As a child, I remember eating tons of food from home canning. Potatoes, tomatoes, pickles, apples, pears, peaches, pickled eggs, etc. I, until recently, forgot how wonderful these foods taste! If you don't believe me or you've never eaten a home canned food, you need to do the taste test!
I bet everyone knows at least one person (young or old) who cans. If not, you must live in a huge city. ;) Ask for a can of anything! Then go buy that same type of food in the store, canned. For example: green beans - buy a can of green beans and then taste a home canned one. OH MY GOSH! You'll never eat old canned stuff again. hee,hee.
As you know, I homeschool. Well, during canning season this year, we are homeschool canning! I just can't get both done completely so I combined them. Nutrition is part of our science class, so that is what I am teaching my sons. I am teaching them how to preserve our food not only for a 'rainy day', but for health reasons. Lets face it, you really don't know exactly what is in those cans you buy off the store shelf. Over the years, there have been reports on mice feces on the tops, bacteria, and even a human finger in one! Yes, I read it. Gross! Now please don't post that I am insulting you if you don't can. It's not for everyone or maybe you don't have the means to can. Personally, I don't like canning in general, but the results are SO WORTH IT!
So here is what we have been busy canning this week:
APPLES!!!
Hint: These were sold as 'deer apples'. For those of you who don't know what 'deer' apples are, they are apples that may have some bruises or not perfect enough for the stores. But look at these! Gorgeous!
POTATOES!!!
A neighbor brought these over to us. He grew them in his garden and he had too many. :) Yippy! The small potatoes that you think may be too small to eat....wrong! They are perfect for canning!
The end result:
So I challenge you to take the 'canning challenge' and taste the difference between the store canned food and home canned food. And this is a great learning experience for my children!
Can it be? 11 years? I am astound. How can this be our 11'th year of homeschooling? It goes by so fast.
It's been a while since I have blogged but I have good reason. We moved about 12 miles away, my oldest flew the nest, but I'll keep that for another post, and it's canning season. Shall I say more? So I am homeschooling just the two now. B is in 6'th grade. He is 11 and I must say doing very well in math. He will be starting 7'th grade (Pre-Algebra) math this year. D is starting his senior year. Can that be? Goodness. He is 15 (will be 16 in Nov.). We are excited for him to be almost finished and onto college. Again, that could be another post in itself. ;)
Our Daily Routine-
So our daily routine has changed a bit this year with some of those changes in mention above.
Here is a guideline of what a homeschool day in our house looks like.
I wake up first, have coffee and read my Bible. (This is a must for my sanity as a homeschool mother. I'm sure most would agree.)
My youngest, B, wakes up and eats breakfast while watching a cartoon. I allow him to watch one 20 min. cartoon, eat, and wake up. In the pic below he has his little purple frog on the end of his pencil. Sometimes it's the tiniest things that make a homeschool day thrive.
After the cartoon and breakfast, he brushes his teeth, gets dressed and gets his school work out. We started out today, being the first day of school, going over our curriculum and setting our goals in order of priority. First, we set a few spiritual (Godly) goals. Second, we set some family goals. Last, our third priority was our world goals. Then we moved on to 'what mom expects of me this year', which are basic ground rules. For example- no TV, video games, or computer until school work is completed and chores are done. I have a chore chart on the refrigerator (that is color coded.....I'm so proud) for the boys.
Sometimes I let B decide what subject to do first. But today we did Language first. His least favorite subject, but with his little purple frog, he managed. LOL.
We didn't cover all our subjects, but we completed math, language and reading. This was one of the changes in our schedule I did this year. In the past years, we just jumped right in and did a regular school day. I noticed that with us easing into the day, not all subjects, it went more smooth. The other change was that we discussed all curriculum - subject by subject. We went through every book and discussed how we were going to use it. That seemed to go over well. It gave the boys questions and answer time (and some input of course) that was needed that may not have been answered at the time of them starting that subject straight on, full force.
D's first day, went pretty much the same other than the cartoons and breakfast. He enjoyed a good cup of Chai Latte to start his day while I went over all his curriculum with him. Starting his senior year, he needed some well deserved explanation of what he will need to get accomplished and what wasn't a concern in order to graduate next spring. He honestly has enough credits to graduate now, but he doesn't know that and I plan to keep it that way. ;) I took a look at the pubic school credit examples. They require 20 credits for basic and technical career path and 26 credits for college career path. D has earned 22.5 as of now (before starting this senior year). But for his best interest, we are going to do another 5 or 6 credits this senior year to bring him to a place where he will be ready to enter college. After all, he has plenty of time due to his age.
I was impressed how his attitude was good due to the change of explaining everything and 'discussing' things with him today while not giving him the FULL work load right off the bat. Here he is taking his books to his room to start.
His face in this picture is priceless. This look he gave me after saying "I need a dolly to get these books downstairs". He's a ham for sure.
So this was our first day of homeschooling this year. It went great! I hope yours goes great too!
HAPPY HOMESCHOOLING!
