In January, hoping for some calm sailing, I put together a regular schedule for our homeschooling.  It takes some planning work, but results in more accomplished, less stress, and less chaos.

The biggest family transition was really my husbands.  By the end of January, we agreed that he would quit his hated job.  The second week of February he was ecstatic, but then he buckled down to the hard work.  While it was nice having an extra set of hands for homeschool help, we were all happy to have him employed again in May.

The next transition was my daughter’s.   After spending 7 mo living with her bf’s family in CA, she decided to move back home. We are getting along better than ever before.   Work was as hard to find here as it had been in CA, tho, and in the fall she returned full-time to the community college.  She was inducted in to the honor society, and is now in process applying to VCU for fall of 2012.

This year brought a few good field trips.  In the spring hubby was able to come with us to the National Museum of Natural History, a good followup to our fall evolution unit. In the summer, the kids and I visited my mom, including a wonderful trip to the Franklin Institute. In the fall the four of us visited the historical recreation of the original town of Henricus, which was how our county, Henrico, began 400 years ago.  This coordinated with our study of Jamestown.

The fall brought even more structure to our homeschool, with more outside activities than ever before. Orion, who had taken sax lessons over the summer, joined newly formed homeschool band and choir classes. I joined with 2 other families to create a grade school science coop. We continued with martial arts and the home school video game club, and added an ongoing D&D group.  Raven is reading more and more on his own, choosing to read to himself at bedtime instead of having dad read to him. Orion’s patience for board games has been a big growth. Hubby has renewed his interest in board games, which makes it good timing.

With the busier schedule, I’ve had to get much more organized with my cooking and menu planning. I’m in love with Paprika, a recipe app for my iPad  (a birthday present from my mother!).

Yes, this has been, for me, an amazing year. No crisis, no horrible news, no big adjustments. Just steady improvements! I hope this becomes the new normal around here!

The only adjustment I’ve had to make so far was for Raven’s writing curriculum. Our schedule is VERY busy. Here, let me explain. 

Things we do outside of the house:

• Monday: martial arts (including me!) from 12-1
• Tuesday: Parent-taught science coop from 9:30 – 11:30; Orion choir from 3-4
• Wednesday: martial arts 12-1, park day 3-4:30-ish
• Thursday: Orion band from 11-12
• Friday: every other week, home school video game club from 3:30-5:30

Subjects we are studying:

• Joint History: We are reading about 2 chapters of Joy Hakim’s History of US, together, on the sofa. This is a 10 book series, and I hope to finish it in 2 years! This is supplemented with appropriate selections from Chester Comix, and occasionally other books or videos. We generally have the map of the US, a World History Atlas, or a blow-up globe with us (the dog is TERRIFIED of the globe). Oh, and I sometimes pull up Google earth on my iPad, too!
• Orion:
• History (additional): he is finishing up the Little History of the World. Next, he will probably do a unit study on the presidents.
• English: we are finishing up the writing and vocab components we didn’t finish from last year’s curriculum (level 3 – very rigorous). If/when we finish that, we will do some combination of the next level of grammar and vocab from the same publisher, a teen writing curriculum, or a game-based fiction writing curriculum.
• Math: we have just started book 2 of the Singapore New Syllabus. Orion has been doing very well with this. He looks up the answer after finishing a problem, and if he gets it wrong, he keeps working at it until he gets it right. I am very happy with this!
• Science: Orion is reading through the second half of the high school ap/intro college bio textbook we started 2 years ago, and doing the end-of-chapter problems. He will be taking a dissection class starting February.
• Raven:
• English: We are now using Language Smarts from the Critical Thinking Co. It’s a great fit because it is more like logic work based on language. The last thing we tried was Spectrum Writing workbook, which was a total failure. Before that we tried having him write to pen pals. Yeah, like pulling teeth. He is willing to do this one (so far, 2 weeks in), and I know he’s learning something. He is also reading for fun, finally! Mostly Garfield books, and some Stink books. Dad also continues to read to him at bedtime – this month its books in the Time Warp Trio series.
• Math: We were lucky enough to get chosen to review a chapter from an upcoming math series. Raven LOVED the textbook, which is comic book style. He resisted the exercises at first, but was able to see for himself that doing the easier problems first helps him to do the harder problem. This was a major breakthrough for him! Now that we’ve completed the chapter, we are back to what we were doing over the summer. We are reading Murderous Maths books, and doing problems from Zaccarro’s Primary Challenge Math. When we first started this combo, he would only do the level 1 and 2 problems in the Challenge Math book, but now he’s doing level 3 and ‘Einstein level’ problems, mostly in his head, with only the occasional hint from me. We may continue on to the next level of Challenge Math, or we might try out Problemoids – in fact, the owner of a math website is trying to get us a free copy of that to evaluate as well!
• Science: in the coop, we are using Real Science Odyssey Chemistry. Raven seems to think its ok, and I only have to teach every third week. He’s also reading a lot about the planets, which is still his biggest area of interest.

