7th Grade Required Reading

The new school year is fast approaching. I have been working away on getting everything ready.
This week I finished all the required reading lists for the kids!

We prefer to have the kids read classic novels for their required reading class. I feel that classic novels help them expand their vocabulary, open their minds to the ways of the past, and show struggles we no longer face today, among many other things.

Destiny will be entering seventh grade this year. She will be reading the following books and submitting book reports on each book. Her book report skills are lacking a little, so I am going to have her work through this workbook first.

7th Grade Required Reading List

Anne of Green Gables Series
( she started this last year and is still working on it, she has already read the first two books )
Island of the Blue Dolphins
Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry

8th Grade Required Reading

The new school year is fast approaching. I have been working away on getting everything ready.
This week I finished all the required reading lists for the kids!

We prefer to have the kids read classic novels for their required reading class. I feel that classic novels help them expand their vocabulary, open their minds to the ways of the past, and show struggles we no longer face today, among many other things.

Alexzander will be entering eighth grade this year. He will be reading the following books and submitting book reports on each book. His book report skills are lacking a little, so I am going to have him work through this workbook first.

8th Grade Required Reading List


The Princess Bride  ( I bought my copy of this book on sale. You do not have to have this version, but I do want to say it is a beautiful copy of the book. There is a lot of artwork, and notes from the author. )


A Christmas Carol
The Giver Series
The Phantom of the Opera
Anne Frank : The Diary of a Young Girl

The Most Amazing Chocolate Cupcakes

My children love chocolate cupcakes, I have tried several different recipes over the years and I just had not found one that I really loved. So, I decided to come up with my own.


They are by far the best chocolate cupcake I have ever had, pair with your choice of frosting. We personally love peanut butter frosting with them.

Recipe

Ingredients -
3 cups flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 tsp of sea salt
1 cup of butter ( room temperature )
2 cups of raw sugar
4 large eggs ( room temperature )
1 tsp of pure vanilla extract
1 cup whole milk


Directions -
Preheat your oven to 350.

Cream butter, sugar, and vanilla together.
Add eggs, one at a time, beating until fully incorporated after each egg.
Add dry ingredients in a separate bowl.  Add half of the flour mixture to the batter. Beat until incorporated
Add half of the milk, beat until incorporated
Add other half of flour mixture, beat until incorporated .
Add other half of mix, beat until incorporated. Do not over mix.

Using cupcake liners, fill each spot about 3/4 full.

Bake for 15 - 18 minutes.


Frosting recipe -
1 cup peanut butter
1 cup butter
4 cups powdered sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla
1/4 - 1/2 cup of heavy cream

Mix peanut butter, vanilla and butter until well combined.
Slowly add powdered sugar, and cream until you have desired thickness.
Whip for about five minutes to make it fluffy, it should form soft peaks.

Backyard Edibles - Dandelions

Spring is finally here, which is my favorite season when it comes to foraging. There are so many great things to eat, wildly growing right in your backyard!

I think my families all time favorite thing to forage for, is also the most widely available, easiest to identify, and grows in almost every yard out there, dandelions.



Dandelions are a powerhouse of nutrition, from root to flower every part is edible. They are loaded with vitamins, minerals, and fiber.

******Word of warning, dandelions do contain a natural latex, so if you have a latex allergy, do not consume without speaking to a doctor first.*******

Dandelion greens can be eaten raw or cooked. They are an excellent source of vitamin A, C, and K, they have a substantial amount of iron, calcium, magnesium, and potassium, and they contain a small amount of folate, vitamin E and B. They also are high in antioxidants.

The root is often dried and used in tea, but it can be eaten raw in its whole form. It is high in the carbohydrate inulin, which is a type of soluble fiber found in many plants that support the growth and maintenance of a healthy gut flora.

The flower tops are known to contain many of the same nutritional items as the green

Now that you know why you should be eating dandelions, you may be wondering how to add this free food to your diet. I am going to highlight two things we have done with them so far this year, as well as add a few recipes to the bottom of this post.

1. Make Jelly
- My kids adore dandelion jelly. It tastes so similar to honey! It is very simple to make as well.
We follow this recipe for our jelly.
                                                    

2. Make fritters
- These fritters were delicious. We made them two ways. The first batch was a simple batter, the second was a sweet batter. The first we tried with salt and pepper, and it tasted similar to a breaded mushroom, we also tried it dipped in dandelion jelly.
The second reminded me greatly of a funnel cake.



