History is Alive :: African Feast

We've moved to Ancient Africa in our history work...

I'll admit that I start to look twice at the "plans" I made last summer. They sure do seem like a lot of work and mess now that I'm on this side. Sure, making 5 instruments each for an ancient African band sounded like a good idea in August. Now...not so much.

But I did go ahead with plans for our Ancient African feast. Knowing full well every mouthful would be a bit of a battle.

Our African feast included fried plantains and chicken with figs. I was right about the battle. If you don't know our family personally you don't know that the Wiedz household is the pickiest you'll ever meet!

We started with a pretty hard line about finishing the meal. I then covertly communicated to Mr. Wiedz across the table that my hope was for the meal to be fun and lighthearted. I didn't really want everyone to sulk through forcing themselves because they'd be in trouble. So we readjusted our expectations. Everyone tried a bite of a fig (pretty good actually) and one plantain (some of the really little guys got away with a bite as mama thought they were pretty gross) and chicken until we were full (the chicken was really pretty normal).

There are a few more recipes in our history activity book that I intend on making...broadening our horizons and all.

Rowing Week 4 : Ask Mr. Bear

I wasn't too sure about this book. Coming right after Play with Me, which is also filled with animals I was little "done" with animal books. Having WAY too ambitious of plans for any of the other books I have from the library to "row" I went ahead. To say that we just did a little here and there would be an understatement. We did a little...

But the boys didn't really seem to notice. I was even thinking about doing another week just to get in a few more ideas that I'd had but when I took the book out on Friday I sensed a little "ugh" from #3 so we'll move on.

This is a sweet book though about a boy wanting to get his mother a birthday present. He asks his farm animal friends for help, each offer him a suggestion then go with him in the search when what they offer isn't right.

Physical :

I tried to get each of the boys to get down and act out each of the action verbs used when Danny and the animals go on their search. My boys were not interested in skipping, running, or galloping across the room.

Lapbook/Scrapbook Activity :

I printed each of the animal's coloring sheet/handwriting practice sheets from first-school and made a packet of each page in order the animals are in the book. (Animals I couldn't find handwriting tracers for I made my own)

I also printed a lapbook activity from homeschool share that matched the animal with their gift but that one held no interested and was bagged.

Science/Home Studies :

When making my menu for the week I was trying to figure out snacks for all the littles (seriously, they are eating me out of house and home...I think they spend much of their day telling me how hungry they are and I spend much of my day in the kitchen making them food - sigh, it's getting old). I thought some homemade bread would be a nice treat. And what would be better than homemade butter to top that bread? Oh...wait...the cow offers milk and cream...we could make butter...read the book first...we have cream...thank you Mrs. Cow...now shake!

This was probably the highlight of my week. I bought baby food in jars (instead of the handy plastic containers) and handed out heavy cream poured into four jars (I used a smallish spaghetti sauce jar that was set to go to recycling). I turned on Elizabeth Mitchell on pandora.com and we danced and shook and danced and peeked in our jars and danced. We had a blast...and we made butter! Delicious on our homemade bread!

"Rowing" Ask Mr. Bear was really good. I'm glad we did it. Though I could see how it would be even better in the spring when you could go to a farm and possibly see a lamb being born or something. I also meant to make the boys some pillow forms to stuff, the goose suggests feathers for a pillow and while I wasn't going to do feathers, a pillow could have been good. Ah, well. Another week done anyway.

Links :

Homeschool Share - Ask Mr. Bear lapbook

First School

Making butter - this link was helpful via angrychicken and googling homemade butter in baby food jars resulted in a lot of links, I used tips from this one.

I'm thinking next week we'll take a break from true "rowing" but I think some of the ideas from homeschool creation's gingerbread baby's pack look good and I'm thinking that I may be able to concentrate with the big kids with some of the things we've been struggling with (can anyone say factor trees, prime numbers, multiplication and prepositions) by working them into a book or two. Concentrating on what we're struggling with but in a fun way we're not used to.

:: this moment ::

:: this moment ::  A photo from the week. Not too many words. A simple moment, extraordinary, special. Something I want to remember, cherish, to pause over. If you have a "moment" leave a link in the comments for others to find and share.

inspired by soulemama

The story of a quilt

This quilt has a story. One I must tell from the beginning. Probably my mom and the recipients mom will be the only ones who stick with me to the end to hear the whole thing.

What feels like another lifetime ago Mr. Wiedz 1) gave me the birthday present that keeps giving - $5 Quilt Club at Grandma's Attic (in Dallas) and 2) started working in Argentina (this post is an interesting story of what traveling was like, and this one is amazing for it's honesty and for me at least the wow-factor of knowing that was the WEEK he ended up being done working there and coming home -- amazing). These two things didn't happen at the same time...actually about a year apart. For by 31st birthday things were, let's say, tight financially. I came up with the perfect gift Mr. Wiedz could give me. The $5 Quilt Club. The beauty of this gift is on both sides. One, it only cost $5...right up our price range. And two, it provided me with nearly 2 hours a month by myself going to quilt class. It was the gift that gave all year long. And I loved going. So much that I repaid my dues to do another year. That brings us to August/September 2008 - and Argentina! My once-a-month getaway didn't really work out when Mr. Wiedz wasn't home enough to relieve me of my duties. That year I only made it to 4 classes, so only got 4 quilt squares done.

But they were really great ones! I loved the colorway I picked that year. I tucked them away for a special project.

Fast forward to fall 2009.

Around the time that Mr. Wiedz and I found out we were expecting #5, one of my closest friends, Another Stacy, found out she was expecting her #2. When I thought about the quilt I'd like to make for her I thought of these quilt squares sitting in my unfinished projects tub. When she found out she was expecting a girl (while we were again expecting a boy) I knew this was where these quilt squares would be perfect.

