I just found this Montessori supplier and loved the site. They do not have rock bottom prices but the images are so large and clear they are excellent for DIY inspiration.

Flowers on a hillside in Golden last week:

Here was the latest challenge from Real Learning:

Grab the nearest book.

1) Open to page 161

2) Find the fifth sentence

3) Post the full text of the message along with these directions.

4) Don’t go searching for the coolest book you can find! Do what is actually next to you.

The absolute nearest book to me at this moment is the Tiger Scout Handbook.  Ironically page 161’s fifth sentence says, "When you have colored all three of the Tiger Tracks, you will have earned your Tiger Cub Immediate Advancement Recognition Emblem."  And guess what?  We just did!  Aidan has his transition ceremony this weekend. Congrats sweetie!

Not today – it is May 5th.  However if you hop over to Creating Keepsakes they have challenges and sweepstakes each day between now and then. Today’s challenge? Scrap a page about a relationship you treasure.

As a followup to the toddler post here are some previous preschool resource entries:

http://starryskyranch.typepad.com/starry_sky_ranch/2007/02/woo_hoo_montess.html

http://starryskyranch.typepad.com/starry_sky_ranch/2006/09/lapbooks_life_s.html

http://starryskyranch.typepad.com/starry_sky_ranch/2006/12/montessori_todd.html

http://starryskyranch.typepad.com/starry_sky_ranch/2006/11/calling_all.html

http://starryskyranch.typepad.com/starry_sky_ranch/2006/11/how_to_raise_an.html

http://starryskyranch.typepad.com/starry_sky_ranch/2006/11/more_montessori.html

http://starryskyranch.typepad.com/starry_sky_ranch/2006/08/montessori_link.html

http://starryskyranch.typepad.com/starry_sky_ranch/2006/07/file_folder_gam.html

http://starryskyranch.typepad.com/starry_sky_ranch/2006/07/two_more_games.html

http://starryskyranch.typepad.com/starry_sky_ranch/2006/04/baby_games.html

Jen shared a link to the funniest blog I have read in maybe, well, ever.  It has potential to make you spit out your coffee so be warned if you come to the computer armed with your cuppa joe!

Bookmobile Day is the highlight of my week. : )  My new favorite food book came by way of the bookmobile this week – Real Food.  It is Nourishing Traditions for Dummies in my opinion which is perfect for me! Many homeschool moms have found that Karen Andreola’s take on Charlotte Mason is a much more enjoyable read than Charlotte herself.  That is how I would sum up this book.

The author’s parents fascinate me as much as the science does. Her father was a tenured university professor at a young age. They left it all to become vegetable farmers in VA in the late seventies. They wanted their children to grow up on a farm and they wanted fresh, wholesome food at the ready. Sounded like a theme song to which I knew the tune. <g>    The author grew up eating their home grown produce prepared in simple ways. As a teen she became a vegetarian and later a vegan and eventually very sick.  Another tune I was familiar with.  She moved to Europe and became a major player in the British farmers market movement. There she was introduced to fresh cream, fish, and farm raised meat along with the produce. She regained her health and began to question how she had become sick in the first place and why these foods, which we were all told are supposed to kill us, made her well again.

Enter Weston Price.

The remainder of the book outlines the history of traditional diets and their staples, explains what is wrong with modern foods, and helps you locate ingredients. The book is heavy on studies but translates them into easy to understand language. I have thoroughly enjoyed it.  Unlike Nourishing Traditions it doesn’t have recipes. That’s ok though. You don’t have to wade through chapters about fermented veggies <g>  She assures us we can still enjoy familiar menus by just tweaking our selections and preparation. 

I found a couple links that have been helpful too. The first is a high protein menu collection with breakfast, lunch, and dinner menus each day. For families I would add more whole grain side dishes (steel cut oats, steamed barley, brown rice etc) to these plans but they are excellent and devoid of problematic ingredients like cream of anything soup that seem to be prevalent in the menu plans available for families.  Also this postpartum diet article was very good. Golly I hope to need that soon……..

Just wanted to send a quick note explaining our absence. The computer hard drive glitched last week and we are in the process of reformatting – minus a LOT of data files and bookmarks. Sigh. We have my mother in law and niece here for Thanksgiving as well. We hope to be back up and running in a few days.

Meantime, check out Louise’s adaptations to the template downloads for her children’s notebooks! She added a thematic watermark to the background before printing the template. Very nice!

And dear friends, PLEASE begin to send me your favorite bookmarked sites! Losing all my favorites is the worst part of a cpu crash for me.

Lisa just sent me a link to her newly finished notebook. She says she has never done anything remotely ‘scrapbook-y’ so take heart all!  This can be done very well even if you don’t have any previous experience. Thanks for the link Lisa!