Monday, October 25, 2010

A quiet Monday

Today has been a quiet day around here. The kids enjoyed playing in the cooler weather outside while I got some chores done this morning, and baked 2 batches of hamburger and 1 batch of hot dog buns. Then I worked with the kids on their school work from 10 am until lunch at almost 1 pm, by which time they had all finished their "desk work" subjects such as math, English, spelling, handwriting, etc. They did some more reading and studying on the country of the week while the girls napped. I used that time to whip up a batch of peanut butter granola. It was super easy and quick, and very yummy! I think this will be great for breakfast tomorrow morning, on vanilla yogurt, with bananas sliced into it.

The country we are studying this week (and probably next, as there is so much to learn) is Egypt. We are learning about the Nile River, the Sahara Desert, pyramids, Ancient Egypt, Cleopatra, Hatsheput, Tutankhamen, Joseph, the ten plagues, and modern Egypt. One of the suggested activities is to make a mummified chicken (out of a real chicken) - EWWWW! The directions say: "The entire process of changing the salt to dry out the chicken could take up to 6 weeks (or longer) to dry thoroughly. When it is dry, it should not smell." So, it it takes up to 6 weeks to dry, and it does not smell once it is dry, doesn't that mean the chicken will smell for up to 6 weeks? I'm sure that's what I want on my counter when having a baby at home - NOT!



I am SO not doing that! I think I will stick with this pyramid cake instead.



This is the last of the African countries we will learn about. All we have left of our "Galloping the Globe" curriculum is Australia and Oceania, which we will finish up with before our baby break in three weeks. Once we start school again in January, we are going to go through "Cantering the Country" for the rest of this school year and all of next. I am very excited about starting that because I have found several companion books to go along with the curriculum used at thrift stores and library book sales, saving me a ton of money (even if purchased used on Amazon).

I'm hoping to upload some pictures later tonight of the hiking trip we took on Saturday. It was beautiful!

9 comments:

  1. Wow! What a NEAT cake!

    You are such a good homeschooler and I love how much you put into it. :)

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  2. I'd love to hear how your Australia curriculum goes, I suspect it will be... inaccurite lol. Many countries seem to get some strange ideas about us!

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  3. I'm Australian! If your kids have any questions I am happy to help. If you are interested I can give you my email address. I also have a really awesome recipe for pavlova which is a dessert that we eat here. It's a shame I don't know you well enough to send you some vegemite and tim tams!

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  4. This is off topic, but how do you feel about being unable to vote because your husband thinks women should NOT vote? I think the election process would be a great home school lesson.

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  5. anonymous,

    I am not unable to vote. I choose not to vote because God says it is wrong, not because of my husband. There is not a sin in this world that my husband could stop me from committing if I wanted to do it; it is my own choice to obey God or not.

    I wonder how everyone who DOES vote feels about being unable to vote this election. That is, unable to vote for a real candidate since all we get to "choose" between are Republican and Democratic puppets, who say different things but act the same. It's just a smoke screen.

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  6. Where in the Bible does God say it is wrong to vote? The U.S.A. wasn't even around when the Bible was written.

    Statements like this do little for your theological credibility.

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  7. Can you tell me the scripture that says we should not vote?

    Also, I agree with your husband 100% on not selling things at church! He is absolutely right on that issue. A couple years ago we attended an incredible Christmas production at a large church that really told the story of Christ. I wanted to get the DVD to share with a family member unable to come. The church was selling the DVD for about 25.00! I can see a dollar or two for the cosr of the DVD, but this was a clear for profit "store"- not an out reach for those is need of the message.

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  8. Is there no viable third option in the US? In Australia for the longest time we had the Liberal Party and the Labor Party and, back in the day, they were pretty different. Then, in order to get votes their policies became more and more similar and it became incredibly difficult to tell the difference between them. This sameness has allowed a third political party to really come into its own and at the last election surprised a lot of people and won quite a few seats. In fact the very sameness of the two leading parties and the ability of the third party to get votes they might not ordinarily have had resulted in a hung parliament at the last election. We didn't know who our leader was for something like 70 days

    p.s. let me know when you want that pavlova recipe :)

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  9. There's nothing new or 'eeeew' about 'mummified' meat. Salting meat and whole poultry has been around since we discovered salt. It was the primary form of preserving meat until the advent of the freezer and figured prominently in life on the frontier and will be again if God help up modern civilization collapses.
    Linda Albert

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