Saucey!

 

Howdy!

Funny story; at Thanksgiving, Hubby asked for apple sauce to go with our turkey dinner.  Apple sauce?  Where did that come from?  He has never asked for apple sauce before, homemade or otherwise!

Apple sauce is so easy to make - simply boil down apples with cinnamon, brown sugar, white sugar and a little bit of water.  When apples are soft, put the mixture through the food processor until it is smooth!

All joking aside, it took Derek twenty years to ask for apple sauce with his holiday meal... am I really that scary?  hahaha

Jeanette

Mystery science

 Hello there!

One of the free/cost effective supports for our homeschool curriculum that I am so happy I found is mystery science .  This site has just about every question and scientific exploration you could possibly think of and it is presented in a fun way with kid friendly follow up activities.

This week is all "Pumpkin School"... Halloween learning and activities.  We started the week out with some monster math questions and then went on to learn a little about our skeletons!  Watching a video about the bones and joints in our hands was followed up by a really cool activity using nothing but crayons and mineral oil to make our very own hand x-rays!  It really was easy and it really worked!

If you are looking to add some fun science to your distance learning or homeschool routine... or if you are just looking for fun with the kiddos.. be sure to check this web site out!

Cheers!

Jeanette

Volcanoes

     Hello!

Okie-dokie, so what elementary science experience DOES NOT include the baking soda-vinegar volcano?

We wrapped up our geology exploration with the construction of a clay volcano model.  We used red food colouring, dish soap, vinegar and baking soda for our eruption and marvel heroes as fleeing villagers.  An added fun element was some Black Sea salt that added a nice sulphur smell when wet.  

For full video, see our Instagram feed.  :)

Until next time,

Jeanette

Leaves and Chlorophyll

     I love AUTUMN!

    While raking up (and jumping in) leaves earlier this week, my girls and I began chatting about the different colours of the leaves and why they turn the colours they do.  I won't ruin any science exploration you might be thinking of doing but lets just say it includes cooler weather trapping sugars in the leaves of the tree.

    But a handful of trees still wore robes of green - which prompted my girls to try and remember why leaves are green in the first place.  The answer to that is chlorophyll.  This led us to do a quick experiment to find out which leaves had the most chlorophyll.

    We gathered five leaves from five different trees; a walnut tree, a birch tree and three maples (one sugar, one Japanese and one 'regular old maple').

    We then brought the leaves into the kitchen and tore them into small pieces.  We put each pile of leaf pieces into their own glass jar and labeled each jar.  We then poured rubbing alcohol into the jars until the alcohol just covered the leaf pieces.  To help the alcohol take up the green colour of the leaves, I put the glass jars into a tray of hot water and covered the whole thing with Saran Wrap.  After about 15 minutes we replaced the water with fresh hot water and after about 30 minutes, each jar had GREEN rubbing alcohol.

    When the alcohol was green we placed strips of coffee filter into each jar.  Taping the end of the filter to the wall, with just the tip of the filter immersed into the alcohol.  And then we waited.

    After about 90 minutes, the green had travelled up the coffee filter.  We put the coffee filters in an order from least amount of yellow and green to the most amount of green.  This told us which leaves held the most chlorophyll!  Our sugar maple had the most chlorophyll while the oak tree had the least!

    An impromptu (albeit anticlimactic according to Sammy) learning adventure!

Jeanette

Art Class - Wayne Theibaud Lollipops

 Good evening!

    I believe that the arts - visual art, music and drama are so important for the growth of our children, but art is not something that comes easily to me.  I love to knit and crochet but have difficulty putting colours together and I've never really made friends with a paintbrush.  I wanted to be sure to include some art learning in our homeschool routine.

    Thankfully Pinterest is a treasure trove not only for creative ideas for kids but FREE creative lessons!  Homeschooling through Covid on a budget means free is a wonderful thing!  I came across wonderful sites full of art lessons for elementary and middle school ages!  

Our first art project of the year is a pastel lollipop piece based on the works of Wayne Theibaud.  The lady behind this website, Michelle lays out each art lesson with a little art history/artist background and step by step instructions!

