Getting Ready For A New Lupine Year: 2010 & 2011

We have had a couple of great Lupine Camp Days this summer, and we just closed up our last one today. I am feeling so great about this upcoming year. Friends for my kids, for myself, lots of learning and lots of just plain fun!
I hope to post some photos of our summer camps soon and let you know what is on the agenda for fall 2010...check back, and do consider joining us!

The May Pole High!

What a Fun May Day!

As the families arrived, each with a bounty of cut flowers, the teens prepared for chemistry class and the flowers were loaded onto the picnic table. Nasturtiums, lavender, daisies, lilies, more than I can recall. It was so beautiful and brought such a festive feeling to the morning! A few of the teens stole over to make a few bouquets of their own, they just couldn't resist...until they were called over to class. Then the junior gang all set to work. This year the kids made not only the baskets of flowers but really cute little button flowers to add to the bouquets. We found this cute addition to our craft at Family Fun.

Here are the girls, busy at creating. So many flowers to choose from. How do you decide?

Making the baskets....

Choosing the flowers.....

And the main event! We had a rousing time of May Pole dancing. Can you hear the flute? 

Here we go round the May Pole high, the May Pole high, the May Pole high,

Here we go round the May Pole high

On a Monday afternoon!

Look how well we are doing with weaving the ribbons round the pole. We were so proud.

After our May Pole fun, we had another yummy potluck. I shared a yummy and healthful strawberry shortcake. Here it is:

• 8 C organic strawberries, sliced
• 1/4 C honey, agave, maple syrup or sucanat
• 2 C whole wheat, spelt or oat flour
• 1 T baking powder
• 1/2 t sea salt
• 1/4 C butter or coconut oil
• 2 T of above sweetener of choice
• 1 egg
• 3/4 C milk (soy, hemp, rice, almond etc)
• Topping: Vanilla yogurt or fresh whipped creme
• Can be egg free - Use 1/4 C milk to replace egg or 1 T flax oil
• Can be vegan
• Can be wheat free

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 450 F
2. Stir together strawberries & 1/4 sweetener (can be dry or wet)
3. Set aside
4. For Biscuits: Stir together flour, baking powder & salt in a large mixing bowl
5. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs
6. In a small bowl combine egg, liquid sweetener and milk
7. Add to dry ingredients & stir to moisten
8. Drop by heaping spoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheet and bake 10 to 12 minutes or until golden brown
9. Split biscuits, fill & top with fruit & topping.
10. Enjoy!

Homeschoolers Celebrate Spring in Style!

We had our annual Lupine Family Homeschoolers Spring Celebration on March 29th and I bring you our photo journal of the day. The weather was a bit iffy, but luckily we did not have to have our egg hunt indoors with 17 kids!

 I just enjoy this process so much, even though we have done it for what? Nine, ten years in a row? It just makes for such a lovely afternoon, and we all end the day with a bounty of beautiful and unique eggs to take home; every year they are different. I save some eggs for eating, and put several in a bowl for my spring alter. Oddly enough, they never go bad!

 Each family arrived with at least one dozen raw eggs. Each mom was in charge of bringing supplies for  one of the dye baths. Karen brought red cabbage (which did not work this year, last year it was the beets that did not work?), Stephanie yellow onion skins, Lily brought  coffee, Carol turmeric and I provided blueberries. As everyone arrived, we set the pots up and threw the produce, spices and plants into them, added the water and vinegar and then invited the kids to come in help add their eggs. The eggs bubbled in the pots while we then worked on setting up the egg crafting project and the egg hunts.

The senior gang after hiding the eggs for the juniors. (The gal in the middle is NOT one of the seniors, she just likes to hang out with them ;)

The moms prep the dye baths.

Blueberries, cabbage, onions and turmeric.

This is the first year we tried coffee. It worked really well, and we got a fantastic orange by double dipping it into turmeric afterwards.

The Eggs

The finished eggs. We divvied them all up to take home and enjoy.

The Egg Decorating

At the very same time as all the commotion was taking place in the kitchen, outside in the courtyard, was another project going forward. Wendy and Maria were in charge of Ukrainian egg dyeing for all the kids.

The seniors at work creating.

Mackenzie shows off her egg at the orange stage.

Wiping the beeswax off the egg.

The juniors take a turn too!

Ben, thinking about his design.

The Egg Hunt

Oh, the booty!

Annalie and Kasey basking in the glory of their egg finds.

Those seniors did a pretty good job at hiding those eggs!

Anna helping Malik find his eggs at the littles egg hunt.

The Potluck

In between activities we all share in a fabulous potluck.  

Hot Cross Bun Recipe

2 C spelt flour

2 C unbleached white flour

1 T salt

1/2 T allspice

1/2 T nutmeg

1/2 T cinnamon

1/4 C sucanat

1 oz yeast

1 C warm hemp milk

1/4 C butter

1 egg, beaten

2 T orange peel

Glaze: 2 T sugar & 2 T water

In a large bowl, thoroughly combine flour, salt, and spices. In a separate bowl, dissolve sugar and yeast in warm milk and let proof. Cut butter into dry ingredients; add yeast mixture, egg, and peel. Knead well. Cover and put dough in warm place to rise to double it's size. Divide dough into 12 to 16 parts. Shape into buns. Place buns on greased baking sheets. Let rise until  doubled. With knife, slash on top of each bun before baking in preheated 450 degree oven for 15 to 20 minutes. To make the glaze, combine sugar and water. Bring to a boil, stirring to prevent burning; let cool. Glaze buns when buns and glaze are cool. 

I feel it is such an honor to work with all these great kids and their moms. Each week, I look forward to my friends, young and 'older' walking through the door and wonder what our day will bring us. Thank you all for sharing your Mondays with me!

