A Common Shepherdess

Narrating is so important to learning but for some reason it is one area where I tend to slack.  My kids have an puppet theater that they rarely use. I had my two younger ones use the puppets to tell back what they learned from their history readings for the day. The Black Douglas (a leader under Robert Bruce during Scotland's fight for freedom) The Story of the Mayflower

I wish I had heard of loop scheduling earlier in our home schooling journey. It makes so much sense that I'm amazed I've gone this long without figuring it out! The basics: make a list of all the subjects you want to cover during your school year. Then determine how often you want to cover them. This is what our community loop schedule looks like. The community loop is for the subjects that all (or some) of the kids do together. We start each day with Bible reading and prayer so I put that at the top of the list. Our state study is done irregularly (2-3 times a month) so I put that in the middle. My aim was to get through the schedule once a week. (It doesn't always work out that way but that is the great thing about loop scheduling. We quit missing subjects!) You can see that I've scheduled Zoology twice on the loop since we need to do that more often to cover the material. Our day works like this: We start at 8 a.m. We all meet at the table at do our Bible re...

I have started a new blog at https://creativeinstinct.blog/ and moved my State Dinner and information there. Come visit my new site! Buffalo Burgers Chuckwagon Potatoes Rainbow fruit platter Rustic Apple Pie The American buffalo (bison) is the official state animal of Kansas. They once roamed freely all over the Kansas prairie. And they are very tasty! Bison meat is lower in fat and cholesterol than beef but tastes very similar. I made a rainbow of fruit as a nod to The Wizard of Oz , which took place in Kansas. (Red - strawberries, Orange - peaches, Yellow - pineapple, Green - kiwi, Blue - blueberries, Purple - grapes) Lewis and Clark crossed the northeastern corner of the state in 1804, opening the way west. Many pioneers followed and blazed new trails: the Santa Fe Trail, the Oregon Trail, the Chisholm Trail, the Western Cattle Trail, and the Pony Express. Pioneer women served pies frequently. Pie is an adaptable recipe that could make use of regional...

I have started a new blog at https://creativeinstinct.blog/ and moved my State Dinner and information there. Come visit my new site! Grilled steaks Baked potatoes Corn salad Kool-Aid (official state soft drink) Sorghum Cookies If we hadn't just gotten through the holiday season, I would have made the dessert. With all the cookies and sugar we have had lately, I decided to skip it. The kids didn't miss it! In this area I haven't seen sorghum syrup but I have found sorghum flour and we also have sorghum fields nearby. I also served corn salad instead of fresh corn on the cob because it is January! I can't find the link but this is the recipe we used: 1 bag frozen corn, thawed 3 cups grape tomatoes, halved 1/2 cup diced red onion 4 Tbsp olive oil 4 Tbsp fresh lime juice salt and pepper to taste. Just throw it all in a bowl and mix! Sorghum is one of the important crops grown in Nebraska with corn being the number one crop. It is, after all, ni...

I have started a new blog at https://creativeinstinct.blog/ and moved my State Dinner and information there. Come visit my new site! Grilled Pork Chops on a Stick, brined with a dry rub Salad on a Stick Grilled corn on the cob Milk Dutch Letters The Iowa State Fair is the largest event in the state and is known as "America's Classic State Fair." It was the inspiration behind a novel, three motion pictures and Rodgers and Hammerstein's Broadway musical, "State Fair." Iowa is the number one pork producing state in the U.S. The Iowa Pork Producers Association serves up over 6,000 pork chops on a stick each day during the state fair. In order to expand healthier options, vendors at the fair started serving salad on a stick. Iowa alone produces more corn each year that most other countries in the world. It has produced the largest corn crop of any state for the past 14 years. Most of it is used as animal feed. Dutch letters are tradition...

I have started a new blog at https://creativeinstinct.blog/ and moved my State Dinner and information there. Come visit my new site! Chislic with crackers Fry bread (official state bread) with honey Wild blueberries, plum and cherries Milk (official state beverage) Apple kuchen (official state dessert) Chislic is a food that is apparently unheard of outside of South Dakota. Chislic is chunks of seasoned meat that has been deep fried. I used beef. Other choices include lamb, venison, and elk. Before frying, I sprinkled it with a simple seasoning of garlic powder, salt and pepper. Fry bread has become a popular Native American treat. The honey bee is the official state insect of South Dakota so we chose to use honey as a topping. Toppings can be savory, like taco fixings, to sweet, like berry syrup or powdered sugar. Blueberries, plums and chokecherries all grow wild in South Dakota. I don't have access to wild plums or chokecherries so we just cut up some pl...

I have started a new blog at https://creativeinstinct.blog/ and moved my State Dinner and information there. Come visit my new site! Knepfla Soup Rolls Cucumber salad Milk (official state beverage) Chocolate-covered potato chips Knepfla (or knoephla) soup comes from the German-immigrants-by-way-of-Russia that settled in North Dakota in the late 1800s. It is basically a dumpling soup with potatoes and cream. My kids loved this, even on a hot July day. My seven-year-old daughter made most of the soup herself. She chopped the vegetables, rolled and cut the knepfla and dropped it into the soup. I made a simple brioche dough in my bread machine and then baked them in the oven. We used a simple cucumber salad recipe: salted sliced cucumbers and sliced red onions in a dressing of 1 cup apple cider vinegar (heated to boiling first) and 4 tsp sugar. Carol Widman's Candy Company in Fargo is home of the famous chocolate-covered potato chips, or Chippers as they are called....