Square Foot Garden!

So hubby and I (more hubby than me) put together a box out of wood. We just used the cheapest wood we could find. It's semi-rough cut, a little warped. but for $1.25 per piece we couldn't beat it. Then he took up the sod that was inside the box so it would sit atop the sand. It looks like dirt there but trust me it's nothing but freakin' sand that is everywhere here. Then we set the wood down and filled it with good rich potting soil. He added the stakes (I'm still not sure as to why, but this morning I found kitty prints so I might use them to try and stop kitty somehow, not my kitty by the way) And I used bamboo that I had left over from last year to make a simple grid. The red orange things are yarn (from my overflowing craft closet) that I used to tie the bamboo together in a rough 1 foot by 1 foot grid. The first box is 4 foot by 6 foot. Then we did the same thing (minus the bamboo part) over by the fence. This box is 2 foot by 6 foot.
I decided to put in (from top left to bottom right) yellow pepper, purple cabbage (they call it red cabbage here), orange pepper, carrots, bush beans, salad mix (just a mix of different small leaf lettuces), sweet onions, zucchinni, lettuce (mixed again but the larger heads lettuce or maybe not from the links it may be the same thing just different packages, lol well I guess we'll find out), eggplant, yellow squash, and spinach. I've never done the purple cabbage, or the eggplant before so that is going to be a double trial there since this is my first step into Square Foot Gardening (SFG).
So in the little bed I use 2 by 2 areas and made mounds of dirt. I didn't see a need for using the bamboo here because I'm putting the larger plants over here. So from left to right I have yellow squash, eggplant, and zucchinni. I put in three seeds per mound and then I may thin them later if they need it.



So for some dorky reason I didn't get a picture of the garden planted. I will get one tomorrow and replace this one with it. (Changed on 4/7/09) The farthest row will have all beans in it. One square being planted each Monday. The next row is empty (for the moment), yellow pepper, orange pepper, lettuce. Then the third row (counting toward the bottom of the picture) has carrots, cabbage (four plants), sweet onion and empty. The fourth row has empty, cabbage, empty, empty. I'm not real sure what I'll plant in all those empty spaces yet but I'll get it figured out. Now the last two rows are going to be salad mix (the one I think is smaller) then spinach. I've planted the far right ones so far. I decided that I was going to go ahead and try SFG this year since I couldn't ever get a decision on if I was going to be able to get a garden plot. One week to the day after putting it in I found out that the garden plots are being redone and that I will now be able to get one! Not willing to look a gifted horse in the mouth, I'll be happy to take both! Now the only question is where will I fit it in, lol!
Remember there is always a silver lining, it just may be very thin so look hard!!

Free Movies!

Okay so Sunday is our family day that means that all the electronic pretty much get turned off on that day. On occasion we will have one on like the Wii but we're all playing it together. It's the one day out of the week that our oldest isn't allowed to find somewhere to stick her nose in a book. Or our youngest bury herself in the container of Legos (we've got a ton of them). Hubby (if he's home) and I aren't allowed to zone out on the computer. Sometimes like this week end we had to do what I call a split shift, lol. We did half of it on Saturday and the other half on Sunday. Saturday night we read more of our book "The Tale of Despereaux" by Kate Dicamillo. We had hoped to finish reading it by Sunday. In our community nearly every Sunday there is a free movie night in our Community Center. Check around in the newspaper, your local church, local libraries, community centers, Chamber of Commerce, and of coarse the internet. With summer coming up you'll be able to find more ususally. Many free movies are done in the summer. You may need to bring your own chair or blanket to sit on. And you'll probably need to pack your own snacks and drinks. But who wouldn't rather pay forty cents for a big bag of popcorn than the normal $5.00 that you do at a theater.

So on Sunday we went and saw the movie, "The Tale of Despereaux" and don't expect it to follow the book. It was a cute movie but I felt they changed it. Now I have to admit that we didn't finish the book before the movie like I had hoped. But there are major changes from the book (the parts we've read and we're over half-way threw the book) from the start. If a character doesn't speak much and you turn around and turn him into a chatter-box that is a major change in the character. When you add new abilities to that same character then you no longer have that same character. See the movie if you get a chance, the kids will love it and it is a cute movie. Just don't hold your breath for it to do justice to the original work!

Okay well now I need to head out for the time being but tonight I'm going to try and get the pictures from our Square Foot Garden on. Hubby was finally able to show me how to get the pictures of the camera.

Hanging Gardens.

Label on the box.

Kids taking everything out of the box. It's really light.

Daddy and a hammer got it put together in all of 5 minutes. (This was after complaining that they actually had to read the directions not just look at the picture for 10 minutes, gotta get reading in where I can, lol!)

Fill up the bottom with water or sand, we used water so we can take it with us when we move. Water's easier to empty than sand.

Turn the plants upside down and put them threw the holes. Make sure you don't get plants that are to big.

Little ones (and short mamas) will need a step stool.

Put in the topsoil over your plants.

We made our own pop bottle waters (yes I know just don't tell the kids that mommy makes up words) only we messed up by cutting the bottoms off. Poke some holes on it around the neck. Fill it up, put the lid on and tip it over. If the bottom is on it'll slowly let the water out watering the soil for you. If you cut the bottom off (*cough* like mommy said to do) it just all runs out as fast as it can. The instructions at the link cut the bottom off but poke holes in the lid. I might try that and see if it works a bit better.

Add seeds or other plants to the top. We picked flowers. Now you're done.

Now the long wait, lol at least that's the way our 5 year old feels. "The tomatoes are taking to long, mommy tell them to hurry up like you do me."

I'll post the pictures from my part of the garden (the square foot garden) later. Now that I figured out how to do it and feel like a putz cause it took me close to three hours to notice the picture tab at the top. >.<

Gardening Home School Style

So today begins our adventure into the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Although most historians believe that they were probably terraced and not actually hanging we'll be doing hanging gardens. This is part of our summer schooling program. We'll be able to get a lot of things in with this one project: reading, math, science, social studies (or History), writing, home economics, art and probably some other things if I think about it a bit more. I love being able to put everything together, it's more realistic. After all when you want to know information about something it usually isn't separate from other things. We don't research about gardens just because, usually it's to benefit our lives in some way (help provide food for our tables, cut costs, etc). So we used some of the money we got from our tax return to get both the girls their own hanging garden. Each will be hanging their own choice of two tomato plants and two cucumbers. Then the tops will be up to them. I'm doing my own garden in the back using the square foot gardening method that my sister-in-law introduced me to. I was lucky enough to see the one she had in Virgina and was fascinated by it. Now I'm actually going to be able to try one myself this year finally. Okay so I know that I'm trying to share the thrifty side of things that we do. We did save some money on the gardens by getting them at our local Sams for $50.00. We are also saving the recipts since our accountant said that we can claim many things on our taxes for education costs. I'm not sure what all we can claim but I'm keeping all the receipts of everything we spend on the girls schooling with a short note on the back of what it was used for. We'll see how much we get back when we file next year. This year we were able to claim a little over $600 on hubby's college expenses. Hopefully later today I'll be able to figure out how to post pictures on here for everyone to see!

Until then.........

Donut Contest!

I thought that I would pass on something that I found today. I thought it was fun to do. Dunkin' Donuts is having a contest where you get to create a donut. You can enter up to three times but you do have to at least be 13 or older. You'll create a donut by choosing: the shape, the dough, the filling, the frosting, and a topping. Not all choices are available every time, it depends on your choices. You will then fill in the application form. (Make sure you understand all the official rules) Once that is done you will be able to name your donut and in 100 words or less tell what your inspiration was. There will be a dozen finalists who will receive $1,200, a years worth of donuts, and a trip for two to the bake off in Braintree, MA. The grand prize is $12,000 and your creation sold in stores as a limited edition! It's free to enter and you can play with creating donuts without entering too!

Have fun with it!

The government's words not mine!

So there is a new report out that has the statistics of homeschoolers out and I thought that I would share it with you. Now mind you I'm not really one of those that listens to statistics since they can usually be manpulated in just about any direction if worded just right. And I have better things to do with my time that to try and figure out just exactly what they're saying. But I did find this one interesting merely because of an observation that I made when I went to the bookstore (will remain nameless cause it's not their fault) earlier the same day I seen the report. The report said that they estimate that there are 1.5 million homeschooled students in the States from the data collected. Now mind you I don't think that they included children like my next door neighbor who is homeschooled but uses the public school system to do it. If you look at the information it breaks down the numbers. But I digress (normal for me!) anyway it says that of those polled the number one reason for choosing to homeschool was the concern about the school environment. Now back to the bookstore, earlier I was looking "The Well-Trained Mind" at said bookstore so I could referance something in it and noticed that a number of the "teacher" books available were dealing with disipline issues. Normally I wouldn't notice something such as this really but there were such an overwelming number of them you couldn't help but notice. I think it's funny that it would take a huge panel of people to do a lot of data collecting (and wasting a lot of tax payers dollars to do it) to come up with a three page brief when all they really needed to do was walk into the same bookstore I did to find out the same information. With that number of books there it would seem that homeschoolers are not the only ones who are concerned with the school environment.