    Using 12 by 18 inch watercolour paper and oil pastels, here are OUR finished pieces!

    I loved how my girls chose to personalize their lollies - Sammy added a rabbit and a mantis and Krista drew a cat and a fish!  (My drawing is pretty run of the mill. ;). ). If you would like to try this art project or you are looking for some art ideas be sure to check out Create Art with ME

    Have a colourful weekend!

Jeanette

Hands On Rocks

Hey there!

We have been learning all about the rock cycle here at home - who knew rocks were constantly being formed and broken down and reformed... its really quite interesting!  Here is a really simple "experiment" my girls and I did in the kitchen to help us visually remember each of the different types of rocks...

Its easy, its tasty and best of all it will cost you only two dollars!  Yup, head on over to Dollarama and grab yourselves a bag of Starburst candy and you're ROCKING!  (hahaha)

Okie-Dokie.. first you want to eat a few starburst.  Just get that out of the way.  

Next I used a sharp knife to cut a handful of starburst into quarters.  I then gave each of my little scientists a handful of these candy "sediments".

The first thing we did was use pressure from our hands to squeeze these 'rock sediments' into a mass... this formed our sedimentary rock.  You can still see bits of the original candy pieces, they've just become glued together to form a rock.

Next we made a fist around this sedimentary rock to transfer our body heat to the candy to make them soften.  When they were a wee bit squishy, we flattened them against the counter.  Krista needed a little bit of my muscle power to get hers to squish.  When the candy was smooth and the different colours less easily distinguished, we had ourselves Metamorphic rocks!

The final part of our experiment required my help with the use of the stove.  We set two small mason jars in a hot water bath and added our metamorphic rocks to the jars.  It took about half an hour for the candy rocks to melt and what we had was liquid-hot Magma!

We carefully took the Magma out of the jars and allowed it to cool on the counter.  The cooled magma was our Igneous rock!

 

Super fun and tasty way to study the rock cycle.. if I were to do it again, the only change I would make would be to wait until AFTER lunch to eat.. I mean make starburst rocks!  :)

Jeanette

Harvest Succotash

 Hello there!

    While learning about Canada's First Nations last month, we learned that the Iroquois people, being farmers often prepared a dish called Succotash.  Sammy and Krista wanted to know more about it so we took a little wander around Pinterest and sure enough found a youtube video of an 18th century recipe.  When the girls realized the dish highlighted the "three sisters" of   beans and squash... vegetables we had planted in our veggie patch, they were determined we must try it too!

    

Soooo... the first ingredient would be bear meat.  We do not have access to bear meat, but our friend in the youtube video assures us that a good cut of sirloin tip beef will work well and thankfully we still have a few cuts of grass fed beef at our disposal.

   

    

 It took a full afternoon for our succotash to simmer as we used the wood stove that we were burning on that cool damp 5 degree Friday.  The slower cook was well worth it though when we spooned into ourmouths the first delicious bite of garden fresh buttercup squash, beans, corn and meat.

    We enjoyed our succotash - it is much like a stew without the heavy stock.  

    We all agreed we would make it again!

    Bon Appetit!

    Jeanette

Wash your Hands!!

 Hey!

    When our ErinGirl was a baby she had baby eczema - bright red cheeks, patches of tender dry skin.  We used only Ivory soap for our laundry and a baby formula wash with oatmeal.

    That was 14 years ago and my only education in the difference in soap versus detergent and the effects of these on skin and health.  To be frank with you and with myself, I didn't give it another thought... until a dear friend gifted me a bar of handmade goat milk soap. 

    That bar was creamy and bubbly and rinsed off my skin so nicely, I was hooked.  I knew I had to learn more and add soap to my list of self sufficient life skills!

    Fast forward a year - I was not actively looking for soap making classes but into my mailbox came the class list for the local continuing education program and guess what was listed?!  A evening workshop detailing basic soap making... sign me up!

    After that class I was floored.. this was easy.. why had I not done this before?!  Why doesn't everyone do this?

