Free Environmental Education Curriculum

The No Impact Project has come out with a free environmental education curriculum suitable for middle and high school kids.

I've not registered to download the curriculum so I can't comment on the details. What I can tell you is that I respect the work of Colin Beavan who has lived his no impact experiment with his family. I have every faith that this curriculum has quality content.

According to the website, the environmental education curriculum:

• contains 5 lessons - consumption, energy, food, transportation, water
  
• incorporates internet-based video clips
• is designed to be taught in 50 minute lessons
• is suitable for grades 6-12, but can be adapted for other ages/grades
• the author is "Cari Ladd, M.Ed., is an educational writer with a background in secondary education and media development. Previously, she served as PBS Interactive’s Director of Education, overseeing the development of curricular resources tied to PBS programs..."

You don't need to own the No Impact Man book or DVD in order to use the curriculum. If you want to take it further you can join the No Impact Experiment one week carbon cleanse.

* Roots & Shoots

This article has been relocated to Loving Nature's Garden.

Easy, Fun, Lunch - Cheese Beanos

Here is one of my very favorite, easy, fun lunches for kids - Cheese Beanos. It's easy enough for them to make, with some supervision on the cooking part and, if you're not careful, it makes just enough mess to be fun. You can use this recipe to help your kids learn how to: open a can, and use the broiler. The origins of this recipe are lost in the family archive, but it really doesn't take a lot of imagination!

Ingredients
1 can of beans in tomato sauce
8 slices of bread
8 cheese slices or a block of cheese (vegan cheese slices, or cheese, work too)
Fresh tomatoes or fruit to serve with

Equipment
can opener
spoon
cheese slicer or knife (if you're using block cheese)
baking tray
oven mitts
broiler - put the shelf 2 rungs down

Directions
Open the can of beans. Place the bread slices on the baking tray. Spoon beans onto the bread slices. Slice off cheese if you're using a block. Top the beans with cheese slices. Place the tray under the broiler (of course you'll turn it on first). DO NOT walk away - stay and watch because it browns up fast. If the edges of the bread are brown before the cheese is, move the tray down to a lower shelf and watch it until the cheese is browned.

Serve the Cheese Beanos with a knife and fork and tomatoes or fruit. The mess comes when you try to lift up the beanos and get them in your mouth without dropping beans - it's a good exercise in motor control and it makes a little bit of a fun mess :-) My kids have learned to use the knife and fork and cut off small pieces instead.

Try it and let me know what your kids think.

Best Cooking Knife Skills video

It surprises me how many adults don't know about safe knife skills for cooking. With that in mind, here are two videos which explain safe knife skills. Which one do you like? Leave your vote at my poll over in the right hand column which will be open for the next week.

Will you choose the entertaining Chef Todd Mohr powered by ifood.tv

Or the lovely Jenna Norwood in her healthy kitchen from YouTube?

Or maybe you don't care for either one. Either way, let us know.

Easy Lunch At Home

Here's a quick and easy lunch for eating at home which serves 3 adults, or 1 adult and two homeschooled teens who haven't had massive exercise! Serve with bread to feed more.

Includes kitchen skills for kids: safe knife skills to chop the onion and tomatoes; learn how to crack eggs; younger kids can be in charge of washing the vegetables, adding the salt and pepper, mixing the eggs, and chopping the red pepper with a table knife (once you remove the seeds and stalk).




Veggie Omelet with Salsa

1 large onion (or 2 small, or 1 leek)
oil (I use golden olive oil)
4 eggs
water - 1/2 egg shell for each egg
salt and ground black pepper
1 red pepper (green if you prefer)
shredded cheese (I like to use Irish cheddar)

3-4 plum tomatoes or 1 can of chopped tomatoes
Mama Socorro's Salsa Mix or other salsa spices

1. Peel and chop the onion. Compost the ends and skins. Wash onion after removing the skin.
2. Wash the pepper. Remove the stalk and seed core - compost. Chop pepper into strips.
3. Wash the tomatoes, remove the stalk area for compost. Cut into slices then chunks. Follow the directions on the Socorro's Salsa Mix packet (basically you warm the spices with the tomato in a pan on the stove).
   
4. Shred the cheese if it didn't come that way - depending on taste you will want somewhere around 1/2 cup worth. If you are short of time, small slices of cheese work fine.
   
5. Warm the oil (1-2 tbsp) in a cast iron or non-stick skillet. Note - your skillet needs to be OK with being put under the broiler.
6. Gently cook the onion on medium heat.
7. Meantime - crack the eggs one at a time checking that each is fresh before adding to the others.
8. Add one 1/2 egg shell of water for each egg.
9. Mix eggs with a fork and add a sprinkling of salt and a few grinds of pepper.
10. When the onion is turning transparent, add the eggs to the pan.
11. Do not stir the eggs. Add the strips of pepper on top.
12. Warm up the broiler.
13. When the eggs are beginning to cook on top sprinkle on the shredded cheese then take off the stove and put under the broiler.
14. Watch the pan closely under the broiler because it will cook quickly. Remove from the broiler (use oven mitts) when it is golden on top.
15. Serve with the salsa.

Please let me know what you think. Is this the right amount of detail on the recipe, too much detail? Do you like to have a list of tools and utensils with a recipe?

My kids enjoyed this quick lunch and I hope you do too.

Choose from 14 different children's cookbooks from Usborne. Starting Cooking is a Parent's Choice approved book which teaches the skills of cooking with eggs, using the stovetop, and using a broiler.

Mama Socorro's Salsa Mix is manufactured in Raytown, MO. You can contact Socorro's Mexican Products at (816) 358-9332.

Porridge Tales from Grandma's Kitchen

Many was the happy hour of my childhood which I spent in my grandmother's kitchen. I was fascinated by the tales of her own childhood which she would share with me as I stirred a pot for her, or watched her making scones. The most fascinating tale of all for me was the one of The Porridge Drawer.

Apparently when my Gran was a little girl her kitchen had a special wooden drawer into which was poured homemade porridge. This idea really caught my imagination. I would visualize gloopy oatmeal being poured into a drawer, which was presumably then closed up, hiding the contents from view. In my experience drawers were for keeping underwear in, which made the tale all the more fascinating! I would ask about this over and over. Each time I was told that the porridge was left to cool. Later it was cut into blocks which were given to family members to pack with them for lunch. Frugality was the order of the day; I've no idea whether there was anything other than porridge available at those meals, but I suspect not.

Nowadays I'm not a true Scot. I eat my porridge with dried fruit or with honey, and not just with salt. I'm totally spoiled and always have milk available to make it creamy. I even, more often than not, resort to the microwave to make my oatmeal. I've not forgotten my Scottish roots though and I own a real wooden porridge spurtle, which was passed down to me from an older generation. When the mood is right, I enjoy stirring my oats while they bubble and gloop. With a touch of patience my porridge turns creamy and smooth ready to "stick to my ribs" and keep my appetite satisfied until lunchtime.

Here are some porridge and oat related learning links for you to explore:

• Scottish porridge tradition and trivia and The World Porridge Making Championships where the winner gets the Golden Spurtle!
• Porridge has it's place in history. Read about porridge then learn about Scots history with an Edinburgh experimental archaeology group.
• Here's a little insight on peas porridge and cooking in medieval times.
• A musical lesson on Oats, Peas, Beans and Barley Grow.
• Recipes at Quaker Oats - they have a whole section of kid pleasing recipes.
• A very comprehensive lesson plan that explains all about the different kinds of oats and the benefits of having them in your diet (suitable for elementary ages).

Grain mills and oats at Amazon.com. Usborne books which contain oat recipes: Starting Cooking contains muesli and oatmeal bar recipes; Children's Book of Baking contains apple squares and cherry crumble cake; Healthy Cookbook contains granola and peachy crumble.

Free Math Learning Links and Stuff

There are many wonderful websites with free math activities for you to use with your kids. Some of the links are also great if you need, or want, to brush up on, or advance, yourself in math, or maths (as it is called in the UK). All of the links below were sitting in my bookmarks folder - the result of many years of gathering resources for homeschooling. Masses of free math stuff, in no particular order:

• HomeschoolMath.net has a host of free worksheets, interactive tutorials and quizzes, curriculum guides, help on teaching, and links for online games. The site owner Maria also runs the Homeschool Math blog.
• Try Cool Math 4 Kids for a host of very colorful, free, interactive math games. Their companion Cool Math site has activities for the age 13 and up crowd.
  
• At Multiplication.com you can: download flashcards, worksheets and quizzes; find oodles of free resources for teaching the times tables; and find fun, free, colorful math games for kids.
• On the much less colorful front, download a variety of free online graph and grid papers. The variety of papers here is quite surprising - includes celtic knot paper, perspective paper, triangle paper, axonometric paper and tumbling block paper. I'm not sure what you do with all these, but I'm sure your kids will have some creative ideas!
• Personally I enjoy the patterns in mathematics. Boys are often fascinated by codes and ciphers and the accompanying spy stories. Here are some teaching resources for codes and ciphers, or visit Bletchley Park, the home of secret British codebreaking activities during World War II.
• Moving into more advance mathematical concepts, you can find a free online geometry textbook at Learner.org. Mathematics and art are very related. Learn about Fibonacci numbers and the golden section in art, music and architecture, or study geometry in art and architecture.
• Hippocampus has free Algebra courses.
• This Statistics site is not for the faint of heart - see the best and worst of statistical graphics. It's free and you just might learn something. What more could you want?
• Or maybe you'd prefer a little, light, free Calculus. Something new, or indepth and old is good for the brain cells :-)
  
• Last, but not least, Math Forum - dedicated to the teaching of mathematics.

