Aphids from The Ladybug Game.

The newest word in Norah's vocabulary is slave.

As we played The Ladybug Game the other day, she said, "These aphids are slaves to the ants... right?"

If you didn't know it, this is actually true in nature. Aphids are taken captive by ants who make them work as slaves in their colonies. It's pretty fascinating.

By chance, Norah's also learned this word from another source, her video, The Prince of Egypt, which tells the story of the ancient Israelite's captivity or slavery in and later, their exodus from, Egypt.

Norah is a tad obsessed with this story right now. She wants to talk about it all the time. We spent about an hour and a half talking about it before bed a few days ago. No kidding. I may have fallen asleep a few times in the middle of our conversation. I don't remember. We were snuggling in bed together after reading a book. But, I do remember that Norah asked an interesting question about the movie, or story, of the Exodus.

"Mom. Why did the people run away from the soldiers? Why didn't they turn around and fight?! The soldiers could have caught them!"

I answered the obvious, "The Israelites didn't have weapons. Their only choice was to run."

To this, she asked another, even better question, "Why didn't they have weapons?"

I answered before I really thought about it, "Well, they weren't free. Before they left Egypt they were slaves..."

And then it hit me like the Red Sea fell on my own head.

To be free is to be free to defend yourself.

The inability to protect yourself is actually part of the word slave's meaning.

Slave, noun. -from the Slavs who were frequently made slaves by the Germans.

1. A person held in bondage to another; wholly subject to the will of another; held as a chattel; has no freedom of action, but whose person and services are under the control of someone else.

2. One who has lost the power of resistance; one who surrenders himself to any power whatever; as, a slave to passion, to lust, to strong drink, to ambition.

The power of resistance or the freedom of action is, for me, a critical part of my political freedom. And, I feel this issue is critical for every free person, even those who may never choose to own weapons for defense. God help us. He will have to part more seas for common men if we Americans allow our government to make inconvenient and even impossible our ability to exercise our 2nd Amendment rights. At that time, we will no longer be able to call ourselves "citizen." We should more accurately be labeled "subject."

This is a very simple bird feeder, very easy for kids to make again and again. Take a long piece of yarn, tie a large knot in one end, then string on Cheerios. When the string is almost full, tie another knot in the other end. Wet your hands and squeeze the strand of Cheerios, getting them damp, but not soggy. Hold the strand over your kitchen sink and sprinkle it with a layer of cayenne pepper. The red pepper is supposed to deter squirrels, but is harmless for the birds. Take the strand of Cheerios outside and wrap it around a tree branch you can see from your window. Tie the two knots and any excess string together, making a snug little "bracelet" for the branch.

We've been pulling baby things out of storage, cleaning them up, taking inventory. Norah's having a good time with her old toys while we sort through them. She played with her over-sized Legos the other day. From the playroom, I heard her yell,

"Mom! Look! I made Abraham Lincoln!"

We left her Legos in a pile there and she moved on to something else. But, the next morning, while I was making breakfast, I heard her yell again,

"It's the Lincoln Memorial!"

"Lincoln hides there from the bears," she pretends. And, even later that day, she brought this to me where I was sitting on the couch.

"Now, that's a big top hat!"

Kids use whatever information they've been given to fuel their imaginations. I am pretty sure Norah still thinks Sponge Bob is a block of Swiss cheese and that makes me very proud. I've noticed that other home schooled kids are "weird" like mine, incorporating historical figures into their make-believe adventures. We came home from a home school play group the other day and Norah swore to me that one of the other kids, a little boy a year or two older than herself, was named Paul Revere. I tried to explain to her that that probably wasn't his real name, but she wouldn't hear it. She said he "told stories" and said they had the best time running from one big slide to another getting places "as fast as they could."

Turkey Pot Pie

I am still thawing and using the turkey scraps we froze after Thanksgiving. This pie served my family with leftovers. If you have a larger family, you can serve this with a salad or side and it should provide plenty.

Two pre-made, refrigerated pie crusts
4 tablespoons butter
1 small onion, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 carrots, chopped thin
3 tablespoons dried parsley
1 teaspoon dried oregano
salt and pepper to taste
2 cubes chicken bouillon
2 cups water
3 potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 1/2 cups cubed cooked turkey
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 cup milk

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Roll out bottom pie crust, press it into a pie pan and set this aside.

Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a deep skillet over medium heat. Add the onion, celery, carrots, parsley, oregano, and salt and pepper. Cook and stir until the vegetables are pretty soft. Stir in the bouillon cubes and water. Stir in the chopped potatoes, cover and cook everything, stirring frequently, until the potatoes are getting tender.

In a saucepan, melt the other 2 tablespoons butter. Stir in the flour, then the turkey pieces. Add the milk and heat this mixture through. Stir this turkey mixture into the vegetables and broth, and cover and cook this until it is thick and the potatoes are tender. Pour this mixture into the unbaked pie shell.

Place the other crust on top, press the edges and make slits in the top of the crust to let out steam.

Bake for 15 minutes on 425. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees and continue baking for 20 minutes or until crust is golden brown. Just keep checking so you don't over-brown the crust.

The project was to drink orange juice directly from an orange, using an orange (obviously), a knife and a straw... So, we picked up some more oranges at the store and tried it.

But, our experiment confirmed my suspicions: this doesn't really make enough orange juice to drink. An orange with a straw in it just makes a cute advertisement for the manufacturers who claim to have the freshest product.




What I took away from this:

I know one way to make orange slices even juicier. (Watch the video to find out).

And, I learned that even though every one of our home school projects won't be successful, we will should make the best of them and they can all be fun!

Calendar Skills

I got this idea after reviewing the Saxon Math K book. Everyday, the text suggests letting your child make patterns with colors to mark the days on the calendar. We aren't going to use Saxon K after all. Norah would be bored to tears, since she has been introduced to most, if not all of the material with Bob Jones K4. We plan to go right on to Saxon 1, but we do need to continue working on her calendar skills in the meantime.

Norah has a little calendar I got her at the start of the year. I suggested the idea of making patterns by coloring the blocks different colors and Norah loved it. So, starting on March 1, she picked two colors: green and pink, and we've been alternating them every day. Next month, Norah has plans to repeat about five colors in a pattern. Whatever she wants.

We do this whenever we remember to: in the morning, before we officially start lessons for the day or at night before bed, if we had to be out all day. This gives Norah practice with several skills that come up quite naturally while we do this together.

Days of the week
"What's today?" or "When do we go to church?"

Months of the year
"Find this month. January, February, March... That's right. It's March." or "What is next month?"

Counting
"What number is in today's box?"

Time
"How many days until Saturday?"

Patterns
"What will we color the box today?"

Predicting
"What will we color tomorrow?"

Ordinal Numbers
"Today is the 1st, 2nd, 3rd... 12th. That's right."

Saying the Date
"Today is Thursday, March the 12th. What is the year? ...2009. So, today's full date is Thursday, March the 12th, 2009."

The other night at dinner, Dwayne asked randomly, "What's today's date?" I didn't know. Without even lifting her head from looking at her plate, Norah said, "March 11th." We were both floored.

This consistent practice works!

"I like this more than anything you ever made."

"I love it, love it, love it."

"I want to have this for dinner everyday."

-Norah's comments on this soup.

Turkey and Vegetable Stew

Ingredients:

Approx. four cans/cups of chicken or turkey broth
One small onion, chopped
Three celery stalks, chopped
Three cloves minced garlic
Simmer this combination for 15 minutes.

One can of diced tomatoes and juice.
Three cups of vegetables, any combination of carrots, celery, mushrooms, broccoli or cauliflower.
(I used two cups of chopped carrots and one cup frozen, chopped broccoli.)
1 and 1/2 teaspoons Oregano, crushed as you add it
1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Add this to broth above and simmer it, covered, for 10 minutes.

Three cups large egg noodles

Add the noodles, cover, and simmer for another 10 minutes or until the noodles are almost done.

Two cups cooked turkey, chopped, light and dark meat combined.
(I used a small bag of thawed left over turkey I froze after Thanksgiving.)

Add turkey and heat the soup through.
Let it sit off the heat for a few minutes before serving it with crackers.