Lionden Landing

Menu Planning for a new crew

2012-01-23T01:54:00.000-05:00

I am trying to learn a whole new style of planning in so many phases of life right now. Tiger is very very picky eater who is reluctant to even taste new things. As well I now have at least two clamoring for breakfast before my feet hit the ground. This is the biggest change for me who is used to having a solid couple of hours to get everything ready in the morning.

Sunday - B Baked Oatmeal D Fish ala Jenn, rice, and mixed veggies
Monday - B Pancakes D Chili, Chips and veggie sticks
Tuesday - Swim Night B scrambled eggs and Fruit D Chicken Noodle Soup and Biscuits
Wednesday B Oatmeal D Pulled Chicken, tatortots, and peas
Thursday - Drama B toast with peanut butter D Pizza and Salad
Friday - B _____, D Challah, Pot roast , squash and broccoli, melted ice cream cake
Saturday - B Yogurt and muffins, Kiddush at Shul,

Learning Club and Mittens

2012-01-13T08:59:00.000-05:00

I love our learning club. We just started our Spring Semester with some major revamps. We have added 3 new families.
The Big Kid Group (first grade and up) has shifted its focus from history to science. I will alternate teaching this with one other mom. This group does science first and then art.

The Kindergarten group has split off completely now and has their own teachers. Since I have no kids in this group and do not teach it at all, I really have very little idea what they do. All I know is that i helps immensely in teaching the big kids since the range of abilities is much smaller.

The tag alongs are now an official preschool group. There are 4 currently and it may be going up to 6. We do a stART activity each week. I had the privilege of teaching this group for its inaugural session. I picked The Mitten as our primary story in honor of our first real snow of the year. The version I found was much nicer than the one I read with Froggy so many years ago. The sidebars were a fun hint of the story to come. The illustrations were much richer. My audience enjoyed the story and stayed attentive through the entirety.
After the story, we sang a fun action song imitating each animal as it takes its turn snuggling into the mitten until that final sneeze sent us scurrying in all directions. All the children collapsed in giggles.

Knowing my audience I had brought along a couple of other snow stories so we read Thomas Gets a Snow Plow as well before continuing with our craft. The boys had so much fn showing me who all the different trains were.
Then we moved downstairs for our craft. These are young preschoolers who I had not worked with before so I kept it very simple. Each child cut out a mitten of their choosing then they glued animals I had cut out for them onto the mitten snuggling each animal in in turn. Some of the children then colored those animals. It was neat watching the differences in how the children approached the project. This is the first time I have ever down a significant craft with multiple preschoolers. The differences were clearly personality not gender or age. I look forward to having Tiger join us at future groups.

Wordless Wednesday

2012-01-11T05:18:00.000-05:00

Big Sisters can do amazing things.

Multiple Math

2012-01-10T19:44:00.000-05:00

Today is the second day in a row we have done two batches of math rather than just one. Froggy did not want to stop at the end of the first lesson and asked please can she continue. Who am I to deny a child her learning opportunities.

We use Singapore Math and it is strange to me how they introduce topics and how they define mastery. The topic that sparked Froggy is multiplication. They use that term and use the multiplication sign. Yet they do not teach skip counting or tables or any kind of memorization. It is all about understanding the process.

I keep stressing over the fact that Froggy unlike some of her friends does not have all her basic math facts memorized. When she is focused though she can easily do all her problems about as quickly as the friends who have them memorized.

So I figure that as long as she is enjoying math and getting the idea who cares about memorization.

A MidSummer Night's Dream

2012-01-10T08:04:00.000-05:00

Froggy met Shakespeare this week, with the help of one of our favorite authors, E. Nesbit. We read "A Midsummer Night's Dream" out of Beautiful Stories From Shakespeare.
I introduced the story by reminding Froggy of meeting Puck in her Sisters Grimm book. In it Puck claims to be the star of MidSummer Night's Dream. I asked her to see if she thought Puck was the star as he claimed. Then I began to read.