This schedule is exhausting for me, but the boys really like getting out of the house so much. The academics may be slightly on the light side, but my philosophy is to meet them where they are. I don’t want so much work that they get panicky or scream and cry or learn to hate school. I try to come up something they are interested in with just enough challenge, and a format that works for us all.

Year three of homeschooling feels good (most of the time!!)

When I went gluten and dairy free, after a few utter failures in bread making, and not finding the cheeses very satisfying, I did not expect to be making pizza again.  But then, the boys went gluten and dairy free, too.  They LOVED pizza!  So I had to try.  At first, I tried the pizza crust recipe from my trusty Gluten Free Baking Classics.  I was not really impressed.  It’s supposed to be a crisp crust, which you bake before topping – but I’ve never liked crisp crust, or pre-baking (they don’t do that at real pizzerias . . . ).  I was feeling pretty  hopeless about pizza again. 

Then Pizza Fusion opened in our town – a restaurant that offers gluten-free, dairy-free pizza!  Of course, I still couldn’t eat it, as I’m allergic to some of the staple ingredients in commercial gf breads. But the boys RAVED about how good the pizza was.  But, er . . . it was so expensive!  The boys shared a gfcf pizza and my husband and daughter shared a regular pizza, the only leftovers were 2 pieces of my youngest’s pizza . . and it was $50!  The boys were asking if we could go back every week . . . $50?  There HAD to be a way to make pizza as good as that.  Maybe even that _I_ could eat?! 

So i went back to the drawing board.  I remember that, as much as I hated the pizza dough recipe in the cookbook, I loved the foccacia recipe – so why not use that as the pizza dough?  I actually called up Pizza Fusion and asked what cheese they used – they used the same cheese I did, Vegan Gourmet!  They said maybe their melted better because their oven was so hot . . . so, my oven can go pretty hot!!  The first time I made my ‘new’ gfcf pizza, one boy liked it better (because of the toppings) and the other said it was as good as Pizza Fusion – success!!  Then I altered the dough so I can eat it – and the whole family is still happy to eat it!

So, this is how I make my gfcf pizza:

First off, you make the sauce, so the flavors have time to merge.  Very simple – take one 6 oz can of tomato paste mixed with enough water to make the texture you like – spreadable but not runny – 1 to 2 cans, depending on the brand.  Add generous amounts of italian seasonings – i use about 1 tsp basil, 1 tsp thyme, 1.5 tsp oregano, 1/2 tsp of onion powder, 1/4 tsp black pepper, and a dash of cayenne.  use garlic powder, too, if you can.  Let it sit for at least 10 minutes, then taste and add additional herbs, and some salt, to taste.  It should taste pretty strong, as it will be spread thin, but remember, the cheese is salty.

Next, prepare your toppings.  Mine are numerous:
cooked, crumbled italian sausage
fresh spinach lightly wilted in olive oil (with garlic if you can)
sliced black olives
diced tomatoes
thinly sliced red onion
sliced sweet pepper
pineapple tidbits
sliced mushrooms
halved, sliced zucchini
whatever else you and your family like!

Cheeses:  we use a combination of vegan gourmet and Daiya mozzarella (ok, and ‘real’ mozzarella for my husband and daughter).  Sometimes I also use some vegan parmesan.

When everything else is ready, its time to start the dough.   This recipe should make two 8-10 inch pizzas.  This recipe is changed only slightly from the original, mostly just by subbing in flours I’m not allergic to.  I highly recommend you get buy the book – its only $12 on amazon.

