Showing posts with label schooling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label schooling. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

50 States Unit Study + Recipe

You may remember THIS POST
where I was trying to decide
if I should take the plunge
and do a 50 States unit study
with my kids or not.

I decided to go for it
and we've been enjoying our study so far.
We are doing the states in alphabetical order,
trying to study one state per week.
We have to take a little longer
for a state a couple of times,
but we've been doing pretty good staying with it.

One of the activities that we do for each state
is choose a recipe that has something
to do with that state
(using an ingredient grown in the state or a traditional recipe from that state),
and we make it together.
I take pictures as we go through it step-by-step
and then I print up the pictures
and the kids write about how we made it.
This goes into their 50 states notebook,
along with a copy of the recipe.

We're a little behind making a recipe for Arkansas
(which we studied last week).
I was planning on making a rice dish of some kind
since rice is one of the major crops grown there,
but Kayla wanted to make
Tater Tot Casserole
(a recipe from the Duggar family),
because the Duggars are from Arkansas. LOL!
I thought that was pretty cute
and since we haven't yet tried Tater Tot Casserole,
I think I will oblige her. =)

Today I'm sharing what we made for Alabama...

Blackberry Swirl Cake

Ingredients:

1 box Yellow Cake Mix
12 oz. fresh blackberries
1/3 C. sugar
2 TBS. flour

1. Prepare cake mix according to box directions. Pour cake batter into a greased 13x9-inch baking dish.

2. Mash blackberries with sugar, leaving some larger pieces of berries. Mix in flour. Place spoonfuls of berry mixture in a varied pattern on top of cake batter. Run a knife back and forth, up and down to “swirl” in berry mixture with cake batter.

3. Bake at 350 for 50-60 minutes. Allow to cool before serving.

Yummy fresh blackberries!


My two personal chefs. =)

Finished masterpiece!

What kinds of activities do you like to include
in your homeschooling to make learning fun?

I'd love to hear your ideas!
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Thursday, April 29, 2010

School Planning

Life has just swallowed up my time!

One of the things in life that has me occupied
is homeschooling my kids...
staying on top of planning school...
staying on top of keeping things organized
(which isn't my strong point).

I have been encouraged the past couple of weeks
to see the kids apply themselves
and look at their weekly plans independently...
and do a good majority of their school independently.

That is one of the main the goals.

To create independent learners.
Kids who can find the answers for themselves.
Kids who can figure out how to learn on their own.

They're still learning how to do this,
but I saw us take some major steps
toward this goal the past couple of weeks.
I'm seeing progress!

Yes!

As we're coming to the end of our unit study,
Attentiveness...
where we have learned about
ears and hearing,
eyes and sight,
traps and animals,
and birds
(yes, they all have something in common with attentiveness),
I am planning a new unit study.
I am mulling around the idea of doing
a unit study on the 50 states.

Quite an endeavor, no?
This would take a year if you studied one state per week.
And even with this, I'm asking myself,
"Is one week per state enough time?"

Hmmm...

I don't have a whole lot of time to contemplate the idea...
I'm expecting a new baby the beginning of June
and I would like to have a general idea
about the direction for school decided and planned by then.
To keep our momentum going.
To continue making progress
toward independent learning and thinking.

Here's a wonderful site I found with TONS of info...


almost too much info...
an overwhelming amount of info...
on doing a 50 states unit study.

So much work is already done,
but putting it all together
and taking the pieces you like
and putting them together
with other pieces you like...
it takes a decent amount of organization...
Do I dare try?
It's somewhat daunting,
but I think I will be persuaded to pursue it.

Why?

I'm thinking my kids would have a blast!
I'm thinking they would love to do a unit study like this.
I'm thinking they would learn a lot and enjoy it.
I'm thinking if I start now,
I may be able to pull the whole plan together
just in time for baby #3.
Besides, aren't these kids worth it?


Yes, they are!

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