Blake - 10 Years Old Archives - Page 3 of 3

My Precious Cooker

August 19, 2013 By: Trish Corlew2 Comments

I’m not sure when it happened exactly, but yesterday I suddenly realized my nine-year old son is no longer just a “kid in the kitchen”, you know… being my assistant. Blake has been interested in cooking with me for years! He has always wanted to be in the kitchen helping me make anything and everything that is on the stove or in the oven! When asked what he wants to be when he grows up, for years now he has stated a “cooker”.

This week Blake and I were cooking a Broccoli and Chicken Stir-Fry recipe (which turned out fabulous I might add)… anyway, we were in the kitchen getting everything ready. We regularly double or triple recipes because we love leftovers in our house and we have three growing boys to feed, so besides learning a life skill, Blake gets a great fraction and measurement review every time he cooks with me. But as I was watching him gathering the ingredients, I realized he not only knew exactly where to get the ingredients from, but he knew the tools he needed to use and how to use them and he knew how to follow the recipe.

I watched as he gathered the cloves of garlic from the garlic/onion bin, and as he moved to pull out a cutting board and knife and proceeded to cut the ends off and slice the garlic to fit inside the mincer. And as he leans over and re-reads the recipe to be sure that the garlic goes in at this point, my eyes follow him to the stove where he minces the garlic into the skillet and uses a knife to scrape the mincer clean! He read the recipe, knew exactly what to do, where to find everything, how to use it and without any assistance whatsoever from me! None.

Being Montessori homeschoolers, we have always put an emphasis on practical life skills from an early age so seeing him in the kitchen is not particularly surprising… realizing he could do it without me, WAS!! I was so proud of him expertly navigating the kitchen, putting his ingredients in at the right time, and in the right amounts. Yet, to be honest it was a tiny bit bittersweet! We have now morphed into being cooking partners where we both have our own roles when working together in the kitchen!

So, it’s official… Blake is now a cooker, my “precious” cooker!! I am so very thankful for the opportunity to homeschool, for these times that I am fully here, in the moment, engaged and am really able to savor these experiences with my children! What an amazing blessing!! God is so good to us! Thank you Abba for these precious blessing you have given us!

POE Columbus Lesson 2 Our Sailboat Adventure

July 23, 2013 By: Blake4 Comments

Disclosure

For Lesson 2 of the Columbus Unit of our Paths Of Exploration study, we are learning about explorers and their ships. Mom assigned me the project of writing about our sailboat adventure a couple of years ago. This is my report on our sailboat trip.

Our NC Sailboat Adventure

In 2010, we were visiting our granddaddy in North Carolina and rented a beach house on the beach in Emerald Isle. Close to the end of our trip, we rented a sailboat called the Good Fortune for the day. It was docked in Beaufort NC. We left Emerald Isle and traveled to the dock. There we met Captain Ron and his dog Rudder. It was his boat we were going on. We talked a little and then he had to get the ship ready. While he was doing that we explored the waterfront. Once the boat was ready, we left the dock. Good Fortune

On the way to Cape Lookout, we saw many sea creatures like jellyfish and dolphins and red algae. We tried to get pictures of the dolphin, but we never got a good one. Captain Ron told us that this dolphin was released from Disney World and was tagged. The ride was gentle and calming I actually fell fast asleep with his dog, Rudder. When i woke up it was only a few minutes till we got to the island.

Apologia Swimming Creatures and Rudder, the dog As we were anchoring, we were surrounded by pelicans! Captain Ron said they were looking for an easy meal. We had to ride in a dinghy to get to the island, once there we saw tiny black ovals everywhere! When we got a closer look they were actually snails… TONS of them! Then we starting exploring the island and saw an under water lizard, some crabs and a conch shell with another mollusk. Mom even brought the Apologia Swimming Creatures book for us to look up creatures we found!

We hiked to the other side of the island and found a huge tide pool. We investigated the tide pool and swam in it… and saw that there was a sand shark in it with us! Luckily sand sharks don’t bite people. Mom spent her time shell hunting up and down the beach. She found beautiful whole conchs and many unusual shells. Dad, my brothers and I investigated some large boulders along the shore. When Captain Ron told us it was time to leave, we all were sad. We were all having so much fun on this island.

On the way back, I stayed awake the whole time and we got to see wild horses. We were going to go to the island where the wild horses were, but we stayed on the first island too long. Once we docked back at Beaufort, i was glad to be on land again.

I found out I LOVED sailing and want to go back again!

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Roots, Fruits and Shoots Business

May 17, 2013 By: Blake5 Comments

Hello, my name is Blake and I’m nine years old. We are a homeschooling family and I have just started an organic produce business. I named it Roots, Fruits and Shoots. We have been busy planting a garden this spring. It is our first time to use wood mulch. My mom has been posting about it until now. I’ll be posting about the garden now.

We were not sure about the wood mulch at first, but once we saw the weeds flourishing under the mulch we thought our plants might do well. We have been weeding the garden and the roots were big, but most were so easy to pull up. I have only watered the garden once this year. The wood mulch stores the moisture for the plants.

We have quite a lot of things coming up like nasturtium, strawberries, potatoes, blueberries, carrots, and radish. And we also have horseradish and blackberries in our front yard. Our first crop is starting to come in, guess what it is? Strawberries!!! We harvested our first strawberries today!!!

We have a green house where we planted tomatoes and peppers in pots. We will move them out when they have matured and its warm enough. I will be planting beans, corn, zucchini, squash, watermelon, pumpkins, cantaloupe, honey dew, Okra, and cucumbers very soon.

Four years ago we planted blackberries, blueberries, strawberries, apples, grapes, peaches, and pears. They are really starting to flourish and produce lots of fruit now. Especially our blackberries and strawberries.