A note of sadness as we say farewell to Bonnie and Mackenzie who are moving on to other adventures, school being one of them. We will miss them at Lupines each week, but we KNOW we will be seeing them  on other fun outings! We love you Bonnie and Mackenzie!

Winter Projects

Continuing to look back, we go to early January. We all had several weeks off for the holidays and now we look to gather together again and work on some rainy day, winter projects.

The seniors enjoy several weeks of chess. Learning new skills, and competing a bit.









The juniors pick up on their Native American Peoples study from last fall with the people of the ice and snow. Ah, now we get to build snow houses out of sugar cubes! They loved this.

Here is Claire just beginning to create her perfect ice house.

Maia goes right to it. (Love those Elton John glasses, Maia!)

Ben wants to make a very small ice house.

Here is Kasey with her ice house almost complete. We never did get the roof on, come to think of it.

It can be a challenge to find projects for a group of kids to do on rainy days, when it is so blustery that no one (including us moms!) want to go outside. How to keep us all from running into each other? from chaos taking over? It is also different now that we have a gang of teens. It is not so easy to say, "come along, on with your rain boots. Lets go splash in some puddles." 

As they say, just as you figure out one phase of parenting/group dynamics, on comes another.

Valentines Fun

Well, I have sure been remiss in posting here lately! So to make up for lost time, I am going to do a collage of our weeks together to get caught up. Then I wont have this hanging over my head anymore, yeesh.

Working backwards, let's start with our VALENTINES Party. Our annual party is always a smash. I love planning it and I love hosting it. One thing though, that is clear to me this year...my almost 14 year old son is done with Valentines Parties. You know, he is good with a family Valentines dinner and will even make his sister a homemade card, but he has had his fill. And really, I feel good that I have given him so much of it that he is complete. So for next  year, I will focus on the junior group of kids and of course, who ever else wants to join in. My daughter is still BIG on Valentines day and wants nothing to change for our parties. Phew.

Here we have..THE QUEEN of HEARTS! What a trooper, eh? Bonnie, you make me laugh, thank you~

Above, you have the gang working on Valentines cards. Who you dont see in this photo, is the group of boys who are playing chess on the floor. They are having their very own party ;)

Woodworking for the Juniors
The juniors have been working on woodworking skills all this year. They started out pounding nails into a block of wood (a lot of nails, and you know, they had fun with that), then they did some sawing of wood, and some sanding and some polishing of wood with beeswax. After some good solid skills were laid down, we set them up with a project. Each child got to make a bird house. Here is their progression.

Papa Liguori helps Anna with her birdhouse...and Maia with hers...

and kasey concentrates on hers. They are all very proud of their work, as they should be.

The sad bit about this otherwise joyful day, is the departure of one of our beloved families. Esther and her clan moved to Boston just a few days after this party. They were such a huge part of our group and made such a positive impact on all of us. We will miss seeing you every week our dear friends, but know that we will always be friends.

I hope to show you the finished projects next post (which hopefully will be soon!). Come March, they are to begin a new BIG project. The big daddy around here is going to help them to build a small hut or structure of which they can play inside of. Now, wouldn't it be great to add our gardening block to that by planting bean seeds around it to grow up and around the little house? Good plan...stay tuned.

Halloween Party Homeschool Style!

Our annual Homeschool Lupine Halloween Party was as grand a success as ever! My family has so much fun planning and sharing this event. Thanks to all the Lupine mamas and senior kids who helped pull it off!

While the seniors are in the Haunted Dungeon preparing for the haunt, the moms are helping the junior kids with a couple of fun Halloween crafts. This year, we made beaded saftey pins in Halloween styles; a goofy frankenstien and jack o lanterns. Also, on the table for the kids to create were glitter skulls. They are gorgeous (for skulls that is ;)! Thank you Martha Stewart for that craft idea.

Our Halloween helper moms you see here are the pumpkin witch and cupid. Otherwise known as Wendy and Bonnie. (And Karen too!)

The spider web maze

Each child follows their colored yarn through the maze the giant spider spun - up, down, around, in and out they go to find the prize at the end of the web.

A princess pirate follows her spder web yarn.

After a Halloween potluck lunch complete with eyeballs, fingers, dragons blood punch (deviled eggs and carrot sticks and cranberry juice) it is finally time to go into the Haunted Dungeon! Here Vida helps the kids into the tunnel that will lead them  down, down, down into the dark dungeon where fiends (I mean friends) await them.

Screams of "Can we go in again?" are what we were met with when they were done.

At the end of the day the seniors come out of the dungeon to see the light of day. (Too bad some of them removed their costumes before we got the photo). What a great day!

Fall Fun

We continue into the month of October with our wonderful kids. The weather is lovely, so we enjoy the warmth as we know it is on it's way out. Here Esther leads circle with the juniors as they choose their knitting projects for the beginning of the year, or finish up their current ones.

Kasey is finishing her crochet purse, Ben wants to start a ball, Maia..what are you working on?

The woodworking continues as well..the kids learn to use a cross cut saw. They were very pleased when they made their last cut and that block of wood fell to the ground. Ku-chunk!

The juniors are doing a short weather block and are decorating their wind vanes. We just got through a rather large storm so we had a good time talking about the wind and rain we all just experienced. Too bad we didn't have those wind vanes finished last week to enjoy in the storm!

The seniors continued on their Renaissance art history, and are seen here working with David on a solar water heater. I love to see the great master minds at work. We can all enjoy the heater with our pool next year.

As this is going on, we are working on the Lupine Haunted House and Halloween Party at the end of October. Stay tuned...