Rustic Flat Bread, which I use as pizza crust:
 * 1.5 cups bread mix
 * 1 tsp gum (xanthan or guar)
 * 1/2 tsp salt
 * 1 TB sugar
 * 2 1/4 tsp yeast
 * 1 tsp olive oil
 * 3/4 c water, 110 degrees
Mix dry ingredients in mixer bowl.  Pour in liquids.  Mix briefly, scrape bowl, and beat at high for 2 minutes.  You may allow the dough to rise and beat it down again – this seems to make the crust rise better, but is not necessary

Dump dough on to greased pans. Using non stick spray and the back of a spoon dipped (repeatedly) in water, spread the dough very thin.  Note, if you are using a pizza pan with holes, you should line it with foil. 

Spread a thin layer of sauce on the crusts, top, and bake at 500.  PIzza is done when cheese is melted and crust is lightly browned on the bottom – or when the crust is threatening to get too dark around the edges.

Note, I have been using 4 times this recipe to feed my family of 5 for 2 meals, and its almost enough . . . we’re big eaters. 

My standard flour mix is 1 cup each:
 millet flour
 corn flour
 bean flour 
 corn starch
 potato starch
 arrowroot starch. 

More recently, instead of the bean flour, I do a combination of buckwheat cereal, hemp protein powder, quinoa flakes and rice bran.  My family prefers this flavor.

Feel free to use whatever flour mix you use for bread – we can’t do rice, tapioca or sorghum, so I get creative!

Then a few weeks ago, the Gluten Free Goddess posted her Olive bread recipe.  I was curious, and I tried it.  It was . . .ok.  I ate it dunked in oil, and it was a reasonable accompaniment to my dinner salad.  My gf 15 yo son loved it, tho, and ate most of it.  Which was fine by me. 

So then I decided to take another look at a recipe I had found on the web over a year ago.  I can’t find the exact recipe, but this is the closest I’ve found.  I started with that basic recipe, using my sweet bread flour mix.  I let it rise overnight and by 10 am, it was fragrant and bubbly and just lovely!  But by the time I baked it, around 2 pm, it was flat.  It didn’t rise in the oven, either.  The flavor was wonderfully sour (too sour for my son), and the crust was nice, but it wasnt quite right.

I looked around the web some more, taking notes from this recipe and this one.  I played around with my flour mix.  And after a few tries, today I made a most wonderful bread!  The flavor is complex, the crust is hard and chewy, the bread is tender but not crumbly.   The only thing I might want to change is that the bottom crust seems slightly overcooked, but i cant be that picky.  I LOVE this bread – so I have to share!!

Some notes: 

• Different flour mixes require different amounts of water.  I did best with a dough just too soft to hold in your hand, but stiffer than most muffin batters.  When the dough was too dry, it didn’t rise as well, and when it was too wet, the bread actually seemed soggy.
• I found that beating the dough in a stand mixer for a minute or two seemed to help the rise. 
• I don’t have a dutch oven, so I am using a covered casserole.  I rise the bread in a duplicate casserole lined with parchment.   I smooth the parchment out as best I can, but cut it long enough so that some is hanging over the edges.  I preheat the other dish, with the lid, and then gently lift the dough up by the paper edges to transfer to hot pan – but trim carefully before returning to the oven.
• When I left the bread out overnight during the summer in Virginia, it rose too fast, and fell when baking.  Instead I left it in the fridge overnight, and then let it rise on the counter from about 8 am to 2:30 pm.  This seemed to give me the best rise.  I will try leaving it out overnight in the winter, though. 
• You know the bread has risen enough when the dough looks puffy and spongy, and smells very yeasty.  (This dough was too wet, so your should look slightly drier)
• I havent tried, but the original recipe said that the texture would be poor if you sliced it before it was completely cool. 

