Learnin' Up the Kids-Dill

The second installment of Learnin' up the Kids is Dill.

Reading--Dill has been given a reading list of over 120 books to read. He has been told he may read them in any order but they have to be read this school year. Some books he will complete a lapbook or other project, some he will narrate and some he will just read. This shouldn't be a problem since he is never without a book.

Language Arts--He is using English 1 from PASS. There are computer projects for this text and so far he has liked it. He also has a word dictionary that he writes unknown words and their definitions in.

Math--I hate math. I hated math when I was in school and I hate math now that I homeschool the picklets. My husband loves math. We are so A and B it is funny. Anyway since he loves math, he insists I teach them math. Go figure. This year we are using Khan Academy. Not sure if I like it 100% but I like it enough that we will stick with it. We also substitute drills and worksheets as needed from Dads Worksheets. I also have Brainetics sitting here on my desk ready to be used. Look for a review of this in the near future.

Science--Dill is studying Earth and Space science using PASS. The first unit started with basic science rules and covered science lab tools. Each unit has worksheets and unit assessments.

Spelling--I love spelling. Cool hates spelling. It's that A-B thing again. Because he hates spelling and isn't any good at it he insists the picklets learn to spell. For that we use Spelling Power.

History--He is studying the History of the World, also using PASS. I am throwing in hands on projects to make it fun.

Geography--Mapping the World with Art. This was provided to me for the purpose of review from Ellen McHenry's Basement Workshop. You can find my review here.

State Studies--We belong to a 51 postcard exchange group. We are attempting to study one state a week. We are using the free state study provided by The Homeschool Mom.

Lapbooks--We always seem to have a lapbook or two going. Right now he is working on a Bakugan lapbook. There will be more added to the list as the year goes on.

Writing--We are using the Charlotte Mason approach to this. We have journals for each subject and several other journals that I will write about at a later date. We also have dictation and copywork scheduled once a week, writing prompts twice a week and a 20 minute free write once a week.

90 Minute Homeschool--This is something new I started this year. It is the picklets favorite day of the week. The way it basically works is they do 90 minutes of school in the morning. The 20 minute free write and no more than 10 minutes on each of the other subjects. I have folders for each subject and give them something different pertaining to that subject each week. After lunch and free time we have craft/art projects we work on. Scrapbooking is the favorite of all the picklets but I am working toward using that time for artist/music study and projects relating to those once per month.

Life Skills--Dill has all the responsibilities that we all have around the house. No one gets out of doing things that need to be done. Dill cooks, cleans, mows and holds her own around the house. Dill and Sweet also have a small business for odd jobs. Those jobs always pertain to life skills. He also gets up every morning at 4:30 to help deliver the papers.

Physical Fitness--This is an area that I feel Dill lacks in. He jumps on the trampoline, likes to walk around town and lifts weights in the garage. He also takes Tae Kwo Do twice a week and Parkour lessons once a week. I guess that isn't really too inactive once I actually look at it.

Service--Dill volunteers his time every chance he gets. He lends a hand wherever possible. He takes the garbage and recycling out for an elderly lady down the street from us. He also takes it upon himself to volunteer at the church when they need it.

This is quite a bit like Sweet's list. I find that using the same curriculum at different levels and paces works quite well for us.

Alabama Pecan Logs

We are attempting to study one state a week this school year. So far we have studied one state. We should be on our fourth. I'm not too concerned about it. What will be will be.

While studying Alabama Dill make Alabama Pecan Bars. They were really good. Why wouldn't they be? There was a half pound of butter in them. ;-D They are very close to the Keebler Sandie cookie.

This recipe is from the book It's My State! Alabama by Joyce Hart.

Alabama Pecan Logs

1/2 pound sweet butter
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 cups chopped pecans
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup flour
1 tsp vanilla

Heat oven to 325. Grease a large cookie sheet. Mix butter until it is smooth. Add sugar, salt, flour and vanilla. Stir in pecans.

Roll a heaping spoonful of batter into a log and place it on the greased cookie sheet.

Bake logs for 15-20 minutes. Keep an eye on them so they don't burn.

The logs didn't stay log form, they were more of a cookie by the time the baking was done. Sweet didn't like the pecans so she wouldn't eat them.

How to Mummify a Doll

Dill is studying world history. When he was "in" Ancient Egypt he learned how to mummify a doll.

To start he placed the 25 cent garage sale doll on a wooden board in the "per-nefer".

He then cut off the hair

and washed the doll in the Nile.


After placing the doll back on to the board he removed the brain by inserting a hook through the nose.


