CHRISTEPHI

I've been trying to introduce more whole grains to my family. The problem is they're quite picky when it comes to the bread they'll eat.  I've tried making my Country Buttermilk Bread with half whole wheat flour before, but unfortunately it was a no-go with Hubby and the munchkins. I've been making hot cereal for breakfasts since it's such a nice way to warm up on cold winter mornings, but I invariably have leftovers, so I've tried my hand at making oatmeal bread.  I've played with ratios and flours and sugars and have finally come up with what we consider to be a stellar loaf of bread!  For the past few weeks it has even replaced our staple Country Buttermilk! Leftover Oatmeal Bread (yield: 2 loaves) Ingredients: 2 1/2 cups leftover oatmeal* 1/2 cups warm water 1 cup milk 2 teaspoons salt 1 cup whole wheat flour 4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 4 tablespoons vital wheat gluten 1/4 cup brown sugar 3-4 teaspoons yeast Directions

It's a new school year at Sycamore Hill Academy!  Miss M is now in 3rd grade and Little Guy is beginning the first of two years of kindergarten (K4 this year and a slightly more rigorous K5 next year). I found these cute printables via Pinterest  and we had a little photo shoot on our first day! We are starting each morning with My Daily Learning Notebooks from Confessions of a Homeschooler.   The PreK one for Little Guy and the cursive variant for Miss M.  This has been hugely popular!  Both kids have gotten started on them before I'm even ready to begin school most days! And they work together on the so sweetly, Miss M lending a hand to Little Guy and he hanging on her every word. I love it! Bible To start off our year, we systematically went through some important concepts: where the world came from, how it got to be the way it is now (the Fall), how different languages began, and the gospel is for all the peoples of the world.  We memo

I bought the pattern for Pajama Eaters from Sew Fearless over a year ago, and only now finally got around to making pajama eaters for my kids!  I'm tired of finding clothes flung on the floor of their bedroom and with the recent purchase of a new dresser for each of them, I figured pajama eaters would help solve the problem. They are a big hit! And so far they've both faithfully fed their pajama eaters each morning (as long as I can persuade them to get dressed in the first place)! ** Pajama Eaters are fun pillow friends that "eat" your pajamas each morning and "regurgitate" them each night.**

We're using Primary Language Lessons for English this year. It's a very gentle approach to language and doesn't require worksheet after worksheet of repetition.  We love it! This week one of Miss M's lessons was about prepositions. It was a mainly verbal lesson (fill in the blank), so to make it more hands on -- and fun! -- I gave her a ball of modeling clay and a toothpick so she could demonstrate the prepositions to me. And I took pictures of them just for you! How do you make language arts more hands-on?

Somewhere along the way I learned about a scheduling method called Sabbath Schooling.  In order to prevent burnout (for the kids or for the mama!), the idea is you schedule six weeks of school followed by one week off, the Sabbath Week! When we first started homeschooling I didn't set out planning to make our school year match the calendar year, but both the kids birthdays are in November and we like to take off plenty of time for the holidays to be with family and attend Thanksgiving and Christmas events.  So it works out best for us to school through the miserably hot summer and have extra time off in the spring and fall when the weather is nice. We finished our last school year just before November and took a 3 month break (our "summer" vacation).  We started our new school year a couple weeks ago, but before I tell you how it's been going, let me share with you our curriculum choices for our new school year. Our core this year is My Father's World's

I've really been wanting to compose a post outlining our new school year! We'll be starting back to school on Monday, but I just haven't found the time to write up our plans. And now I've caught the same cold Hubby and the kids have had this past week, so tonight I'm going to bed early and hoping to feel better in the morning.  But here's a heads up: school starts Monday and soon I'll have a post telling all about our plans for the new school year! Until then…