Ingredients:

• 2 cups GF Flour Mix
• 1 1⁄4 tsp. Guar (or xanthan) gum
• 1 tsp. salt
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 1/4 tsp. yeast
• 1 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 cup water, or slightly more to make soft dough or stiff batter

Directions:

• Mix all dry ingredients in a large mixer bowl.
• Add olive oil and water to the bowl; mix well and add more water if the dough seems too stiff.   Beat a minute or two on high.
• Line rising bowl with parchment paper, leaving some overhang. Pour/scoop in batter and smooth with the back of a spoon dipped in water.
• Cover bowl with a light cloth or plastic wrap and let rise 12-18 hours at room temperature, until light and yeasty. Note, in summer in Virginia, I found I needed to let it rise overnight in the fridge, and then about 5 more hours on the counter.
• Preheat the oven to 450°F with a cast iron dutch oven with lid (or a Pyrex casserole with lid) in the oven.
• After 30 minutes, take out the hot pan. Lift dough gently by the paper, put in hot pan, and trim off edges. Put the lid on the pan, and put the entire thing in the oven.
• After 20 minutes, remove the lid and then bake 20 minutes more.
• Cool completely before slicing.

Notes from the original recipe (i havent tried this): For a faster version by using 2 tsps of rapid rise yeast and let it rise 2 hours. For a double recipe, turn the heat down to 400 degrees, and bake it 30 minutes covered, and then continue baking uncovered until it’s a nice light brown color.

The flour mix the recipe came with was equal parts sorghum, cornstarch, potato starch, and tapioca starch/flour.  I’m allergic to tapioca AND sorghum.)  The original author said she had used several mixes with success.

the flour mix I use is: 

• 1/3 cup millet flour
• 1/3 cup corn flour
• 1/3 cup potato starch
• 1/3 cup arrowroot starch 
• 1/3 c quinoa flakes
• 1/3 cup combined rice bran, hemp protein powder, and uncooked buckwheat hot cereal

(edited to add:  really, I don’t do 1/3 cup of those last 3 items combined . . . i do 1 TB of each of those, and fill in the remainder of the 1/3 cup in more quinoa flakes .. . otherwise it’s slightly bitter)

The first year of homeschooling, everything is new and exciting. You are trying to pick curriculum, trying to find a style, and then you are amazed each time your child actually learns something . . . you know, without being in school! But after a while, you just get into your zone. There are fewer questions to ask, and the learning moments become less surprising.

So what did I see which was so inspirational?

First one was a post in a Homeschool group on Facebook by some one I don’t know. She said that after years of experience and networking, her standard advice to homeschoolers is this: “Look at your kids. Do what seems to make the most amount of sense at the time (easy) and if it’s not working, stop. (surprisingly hard.) It’s different for everybody, but it all works.”

The next item was a blog entry from a woman I met when she stepped on to a sudden void and became the minister of my UU church for a year.

Here is my reaction to her post: ” There is a big part of this in learning how to homeschool. I have to learn to teach AS I AM, in way which reaches my kids AS THEY ARE. What a lot of learning I had to do in the first year! Not only that, the darn buggers keep CHANGING. You know, like growing older and developing new interests? I used to complain about them no longer liking their favorite food once i got used to stocking it in the house . . .but now i have to keep changing curriculum.”

I think that, to a great extent, this year I started to really hit my stride. I started to accept that it’s ok if I work better with a schedule than without. I started to feel like I knew what my teen needed to be focussing on. I started to trust my 7 yo to know what he wanted to learn next. I learned how and when to push each of us, and when it was time to just let things slide.

I look at the kids. I accept myself and them as we are now. I do what makes sense to me. When it doesn’t work, I take a fresh look and do something different.

Really, I highly recommend it!

Of course, homeschooling involves lesson planning, and this particular lesson included some cooking as well as a trip to the library and some web searches, printing and other planning.  But Pi day was a success!

First we read the first Sir Cumference book.  Actually, Orion read it to Raven while I set up the table for the measuring project.  But Raven liked it so much, I had to read it to him again. 

Then it was time to discover Pi.   First, Orion measured various cylinders, and wrote down the circumference and diameters.  Raven looks thrilled, huh?

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Next, Raven used the calculator to find the ratio of the circumference to the diameter.  Orion helped a bit!

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Then we read the Pi page from “Math, a book you can count on,” and I asked Raven to check on his computer what todays date was – Raven got the connection! 

We had a break for martial arts and lunch, and when we came back, Orion completed the worksheet from the link above, tried calculating the circumference of one item using the diameter and Pi from his calculator, 3.14, or 3, to see what a difference the decimals make.  And finally he did this worksheet, on practical applications of Pi.

