Boxcar Children Stew

Our most recent read-aloud was The Boxcar Children, and we all look forward to continuing with this series. The boys have continued to incorporate the children and their adventures into their daily play. After finishing the book, we decided to make a stew for dinner, just as the children had made while living in the woods.

Although we used potatoes in place of turnips and added some rosemary and pepper to ours (and cooked it on the stove rather than over a fire pit in the middle of the forest!), it was otherwise just as the book described. It was a great opportunity to practice some kitchen skills (peeling, dicing, stirring). We also baked some biscuits to go along with our meal.

* * *

"The girls were delighted with the meat and the little vegetables. With Henry's knife they cut the meat into little pieces. Then they filled the kettle with water from the fountain and put the meat into it, with a tin plate for a cover.

Jessie cut the tops off the vegetables and washed them in the brook.

'I'll put them in after the meat has cooked awhile," she said."

* * *

Boxcar Children Stew

Ingredients:

Olive oil
2 lbs beef chunks
1 onion, diced
2 cups beef broth
2 cups water
rosemary
pepper
salt
1/4 cup flour
4 potatoes, diced
5 carrots, chunked

Directions:

Warm some olive oil over medium heat in a dutch oven or large stockpot. Cook the beef chunks and diced onion until browned. Add the beef broth, water, flour, and spices. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer for one hour.

Add the potatoes and carrots. Simmer for another hour.

Serve and enjoy!

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Language Arts: Reading and Viewing, Speaking and Listening
Fine Arts: Dramatization
Health: Nutrition

Click!

After yet another read-through of one of their favourite insect books, The Beautiful Beetle Book, the boys became particularly interested in click beetles. We discussed their defense mechanism in detail and looked at pictures of the beetles.

The boys then spent the next several minutes acting out the scenario. One of them pretended to be the predator while the other laid down, pretended to be dead, and then jumped up suddenly with a loud "CLICK!" before scrambling away, leaving the startled predator behind. Then they swapped roles and repeated the scenario.

The boy is very interested in the variety of ways animals and insects protect themselves, including camouflage and self-defense, so this was a fun addition to that list!

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Science: Description
Fine Arts: Drama

Storytelling

Part of our bedtime ritual for the past year has involved some form of spontaneous storytelling. Currently, our stories of choice are "bad day stories", during which we make up a fantastical bad day - aliens, monsters, dinosaurs, natural disasters, and so on. Following is a transcription of one of the boy's recent bad day stories:

I woke up in the middle of the night and heard tiny little footsteps. I opened my eyes and I saw a tiny little monster. It looked like it had wings and it was black. And it looked like it had wings like a bird. And then when it came up to me, it was [sister]! She was dressed up in a costume of a monster in the middle of the night, and I said, "[sister], why are you awake in a costume of a bird monster, awake in the middle of the night?" And then I said, "[sister], go back to bed," and she stayed awake all night long and I keeped seeing her. And one time I saw a big blue monster and when it came close, it was actually [brother] in blue pajamas. And then I looked out and I saw some real monsters, and [sister and brother] keeped saying, "there's monsters out there!" and then I was scared so I counted one, two, three, and I went into the hallway and jumped on them and then they ran away into the front door and fell down. The end.

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Fine Arts: Drama
Language Arts: Speaking and Listening

Lego creations

Much of the boy's day is spent wrist-deep in Lego. Sometimes he recreates his various sets following the instructions, while the rest of the time he designs his own models.

Recent designs have included a family of ducks (parents and several babies), a giraffe, people, vehicles, a playground, and a Duplo vacuum. His first still life drawing attempt was based on one of his self-designed Lego vehicles.

Testing a "harbour" he designed to keep boats from being washed into the town by big waves.

A playground which he continued to add to over the next several days.

A beach house he built following the set's instructions.

Vacuuming the rug.

Drawn replica of his Lego vehicle.

He also enjoys playing a few rounds of Creationary whenever he can find willing participants, and loves to take many (many) pictures of his Lego creations.

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Mathematics: Shape and space
Fine Arts: Visual arts (creativity, artistic design)

Gobble gobble!

Although Thanksgiving has come and gone (here in Canada, anyway), we decided to do a turkey handprint craft this week. I traced and cut out both the toddler's hand and the daycare toddler's hand, put glue on the fingers, and gave them some pre-cut feathers to stick onto their turkey.

The boy, however, was affronted at the idea of creating a turkey with feathers coming out the top of his back. Turkey feathers, he said, stuck out at the back rather than the top of the turkey. No way was he going to construct an incorrect turkey.