I hope you find something of interest among these free math resources. Of course I do know of a few more links, which I will have to save for later.

Got a favorite free math resource link? Please let me know.

Find math stuff and homeschool math stuff at Amazon.com.
See the award winning Usborne Illustrated Dictionary of Math, multiplication wrap ups, learning palette 1st grade math manipulative center. Please ask if you need help or advice on something I've mentioned here.

Science Learning Links and Stuff

Are your kids in the doldrums with science? Maybe you need a new resource to add to their studies, or something scientific to get your own adult brain around. Bookmarks, like Firefox windows and tabs, have a habit of accumulating on me. Here are a few great picks from my science bookmarks. I've tried to mark the level of interest to make your life easier.

• Simple Machines in an easy to understand format - great for upper elementary and middle school.
  
• Mad Scientist Network - self explanatory!
• Robotics Academy at Carnegie Mellon University.
• Connecting Music to reading, math and science.
• Instructables Science Guide has lots of information and projects suitable for budding engineers and scientists at high school level.
• The nature of waves from the Physics Classroom.
• Science Daily brings you the latest in science research news, or try Scientific Blogging for a daily dose of science.
  
• Eepybird's Diet Coke and Mentos spectaculars would get any little, or big, rocket scientist excited!
• At Building Big you can find a teacher's guide to simple hands-on activities for 5th-8th graders about the science of large structures.
• How Stuff Works is a place for older kids and adults to explore everything from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to what's inside electronics. Cool!
• Hippocampus is a source for free college level material. Their science courses include Biology, Physics and Environmental Science.
• Searching for something different in textbooks? Galore Park is a British publisher who provides books for ages 10-16 yrs. Access their home educators page at the above link and you can take a look at what they have to offer then visit book information and download free samples.
• Some school districts provide a great set of links, if you can just weed them out from among the masses of pages on their website. Here is a collection of science links for PK-6 courtesy of Shawnee Mission School District in Kansas.
• Got a kid who likes to invent? Maybe they'd be interested in the Wham-O Inventor Contest.
• At IKnowThat.com kids can see science videos and do interactive activities. It's colorful and bright and should appeal to elementary aged kids.

I hope you find something useful and enjoyable. Do let me know if you have written about science or know of a great link I should add.

Happy exploring :-)

Learning from Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends

Thomas the Tank Engine stories at Amazon.com

Boys and their trains, that's usually how it goes. Who'd have thought though that cute little Thomas the Tank Engine from the small Island of Sodor, written by Rev A. W. Awdry and illustrated by C. Reginald Dalby, would have captured so many imaginations. Thomas is nothing short of a phenomenon; a character, created by a British author, who's name has surely been spoken in the majority of American homes. Personally I can't say I'm a particular fan of the modernized Thomas - take me out and shoot me if you have to now - but he certainly appeals to small children! I'll admit I'm a fan of steam trains and I enjoy the Thomas stories in their original format. I thought it would be fun to share some information, activities, and educational links related to Thomas the Tank Engine. I hope your kids, and you, enjoy them.

• Adults who want to know more about Thomas and his history and development may want to start with Wikipedia on Thomas the Tank Engine - information on the books, TV series, models, toys and how Thomas relates to real railway engines and railroad routes.
• At Thomas and Friends are games and activities for kids to explore - it's one of those annoying Flash sites which my computer security throws up blocks to so check it out and make sure it works for you before you get your kids excited.
• The Random House Thomas site has stuff about the books, printable activities, and some information about the authors.
  
• Visit the Unofficial Thomas the Tank Engine site for a nice collection of information about the original books and lots of links.
• You can read about the authors at the Awdry Family Official Website.
• Download paper models of Thomas and friends - these are very detailed. The website is in Japanese, but just click on the blue links next to the PDF graphic and the rest is self-explanatory!
• Here's a blogger who has created some very elaborate Brio Thomas track layouts for his boys.
  
• How Stuff works has a guide to all of the Thomas episodes. Now you can have the fun of quizzing each other about what happened and see if parents or kids have the better memory!
• Check out Wendy's blog and see very detailed instructions on how to make a very impressive Thomas the Tank Engine Birthday Cake and Alexa has written a blog totally about Thomas.
  
