How to Plant a Victory Garden

Free download here. Better quality video at this location as well.

The War on Dust

Eight Strategies to Reduce Dust in the Home :

1. Keep closet floors clear for easy cleaning.
2. Upgrade your furnace filter
3. Rotate bedding weekly
4. Capture dust — don't just spread it around.
5. Beat and shake area rugs.
6. Take cushions out for a beating.
7. Clean the air while you clean house.
8. Match the vacuum to the flooring.
See entire article here.

I've begun vacuuming the beds as well. When possible, I air out the house while cleaning. What do you do to fight dust in the home?

Free Resource for English & Language Arts

Ignite the Fire has a helpful page of free resources here. These are mostly for middle school and up. I like their writing resources and guides for middle school students.

Sew a Giraffe Tutorial

Click here.

Dragonfly Printable Nature Study and Language Arts Resources

"...the dragon-flies remain not only entirely harmless to man, but in reality are his friends and allies in waging war against flies and mosquitoes; they are especially valuable in battling mosquitoes since the nymphs, or young, of the dragon-fly, take the wrigglers in the water, and the adults, on swiftest wings, take the mosquitoes while hovering over ponds laying their eggs." ~ Dragonflies and Damselflies By Anna (Botsford) Comstock.

The Insect World: A Reading Book of Entomology, 1902

The Butterfly Vivarium; or, Insect Home, 1858

"ALL you children who live in the country, or spend summers in the country, and some of you city children who do neither, must have seen dragon-flies. You may have called them "Devil's Darning Needles," or "Mosquito-hawks," and you may have heard very absurd stories of their sewing up people's ears! The stories are entirely false, for the beautiful dragon-flies have nothing with which to "sew up" ears or anything else!

I have seen them darting about the streets of New York, Boston, and Chicago, catching the mosquitoes on the wing. I have seen them in many smaller cities and towns, and in the country and by the sea, they abound.

Why do I tell you about them if they are so common? Because, like many common things, they are very interesting when one knows all about them,— or nearly all—and the flying about in the air and catching mosquitoes for breakfast, dinner, and supper, are not nearly all of the life of a dragon-fly." ~ Primary Education, Dragonflies, 1898(Switch to plain text if print too small - upper right button at link)

Fiction, The Fiddler Crab and the Dragonfly, 1901

Little Folks in Feathers and Fur, and Others in Neither, The Little Masker, 1880

The Insect Folk, Our Pretty Dragonflies, 1903.

Good Stories for Great Holidays, The Water Drop,1914

Harper's Fourth Grade Reader, The New Life, 1888

Stories of Woods and Fields, The Dragon Fly, 1902

More later....

Printing Tips: Right click on the image of the pages at the links, or download entire book. All are free and in public domain.

Crafts:

Nature craft dragonfly

Business card dragonfly plane

Sunflower Seed Harvest

Cut today from my garden. Edible and pretty(when in bloom).

Abstract Art Project Tutorial

The tutorial is here, DIY abstract art painting. What a fun art project to do with family! We plan to try this with form core poster board, just one dollar at the dollar store. I might try to copy a Rothko painting with my daughter.

DIY Fabric Wall Art

I've done this project before, and the results are really professional looking. See here for a tutorial. It's just a matter of stretching fabric over a frame, and stapling it to the back. We used a staple gun.

I love her choice of fabric(Moda). Here is a favorite fabric collection for a children's room. I may try one of these in my daughter's room.

Rustic Homemade DIY Twin Platform Bed

We made this twin bed platform today in about two hours. Using the measurements of the twin bed mattress, we took these to find wood at a big box store. Three 2x12x8 rough pine lumber boards for about $7.00 each worked, and with two feet in length to spare for a shelf. We were going to add sections of one foot tall rough pine posts for the legs, getting the cuts at the store, but I spied some lumber in the trash bin at the end of the lumber aisle. They were thick packing pieces, very roughly cut with a bit of the tree bark still attached. All except one were even cuts of 18 inches. I thought we could work with this, so we chose the free lumber in lieu of the post. We also picked up a small box of drywall screws.


