Andrea Carter – a fictional creation of Susan Marlow – is a bit of a hero to my daughters.  They love it when I read her adventures to them, play dress-up in overalls, and when we learned that there were now lapbooks to accompany each of Susan Marlow’s chapter books, we were thrilled!

A Journey Through Learning creates great lapbooking products.  The directions are easy to follow, and consistent from one title to another.  If you’ve done one, you’ll have even more success doing another!  The instructions are always VERY clear and well laid out.  Each lapbooking element page also includes a placement guide and assembly instructions right on the same page, making it SO easy to complete.  The lapbook for Andrea Carter and the Long Ride Home is designed for grades 2 – 6, and even at the lower end of this spectrum, my oldest had no problems completing her lapbook with a bit of verbal instruction from me about each of the elements.

This is our first literature-based lapbook from A Journey Through Learning, and I loved that they included a chapter reference for each portion of the study guide and for each lapbooking element.  This made it very easy to coordinate a reading of the book itself alongside the hands-on activities.  For example, we would read chapter one, then do the activities and study guide portions labeled ‘Chapter One’.  The additional study guide readings helped us to place Andi more firmly in time and space, and learn more about her culture in a more focused way than just reading the historical novels gave us.

Many of the lapbooking elements include full-color photographs of Andi, Rosa, and Taffy.  Others are black and white, but most include some color.  Enough activities are included to create three file folders worth of completed mini-books and interactive elements.

Some of her favorite parts of this lapbook were an assignment to cut out and glue various pieces of horse gear onto a picture of Taffy in a barn, learning how to measure a horse in hands, and the Venn diagram (simple literary analysis is included).  As a mother I really appreciated the inclusion and integration of biblical character traits like respect into this lapbook.  I was also excited to see my sometimes reluctant writer digging into the written work with enthusiasm.

My daughter loves Andi and she loves lapbooking.  This highly delight-driven combination makes education painless – she asks to work on ANY Andi related activities she can find in her free time!  I’m just riding the wave of enthusiasm, and I’m so thankful that quality educational enrichment titles like this one are available.

You can buy a print copy of this lapbook, a CD, download, or a fully assembled version at A Journey Through Learning.

OR you can by a download through CurrClick.

Well, as promised here is my very simple “How to Make Pot Cheese” tutorial.  I’m afraid I don’t have pictures though .

1.  Place a very large pot of fresh milk on the stove on high (you can save up for a few days, just make sure you keep your milk in the fridge, we don’t want wild cultured cheese, that’s more of a cottage cheese approach.)  If you use whole milk your finished cheese will be slightly soft and creamy, if you use skim milk your finished cheese will be firm and squeaky.

2.  Stir, stir, stir, milk burns easily and you want to heat it until just before a rolling boil.

3.  Once your milk starts to show signs of boiling (make sure it doesn’t foam up and boil over – whoo, that makes a mess), grab some lemon juice in a bottle or vinegar (I prefer lemon juice for flavor myself) and squirt it in while quickly reducing the heat.

4.  Stir to distribute the lemon juice evenly.  Watch for signs of separation.  If the milk turns into two distinct parts – a yellowish clear fluid (whey) and chunks of white stuff (curds), you have success!  If your milk stays white and whole, add more lemon juice, stir, repeat as needed to achieve separation.

(This isn’t a super-scientific technique that involves measuring, ph checks etc. just eyeball it.)

5.  Once you’ve achieved separation, pour off the whey (some people like to save some for soaking grains/beans, or diluting in water as a digestive tonic, you can also feed it to your livestock.)

6.  Strain your curds – this is your cheese!  If you want a firm cheese you can cut into cubes and fry, put a plate on top of your cheese in the colander that you strained it in and put a weight on top like a jug or jar full of water.  If not, you can just crumble the cheese up into whatever dish you’d like to serve it in.

7. Salting your cheese before adding it into your dish will help a LOT.  Pot cheese needs a lot of salt – it has a very mild flavor, and it will soak up a LOT of salt from your recipe.

8.  Enjoy!  This fresh cheese is very versatile, with a mild flavor that adapts to most uses.  If you have a milking cow, don’t let that skim milk go to waste!  This is a great way to extend all your family’s favorite dishes!

Though we’ve had cows for many years we go through periods where we aren’t milking, due to the cycle our cows are in or the amount of time and determination we have!  Right now we ARE milking, a cow that is my daughter Kaelynn’s (she received her from us as a calf), her name is Alpha .  In any case, she just started milking a week or so ago and is shaping up to be a great little milker, nice temperament.  Yesterday we had enough skim milk after separating to make fresh pot cheese and I got my oldest daughter to help – she can’t wait to make it again! (It’s SO easy ladies, maybe I’ll post instructions in a bit!)