• More Thomas activities, including birthday party ideas and things to make at DLTK's.
• Lesson ideas for using Thomas to help kids with Autism at About.com.
• Of course you may have heard of the huge recall during 2007 because of lead in paint on Thomas toys - The New York Times on the Thomas recall and a lesson in morality.

Of course Thomas maybe has a few girl fans too, like Lori Ann of Simple Makes. Know a Thomas fan or have more links for me to add? Let me know.
Shop for Thomas the Tank Engine items at Amazon.com.

A Holiday Survival System

My holiday gift to you is a system that can help you to survive the holidays, and also survive homeschooling, and indeed life, for the rest of the year. It's a simple system which I will call the ABC system, though it is nothing to do with the alphabet. However, it is as simple to understand as the alphabet and perhaps just as useful. I don't take credit for this system as I obtained it some years ago from another homeschooler through an e-mail list. The origins are perhaps lost in time, but I've found it very helpful and I'm grateful to the unknown inventor. Now I get to share it with you.

All you need for this system is a piece of paper and a pencil - an eraser might be handy! Mark 3 columns on your piece of paper with the headings A, B, and C. The hardest part about this is the explanation. The columns are used as follows:

• A - everything you would do without anyone prompting you, things that are easy and on which you are self-motivated.
• B - things you need to help to do from a schedule, plan, or person.
• C - things you are putting aside for now.

So under A you might have things like: pleasure reading, watch TV, chat with friends. If you have good habits and are self-disciplined you might also have things like: clean the house, do the laundry, and take care of pets.

Under B you might have things like: wash the windows, get check-ups at the doctor, and practice piano.

Be honest now about what goes under column C. It can be an eye-opener. Maybe your teen is putting aside personal hygiene for instance, or maybe you are putting aside exercise, or time with your partner.

It gets interesting when you realize the balance between the different columns. For instance if you have a lot of items in column A, or a few items that you are very highly self-motivated to spend hours and hours on, it will be hard to accomplish the items in column B. If you have everyday stuff like washing the dishes under B, you are probably struggling with routines and expending a lot of energy on making sure you do things that really need to be good habits. Things in column B take energy and we can only have a certain number of things there. If your teen needs someone to get them out of bed in the morning, or your 6 year old argues about brushing their teeth every day, there is going to be no energy left over for other stuff in column B.

The most effective way to use this system I have found is to make sure you put the highest priority items that are not currently being done the way they need to in column B. The goal is to establish a habit for some of these items and thus make them easy so that they move to column A. If necessary, deliberately put some tasks aside in column C for now. For instance, if you have a sick family member, or a lot of visitors for the holidays, some items may be moved to column C temporarily. You might put cooking in column C while someone is sick and needs extra care (just eat easy food for a few days), or put laundry and cleaning in C while relatives are visiting. If you are feeding your family a lot of prepared 'junk' food it could be because you've put cooking in column C. Do you want to leave it there or move it to column B? Are there some things in column B that another family member could take care of and free you up to put more things in your B column? Could a family member who is relying on you to prompt and enforce them doing things in column B manage without your input if they had a schedule or plan?

Don't let time with your partner stay in column C if that is where it currently is, move this to column B by making a plan. Good habits can reduce stress for everybody. Have fun with the ABC survival system, or if you don't need this right now please let me know your secret!

Brought to you by UsborneKC.com - meeting your Usborne Books needs in Kansas City and beyond (Johnson County, Kansas; Wichita, Kansas; Independence, Lee's Summit, North and South Kansas City, Pleasant Valley and Liberty, Missouri; Virginia and New Jersey).

Mini Lesson Plans

Models and miniatures are a fantastic hobby and have lots of homeschooling possibilities. Have your kids ever built a diorama, visited a model railroad exhibit, or decorated a doll's house? Many little people, and big people, are fascinated by tiny stuff. I know I certainly am. When I received a visit from Randall, who loves to write about model trains, for yesterday's Wordless Wednesday, I began to think of some of the possibilities. I've wandered the web so you don't have to, unless you insist of course!

Over on the left is The Usborne Book of Making Models. If you are interested in shopping for items related to models and model making, books, materials, etc, I've gathered these links together at the end. Read on for mini lesson plan ideas and for more details on this and other Usborne model books...

Model trains are such a favorite thing to have under the Christmas tree. Little boys who love Thomas the Tank Engine might just develop a love for model trains and railroads. There are some good articles on toy trains for children, including articles on Electric Train Scales for Children (about choosing the size of trains) and Electric Train Do's and Don'ts for Parents at About.com. For teens and adults try the National Model Railroad Association Introduction to Model Railroading. If you need to be inspired by visuals, take a look at the small layout scrapbook for lots and lots of layout plans and photos. I was particularly intrigued by the shoebox layouts.

