Fairy houses and tree dwellings...

Its our official homeschooling, kindergarden day number 3... 

and yesterday we  visited the beautiful "Tyler Arboretum" in Pennsylvania.  

The Tyler Arboretum encompasses 650 acres and is home to ancient trees, rare plants, historic buildings  and beautiful hiking trails.  They had a fantastic exhibit called "Nature's enchantments" and it displayed over 30 amazing, artistic tree houses that children could climb and explore.  It also had through out the grounds, little fairy dwellings, houses and villages that artists had created  and the children had to find.  There were goblin houses, troll bridges, hobbit gardens, wizard workshops and gnome cottages.  

We had an amazing time!  So much fun! (and already a field trip on the first week of school!) ;)

Here we go!

A goblin house

A wizard's home

a beautiful bridge

A fairy home under a bridge

running wild in the fields...

forest spirits

A troll bridge

A little gnome cottage

A wizard's potions and spells workshop

More tree houses

A pixie village on a pond

It was a beautiful day!

We also read a great and inspiring book called "Fairy Houses" by Trace Kane and 

tomorrow we are going to go collecting materials in the forest, to start building our own fairy house outside.  

Green day...

I would have to say that one of my favorite, super fast soups to make is a "green" soup.  Totally vegetarian and I kid you not when I say it takes about a half an hour to make ... probably including prepping time.   This one has potatoes in it, onions, spinach and parsley.  That's it! ... well, salt and pepper too.

Most people associate a good potato soup with some form of cream in it, (and probably bacon too).  But potatoes are so starchy, that they don't really need anything to cream them up, the starch does the job.  

I begin by browning some onions (2 medium) in some olive oil (a tablespoon or so) and as that is cooking at medium heat, I chop some potatoes (red or white about 8-10 medium without skins) and toss those in.  If you have some veggie broth toss that in (enough to cover the potatoes and have about an inch extra of water on top)... but if you don't, toss in some water (cover the potatoes leaving an inch above them of water).  I like to add a vegan veggie bouillion cube if I don't have veggie broth.   I like the brand "rapunzel".   I then add salt and pepper to taste and bring that to a boil.  I test the potatoes for softness.  If the potatoes are done, I lower the heat and  toss in about 10 oz of baby spinach, and a handful of parsley leaves.  (I am generous with the parsley since i love the taste...but that is up to you.)

I then use my hand held blender to puree the whole soup and turn off the heat.  

The trick I love is to wait till the soup (mainly the potatoes) is done, to then add the greens and puree.  It helps to keep them bright green and retains most of their vitamins.

And you know what?  kids love it.  Its been well tested here by many.

I also snuck in some pickling... 

(though daddy did most of the work :)

These are from the same pickling book i used before,  (the joy of pickling by Linda Ziedrich)  and are called "honey sunshine".  

They contain cucumbers, onions, raisins, jalapeños, celery seeds, mustard seeds, honey, ginger and turmeric.

Today ended with some running around in the green grass of the day.

The breeze reminded us that fall is around the corner 

and summer is saying goodbye for now.

Looking forward to the colors of fall.

Sun Bread by Elisa Kleven

We are beginning to learn about the solar system and all its stars, planets, our moon and the sun.  

Today we began by reading the book  "Sun Bread" by Elisa Kleven, a beautiful story about a wintery gloomy day and a little baker dog who bakes a beautiful sun bread and makes the sun come out to brighten his village.  

We made our own delicious sun bread and watercolor paintings of our beautiful and very important sun! 

YUM!

here's her beautiful painted sun!

(we also sang "you are my sunshine"  Elizabeth Mitchell's version.  We love her CD's!)

Bursting with writing...

Honeypie has been attempting writing on her own with plenty of gusto.  Here are some of her first attempts .

