Johnny Appleseed - Recipe & Unschooling

This morning I made oatmeal from scratch, which was a first for me. While it was cooking, Mini Wild & I were talking about eating healthy foods. I was cutting up an apple to add to the oatmeal & he said "like apples? Like Johnny Appleseed did!" He then started telling me the story of Johnny Appleseed, which then led to him saying we needed to plant the apple seeds to grow our own apples.

Johnny Appleseed (whose real name is John Chapman) Day is September 26, his birthday. He started planting and selling his apple seeds in western New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana & Illinois.

We pulled out our maps and located the above states. I printed off this map and had Mini Wild label the states. I also printed off this coloring page that is a find the hidden pictures page. We worked on this crossword puzzle together. Mini Wild looked on youtube and found Part 1 & Part 2 of the Disney movie.

Cinnamon Apple Oatmeal

We bought our oats from a Menonite farmer a couple towns over, when we went to the feed mill. Our apples came from the orchard down the road from the mill.

1 cup oats
2 cups water
1 Tablespoon unsalted butter (we use the butter made from our cows milk)
1 apple, chopped or diced
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
2 Tablespoons raw honey (we get ours from a local beekeeper)
OR 1/4 cup real maple syrup (NOT log cabin, etc)

Put water into saucepan, bring to boil. Add oats, reduce heat to medium, stir occasionally. Cook 10-15 minutes.

In skillet, melt butter. Add apple pieces, saute over medium heat, stirring occasionally.

Add cinnamon & nutmeg. Cook until apples are tender, still stirring.

IF YOU'RE ADDING MAPLE SYRUP, DO SO NOW. Cook for 1-2 more minutes. This will add a touch of sweetness.

Add finished apples to cooked oats. If using honey, pour over the top and stir to mix. Enjoy!

How do you homeschool/UNschool? - We play games!

Today we played Candyland, because its one of Mini Wilds favorites! (I think he likes all the brightly colored candy lol). We also played Learning Resources $Money Bags (coin value game). And the big one, LearningHerbs.com Wildcraft!

The website describes the game as "A cooperative board game that teaches edible and medicinal plants"

It is a great visual learning tool! There is a story that goes along with it is about Grandma letting the kids go up her mountain alone this time to collect huckleberries. Along the way, the kids remember Grandmas information about the different areas and herbs/plants along the path.

At first he wasn't to sure, he said it might be to hard, but when he saw the plant cards he got excited and then when he saw the trouble cards (wasp stings, fever, etc) he really got excited! He said HEY!! We have these plants (dandelions, which are on the back of the plant cards) growing all OVER!!! Each time we've had to cover a sun spot (meaning the sun is moving across the sky) he says "Uh oh, we better hurry up!" =o) The game comes with an herbal chart (the only thing I wish they'd done more with was to include each herb that is on the plant cards, maybe as a folding chart) that goes with some of the plant cards & gives brief information about what it can be used for. Each time Mini Wild had a card that was covered on the chart, we'd read it and talk about them (insomnia, gas, stress, etc).

He enjoyed using the cooperative cards to help me as I was the one with the most troubles lol! He'd scan the circles at the bottom of the trouble card and then scan his herbal pile to find the match. He started to remember the plant icons and got fast at finding the right herb!

I highly recommend this game (I earned my Masters in Herbology in 2003 and I really enjoyed this game!), especially if you want to learn about or teach your kids about edible plants and using them as medicines! I am not affiliated with this company nor am I receiving any compensation for this post, I am sharing my opinion. My son is a very visual learner and this game held his interest, even with the reading portions (the story & the herb chart).

Oh, and he won ;o)

Bananagrams & other games we use for UNschooling

(Our game this morning)

One of the Yahoo groups I subscribe to is for homeschooling. I enjoy reading about the different ways that parents are choosing to teach their kids. I definitely enjoy the extremely creative ways that are shared, especially when it comes to boring subjects. This is an area that we've had to embrace because our youngest son (who just turned 16), has a language delay. We started homeschooling/unschooling late (he was a freshman in high school), which is another post because I haven't been ready to talk about it, but it's been one of the best decisions EVER!! It's also been one of the hardest!

This morning, in the daily group email, was a woman talking about her struggle with homeschooling her young son. She missed the free time she had with her husband playing XBOX and she didn't like dealing with a whiny kid. She was asking for opinions on sending her son back to public school so she could be "normal". I have to be honest, this irritated me. It sounded like she didn't want to deal with her kid, but rather have play time with her husband. I responded to the email, being as polite as I could even though I wanted to say more, much more, with suggestions for unschooling. I've noticed that a lot of parents think homeschool has to be public school at home. But if public school wasn't working at school, why would it work at home? If you don't change the way the learning is done, what are you changing? I'm getting off my soap box, because this too is another post waiting in the wings!

One of the games we LOVE is Bananagrams! It's like Words with Friends or Scrabble, but theres not board, no point squares, just building upon the words. If it's a new word for our son, we talk about what it means and then move on to the next turn. We don't follow the directions for the game because it calls for each player to build their own words, we have more fun building off each other. We also have tried picking a subject, like food or animals, and making words.

We use UNO Attack for math. It never fails, every single time the cards get spit out, our son busts out laughing. How awesome to see him laugh and smile and HAVE FUN while we're learning math!! We have him either add, subtract or multiply the number that is on top with the number HE is playing. We also use Yahtzee!, Dominoes and baking. As you can see, our son is very visual =o)

Some of the shows we watch (yes WE, I watch them with him so I can ask him about what we've seen) are Dinosaur Train, Sid the Science Kid, Word World, Legend Quest (Syfy), How the States got their Shapes (History), History's Mysteries (History International), Ancient X-Files (Nat. Geo.), Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations (Travel), Ace of Cakes (FOOD), Dangerous Encounters w/ Brady Barr (Nat. Geo. Wild), How the Universe Works (SCI), Dirt Girl World (SPRT), America's Great Parks (Green), The Electric Company. We don't watch them everyday, but we do scan the guide to see if whats on is going to be interesting.

Homeschooling/UNschooling is a very personal decision to make, one that has to weigh all of the positives & negatives, because it doesn't just affect the child(ren), it changes everything for the whole family!