    But life is busy and there are only so many hours in a day.  So I put that little skill on the back burner until the spring when dandelions were blooming and lambs were entering the world.  It was time to take a little bit of weedy herbology and a little bit of sheep milk and see what I could create.

    

    I had some pretty good successes... and some pretty epic failures.  Haha. Trust me, burnt milk soap does not look nor smell nice at all!

    

    I had listed some soaps in our little online shop and then the business of September hit and I hadn't been down to my little soap cave in weeks.  With the ocean of goat milk I'm fortunate to be swimming in I've since made a few batches of goats milk soap with good results.

    I think I have my Christmas gift idea list for family and friends well on its way... and with the slogan for 2020 being "Wash your Hands", soap might just be the best stocking stuffer!

    Stay healthy!

    Jeanette

A new self-sufficiency skill!

 Good evening,

    After falling in love with Jessie, our bottle fed lamb back in 2016, our family added a few more sheep - including a ram.. and a handful of goats, including a buck!  For the past two springs, we have enjoyed bouncing lambs and playful kids!

    With the sheep, our ewes have produced twins half the time and we've been very fortunate for healthy babies.  With a few of these little ones being boys, we found our way into rehoming them and for the first time last year, sending them to the butcher for our family.

    With the goats, we've been blessed with only female kids - so we haven't had to rehome anyone yet; and up until this last birth for our goat Princess, we had been very blessed with normal births and healthy goat kids.  This past September, Princess gave birth a week early to a tiny little girl that we called Puppy.  Puppy was too weak to stand or nurse.

    Goat kids are born hypoglycaemic so being unable to stand and nurse shortly after birth presents the young goat with many hurdles to overcome.  Puppy also seemed to have neurological problems - ataxia, and a tongue that protruded from the side of her mouth.

    We had to try though, so we milked Princess and using a syringe we fed Puppy and moved her into the house until we could have our vet out to give her a look over.

    The care of a premature goat is a taxing process.  For two weeks Puppy slept in a playpen in our family room and we milked Princess fed her milk to Puppy with a syringe.  The neurological abnormalities became worse and little Puppy passed after a series of seizures.

    We were disheartened.

    To keep Princess comfortable we continued to milk her, storing the milk in the freezer.    After a couple of weeks I was able to look at the milk and see a wealth of useful options.  I weighed and froze portions for soap making, sent off for cheesecloth and vegetable rennet and tracked down citric acid.  And after almost a week of milking our little Pygmy goat, I had a gallon of fresh milk ready for our first attempt at CHEESE making!

    We decided to give Mozzarella a try first as it was one of the easier cheeses to make.  We had great success!

    Sammy was right in there!  She helped to cut the curds and then to stretch fold and knead the cheese until we had a creamy smooth brick!

    The next cheese we attempted was ricotta.  Again, another of the simpler cheese techniques.  Our ricotta had a nice texture and taste but I found the curds were on the smaller size and it took hours for the curds to firm and the whey to drain.

    We will continue to make cheese - cream cheese is on our list.  Cheese such as gouda and cheddar are a little more complex and Im not sure we have a good space for cheese curing.  Also, I've been  finding a cow for our homestead... milk and cheese is a lot like maple syrupin'... as it takes 40 litres of sap to make one litre of syrup; it takes a whole lotta milk to make a little bitta yummy cheese!  ;)

xo

Jeanette

Orange Shirt Day

 Hello again,

September 30th in Canada is a day of reflection and learning as we acknowledge the suffering and loss of culture of our Indigenous people during years spent in the residential school system.

This year, I learned right along with my two homeschoolers; I think I can say that the vast majority of Canadians my age had no idea that residential schools still existed in our lifetime!  The last school to close was in 1996.

We began our discussion and learning of Orange shirt day a week before September 30.  We began by studying a map of the first indigenous groups to arrive in Canada and discussing the factors affecting where they decided to settle.