I think letter writing is a great way to get kids excited about writing, being that the inspiration always comes from love and the need to communicate. That eagerness can erase the worry of the "am I spelling it right?" fear.   The anxiety of "spelling it right" can  halt the flow of writing to focus more on correcting. I focus more on getting kids excited about writing without correcting (inventive spelling)... there will always be time later for that.  

Keeping a list of sight words that they have memorized or can write correctly can always happen simultaneously to this process.  But the focus is to let writing flow.  

Story writing is a great way to get kids imaginations and writing flowing too. Kids that love to read, also love to have their own story read aloud! 

I work next to honeypie as she comes up with a story first,  draws her story pages second and then she writes her words . 

We focus on the beginning of the story (introducing characters and main idea), middle (what happens next in the story) and end (resolution).  

Here's a list of words she feels confident she can write...

(Lunch box, leaf, ladder, horse, secret, sticker, goldfish and napkin.)

A Van Gogh painting...

A letter to her fairy...

an icepack for uniqua...

Rainbow brite

(A letter to her swimming teacher...)

"I love you brian so much.  

I'm going to be a swimming teacher when i grow up.  

You are so nice."

and here's a story written by honeypie...

"Unicorn Wishes" 

The unicorn was walking in the woods and then she planted a money tree.

She picked up a twig and pocked it... nothing happened

and crystal felt braver

She ran home as fast as she could

What's wrong my little one?  (said the mama unicorn)

She turns into a star

"watch this!", (she says)

"Come back this instant!!", (says the mama unicorn)

I think I'll keep you little rock!

The end

In retrospect... I'm a crappy speller.  

If it wasn't for spell check, I don't know where I would be... seriously.

but i do love to write and it is always the first type of communication I chose, when my mind is crowded and I need to express...

I think journal keeping is amazing, (as is blogging to the masses of who knows who reads this...) ;)

and i think "that" is more important than stuffing it all inside......... just sayin'.

^_^

Vegan zucchini spelt muffins

Today's yummy breakfast muffins comes via the book "Vegan Brunch" by Isa Chandra. If you have not heard about Isa and you are vegan, you should!
She is a great vegan cookbook author, whose books include "vegan cookies invade your cookie jar" and "vegan cupcakes take over the world".
Her recipes are so delicious that it makes you forget you are dairy-free and meat- free!!
What I love most about this book is that it shows you how to make vegan breakfast meats like chorizo and sausage and her pancakes and waffle recipes are more on the whole grains, low gluten side.
Spelt (which is used here) is a low gluten grain from the wheat family and it gives these muffins a nutty wholesome taste. The moistness in the recipe comes from the zucchini, almond milk and flax seeds.
The only down side to the book (which my sister pointed out) is that she chose to display herself holding some waffles with fruit on the cover... (Anyone can make that) ... I would have showcased her lovely veggie tofu scramble, her non-cheesy spreads and homemade bagels or her samosa mashed potato pancakes ...
But then again ...
If I was the queen of vegan, I'd put myself on the cover as well... Heh heh.









I added walnuts and raisins to the recipe. I think the raisins sweeten the deal!

Cider-vinegar pickled beets

We made these lovely pickled beets today and the recipe comes from the September issue of food and wine magazine. The beets were delicious and so quick to make.









The recipe calls for:

1 cup of cider vinegar
1 cup of water
One small red onion thinly sliced
4 garlic cloves quartered
1 tsp of mustard seeds
2 bay leaves
2 cloves
1 1/2 tsp of black peppercorns
2 tsp of dried thyme
1 tsp of dry oregano
And 2 lbs of red beets peeled and cut into 2 by 1/2 inch sticks

-boil the beets in salted water for about 10 minutes and they are crispy but tender
-boil the rest of the ingredients in a separate pot
-drain the beets when they are done cooking and in a glass, heat proof bowl or jar, add the boiled liquid (vinegar etc)
-refrigerate over night

Enjoy !


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A day in the life...

A day in the life of a 5 year old...
:)












































- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone