Marsha Johnson's soda bread recipe

This is credited to Marsha Johnson of Shining Star school:

"One hundred fifty years ago it was common to make bread using baking soda rather than yeast in parts of rural Ireland. That's where Irish soda bread gets its name.The practice of using baking soda started out of necessity. Yeast won't make dough rise unless the baker uses "strong" flour, which was scarce in parts of Ireland. Baking soda, however, could be counted on to leaven bread. The baking soda has to be combined with something acidic in order to do its magic. In this case, we've used buttermilk. So, not only is this a historic and tasty recipe; it's pretty foolproof, too.

Ingredients
2 cups white flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
4 tbsp. butter, chilled
1 cup raisins
1 1/2 cups buttermilk or plain yogurt
DirectionsHeat the oven to 350 degrees. In a bowl, combine the dry ingredients.Cut in the butter until it is pea-sized. Stir in the raisins and buttermilk or yogurt. Turn the dough onto a floured surface, knead 1 minute, and shape into a disk.Cut an "X" in the top and bake on a greased baking sheet for 45 to 50 minutes.Makes one 8-inch-wide loaf."

Little House on the Prairie

I keep seeing these books as suitable for under 7s but having read them I feel uncomfortable with some of the elements (I love the parts about helping around the home but the violence and racism that is part of the undercurrent I feel should not be introduced until the age of 10 or so when I can give explanations to Springy). I came across this useful link which has books that are respectful to American Indians:

http://www.oyate.org/catalog/index.html

Academics versus years/grades

I'm having problems with the term grades or even class/years because they are such school-type classifications. However, I think the term academics fits in for when Springy will start on that type of learning.

So, although Springy can count and already has an informal knowledge of the four processes etc, we will start after Easter with a very light academic approach towards them. I think I've been in a very muddled place recently because I'm trying to wrap my heard around a number of concepts and am aware that changes are afoot in Springy and I need to evolve with that. That said, I want to stick to our overall approach which I would say is Autonomous-Kindergarten. We do the Life Skills which would be recognised by Montessori - if we spill something we wipe it up, we can sweep up with a broom and use a duster. We also do a lot of things that would be recognised by the Waldorf movement - we wet-on-wet paint and do modelling with beeswax and our new kaolin-plasticine and have lots of fantasy play. We go on walks in nature which is another way of saying nature walks (we also go walking in shopping places - shopping walks). We live our day-to-day, week-by-week lives - we work, we run errands, go shopping, visit the library, go to places such as museums and so on and visit friends and family. We have swimming and Beavers.

I'm finding that Enki is good in some areas and I've learnt a lot from the movement stuff. However, in other areas it's not helping me as facilitator and it doesn't fit our family philosophy (but then neither does Montessori, nor Waldorf, nor anything really other than recognising what we do is what we are). I want to get a hold of the Christopherus 1st Grade syllabus because I know that Donna Simmons has a handle on both home education and the autonomous approach, besides which her kindergarten book is a family heirloom. I also want to look at other materials and curriculum for when we approach academics because I really want to ensure that Springy can access those things that really meet her needs.

Thoughts on the year

With us the legal compulsory age for school (which means education)here in England is the term after the child's 5th birthday and in ourcase that was January 2007. So this January was the start of our 2nd official year of education. However, January is winter and althoughI believe that learning is 24/7 I always find our energies start topick up with spring.Spring springs us forward, Summer for us is a hive of learning,Autumn is harvest (we go fruit picking late August/early September),whereas winter has more rest and hibernation (it can be very stormy). In the spring and summer the world outdoors opens up more with gardening and so on. It's lovely to hear the dawn chorus in themorning (it's already started) and see snowdrops, crocuses and daffodils. In the autumn we planted lots of tulip bulbs so we should be seeing these soon as well. I find that the seasons change our focus of learning (seasons here tend to be spring which is wet but some sun, summer which is wet but more sun, autumn which isusually quite sunny but wet and winter which is just wet and cold!). ;) I love December but January and February feel neverending(duvet months - want to go outside to get some daylight but it can be so horrid with the weather that it puts me off) so the January legal start doesn't really fit in with our own cycles and September wouldn't work either. This is because we have birthdays, ballet visits, theatre visits and St Nicholas/Yule/Christmas in December which are all learning opportunities but too soon after a "start date".

Therefore, I feel that when we start on academics (I'm having so much trouble with the term grades at the moment - it just doesn't sit right with our philosophy towards education and life) it will be just after Easter and really in very small doses with lots of play and lots of nature walks and so on, as we do anyway. Summer is great because we draw out spirals and shapes in the sand which is amazing because you can make them so big - we've been walking forms this way for a few years now, just by playing (except last summer which was...wet, really wet with floods).

Books we enjoy reading
I loved the Faraway Tree books and still love them. The Wishing Chair ones are also excellent by Enid Blyton. Springy also loves Milly Molly Mandy byJoyce Lankester Brisley - nothing really happens in the stories but this is why she loves them (as do I) and they are so gentle and the little girl gets back home safe and sound without anything major happening. We also like Teddy Robinson stories too.

