Chaos

We've moved. We're moved. We're unpacked. Well, my family is unpacked. I have a problem with unpacking. It overwhelms me. My clothes is still in boxes and laundry baskets. (but I know where it all is!)

And our library is a disaster. I have the shelves. I have the baskets (ask me about the GREAT deals I got on baskets at SERRV last week!!!) I have my stuff in boxes in the room. The baskets are even on the shelves (see, Honey? I made progress today!!!). This is a disappointment to the cat, BTW. Maple has declared all the baskets his. Even the cutlery baskets. How you can sleep with one foot in each section and your gut over the divider is beyond me, but then I'm not a cat.

Anywho.

We ARE doing school. The girls, who unlike me, do not have an unpacking problem, packed their school benches into a concise box and then promptly unpacked it back into their benches upon arrival in the new house. Thus, they are able to do school. We're even reading. I found Daniel Boone and we've finished that book.

Next on tap is the Erie Canal. Oh, after we finish America Travels.

I think I threw some markers in a cutlery basket today. Problem is, that's not really where I want them. I'm not sure where I really want anything. THAT'S the problem.

Anyone want to come over and help me organize and decompress?

I Open My Hand

With our move, I'm finally biting the bullet and clearing out books we seldom use.  

I am a self-confessed book-a-holic.  A Bibliovore.  I have a small addiction.  And now I have an even smaller library in my new house, so some things have got to go.

My biggest obstacle is thinking that "Maybe one of the younger kids will use this someday." 

Well, true.

They might.

They HAVE!

I have materials I am very successfully using with Daisy and Pepper that RoseBud had no interest in.  I recognize that the boys may not be the same kind of learners that the girls are.  They may well require different methods and different materials.

Does that justify my holding on to stuff we have never touched? Just. Open. The. Hand.  Let it go.

Does it justify holding on to "deals" I bought when RoseBud was an infant (ok, a toddler) which have now been reprinted twice?    Just. Open. The. Hand.

Have I not learned which materials work best for me and for the kids?  Mainly for me.  If I can't use it, it's unlikely they will get to use it.  Too crafty, too much planning, too advanced, too wordy, makes the kids cry when they see it, yada yada.   Just. Open. The. Hand.

And with the increasing amount of stuff on the internet, I'm finding I just don't use books in the same way I did as a kid.  Like today's earlier post on the Star-Spangled Banner, for instance.  There are so many cool resources out there.  Granted, I am still a hard-copy paper kind of girl.  I like to have it in my hand and page through it.  But for storage purposes, I'm all for hosting it on someone else's server! Just. Open. The. Hand.

So today I begin to loosen my grip, begin to open my hand.  Let it go.

Oh, Say Can You See

Today we read about the War of 1812 and the Star-Spangled Banner (the song and the flag).

The girls were thrilled because they remember when we were at the National Museum of American History in 2006 and SAW the Star-Spangled Banner.  It was still under renovation at that time and we saw it on its rollers in the lab.  Very cool.  They always say, "Is that that big flag we saw that they were sewing on?"

Here are our flag connections for the day:

We were awed to compare the size of the real Star-Spangled Banner to our house.  Our kitchen/dining/living room is 18 x 40 (ish)  The flag is 32 X 40!  Whoa!

The Star-Spangled Banner at the NMAH

Be sure to play the quiz game and collect the 14 stars to earn your certificate on SSB trivia!  We got them all correct.

Last night we were watching a rerun of Antiques Roadshow in Texas and a flag collector there, when asked if there were any flags he did not have that he WOULD like, (he had over 600!!!) said, "the Star-Spangled Banner!"  (can you believe I found the clip!  Is there NOTHING that is not on the internet????)

I sang all three "popular" verses of the SSB to the girls this morning.  (I'll spare you a demonstration) The third verse is little known and seldom sung (but I bet you know verses 1, 2 & 4, don't you!  I hope you at least know verse 1)

Enter a SSB singing contest sponsored by the NMAH on YouTube

Listen to the original English drinking song from which the melody for the SSB was taken!

Check out a rendering of the Star-Spangled Banner by one of my favorite illustrators, Peter Spier.

The Latest

Daisy has been having trouble seeing, so she had to get glasses

Here the girls are giving and receiving spelling words. Daisy is 100 lessons farther than Pepper (although Pepper can spell most of Daisy's words!), so they took turns reading each other their spelling words.

