Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary...

How does your garden grow? Mine is....not. We planted lettuce, beets, celery and carrots for the fall and nothing is happening :(. It's been raining for 11 days straight so you would think that something would be coming up but nooooo. The watermelon just quit growing several weeks ago so we have 4 watermelons the size of grapefruits just sitting there twiddling their thumbs. The same with the canteloupes. There are 2 just hanging out, literally, on a trellis about the size of tangerines. Maybe they have identity issues...

On the upside there are probably some more green beans and wax beans to pick - I just haven't sloshed out to get them lately. I had 5 tiny tomatoes before the rain started. Hopefully they're growing. I saw sky this evening so tomorrow I'll wade out there and see.

I completely missed the deadline to plant garlic. I really enjoyed having homegrown garlic this spring. I'll go ahead and plant and see what happens. Since I didn't have any beds ready I just stuck them in the flower bed last fall. They did great.

I saw some beautiful lettuce plants at the feed store yesterday when I ran in and out for some dog food. Maybe I'll go back, get a couple, and call it a fall garden.

School - Fractions

Youngest dd and I played a family favorite game yesterday for learning fractions. We call it Hamburger Station. There are different colored laminated circles cut in different fractions. For example the red is 1/8ths, white is 1/2s, yellow is 1/6ths, etc. Each color represents some part of the hamburger such as the meat, ketchup, mayonnaise, cheese, or lettuce. There is a spinner with the fractions. At each turn you spin the spinner and then build your hamburger. We build each circle off to the side and when a circle is complete we layer it on the burger. I looked online and couldn't find anything like it to link to so I guess I should take a picture. We keep it on the shelf for a shelf work choice and they choose it quite often.

Other fraction materials:

- Homemade fraction circles and fraction squares. Included in the box are the circle protractor. I can't find exactly where I got mine to print (one of the Montessori groups) but here are some fraction circle printables to get you started:

http://www.montessorimaterials.org/math1.html

- Overhead fraction circles that are colored. They like these better than the laminated paper ones. I believe they are the same size so the circle protractor works with them also.

- Foam fraction circles from Lauri. These are oversized and have been a favorite for youngest dd since she was 2 or 3. She likes to use them to make 'cakes' and 'pies' of different flavors. Slowly she learned the fraction names and such. There are now labels in the box for her to make and label the fraction circles.

- I have the R&D Fractions manual but I haven't actually gone through the presentations with them (my bad). Learning the fractions has just come so naturally. The olders have been able to add, multiply, and divide fractions but I would still like to go through the lessons, even if a quick overview to fill in any conceptual gaps they may have. It's one thing to be able to do a math problem using any tricks or steps and it's another to conceptually understand why that works and what is really happening.

What's Cookin'?

Yesterday was mac and cheese in the crock pot with ground beef added. Today...Sonic burgers (just so you don't think I have it all together - far from it!).

In preparation for tomorrow I have peanuts and almonds soaking, sourdough sponge mixed, and tortilla dough soaking. I should soak some oats for breakfast cereal bars. I use the breakfast cereal recipe in Nourishing Traditions but I use oats instead of flour. 1/2 the batch I use for cereal (crumbling and drying) and 1/2 batch for cereal bars (cut and store after 1st baking). I have some goji berries I could add but in all honesty I was disappointed in their flavor. I think I'm just not use to them. They are suppose to be great brain food plus good for the immune system. The dc actually prefer the cereal bars although the cereal keeps longer.

Now if only the carpets would clean themselves...