Meanwhile, Raven helped me make his favorite pie – pumpkin!  He read as much of the recipe as he could, helped me with all the measuring, told me the final mixture looked like poo, and reminded me that I’d forgotten to set the timer - good catch!

And dinner on Pi day looks kinda like this:

We have chocolate tofu pudding pie with almond crust

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We have lemon coconut gelatin pie with gfcf cookie crumb crust

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we have gfcfef crustless pumpkin pie

and just for some balance . . .

hot dogs!!

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MMMM, PIE!

9:15-ish dh and I come downstairs after showering. boys are in pjs playing on electronic media.  dh leaves for work.

9:30 Orion and I eat breakfast and I start checking all my electronic media

10:00 Orion takes a shower and Raven eats breakfast and I continue checking on all my electronic media

11:00 (ok, if I’m feeling really lazy or lots of my friends posted really interesting things overnight, it might be 11:30) I announce its time for school. 
Raven shakes off and sorts placemats from the dining room table, and puts them where they belong. 
Orion removes everything else from the table and I wipe it down.

11:05 (or 11:10 if Raven had a tantrum) we sing a song from our UU songbook

11:10 Orion starts french and Raven and I go upstairs. 
Raven gets dressed and we sit in his bed reading together.  Right now we are going through every book in his shelf to see if we can get rid of some.  Doesnt look like we can!

11:30  I come downstairs and Orion and I start on MCT LA - monday is poetry, tuesday is grammar practice, wed is vocab, thurs and fri are writing. 
Raven has free time to play w toys, pet cats, whatever.

12:00 Raven does Time4Learning (whatever he wants to do there) and Orion and I do math.

12:30 we walk the dog

1:00 we eat lunch.  The kids might watch an educational video during lunch.  Orion might read.  I might be on fb.

(if we are running late, which happens often, first we eat lunch and then walk the dog)

if we aren’t running late, we might do some chores or take a (no video games) break, meaning Orion and I can check fb. 

around 2:00 we go back to the dining room table and read 4 pages (2 spreads) of the Usborne history book together. 

Next, Raven does a half page of handwriting.  we are supposed to do something else after that, but havent managed yet. 
Orion reads a chapter of Story of Science, a chapter of Little History of the World, and a few pages of Asimov’s Chronology of the world.  If he didn’t read fiction during some of his free time during the day, he also reads 30 minutes of fiction.

and we’re done by 3 most days!

Of course, monday and Wednesday we have martial arts at noon, so we skip french and dog walking. Wed afternoon is left free for park day and friday afternoons might be left open for a project of some sort.

Note, when the dining room table looks like this by the end of the day, I feel like we must have accomplished something!!

Chocolate Cinnamon Bread with Sugar Crust

1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cocoa powder
pinch ground cloves

• Preheat the oven to 350F and thoroughly grease a 9×5″ loaf pan.
• In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar. Beat in eggs one at a time, waiting until the previous egg has been completely incorporated before adding the next.
• In a medium bowl, sift together all purpose flour, cocoa powder, cinnamon, salt, baking powder and baking soda.
• In a measuring cup, whisk together buttermilk, water and vanilla extract.
• Working in two or three additions, alternately add the flour mixture and the buttermilk mixture to the sugar mixture. Begin and end with an addition of the flour mix.
• Pour batter into prepared loaf pan.
• In a small bowl, whisk together topping ingredients: sugar, cinnamon, cocoa powder and ground cloves. Sprinkle evenly on top of the loaf cake.
• Bake at 350F for about 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
• Allow cake to cool in pan for 10-15 minutes, then run a knife around the edge and turn out onto a wire cooling rack.
  Cool completely before slicing.

• Soy flour
• Coconut flour
• Corn flour
• Potato starch
• Arrowroot flour
• Quinoa flakes

I made my usual new years resolution . . . floss my teeth more often!  But there were other things I just couldn’t bring myself to say out loud.

AFter rereading 2009′s year in review, and writing 2010′s year in review, i saw more clearly how much of the stress of the last two years was about my daughter. She moved out in september, and 4 months out, it’s looking like she is settling in stably to her new home.  So i realized its time to stop living as if I’m in the middle of an ongoing crisis, and get back to business. Over the break, I put together a plan for the first few weeks of our science/history curriculum.  Just before vacation ended, I created a weekly schedule, similar to the one I used when I first started homeschooling. 

