Bible Alive! Tuesday - Christian Ethics for Children

For Bible Alive! Tuesday, a monthly meme over at The Fantastic Five, I want to share with you about a family devotional book we've found excellent for teaching Christian ethics.

I love reading the Bible, in fact right now I'm listening through a downloadable audio version of The Bible in 90 Days, from our local library, of all places. This is another fantastic resource by the way. You might not have time to sit and read for the hour or so a day required to read through the Bible in 90 days, but listening along while doing mindless chores, like folding the laundry or cleaning up the kitchen, which require your hands but not your mind, is no problem at all.


I also encourage the older children, in our case ages 10 to 14, to read two chapters from the Bible a day, at least on "school" days. Doing this they've read from Genesis through into I Chronicles. My goal is to see them read through the Bible from cover to cover at least once while they are still children - something I didn't manage to do until I was an adult.

As I've mentioned before, we've been fortunate to have Phil Vischer creating the What's In the Bible series in pretty close step with the children's reading. So, I've had Phil to explain "the sticky bits" as he likes to call some of the less than child friendly passages in the text. Watching the DVDs is also a good chance for review and summation of what the children have read.


The younger children (ages 5-8) have their own scripture routine involving a lot of memorization for AWANA and Sunday School. We have the music CDs that put the AWANA verses to music, and the younger children listen to those at least once through every day, making the memorization process a snap.


Bible reading, and daily Bible reading is fantastic, and something I highly recommend for any Christian (actually I'd be thrilled if all my non-Christian friends would give it a try too). But, at some point, it's important to take all of that knowledge and apply it with understanding to the situations of daily life. That's what I mean by Christian ethics, and that's what we've found being taught through the devotions in Allan Hart Jahsmann and Martin P. Simon's Little Visit With God.

The devotions are short, about a page of reading. A scenario familiar to children is laid out, a scripture passage is read and applied to the situation, and discussion questions are suggested followed by a possible prayer for thought. Even though the lessons are short and simple enough for young children to understand, they are thought provoking and challenging, even for adults.

We were given an older copy by a family who enjoyed the book when their children were younger, so some of the names and situations have an old fashioned, "Dick and Jane" kind of feel, but the lessons being taught are still relevant. There is a 2006 printing of the book, updated for today's readers. We haven't had any problem with the older version though, the Man of the House simply substitutes names like Josh or Brianna for Orville and Sue, and has the children sneaking off to play video games instead of heading to the fishing hole.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Candy Corn Addition and Simple Spelling

I spent some time yesterday, cutting candy corn pieces out of construction paper, using a template I freehanded onto cardboard. Luckily candy corn are pretty easy shapes to draw.


I used the construction paper pieces to prepare some simple math and spelling for today, by printing out addition problems on one side of the pieces...


...and letters on the other for making up three and four letter words with vowels in the middle, and consonants with a few blends thrown in on the top and bottom pieces.


I scattered the pieces, letter sides up, across the table...


...for the children to piece together over and over...


...forming various words, to their hearts' content.


For the addition work, which was really more for E (age 6) and C (age 5), I placed the pieces out to form the problems, and had them locate the matching answers from the pile.


Of course, once I pulled out the bowl of actual candy corn to use as manipulatives...


...their older brother was pretty quick to volunteer his tutoring services.


It's great to be a homeschooler.

Science Sunday - Squash

For Science Sunday this week, the science themed link-up hosted by Adventures in Mommydom, we turned to Alton Brown, our favorite kitchen scientist, for a couple of lessons about squash.

First off we watched the episode of Good Eats entitled "Squash Court", to learn all about winter squash - the kind of squash we have in abundance right now. Then, we followed it up with a viewing of "Squash Court II", to learn about summer squash. The second episode was really the most useful to us, as Mr. Brown not only explained the Algonquin origins of the name of the fruit, but also presented us with a physical demonstration of the make-up of a plant cell, and what happens when it is exposed to a salt brine drawing out the water stored inside.

It's a pretty interesting, and delicious looking experiment. You can check it out yourself at the link above. The demonstration also goes very nicely with another squash based experiment from Vicki Cobb's Science Experiments You Can Eat, which I had already planned to carry out with the children.

Cobb's experiment deals with the cellulose in the cell walls of the squash, and how it can be broken down to "soften" it. Generally, we use heat to break it down, but Cobb suggested that adding an acid to the equation might speed up the process.

