Blogging for Sonlight®...

I have been doing some blogging for Sonlight® Curriculum
If you would like to read any of these educational blogs, you can go here.  I have touched on learning through baking, limiting toys, Christmas school, Character Training and more.  If you have ideas for future blogs, please let me know. I am always looking for good ideas.

Take care,
Jill

Christmas Recipes...

I posted a few recipes on my Bluegrass Mom's Perspective Blog and thought I would post a link here in case anyone is intersted.

Healthy Gingerbread Muffins
Hot Cocoa for a Crowd
Cinnamon Rolls

Have a Merry Christmas,
Jill

Christmas with the Grandgirls...

OK, So I know it isn't Christmas yet, but our daughters in law came over last week so we could get some Grandparent photos. Sharon took pictures while Jen and Molly did antics to get their babies to smile. 

Elinor was anxious to get on to other things, but Sharon managed to get some good shots. After a bit of frustration, we got the girls orange juice popsicles and I think this is my favorite shot. They are starting to play together a bit, which is fun to see. So, for your viewing enjoyment--Bob and Jill with Allison and Elinor.

Merry Christmas and may you have a wonderful time with family and friends.

 

If you are looking for a great educational-game gift for your kids (Preschool through about 2nd grade) check out Mathtacular. For $39.99 this is a real deal. This has a DVD, tons of manipulatives and lots of great instructions so that Math will be fun for your kids. Also, you can get free shipping if you pick the Media Mail option.

If you do order. PLEASE put my name -"SL Consultant Jill E"- in the comment section. I am a Sonlight Consultant and that will make it clear that I tipped you off to this good deal. NOT just for homeschoolers. Seriously, this is a great deal and the kids in your life will love Mathtacular. 

This is packaged in a game--a great gift for under the tree this Christmas.

Also, if you are looking for great books to read aloud to your children may I recommend a couple to you? 

• The Great and Terrible Quest--This is my favorite book of all time. If you would like to know why I love it so much you can go here.

• Little Britches is another family favorite.  You can't go wrong reading this autobiography. Delightful for parents and adults. A couple of "cowboy swear words" which you can read right over if you are reading aloud.

If you would like other recommendations, let me know. I would love to recommend a book or two for you to read aloud to your family.  

Take care,

Jill

My Spaghetti Sauce Adventure...

On Monday my friend Linda and I picked tomatoes at a local pick your own tomatoes and raspberry farm. It is just a nice patch of land a lady in our town plants and then has an honor system where you put your money in a jar on her porch. I picked a little over 1 bushel [$10] and then came home to day of satisfying work.

I put my jars in the dishwasher before I left to pick so they were ready when I returned home and then I washed and cored the tomatoes.  My friend Judy, who lives in New York gave me a simple recipe for making spaghetti sauce. It is not too much work at all because you take the cored tomatoes and toss them in the blender to make a puree. It is quick and easy.

To 4 quarts of pureed tomatoes, you add 1 chopped onion [I just cut it up a bit and tossed it into the blender with the tomatoes so I didn't have to chop it.]

I assembled my spices and extra virgin olive oil and was ready to make the sauce.[I did add some fresh basil too, but I didn't have too much so I also had to add dried.]













Next I filled my HUGE pot and began to simmer the sauce, adding tomato paste and simmered some more.
I love my huge tulip shaped stainless stock pot. I don't use it often, but when I do I am so thankful I have such a great pot. 

After simmering, I put the some of the sauce in jars and fired up the pressure canner. I know my other pot is still full, and that is because I added more puree and herbs. A bushel of tomatoes makes a lot of puree!


After processing all my batches I was satisfied to see all the jars sealed and are ready for winter meals.

I included the recipe below in case anyone is interested. The making of the sauce goes pretty quickly. It takes a while to cook it down and process it, but that gave me time to clean up the kitchen and start dinner--Basil Fetuccini with marinara sauce, cheese and some local ground beef.

Delightful!

Take care,
Jill

FRESH SPAGHETTI [MARINARA] SAUCE

4 quarts of pureed tomatoes*, just wash, take out the core and put in a blender, skin and all

1 chopped onion [I put large pieces in the blender-a food processor would work great]

1/2 C olive oil

3T sugar

1-2 tsp garlic powder or a couple of cloves of crushed garlic

3 T parsley flakes

1-2 tsp basil, dried or fresh chopped

1-2 tsp oregano

2 T salt

       *Best combination is 1/2 Roma and half of a Big Boy type tomato

Cook 30 minutes on medium heat.

Add:

1- Twelve oz can of tomato paste [if not using Roma tomatoes, might want to increase this to 2 cans of tomato paste.]

Cook 45-60 minutes more at a steady simmer. Sauce will thicken nicely.

Yields 7-10 pints of sauce [depending on the tomatoes and how much tomato paste you put in].  Can at 10# pressure for 8 minutes. with about one bushel of tomatoes I made 4 batches or about 20 quarts of finished sauce. 

Back to School--How can we get it ALL done? Buddy up!

Homeschooling. Ahh, the joy of having your children home all day, learning and growing in the fertile environment of your very own home. It can be the most challenging job you will ever have. And, if you have many children it can seem impossible to meet the needs of everyone.

