Last year a co-worker and I were talking gardening and composting. He played a video for me of a store-bought compost tumbler and the effect of the composting tea on your garden. It was amazing and I wanted one!

But, ‘eek!’ I say, to the price of $130 for a tumbler.

I just found this video on how to make your own tumbler and I have to say, it very well may be my next project. Oh, yay, more figuring and cutting! I understand the temptation of the store-bought variety of anything. It’s fast and easy. But, there is something to say for home-made that is for certain.

Think I need to put this on the ‘to-do’ list. Besides, our regular back yard composter is full and just not as interesting. It just sits there. 😉

Thinking about any interesting gardening projects? How about this one?

 

This came in an email to me from a fellow member of a homeschool Facebook group. It looked interesting so I kept it as unread so I would remember to check out the link when I could sit down and focus on it. Sit down and focus on it. Funny, that is. Right  now the boys are playing on the piano, making their own music as I try to listen to the video. Well, there are no perfect times around here but this will do.

Please check out this video. It says a lot about our system and I don’t mean the school system we have now but even the one that existed when I was in school. I did very well in school, when I liked what I was doing, when I understood the reasoning behind what I was doing, when I found it to be relevant and to my interests. I bet most of you were the same way.

I struggle with my homeschooling some days. I wonder if I am doing it right. If I don’t sit the boys down to do their math but use a game instead am I doing it right? If I take them outside to garden, to learn about the forces of nature and how all things grow, isn’t that biology? Isn’t that learning? If I sit them down in front of a book and tell them to read it and answer the questions, narrate to me what they read or we read, do they enjoy it? Do they remember what we talked about? Will they recall events of history that we learned a week ago? All children learn differently, and I am still working on what works best for my children. I think we all want what’s best.

Whether you homeschool or have kids in school, I believe we all care that our children are learning and how they learn. That they learn what they need to know to get a job, to survive ‘out there’. But, if they don’t do well on a math test that involves sin and co-sin, tangent does it really matter if they will never want to go to university for whatever sin and co-sin would be used for? Yes, I don’t know what they would be used for because I didn’t get that part of math. It didn’t interest me and the teacher had no interest in explaining to me why I needed to know it. But, I can tell you when I go off on a tangent. 😉

We judge so often on appearance. We judge a person by paper. And I do understand this and at times there is good reason. But this video puts it all into perspective.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-eVF_G_p-Y]

We’ve read about the Civil War and days with Cobras, done our times tables and additions,  and conquered Assyria and Mesopotamia (Shamshi-Adad was so uncool, Hammurabi not so bad all things considered).

We learned about those naked Celts, painted blue wearing only a metal collar and helmet, waiting on the shores to battle Caesar’s army. Somehow they managed to keep Caesar at bay. I’d be a little freaked myself!

Lessons done for the day and it’s only 10:30.

I should put on my Wonder Woman shirt.

L’s Celtic Warrior. He’s a happy kind of blue.

The boys love playing chess and it usually involvs replacing some of the pieces with Lego. This should come as no surprise to me, and I smile every time. 🙂

These are L’s pics and he wanted me to post them to the blog. The boys have our old point and shoot cameras and are learning that using flash is not always best. That being said, I guess no-flash pics that are blurry are still the way to go. This shows me that I really have to use my camera more often…it’s just that my phone, well, it’s always close by…

More Action Pack experiments! Yes, there is a ton of fun stuff packed into one volume! We had a great time with this one. I can’t recall how many times I heard L exclaim, “This is just so cool, Mommy!!” but it was a lot and it made me smile. Yes, it was very cool!

We used six different liquids – the blue is coloured water just in case you were wondering. We used a funnel for the boys to pour the liquids in and it worked very well. I love science! Apparently, I am not the only one and Action Pack makes it fun for everyone.

Gotta love that.

~happy day all~

What floats and what doesn’t? This made the experiment even cooler for us all. The boys ran around the kitchen looking for items to drop in. Can you recognize any?

About a month ago, a  friend of mine was having a giveaway on her blog for an issue of Action Pack. Dawn and her family had created a water rocket and the project made it into this Water issue. So, in support of my friend and in hopes of getting a copy for free, I entered the giveaway. Many times I have thought about buying an issue but held back, second guessing myself because I have a tendency to get really excited about new things and then I have all of these projects to do with the boys and they just sit around. I’ve happily discovered that the great thing about Action Pack and Alphabet Glue for that matter, is we can incorporate it into our lessons! I love that! Oh yes I do!

We haven’t tried out the water rocket just yet as we are waiting for nice weather but we did get to quite a few of the other projects and are loving it!

Now X was a bit under the weather with a low fever and phlegmy cough (yum) so the plan was to lay low. But I didn’t want the boys just sitting in front of the TV all day, although it was tempting to get a ton of knitting done, or playing Legos, which is very cool but somehow I felt we needed to be somewhat productive. We had a wonderful day!

I promised X a game of Junior Monopoly from the other day when I ran out of time before work. So, this was first on the list. He always wins far and square but this time, I did, and he was okay with that.

L began working on the Action Packs word search while we played Monopoly. I think we may be ready for the regular edition soon…

Then we moved onto the water crackers. These were so easy! I had to add more of each of the ingredients as we were making ours gluten free and the flour tends to soak up more liquid. Like usual with my cooking technique, I guessed on the amounts of more water, oil and salt and hey, it all worked out. I got the boys to take turns reading the directions and adding ingredients. They should be chefs in no time, which is great, because I’d could really use a personal chef!

The boys added poppy seeds to the dough and used the we grater that we usually use for ginger to make squares!

I was a little worried that the dough wouldn’t hold well for rolling but it did indeed. We even cut out some fun shapes. I found that reusing the dough was tough, literally, so after having some fun with a bit of butterflies and bunnies I cut the rest into the less interesting (but yummy!) squares.

They turned out perfectly! Will definitely be made again and again!

Super yummy in my onion and potato soup too! I added some caraway seeds to one batch, but X was not thrilled with these so they became mine only. Oh darn. 🙂

Next, we moved onto finishing up X’s crystal catcher as he called it. Both boys received these from Santa (I think!) and L’s is finished and in the window. Still have a bit more to do for X’s but these things take time. He’s pretty good with those tweezers, too!

Onto sewing for X. He is making himself a ‘little friend’ as he calls it/him. He has so far added buttons for eyes and make it almost half way around the edges. Yes, these things take time. 🙂 Where is L? Making how to videos for Lego creations, of course! I will try to add one of the videos but it may be too long. That may be another project for another time!

Now we are onto making the watercolours and testing the pH of foods with cabbage water. This was a very cool project indeed! We ended up making all of the colours suggested in the pack but we just haven’t gotten to actually using them yet!

Whew, I’m pooped! What a great day it was. Just goes to show you don’t need tv to pass the time when one of your little ones is feeling under the weather. X is still coughing a bit today but he has his usually sarcasm back in tow so things are looking up!

Happy Friday! Today we are off to purchase some Lego (surprise!) Walkie Talkies with money the boys have earned from their readings. That sounds good to me!