Working with scale trains is a great exercise in math, design, art and electricity. You'll be planning track layouts, costing a variety of designs, learning electrical safety, and building scenery. For your scenery The Usborne Book of Making Models, pictured above, contains ideas and step by step instructions for making a tunnel, as well as bushes, shrubs, trees and paths.

I've always enjoyed visiting model railroads. It took a good bit of searching to find a website that lists places to visit - check out GreatestHobby.com, their list looks to be comprehensive and current... unless of course you know different! I'm lucky enough to live close to a very absorbing little model railroad store. At the Show Me Railroad Company they make their own limited edition HO scale rolling stock right in the store. It's a kind of mini rail wonderland with large layouts in several scales, and lots of tiny items to explore. If you don't have a miniature railroad museum, like the Twin City Model Railroad Museum, or the San Diego Model Railroad Museum nearby, visiting a store or a model railroad club could be the next best thing.

If you want the tradition of a train under the tree, it's worth spending some time reading to make sure you choose something suitable. Alternatively, if you're not sure you have an enthusiast, do what I did. Choose the least expensive little battery-operated train set you can find and assume it will get broken. Guess what - we've had our little plastic Santa train set for probably 9 years now and it's still as good as new! It was the right choice for us; neither of my kids has developed an enthusiasm for model railroads, at least not yet anyway.

Writing about mini lesson plans is almost as fascinating as doing them. I have a lot more to say but I'm out of both time and brain juice, so for now I'll say, "to be continued"... I will update later with links for those interested in shopping and continue in a separate article for mini lesson plans with other kinds of models beyond trains.

Places to shop for model trains and related items:

• Atlas Model Railroad Company - Atlas produce items in HO, N, and O scales.
• The Show Me Model Railroad Company makes and sells limited edition rolling stock in HO scale. See the Show Me Holiday Collectibles - these are affordable and could make a great gift for your model train enthusiast.
• Manufacturer Lionel has their own Online Train Shop. You''ll need a few bucks to invest in one of their sets. Set themes include Harry Potter, Thomas the Tank Engine, Polar Express and North Pole.
• Find a hobby shop close to you from the Greatest Hobby model shop directory.
• More links for model train enthusiasts and yet more from Model Railroad News.
  
• At Choo Choo Track they sell Brio compatible and Thomas items.

What do you say? Do you have a train under your tree, a favorite train-related resource, or a train story to tell?
Brought to you in association with Amazon.com with Christmas train choices and plenty of Brio items.

Learning Links

Formerly called Bits and Bobs, Learning Links is my new title for the chaos brought to my computer by manic web surfing. It's happened again, those Firefox tabs have multiplied and I now have 23 windows open, each with at least 5 tabs - that is an estimated 200 or so websites up. It's time to pass along some great learning links, in no particular order, below:

• Fish school - lesson plans for goldfish. Watch Comet the goldfish make goals, swim the slalom, and do the limbo. What a cute, little, well trained guy!
• Do a college search at CollegeBoard.com - I've looked for college information before and this is the nicest site I've seen for finding information. It's very comprehensive, readable and nicely organized, with information that includes majors available, fees, and scholarships.
• British citizens may want to know about the petition to stop Sharia law (Islamic/Koranic law that dictates women cover their faces and that a hand is removed for certain crimes) from being legal under arbitration. I know, it sounds very highly surprising that there could be a loophole to allow this to happen in England (I'm not clear on whether this is just England, but Scotland has it's own law system so I'm guessing that it does not apply to Scotland), but I have checked it out and it's no joke. Read more about it at The Times Online.
• A topic worth a whole post, which I don't have time to write about today, but luckily another homeschooling mom did (she did a muuuuch better job than I would)! Resistance: a communication tool. Every parent and homeschooler has encountered resistance in their kid/spouse etc. This is an extremely thorough and thoughtful article that I think every parent needs to read. Really, make sure you check it out, your stress level will thank you!
  
• How your categories and tags help or hurt your blog. I searched around and this is the best of the articles I found on effectively using tags/labels. "A great blogger will take the time up front to plan out the blog's categories..." Ummm... I'm not a great blogger yet I guess. I'll work on it!
• Blogcarnival.com - the place to find and submit to carnivals. Think outside the box - you might find a whole new set of readers.
• EyewitnesstoHistory.com Wow, this site is beautifully laid out and jam-packed with links to help bring history alive! Check out George Washington's Rules of Good Behaviour, Writing the Declaration of Independence, and, for my British friends, The Execution of Mary Queen of Scots. I must add this site to my right-hand homeschooling links menu!
  