In any case, it’s GOOD to have our own dairy products again.  Not enough cream saved up for butter yet (Dexter’s aren’t super high-producers) but when that day comes, yummy, yummy!

It’s raining again today!  And it rained yesterday too!  That might not seem unusual for Spring, but the past five or so years have been extraordinarily dry here in Alberta!  The children aren’t much liking to stay in (Larry wore a toque out this morning, so it’s pretty chilly), but we’re ever so thankful for the rain!

On our last trip home we saw that the garlic we planted last fall has come up VERY well, with a very uniform catch, so this fall we should have a LOT of garlic!  Hopefully we’ll have lots to eat AND to replant after we harvest it .  I’m sure the garlic is appreciating the moisture as much as the fields here are.

Brrr, it’s beginning to feel a lot like….Christmas?  Well, it depends where you live – it’s certainly getting cold up here in rural Alberta, the windchill tonight is dipping down to -58 below zero Celcius.

Thanks for joining us for this week’s edition of The Homesteading Carnival!  I just opened the draft of our huge, black cookstove to get some more heat out of her, and away we go!  Curl up in a comforter, grab a up of cocoa and settle in for some reading.

Don’t forget to submit your posts for next week’s carnival, Abi will be hosting at a Lighter Side.  There’ve been some technical problems lately (last week was missed), but hopefully everything will be smoothed out soon!  Take care, and God bless!

We bought Baron when he was 10 months old, four years later, I’ve never regretted the decision.  He is an incredibly sweet dog, and we’ve been so blessed by his kind disposition.  Though he’s a guardian breed (Pyrenees/Akbash cross), he’s incredibly loyal, cuddly, and devoted to our family.  He’s also huge – latest guess 150+ lbs.  He’s solid.  He’s already starting to look like winter, but his coat will grow to be MUCH thicker than this.  Every Spring when we brush him out we get several 5 gallon pails full of white, fluffy fur.

He sleeps during the day, and barks all night keeping the coyotes at bay.  We purchased him after reports of bear sightings in the neighbourhood; we’ve yet to see a bear on our land, but he does a good job at chasing off the smaller varmint.  The only caveat is that you need to have at LEAST 10 acres for a dog this size, 20 would actually be better.  Without enough roaming room Pyrenees can start visiting the neighbours, and you wouldn’t want that .

Baron, we love you!

Well, I’m not entirely surprised. If we have a hard frost tonight, there won’t have been any months where we haven’t had a hard frost at least once. No wonder all we have growing in our garden is potatoes and peas. With such a dry, dry year and cold, late growing season that continues to be cold in the evenings…well, even the stinkweed died in our garden. I found it shriveled up and brown, the roots retracted from the soil.

Maybe next year will be better.

On the bright side, our wild saskatoon bush has NEVER produced like it has this year and Kaelynn is in her glory picking berries!

Welcome to the 106th Homesteading Carnival! I’m excited to have you all joining me here today!

IN THE KITCHEN

Abi presents Happy Dance!!! posted at lighter side – .

Lara DeHaven presents Wild Grape Jelly posted at Texas Homesteader.

Annette Berlin presents Grandma’s Fried Tomatoes posted at Craft Stew.

Make it from Scratch presents Ice Cream Sandwich Cake posted at Make It From Scratch.

Caren presents Sprouting Basics – Mung Beans posted at The Prudent Pantry.

jim presents 5 Ways To Green Your Coffee Beans posted at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity.

IN THE HOME

Aparna presents Dustmites and cockroaches can worsen eczema posted at Beauty and Personality Grooming.

Emma Evans presents Toys That Last – Baby’s First Blocks posted at Baby-Log.

IN THE GARDEN

Cindy presents The Bunny Wars posted at Small Homestead.

Stephanie presents Finding Beauty in the Practical posted at Stop the Ride!.

Alex presents Mulch Types posted at Home Life Weekly.

Jennifer (that’s me!) presents Whew, It’s Hot posted at Quiverfull Family.

FRUGALITY

Silicon Valley Blogger presents True Frugal Living: Homesteading In The Wilderness posted at The Digerati Life.

HEALTH

The Smarter Wallet presents Stay Healthy This Cold And Flu Season With Our Flu Prevention Tips posted at The Smarter Wallet.

LEARNING

Patricia Turner presents 100 Things You Can Learn or Do in 30 Days or Less posted at Pharmacy Technician Certification.

Don’t forget to visit Oak Hill Homestead next Monday for the 107th Homesteading Carnival! And remember to submit your blog article to the next edition of the homesteading carnival thc using the carnival submission form.