After this, we began reading the book Fatty Legs by Margaret-Olemaun Pokiak-Fenton and Christy Jordan-Fenton.  This is a moving book about a young girl of nine and her experience in the residential school in the Northwest Territories in the 1940s. It was heart wrenching and inspired some great discussions.

As we read we marked locations on our map with sticky notes.

On Orange Shirt Day, we read and watched a CBC kids article on the origins of Orange Shirt day.  The girls wrote a 'current event summary' on what they had learned from the article and followed this up with decorating orange paper shirts with ideas on how "every child matters".

We as Canadians have a long way to go in supporting and reconciling with our Indigenous neighbours but reading and learning are first steps we can take here at home.

Blessings,

Jeanette

First Nations Study - the Iroquois people

 Hello!

Over the past month my girls and I have been learning about Canada's early and current Indigenous nations. 

We began reading about the Indigenous people that called Canada home centuries before the first European explorers arrived while we were camping at Awenda Provincial Park early in September.  Our focus then shifted primarily onto the Iroquois First Nations people.  We connected with the Iroquois as they were a farming people that have lived in the home we now call Ontario for centuries.  

Our first task was doing some reading from our Story of Canada book on how these First Peoples arrived in Canada and then migrated east and settled here in our local area.  We read on how they constructed their villages of longhouses where families would live and work together; how they would farm the land using companion planting that we still use today - we still plant the "three sisters" of corn, beans and squash together and we read of a young chief that brought peace to the five nations with the planting of the "tree of peace".

We are fortunate to live near some protected historical sites such as Crawford Lake Iroquois village, so one beautiful afternoon we set out on a field trip to explore life in a longhouse.

The girls were fascinated by the sheer size of the longhouses and how high the ceilings were.  They noticed the corn hung from rafters drying for the winter and the warm animal pelts and furs on the bunks.

Staff were socially distanced available to answer our questions - what roles did women typically play?  How did the smoke from the fires exit the longhouse without a chimney? 

    We tried our tongue at many Iroquois words and discussed the skills needed to make moccasins, baskets and arrows.

    It was such perfect Autumn weather, we decided to hike along one of the park's many trails, spying chipmunks, geese and beautiful wood carvings along the way.

    We will begin learning about the next visitors to Canada on our Canada timeline this coming week, but we sure did enjoy our exploration of early Iroquois peoples.

Jeanette

With a little help from our friends...

 Hi there!

So.  Here is what they don't tell you about homeschooling in Ontario.  

YOU ARE FREE TO TEACH YOUR CHILDREN WHATEVER AND HOWEVER YOU WOULD LIKE!

Exhilarating.  Amazing.  Downright TERRIFYING.

I am sure each school board is different in small ways, but once I had signed that intent to homeschool form, we were on our own.  No technology sharing or online resource access; even our girls' google drive and board email were gone.

Before we made the leap I had read up and realized all this, with the exception of that last point.  My girls were shocked at losing all the work of the previous years that were stored on their google drive as well as the emotional loss of feeling 'disconnected' from their school community.

Thankfully, reaching out to parents of school friends, we are finding other ways of connecting and maintaining friendships.  Right now that is through emails, FaceTime and even snail mail! (My preference and a great introduction to learning to write letters! Haha)

With our intention being to return to public education when it is safe to do so (we absolutely love our educators, school community and the experiences we have had over the years) I chose to follow the Ontario ministry's  curriculum outline.  Having said that, reading those documents is like reading legal documents in all "lawyer speak" while inhaling laughing gas upside down in a dentist chair.  Haha. 

Thankfully we have some wonderful homeschooling bloggers with years of experience and resources for us; in the curriculum department, I found the most help from The Canadian Homeschooler .  She even broke down that hard to read ministry document into helpful checklists for Mommas like me!  You can check them out here .

The curriculum list (and the mountains of workbooks from our eldest two ladybugs that I have kept over the years) have helped us put together learning goals for the year.  Our learning year may not always be pretty but I am determined to make it as memorable and emotionally healthy as I possibly can for all of us here on SchnickAcres.

Have a wonderful weekend,

Jeanette

Finding our math groove...

 Good morning!