• Take a look at the wonderful, homemade, books, and more from a homeschooling family working with autism, visual-spatial learners, unschooling and foster/adoption. I love how they made books where the child is the star and somehow pasted amongst bison, bears and wolves.

There are many more learning links for me to post. Later... Do let me know your favorite!

Cooking Lesson Plans

Green Eggs and Ham Cookbook at Amazon.com
To go straight to links on Cooking Lesson Plans please scroll down.

If you want to actually teach cooking you just might need a lesson plan, or even lesson plans. I must admit that I'm not much of a lesson plan person, I mean, I do sometimes get as far as creating a plan for something I want to do, but if I even get that far the chances are that the plan will get buried somewhere on my desk and go no further. So, what am I doing writing about cooking lesson plans then? This is where we talk about the power of Google. If you want to find something that isn't junk on Google you gotta know the keywords and if you want information on how to do something with your kids, "lesson plans" are two good keywords for searching with. The great thing is that you don't really have to be a lesson plan type of person to find something useful this way. Still reading? OK, let's talk about cooking with kids.

It seems to me that most homeschoolers are resourceful folk, people who actually know how to cook family meals, or at least are interested in learning. Since our kids most likely see us cooking every day, there seems little need to actually teach cooking in any kind of formal way; if they help out in the kitchen, or even just hang around while we do stuff, they will be learning a great deal. However, we all need a little variety at times and new cooking and food is great for this. I also hear over and over how kids who are very restrictive in what they eat will eat things that look fun or that they cooked themselves. My own kids are past this younger stage and are pretty adventurous eaters: I find I'm looking at helping them to learn what they need to know to be self-sufficient as they plan for independence. My focus is not so much on gourmet recipes as on good, healthy, simple meals that are easy to prepare, can be done with minimum equipment and contain inexpensive, basic ingredients.

With all of the above in mind I did a little, or maybe a lot of, web surfing to see what kind of good resources I could find to share.

• Kids-Cooking-Activities.com has information on what children in each age group are ready to learn. Do you have an Assistant Chef, or Chef in Training in your home? They also have lots of recipes at their Kids Cooking Blog and a range of e-books.
• If you'd like to eat your way through history, try FoodTimeLine.org where you can read about food from 17,000 BC to the present day. They have links to recipes, to pdf versions of all kinds of cookbooks like The Woman's Suffrage Cookbook, and to e-books including English Housewifery by Elizabeth Moxon from 1764. They even have a recipe for Yorkshire Pudding, which perhaps I ought to try!
• Read about Ten Items for Your Kids Cookware Kit at Cooking With Kids. If your kid wants to become a chef for the holidays, or for a birthday, Amazon.com has some lovely looking
  kids cooking sets, or take a look at Montessori Services for a selection of practical food preparation tools.
  
• Got kids who enjoy Arthur, Caillou or Between the Lions? Check out Cooking with Kids at PBS.
• If you like lots of delicious photos with your recipes Home and Family Network has pages of recipes for doing with kids, all accompanied by mouth-watering photos.
  
• Readwritethink.org has some intriguing lesson plans related to menu design. It's not cooking, but it's a nice way to tie in graphics art and language arts with something that gets the taste buds working and might encourage picky eaters!
• And if you've just not had enough links yet, get additional ideas to spark your creative juices at Suite 101 Healthy Cooking or visit The Vocational Information Center, which has culinary and food science lesson plans and a lot more besides!

As for helping my kids learn what they need for independence... that is a work in progress. One thing we've done, which was a lot of fun, was to meet weekly with another homeschooling family and cook a meal together then eat.

I've seen such great recipes with photos at blogs too - please do let me know your favorites :-)

Brought to you in association with Amazon.com - home of wonderful children's books.

Bits and Bobs

Those firefox windows and tabs are multiplying on me again! Here are some bits and bobs - some homeschool, some just life.

• Living with Bugs - a nice looking site that outlines common bugs and the least toxic methods of controlling. It even talks about the different methods of flea control. Sarah, I'm not sure that it will tell you anything you don't already know, but I thought it did a nice job of explaining the options and their effectiveness.
• Got a bug enthusiast or budding entomologist? Learn about insect orders and families.
• Usborne have brought out some great new reading sets - these are nice collections of hardback books (the size of your usual paperback) and perfect for every level from very early reading to age 10-12yrs. I'm not sure why they put the ugly red savings stars over the pictures of the books, but these are definately nice book sets.
• Even our very own US government is blogging these days. The government blog looks pretty nice and it might be a much more friendly way to find your way around the tons of information out there which I'm sure we're funding through our taxes!
• Just in case you're not done with the election: Time for Kids; America.gov on the candidates and potential first ladies; and Melissa over at Sweet Serendipity has a few more links, including one on Duck for President and old campaign ads. I want to take a look at the old ads - Artist Girl and Game Boy love ads!
• Various lesson plans related to Japan.