The experiment involves setting up three pots for boiling cubed pieces of squash. In one pot the squash is boiled in plain water, in another vinegar is added to the water, with baking soda in the third. The squash can be checked every minute or so after the water is brought to a boil, to see which pot of squash softens first.

I liked the idea of the experiment, but wasn't so sure about mixing three pots of boiling water with six children in a tiny kitchen. Since we've already seen the effects of heat on squash several times over the past week or so, I decided to set the experiment up another way.

Yesterday morning, I placed three pieces of squash on the counter for the children to observe, one in an empty bowl, one in a bowl of water, and one in a bowl of vinegar.


As you can see in the pictures above and below, by this afternoon the squash in the empty bowl had the texture of a dried out piece of sponge.


The squash in the bowl of water had almost the same texture as when I had first placed it in the water.



Meanwhile, the squash in the vinegar had turned all mushy, and was starting to fall apart.



So apparently, an acid alone will eventually break down the cellulose in the cell walls of the squash.

Needless to say this was not a science experiment we could eat, but I did save plenty of the rest of the squash for far tastier, if less scientific, experiments of my own. Though at this point, I'm still far from winning more the most minuscule of battles in this year's squash war.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Counting Books and a Manipulative

Apart from pumpkin, squash, and bear books we've been reading as many counting books as we can find. The we in that last sentence refers mainly to C (age 5) and myself, but we often have onlookers peeking over our shoulders wanting to know what all the fun is about. In the case of Teddy Slater's "Math Reader" ...98, 99, 100 Ready or Not, Here I Come! which deals with skip counting, it turned out to be useful for E (age 6) to be reading along, as well.


Our favorite for the week was Curious George Learns to Count from 1 to 100, Counting, Graphing, Mapping, and More! I was pleasantly surprised with the book. On first glance it seems to be a standard counting story, and I checked it out mainly because it was one of the few available at our library for counting over 10.

The story, as you might imagine is not the most engaging you might find, as George moves from item to item trying to find 100 things to count, on his way to a centennial celebration with the Man in the Yellow Hat. After 20 we stopped trying to count the items illustrated on each page, and instead just read along.

Even so the story was excellent for practicing number recognition, and there were fun extras packed into the illustrations. The book cover does not lie in promising "counting, grouping, mapping, and more". The "more" includes a recipe for lemonade, instructions for folding paper airplanes, outdoor craft fun, and enough "I Spy" type activities to attract even my eight year old.

It's a good book to read through once, and then leave for children to pore over on their own.

And after that counting fun, I was thrilled to find instructions for making a counting rope at love2learn2day. It's an idea she picked up from Kim Sutton at a recent math conference, and received permission to share a video tutorial. Be sure to go check it out at the link above. The instructions are simple, and the possibilities for use are endless.

I made one for C using a set of alphabet beads we had on hand for making name bracelets and the like, so she can not only practice counting, but can firm up her understanding of alphabetical order as well.

And don't forget to click over to the What My Child is Reading link-up hosted by Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns for more children's book reviews and recommendations.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Homemade Chocolate Gingerbread Candy Corn

The snow in our forecast keeps getting pushed back day by day. I'm not sure if it's just the weathermen covering their bases, or if it really looks like snow is on the way.

When I checked news this morning, I noticed the snow has been moved to the 30th - National Candy Corn Day. And since we usually have a mini-gingerbread unit to celebrate the first snow of the season, I thought I should probably have some gingerbread candy corn ready just in case.

It took three tries modifying the candy corn recipe from HomemadeDessertRecipes.com, we normally follow, but I finally came on a candy corn that tastes slightly of gingerbread, and is child approved.

To make your own, follow the recipe linked above, but prepare three bowls for the step where you divide the dough into thirds, one that is empty, for the vanilla stripe, one that has 1/4 teaspoon molasses mixed with 1/4 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice and two drops each of yellow and red food coloring, and one that has about a teaspoon of unsweetened baker's cocoa for a chocolate stripe, because really if gingerbread candy corn is good, chocolate gingerbread candy corn has to be even better.