Okay so that has nothing to do with savings but I was wanting to share that with someone and hubby started to tune me out and actually fell asleep cause he's so tired! So on to my tip! I was wanting to do some finger painting with the girls and help reinforce letters and their sounds. So we went to check out finger paints and I about had heart failure at the cost of them. So instead we went over to the pudding aisle. We picked up strawberry (pink is favorite in our house with two girls), and chocolate (mommy's favorite) instead. They cost us thirty three cents each since they were a store brand and then mommy had a coupon for them too! We brought them home and did Home Economics (cooking) math, reading all in one with following the recipe. The we got out some Ziploc bags. We put about a cup of pudding into two of them and the rest went into containers in the fridge for snack later. Now we had two easy wipe boards that we could reuse and we didn't have the mess from finger paints. We took them outside and played around in the sunshine and wrote letters and numbers in them. Then of coarse as usually happens we started being silly and drew funny faces and other things too. A bird with a squirrel tail, or a big sister with a duck beak. Then the stories to go with them! Then it was time to go inside and have our snack, we had spent close to two hours playing with our pudding boards and they really needed thrown away.

Hope you find time to sunbath like us!

Science Report

Well yesterday we did your science project of slime. Only it didn't quiet turn out as slime. Instead it was more like putty. So if you are looking to do a project to make silly putty try the second slime recipe at Science Bob. The kids still had fun and we all learned that even though it didn't go as we had hoped we still learned something. Perfect chance to let kids know that most science comes from things not working out quiet the way we thought it would. One of the mom's made a comment about it being a failure. I was quick to point out that it really wasn't, just because something doesn't work out the way you thought doesn't make it a failure. Not learning something from it is the failure. I really wish there was a way of just completely removing that word, "failure" from our language. Think about it, how many things in this life can your truly say is a failure, that absolutely nothing is gained from it? Can you actually name something? I know I can't! Now I know that some will argue that's not that actual definition of the word. I know that, the definition is (the primary) an act or instance of failing or proving unsuccessful; lack of success. There are more definitions listed as well. When you look closely to the actual definition it simply adds to what I say, can you name an instance when there truly is a "lack of success". So something doesn't work out the way you thought, at least now you know something new. You are still able to move forward and try again looking for a result. That is why today I recommend everyone check out their local library(s) and borrow the movie "Meet the Robinsons", that family has the right idea! Remember to return it on time so you don't have any costs added. Grab one the numerous books for a bedtime story too!

Our cooking club.

We use to have a cooking club from Scholastic. Unfortunately they have canceled the club. They no longer do that monthly club. We loved it. Each month for about $7.00 we got a little flip book that was a cookbook just for kids. Then there was always something that come along with the theme. One month we got a lunch bag that you could customize with some markers that it came with and a cookbook with different lunches. Another month it was all about desserts so we got some cookie cutters and a pastry bag with a couple of tips. We were wanting to do it for two years that way each of the children would be able to have a collection of the things that came. Plus it was fun trying to remember who opened the last one, trust me they always remembered! We still use the cookbooks and the items that came with them. The children recently entered a chili contest and tied for first place (they were the only kids who entered, lol) and they had found the two recipes in the children's cookbooks that they had. I did look around to see if I could find a way of ordering through Scholastic but wasn't able to find it. I did how ever find a great site for the book clubs. It's Book Clubs Directory. They have lists of book clubs that are out there and it's organized really well. When you pick the category you want: lets say Cookbook Clubs, they have the club, the offer, fine print (like you need a membership), and when it expires. They claim to have over 150 different discount book clubs with profiles. I'll be watching to see if a kids cooking club ever shows up, we loved it and miss it.

Fun with Science!

On Tuesday we will be meeting with our home school support group. We meet every Tuesday to do things together and since this Tuesday is St. Patrick's Day we decided to do something special. We'll all be bringing food to share but I offered to do a science project too. I let them (the kids) vote on either a slime science project or a color splitting activity with candy and coffee filters. Well needless to say slime one out. Maybe next time I should poll the parents instead, lol. I found a nice site for experiments at ScienceBob. In doing the research for the lesson I came across a group of websites that I hope I will get to use a lot of. Chem4kids, Biology4kids, Geography4kids, Cosmos4kids, Physics4Kids, and NumberNut. The last one is math not science but I want to check it out more maybe I can use it if we need some extra work. Trying to remember some of the information to teach it is difficult sometimes. I know the information but trying to gather it together so that it makes sense for that lesson, it can be hard sometimes. These sites seem to help. I only really used Chem4kids for the slime project information. I also didn't want to use all of the information either. There's enough there for a lot of different lessons. There are a number of different age groups that I have to consider. So I have different levels of knowledge already known for some but I don't want them to get bored. But then at the same time I don't want it to difficult for the younger ones either. I wanted something fun for the kids to do and we can make it green for St. Patrick's day!! Hope you have fun on St. Patrick's day, I know we will!!

