Cool field trip

I'm a little slow getting around to posting lately- but we had a great field trip last week- We went to the Aggie Ice Cream factory and store store-

We watched a short movie about making ice cream, then went into the back and they showed us where they make cheese and ice cream. Bug, Doodle and their friends

The best part of course- was the free ice cream they gave us after the tour.

A few of my favorite cookbooks

I just got a GREAT cookbook in the mail from Amazon. I Can't Believe it's Food Storage
I'm not a newbie to Food storage- a couple years ago- we went a whole month living only on our food storage, and I can make a mean yogurt. Lately that's ALL the powdered milk has been used for- But after visiting this blog- http://everydayfoodstorage.net/ a few times- I decided it's time to bump it up a notch and re-incorporate some of those food storage items back into our daily menus. So yesterday morning for breakfast I pulled out the book- and tried the crepes recipe. My boys (Roo especially) LOVE crepes with powdered sugar on them for breakfast. I've tried using powdered milk in them before- and while the boys would eat them- I could taste the powdered milk taste in them- and didn't like them. But this crepes recipe was AWESOME!! I coudn't taste the powdered milk at all- and it even used powdered eggs too! At any rate I give it a huge thumbs up!

My 2nd favorite cookbook Girlfiends on the Go Deseret Book has it in stock- It is a freezer meals coobook with tons of great recipes for freezing. The author is my cousin- and she's an amazing cook. In our ward we have a great little Freezer meals group going- each month we bring 2 different meals for the 3 other families in our group and exchange them. And We each go home with enough meals for twice a week for that month. I get most of my recipes for our little group out of this great cookbook. The hardest part is deciding which delicious recipe to do next month!

Middle Ages Fun

Doodle and I spent a few weeks learning about the Middle Ages. We "rowed" the book- The Duchess Bakes a Cake" by Virginia Kahl. It's a fun rhyming story, and we had a great time learning about Knights, and all things Middle Ages. It's amazing how sometimes when we "row" a book- things just fall into place to make it even better. We finished up The Duchess Bakes a Cake last week, and have spent this week on other things- but Tuesday or Wed I got an email about a Rennisance Festival- and they had a homeschoolers discount (thank goodness! Cuz I'm not sure it would have been worth full price!) So today the boys and I met our friends at the Rennisance Festival. There were all sorts of booths selling costumes and knives and swords (that really impressed some little boys I know) A cute puppet show, and a magician doing a few tricks. But the best part of all was the Jousting. Huge thanks to Bug's friend- who was my photographer- who did an AWESOME job with the jousting pics!

My Knights in Shining Armor!
Doodle did some notebook pages for The Duchess Bakes a Cake- Most of the notebook items came from Homeschool Share - one of my FAVORITE resources. (I'm writing another unit study for their Homeschool Share Blast! Watch for it!)

A page on Alliteration- (the alliteration in the story is SO fun! As the Duchess makes a "lovely, light, luscious, delectible cake" At the top is a mini-book on measurement- as the duchess does NOT measure- we did some measuring- and compared how many tablespoons it takes to make a cup, how many cups for a quart, and how many tablespoons to make a quart.




Doodle's Vocabulary page- he didn't want to cut them apart and make cards with the words- just leave them all on one page- I'm fine with that- as long as he writes the word somewhere so we can look back at the vocabulary we learned





We talked about Complimentary colors- as the colors in the book are red and green. So Doodle made a color wheel, and connected the complimentary colors.

The next page is "What should I eat" We talked about Calories and how a cake isn't all that healthy, and talked about Healthy foods.
Doodle told me "I already know this- we talked about healthy foods at church on Sunday" (Huge thanks to Awesome Primary teachers- I know it doesn't always seem like they are listening- Doodle especially- but they do learn!)

The Sir Cumference Series was a huge hit- We especially liked Sir Cumference and the Knights of the Round Table- It talked about diameter, radius, and the circumference of a circle in a way that Doodle will never forget- You can't see them very well- but he drew some circles, and drew the diameter, radius and circumference in different colors.
A few great go-alongs- Ms. Frizzle's Adbentures: Medevial Castle and Gail Gibbons' Knights in Shining Armor Doodle who has discovered Chapter books- loved Magic Tree House- The Knight at Dawn

Hatching Day

It's Hatching Day at our house- We have oodles of pheasant eggs- and a dozen chicken eggs in the incubator- so far 6 have hatched- More pics to come as more hatch!

The "Boys" fishin trip

Somewhere Ben heard about trout spawning up by Flaming gorge- and apparently it was supposed to be REALLY great fishing- so he decided to take the boys and go. I had a few things I needed to do- so I told him go without me. So Friday night we met Ben in Ogden, and he took the boys and the fishing stuff and headed out. They spent Friday night in some little po-dunk motel, and then got up really really early saturday to go fishing. Apparently the fishing was excellent. They forgot the camera- so I took the pictures after they got home- the limit was 4- so each of them caught one- and released TONS.

The Boys and their Fish According to Roo- he caught "The hugest fish in the world" Is was 24 inches! So it is a BIG fish!Much bigger than those little pan size we catch at the cabin. According to my boys- the best thing about catching fish is EATING them. So we had fish for dinner Saturday night, Fish last night- and there's still more to cook for dinner tonight. Bug's Fish-Doodle with his catch

Benjamin Franklin Boys Club

Once again it was Boys Club day at our home- (For more info on our Homeschool Boys club- Here) We had a great time- Our book for this month was Benjamin Franklin: Young Printer I just LOVE the Childhood of Famous Americans series. They are easy reads- but they are interesting Biographies. Maybe I'm the only one- but biographies sometimes are dry and boring- to many dates and places, and not enough "story" to them. These books are all story. It's exciting to read about important people's childhood. First we discussed the book- the favorite parts, the type of person Benjamin Franklin was, how his family life was etc. Then we had a short presentation from one of the boys in the club. (Each boy has a turn to do a presentation on something they are interested in- gives them a chance to do a little public speaking) We did our Notebook pages- VERY simple- if you are interested in them- drop me a comment- and I can email them to you- they have a pic of Benjamin Franklin, lines to write what you admire about Franklin, and what inspires you. The 2nd page has a place to draw a picture of your favorite part of the story and lines to write about it. The last page simply has a timeline of Benjamin Franklin's life- and I included a few quotes from him.

To go along with Benjamin Franklin we made Tetrahedron kites (ok- so maybe Benjamin Franklin's kite wasn't a Tetrahedron- but he did fly a kite- there's the tie-in). Here is a link to patterns and instructions to make the kites- The kites were a little tricky- but they were a definate hit! I think everyone enjoyed making them- and flying them was even better! Here's a few pics of the kites flying. Bug Flying his kite-

A Moment of temporary Insanity maybe?

I've always been a "no pets in the house" kind of person. When we got dogs- It was always under the condition that they stay outside. We've hatched chicks- and they've stayed in the house under the condition that when it's warm enough they HAVE to go outside. Well, after visiting his brother last weekend- Ben said we should get some Cockatiels- they would be fun pets for Doodle (whose rabbit died a few weeks ago) Somehow I agreed to it- and here they are- as yet- unnamed- I'll just call them "Thing 1" and "Thing 2" they haven't found their voices yet- so they don't make much noise yet- but Bug is planning on teaching them to whistle Ode to Joy. :D We'll see!