Simple batter -
1 cup flour
1 cup milk
1 egg
                                                                                          

Sweet batter -
1 cup flour
1 cup milk
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
cinnamon and ginger to taste


                                                 

We picked the large dandelions, again only needing the flower tops for this recipe. After washing, and patting them dry, I coated them well in the batter, and deep fried them in oil.
They were a huge hit! My daughter has asked me several times if I will make them again tomorrow for breakfast.
                                               




For more facts please visit -
https://www.nutrition-and-you.com/dandelion-herb.html

Other recipes to try -
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/222744/dandelion-greens-with-a-kick/
https://learningandyearning.com/dandelion-root-chai/
https://homespunseasonalliving.com/homemade-dandelion-bread/

Cinnamon Applesauce Muffins

I do a lot of baking for my family. My kids love having a muffin with their breakfast, and this is a recipe I came up with that is a family favorite. They are sweet, moist, and loaded with delicious cinnamon flavor!


Ingredients
2 cups flour
1 cup sugar ( or honey )
4 teaspoons baking powder
3 tablespoons cinnamon
1 cup whole milk
1/2 cup applesauce
2 eggs


Instructions
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
In a bowl combine flour, cinnamon, sugar ( do not add honey to dry ingredients if you are using honey ), baking powder, and cinnamon.
In another beat together milk, applesauce, eggs ( and honey if you are using honey ).
Combine wet and dry ingredients, mix until combined.
Put mixture into lined muffin cups.
Bake the muffins until a toothpick comes out clean, around 13 minutes.

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Backyard Edibles - Violets

Now that spring is here one of our favorite backyard edibles are back, violets! Around this time every year our yard, like most other yards in our area is covered in these beautiful purple flowers. What a lot of people fail to realize is that these flowers ( or weeds as many call them ) are actually edible, and delicious.

Violets are extremely easy to identify. The leaves are heart shaped, the flowers grow on a leafless stem, have five petals, and are usually a blue-violet color ( sometimes yellow or white ).  They usually bloom in the early spring through early summer months.



Violet flowers and leaves contain beta-carotene, vitamin A, and vitamin C. The flowers have a bitter sweet flavor, and the leaf tastes slightly like a lettuce or spinach. The flowers are perfect for jellies and syrup. I personally like to eat the leaves in salads.

My family enjoys making violet syrup the most! My daughter, Kairi, happily picked violets today, knowing I would make syrup so we could make one of her favorite drinks, violet lemonade    

After picking the flowers, give them a good wash, and remove any stem pieces. Kairi picked two cups worth, which is enough for me to make some syrup with.

To make the syrup you will need -
2 cups of violets
2 cups of boiled water
2 cups of sugar
a splash of lemon juice ( optional )

Bring the water to a boil, pour the boiled water over your violets, and let it steep for a minimum of a couple hours, I have even left it over night. Drain ( you can use cheese cloth if your strainer has large holes, this will prevent small bits of flowers from ending up in your water. At this point your water will be a purplish green color. 

Put the violet water and two cups of sugar in a pan, stirring often, do not bring to a full boil. Remove from heat once your sugar is fully dissolved. At this point you can add the lemon juice. We do this because it brings back more of the beautiful purple color. Pour into a container ( I like to use mason jars ) and store in the refrigerator.

As mentioned before, we add this to homemade lemonade, our kids just love it!

This syrup also makes a wonderful, refreshing drink when poured into sparkling water with a splash of cream!

Sources - http://www.ediblewildfood.com/wild-violet.aspx

Starting our 2019 garden!

One of the very important life skills we are dedicated to teaching our children is the importance of organic gardening. In the past years we have done most of our gardening at my parent's property,
because they have land ( we live in town and do not have the best soil ).

This year we have decided to do things a little differently and we are building garden boxes. We plan to do about half the gardening here, and half the gardening there. It will hopefully make the work load easier for all of us since I was not always able to get out there to help with the never ending chore of weeding!

Recently we started some seed inside. We planted cherry tomatoes, zucchini, green beans, sugar snap peas, basil, spaghetti squash, and butternut squash. All those items will be planted at my house. Along with the strawberries that I planted last year and lettuce that will be started from seed.

Out at my parents property they are planting potatoes, spinach, corn, beets, tomatoes, and green peppers. This list will probably grow, but as for now, these are the confirmed items.
                                                




                                               


The gardening is one of the elective classes that our children are doing this spring, summer, and fall. They will be involved in all aspects of the planting, tending, harvesting, and preserving. They made garden journals to keep records of what we do through out this time, plus have study space for projects, and lesson.

The journals were super simple projects. I bought five lined notebooks, a package of construction paper, and let them decorate their cover as they saw fit.   
                                  


My husband and my father both work for a company that gives away a lot of scrap wood, so all the wood for my boxes has been free. We are using five inch construction screws. The main cost for this project comes from filling them. They will be filled with a mix of top soil and compost.    
 

I already have some containers for gardening. They are currently filled with lettuce, peas, basil, and green beans.  I will need to build at least four boxes to finish planting what I have started in the house.

Who else in planting a garden with their kids? What are you growing?

Be sure to come back over the next few months for updates on how our garden is growing! Thanks for reading.