So marker in hand, he went to work drawing and cutting his own turkey. He then used tape (not glue!) to put the feathers in what he felt was the correct place. He added paper feet and used a marker to fill in the details. Satisfied with his turkey, he finished the project in his usual way, by printing his name on the back. Important detail, you know?

Happy (belated) Thanksgiving!

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Fine Arts: Visual arts

Incorporating literature into imaginary play

The boys' bedtime story this summer was The Hobbit, which both of them enjoyed very much. (Thanks to The Hobbit, the word "thief" was introduced into their vocabulary, and has since become the go-to word for someone they're very angry with. Better than some of the alternatives, right?)

After The Hobbit, they began the Narnia series. So far they have completed The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, followed by The Magician's Nephew, and are now working their way through The Horse and His Boy.

It has been particularly interesting to watch the boys incorporate the characters from these stories into their imaginative play. Queen Jadis (from Narnia) and Bilbo (from The Hobbit) are the most common characters used, while several others make occasional appearances.

The boys spent this afternoon outside, building an elaborate fort and then using it as their house for their imagined family. The boy was "Rose" from the book "The Golly Sisters Go West", while the toddler was "Primrose" from another recent favourite, "The Complete Brambly Hedge" (this beautiful book is currently ours on loan from the library, but will likely be purchased to become part of our own library to be read over and over).

We'll see what characters make imaginary appearances next!

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Fine Arts: Drama
Language Arts: Reading & Viewing, Speaking & Listening

Recent drawings

The boy spends hours each day with his crayons, scissors, tape, and paper. He says glue takes too long to dry, but he loves the mini-stapler that I bought for him after he kept borrowing mine. He enjoys his smelly markers (Mr. Sketch) and my highlighters. In short, this guy loves his paper crafts.

I was amused by this recent creation, where he combined tape and crayons to make a stand for a dump truck he had drawn. How innovative of him!

He loves Magic School Bus books. I'm quite fond of the old-style ones myself, while the new ones seem to be lacking a certain depth that the original ones had. Despite my feelings for the newer ones, several have made their way into our library, including one on bats. It was from that book that this drawing was inspired.

Although we have done leaf rubbings and coin rubbings in the past, the boy was excited to discover that the same idea worked with stickers. These shapes were created by colouring over stickers placed under the paper; the outlines were impressively clear.

This little zebra is my personal favourite. He's in a cage in a (well-labelled) zoo. On the right-hand side, you can see the boy's initial attempt at spelling "zebra". After asking me if he had spelled it right, I helped him sound it out slowly so that he could determine the correct letters. He was able to figure it out without difficulty and wrote it at the bottom of the page.

The boy has several similar versions of this self-invented doorknob hanger, most of them hanging together on his bedroom door. I love the line of cheering people on the basketball side, and I was pleased to see the 'J' in his name facing the correct way on the soccer side. He usually draws it backwards, so it was good to see self-correction in action.

Other current favoured drawings right now include dinosaurs, construction vehicles, trains, houses, and birds.

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Language Arts: Writing
Fine Arts: Visual arts

Baking soda and vinegar trays

The boys both have colds this week, so being cooped up to avoid sharing their illness has left them a little bit squirrely. Fortunately, I've had a rainy-day project tucked away in the back of my mind for a while, and today was the perfect day to pull it out.

(Thank you, Pinterest, for the inspiration! If anyone knows the original source of the pinned image, please do let me know so that I can credit the owner properly.)


Supplies:

Vinegar
Food dye
Baking soda
Baking pans
Medicine droppers


Directions:

I gave each boy three re-purposed applesauce cups filled with food-dyed vinegar, a tray filled with half a box of baking soda, and a medicine dropper. A muffin tin is another option for holding the coloured vinegar.

Fill up dropper with vinegar and squirt it into the tray! Simple yet fascinating.

After watching the initial fizzes several times, the boy moved on to experimenting. He put the dropper underneath the baking soda before squirting the vinegar out. He built little baking soda volcanoes and squirted the vinegar inside ("It runs down the sides just like a real volcano!") He mixed colours, made rainbows, squirted vinegar on top of already wet areas, and more.

The biggest challenge for them was figuring out how to use the droppers most efficiently and effectively. The toddler never did quite get the hang of filling it up well, but it was great fine-motor practice anyway. Fortunately, big brother was happy to help (and Mommy helped too, of course!).




Then again, if all else fails, just pour it in directly!