The idea of teaching and learning with my girls excited me... with the exception of the prospect of MATH.  

What if I royally mess this up?

What if we muddle through it but I kill all interest and enjoyment of learning?!

I had so much fear and I still have a little residual anxiety BUT as with most new experiences, a little preparation and education can help quell that unease.  So that is what I set out to do.

At the end of the last school term we had become acquainted with khan academy.  A great resource for lessons on just about anything we wanted to know more about.. including math.  But with hubbyD working from home and ErinGirl learning virtually most days a week, our rural internet was chugging along...barely.  That, and 100% online doesn't suit our family overly well.  We are visual; we like physical items we can move and manipulate; AND I personally like paper and pen... even our family calendar is the "old fashioned" paper on the refrigerator type.  Haha

Although I had chosen and printed a math curriculum back in August andfound online resources to help show/teach the concepts, it still took us three weeks to find our math groove.  In that time, I also took a math masterclass on "living math" - ways to take it beyond the textbook and find real life connections.  This class excited me - I didn't grow up loving math or seeing math and I hope to give my girls a different math experience.

So what does our groove look like?  Well, as with all of our 'subjects" I have broken our year down into quarters; laid out a plan for what I would like us to cover in each of these seven and a half week periods, and then broken those down into bi-weekly and weekly learning goals.  That helps me set a daily learning list for both girls.

For Math, this looks like:

Monday and Tuesday - Textbook lesson 

Wednesday - digging deeper - this could be a puzzle question, logic and problem solving.  If making a life connection can help clear any confusion, this is where we look for everyday math.  Last week fraction review had us in the kitchen cutting scones.  ;)

Thursday - online practice/review - ErinGirl has face to face class in the morning so we can all jump on and use khan academy to review our math lessons - they have quick review questions and little quizzes that both girls seem to like.

Friday - Math games... my family loves games.  This week we kept it light hearted and mildly challenging with a game of spiral multiplication and learning "dutch blitz".

This is how we are grooving for now - as I am quickly learning, flexibility is a blessing and a must these days and I am sure our math learning will be tweaked multiple times before the learning year is through.

And if you are looking for learning idea for your family, be sure to peek at our Pinterest boards.

Thanks for popping in!

Jeanette

2020

 

Well hello there,

It has been a long time since I've wandered around the old blog.  A lot of changes for our little farm family... our eldest is off to University, we run a little family farm shop and I finally have GOATS!  (Twenty years of persistent persuasion and Mr Schnick finally said yes! Haha)

But as I am sure is true for all of us, here and far, 2020 has been a year of immense changes.  Covid-19 made itself known and day to day life took on a whole new look.  Runs to town now include hand sanitizer and masks; visits with friends and loved ones are out door and "socially distanced" and we now manage community interactions in terms of bubbles and cohorts.

And through these trying times, we have all had to reevaluate priorities; our traditional way of thinking about things and performing tasks and most of all, we've had to find the gentle grace for one another's decisions, positions and the places we all find ourselves in.

I think that that is what I have come to notice most.  Wading through the disheartening, tough news of each day, there have been wonderful testaments to people stepping up for one another and supporting one another in amazing ways.

Its not an easy task somedays to realize that the plans and goals I had for myself and our little farm in 2020 have been sidetracked.  Big plans to expand our veggie production; thoughts of adding in a cut flower field and a few more sheep and goats have been tucked away to make room for Mr Schnick to work from home, our ErinGirl to distance learn and *gulp* me to homeschool our youngest ladybugs.  Haha, I had never considered that approach to elementary education before but deciding to do so brought me so much peace, I know that it is the right decision for us at this time and I am determined to do my best by my children and for my children.

So welcome back to the acres... my goal in dusting off this old blog is to share my daily learning - including the uphill struggles; happenings around our little piece of Earth and to hopefully share and encourage any fellow travellers who are looking to make 2020 a little more "normal".  

If nothing else, I hope to bring a little bit of laughter to your internet browser... go ahead and laugh with us as we SCHNICK our way through this new reality.

Cheers!

Jeanette