Low Calorie Pumpkin Cookies and Muffins

I found this recipe for pumpkin cookies at DeeDee's Weight Watchers Recipes. Check out her other low point muffin and pumpkin recipes.

These pumpkin muffins are only 1.5 points if you leave out the oil, chips, and replace the sugar with artificial sweetener. I'll be making these today, and bringing some to my sister-in-laws home for Thanksgiving. I'm glad I can indulge and not break my diet! Pumpkin desserts are my favorite. Update: These were very good! I'm be making more. Cinnamon apple sauce would taste even better.

Pumpkin bread can be made lower calorie simply by substituting plain apple sauce(no sweetener added) for oil and using artificial sweetener. The bread is a bit soft and chewy, but still delicious.

Other oil substitutes: sour cream or plain yogurt.

Family Movie Night: Amazing Grace

I finally ordered Amazing Gracefrom Netflix. Someone had recommended this movie in the comments last year, and it lived up to its good review. Not overdone or overly dramatic, this movie lets the subject matter speak for itself in an artfully woven true story of the famous 18th century British abolitionist, William Wilberforce who spent twenty years in the British Parliament fighting to end the British slave trade. What's touching is his strong relationships with family and friends throughout his struggle, clearly a man who was well respected, despite his unpopular position as an abolitionist.

Review from Amazon:
In this inspirational costume drama, Michael Apted (49 Up) recounts a period in British history sure to be unfamiliar to most Americans. In fact, his eye-opening biography of 18th century abolitionist William Wilberforce (Ioan Gruffudd)[Horatio Hornblower] is likely to come as a revelation to many Britons, as well...The title comes from John Newton's hymn "Amazing Grace" ("I once was lost but now am found"). Newton (Albert Finney) was a former slaveholder, who became a clergyman and spent his days repenting. While America had John Brown, England had Wilberforce, and Newton is one of many who helped the [ministers of parliament] MP to abolish slavery in the UK. The story begins towards the end of Wilberforce's mission when he's sick with colitis and addicted to laudanum. Apted continues to alternate between 1797 and 1789, when Wilberforce was fitter and more idealistic, and ends in 1807 as his efforts come to fruition. Apted and writer Steven Knight (Dirty Pretty Things) do right by their hero. Unlike Amistad, however, slaves are largely off-screen, with the exception of author Equiano (Senegalese vocalist Youssou N'Dour). Amazing Grace reserves its focus for the politicians who risked their reps for the greater good, like Wilberforce and Prime Minister Pitt (an excellent Benedict Cumberbatch), and those more concerned with the income slavery provided their constituents, like Lord Tarleton (Ciarán Hinds) and the Duke of Clarence (Toby Jones). --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Art History Study: Rosa Bonheur, 19th Century French Realist

Biography and Story Study(fifth and sixth grade), Good English, 1917

Famous Pictures(Animals), Saint Nicholas Magazine,1912

BONHEUR, Marie Rosalie (rosa), celebrated animal painter, died at By, near Fontainebleau, France, May 25, 1899. Mlle. Bonheur achieved a fame unsurpassed by any woman artist, and in her own department of animal painting is placed in the front rank of painters. She was the daughter of Raymond Bonheur, a drawing teacher living at Bordeaux, and was born March 22, 1822. At an early age she gave evidence of artistic ability. This was trained and developed by her father, so that when still very young she acquired a fine technique. Mme. Bonheur died in 1833, and the father and children moved to Paris, where Rosa improved her opportunity of studying the pictures in the Louvre. The family was poor and for a time the. girl was apprenticed in a dressmaker's shop, but she soon returned to her copying in the Louvre. Here she worked regularly, and not infrequently sold her pictures to advantage. More here.

The Art-literature Readers, Book 3(grade 3), 1903, Rosa Bonheur Biography

Great Artists, 1899, Biography(middle school and up)

Interview with  Rosa Bonheur, 1859:

"Have you given the Women's Rights question any attention?" we asked.
"Women's rights!—women's nonsense!" she answered. " Women should seek to establish their rights by good and great works, and not by conventions. If I had got up a convention to debate the question of my ability to paint "Marche au Chevaux" (The Horse Fair), for which England would pay me forty thousand francs, the decision would have been against me. I felt the power within me to paint, I cultivated it and have produced works that have won the favorable verdicts of the great judges. I have no patience with women who ask permission to think!"   

Stories of Famous Pictures(third - fourth grades), 1904

Lives of Girls Who Became Famous(fourth - fifth grades)

Historic Girlhoods, 1910.

Image gallery

Free Thanksgiving Children's Activity Print-outs and Stories

Vintage Children's Thanksgiving Poetry for Those in Colder Climates

Free Printable Vintage Children's Thanksgiving Poems and Stories

Free Notebooking Thanksgiving Pages

Free Thanksgiving ebook: Mary of Plymouth by James Otis

Vintage American Indian Thanksgiving Hiawatha Cut Outs

Another Children's Vintage Cut and Paste Thanksgiving Project and Coloring Page 

The above posts are from years past.

November Multi-grade Short Stories, Poems, and Clip Art

Thanksgiving, A North American Holiday

Bumped up from 2007

For my friends from other continents, a little about Thanksgiving.

How we celebrate:

It is customary to have turkey and dishes featuring North American autumn fruits and vegetables. It's a time when extended family gets together to share each others company and give thanks for God's abundance and mercy. There is a contemporary tradition to watch football, and fall asleep in an easy chair after making a glutton of yourself. We don't watch football here, ack, did I say that out loud! Sacrilege! My husband loved sports as a young person, and excelled at it, but curiously he doesn't enjoy watching it on television.

