2 Ways to Improve the Quality of Your Salad

There is nothing worse than wilted or sopping wet lettuce in your salad.  OK, so there are a lot of things worse than that, but who likes to eat salad that way?!

Since revamping our eating habits in recent years, one simple change we made is to add at least one big salad per day to our diet.  This was one simple yet very healthy suggestion made by one of my favorite doctors, Dr. Joel Furhman, in one his books. (Check out his books Eat to Live and Super Immunity.)

Our family truly loves salads, and like most people, we like them fresh and crunchy.  I've found two ways that have made that possible every time.



1. Use a Salad Spinner.  

Using a salad spinner has made it SO much easier to dry the lettuce (romaine and/or kale) after washing. It's much better that using a whole bunch of paper towels.  The girls think this is pretty cool, too. They take turns spinning and spinning. 

2. Store salad in Mason Jars.

I have found that storing the lettuce in glass jars after drying makes it last so much longer. I'm amazed that a week later, the lettuce is just as fresh as when I put it in. 

We also like to add a gazillion things to them for additional nutrients such as: white beans for protein, olives, avocados, hearts of palm and all kinds of veggies.  You can even add these toppings to the jars, as well, to take on the go or have for a healthy lunch away from home. 

Happy Salad Prepping!

On the slower days

When it comes to homeschooling, there are many days that we hit the ground running and I feel a bit like a drill sergeant keeping the girls on task with their assignments and chores, etc, all while attempting to keep a house in order and keep people alive, happy and healthy.  There are definitely those days, however, that are much slower paced and natural and we go with the flow of the opportunities around us.  

This week, we had at least one of those days and it was so great.  

One particular day, we started our day as usual with some morning time together doing our devotions.  365 Very Veggie Devos for Girls is one of our favorites.  It's easy for all of their ages to grasp. 

We then took a trip to the library and stocked up.  Everyone dove into some new books.  This always keeps them entertained for a while. 

I loved The Very Lonely Firefly and wanted to read it aloud to the girls.  For whatever reason, it felt like I was narrating something when I was reading, so.....

... we decided to give it a shot and do a short narrative play.  We gathered props and cast characters and presented it for daddy when he came home.  It was so much fun!!! Check out the "fireflies" below.  Our first of many small performances, I'm sure. 

We then moved into the kitchen and our oldest put her culinary skills to work and whipped up some guacamole for us. 

As you can see it didn't last long with this group. 

I had lentil soup planned for dinner, so I let my oldest get some recipe reading experience.  It's perfect because she has been working on measurements and fractions this year.  This girl has skills! 

I hope you enjoy the recipe and will take the opportunity to slow down to cook, play and learn together!  I think it takes more discipline for many of us to do that than it does to keep going full speed?!  Agree? 

Oops! We learned something!

Incidental learning or I was having fun and oops, I learned something, is such an integral part of childhood. Incidental learning is learning that takes place without any intent to learn. (source) 

When I think of my own experiences with language and geography, for example, I received formal second language training when working on my degrees. I learned a great deal from my amazing professors, books and studies and am so grateful for those opportunities.  However, the majority of my fluency and knowledge of culture and geography came by traveling, spending time within the culture or with people from other cultures. 

There were no books or classroom involved in these experiences.  These were simply things I loved to do, but learned a great deal along the way.

This is exactly what I want for our children, as well as do most parents, I suspect. 

All this to say, homeschooling has allowed us so much flexibility.  A world of opportunity is open for us to learn, explore and discover daily.  We take advantage of this by taking at least one "field trip" or exploration every week. Whether it be the beach, a park, a museum or another city, state or country.  This family loves to go!

Most recently, we took a day trip to Holland, Michigan for the annual Tulip Time Festival.  It's like getting a little taste of the Netherlands right here in the Midwest. 

This was such a great opportunity to learn about Dutch culture, check out the beautiful tulips, wooden clogs, and windmills.  

