A Musing 9th Homeschooling Carnival

The 9th Homeschooling Carnival is hosted at Why Homeschool, organised around a presentation of the muses of ancient Greek mythology.

This painting is of Erato:
Erato the "Lovely" is the muse of love poetry and mimicry. She is seen with a lyre and sometimes wears a crown of roses.

To show mimicry our post of Rose's Cross Stitching has been included in the carnival. Pop over and savour the variety of articles.

Downpour - the day after

Now I won't get wet!The ground around here is very absorbent. Less than an hour after yesterday's heavy rain downpour of 60mm (2.4 inches), the ground was dry and puddles only remained on hardened ground.
By this morning, only the lane and roadways had puddles.
And, wonderfully, lots of water is in our watertanks.
We have an old plastic playground salvaged from a fast food restaurant which had upgraded to new equipment. The bits and pieces had been passed from one family to another unassembled as no one had enough room or enough children to justify the construction. After we built the huge thing, we had some of the windows left as spare parts. The children had fun yesterday using them as see-through space helmets, boats, mini swimming pools and windows.
Eric said the water pressure was pretty strong when he held up his shield.

Trying Tri Looms

Peeking through the Shawl in progressWe first encountered Triloom weaving in the US from another homeschooling family. To experiment whilst we were there Lana banged together a triangle with spare bits of wood left over from the headboard/bed heads we had built.
The Loom has nails along each side of a Isosceles Right Triangle. Wool is woven from the end nail of the hypotenuse (the long side) across to the other end of the hypotenuse and then around the first nail of the short side and back across to the first nail on the other short side. Then weave down to the next nail on the hypotenuse. Repeat. Wayne Schmidt's This and That site explains the method in more detail with pictures.

Lana's soft, colourful and warm shawl.Lana's dad made the Tri Loom Ariel is peeking through as a Christmas present for Ariel. It is adjustable and beautifully made.

Lana made the shawl shown here using every second nail so it would be a bit more open using fluffy wool making it "nice and soft, mmmm".

Added bit by Ariel -
I like Trilooming because:
1. Once you make the item you can use it;
2. It's easy to do and fun;
3. You can experiment with many options such as checks, differing sizes and mixing different wools;
4. It's different. I like doing something new and crafty.

Playing in the rain

The view from the driver's seat.On our way home it rained quite heavily and we were forced to stop as we couldn't see the road. Once it slowed down we returned home. The sky cleared, the sun shone, we looked outside and the clouds promptly rained bucketloads more. All of our water tanks overflowed and the children wanted to play outside. "Why not?" we said and out they went to play.
Playing in the rain is great fun! Puddles quickly grow into streams, getting dirty is no problem as you are effectively in the shower anyway, the water pouring out of the rainwater tanks is fun and with buckets and other implements you can conduct scientific experiments.

Is it raining yet?Lana went out to check whether it was raining. Her umbrella is one we bought when we lived in Melbourne, a city famed for its variable weather.
Lana's Dad told us that we MUST water the lettuces no matter how much it rains as they need to be watered every day. I don't think we will be in too much trouble when we had over 50mm (2 inches) in under an hour. But the children did check with us. They didn't want to let down Opa.

B Where's updates

The B crowd have updated B Where's with lots of sights they want to share:

B2 hates Frog Stitch,
B3 Shows the way round,
B5 is monkeying around, and
B6 drives the train.

Playing in the park

My Three Monkeys
After Mass today we spent an enjoyable afternoon at a nearby park. There are many different pieces of equipment on which to play and the children enjoy playing on them together.
In this photo all three boys wanted to show how they use the monkey bars.
At another time Eric pushed Rose on the swing, James and Peter helped Clare on the slides or swings, and they all played on the train playset. Only one thing bothered them.