Good, I'm down to just 46 windows now, so I only have about 300 tabs open. I'm working on it...

Homeschool Resources

Teach Your Own - The John Holt Book of Homeschooling at Amazon.com

Find links to a variety of homeschool resources on the left menu item titled Homeschool Resources. I've grouped items in the order:

- homeschool specific resources
- general educational resources - multi-subject and not homeschool specific
- resources with a specific educational focus eg literature, art, science

The list is already getting to be pretty extensive so I may have to come back and make separate lists - I'm not even anywhere near done with going through my currently-loaded Firefox tabs. I also have a bunch of resources bookmarked on my StumbleUpon account and I have hundreds of links bookmarked on Firefox. They go back years!

I mainly tend to bookmark quality, informative resources that are reasonably easy to navigate and which are free. Google searches tend to turn up a just a few sites that are actually free to use - I've had more success finding new sites through StumbleUpon. There are a huge number of organizations who provide information which we as homeschoolers can use. The trouble is that categorizing and being selective is a major task. For this reason I may remove links from time to time.

Please, if you have any good suggestions on how to organize all these links I'd really appreciate them! Also, if you have favorite sites that you think should be on any comprehensive site list, or if you've taken a good look at any links I've provided and found them to be lacking in some way, please let me know.

Homeschoolers Guide to the Galaxy - lesson plans on the galaxy

Got kids who are curious about space and the galaxy? DON'T PANIC! I've gathered educational debris from the corners of space and time and squeezed it together here for you in the form of lesson plan links. I can also recommend several books with great information, including the Usborne First Encylopedia of Space which gives you access to over 40 great pre-selected websites. One of the links takes you to a kid site at the European Space Agency.

I think the Earth, space, the planets and all that stuff are amazing, but I've put off sharing on this because it's not an area of expertise for me. If you're an astronomer, or something similar, professional or amateur, and have some input I'd love to hear from you. I've focused on picking out legitimate sources.

• For elementary level or beginning astronomy try the kids site at Astronomy magazine where you can learn about the solar system, constellations, navigation using the stars, and the craters of the moon.
• The makers of Starlab portable planetarium systems have a free newsletter you can sign up for. You don't need to own a Starlab to learn from their newsletters.
• Astronomy is a pretty complex field with lots of jargon to learn. Read about Charles Messier, a leading early French astronomer who compiled a list of 100 astronomical objects. His Messier Catalog became well known as a collection of the most beautiful objects in the sky including nebulae, star clusters, and galaxies. Your little, or big, astronomer can read about spiral, lenticular and elliptical galaxies and see photos here.
• I'd recommend visiting your local planetarium (read the next sentence). Meet some enthusiastic experts or amateurs if you can. Sky and Telescope has a pretty nice site with pages on this week's sky, a place to search for local observatories and clubs, stargazing basics and projects which include building a sundial.
• Discovery School has a selection of teacher resources related to the galaxy for grades 6-12.
• Kids excited about space and want a longer study? I recommend you take a look at the Usborne Ten Terrific Weeks Upper Elementary Adventures in Space program. It comes with 4 books, including the Internet Linked Book of Astronomy and Space, and a guide. See an overview here.
  

If you've a teen at home who loves science fiction can you do an exploration of the galaxy without a copy of the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy? It's the mostly harmless classic that inspired the title of my blog. I must admit to being inordinately fond of the original BBC series in preference to the more recent movie. The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) has many pages on the web that relate - see a list. I've picked out a few favorites - a summary of the story, memories from the original radio series, and Vogon poetry. Here's a pdf study guide to the book - handy for me because Game Boy just finished reading it! Check out this inordinately irritating quiz - get one question wrong and it sends you back to start over!

I'm done wandering the galaxy for now, though I'm sure I'll be traveling again later because there are so many places to go!

Nintendo, Sushi, Japan and Homeschool Lessons

Look What Came From Japan at Amazon.com

Today Artist Girl, Game Boy and I took a day out to visit the Kansas City Japan Festival. We must have had a really fun time - Artist Girl voted it the most fun she'd had outside of Christmas! So what made it so great?

A few years ago we spent several homeschool weeks learning about Japan and exploring the food and culture. It was a really fun time for us - one of our most memorable homeschool projects. Nintendo systems and games have also been pretty big in our house at times. Between one thing and another Artist Girl developed enough fondness for Japan to choose Japanese for her foreign language study.