Tulip Time parade

tiptoeing through the tulips, literally

my beautiful tulip crew

Grandpa (Papa) and the crew (looks like an extra little one tried to join us LOL)

What have you [acidentally] learned lately?

What we're learning: Reading

Ahhh reading.  So, even when we had made the decision to homeschool, I was still slightly intimidated by the thought helping my children learn to read.  I planned to just send them to preschool and/or kindergarten and let someone else get them on their way then bring them back home for school.  Seemed like a great plan?!   ; )

In the meantime, when our oldest was nearing preschool age, we found a  Hooked on Phonics program at a garage sale and bought it.  We looked through the program and evaluated it.  We liked what we saw, but it was an older version with cassettes.  Long story short, we resold it and got a newer version for the girls.  

We have used this program as our main reading program and it has truly been awesome in helping the girls learn to read.  Both our first grader and preschooler are reading way beyond their grade level. 

My fears and intimidations have faded and I could not be more proud of how well they are reading, but MUCH MORE than that....how much they LOVE to read.  This is huge!!!

On the days that I'm feeling unsure about whether we are "doing enough" or if I'm on the "right track" with school, my awesome husband reminds me how much the girls enjoy reading and says, "if you can get a child to enjoy reading, they can learn anything by just picking up a book."  We have found this to be so true. 

 Hooked on Phonics Learn to Read

Bob Books

We start them very young around here. LOL

Resources and tips that have helped make our reading journey successful and stirred a passion for reading in our girls:

• Hooked on Phonics Learn to Read  (Pre K -2nd)
• Bob Books
• Bob Book Free Printables/Supplemental

We also:

Attend our local library reading programs (starting them at a very young age).

Borrow (loads and loads of) books on their favorite subjects at the library. 

Keep books handy in our car while running errands or on road trips.

Give each girl a reading light and allow them to read in their beds at night when they are not quite tired. 

Implement daily reading time.

Read to our kids often.

Try being an example by reading.

Buy books as one of their birthday gifts.

Happy reading all!

What we're learning: Our 100th Day of School

Yay! We finally made it. We celebrated our 100th day of school last week.  The girls have been looking forward to this for a while.  Here are some of the activities we did to recognize the day. 

We've been counting down!  (This is from our Daily Notebooks.)

 We read cooresponding books: 100 Days Of School,  Emily's First 100 Days of School 

Coloring time

Aweeee.  She loves "doing cool" and being big. 

Counting by 10's and working on place value with coins for our 1st grader 

Do A Dot Art Marker art

Number practice with our Preschooler.

They have worked so hard and learned so much this year.  They definitely deserved a 100 Day treat!!!  Notice someone in the house lost her first tooth this week...very proud, very proud!



Here's to the rest of the year!!!

Laundry System Makeover

With six people in the house, laundry seems to be never ending. We have some new systems that have made doing laundry a bit easier and more enjoyable (if that's possible). Our laundry room previously looked like a major explosion, which was quite discouraging for me in regards to wanting to conquer laundry mountain.

Thankfully, my right brained husband is awesome at looking for creative solutions to our my organizationally challenged systems.  Yes, I think I have a Pinterest husband ;)  That's just fine with this left brained girl.  I'd so rather do the bills, budget and teach the kids. 

He found these plans for an amazing laundry cabinet.  This way our laundry baskets are built up and save floor space in our long, but shallow laundry room.  

He purchased the baskets and the little chalkboard tags at Wal-Mart and used a paint marker to write the labels. 

We keep our recycle basket on top of the cabinet. (Please disregard the unfinished trim and paint in the background. We have a LOT of ongoing updates/projects in this house). Also, the cabinet is not leaning, that's my photography. : ))

This is the side panel of the cabinet.  He added trim for aesthetic purposes.  He also added wheels so we can move in order to sweep/mop and to take these pictures, I guess. 