What we did today...

Again, this was a very simple day. We had a lazy morning - Springy played and I read inbetween (with a little light housework and having checked for business emails etc). I'm on a Harlan Corben reading spree at the moment (and getting to the point where I won't be wanting to read his stuff for a long time since I've read about 5 books in the past week).

Desserts

I'm in the mood for Easter makes. I know that Lebkuchen are usually associated with December but here goes with a different recipe than the one in the link:

1 egg yolk
4tbsps honey
2oz butter
20z demarara sugar
8oz plain flour
1tspn baking powder
2tpsns ginger (ground)
1 oz cocoa powder
1 tsps mixed spice
Icing mixture:
3oz icing sugar
1 tbpsn lemon juice

1.Oven on at 170deg C (fan oven).
2. Put honey, butter and brown sugar into pan on low. Stir together until butter melts.
3. Add dry ingredients (flour, powders, spices) into mixing bowl. Add egg yolk.
4. Mix in melted ingredients from stage 2.
5. Roll mixture into a dough ball.
6. Roll out dough until it is about half a centimetre thick.
7. Cut out shapes using biscuit cutters.
8. Place onto greaseproof paper lined baking tray.
9. Bake until golden (about 7 minutes) and then leave to cool on rack.
10. Decorate biscuits with icing mixture and punch holes (if you are going to put a ribbon through and hang up).

Halva
I'm fed up of only finding shop-bought Halva which contains vanillin (a byproduct of the paper industry and a poor substitute for vanilla essence) so will be making my own.

1/2 pint H2O aka water
3oz organic caster sugar
4 oz butter
4 oz semolina
2 drops vanilla essence (Fair Trade)

1. Put water and sugar in pan over low heat in order to dissolve sugar and thus produce a syrup, remove from heat.
2. Melt butter and add semolina - stir continuously and cook for 3 minutes until mixed in, remove from heat.
3. Add vanilla essence and syrup mixture and stir.
4. Place back on heat and stir for 3 minutes to thicken.
5. Pour into tray, smooth down and let it cool.
6. When it has set cut into squares and serve.

Sachertorte (an Austrian delight)
6 eggs (separated into yolks and whites)
5 oz butter
5oz caster sugar
4oz dark chocolate
4oz plain flour

Icing:
2 tbspns butter
4oz dark chocolate
8oz icing sugar
5oz apricot jam
1oz cocoa powder

1. Cream butter and sugar together. Add beaten egg yolks.
2. Melt chocolate in bain-marie and then add to butter cream mix.
3. Add flour and mix in.
4. Whisk egg whites until they are firm and form soft peaks.
5. Fold in egg whites 1 spoon at a time.
6. Use Victoria sandwich tins and add mixture.
7. Bake cakes for 35 minutes
8. Leave to cool on rack.
9. For icing melt chocolate in bain marie, add tbspn of icing sugar and butter.
10. Spread chocolate icing onto one half of the cake. Layer other cake on top.
11. Melt jam over low heat and spread over top layer of cake.
12. Sift remaining icing sugar and cocoa into bowl, add water gradually and spread over the top and sides of cake.




Nutty Chocolate Brownies
6oz chopped nuts
4 oz dark chocolate
6oz butter
10oz caster sugar
1 tspn vanilla essence (5ml)
3 eggs
4oz plain flour
1 tspn level baking powder

1. Melt chocolate and butter in bain-marie.
2. Place choc/butter mixture into mixing bowl and add sugar and vanilla essence.
3. Whisk eggs together and fold into chocolate mixture.
4. Add dry ingredients (flour, nuts, powder)
5. Pour mix into greased baking tray.
6. Bake for 40 minutes at 180degC (fan).
7. When cooled cut into squares.

Grades and things

One of the things I find is that I can cover in 5 minutes with a one-to-one approach with my child what would probably take several weeks for a class teacher to cover with a whole class. In a way, although I've taken to using the term "kindergarten" my child, in many ways, she won't fit fit the terms Class One or First Grade, and I would imagine it's the same with a lot of home-educated children. The reason I think this is because for me kindergarten means children's garden -it has a sense of freedom about it. However once we start to use Grade or Class it implies a school situation and a system of placing a child via their ability and that's not what I want to be doing. I just want my child to be, so part of me thinks I will be using the term Kindergarten for a good while yet and beyond that I'm not certain. It's also the case that my child is all over the place (in a good way) in terms of her abilities, knowledge and skills - trying to fix a "grade" on her would be very difficult.
Part of me has an idea where I would hope she will be in a few years of time but I don't feel that urge to push her there yet. I feel very happy where we are right now.

What we did this week: went to the zoo, to the library, to the aquarium, shopping, drawings, needlefelted a baby doll for my mum, sang, read stories, watched Home Alone and Home Alone 2 with grandparents (not my choice for a 6-year old but...), spotted some holly berries on a holly hedge, did some crayon pictures (after telling the story of The Frog King and reading up on guinea pigs - so one picture was of things piggies eat such as fruit and vegetables, played loads and loads with dolls and ponies and Polly Pockets (grandparent toys).