Pepper is beginning to multiply. Here she is buzzing about her multiplication bees! I drew flowers, each with a product in the center. The bees had the factors (I know there is a complicated math word to describe those but I'm too lazy to look it up and I never liked it anyway. Who needs addends and divisors and dividends and multiplicands and rubber bands and so on. 5 times 4 is 20. The end.) Anyhoo.... she had to match the right bees to the right flower. She loved that activity!

The Most Common Presidential First Name

is.....

not Barak.

It is actually James. There were 6 presidents thus far whose first name was James.

Second place? John and William tie with four each.

George has 3

Franklin 2

Andrew 2


What president was elected to 4 terms?

What president served 2 non-consecutive terms?

What president gave the longest inaugural speech and served the shortest term? (if you paid attention to the inauguration, you caught this little bit of trivia)

How many presidents have been impeached?

Who was the fattest president?

What president was never elected as either vice president or president?

How many father/son presidents were there?

How many presidents were assassinated?

Who was the first Black president? (you'd better not get this wrong, unless you've been living under a rock somewhere in the jungle!)

Do You Like My New Header?

I made it myself!

The background is from The Cutest Blog on the Net (click on the little blue box in the upper lefthand corner for a link) and there are directions there for making your own background and header.

Yay me!

Chana Masala--This is to die for!

In case my one blog reader wanted to try this dish my kids couldn't get enough of, here is the recipe.

Chana Masala

2 cups cooked chick peas (canned, drained, or cooked yourself)

1 t. tamarind concentrate

2 T. oil

1/2 t. cumin seeds

1 large onion, thinly sliced in half rings

2 (or more) garlic cloves, crushed

1 inch piece fresh root ginger, grated

1 fresh green chili, finely chopped (I left this out, although I do like it)

1 t. ground cumin

1 t. ground coriander

1/4 t. ground turmeric (I use about a tsp. I love turmeric)

1/2 t. salt, or to taste

8 oz. tomatoes, peeled and finely chopped (I used 16 oz. tomato sauce--I like it saucy)

1/2 t. garam masala

chopped fresh chilies and chopped onion to garnish

No fancy photos on my blog. Here are the directions

Heat the oil in a large heavy pan and fry the cumin seeds for 2 minutes until they splutter. Add the onion, garlic, ginger and chili and fry for 5 minutes.

Stir in the cumin and coriander with the turmeric and salt and fry for 3-4 minutes. Add the chopped tomatoes (sauce). Bring to the boil and them simmer for 5 minutes.

Drain the chickpeas and add to the tomato mixture together with the garam masala and tamarind. Cover and simmer gently for about 15 minutes. Garnish with the chopped chilies and onion before serving.

Serve over rice or with hot naan.

Couldn't be easier! And it tastes even better the next day.

There. I feel better now that I've shared that. I hate to post such a delicious-looking picture and leave y'all to search the net for a recipe.

phew!

Free to a Good Home

1985 World Book Encyclopedia Set, Like New, a little dusty.  Tan and brown.

I'm guessing you'll want to be a local friend to take these!

Memorize the Presidents

Found here

George Washington leads them, the great and the true.
John Adams succeeds him and Jefferson, too.
Madison follows, and fifth comes Monroe,
with John Quincy Adams and Jackson below.

The term of Van Buren to Harrison's leads;
Tyler, Polk, Taylor, then Fillmore succeeds.
Pierce and Buchanan, and Lincoln in turn,
is followed by Johnson and Grant we discern.

Hayes, Garfield, and Arthur, and Cleveland we score.
Then, Harrison is followed by Cleveland once more.
Then, comes McKinley and the full dinner pail,
and one called "Teddy" who to Cuba, did sail.

William Taft his government began
and Woodrow Wilson, a marvelous man;
Harding, Coolidge are next in the rhyme.
Then, Hoover and the people had a very hard time.

F.D.R. was great in both peace and war;
Truman was striving for what we were fighting for.
The former General Eisenhower
brought the Republicans back to power.

John Kennedy's victory in the race
was for the New Frontier in the "Age of Space."
Lyndon Johnson led the people -- the free and the brave,
with a goal to achieve and a country to save.

Nixon swore to uphold our creed
of liberty, life and every man's need,
but by Nixon these rules were ignored.
So, to take his place was President Ford.

Then, came Carter with a cheery smile
to run our country "Southern Style."
Then, Carter's smile left his face,
and Reagan came to take his place.

"Dutch" stayed two terms, and Bush filled his station,
bringing with him a "kinder, gentler nation."
However, only one term did George H. W. Bush fill
when along came Clinton, known as Bill.

Eight years of great economic changes took place,
but Clinton's impeachment brought him disgrace.
The new millenium arrived with a close election.
The Electoral College chose George W. Bush as its Presidential selection.