Spring is in the air?

With the first day of Spring being the 20th of March this year we're looking forward to the warmer weather. Although it looks as if mother nature is making sure to get the cold weather in one way or another this year. We have a week of nice warmer weather only to have it turn cool again. We are getting ready to start our seeds since they are saying this will be our last cold spell. I decided this year to spend the money to purchase two Hanging Gardens from Sams this year. They don't have them on their website and I'm still looking for a link for them. I will add the link if I ever find one. If I can get the camera charged I will put a picture of them on here for everyone. They are nice since we will be able to put up to six plants hanging and then smaller plants on top. We'll be hanging tomatoes and cucumbers and we're not real sure what we'll be putting on top just yet. I decided this would be a good science project to add to the curriculum also. We'll be doing a simple journal made out of plain white paper folded in half with a piece of construction paper on the outside. The children can decorate the outside cover as they like, hopefully with some encouragement it will be themed towards a garden. Might have a princess added too since they are girls. Then we will be able to draw pictures and do our copy work on each page as the different stages of plants grow. I'm also considering doing a lapbook. A member of our homeschooling group was kind enough to show us these at our last meeting. I really like the idea of them. You can do a search for them and find lots of information on them. This may be better for our oldest child, I'm not sure if our youngest would have the patience for this. I may consider doing it as a group activity too. Since the youngest would like the cutting and pasting, the oldest the reading and finding of facts, and I could help with the writing since some of the areas to write in are small. One thing I find hard is there are so many really good ideas out there that I want to try them all sometimes. We've tried some things and although they are good ideas they just don't work for us so we put them aside and move on. We've also found that some things work for one of our girls but just isn't right for the other. I'm learning that sometimes pushing through just isn't a good idea. Learning is taking on a new meaning in this house, and we're loving it!

Thank goodness for Ramen.

When you are sick the last thing you want to do is cook something. But children have a tendency to not understand, lol. Hence the title today. Of coarse it goes without saying that children know that you are not feeling well and won't agree to the same thing for supper. RAMEN TO THE RESCUE!!! One package of ramen, kid's choice of frozen vegetables (about 1/2 a cup with meat or more if they don't want the meat), and either the leftover chicken or left over pork chop (about 1/2 cup of meat) added. Each child gets their perfect supper that they want. You get to go back to the couch and be miserable but they got to eat!! Of coarse if you had been smart you wouldn't have gotten sunburned on the first nice day of the year and been in this position in the first place.

Our school.

Last October we ended up pulling the kids out of school and deciding to teach them ourselves. Since then we've tried undoing some of the things we had problems with. So far it's going well. The hardest part I think was that one day they were in public school and the next they weren't. I didn't really have time to pick out a curriculum that would work for us. We were worried about meeting the state requirements and making sure that everything was legal. Of coarse it goes without saying that we (mostly my hubby, lol) wondered if I had lost my mind. Surprisingly we found the stress had lowered considerably. NowI think I've found what we're going to use as our curriculum permanently (at least till we've found if it's going to work for us or not). It was passed to me and now I'm passing it on to you. "The Well-Trained Mind" by Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer is the book that was recommended as reading to me. In it the classical education or trivium is explained and how they used it. They have a number of other books that can help but it's not needed. In the book they show you how they've done things that work for them. I'm going to be using a lot of their recommendations. As with anything my advice is use what works for you and leave the rest. There is so much information out there that your head can spin. Try something if it sounds like something you like, if it works great, if not be willing to put it aside and move on.

I added some sites that we use at different times with our homeschooling. I use all of them as supplements to what I use. They are all free for me to use. I will continue to add things. The Discovery Streaming may not be free for you in your state. And here soon it may not be for home schools in SC either. They are considering if it is a viable service for schools. I encourage anyone who enjoys using it to write in and let them know how you use it and that you do use it. If you have children in the school systems find out if your child's teacher, or school uses it and write in about that too. With times being what they are budgets are being looked over again for pennies. This is one service that I really think helps in many ways and I hope that it stays around.

First Day

A number of people continue to ask that I start a blog to share the things I do, use, see, and know. So here it is. Hopefully now I can keep up with it. If there is something in particular you would like to see let me know! I'll be adding things in the next few days since it is now time for me to start supper. I hope you find something here that helps you!