Higher! Higher!A mother beckoned to her young boy (3 or 4 years old) to come with her as they were leaving. He wouldn't go. She tried the "I'm leaving" thing and started walking away. He whined and did his tantrum. Once she was out of sight (in the public rest rooms) he went back to playing. A couple of our children suggested to him that he should go to his Mum. He looked at them strangely.
Then his Mum started walking back and beckoned to him again. He beckoned back to her then went onto another piece of equipment. So she had to return.
He still refused to obey and she let him "have just one more go".
Then he still refused until she had no choice but to pull him off. He screamed, so she let him have "just one more go". Then she finally gave up being "nice" and grabbed him under her arm with him screaming all the way.
A short time later I called the children, "Come on. Let's go!", and they all came and we went. So much for today's socialisation.

Debt reduction help

Dave Ramsey has a lot of valuable information on getting rid of your debts. He must be right because we both agree on so many things!
He has a great series of confessions by people who have done very silly things relating to finance he calls "Stupid Tax".

His main principles are:
- avoid debt
- live below your means
- use cash
- Be free!

He describes many techniques that can be used. I always recommend the books The Richest Man in Babylon and The Millionaire Next Door. The combined cost at Amazon is less that $20 (US) and these two books describe in very simple terms the basics of financial security.

I learned my basic finance principles from three sources:
1. Being an accountant,
2. Making lots of stupid mistakes when younger; and most importantly
3. My parents (See Finance basics from my Dad)

If you want your children to learn how to use finance and credit wisely, you must start with yourself. Read the Stupid Tax stories. They are great examples of dumb things to avoid.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Tonight we had a movie night at home. Some fish, corn chips, cheese, tomatoes and other yummy things whilst watching the BBC version of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream".
The play is about misplaced loves, jealous lovers and mischief making fairies all getting confused within the forest on a midsummer's night.
We are continuing to enjoy Shakespeare.
The children are enjoying his works as:
1. They haven't been told that Shakespeare is boring;
2. We are starting with the comedies;
3. We are all watching and enjoying the plays;
4. We first listened to summarised versions by Jim Weiss or Charles and Mary Lamb; and
5. We are not analysing them to death.

Subtitles also help!

Aargh! The Banksia Men are coming

Nice and pretty changing to spiky and bulbous.

On a recent bushwalk, Eric and Lana's parents found some of these Banksia Tree flowers/seeds. From left to right you can see the stages of the banksia tree from flower, losing some flower fronds, and the growth of the banksia seeds themselves.
May Gibbs is a well known Australian author of children's books and the shape and colour of the end product inspired her to think of the Big Bad Banksia Men - the "pursuers and persecutors of the Gumnut Babies"

For a good description of Banksia Trees (and the Big Bad Banksia Men), go to answers.com.

These are pretty nifty, so ...

That's going into the Treasure Table!

Banana & Blackberry Pikelets

Banana and Blackberry Pikelets.

Our successful blackberry excursion has meant lots of yummy Blackberry recipes. Today we had Banana and Blackberry pikelets. As always, we make double the mixture.

Ingredients:
2 eggs
1/4 cup Sugar
1 cup milk
1 Tblspn Vinegar
2 cups Self raising flour
1/2 Tspn Bicarbonate Soda (Baking Soda)
30 gms/1 oz Butter
2 Bananas
1/2 cup blackberries

Method:
Beat eggs and sugar.
Mix vinegar in milk. Add to mixture.
Add flour and soda.
Then melted butter and sliced banana (and other fruit).
Stand for 30 mins before cooking.
Cook the same way as pancakes.

Options: Use grated apple, or leave out the blackberries.

Exoskeletons are cool

Out with the old, in with the new.

Today Lana and James were reading about spiders, moulting and exoskeletons. Peter was nearby listening too.
Then not long afterwards they found this.

An exoskeleton.

Cool.

This is only a baby huntsman spider with legs between 25 and 35 mm (1 - 1.5 inches) long.

That's going into the Treasure Table!

Update: Lana just found an even bigger exoskeleton. The legs were 50mm (2 inches) long. After checking her heart rate, Lana brought the bigger one in and it's now in the Treasure table.