What a strange year we’ve been having weather wise. Today it’s 32 C, tomorrow it’s going to be 33 C (so they say). Yet, on the 10th of the month we had a hard frost – in July! And one in June, and every other month this year. No wonder we northerly-living Canadians have a hard time in the heat! I’ve been hiding in the house the past few days. With all the dry, hot weather the grasshoppers are having a breeding/feeding spree – we’re trying to find away to keep them from eating our potatoes, any suggestions? We sprayed them with soap/sugar mix, but I don’t know if that will be enough to stop such big, vicious bugs!

So tell me – what’s the weather like a the moment where you live?

As a first-time homeschooling mother of a young scholar who’ll be officially entering grade one this fall, I sometimes wonder when all the various language arts skills will pull together and ‘click’. We do phonics, spelling, reading practice, copywork, read-alouds, among other sssubject mattters, but when will they all merge together into a comprehensive whole? When will my daughter realize that not only can she consume the written word, she can also create it? When will she grasp a vision for what literacy truly means? I’m certain that I’m not the only homeschooling mother with these questions running wild through her mind as she considers her child’s academic future. Thankfully, I believe I’ve found a key to the answer, and though I may not know ‘when’, I do know ‘how’ I can begin drawing these elements together into a cohesive whole.

If you’re a homeschooling parent of a youngster between kindergarten and grade two you should be perched on the edge of your seat waiting to hear about this wonderful new resource that models writing skills, involves reading fun picture books, and making hands-on publishing activities (also known as crafts made from your child’s writing). Published by WriteShop, the same company which brought homeschoolers the oft recommended classic WriteShop writing program for junior and senior high students, WriteShop Primary is a carefully structured, gentle, easy to use program for introducing writing to primary students. It’s also the missing piece of my homeschooling puzzle.

The WriteShop Primary series will eventually include three books.Primary A is now published, Primary B is about to launch, and Primary C is still in development. The three titles are designed to be completed before the end of grade two, and sample schedules are provided based upon when your student begins with Primary A. Kindergarten students are scheduled to complete one book each year, completing one of the ten lessons every three weeks. Students starting the series in grade one complete one lesson every two weeks and work through the series in two years. Finally, students beginning the series in second grade are scheduled to complete all three books in one year, working through one lesson each week. The child-friendly, hands-on approach and fun illustrations may be considered rather childish for older students, so it’s best to stick to the recommended ages and progression through the course.

Course author Nancy I. Sanders makes everything easy for first-time homeschooling parents such as myself through the use of clear supply lists, schedules, scripted writing activities with forms that repeat through each of the ten lessons in order to achieve a sense of familiarity in young students, and co-coordinating worksheets in the reproducible Activity Set Worksheet Pack. Evaluation forms to mark your young learners progress – not tests – are also included in the Worksheet Pack. Everything is clearly organized with an appendix that includes lesson-by-lesson supply lists, picture book suggestions for each lesson and a full index. Once your writing station is well stocked (wonderful suggestions are included for supplies to keep on hand), just grab your non-consumable Teacher’s Guide, your student, and you are ready to go!

Each lesson revolves around a theme of interest to children such as animals, friends, trains, colors, rhymes, and so on. Each of the ten lessons includes a series of eight repeating activity sets that are completed alongside a parent as a new writing concept – the lesson focus – is introduced. Guided writing practice is included in each writing activity, and is accompanied by picture book reading, games, brainstorming, composition, editing, worksheets, publishing the writing (craft), and evaluating the students work. Though these may seem like daunting concepts, particularly for pre-writers, they are incredibly accessible and child-friendly, free of any feeling of intimidation on the part of the child or parent. The focus of the lessons move through such teaching concepts as title selection, punctuation, rhyming words, and ordering stories chronologically.

Lest the program sound overly structured, parents are free to customize it for their children and suggestions are given within the text. What I most appreciated is the option to ease pre-writers into writing activities through parental modeling and the gentle sharing of writing time together as a parent-child dyad. This is one of the key features that make WriteShop Primary such a blessing to parents seeking to tie all the loose threads of their literacy program together. These guided activities can see children through from pre-writing to confident writing skills.

My daughter adores this writing program, and so do I. The gentle nature, hands-on activities, professionally illustrated worksheets, and the opportunity to work with mom make an irresistible combination for her. As a teaching parent the ease of use, clear schedule and supply lists, and team-based approach to learning mark the program as a winner.

Available in both print format and as an e-book, the price difference is minimal, so unless shipping is exorbitantly expensive (as for international purchasers), the print edition is likely the most economical choice. Home printing costs for a 186-page book will likely render the slight difference in cost between the versions insignificant.

A downloadable scope and sequence, lesson sample, and worksheet sample are available online at the WriteShop website.

Additional reviews of WriteShop Primary Book A can be found at The Old Schoolhouse Homschool Crew review blog.

CLICK HERE TO BUY THE TEACHING GUIDE OR THE WORKSHEET PACK AT AMAZON.COM!