Pancake numbers
14 adults and 16 kids. 10 batches of pancakes, and 1 of chocolate pancakes (choc milk instead of milk). 2 batches of crepes left for sometime this week, and 1 batch of chocolate pancakes sent home with someone:-)
The Genial Hearth
I’ve just put the kettle on, join me for a cuppa and a chat.Geography: India
First Monday: Location. (I’ve found a world map I’ll use, and just set him to find the country in the atlas, and identify it on the map)
First Tuesday: Flag.
First Wednesday: Language.
First Thursday: Animals. (Asian Elephant, Bengal Tiger, King Cobra, Indian Walking Stick, Peafowl, Dhole)
First Friday: Music. (Folk songs/dancing)
Second Monday: Features. (Cities, Mountains, Rivers)
Second Tuesday: Famous People.
Second Wednesday: Language.
Second Thursday: Culture. (Currency, festivals, population, religion)
Second Friday: Art/Craft
Second Saturday: Food.
Books
(Still to be added, once I’ve looked at all the books I’ve reserved:-) )
Pancakes (Again:-) )
So, Tuesday is Pancake Day. In spite of the late notice, we <em>are</em> planning the usual gathering. The deal is the same as always. We’ll have a mass off pancake batter (let me know if you’re planning on coming, so I can mix the right sort of quantity, and if you have any allergies), and you’ll bring something for the top, and your drinks (bring enough topping for the people you bring—and if you choose to bring more than one sort of topping, it’d be great if one of them was savoury!)
Come by anytime from about 5.30, I’ll have the batter ready, and we can start cooking straight away:-)
Shakespeare in Art
Later this year, we’ll be reading Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare
He Signed!
I’ve been using signing (intermittently, it’s true) with Cygnet. He hasn’t seemed especially taken with it (I thought).
But this morning, he signed ‘More’ (completely unprompted… he likes his weetbix!) and ‘All Done’ (after I asked him if he was all done).
On reflection, he hit me on the chest yesterday when he wanted to nurse (the sign for breast is hitting your own chest!)
Another tool in his communication belt:-)
Words!
So I really didn’t succeed particularly well with the language section for China—but Little Pim (one of our French resources) just sent out notification of their Valentine’s Day Video. And not only is it in French, but there’s Chinese as well!
Lemon and Sultana Friands
For years, I’ve made Friands. I love the recipe—it’s really easy, it’s very scaleable, and it’s easy to change flavours:-) I’ve been trying to be consistent about Fine Art Friday, and Afternoon Tea, so today, I decided to make these:-)
Friands
Makes 6 (although, I made them a little smaller, and made 8… so all of us got a pair:-) )
12 grams flour
20 grams almond meal
40 grams sugar, icing
30 grams butter, melted
1 egg, white, lightly beaten
1 teaspoons flavouring (today it was grated lemon zest)
1 tablespoon flavouring (today it was sultanas)
Sift flour and icing sugar into a bowl, add ground almonds and flavourings, and mix well.
Stir in butter and egg whites and beat with a wooden spoon until smooth.
Spoon mixture into mini-muffin tins and bake at 200°C for 15 minutes or until golden and firm to the touch. Cool in tins for 5 minutes before turning out on a wire rack to cool. (I’ve had trouble turning these out of late… if appearance is going to matter, you might want to put them in patty pans).
They will keep in an airtight container for up to 3 days (but I’ve never had them last that long! If I put some out of reach, I can usually keep a couple for Paddington—but only until a couple of hours later! They just go.)
Serve dusted with icing sugar.
Carrot and Sultana Muffins
Further to my experiments yesterday, I attempted a new muffin today:-) I based them on the recipe here. I halved the sugar, and they were still probably sweeter than they needed to be! I also did them in mini-muffin tins (I like that size for the kids:-) ), but forgot that when I cooked them… so they were a touch too cooked. But still, they were quite acceptable:-) I’ve also learnt that it’s not worth cutting carrot sticks to eat for lunch, chunks are better! That way if they don’t eat them, they’re easier to grate:-)
Carrot and Sultana Muffins
Makes 24
¼ cup sultana
¼ cup water, boiling
½ cup sugar, caster
⅔ cup oil
2 egg
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla
½ cup flour, whole wheat
1 cup flour, plain
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon bicarb soda
¼ teaspoon salt
¾ teaspoon cinnamon, ground
½ teaspoon nutmeg, ground (I had run out of nutmeg, so I just used some mixed spice… I think it would have been better to just stick with the cinnamon)
Oil mini muffin pans. Add the sultanas to the boiling water.
In a mixing bowl, beat sugar, oil, eggs, and vanilla until well blended. Combine the dry ingredients and add to first mixture, mixing just until ingredients are moistened. Drain sultanas and fold into the batter with the grated carrots.
Fill muffin cups about 2/3 full; bake in preheated 190°C oven for 15 minutes, or until the muffins bounce back when lightly touched with a finger. Allow to cool slightly, and then remove.
It’s Official!
I’ve finally sent in all the paperwork (it was hardly exhausting… it just got overwhelmed by VacSwim), and we’ve received back our Certificate of Registration.
Of course, nothing’s really changed from last year, we just have a bit of paper filed away (and my own digital copy of the doorstop:-) )
Cheese and Chutney Muffins
Cygnet woke early this morning… and I had meant to make muffins (or something) to take to co-op today (I was leaning towards muffins because we had yummy muffins at a friend’s place yesterday:-) ). So I searched online, and finally found these. I did fail to read the comments before I began though, and I should have made a couple more changes than I did (they were a touch dry—although I did intend to add some more milk, as the wholemeal flour is likely to have that effect… and the 10 minutes advised was definitely insufficient. I think they’d also be better with more cheese:-) Below is what I intend to try next time.)
Cheese and Chutney Muffins
⅔ cup flour, whole wheat
1 ⅓ cup flour, plain
5 teaspoons baking powder
¾ cup milk, (needs a bit more… 2 or 3 tablespoons?)
½ cup oil, olive
2 egg, lightly beaten
1 cup parmesan, finely grated (could possibly do with more)
pepper, freshly ground
2 tablespoons tomato chutney
Preheat oven to 190°C. Spray 2 mini muffin trays with a little oil spray. Set aside.
Combine flours and baking powder into a large bowl, stir through grated cheese and pepper. In a separate bowl, combine milk, olive oil and eggs and add to the flour mixture. Be sure not to over stir.
Place a spoonful of mixture in each muffin hole, coming about 3/4 of the way up the side of each hole. Make a little well in the centre of each muffin hole and divide tomato chutney between each hole. Using a skewer, gently swirl the chutney into the muffin mixture.
Bake for 30 minutes or until golden and cooked through. Turn out onto a wire rack to cool.
They were pretty good:-) Certainly worth repeating with a few changes. They haven’t all gone, but the kids ate them cheerfully—although Puggle did tell me he ‘liked them, but didn’t like them!’:-)
Bilby Babble
She’s basically talking like a grown up most of the time—and comprehensible to non-parent adults:-) However, she still has a few childhood words left… we’ve been using the air cooler in their room of late, and so she’s taken to asking for the Aircondishnika. Less cutely, she regularly uses ‘at’ for that (as in “I’ll tell Puggle at we’re coming”).
There’s another… but it momentarily escapes me:-(
Geography: China
First Monday: Location. (I’ve found a world map I’ll use, and just set him to find the country in the atlas, and identify it on the map)
First Tuesday: Flag.
First Wednesday: Language. (I need to remember to use youtube… I’m sure there must be some basic language lessons there—and particularly with the asian languages, I have not a clue:-( )
First Thursday: Animals. (and the panda)
First Friday: Music. (Folk songs/dancing) (Hmm… haven’t done this)
Second Monday: Features. (Cities, Mountains, Rivers)
Second Tuesday: Famous People. (well, inventions)
Second Wednesday: Language.
Second Thursday: Culture. (Currency, festivals, population, religion) (Something on Chinese New Year—how’s that for happenstance! It’s in the week after we finish, which is break week! Maybe we’ll just see what we can find then.)
Second Friday: Art/Craft. I’ve printed the instructions for lanterns, fireworks and a dragon. He can choose what he does. (if there’s a related ‘My Family Feast’ episode, we’ll watch it)
Second Saturday: Food. We’re going to cook Fried Wontons with Dipping Sauce, Steamed (perch) with Ginger, Chicken in Vermicelli Fried Nest, and Watermelon and Lychee with Ginger Sauce (or some variation thereof).
Books
Ancient China
Beijing
China
China: The Culture
Chinese New Year
Marco Polo
Taste of China
People’s Republic of China
Tibetans
Geography: Japan
First Monday: Location. (Continent, Bordering countries/oceans, hemisphere)
First Tuesday: Flag.
First Wednesday: Language. (I need to remember to use youtube… I’m sure there must be some basic language lessons there—and particularly with the asian languages, I have not a clue:-( )
First Thursday: Animals.
First Friday: Music. (Folk songs/dancing) (ETA: See in the comments for some music links! Thanks Purrdence!)
Second Monday: Features. (Cities, Mountains, Rivers)
Second Tuesday: Famous People.
Second Wednesday: Language.