How to stick a bandaid on a little one

Time to heal. When our children are little, they can't stop themselves picking away at a sore, especially if it is in a spot they often notice. Rose had a mosquito bite on her wrist which wasn't much of a problem. Unfortunately, as she keeps picking, it is now a sore that doesn't have the chance to heal.
Lana tried a bandaid, but Rose pulled that off too.
The I tried a new plan. I put on the bandaid and then drew a picture on it, saying, "Show Mum your picture!" So Rose then went with her wrist upraised showing everyone her new picture. And the bandaid has stayed on. I did little faces the first few times, currently she has a little girl stick figure. (Click for a closer look at my fine art)
Now her body should have time to heal the sore properly.

When the lights go out ...

Boo! Don't play with the torch!
What do you do when the power goes out? Sometimes it is just for a few moments but other times it can be for hours or, worse yet, days!
Being out of town, we use rainwater and the power tends to fluctuate too. So here is what we do to handle black-outs.
1. Check that you haven't tripped the power yourself. If not, call the power company. If everyone assumes someone else will call, the power company may take a while to realise the power is out.
2. UPS - Uninterruptible Power Supply. Computers need a regular supply of power to operate and to maintain data integrity. Often power straight from the socket can fluctuate enough to cause damage to hard disks and cause greater wear on compnents. A UPS not only regulates the power to within safe limits above and below the standard, it also acts as a surge protector (in case of lightning strikes, etc) and the battery backup allows you to safely close down the computer. This has saved our data and files many times.
3. A non cordless phone. Cordless phones do not work without power. We have an older phone in the cupboard for use in blackouts, and the cordless phone base station is plugged into the battery backup part of the UPS.
4. Torch/Flashlight. A working torch needs to be easily obtained in the dark. Our torch is a gyro dynamo powered torch which does not need batteries and the light is generated from LEDs. We keep it right next to the computer so we know where to get it. (It also helps sorting out the tangle of cords and connectins below the desk!)
5. Cooking options. We have gas and electric cooking and a gas barbeque. That way we will be able to prepare hot food without power.
6. Water. Being outside town our water is derived from rainwater tanks. In the US we had a well. Either way, once power was off we couldn't use the faucets, or flush the toilets. We have ensured that we can get water directly from the tanks without power using a gravity feed faucet. At least that way we can flush using a bucket.
7. Minimise opening the fridge and freezer. The cool cannot be replaced without power.
8. Rediscover non electronic entertainment. This is the most fun part.

The reason we have posted this today is because our power went out for a few hours. I was working from home and was able to save my data in progress because my desktop had battery backup and the laptop had its own power.

Once I had saved my documents and shutdown the desktop, I worked on the laptop whilst it battery lasted. Then it was filing and cleaning up. Then the power came on.

!! The power just failed whilst I was writing this post!!
As the post is in blogger and the internet went down with the power, I saved all that I had typed by copying the test to notepad - from the "Edit HTML" tab.
Then before the battery died I quit all the programs and shut down.
Unfortunately. the power came back on and then failed about 10 minutes later and again it did the same. This meant the battery backup had run out and the computer crashed twice. Something on the hard disk failed and it wouldn't start up.
To fix? I tried starting in safe mode but it didn't get that far. So I booted with the Windows XP setup disk and entered recovery mode and ran CHKDSK /F. This found the bad sectors and fixed them allowing a normal reboot and all was well.

More Sudoku Help

In our previous Sudoku post, Michael of Family School helpfully pointed out the Sudoku pages by Krazy Dad.
Krazy Dad has some marvellous puzzles available free of charge as well as some very useful information on solution strategies.
Now, hopefully that should satisfy the Sudoku urge around here!

(I was helping a client doing bank reconciliations yesterday and compared the tricky and at times arcane art of reconciling the bank statements and the accounting records as a lot like Sudoku. So when we reconciled a particularly tricky reconciliation, we yelled out "Sudoku!")

Native Hibiscus

A floral thankyou.

We have two young plants growing near the front gate that have greatly enjoyed the tender loving care given them by Lana's parents.

Today one showed it's appreciation by exploding in blossom, just to show what we can expect when the bush grows much larger.

This is an Australian Native Hibiscus.