A song from YouTube



Using silly names to help you remember

More Underground Railroad Resources

Harriet Tubman and the Freedom Train

Two Tickets To Freedom: The True Story of Ellen and William Craft, Fugitive Slaves

President of the Underground Railroad: A Story about Levi Coffin

Escape From Slavery: Five Journeys to Freedom

Freedom Train: The Story of Harriet Tubman

A Day in the Life-January

I wake to my usual alarm clock--Banana Boy screaming at Sunshine over something. Neither boy is dressed. Wrastle BB into his clothes and tell him 5 times to go brush his teeth and go to the bathroom. Tame his wild hair. He asks me today if he has girl-hair (he's been growing it out "to his ankles"). I say no, it is boy-hair. Well, the kids at school have been telling him it is girl-hair. Would you like to cut it, then? Yes! Now! After school, I tell him.

Wrastle Sunshine into HIS clothes and convince him it would be a good idea to p[oop on the potty and not in his diaper.

Try to convince Rose Bud that she should let me drive her to the bus stop since the wind chill is 35 below. She leaves on foot.

Get BB dressed for the outside world and into the van. Leave Daisy in charge of getting Sunshine dressed for his bus.

Pull out of the driveway and turn up the hill to the bus stop. Spin wheels on the icy road and go nowhere as the bus turns the corner and picks up RoseBud. Drive BB next door (downhill) to get on the bus with the neighbors. Back the van to the bottom of the hill so I can get back up to our driveway.

Put Sunshine happily on his little bus (the school van) He LOVES school and riding his little bus.

Make coffee and listen to Daisy say her AWANA verses. Encourage Pepper to practice hers. Argue with Pepper that she should practice her review verses even though she hasn't heard back from her missionary yet.

Start rice in the rice cooker for my breakfast. Stir the chick peas I soaked last night and am cooking this morning. Decide Chana Masala would go really well with my rice.

While making the Chana Masala, check Daisy's math and help Pepper with her math. Pepper started out excited this morning since it was more measuring and using the scale, but quickly got herself frustrated by the fact that it was different today (grams) than yesterday (kilograms). Once she lets herself get frustrated, she shuts down and won't accept any new information or help. Got her through the lesson and she moved off to the couch to weep over her difficult life.

Listened to Daisy do her grammar and read her her spelling words. Got her started with her writing topic for the day. Did I already say how we do this? I have slips of paper in a cup with a topic on each. The girls pick a topic and then label their page with the topic and the date. Then we set the timer for 5 minutes and they write anything they want related to the topic. They aren't supposed to worry about spelling or penmanship or punctuation, just get the ideas out. Today they picked the topic of Banana Boy.

While Daisy wrote, I snuggled Pepper on the couch.

Rice and Chana Masala were done, so I got to have breakfast. The girls got themselves each a bowl of rice for snack. I suggested they try the chick peas and they both went wild over how good they were.

I suggested Pepper just write five sentences instead of for five minutes. She thought that was a great idea and happily went off to write about her brother.

Both girls had more rice and chickpeas.

Daisy finished up her president for the week (John Adams) and begged to begin Thomas Jefferson.

Pepper decided doing her spelling list with the Bananagrams tiles would be awesome! Hey, we have to change it up once in a while.

Now they are going to play Bananagrams while I read our latest book, The Last Safe House to them.

This is another great book. It actually includes information on all the topics we've touched on so far, including the Slave Trade, abolitionists, plantation life, etc. It doesn't go into as much depth as we have, but this book on its own would be an excellent way to just touch on the subject, espeially for a 1st or 2nd grader. One of the activities in this book was to make gingerbread cookies. The girls were all over that and except for creaming in the egg with the butter and sugar, they did it all themselves!

Life on a Plantation

This week we've been reading the chapter in A Kid's Guide to African American History on life on a plantation.  The girls haven't wanted to do any crafts or eat grits and collard greens, but we have read through everything and had lots of good discussion.

Here are the books we used:

Life on a Plantation

The Strength of These Arms: Life in the Slave Quarters

And the girls' personal favorite  Uncle Remus: The Complete Tales (of Brer Rabbit)

We're also going to listen to some songs such as Blue-Tail Fly (you can listen to an easy-to-understand version here and read the words in heavy dialect and not-so heavy), 

Pick a Bale of Cotton (YouTube video of Leadbelly singing --skip the comments discussion) 

and Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. (this is a beautiful acapella version which downloaded automatically into my iTunes.  There is a link here to the Wikipedia article on this song also.)

Next week we'll investigate the abolitionists, Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad.