Saturday, April 17, 2010

Odds & Ends

I finally used the canner I got for my birthday!  I canned chicken stock, and I think it even worked!  I had to start over, because I didn't have the gauge on tight enough to begin with, and it was leaking steam, but I figured it out!  So, I have eight almost pints of chicken broth to use whenever I want.  Right now they are on top of my cupboards.  They are almost pints, because the instructions said to leave an inch of space.  I might have left a little too much space, but anyway, they are canned!  I'm also trying to make ginger ale, from the Nourishing Traditions cookbook.  We'll see how it turns out.  It calls for Rapurda for a sweetener, which I don't have, so I used sugar, and it called for lime juice, which I don't have, so I used lemon juice.  It could be ginger ale when I'm done, I guess!

The chicks went to the garage about a week after we got them, because they started jumping out of their pan.  I didn't really want chickens in my bed!  The chick with the sore wing has fully recovered.  They have about half of their feathers, now.  We installed a 10 X 10 dog run behind the garage, and Mike started putting the chicken wire around it yesterday.  We need to put some sort of wire over the top, and build the house to go inside next.

Rory entered a baking contest at our homeschool support group last Tuesday.  He made peanut butter cookies.  He didn't win, but the cookies turned out really good!  He had to make them all by himself.  The only thing I could do was put them in and out of the oven.  Boy, was that hard to watch!  I wanted to help so much!  But he did it!  I was also very proud of him, because although he was sad when he didn't win, he did not get visibly upset, and he went right back to playing with his friends.  That is a big thing for him - he tends to get upset over everything.  So, it was a good contest even though he didn't win.  Plus, we got to eat peanut butter cookies!

If you're wondering where my second curriculum review went, I decided not to do it.  We actually did try the curriculum, which was about firefighters.  However, neither of the curricula that were sent were really something I would have picked for myself, and using them took time away from our regular studies.  From what I understand, I could receive up to 70 different things to review in a year, which is more than 1 a week.  It took me most of a morning to write the review for the one I did, (especially since I always have so much "help" around here), so I decided it wasn't really worth my time to get involved in it.

I am currently looking for a new math curriculum for Rory for next year.  He has done okay with the one we used this year (Singapore Math), but it seems to be moving very fast for him.  I actually skipped a little of it, because it seems to go in a different sequence than most curricula.  I am considering using Math Mammoth for next year.  Any math people out there, please take a look at it and let me know what you think!  I did order one of their single-subject e-books on place value, because that seems to be something Rory has continually had trouble understanding.  He has done a few of the pages, and said he liked it.  One thing I like about it for him, is that it has very basic illustrations, instead of the colorful ones in his current book.  He gets distracted easily with too many pictures, even when reading books, so I think this may be easier for him to concentrate on.  I also like that it is only one book, instead of three different ones for each level like the current curriculum we have.

I set Rory up with his own computer account this morning.  He also has his own version of Google Chrome, which at this point has Webrangers and Lego.com on it. He doesn't have e-mail or anything, and I didn't show him how to search for things, but this way he can start to learn how to navigate things by himself, without my having to find his programs for him.  It gave him something to do this morning, since his baseball game was cancelled because of rain.

Mike has been having severe stomach problems for the past few weeks.  He went to the doctor Monday, and was found to have H. Pylori, which is a bacterial infection in the stomach.  He is now on two different antibiotics, as well as Prevacid, twice a day.  Please pray that this will work, and that the antibiotics will not mess his digestive system up worse than it already is!  If anyone knows of a natural way to deal with this infection, let me know.  The doctors only want to prescribe pills.  They didn't even mention that he should be eating yogurt (which he hates anyway), or taking acidophillus (sp?) pills along with the antibiotics, which I only know from having to have antibiotics for Lyme Disease years ago.  They also told him that ginger would not help with the nausea.  I guess they have never been pregnant!  Of course, teething doesn't cause babies to get sick, either.  Hah!

I guess that's all the news that's fit to print, right now!  Off to the rest of my day.  Happy Saturday!

3 comments:

  1. I like Singapore Math combined with Daily Word Problems by Evan Moore. When my kids outgrow this, I like Life as Fred. I also use web games from academicskillbuilders.org to practice math facts.

    I blog on math at http://pragmaticmom.com. Search my site for multiple entries:
    Math Workbooks, 2 posts on Life as Fred, multiple posts on picture books for math concepts. Also, see my footer for the free web games.

    Hope this helps!

    Pragmatic Mom

    ps I don't homeschool; we do this to supplement Chicago Math/Everyday Math at school.

    ReplyDelete
  2. HI Robin,

    My latest postings are, “Spring,” “A Feast,” “Love Lifts,” “Wake Up to Serve” and “Soul-itude.”

    Please stop by and leave your comments!

    http://inspiredbyron.blogspot.com/


    Ron

    ReplyDelete
  3. Math-U-See was a favorite around here. If you need to take a look at mine, I still have some though they are obviously further along than where Rory would be.

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for leaving your comments - I love to hear from you! I read each and every comment before publishing it, so bear with me if there is a slight lag between when you leave your comment, and when it appears on the blog. I will get it up as soon as possible so that everyone can enjoy your thoughts!

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...