And Froggy was enthralled. This in obviously an abridged telling of the tale but it is still lengthy and the language is rich with quotes from the original. I tried to stop about half way through but was met with such negative response that we read the whole story in one sitting. Froggy was thrilled to find the Oberon and Tittania were the king and queen of Fairy here as they are in her Rainbow Fairy series.
I cannot recommend this book enough. I do not normally like abridged stories but I think is a delightful age appropriate way to introduce children to such rich classics.
We also watched a few clips from different stage productions. This summer we will see it live on stage.
I leave you with this final version just as a I left Froggy. I hope you enjoy it as much as Froggy did.

Menu Planning Monday - 14 Tevet 5772

2012-01-08T15:21:00.000-05:00

We are heading out of town on Thursday for a super long holiday weekend so the menu is a bit short this week.

Sunday - Pizza, salad and garlic bread
Monday - walnut crusted turkey cutlets with cranberry sauce (from KBD Entertaining)
Tuesday - Minnestrone Soup and Biscuits
Wednesday - Fish ala Jenn, Rice, Roasted Brussel Sprouts.

New Cast Members

2012-01-08T06:32:00.001-05:00

There are some big changes taking place at the Landing. We are welcoming some new members to our crew. We will now be a mixed school away and school at home family.

The first is Tiger, a active fun loving little boy of three. He is a Train enthusiast and SpongeBob fan. His big goal for this school year is moving into big boy underwear and learning his letters

Next is Bella a little princess of 21 months. She is a tiny tiny slip of a girl who does not yet speak but still manages to share her sparkling wit clearly. She loves puzzles and exploring but still likes to be worn and snuggle as well. Her big goal for this year is learning to talk. She has a couple of words already.

The final new member is Munchkin, a bouncy baby girl of four months. Her big goal for this year is learning who her family is and how her body works.

With three new crew members, I foresee lots of schedule changes and lots of chaos as we all learn about each other and how to work together. I hope to chronicle our learning journey here but the most important part is surviving it.

Italy

2012-01-03T18:51:00.000-05:00

Froggy is participating in her first ever Geography Fair this month. The country of choice is Italy. Each child is supposed to research the country and then make an age-appropriate presentation on the country.

We made our first ever successful lapbook for Froggy's presentation. I used two different sources for the lapbook. Froggy's main comment about the lapbook was "I didn't realize there was so much cutting." Cutting is still hard for her so I kept it to small batches. She loved the learning and labeling part.

To learn about Italy, we read Celebrate Italy and Countries of the World: Italy. As we are working Froggy pops up with "One summer we visited Italy" meaning the virtual tour we took as part of our Art program. We looked back at the blog posts about it and revisited the stories. Froggy was thrilled to reread Gaspard on Vacation. The little mouse is adorable and Froggy (being almost 2 yrs older now) was much better able to appreciate the travels. We also read A Boy Named Giotto which is fictional biography of Giotto, the pre-Renaissance master whose magnificent frescoes illuminate the Church of St. Francis in Assisi.

Cutout Cookie Recipe

2012-01-03T15:15:00.000-05:00

This is the new recipe I used this holiday season. It was a huge hit and so I wanted to document it here.

Ingredients
1 c coconut oil or other shortening as desired
1 1/4 c sugar
2 tsp vanilla
1 egg
3c flour
2 TBS coconut milk

Cream sugar and shortening. Add egg and vanilla. Mix well. Add flour and 1 TBS milk. Mix just until blended. Add additional milk if dough is too dry. Mix by hand additionally if needed. Dough will be a bit crumbly but that is good. Roll dough for cut outs with little or no additional flour.
Bake at 375 for 13 minutes.

Menu Planning Monday - 7 Tevet 5772

2012-01-02T04:55:00.002-05:00

Seems that every week has company over. This week for the first time in ages, it is just one day. We are slowly working our way into our new semester's routine. Some of our activities have restarted but many do not restart until next week.

Sunday - Pasta, Homemade sauce, Garlic Bread, Salad
Monday - Daddy off Work - Company For Bunch - Scrambled eggs, Baked French Toast, Blintz Casserole Orange Juice, Sliced Fruit - Dinner is leftovers
Tuesday - Soup and Biscuits
Wednesday - KashaVarnshka and Salad
Thursday - Geography Fair - Dinner Out
Shabbat - Challah, Apple and Ginger Salad, Sweet Salmon, Sesame Green Beans, Rice, Chocolate Strudel

Happy Birthday Charlotte Mason

2012-01-01T19:42:00.000-05:00

Happy Birthday to Charlotte Mason! 1 January 1842

Thank you so much for your research and fortitude. Your work and writings have inspired me and formed the foundation for the schooling and learning that Froggy enjoys every day. Hopefully next year our learning will be even more keeping with the guiding principles you provide and I love but have a hard time enacting.

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T18:34:00.000-05:00

To us celebrating holidays as a family is very important. Our New,Years Eve tradition consists of attending one of the local First Night celebrations. For us, it provides a festive family focused way to celebrate far away from the typical liquor focus.

Since Froggy has been around we have done a "kid-version" and celebrated the "ball drop" at 9pm. (Many of festivals do this)

This year however, both she and I made it all the way until midnight. We attended First Night Alexandria which is a bigger one than we have done before. It is also very different in that it did not have that "street festival" flavor. Everything was indoors, which can be a real plus. I would have loved to be inside during some of our past First Nights.

Froggy won a free book just for telling a joke. They had lots more for the kids to do long into the night and lots more quality family music.

We did swing dancing or at least tried. There were some children who seemed to really know what they were doing.

Both Froggy and Abba got face paintings. Froggy's was more traditional while Abba opted for morbid.

Not Your Mother's Flashcards

2011-12-30T06:12:00.000-05:00

I recently purchased flashcards for both our Ivrit curriculum and our Chumash program. I had been trying to work without them because I hated flashcards as a child and wanted to spare Froggy that.

With her Ivrit Flashcards, we play a version of charades. These cards disappointed me when they showed up. They include only the word, no pictures as exist in the text. They are plain and boring. I expected Froggy to hate them. I have pulled out all the verbs for the first half of the book. I place the cards Ivrit side up. We take turns reading the Ivrit and then acting out the verb for the other person to guess. The actor can look at the English but tries not to. The actor also has to use the verb in a complete Ivrit sentence. Froggy loves this game so much that she practically begs for it. She wants to do it more than once a day. It is also getting us using our limited Ivrit even outside of the game. I call this a win/win.

The Chumash Flashcards are helping as well. They are newer and have not been time tested as thoroughly. They are much fewer and likely to be used as heavily. They are one tool among many in our basket. Still it worked. Froggy struggles mightily with Chumash. It is clearly her least favorite of all our school tasks. Yet when I pulled out the flashcards she became less reluctant. I have not even cut them apart yet and they are already helping.

This boggles my mind. It amazes me how times change and how much each child is an individual.

Hanukkah Moon

2011-12-27T04:30:00.000-05:00

Chag Sameach! Today is Rosh Chodesh Tevet otherwise known as the Hanukkah Moon. Chanukah is the only Jewish holiday that straddles two months. Rosh Chodesh, the celebration of the new month, is classically a women's festival.
In North African countries, the seventh night of Chanukah, Judith's night of triumph, was set aside as Chag haBanot, the Festival of the Daughters. Chag haBanot falls on the new moon of the Hebrew month of Tevet, which is the sixth or seventh night of Chanukah. More details on how some people celebrate it can be found here.Some legends say that the women did the work of rededicating the Temple with unusual zeal. Other stories say that women have a connection to Chanukah because of Judith, the heroine of the Book of Judith.
We do not celebrate a full Chag HaBanot but do make the seventh day special. I think it is one of the few Rosh Chodesh that Froggy remembers after they are gone (Rosh Hashana being another)

Menu Planning Monday

2011-12-26T05:32:00.000-05:00

This week is full of company at our house. We have few plans other than having people visit but there is plenty of that to make for a full happy week.

Monday - Arrive home - dinner is pancakes and eggs
Tuesday - Hanukkah Party at our house

beef barley soup
latkes and applesauce
Veggie and hummus
fruit wedges
sufganyiot
cut out sugar cookies

Wednesday - leftover buffet
Thursday- (Evan and Aunt Petal as guests) Tofu Stirfry and rice
Shabbat - (Mrs Fletcher as guest) Challah, gefilte fish, apricot chicken, noodle kugel, broccoli, swiss cake roll

Shir La La

2011-12-25T04:22:00.001-05:00

Right before break, our shul brought in Shir La La to do a fun musical holiday program with all the religious school students. The older children did a drumming workshop and the younger set had a blast singing and dancing with Shira.

It was an amazingly interactive performance which truly engaged the young people in the Hanukkah story.

Froggy danced with Rabbi Paskind

What do we say? We say Nay! (in response to Antiochus demanding the Jews worship idols)

Show me your muscles? Are you as strong as a Macabee?

The music was not the sickly sweet of so much children's music. We have been listening to the Hanukkah disc all through the holiday and still enjoying it.

One Semester Down!

2011-12-23T07:54:00.000-05:00

We finished our first semester of Ambleside last week, I kind of feel like I am "cheating" with this curriculum. It does not feel like school to me. It is just "reading". Froggy enjoys all the stories. I use our time working on our Ambleside books as rewards for doing other assignments. Froggy has progressed considerably in her narration skill during the semester. I don't know if she is retaining any of the stuff we learn. Ambleside offers guidance on exams but I am not willing to do that. Either it is sinking in or it isn't. This is only first grade. If she does not retain everything that is ok. The foundation is being lain and creating footholds for future learning.

What We Are Reading

2011-12-23T06:14:00.000-05:00

We have been reading tons of holiday books. But it is not all holiday books. We just finished a new chapter book, The Sisters Grimm: The Fairy-Tale Detectives. It is the first in a series of at least nine books. The premise of the series is that the Brother Grimm Fairy Tales are actually history rather than story. Two sisters, Daphne and Sabrina are sent to live with Grandma after their parents disappear and learn they are descendents of this famous writing pair. They also learn that the fairy tale creatures are real and living in their town except that none of them are how they appear in the fairy tales.
Each book revolves around a mystery the girls must solve with this characters. In the first book, we meet Jack The Giant Killer. He is the bad guy of the book (shh don't tell anyone who is going to read it).
I liked the book as much as Froggy. We got different things out of the book. My favorite part was seeing her recognize the characters she knows in their Fairyport form. It also showed me which of the classic tales she is not familiar with.
We will certainly be reading more of this series.

After a long break from the Ingalls, we returned and have started On The Banks of Plum Creek. The break did us a world of good and Froggy returned with renewed interest. She has a different perspective. We are only about 20% through the book but have already had some interesting discussions about responsibility and how times change. Laura and Mary are left home alone while Ma and Pa go to town for the whole day. Froggy said she would be too scared to do that. But Laura was not scared. We talked about how in Indian Country she would have been though.
I wanted to show her that while these books are fiction they are also historical. We found this site which has been fun to look through and given Froggy a different take on the books

Whatcha Making Wednesdays - Stained Glass Cookies

2011-12-21T18:27:00.000-05:00

Hanukkah is off to a great start at the Landing. Yesterday was full of the final preparations, including making stained glass cookies to take to the Hanukkah party at the nursing home this morning. It was a full family event. We used a recipe from Kosher by Designs Entertains. It is more a butter cookie rather than a sugar cookie. I am still looking for the perfect cut out cookie recipe. I use coconut oil as the fat so the cookies are parve. The dough is crumbly when you first start working with it but warms nicely as it is worked and needs no additional flour for rolling.

Froggy rolled out the dough and cut out the main cookies. I cut out the windows after transferring to the parchment lined cookie sheets.

We used lifesavers for the hard candies. I much prefer Jolly Ranchers but could not find them this time. Froggy is getting so independent and wanted to unwrap the candies. She tried and tried with coaching from both parents. Finally Abba ended up unwrapping them for her. She did however smash them all up all by herself.

Then she helped me fill the windows on the cookies.

They burn very easily. The second batch was much better. We took them out before they started to brown at all.

Mount Vernon

2011-12-20T07:25:00.000-05:00

We visited Mount Vernon this week. We visit probably a couple of times a year. They decorate for the holidays and show how the Washingtons celebrate the holidays.

One of favorite things is the statue of "Nelly" Washington, George Washington's stepdaughter that sits with the First Couple in the lobby of the Visitors Center.

The kids received an adventure map to accompany the journey.

Part of the holiday decorating is a collection of themed Christmas Trees each representing something or someone on the original plantation.

As you can see, this is Lady Washington's tree. Even for those who do not celebrate Christmas, it is fun to look at the trees and try to determine why they chose the pieces they did.

In 1787, George Washington paid 18 shillings to bring a camel to Mount Vernon for his guests’ enjoyment. Now every year the Estate brings back Aladdin to the delight of all. He is very very friendly.

Froggy "cooked up" some great stew in the large kettle and then we went looking for something sweet.

And found my personal favorite part. A full demonstration of the chocolate making process

. It smells so good in the tent. This gentleman showed us pictures of the cocoa plantation and the giant pods that chocolate starts as. He was roasting the beans and the kids even got a chance to help shell them.

Then the beans were smashed and the cocoa liquer mixed with the cocoa butter. Froggy loved this step.

Then we met a team of four year old oxen. The field hands stopped and chatted with us. We learned about the team's average day. They are exercising the team and training this young team for their summer work since winter is the slow season.

Next stop, the blacksmiths. Above is the coal in its various forms. The blacksmith explained how the coal changes as it burns. The lowest piece is coal ready for the fire. The top piece is the waste impurities that are left behind and won't burn. These rocks need to be regularly cleaned out of the fire pit.

On our way back to the visitor center, we encountered "Nelly Calvert" who told us about her life on the plantation after she married George Washington's grandson. She was kind enough to show me the details of her clothing. Her dress is an apron style closed not with buttons but with straight pins. Froggy was boggled that she walked around all day with straight pins.

Our last stop was the gingerbread display. a detailed replica of the Mansion created by former White House pastry chef Roland Mesnier,

There are gingerbread outbuildings

And Chocolate trees

And then we saw the replicas from the chefs in training, 4th graders who created their versions of the buildings of the Estate.

The kidlets were then given the opportunity to match the replicas with the building they represented it. It was fun listening to their reasoning. There is no answer key but I think we got them all right.

Menu Planning Monday - 23 Kislev 5772

2011-12-19T07:10:00.000-05:00

We head out of town bright and early Thursday morning so our menu this week is short. It still involves tons of cooking/baking since I need to make gifts plus food to bring to two different parties.

Monday - Pasta, meatballs, salad and garlic bread. - Make cutout cookies
Tuesday - First Candle so ofcourse we must have latkes. Pulled Chicken, latkes and frozen peas - decorate cutout cookies
Wednesday - Second Candle - Blintzes (Trader Joes has parve latkes), sufganyiot and fruit. I promised Froggy we would finally make our own sufganyiot. I may try these from Adventures in Mamaland. Or I may wimp out and just use my challah recipe.
And then that it is. Off we go to Grandma's where I will still do plenty of cooking but just no planning.

Firecracker Fizzle

2011-12-19T06:57:00.000-05:00

Our studies this week took us to Ancient China and the invention of gunpowder and firecrackers. We discussed saltpeter and sulfer and mining techniques which were all very interesting. But the kids wanted to see an explosion.
So we made alka seltzer rockets. This is part 2 of our chemical reaction series. First we put a piece of alka seltzer in a flat dish and added a tiny bit of water so that they could see what happened. Then we tried to make an explosion using film canisters. As typical for me, we only got a fizzle rather than a rocket. I have about 50% success rate with this experiment. The kids didn't seem to mind.
We came back to the table and talked about the reaction we had witnessed. We talked about how the atoms recombine to make new molecules. And then the kids made their own chemical reactions by building molecules and recombining them.

Our oldest student really took to the molecule part and she and I discussed why certain atoms bond with others and valency.

Other students put a creative spin on the molecules and created some neat structures.

Whatcha Making - Mini Chocolate Tiramsu Cakes

2011-12-15T17:44:00.000-05:00

These turned out so great when I made them for our afternoon of gaming that I thought it would be fun to try them again with Froggy helping. I was right. This recipe is perfect to do with little people because there are so many fun easy steps for them to do all by themselves. And the treats are just their size.

The bottom layer is cake which Froggy loved "smashing" with the tart maker (wooden thing)

Then the filling is piped in. We used sweetened cream cheese. Percision in not critical and Froggy was able to do this just fine.

The last layer is whipped cream. We shaved chocolate on top for decoration. Froggy was able to do this easily using my microplane.

All in all the project was a huge success with little mess and a decadent result. Things got hectic at the end and I forgot to take a picture of the finished product so I borrowed this one to give you the idea. And here is the recipe.

Fairy Skirt

2011-12-15T17:34:00.000-05:00

Froggy had a tremendous growth spurt recently. Which means new clothes. She decided she wanted to try skirts again finally . We have not had much luck in the past with them staying on her middle. As I gathered some options for her to choose from she picked one that I had not planned to offer. It was remnants from a previous project. But she fell in love with it and Ima got creative.

This is the result. She wore it all day today and it stayed in place perfectly. It has a drop waist and gathers with three buttons at the waist. It is warmer than many other skirts and will perfect for this winter. I see several more of these in her future.

Here is a close up of the buttons.

Holiday Concerts

2011-12-14T06:43:00.000-05:00

Typically we do not attend holiday concerts because they are filled with Christmas music. We went to one today at the recommendation of a friend and it was wonderful. It was a Tiny Tots Concerts designed for young listeners. Since it was a symphonic orchestra and therefore no lyrics, I was ok with the Christmas carols.

Froggy had a fantastic time. She loved the music. She loved seeing the young people playing. The band director introduced all of the instruments individually. Froggy only got one right. She used to know more but this year classical music has fallen off our radar and she has forgotten.

Students dressed as Rudolph and Frosty and Mr and Mrs Claus visited the children and took pictures with them after the concert. Froggy wanted desperately to hug everyone except Mr. Claus. It was neat.
We got a bit of a surprise too. We were coming back to the main area after a detour, when one of the band comes running up to greet Froggy. "Hey I know you!!" He was so happy to greet her. He is one of the Madrichim in the next grade up. All the lower grades daven together during Religious School so that is where he knows her from. It made both of feel good to be greeted.

Menu Planning Monday - 12 Kislev 5772

2011-12-13T06:14:00.000-05:00

First the wrapup. We have friends over yesterday for an afternoon of board games. I made several new recipes all of which were a hit. First is whipped sweet potatoes. Abba decreed they do not take the place of mashed potatoes but everyone else liked them better. Froggy ate three helpings and she never eats potatoes of any kind.
The second was Roasted Cauliflower & Delica Squash with Baby Spinach. Froggy did not try it but the other children liked it and ate lots of "white broccoli". I am not a big cauliflower fan and I loved it.
The final recipes are two desserts. Chocolate Mint Sandwich cookies which are decadent. Because they are a sandwich cookie, it is important to make the cookie balls small or the final product ends up too big. And Mini Chocolate Tiramisu Cakes. They were so super easy to make and turned out absolutely elegant. I topped them with some shaved chocolate to make them look extra special. I used coolwhip as the recipe calls for but if you can get the Rich's Whip Cream then they can be made parve.

Now for this week's menu. This week I am out of the house more nights than I am hope including Shabbat which means it is not much of a menu.

Monday - Both parents out at meetings - Froggy with the sitter, - Mac and Cheese (I typically leave this for her with a sitter because it is a favorite and not something we share with her so not a typical dinner)
Tuesday - Turkey Noodle Soup and Biscuits
Wednesday - Tofu Stirfry and rice
Thursday - Mommy out - Pasta and salad and garlic bread.
Shabbat - Out at a Friend's house. I am bringing Challah

Hanukkah Happiness

2011-12-08T19:29:00.000-05:00

To accompany our Hanukkah baking and decorating, we pulled out our holiday favorites.

First is Hanukkah Around the World. We read it last year but Froggy's interaction with it this year is so much deeper. When we read the story set in France about the special Rosh Chodesh of Hanukkah, she got it and started looking forward to it. We will see if perhaps we can make our seventh day into a Chag Habanot. We are certainly looking forward to trying this sephardic alternative to sufganyiot. (You can never have too many fried foods huh?)

Froggy read Engineer Ari and the Hanukkah Mishap in Religious School. Her teacher seems to be a big Engineer Ari fan. I had never met him until this year but this second story of his Froggy has loved. He is much much more pleasant to deal with than Sammy the Spider.Engineer Ari is a new beloved friend at our house.

Another new one we found at the library was not such a joyous find. We read One Candle. Froggy picked it out because it was in the Hanukkah section. I did not pre-read it before it was brought to me for storytime. I had a hard time finishing the story through teary eyes. The story tells of how one family honors their Holocaust survivors and remembers those who did not survive. I would recommend it but for an older audience.

Whatcha Making

2011-12-07T19:57:00.000-05:00

Today was a cold rainy day. So instead of the planned outdoor activities, we took advantage of the day to get some holiday baking in.

We made Holiday cut-out sugar cookies. We used Almost Unschoolers recipe. It did not turn out as well as my traditional recipe but it was easier for Froggy to handle. We made stars and dreidles and Chais. Froggy tried to make hannukiot but the stands broke on every single one.

On an attempt not to over load on sugar, we also made banana muffins. We used silcon molds so that they could be festive shapes as well. Froggy asked for hannukiot as well but I sadly informed her that we did not have a mold for those so we could not make them. The muffin starts turned out fantastic but the dreidles just ended up looking like pointy blobs.

While the muffins were baking, Froggy decorated our kitchen window with Gel Stickers. This is the final touch of holiday decorating until we light the candles.

Phyllis Wheatley

2011-12-07T11:11:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Almost Unschoolers, we have recently started watching Liberty Kids. Froggy loves it. She is fascinated with the characters and the history. She is struggling with the concept of slavery and the idea that the Revolutionary "heroes" she has heard about were not universally thought to be Tzaddikim.

We have also been introduced to Phyllis Wheatley. Froggy was not sure if she was real or made up like Sarah Phillips (the main character) is. I informed her that Phyllis Wheatley did infact live and we checked out some library books about her which even included some of her poetry.

Froggy's favorite is Phillis's Big Test. Ms. Wheatley gained great fame but it did not come easily.

Menu Planning Monday - 2 Kislev 5772

2011-12-05T05:11:00.000-05:00

In addition to our regular menu for the week, I am baking and preparing for two big events next week. We will be hosting Game Day here and attending a friend's cookie exchange. I need about 10 dozen cookies for the exchange hence getting the jump on it this week.

This week's baking consists of
Sandwich bread
Pumpkin muffins
Sugar Cookies
Pumpkin Cookies

For both the cookies, I will bake some of the cookies for us to eat and enjoy this week and freeze some of the dough for baking up closer to the actual event.

Sunday - Sticky Chicken - (never had last week), peas and corn
Monday - Burgers, parsnip fries,broccoli
Tuesday - Chicken Noodle soup and Biscuits
Wednesday -Tacos salad, rice and bean
Thursday - Dinner out with friends
Shabbat - Challah, Salmon, rice, keem, broccoli