Then, proceed as per the original recipe. Snow or no snow, it's a pretty good fall treat. Young children won't be able to help with the first parts of the recipe, but they can use a butter knife to help cut the candy corn shapes, and they make for excellent taste testers.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Roasted Acorn Squash Seed Harvest Snack Mix - Let the Squash Wars Begin!

Fall is a beautiful time of change and color. It's also time for the battle drums of the squash wars to begin beating around our house.

You see, I'm married to a squash hater. Apparently, he had some very terrible squash experience as a child, that turned him against the entire gourd family for life. Apart from pumpkin pie and zucchini bread, he'll have nothing to do with any of them.

Now, I'm not exactly a squash enthusiast myself, but I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. My thinking is anything that can be turned into something as yummy as zucchini bread, and grows so abundantly across the country, has some good qualities worth looking into.

So, every year I place "find a new squash dish" onto our fall to-do list, and every year my dear husband announces ahead of time, he will not like it, eat it, or have anything to do with it. Naturally, where their father leads, the children follow.

In fairness, I should mention, at that at this same time of year there is another war - the elk and venison war - raging through our home, as well. It's been twenty fall defeats for the Man of the House on that front, with the possible exception of the grain fed, eastern Montana venison he brought home last year, but that's another story. Today we're talking squash, and more specifically, acorn squash, because that was the first of the winter squash to go on a really super low price sale at our local grocery store. And, it just so happens I've found a couple of acorn squash recipes to be hopeful about.


As a bonus, while I was searching for really delicious, squash-haters-must-try recipes, I also came across a few mentions of roasting squash seeds.


I can't tell you how happy this makes me, because my normal fall routine is to search through bin after bin of sugar pumpkins, looking for the smallest and least ripe in the bunch in order to obtain pumpkin seeds tender enough to be really good for roasting, ones that will provide that delicious, nutty/pumpkin flavor, but without the woody, stick in your teeth, hulls of say a jack-o'-lantern pumpkin's seeds.

Apparently, all I had to do was cut open an acorn squash. The seeds are perfect for roasting.


Their flavor is slightly different than pumpkin seeds, but still good, and the texture is much less woody. Once you've separated them from the squash, rinsed off the goo, and patted them dry, spread them out on a greased cookie sheet (I sprayed mine with Baker's Pam), and sprinkle them generously with salt and cinnamon.


Bake them for 30 minutes at 300 degrees Fahrenheit, and then toss them, hot out of the oven, in a baggie with 1 teaspoon of sugar.


They are a delicious snack warm, right out the bag, or cooled and mixed with dried cranberries, and butterscotch chips. In fact, the Man of the House got ahold of the bowl last night, and devoured it all, with some help from me, before the children even got a taste. Don't worry, the acorn squash are still on sale here, so the children will get their share yet.


In the meantime, here's a little extra for my blogger buddies out there. Did you know that your fridge can serve as a makeshift light box on these short autumn days, when there's never enough light to get a good photo after about three in the afternoon? Clearly my fridge was too full last night to make it really useful...


...but crop in the photos, and take a look at the difference. The fridge photo on the left looks so much more like it was taken in natural light.


Of course, sometimes a golden hue isn't a bad thing. I kind of like picture of pureed squash under the incandescents.


For those of you who haven't tried acorn squash I have to say, the puree above was as rich, and buttery, and delicious as it looks, just plain from oven to blender to spoon. In fact, I was so impressed with the taste, and feeling confident from the harvest mix reception, that I stuck a spoonful out for the Man of the House to sample.

He didn't spit it in my face, but let's just say I still have my work cut out for me.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Pine Cone Candy Corn

Sadly, our goldfish died over the weekend.


Don't worry, that's not a picture of him "floating", just one of the few shots I could find of him in the background of another picture. We didn't take a lot of photos of him, because...well...he was a goldfish. Other than for a few incidences of leaping suicidally from his bowl, he wasn't very exciting.

Still after five and half years on our mantel, his absence has left an empty spot.


We discussed buying another fish, but the children felt it would be disrespectful to the memory of their pet to replace him so quickly. It will be the Christmas season soon, and we'll inevitably have some decoration to stick up there anyway.

In the meantime, I thought maybe a few of the pine cones we had left over from the bats might do the trick.


They were alright in a woodsy, Montana kind of way, just lacking a little paint...


...to give them that festive touch.


I have mentioned that National Candy Corn Day is just around the corner, right?

It's great to be a homeschooler.