I have a trick up my sleeve for those inevitable times when the kids need an idea or two for fun on their own.
Throughout the year, I’ve been gathering fun things and hoarding them away in a box that I’m calling the Super Sensational Summer Sparks box.
I’ve found cheap experiment sets, art/craft books, manipulatives and such at curriculum and yard sales that I’ve stashed away. I’ve also pulled out some things that have been sitting on the shelves for a while that will seem like new.
One or two afternoons a week, I’ll let them browse through the box for an activity. The box will be off limits the rest of the time so it will seem like a treasure chest waiting to be explored. Or at least I hope it will. As the box is emptied, I’ll fill it again with new items. I’m even thinking of adding things like a baggie of ingredients for play dough, a box of shells with a magnifying glass, a bag of water balloons. Things I already have around the house. I have a feeling that finding these things in the Super Sensational Summer Sparks Box is going to be much more fun than if I just say, “How about making some play dough today?”
Posted by Cindy on August 2, 2008
AKA – Our Red Food Coloring Story
Even though I shared my MSG story first, I really believe that this story is a more important message. Why? I see children every single day that are either out of control and their parents are at their wit’s end OR the parents have already lost hope and have put their children on a brain altering drug like Ritalin only to wonder if there’s a way out.
Let me back up for just a minute and say that I don’t intend to offend anyone who either is going or has gone the Ritalin (or some other medicine) route. I’m in no way judging you, I promise. I am only speaking because of the countless parents who have said to me, ” I wish there were a way to get him/her off this medicine. My baby isn’t the same.” I’m also not here to say that Ritalin is a bad drug or no one has true ADHD. I don’t believe either thing for one second. Again, I’m only telling my story and hoping that it might benefit someone.
First, let me introduce you to Mahayla.
She is truly one of the sweetest young ladies you will ever meet in your life. She cares deeply for others, will do anything for anyone, can run a household by herself and gladly takes on most tasks set before her. She is very bright, a wonderful friend, and generally a quiet and calm person. She is extremely obedient and wants to please her parents.
Not so when she was three. I found myself in the pediatrician’s office without Mahayla, but with my husband discussing with the doctor our options for my truly wild, loud and uncontrollable child. Lucky for me, the doctor refused to label her as hyperactive at three. Even though I could check off a “yes” for every single symptom of a child with ADHD, the doctor said there would be no way to start medicine in a child as young as her and we would have to wait until she were at least five.
Let me stop here and say that medicine is NOT my first choice for any situation. It certainly wasn’t here either. We were simply grasping for something, anything that would tame this wild child.
She wasn’t a wild baby. In fact, she was a wonderful baby – happy, a great sleeper, a good eater. By two, things started changing. She was getting louder, harder to get to sit still, less obedient. You might say, “That’s normal, Cindy!” Yes, but by three, it wasn’t at all normal. We would hear her screaming (for the fun of it) from her Sunday School class on a different floor of the church. We would watch her literally climb walls at out house. What was most apparent, though, was that she wasn’t ALWAYS like this. Often, yes. But always, no.
We would catch glimpses of a “normal” little girl in all her sweetness and then turn around a hour later and her eyes had almost glazed over as she turned into the Tasmanian devil and couldn’t be stopped.
After being sent home by the pediatrician and told we would just have to wait it out, I cried out to the Lord telling Him that I knew she needed some sort of help. Her parents needed help, too!! Just like with my MSG story, once I cried out to Him, low and behold, the answer was there almost immediately.
Again, the internet was where I turned. All of the sudden, every search kept leading me to the same things – artificial food colorings, artificial flavorings, Feingold, artificial preservatives. I didn’t know exactly where the answer was in the midst of everything I was reading, but I knew it was there. Her problems didn’t start until she started eating “real people food” which made complete sense with all I was reading.
The word that kept popping out at me the most was RED food coloring. So that’s where I started. And, praise the Lord, that turned out to be the culprit. We got rid of everything red, pink, purple, and orange. As long as those colors were gone, we had a normal four year old again. As soon as something “slipped” in, her eyes would glaze over within an hour’s time and she would be w-i-l-d, whiny and uncontrollable again. The effects would last for hours.
Very few people believed that red food coloring was really the answer. My family raised their eyebrows (until they saw the proof first hand!) The pediatrician said she seriously doubted food coloring was the culprit and suggested we see and allergist for food allergy testing. The allergist gave us some vague food allergies she had, but thought there wasn’t enough research to suggest food coloring allergies were real. The Sunday School teachers scoffed when I asked them to run all snacks and drinks by me before feeding her. But we KNEW it was real. We lived with the proof daily!! No red food coloring = a sweet little girl. Red food coloring = someone else. Someone else in attitude, stature, facial expression and action. The scariest part was the change in her eyes – this child wasn’t my own. I’ve heard other moms mention this change in the eyes, too.
As Mahayla’s gotten older, she is actually better able to handle red food coloring. Mind you, not in large amounts. If she happens to accidentally ingest a decent amount, she no longer goes wild, but she gets jittery, s-u-p-e-r cranky and v-e-r-y emotional. And it takes a couple days to wear off completely. I know you’re asking how an 11 year old accidentally eats or drinks red food coloring. It’s really very easy. Just like MSG, red food coloring is hidden in things you would never expect – blueberry muffin mix, prepared brownies, cereal….
I also ought to mention that it took a long time for Mahayla to understand that she had to make the choice to say no to foods and drinks with red food coloring. I had to be the food police for several years before she was able to recognize the change in herself when she ingested it. She prefers to stay as far away as possible now because she knows how awful it makes her feel.
Anyway, in trying to wrap this up….WE HAD A NEW CHILD! A child that was set on the path to Ritalin and a lifetime label of ADHD was “cured”. Of course, she never really had ADHD, but that’s where her path was headed if we hadn’t found the truth.
I read all I could from the Feingold site and in trying to get rid of red food coloring, we actually attempted to get rid of as much of the artificial colorings, flavorings and preservative as possible. We’re not fanatical about this, but do our best. If they (Caleb struggles with red coloring, too) are offered colored things at a church function or a party, I allow it as long as it isn’t red. We typically don’t buy much with those ingredients at our house, though.
I’m passionate about sharing this info with parents who care to hear. I’ll be happy to answer questions or tell more detail to our story if anyone is interested. Just ask.
Here are some websites that might be helpful:
About.com
Allergic Child
All Natural
Nature Moms