Monday was the first day of the new schedule.  And it went pretty well.  We began with a song from a UU songbook, which both boys seemed happy to participate in.  My first day of martial arts after a 2.5 week break didn’t kill me.  Raven’s fear that history would be boring was unfounded, and Orion liked all his books and his afternoon reading assignments went faster than he had expected.

 Tuesday was going well until Orion and I decided it was time to see if a cup of tea would help with his adhd symptoms – several of my friends had had great results.  Instead, he had a major flare-up of his tics.  we had to tweak the schedule and watch a video on egypt instead of doing math.

Wednesday is supposed to be park day, but my new plan is that if the weather is not good enough to go the park, we’ll do board games.  We played a game of States Bingo and a partial game of Equate, which is like Scrabble with numbers.  Very nice. 

Thursday had a late start (because the cat had turned off the alarm) and for some reason, Orion went in to crying/panic mode.  Again we had to shift the schedule around a bit, but again, we got everything done (except math). 

And then there was friday . . . the day that I slept 2 hours later than my usual wake-up time and felt like a zombie.   Finally, I felt there was something our schedule couldn’t quite fix . . . so i declared a sick day.

Overall, having a schedule did make the week go more smoothly. Even on the days that something came up, for the most part I was able to tweak the schedule, instead of giving up.  I felt like we got more done with less stress than we did before break.  Hopefully we can keep this up . . and who knows, maybe I can get back to blogging, too.  But no promises!

My daughter started off the year with a new therapist.  Heron and I both liked her, and I think she helped lower the conflict level between us.   She referred Heron to a new med doctor, who suggested a new med.  However, after a week, it became clear that Heron did not have a cold or a flu, but a whole new bad med reaction.  By march, Heron was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, a permanent condition.  Heron had to withdraw from the community college classes, where she was doing so well, and was barely able to fulfill her obligations to earn her high school diploma. 

But don’t think Heron had cornered the drama market!  Orion was banned from having a PC on the network for the entire year, which put a big crimp in home school.  Orion’s tics came back with a vengeance this winter, as well as his anxiety. There were a few days his tics were so bad, he couldn’t hold his head still to read.  He was officially dx’d with Tourette’s by the end of the year, in addition to his previous atypical bipolar and pdd-nos.  He also managed to need stitches  . . . 20 minutes after his step-dad bought him some new woodworking chisels!  After that experience, he went back to his sewing hobby, buying himself a sewing machine with his birthday money . . .and making a LOT of sock creatures!

I had started a blog in the beginning of the year, and was very excited about it for a while, but basically stopped cold after Heron’s dx.  I failed to write about the wonderful Virginia Homeschoolers conference, or about our remarkable visit to the zoo (which involved a monkey stealing a gosling!), or about our summer road trip to Canada to see my in-laws. 

After increasing conflict with my mother and sister over where Heron should live, I put my strained relationship with them on hold.  Heron, of course, finally came up with a workable plan – her bf’s mom in CA agreed to let Heron move in there.  Heron moved out the day of her 18th birthday, September 5th.  I cried like crazy in the airport, and i miss her often, but I am very glad she is where she is. 

Over the summer we got a new dog – Charlie, an 8 yo black lab mix who had been at the rescue organization for 5 years.  As much as he loves me and Orion, he’s nervous around Raven and HATES my husband.  (Well, really, he’s afraid – of men, of balls, of stairs . . . ).  I also ALMOST joined a just-forming home school co-op, but that fell through.

Home school started with a bang – we signed up for a home school martial arts class for the whole family. I find the class incredibly exhausting, to the point where we sometimes have no school for the next day or two after a class, but all of us have earned our yellow belt, and both boys are doing really well.  I feel that, at my age, it’s really important to get in to shape.

Home schooling has not felt as smooth this year.  I scheduled a few field trips with some of my home school friends, and then found out that my best home-school buddy will be leaving the state as soon as he can sell his house.  I’ve been spending more time on Orion’s academic, and struggling hard with math – but making some progress.  But meanwhile, I feel like I”ve been neglecting Raven (and he agrees with me). 

So, I’m hoping the new year finds me able to really create a better home school routine for myself and the boys.  and hopefully my husband will find another job, one that doesn’t give him nightmares like this one does!