Veronica Boulden
This blog is a journal, a family photo album, a recipe box...
Sunday, October 27, 2024
Artistic Daughters
Avril painted the leaves surrounding the October quote. Adele made the mosaic of fall leaves. These are currently being displayed on one of the floating shelves in our homeschool classroom. They make me so glad I live in a home where there are artistic daughters.
Saturday, October 26, 2024
Worship
Music has been an essential part of our homeschool curriculum for many years. I make it a priority to ensure that girls have time to practice piano and/or guitar every single homeschool day. They may not be doing Latin their whole life, but they'll probably be playing music and singing forever. At this point, they are both on the church worship teams. Sometimes they are even assigned together on the same week. They often practice together, and this always brings me joy.
Friday, October 25, 2024
Coconut Chicken Curry
Coconut Chicken Curry Recipe
(This recipe has been adapted from Sally Fallon's Coconut Chicken Curry. At this point, I make it without referring to the recipe. And as long as the chicken is thawed, it comes together in about thirty minutes.)
Ingredients:
Olive oil
One half onion, sliced into long pieces
Two large chicken breasts, sliced in half and then sliced into pieces (Note: This serves my family of five, allows for seconds, and a small container of leftovers for lunch the next day, but I might double the recipe next time to provide myself with lunches for the next few days following this meal.)
Two carrots, peeled and chopped
One can of diced tomatoes
Chicken broth (1/2 to 1 cup)
One can of unsweetened coconut milk
One-two cups of frozen peas
Optional:
1 cup of fresh spinach or kale, chopped up
Spices:
Tumeric powder
Curry powder
Coriander powder
Jalapeño powder
Onion powder
Salt
Serve over:
Cooked basmati rice
Directions:
1. Spray or drizzle olive oil into a large pot. Saute the onions, carrots, and chicken in the oil for a few minutes, until the chicken is no longer pink.
2. Next, add a little (1/2 cup-1 cup) of chicken broth to the pot, and then add the spices. I do not measure at this point. I just sprinkle and stir and smell. But if you need to know where to start, I suggest adding 1 Tbs. of curry and turmeric each, 1 tsp of salt and onion powder each, a sprinkle of coriander, and just a pinch of jalapeño powder. After you have made it a few times, you will know how much of each spice to add to suit yourself and your family.
3. Then add the can 1/2 can or the whole can of coconut milk. Drain the diced tomatoes and then add those. Let this simmer on low while the rice cooks.
4. To make the rice: I use another medium sized pot with four cups of water. I bring that to a boil. Then I add two cups of basmati rice and stir and cover and turn the rice down to simmer for approximately. 15-20 minutes. Stir the rice once or twice to see how much water is left and gauge when the rice will be done.
5. When there is just a few minutes left before the rice is done, add the frozen carrots, stir, and turn the stove top off. Let the curry sit and thaw the frozen peas as the soup also cools a little. At this point, you can also add chopped spinach or kale to this curry, too. It will also soften as the curry sits on the stovetop. The curry can sit from up to ten minutes and still be warm/ hot.
6. Turn off the rice when there's no more water in the bottom when you stir, and it's done. Serve the curry over the cooked rice in shallow bowls.
Enjoy!
Wednesday, October 23, 2024
The Secret Garden
I heard her laugh to herself several times today as she read The Secret Garden silently to herself. I stopped the quiet work I was doing and said prayer of thanks and snapped a picture. This is one of the primary reasons we homeschool- to provide access to great books and time to simply read them.
Tuesday, October 22, 2024
How We Do Debate Without a Homeschool Community
We decided not to be a part of our beloved CC community this year, but I still wanted my teen to learn debate. So how would we do debate without a homeschool community? After all, one of the major benefits of CC community was that it kept us accountable to do all the things that we weren't naturally bent to do like debate, and Latin, and logic... This had been true for years, so would we find a way to do debate on our own?
I did some research on debate curriculums, then previewed, and finally purchased the NCFCA handbook for Value Debate and my tenth grader and are working through it together. We have chosen our own issue to debate and work through both sides of it, learning as we go.
We definitely need to practice self-discipline and do this ourselves without the support (and compulsion) that community provided. But it's working. We work through the lessons together, reading aloud, and taking time to talk everything through. We research and discuss ideas and research some more...
It's nice not to be rushed because we are working on a community schedule rather than our own. It's also nice as a parent not to have my teen consider my questions and advice an imposition and delay or hinderance to getting all the work done in time for community, etc. etc. Now that I'm my teenager's only debate teammate and teacher, and now that her work doesn't have to be done by this Tuesday, we are both relaxing, digging in, and enjoying the hard work, mind to mind, and heart to heart.
The NCFCA handbooks are actually amazing resources, and I wish I had found this resource years ago instead of struggling through debate in previous years with other resources and thinking I hated debate for years.
Obviously, without a community to join in debate, my daughter may never have the ability to actually debate another student live. But I'm not sure that matters as far as the true end goal of learning debate goes. The point of debate is for her to learn how to seek truth, think through an issue, research, organize her thoughts, and apply what she finds out to her own life first, speaking up, and standing up when it's time, and all that is definitely happening and based on many years of experience, it is happening on a much deeper level than we had time for in community.
Now we are literally having and getting to do debate for its own sake, and we are finding it so worthwhile.
Sunday, October 20, 2024
How to Manage Housework While Homeschooling (with some advice on life in general)
Saturday, October 19, 2024
Aristotle's Rhetoric
Artistic Daughters
Avril painted the leaves surrounding the October quote. Adele made the mosaic of fall leaves. These are currently being displayed on one of ...
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"...the child should have a set time everyday to read for fun. Begin with half an hour for first graders, and build up to an hour of r...
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Recently, I got to go to an Andrew Peterson concert at the Community Coffehouse in Danbury, CT. My dear friend and I didn't realize t...
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Avril finished her astronomer shoeboxes for Challenge B. The Challenge B students have all done research and projects on astronomers thr...