The 12 Days of Solstice

My daughter, Fiona (age 11), decided to re-write the song "The 12 Days of Christmas".  This is what she came up with.

The Twelve Days of Solstice

by Fiona Bryant

On the first day of Solstice my true love gave to me, a snow blanket in a bare tree.
On the second day of Solstice my true love gave to me, two fluffy cats and a snow blanket in a bare tree.
On the third day of Solstice my true love gave to me, three chilly dogs...
On the fourth day of Solstice my true love gave to me, four pretty presents...
On the fifth day of Solstice my true love gave to me, five golden stars...
On the sixth day of Solstice my true love gave to me, six pairs of mittens...
On the seventh day of Solstice my true love gave to me, seven plush snowmen...
On the eighth day of Solstice my true love gave to me, eight strings of lights...
On the ninth day of Solstice my true love gave to me, nine twirling snowflakes...
On the tenth day of Solstice my true love gave to me, ten knit hats...
On the eleventh day of Solstice my true love gave to me, eleven candy canes...
On the twelfth day of Solstice my true love gave to me, twelve clumps of holly, eleven candy canes, ten knit hats, nine twirling snowflakes, eight strings of lights, seven plush snowmen, six pairs of mittens, five golden stars, four pretty presents, three chilly dogs, two fluffy cats and a snow blanket in a bare tree.

When she typed it up she typed up the whole thing, but I typed it up the short way to save time. I was impressed with the time she took with it.

I think it's pretty darn good. :)  I think we have a new "traditional" song at our house.

Review- Time4Learning

Well, our month of using it is over. Time for a review. :)
My favorite part was that once you were in a subject, the child could take a quiz or test and find out what parts they needed to work on. This was very handy for my kids since they have lots of knowledge all over the place. When they felt they already knew something I would just let them take the test. Sometimes they had already "mastered" they whole thing and could move on. Other times, they had all but one or two areas "mastered" and so only had a couple lessons to do.
The lessons seemed engaging and easy to understand. My oldest, Fiona, has struggled to find a method for learning math that doesn't either bore her or confuse her. This seemed to work well. We are thinking of buying a subscription just for her. It's worth it to find a way to make math fun for her. :)
Eric and Colleen didn't enjoy their time on time4learning as much as Fiona did. I'm not sure why. The games and lessons all looked fun.  It may just be that they like the other games and sites that they are used to more. They also really liked taking the tests though. It was fun for them to see what parts they had "mastered". :)
Back to Fiona, I noticed in the math area for her, that there were tools they could use. Virtual manipulatives. She didn't take time to play around with them, but I could see them being very useful.
I feel like I should put more in this review. There really is a lot to time4learning. Math, Language Arts, Science and Social Studies/History are all covered. Going into each subject, they are each broken down. You can do the lessons in order, or pick where you want to go. There is a lot to cover, but my month was up during a very busy time for us, so I'm squeezing this in.
If we decide to find $20 a month to subscribe for Fiona, I'll come back to go further into it.
For now, thanks to time4learning for a chance to check out their service and give a review!

Update and such

Well, now that I posted the previous, I don't think I was supposed to yet. Ooops! LOL  They haven't contacted me saying I get to write the review, I just applied. Oh well. :)
I really hope I get it. It will be interesting to see if that type of thing works well with any or all of the kids.
For now we are using Lesson Pathways. I really like this site. It's worked well for us for 4 weeks so far. I'm also about to start using MEP for our math.  It's a spiral curriculum with free access to it. I was looking for a way to change the curriculum we had (which is a mastery type) to spiral and this was recommended to me. I really liked what I saw, so we are going to give it a try.
Fiona is struggling with math, so we are looking for new ways to go about it. Hopefully we will stumble upon something that seems to click for her. Public school really screwed her up when it comes to math. She just freezes and seems to think it's ALL too hard. I'm hoping that one of the new things we'll be trying will help.

That's it for now I guess. Hopefully, I'll be back in a month or so with a review of Time4Learning. I really want to try it out.

Something to look forward to in the future.

I’ve been invited to try Time4Learning for one month in exchange for a candid review. My opinion will be entirely my own, so be sure to come back and read about my experience. Time4Learning can be used as a homeschool curriculum, for afterschool enrichment and for summer skill sharpening. Find out how to write your own curriculum review for Time4Learning.

I'm looking forward to seeing if this will work well for one or all of the kids. I can't wait to share my experience with it!

Trying to post from my phone.

And it worked! :) Yea!  Not sure if I'll use that much, but it's nice to know it's an option. :)

I got a new phone!

Imagine that in a sing-song voice. LOL  I'm pretty excited about it. :)  It's a LG enV Touch. It's pretty darn cool. I'm already set up to be able to update Facebook by texting. I'm trying to figure out other stuff still. I like flash for the camera, but need to figure out if you can turn it off. Sometimes you just don't want a flash.
I'm excited to be able to update stuff while we are out and about. There are sometimes that it would be nice to share and not wait until we get home. By that time I might have three or four things to share!
Now to figure out what else this phone can do! :)

Noras chocolate cake!

(taken from same site/post as below)
5 tbs all-purpose flour
2 slightly rounded tbs unsweetened cocoa powder
2 slightly rounded tbs sugar
1/8 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt

mix these ingredients together and add

3 tbs milk
2 tbs oil
1/4 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp white vinegar

mix it all up and here's the great part... lick the spoon or have your kid lick the spoon... no eggs, no worries (I must add here that I copied this straight over. I personally have no problems with my kids licking the spoon when we use eggs. I use our eggs from our chickens and feel perfectly safe doing so)

you can add come chocolate chips or nuts now if you want

put it in the microwave for 1 minute, maybe 1 and a half. check it at one though... since there are no eggs it cooks really fast... if the top is bouncy and a fork stuck in it comes out clean, its ready. Its good with a scoop of ice cream dumped right into the mug.

The Most Dangerous Cake Recipe in the World

5 MINUTE CHOCOLATE MUG CAKE

1 Coffee Mug
4 tablespoons flour(that's plain flour, not self-rising)
4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons baking cocoa
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons oil
3 tablespoons chocolate chips (optional) some nuts (optional)
Small splash of vanilla

Add dry ingredients to mug, and mix well . Add the egg and mix thoroughly.
Pour in the milk and oil and mix well.
Add the chocolate chips (if using) and vanilla, and mix again.
Put your mug in the microwave and cook for 3 minutes on high.
The cake will rise over the top of the mug, but don't be alarmed!

Allow to cool a little, and tip out onto a plate if desired. EAT!
(this can serve 2 if you want to share!)

And why is this the most dangerous cake recipe in the world?
Because now we are all only 5 minutes away from chocolate cake at any time
of the day or night!

Taken from a post at TheBabywearer.com  http://www.thebabywearer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=282002

Another twist in the journey

We went wheat free and after an initial period of it helping, we were right back to where we started.  One day, she sat in the bathroom for three hours trying to poo. She fell asleep twice. By the time she was done, we were both exhausted. :(  So, we went to the dr. He said she has a fissure and told us to give her mineral oil (1/2 tsp twice a day) for a month and a half.  So far it is helping hugely :)
We are eating wheat and diary for now. Once the fissure is healed we will look things over again and decide where to go from there. She was still having daily tummy aches off of wheat, so we aren't sure what to think of that. Poo trouble is mostly better now, but she still has daily tummy aches.