Carrie Bartkowiak v. 5.0

I love Christmas. The lights, the sounds, the whole holiday feeling… everything looks so pretty at Christmas. Unfortunately we didn’t get any snow; I guess the greedy folks in Denver kept it all for themselves.

Christmas Eve I cooked this fantastic dinner I found in this month’s Good Housekeeping magazine, and everyone loved it. I did the Herbed Pork Loin, Red Cabbage & Apples, Roasted Sweet & White Potatoes with Rosemary, and the Snap Peas & Baby Carrots. Man, it was delicious. Even Mom liked it, she said she felt like she was eating at a fancy restaurant.

I also made a few of the cookies from that issue; the Walnut Balls came out nicely and weren’t overpowering in their “nutty” flavor. Dad’s a big fan of oatmeal cookies but didn’t really like the chocolate in the ones we made, and I’m still not sure if he liked the upside-down apple bread pudding… but I had a nice time cooking. I love to cook.

Christmas Day mom fixed the traditional ham and all the sides, plus some of the leftover sides from the night before.

Mom and Dad went completely overboard this year in their gifts, spending well over a grand on the boys. I get the whole “they’re our only grandkids” thing, I really do. But egads… that money could’ve gone towards retirement, or even a college or entrepreneurial fund for the boys when they get older. Truthfully, I’m not sure where we’re going to put all of this stuff. Can we say “spoiled”? Argh. Mike’s parents sent some nice toys and clothes and an entire stack of really cool books that we can use in our homeschooling.

Ah well. Grandparents will be grandparents, and parents will forever have to deal with the influx of gifts and where to put it all, I suppose. Unplugging the Christmas machine… hah! Not when there’s grandparents around.

What do you think? I wanna know! Please leave a comment :)
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Boy that title sounds technical, doesn’t it?
It really isn’t. It’s just an idea that a few homeschoolers shared with me a while back and I thought I’d share with you. It’s a wonderful take on a very educational object that we as parents have been using for years. You’ll find this object in our homes (well, usually). You’ll find this object in a Denny’s restaurant. You’ll find this object in bookstores, museums, even some wildlife preserves (if they’ve got a good gift shop).

What am I talking about?
Placemats.

What were you thinking, eh?

Here’s the idea. Gather up some really nice educational placemats. You can find them at yardsales, in Scholastic Book Sales, in the gift shops of nearly any cool place you visit… you can even make your own using your inkject printer and some clear contact paper. You can also find them online; Physlink.com sells a number of interesting ones (two pictured above) for just $2.95 each.

The problem with placemats is that they get dirty, and cleaning them up means they leave the table and usually don’t go back for a few days. They also tend to grow legs and disappear. The ones that aren’t made very well could get wet on the edge, and suddenly the entire inside of the placemat is one big mess with ink bleeding over where it’s not supposed to be. Don’t worry, the cure is simple.

Go to Wal-mart, or the Dollar Tree, or some other store where you can find all kinds of weird gadgets you didn’t know you needed until you saw them, and buy yourself a nice vinyl see-through tablecloth. You know, the kind your weird aunt used to have covering her hideous flowered couch.

Place your placemats on the table, cover the entire table with the vinyl see-through tablecloth, and viola! Effortless learning by passive reinforcement. The placemats don’t get dirty, they don’t get messed up, and they don’t walk away.

Another great thing to use this for is educational posters of varying sizes, or even make a collage of unit-related images cut from magazines. Switch them out to match whatever you’re studying this week.

Interesting sidenote… where’s one place where you definitely won’t find our highly educational passive reinforcement placemat learning tool? Schools.

What do you think? I wanna know! Please leave a comment :)
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How I’d love to stay here for a while.
It’s called the mushroom house. The owners have taken a very long time, painstakingly building one of the most gorgeous, imagination-inspiring homes you’ll ever lay eyes on. Visit the website and be sure to look at the virtual tours of the rooms. You can look all around you, up to the ceiling, and down at the floor. Go slowly… there are a lot of details to see, like the dragon lounging over the fireplace in the picture above. Did you see her the first time you looked?

What do you think? I wanna know! Please leave a comment :)
All comments get link love here... I got rid of nofollow!