We pieced the bed together, three feet across and eight feet long. The middle support leg(pictured) has not been attached. The power drill ran out of juice, so we'll add middle support legs(double thick) later, probably hidden ones, further under the bed. I had some felt adhesive dots, left over from another project, that I added to the bottom of the legs so that they would not scrape the floors.
This was so inexpensive and easy! I like that we didn't need to do any cuts and got free wood for the legs. This could still have been done inexpensively with the purchase of two thick posts from the lumber section. The big box store would have done the cuts for us free of charge.

This bed would have made a nice couch as well. All it needs is some foam, fabric, cushions, and oversized pillows, or even easier, a twin bed mattress. A back support would be easy to screw into the back.

Add longer legs and you've got a table! I'd add an apron of wood and possibly a trestle for stability though.

It's very sturdy. I sat on this bed while reading a story to my young daughter, and it held nicely. There is plenty of room underneath for storage, or for a little play cave area. It was easy to sweep/vacuum under as well.

Free Download: C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia Audiobooks

See here

HT to Southern Savers

Vintage Curriculum Guide, Baby to Early Childhood

Excerpt from The Mothercraft Manual By Mary Lillian Read, 1922(downloadable and free):

For the child under six years, and possibly under ten, the most educative environment, in every sense, is in the country with hills, valleys, woods, water, plants and trees, wild and domestic animals, other young children, the freedom of the kitchen, the necessity for personal physical care, and elders who enter sympathetically into his life, not obtrusively but intelligently, ready to give assistance when it is needed. With good library facilities, wholesome neighborhood recreations, and occasional trips to a city for its opportunities of art galleries, great music, wholesome plays, industrial activities, the simple home life and rural surroundings, even with mediocre teaching in a rural school, provide through early adolescence the environment most favorable for developing richness of life, greatness of personality, social efficiency.

Intellectual and Play Interests. 2 to 6 years.

Sensory and motor stage: Range of active sensory experiences, — tasting, touching, hearing, seeing

Interest in color, sound, tasting, strongest at 4 to 6 years

Constant sensory experimentation and exploration

Experimental science; taking apart; finding source of motion or noise Nature interest; animals, birds, insects, flowers; watching actions, noting striking characteristics of appearance

Interest in experimenting with material (2 to 4 years); in making for use (4 to 6 years)

All work crude; materials large, coarse, utilizing fundamental muscles; periods short, to avoid strain of eyes or nerves

Handcrafts:

(a) Building, digging, sand play (from one year)
(b) Carpentry, drawing, painting, modeling (from two years)
(c) Cutting, pasting, heavy paper construction (from 4 years)
(d) Coarse weaving, cardboard construction (from 5 years)

See entire curriculum here, baby to early childhood. Some ideas are obviously outdated, but others are still relevant.

"Knowledge has little or no intrinsic value in and of itself. Like light, knowledge is good not to see but to see by. . . . Ignorance is doubtless better than knowledge that does not make us better."
— G. Stanley Hall.

"Where children are fed only on book knowledge, one fact is as good as any other." . —John Dewey.

"If we seek the kingdom of heaven, educationally, all other things shall be added unto us — which, being interpreted, is that if we identify ourselves with the real instincts and needs of childhood, and ask only after its fullest assertion and growth, the discipline and information and culture of adult life shall all come in their due season." — Ibid.

...developing character, — the ideals and the realization of noble living, — which has its roots deep in the feelings and the soul, and depends upon these far more than upon mere thought, knowledge, and reasoning.

"Play is the highest phase of child-development — of human development at this period (childhood); for it is self-active representation of the inner, from inner necessity and impulse."

"The plays of childhood are the germinal leaves of all later life; for the whole man is developed and shown in these."

"Come, let us live with our children."

— F. Froebel

August Grasshoppers

We got beaned by these today on a nature hike through some wetlands . They were everywhere along the path, and I dared not open my mouth until we got to the forest at the other side of the wetlands.

An interesting and very detailed book on grasshoppers which I found free and in public domain at Google Books:

Grasshopper Land by Margaret Morely, 1909. There is an interesting section on Eastern Locusts with Biblical references to locusts - locusts of the Old Testament.