Naturally, it didn't take long for the fingers to start poking around in there, touching, mixing, and squeezing the mixture. This made it an excellent sensory experience in addition to the scientific observation of watching the vinegar interact with the baking soda.

He was impressed with how hard and crumbly it got once it was full of vinegar.

A definite success! The boys played with the trays for a full hour and would have played longer had we not had to stop for something else. Clean up was quick and easy!


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Science: Observation, description, sensorial experience
Fine arts: Visual arts (creativity, artistic design)

Lego Maze

I had casually mentioned the idea of making a Lego maze to the boy several weeks ago. He thought it sounded interesting at the time, but he was focused on something else and so nothing came of it.

Today he came to me and asked if I remembered when I told him about making a Lego maze. I sure did, so he asked if I'd make one with him. The two of us made ourselves comfortable on the floor and began work on this creation.

He quickly took the lead, adding all sorts of extra things that I wouldn't have thought of. Once it was finished, we took turns carefully tilting the maze to roll the rubber ball from beginning to end. It was a fun challenge!

He continued to add to and modify his maze throughout the week, until at last it succumbed to the usual Lego creation fate: his little brother got hold of it.

Good-bye, maze. You were fun while you lasted.

(Thank you, Pinterest, for the inspiration!)

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Mathematics: Shape and space
Fine Arts: Visual arts (creativity, artistic design)

Crumbled leaf tree craft

Welcome, Autumn!

Part of our First Day of Fall celebration included a crumbled leaf craft, taking advantage of the many dead leaves in our front yard.


Supplies:

1 sheet of construction paper, brown
1 sheet of construction paper, any colour
Pencil
Scissors
Glue
Dry leaves
Markers (optional)
Stickers (optional)


Directions:

Draw a tree on the brown construction paper. Cut it out.

(Because I was doing this activity with multiple children, including toddlers, I cut out the trees myself in one stacked go. Normally I'd have left it up to the boy to draw and cut out the tree himself.)

Glue the tree onto the second sheet of construction paper.

Crumble the dead leaves. (This part is absolutely thrilling when you're five, by the way.)

Put glue onto the tree branches. Sprinkle the leaf crumbs onto the glue; shake off the excess. Repeat until the tree is sufficiently covered.

Optional: Decorate with markers and/or stickers. (The boy carefully sounded out each and every sticker as he placed it on his paper; great life-based child-led reading practice!)

Voilà! Tree complete.


(Thank you, Pinterest, for the inspiration!)

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Fine Arts: Visual arts (mixed media, artistic design)
Language Arts: Reading

Fall leaf sugar cookies

Part of our journey towards a more intentional life has included incorporating rhythm into our days, weeks, and years, ensuring that the things we value are not forgotten as our time idly slips away from us.

One aspect of this rhythm has been the deliberate observance of the passing of the seasons. As such, we chose to celebrate the first day of fall this year by making leaf sugar cookies. Simple, fun, and memorable, the boys declared it the best day ever.

(Thank you, Pinterest, for the inspiration!)

We began by whipping up a batch of sugar cookie dough (I used this recipe based purely on ratings). Before chilling the dough, we separated it into batches and added food dye.

Once it was chilled (and dinner was finished), we moved on to the fun part!

Pull off pieces of dough and arrange them in a patchwork on your floured (or, in our case, "parchmented") surface.

Roll the dough into a smooth surface, 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick.

Beginning cutting out your cookies! We made leaves, turkeys, and pumpkins. The boy and I each used a toothpick to draw designs on the cookies. The toddler ate the dough.

The re-rolled dough had more of a marbled effect. (By the third re-roll, the mixed colours were looking pretty dingy.)

The rest is self-explanatory! Bake 6 to 8 minutes at 400F (or as per your recipe) and cool on a wire rack. Enjoy!

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Mathematics: Numbers, patterns, spatial relations
Social Studies: Co-operative participation in groups
Fine Arts: Visual arts (creativity, artistic design)

Thank you dahlia

The boy recently expressed his love of a friend's dahlias. She was kind enough to give the boy one of his own to take home, a lovely small red one.

After putting it in a jar of water, the boy sat down to draw a thank you picture. He carefully drew a picture of the flower in the jar, even including the "Happy Easter" sticker that was on it from a few months ago. He wrote a short thank you message and put it away for safekeeping until the next time we would see her. He then asked me to write it down somewhere so we wouldn't forget.

Today we were headed her way, so we brought the picture along. He gave it to her and told her what it was for, and she was pleased to receive it.

(Sadly, I forgot to take a picture of this one!)

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Language Arts: Writing
Fine Arts: Visual arts