Bird Seed Bonus

Our Sunflower Seed refugee showing what it can do

We have a loyal following of local birds partaking in the daily feast of seeds laid out for them by the children. Sometimes a seed escapes and luck is on it's side, allowing it to germinate.

What a lovely sunflower!

Sheltered from the worst of the weather by the bird feed tray in which the seed was originally placed, the sunflower gradually grew with many eager eyes watching and waiting. Today it came out in full glory.
We will make it easier for more seeds by actually providing some better soil and a bit of a garden around the base. I suppose we could even water it too! Then we may have even more flowers.

Home Alone (with the children)

What's in your hand, Rose? Nothing!
Today Lana, her Mum, Ariel and her friend all went to Sydney to a Stitches and Craft show leaving me to mind the fort with the rest of the family. So what does a Dad do on his own?
We started by going to the Monastery for Mass and Benediction, where the boys served and I kept Clare and Rose in line. This was followed with me "shouting" (Aust. for paying on behalf of someone else) ice creams for us all.
Then we played a Wild West Wargame. Clare and Peter were joint winners with Eric, James and I casualties and Rose enjoying some potato chips.
Near our home are a number of blackberry bushes the local council is too slack to poison, so we went blackberry picking. Actually all of us picked and Rose ate blackberries. The best thing about berry picking is the end result - Berry Cobbler and ice cream. This is one of the first, and yummiest, recipes we learned during our stay in the US.
Rose really enjoys her blackberries. As you can see in the photo all of the children had their share but Rose dives in with full handfuls.

Mum's Magic Muffins

These muffins are very yummy.
Based on a recipe by Australian Dairy Corporation ruthlessly experimented with by Lana's Mum.

Makes 12 muffin size muffins. (We always double the mixture)

Mum's Magic Muffins - Banana and Sultanas
Ingredients
Core structure
1.5 cups self raising flour (no need to sift)
1 egg (no need to separate)
1 cup of yoghurt (any flavour)

Extras
Any two of the following:
grated apple (or can of pie apple)
mashed banana
grated pear
cup of boiled dates (no need to chop)
cup of sultanas or raisins

Spices, etc (optional)
Cinnamon
Ginger
Probably not garlic

Method (in her madness)
Combine flour and optional spices, make hole in centre, add egg and yoghurt - in fact you can just add everything in one heap and then stir (don’t shake). (No beating - be gentle)
Bake at 180C to 200C (350F to 400F) for 25 to 30 minutes until golden brown.
The end result should be of a bouncy consistency and taste really nice either warm or cold. Can be frozen, too.

Note: No butter, sugar or salt is in this muffin, yet it still tastes yummy without any modern guilt trips.

Proven combinations:
Apple and sultana and cinnamon
Apple and pear
Banana and dates
Dates and ginger
Apple, pear and sultanas
In fact, any mixture will probably be fine.

Homeschooling Carnival Week 7

The latest Carnival of Homeschooling is up at the resource rich Homeschooling.about.com. Being Valentine's Day, the majority of posts deal with how many families celebrate the day.

Our contribution is near the end under the sub heading Love of ... Controversy.

I Stitch, you stitch, we all stitch

I can do what Mum does too.
My name is Rose
I’m part of a crowd.
Being left out
Is just not allowed.

I have to stand up
For all of my rights
As I'm now almost two
Or I’ll get into fights.

My big sister Clare,
Grandma, Ariel and Mum
Like doing Cross Stitch
I want part of the fun.

So give me a needle
And pattern and thread.
One stitch, two stitch,
No, it’s not time for bed!

I’ve now done three crosses
Where is the next?
Thanks Mum, I’ve got it
These little crosses make me vexed.

Right. That’s it.
I’ve done lots of red.
What are you doing now?
I’ll do that instead.

Rose does not want to be left out of anything the rest of the family is doing. As Clare was doing Cross stitch, Rose wanted to do it too.
She also insisted that the pattern be placed "just so" under her hands in order for her to check the location of each cross.

Update: Welcome to all our visitors from the 9th Homeschooling Carnival. Feel free to explore the site. Many of our posts are in the side bar.