Low Calorie Baking Substitutes

From Baking Your Way to a Slimmer You:

1). Cut the butter – ...replace about half of the butter in cookies, biscuits and pie crusts with reduced fat cream cheese. Light cream cheese (also known as Neufachtel) has a similar texture to butter, reacts similarly in baking, but has a fraction of the fat and calories.

2). Utilize egg whites – When baking cakes, custards and cookies, replace some of the whole eggs with egg whites or Egg Beaters. Every egg yolk contains about 5 grams of fat and 213 mg. of cholesterol. By replacing some of the yolks with additional egg whites, you can cut down on the fat in many desserts.

3) Add orange juice – Relying on fruit juice to provide some of the sweetness in a recipe, rather than just using sugar, is a great way to cut back on the empty calories you often find in desserts.

4). Substitute sugar with a natural sweetener - ...use Truvia® natural sweetener, made from the Stevia plant. It is a natural, zero-calorie sweetener... a good rule of thumb is to replace ¼ cup of sugar in a recipe with 1/8 cup Truvia.

5). Replace the oil – ... oil gives the cake a nice texture, moist crumb, and about 900 extra calories per ½ cup! Thankfully fat free, or reduced fat, plain Greek style yogurt does the same trick with only about 85 calories per ½ cup. I replace 2/3 of the oil in my cake recipes with reduced fat Greek style yogurt..

I use apple sauce to replace oil. This past week I used mashed squash in some sweet bread with great results. I'm going to try the orange juice or other sweet juice as a sugar substitute.

Recent Children's Academic Library Book Selections

Someone(Eva) asked if I wouldn't mind sharing a list of our academic readings. Listed below are a few summer favorites from our public library. Mostly, I browse the stacks and pull books that look interesting, books that are a good review of topics covered(studied) in past years. My son is going into the eighth grade, and some of these books are below his reading level, but were selected for their coverage of a particular area.

Son(age 13):
Ten Kings: And The Worlds They Rule by Wilton Melzer.
Inventions that Made History by David C. Cooke
Cradle of Civilization Series(broad coverage): The Assyrians (The Cradle of Civilization),
The Sumerians (The Cradle of Civilization), and The Babylonians (The Cradle of Civilization) by Elaine Landau
Ten Saints by Eleanor Farjeon
1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up by Julia Eccleshare. HT to Untrodden Paths(Eva).


Daughter(age 5), Picture Books:
Peter the Cruise Ship by Hans Mateboer(geography, cooperation, manners, social studies)
Daisy and the Egg by Jane Simmons(nature science, family)
A House for Hermit Crab (World of Eric Carle) by Eric Carle (nature science, months)
Kitten's First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes (directional words, a bit of science, sequence)
Old Shell, New Shell: Coral by Helen Ward (nature science)
Where the Forest Meets the Sea by Jeannie Baker (ecology, geography, family)
Caribbean Dream by Rachel Isadora (geography, family, poetry)
The Little Island by Margaret Wise Brown (nature science, the seasons, faith)

Chocolate Squash Cake

I used the below recipe, slightly altered, tonight with super results! I also made one with homemade apple sauce and one with pumpkin. I used an almond, vanilla, cinnamon icing made with powered sugar, and a little white and brown sugar. My daughter(age 5) helped make these cakes and drizzled the icing over the hot cakes.

I had no chocolate chips, so used a bit of chocolate milk mix and extra cocoa powder instead. I deleted the butter for the recipe, adding apple sauce instead.

See recipe here.

Ingredients:
1 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. butter
1/2 c. vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2 1/2 c. sifted flour
1/2 to 1 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 tsp. allspice
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 c. buttermilk (or regular milk with 1 1/2 tsp. vinegar)
1/4 c. cocoa
1 3/4 c. shredded zucchini(or other squash), drained

A Few Veggies From the Garden Today

Our little garden has not done well this year with the very hot weather, and my soaker hose sprung a leak. The plants are twisted around it, so there is no removing it this season. Something new this year - green peppers, and they have done well. I'll be planting this again next year.

Some years are more prolific than others, but the garden always offers up something.

Paper Roll Art

Búhos y un gato(Owls and a Cat)