Second Thursday: Culture. (Currency, festivals, population, religion)
Second Friday: Art/Craft. (if there’s a related ‘My Family Feast’ episode, we’ll watch it)
(This book appears to cover a large number of the topics I want, and seeing as we’re starting later than I’d anticipated, it will be ideal:-) )
Second Saturday: Food. We’re going to cook Chicken Kuwayaki, California Rolls, and Monkey Maki. We’ll probably use the leftover sushi rice, and bits of the chicken to do Onigiri the next day. (We use an egg-cup to help shape the balls.)
Books
I was surprised how few appropriate books I could find (mind you, I failed to do my prep work, so I was searching at the library, and remembering dewey codes, and chasing kids).
Japan in Colors
Geography
Last year at Co-op, one of the mums ran a series of activities focussing on different countries. Puggle loved it! Another mother mentioned the existance of My Family Feast which was on TV at the time, and we watched that week’s episode—Puggle was hooked (even asked for it for Christmas, and Uncle R. kindly gave it to him:-) )
I figured that we needed to do some sort of exploration of the world, because he was obviously keen:-) So I decided that we’d spend two years and ‘do’ a number of different countries. I’m sticking with the continents (we’ll skip Antartica, there’s not so much of the culture side… Certainly not enough for the three months each of the other continents will take), and doing three a year. This year we’ll do Asia (Japan, China, India, Vietnam, Thailand, Burma), Europe (France, England, Germany, Hungary, Norway, Scotland) and Africa (Egypt, Morocco, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Kenya, Congo). Next year we’ll do North and South America, and Australasia (I still need to fine tune our country choices). At the same time, I’m trying to make/aquire some of the Montessori-type materials to do with Geography (I’m drooling over the puzzle maps, but haven’t done anything about them yet), and I plan to put together a continent box for the continent we’re covering.
Given he’s in year 1, and this is only part of what we’re doing, I didn’t want it to be too heavy, so we’re staying in each place for two weeks, doing a little bit each day. I’m also going to borrow a stack of library books on the country, so they can be accessible (thank goodness for online reservations! I request everything that looks ok, then flick through the stack and only borrow the dozen or so that seem most interesting—and I don’t have to wander the shelves with the kids in tow:-) )
First Monday: Location (Continent, Bordering countries/oceans, hemisphere)
First Tuesday: Flag
First Wednesday: Language (I need to remember to use youtube… I’m sure there must be some basic language lessons there—and particularly with the asian languages, I have not a clue:-( )
First Thursday: Animals
First Friday: Music (Folk songs/dancing)
Second Monday: Features (Cities, Mountains, Rivers)
Second Tuesday: Famous People
Second Wednesday: Language
Second Thursday: Culture (Currency, festivals, population, religion)
Second Friday: Art/Craft (if there’s a related ‘My Family Feast’ episode, we’ll watch it)
Second Saturday: Food (we’ll go to any specialty stores, and then we’ll cook a feast—and eat it of course:-) )
Fortunately, countries are often used as themes, and with the internet, it’s really easy to do a search and find all (or most) of these things—at an appropriate level! It does take a little while… but not too long. I print them in one hit, and file them in the appropriate folder, ready to go. And if I come across something for one of the other countries we’re planning to do, I can print it then and put it in that folder.
Reading the Classics
A couple of things have come up in the last little while, and I’m feeling spurred to movement:-)
I want to start reading through the Classics. I have tried starting the Fiction list (from The Well-Educated Mind: A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had
I think I need to do this with people, so I can talk about it as I read it. So I’ve started a mailing list (Crawling Through the Classics) and invited a few people with whom I’ve previously discussed the idea. If you’re interested though, feel free to join, and point it out to anyone who might be interested (I’ve said homeschooling mums in Perth, but I’ve included a number of question marks, because I don’t feel it has to be limited to that… I don’t necessarily want lots of people, but a reasonable sized group would be good, so there might be some different impression–and so if someone hasn’t read the ‘assignment’ the discussion doesn’t get de-railed for lack of participants).
My plan is that we choose something, and read through at a (CM-approved:-) ) pace (maybe a chapter a week?) and we can talk about it via email as we go (although, I realise a chapter a week is going to take us a long time to get through! Maybe two books, a chapter of each a week? Still slow, but not overloading on any one?). I’d quite like to add a face-to-face gathering in every now and again (monthly? bi-monthly? quarterly?) to discuss in person:-) We’ll sort out the details once there’s a group on the mailing list.
I’ve also discovered that Librivox has a number of the works. So I’m willing to give Don Quixote another go—but I’ll listen to it:-)
I don’t have my copy with me (I’ve just leant it to a friend:-) ), but basically there are 5 lists, Fiction (starts with Don Quixote
I haven’t really thought about how to discuss (I’m bad at finding anything to talk about, other than ‘I like/don’t like it’:-) )… but there are plenty of things online we can perhaps look at using to help guide discussion, or take it in turns to ask questions, or something 
If you’re interested, join the list, and any discussion as to which books, can take place there:-)