The babies were born in March. #5 got his quilt just in the nick of time...Little Tam, not so much.

Early this summer I found my way to an unfriendly quilt store, 4 kids walking in to a quilt store may cause the elder woman behind the counter to cringe but I'd have loved some grace and help and a smile. Regardless, I found some fabric for sash, boarders, backing and binding. Getting the top done was quick.

Getting the quilting done took all summer. Quilt, hoop, thread and thimble went nearly everywhere I did this summer.

Interestingly, this was on the road to Pacific City, Oregon. Another Stacy's in-laws live there and Another Stacy and family were visiting the same weekend we were there.

Cutting, making and binding the quilt was probably the longest process...yikes, the quilt sat in my quilting room for months!

Finally making the labeling patch was complete and appliqued to the back of the quilt.

Boxed up and sent to my dear friend and her littlest treasure.

Rowing Week 3 :: Play With Me

This week really took like 3 weeks so #3 was really sick of the book by Friday. No, I did not read it every day for 3 weeks but by Friday he'd already seen it enough times he was done. Other than that I enjoyed "rowing" this book. The activities were fun and I had finally gotten my act together to do prep work before I had them sit at the table...so much smoother!

Sitting Quietly :

We practiced sitting quietly just like the little girl in the book. Miraculous. I sat there with my eyes shut for a few beats just enjoying the stillness.

The scrapbook crafts :

There were some great printables and other cut apart, glue, write, match games and such out there for this book.

Pond Counting : pictures of pond life on cards 1-10. We put them in order. We found whichever number I asked for. We counted fishes and frogs and turtles.

Who Am I? : I read the clues then the boys matched to colored picture to that animal. #3 can't wait to play this one with Mr. Wiedz.

Would you play with me? : a fun little list of animals and you write yes or no under each flap if you'd play with that animal. #3 really like that one.

Science : Our weekly science consists of an animal that we read about, classify, color and write a notebook page about. These last couple of weeks we've just worked frog and bird into our normal science.

After reading this post about using online videos we watched this video of song birds. #2 thought it was just loud. I thought it was a fun extra we don't do everyday.

Bird feeders :

Oh the mess! But they so enjoyed doing this!

I had saved small milk cartons for a history craft - making mud bricks - but that project didn't happen. They worked great for this though.

When they were done spreading peanut butter on the cartons and filling the inside/covering the outside with birdseed they strung honey nut Cheerios on yarn for a garland.

When I put the baby down I told everyone that it was expected and OK if he dug into the Cherrios.

When we were all done with our bird feeding supplies we hung everything on a tree in our front yard. The big boy's bedroom window looks out on this tree (and I can see it from the kitchen sink) and we've already had visitors to our branches!

I wanted to visit a pond or the river but it is December and I haven't been feeling good. I'm not sure I'll completely get away with leaving that out but for now we didn't actually get to a pond to observe animals in their habitat!

Links:

Frog Food
What Animals Would You Like to Play With?
Who Am I?
Life Cycle of a Frog
Pond Counting

:: this moment ::

:: this moment ::  For Thursdays. A photo from the week. Not too many words. A simple moment, extraordinary, special. Something I want to remember, cherish, to pause over. If you have a "moment" leave a link in the comments for others to find and share.

inspired by soulemama

"Mom, I'll help him..." music to my ears.

It's December first anyways

Last year I realized we had outgrown the advent calendar I'd made in 2002 or so. That one was a cute (if I do say so) felt, little pockets numbered with puffy paint. Each day held a gold wrapped chocolate coin for #1, Mr. Wiedz and myself. Two years later #2's coin got added to the pockets and when the time came #3 got his chocolate added too. But at that point the little felt pockets were no longer holding their shape.

After our move last year one of my first sewing projects was a new advent calendar


Before last year I attempted another advent calendar made from fabric envelops. I got the fabric, cut out a million envelope shapes, sewed envelopes with stabilizer in between so I could turn each envelope right side out and applique onto my base fabric. Are you seeing the vision? That's as far as that project went until I gave up.

After our move last year one of my first sewing projects was a new advent calendar. Much simpler than my prior attempt. Pockets again, like my felt masterpiece, bigger this time to accommodate the 7 chocolate coins that will need to be enjoyed each day of December.

I remember the quiet evening I spent over the sewing machine hemming each pocket while Mr. Wiedz was in China and the children were asleep. I got all the pockets hemmed and sewn onto the base fabric before December 1st. Then I hung it up. With a binder clip and a paperclip holding the rolled-down corners onto tacks in the wall. The raw edges of the fabric swaying.

We made it through Christmas season 2009 and when I took the decorations down I put the calendar in a easily accessible spot in my sewing room so I would be able to finish off the details before next Christmas. I was thinking quilting it. Stamping numbers onto the tags...water-coloring the tags to match the fabric. Making a nice hanging sleeve. A title...something reflective of the season and Jesus and warm and family...all the things I want Christmas to be for our family.

Tuesday night after I got 4 of the kids into bed and await Mr. Wiedz and #2 from Cub Scouts I went out to the sewing room and retrieved the advent calendar from it's "easily accessible spot" and started the search for some backing fabric. I was determined not to hang it back up in it's sad-loose-strings-raw-edges form as before.

I sewed the two fabrics right sides together, flipped the puppy right, folded down the top and there you have a hanging sleeve. The poor thing still has the numbers written on unpainted tags which are still safety pinned to the pockets and there are even faint lines that were supposed to be where I quilted the piece then washed it...

It's December...well 2nd now...and Advent is here. We are waiting. We are anticipating. We are explaining to the 3 year old that the chocolate gold-wrapped coins are for after dinner and only for everyone who eats their dinner.