 I wanted to add our homemade laundry powder since it's part of the "dealio". It's almost gone, so time to make some more. However, I will say that it lasts forrrrrrever.  It is much safer than most store bought detergents and much more economical. Yes, my hubby found and made this too. (I'm starting to wonder who should be at home full time?!) LOL Anyway, here's the recipe:

Homemade Laundry Powder

3 bars Fels Naptha Soap (grated)

4 lbs. 12 oz. Borax

4 lbs. Arm & Hammer Baking Soda

55 oz. Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda

3 lbs. Oxy Clean Free Powder

Optional: Purex Crystals

Mix all ingredients together.  We use an old protein powder scoop and only add about 1/4 of it to each wash cycle.  

I hope this brings a little more ease and joy to conquering laundry mountain in your home!?

Quiet time bins

Although most of us homeschool moms have willingly chosen to keep our children home an extra 6-8 hours each day, that does not mean that we are not normal human beings without a need/desire for occasional quiet and/or alone time.  On the contrary.  

I know this momma definitely needs some time during the day, when possible to relax, read my Bible, get some work done, have a cup of chai or Detox Tea, just THINK... or ALL of the above!  

Because many kids grow out of naps, but still need some down time and/or some alone time (whether they are extremely extroverted like one of mine and don't realize it), this allows them to have some focused activities if they would prefer not to take a nap or lay down.

These quiet time bins have worked out really well for times like these.  We don't necessarily do this daily, just on the days that we are home all day and everyone needs some separation and quiet time. 

My husband purchased these small purple storage bins for .97.  I add age appropriate activities in one bin for each child.  I change the bins or items around each time we use them.  The bins seem to make it a bit of a novelty as the kids get excited to see what is inside.


I'm quite sure there are different versions of these (as with most things) on Pinterest and online, but these are some of the ideas that we use for our quiet time:

Flash cards

Puzzles

  Pop-Arty Beads 

(use your discretion regarding age as these can obviously be a choking hazard)

Books

For older kids: word search, crosswords and connect the dots.

Baby Bear Counters

Other ideas not shown:

Coloring 

Color Wonder Books

Dolls

Lacing Cards

Dominos

Sensory activities

Playdoh (for the brave moms out there)

What ideas do you use for quiet time for younger children?

What we are learning: Spanish

Hola amigos!  So, to tell the truth, I've been a bit disappointed with myself in regards to our progress in Spanish. My goal/dream was for our kids to be bilingual at a young age. : (  Being bilingual myself, having a major in Spanish and a passion for the language and culture, that would have been completely possible... However (with a capital H).

Life has been a bit busy over the last several years, adding new babies to our family almost consecutively for four years, "officially" beginning homeschooling and all of the other things that fill our time, I haven't implemented second language training as well as I would have liked.  It's much easier to stress out in your first language. ha ha

Don't get me wrong, some of my children's first words were "leche", "agua" "hola" and "jugo", but fluency just hasn't happened, yet.

Because I realize there is no time like el presente (the present), we are kicking into high gear. On top of our newly implemented "Taco Tuesdays", where we eat Mexican and latin inspired foods and speak Spanish, we have begun to step up our Spanish during the time we do our other work.

This week, our theme is la comida - food. 

Here are some of the ways we are studying and reinforcing the names of foods in Spanish:

studying flash cards (Ready for School (Flash Kids Spanish Flash Cards)

playing Spanish bingo (Eeboo Spanish Bingo)

reading in Spanish (Ana Cultiva Manzanas / Apple Farmer Annie)

looking at Spanish/English dictionaries (My First Book of Spanish Words (Bilingual Picture Dictionaries)

I don't have a personal picture, but this is one of the best CD's I've heard for learning Spanish terms. The songs have such fun latin rhythms and are separated into themes, you cannot help but pick up on the catchy tunes. : )

 

  SARA JORDAN PUBLISHING VOL 1 BILINGUAL SONGS ENGLISH - SPANISH  (Multilingual Edition)  

And of course....

ROSETTA STONE: SPANISH

Rosetta Stone Spanish (Latin America) Level 1

Check out some of our previous posts about how we practice  Spanish. I hope this helps for those of you wanting to give your children the gift of a second language.  Adios!