We usually have my out-of-town parents over, but this year they have other plans. Dh has to work Thanksgiving day, so we'll be going to the fire station for a tasty homemade meal over there. No cooking for me except a dessert dish.

Excerpted from Wikipedia:

"Thanksgiving, or Thanksgiving Day, is an annual one-day holiday to give thanks for the things one has at the end of the harvest season. In the United States, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November. The period from Thanksgiving Day to New Year's Day is often collectively referred to as the "holiday season" in the United States."

The first Thanksgivings were celebrated by early settlers in the New World.

"The Pilgrims were particularly thankful to Squanto, the Native American who taught them how to catch eel and grow corn and who served as an interpreter for them (Squanto had learned English as a slave in Europe and travels in England). Without Squanto's help the Pilgrims might not have survived in the New World. The explorers who later came to be called the "Pilgrims" set apart a day to celebrate at Plymouth immediately after their first harvest, in 1621. At the time, this was not regarded as a Thanksgiving observance; harvest festivals were existing parts of English and Wampanoag tradition alike."

The story of the Pilgrims is a popular Thanksgiving tradition, and the children often put on plays, and make little crafty things related to autumn harvest and the Pilgrims.

Also check out this post at Laudem Gloriae, a small bit of history regarding the Pilgrims, Democracy, Thanksgiving, etc. HT to Tea at Trianon.

Free Thanksgiving and Pilgrim Paintings and Artwork

Click here, lots and lots of images in public domain.

Free Printable Vintage Thanksgiving Postcard Place Cards

Click here for more, so nice!

Educational Freebies at Currclick

A few freebies I downloaded from Currclick(e-curriculum) tonight:

Anne of Green Gables Study Guide
Blackline Maps of World History Free Sampler
Shenanigans at Sugar Creek by Paul Hutchens
TBB Periodic Table of Elements Card Kits
Thanksgiving - A Creative Writing & History Elective
Gift Magi(OHenry)
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: A Novel-Ties Study Guide
The Timeline Project

More here.

Cut and Color Table Top Turkey

We are making this tomorrow for grandmom's/aunties Thanksgiving table. See here for template and directions. Instead of card stock, we are using recycled dry food boxes.

Image is from site.

Simple Ways to Slash Your Grocery Bill

and other basic frugal living tips at About.com Frugal Living. If you are just beginning a frugal lifestyle, this is a good basic list of strategies.

Check Your Receipt for Mistakes
Mis-rings are common and costly. Bring all receipt errors to the store's attention, and you may just get your mis-rung items for free!

This is one I continue to tackle. I find double rings on items a few times a month, although I've never gotten anything for free this way.

High School Level Courses: The History Guide

The History Guide has been created for the high school and undergraduate student who is either taking classes in history, or who intends to major in history in college. The purpose of The History Guide is to better prepare yourself for your history classes and to make your time in class more enjoyable and proficient.

The History Guide contains the complete content of three undergraduate courses in European history which will certainly be of use to those of you studying such topics at the college level or in A.P. European history classes. The History Guide contains ninety lectures in European history from ancient Sumer to the fall of Soviet-style communism in 1989. In essence, what is presented here is an online textbook in western civilization, with special reference to the western intellectual tradition.

Parents engaged in home schooling their children will find much that is of interest and I urge you to contact me if there are any details I can help provide to you.

I read through the section on the Crusades which contained a good general overview with the back story to explain the social and political climate. This is a nice resource which I'll come back to again.

DIY Printable - Make a Toy French Theatre

See here for two free PDF downloads.

Printable Vintage Preschool Cut and Paste

I got weary of looking for free printable young children's cut and paste activities for my daughter(the cut and paste queen), so I used ClipartEtc for free images to cut into pieces. Today we did E is for Elephant, and she reassembled and pasted together a few elephants. One of them has got his back legs pasted in the front(giggle). She seemed to enjoy this, so I'll probably pick another animal tomorrow. The elephant on the left was the easiest to cut apart.

Where possible, I cut away the tail, legs, ears, and head for re-assembly onto the torso. Afterwards, we had a chat about elephants and practiced writing the letter "E". ClipartEtc has an Asian working elephant pushing a log - great for social studies and a geography lesson. Free printable maps here.

Printing tip: Of the three download sizes offered, the largest one seems to do best for this activity. It comes out nice and sharp on a full page printout.

Wish List: Indoor Greenhouse

Indoor Greenhouse. Grow light is not included. I've already started cucumbers in a sunny window, but they will need more room and light soon.

I would like to try this light stick, but I'm not sure whether this would give off enough light for vegetables:

"The LiteStik uses energy-efficient LED technology, soaking up sun by day, and then its innovative light sensor allows it to come on automatically when the light dips below certain levels."

Printable Early Math Cut and Paste Shapes/Tangrams

We worked on a few of these this morning: circles, triangles, rectangles, pentagons, hexagons, and octagons. These are fairly easy tangrams, suitable for preschool-early K.

Recipe: Grilled Radishes

Radishes sweeten up a bit upon cooking. I also add them to stir fry. See here for recipe.

Printable Template and Instructions for Three Bears Theatre(3 Acts)

Free and in public domain. Manual Training Magazine, 1913, pages 115-128. Book is downloadable and/or individual pages can be printed by right clicking on the images of the pages at the link.