There are lots of aspects of Japan you can explore with your kids. Here are a few fun ideas:

• Check out your closest botanical gardens - Japanese gardens are restful places and give you a feel of being somewhere far away. Here's a list of top 25 Japanese gardens in the USA.
  
• Read some Japanese Folk Tales - ask at your local library, visit Kids Web Japan, or print off stories to read (no pictures). You might be tempted to start a world folk tales and fairytales tour.
  
• Many cities have Japanese martial arts studios. Look for Judo, Kendo, Aikido or Karate classes that you could go and observe or take a trial lesson.
• Japanese food is almost too good to eat! Take a look at food around Tokyo. One mom shows how kids can make tray sushi
• If you'd rather watch the professionals, take a look on Youtube.com for lots of chefs - here's one to get you started.
• I promised Nintendo - take a look at Nintendo science lesson plans.

There are so many more things you can do with your children to learn about Japan. I think I'll have to come back to this!

September Celebrations Lesson Plans 25th to 30th

The Giving Tree at Amazon.com

It's hard to believe that September is almost gone. Join with me in celebrating the following Weekly Celebrations taken from About.com September Fundays Calendar. I'm glad to learn that I've not missed all of September!

September 25th, Shel Silverstein's Birthday, 1930

• Shel Silverstein has a fun website with activities for kids and information for parents.
• Visit the library or the bookstore and pick out one of Shel Silverstein's books like Where the Sidewalk Ends, Falling Up and The Giving Tree.
  
• Googling for lesson plans brings up lots of hits, though many point back to Shel Silverstein's own site. Here are a selection of interesting ones: How Smart Are You With Money, Collaborative Poetry Writing, Fill In the Blank Poetry, Critical Thinking with Seuss and Silverstein, Ethical Thinking on The Giving Tree. More lesson plans from Web English Teacher.

September 26th, Johnny Appleseed's Birthday, 1775

• About.com has plenty of links, though many of them are no longer active. Try the Johnny Appleseed printables.
• Some links that look useful: The Story of Johnny Appleseed, Johnny Appleseed Junior Ecology Club, Johnny Appleseed the Pioneer, 2nd grade Johhny Appleseed art and writing, The History of Johnny Appleseed.
• More links and ideas on Johnny Appleseed and apples, including recipes, a Kindergarten lesson plan, and apple math ideas.
• Lots of apple recipes from Simply Recipes.
• Lots of books at different reading levels from Amazon.com.
  

September 27th, Ancestor Appreciation Day

• Send a free e-card to celebrate and share.
  
• If you are an American there's a pretty high probability that your ancestors came from another part of the world. For Ancestor Appreciation Day bring out a globe, atlas or wall map and talk with your family about where you came from. Research the places, traditions, food and culture and share stories. Take a few moments to say thank you to your ancestors; after all you'd not be here without them!
• Archive some family stories for Ancestor Appreciation Day. If you can't visit with an older relative call or e-mail them. If you have no older relatives visit with an older neighbor or a resident of a retirement community or nursing home and record or write notes about their stories.
• Take the time to familiarize your children with ceremonies related to the end of life transition. Talk about your experiences and what you like and don't like about ceremonies. Visit the grave or memorial of a relative if possible, or talk about people you knew growing up who are no longer alive and how you are happy to have known them.
  

September 29th, Stan Berenstain's Birthday

• The official Berenstain Bears website
• Stan's obituary at The Washington Post
• Teacher resources and related lesson plans
• Books by Stan Berenstain
• The Berenstain Bears' treehouse
  

September 30th,The Flintstones Premiered, 1960

• Flintstones websites: webrock, unofficial site, A Flintstones World.
  
• Flintstones cartoon art
• Bedrock City theme park
• Prehistoric Cave Art at Edsitement.com - scroll down for a Flintstones tie-in
• Pop Culture Icons including the Flintstones
• Flintstones stuff at Amazon.com and E-Bay

Have some wonderful Weekly Celebrations!

* Rocket Stove - cooking with just a few sticks

This article can now be found at Loving Nature's Garden.

Arr... Talk Like a Pirate Day

I don't want to miss the boat and sail past Talk Like a Pirate Day, which is September 19th. Besides, I need just a little light relief after getting half-way through my 10 attributes list!

Join me and have some fun with me ye hearties:

• Our Australian friends are already celebrating with charity fundraising
• Youtube has a few tales for you to watch
• Pirate terms for landlubbers
• British HQ
• Ready for Pirate Bootcamp?
• Take a lesson on pirate maps and learn why pirates frequented certain areas.
• More pirate links than you could shake a stick at!
• Thrifty pirate costume ideas
• I have a whole treasure chest 'o pirate books at me Usborne bookstore
  

I have more but I'd better go and swab the decks!