He washed the mouth and packed the mouth and eyes with resin soaked linen. We used paper towels.


He then cut a slit on the left side to remove the lungs, liver, stomach and intestines.


He washed the doll with palm wine (red wine vinegar),
spices (allspice)

and covered the doll with natron (salt).

It was then to be left for 40 days to dry. We waited 40 minutes.

During the 40 day wait, the organs were washed with palm wine, spices and covered in natron.

Dill then made canopic jars and placed the the organs into the correct jars.

After the 40 day wait he rewashed the doll with palm wine and anointed the doll with oil.

(we only had canola oil so Sweet sprayed some cotton candy body spray into it to make it sweet smelling)


He finally started to wrap the doll starting with the head, hands and feet. We used paper towel for our first layer.


After the first layer of wrap he added beads that he used as amulets.

He then wrapped the doll from head to toe with strips of a linen dish towel.

After making a mask, the mummy was was ready for entombment.

Voila! Dill went through the process of making a mummy. Though all the picklets found it somewhat creepy, there is nothing like a hands on project to really learn. There is nothing like homeschooling!

Dill read several books about Ancient Egypt as well as his text from Pass. He also looked up information on the Internet about the steps to mummifying. He found two sites, Wiki Answers and a Youtube video, that provided the steps he needed to mummify the doll. The you-tube he used was taken off because of the music they used. But if you google how to mummify a doll or a barbie doll you will find several examples.


(c) 2008-2010 Wicked Pickles-Homefront Lines

Undeniably Nerdy

Born at 1:23 am, 14 years ago today, an 8 pound 8 ounce baby boy was born.
Hard to believe this is that same baby boy. And yes, he is "undeniably nerdy".

We "celebrated" his birthday Saturday because we thought we would be in town all day today. He requested grilled steaks, fresh corn on the cob and bacon cheese fries. He is definitely an Iowa man. ;-)

Our plans changed today and we ended up being home after all. He decided he wanted to volunteer at VBS and spent his evening helping with story time. (Absolutely no prompting from me what so ever. He is a good boy.) While he was gone we put together a little "surprise". Little presents to open, birthday cards and a chocolate coconut creme pie.

He got home and was very surprised. I truly believe impromptu "parties" are more fun than the well scheduled ones. We had a riot!

We had no candles but I made him blow out the imaginary ones because you can't celebrate a birthday without making a wish and blowing out the candle.


Sweet decided to be a little devil and duct taped his birthday card.



She is also a bit facetious. Notice her comment on the top of the card she gave him?


As is the tradition for birthdays, major holidays and any other time we have spray whipped cream, Chip "whip creamed" Dill.

He took it well.


And Gracie the Meek reaped the benefits.


Here is his favorite gift. I paid 50 cents for it at a garage sale. It just proves he is undeniably nerdy, as I stated before.


Undeniably nerdy or not...most of the time he is


Happy 14th Birthday Bud. We love you!

(c) 2008-2010 Wicked Pickles-Homefront Lines

Body Map

A post with actual homeschool content. AMAZING!

Chip and Sweet are at gymnastics instructors school this week and last, so Dill has had the rare opportunity to do school work on his own. Not that he doesn't have his own work it's just been uninterrupted.

On Monday I told him to finish up his journal entry, put his stuff away and we would work on a body map. Having no idea what I was talking about, he cautiously did as he was told and then waited. I took out a long piece of butcher paper that I retrieved from the hands of someone who was going to throw it away and said, "Lay down." I outlined his body with a sharpie and told him he needed to find some websites that would show him the organs and bones and he was to map them out.

He found two sites that he liked and were easy to follow. This one for the skeletal system and this one for the internal organs. He decided he didn't need things like a bladder or a gallbladder because those would cover up other organs already drawn in. I had a hard time convincing him to draw ribs too because of the fear they would cover the heart and lungs. As you can see he got himself so worked up over it that he though his ribs were in his brain!



He studied the computer hard

and worked his fingers to the bone.

And in the end he created "Inside Out Dill"

All in all, he learned quite a bit, had fun AND has this awesome "Inside Out Dill" to hang on his wall.


(c) 2008-2010 Wicked Pickles-Homefront Lines

I Can't Lick My Elbow

Never thought I would hear that from the mouth of one of my picklets but sure enough that exact statement came out of my dear, sweet Dill's mouth.

Bad Mommy

Poor Dill. He got himself a case of the stomach flu. Monday afternoon about 5 he started throwing up. And he threw up and he threw up and he threw up. By 7:00 he had thrown up 6 times. He then layed on the floor and started shaking. Poor lil guy.

I called the nurse and gave her his symptoms, afraid he was going to dehyderate. Dill never gets sick, he scared me. She understood. She gave me simple instructions like, cover him up, don't give him anything to eat or drink and not to panic. If he starts having diarea with his upchuckal consistantly then we should consider taking him to the hospital. She instructed me to give him a sip of real pop in 15 minutes. If he can hold that down give him a tablespoon of real pop 30 minutes later.

I gave him a sip of room temp Sprite. I set the timer. 10 minutes later he threw up for the 7th time. An hour later he threw up for the 8th time. A bit later was #9.

Then he fell asleep. Zonked out. I sat in the chair next to the couch for about an hour, making sure he was OK. Then went to bed.

At 3:30 my alarm went off. The light in the living room and dining room was on. I woke Cool up and asked him why the lights were on. That's when I found out what a terrible mommy I am. Cool informed me that, "Dill woke you up and told you that he has diarrhea and threw up again." I sat up. "He did? What did I say?" Cool said, "You asked him if he cleaned it up."

I shot up out of bed, ran to the living room and apologized to Dill. I felt terrible. How could I ask my sick baby if he cleaned up his puke?

Dill, my sweet middling child said to me, "That's OK mommy. I am better now."

How sweet was that? Though his tummy was still a little upset and he was weak he felt better yesterday. He ate chicken noodle soup, some toast and drank Sprite.

I don't know how he feels this morning as he is still sleeping. But...Sweet woke up complaining that her tummy now hurts.

Happy Humpday!

Summer and Lemonade

It must be summer!

Sweet and Dill set out on the corner with lemonade and cups wanting to make a million.
They even held signs and yelled lemonade for sale trying to attract business.

I felt sorry for them after an hour or so with no customers so went out and bought myself a glass of the lemonade they took from MY cabinet, using MY pitcher, mixed with MY water and served in MY throw away cups. I even brought my own glass from the house. They still charged me full price! I had mashed some strawberries in my cup cause I love strawberry lemonade.
Sweet and Dill thought the strawberries were such a great idea they asked me if I could get some for them and make them a new sign.

The strawberries were just what they needed! They sold all of their lemonade at $.25-$.50 per cup with $.25 extra for a scoop of strawberries. AND after paying me for their supplies made $11.50 EACH! They are already talking about setting up again on Sunday hoping to make more mooolah.

This is a great lesson in economics and profit and loss. They were each upset that I charged them for the supplies (I only charged them $1.00 each since I got the lemonade for free after coupons and the strawberries were 99¢ a pound) but I explained that supplies don't come free. They each reluctantly handed over a dollar. Now to teach them about saving vs spending.

August 26, 2008

This morning started chilly. I didn't want to get out of bed because my bed was warm. But, I got up, got Cool's coffee and lunch and hit the shower. One problem...NO HOT WATER! Nothing like a cold shower on a chilly morning to wake ya up!

Sweet got up and made a coffee cake for breakfast. I am just amazed at her cooking skills. Give her a recipe and let her go.
While we ate the wonderful coffee cake and drank a glass of milk I continued reading Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! by Laura Amy Schlitz. We are all engaged but medieval study is relatively new to us so we are finding this book different to say the least.
After breakfast and morning chores the picklets went about their individual studies. Anticipation of the weekend camping trip is running high in the minds of the picklets thus making concentrating difficult.

The jump rope science experiment continues. Dill and Sweet found a new way of jumping rope that makes it much easier to hit the high numbers. Chip made some lemonade for lunch today. I swear we wouldn't eat or drink as well if the picklets weren't so amazing in the kitchen.During lunch we continued our video studies. Dill has read about The Netherlands so we watched We Are From…: The Netherlands. We also watched Grammar Time: The Verbs as all the kids are reviewing/studying them.

Each of the picklets took an assessment test for math today helping me place them for studies this year. I am planning on using Mind Sprinting and supplementing when needed.

For group science the picklets experimented eating like a bird.

Our bird beaks: scissors, toothpick, spoon, clothespin and chopsticks.

Our bird food: worms, snails, grubs and water bugsSometimes you eat......and sometimes you don't......and sometimes you turn into a chicken and peck away...do chickens eat water bugs?It was a fun experiment that we all had fun participating in.

The last order of business was filling in the "What we learned" strip for the day.

Dill learned how to fill out an application for work.

Sweet learned that by eating B vitamins, the skin around her eyes are soft.

Chip learned George Washington once fought the French for the English army. The ironic thing is the French helped America win the Revolutionary war many years later.

© 2008 Wicked Pickles-Homefront Lines

Happy trails~~~