For years I have had moms and dads ask me how they can possibly teach 2, 3, 4 or more grades at once? Is it possible? And as this new 2011 school year is in its infancy, the questions begin again. How can we get it all done?

If you have more than one child and there is an age gap of a couple of years or more, one of my solutions is the "buddy time." You can probably guess what it is, but I will elaborate a bit by giving an example of how it looked in my home.

Around 10:00 daily I would have everyone stop whatever they were doing so we could do buddy time. I don't think I called it that, but that is what it was. Usually one child needed some special attention, so I would have that child spend time with me and the other four buddy up. It could be that Chad helped Kari with math, while Cris took Scotty out to play, freeing me to give Dusty some one on one time. Or, I might buddy an older child to listen to a younger read or give a couple of kids free time [upstairs in their room] while I had an older help and younger and I got dinner started. There are many scenarios, but basically everyone stops what they are doing 1-2 times a day and they buddy up for 15-30 minutes in order to get it all done.

I am not saying it always worked perfectly, but it worked pretty well. Another suggestion is to pay an older child to grade papers if you need help. I have a friend who has 9 children and she says that if one child wastes her time then said child has to give her the same amount of time in chores, etc. That helps get the chores done and curbs children wasting time too.

I have more ideas of how to run a more efficient homeschool and will post them in the coming days.

Facebook Friends

I started a Sonlight Consultant-Jill fan page. I will be posting various Sonlight and homeschooling information over there, so if you get a chance, go over and "like" my page.

Thanks,
Jill

In the Good Ole Summertime...

  I know that many families want to enjoy the summer with their kids but don't really have any plans or ideas on things to do.


So, for your Summer Enjoyment, here are some ideas that may help:

• Ideas to Beat Summer Boredom
• Summer learning--not so formal
• Kids mature over the summer

• Writing on Walls
• Planning for the Fall? Encouragement
• Shepherding your flock-- with links to posts about giving your children Something to Love, Something to Do and Something to Think about--Summer is a great time to start implementing these Great Charlotte Mason ideas.

And for your view pleasure, granddaughters Elinor and Allison at our farm, with my husband Bob and son Cris.

Take care and let me know if you have some great ideas for summer fun with children.

Jill

Math made Fun with MathTacular...

 I am so excited about this fun MathTacular set. I can't wait for Allison and Elinor to be old enough not to try to eat all the manipulatives.

I have this kit and it is great. The MathTacular Educational Kit is designed as a full supplement to your Pre-K through 2nd Grade math studies.

If you are familiar with Justin and his friends, you know that they are masters at making math fun, interesting and bringing math concepts to life.


You can get an idea of what MathTacular is by watching some of the video clips you can find here.  But, the Educational Kit is so much more. It comes in a fun box that looks like something a board game would come in and it includes all the manipulatives you can see in the picture and the fantastic DVD that kids love.

If you are looking for a present for any 5-8 yr old children--I highly suggest this. The kids will have so much fun they won't know it is educational. And, for  older children, Sonlight has a variety of Mathtacular products designed specifically for them. You can go here to see all the options and video trailers. {I love the new MathTacular 4 which teaches kids how to do story problems. Who can't use more help learning how to apply math to real life problems?}

You won't be disappointed. Make sure you put a note in the comment section that says, "Jill Evely sent me."

Take care,
Jill

It's a small Sonlight world...

Most of you probably know that I am a Sonlight Homeschool Curriculum Consultant, which means I travel to a few state homeschool conventions every year to display the materials, counsel parents about what would work for their families and I also support my customers year round.

I have a real passion for teaching families together using literature. Now that my children are grown it is very rewarding to come along side and help families in this way.

Kari on right with one of her teammates, Jacquie.

You probably also know that my daughter Kari has served nearly a year in Americorps.  She has been stationed in Mississippi and has worked on projects in New Orleans, Virginia, Memphis and a few other locations. But, a couple of weeks ago she was pulled off her Memphis project to go to Tennessee to assist the Red Cross with post tornado disaster response.

She has been working 12 hours a day for the past 10 days and finally got a day off.  She was excited because they were going to get a home cooked meal.  This is what she wrote:


"Then our whole team went over to Shelly's house for dinner (she's the homeschool mom who's volunteering with the Red Cross that I mentioned in a previous post), and we had a grand time of eating home cooked food and enjoying an evening with a really nice family at their really nice farm. Shelly and her husband have 4 kids and they homeschool them all. It was really neat, because I found out that they use Sonlight Curriculum, which is what Scotty and I used, and what Mom still represents and is a consultant for.
 
"Mom: I asked one of the girls if she'd read 'Mara, Daughter of the Nile' and 'The Great and Terrible Quest.' She said they had and that she loves them both. 'Mara' is one of her and her sisters' favorite books that they've read 10 or so times. I told her how Kelly [Kari's friend] read it to me when I had my wisdom teeth out because it was our favorite too. Such a small world..." 

We should have known that the really nice homeschool mom was a Sonlight mom. :)  How awesome to have favorite literature in common and to find a homeschooling kindred spirit in the midst of a disaster.

 I am anxiously awaiting bringing Kari home to Kentucky in a couple of weeks.

Take care,
Jill


Kari's Americorps Blog