HOME SCHOOL ADVICE FROM THIS TEACHER!

For now, order your meat from the Amish. It is fresh, pastured and no vaccinations or antibiotics.

We currently order by one pound lots, but it is totally fine to get a whole steak or roast and we can adjust the money owed the farmer after we know how much it weighs. You can add what you want to the comments, and/or let me know, so I can add it to the ordering site. I’ll be doing that as soon as I can anyway, just best to get up what is for sure wanted first!

I need photos of all meat cuts. Please send me any you have/ can take that you can see missing from our ordering site.

If there is information you would like on any item, let me know. Send an email, and I will be looking. Right above the price is a small “more info” to click on. Check them out! Sometimes I have that on only one of several similar items, like cow’s milk, or yogurt. I did not yet add the same information to each of the different quantities. (gallon, quart)

It turns out the bison folks lost a lot of pasture last winter due to not enough snow. The snow insulates the grass and alfalfa, so when the temperatures get below freezing, it doesn’t freeze. This winter there was not enough snow before it froze, and they had to buy a lot of feed. They can’t do that again and stay in business. We will get fresh again when the season permits, late summer.

Fresh meat is preferable because certain factors do not survive freezing. Zoos discovered that they could not feed frozen meat, because the carnivores got mange (scruffy fur) and did poorly. Some animals can eat frozen for a bit, like for emergencies in the winter, but no one does well on a frozen meat diet.

Or frozen seeds or nuts. There is a reason squirrels bury nuts underground.

It pretty much comes down to eat food the way you would in a natural environment. In a natural environment you would eat what you got right away. Storing food is a second choice, and only for survival. We do it for convenience.

The most ideal scene for us humans would be to have chickens and rabbits in the yard, composting their waste, along with a big garden/food forest of a variety of food trees. It is amazing what can be grown on a regular housing lot, or in pots, and even hanging on a wall. Check out Urban Homestead in Pasadena, read the blog the dad wrote.

For homeschoolers, this is part of what I feel is an ideal curriculum. Learning to do all the things necessary for survival. You can learn to read and write as needed to do the things like growing and raising food (reading how to do it), preparing the food (reading how to do it and measuring), building pens and garden beds, wall hangings (research on internet and library, and measuring, cutting, use of tools, buying materials, planning). Planting trees.

I have a friend who has a beautiful example of this in La Tuna Canyon. (The north end of Sun Valley, above Burbank.) He wants to sell some of his produce, and likes to give tours. He has a great story, got experts in permaculture to come out and teach him what to plant in the area, and how to do it. Let me know if you are interested in a field trip.

Then next step is learning how to fix anything and everything in a house. Faucets, changing gaskets in older homes, patching and painting, patching and sanding wooden floors, tiling, making a brick walkway or deck.

There is so much to learn from doing what is necessary: fixing broken toys, sewing and patching things, making pillows and gifts, one’s own clothes, food.

Taking care of plants animals can be turned into learning science, keeping records of what is planted where, how a particular plant did in different areas, different conditions (alone or in a bunch, different spacing), different food and water. Maybe learning about one food at a time, finding the best way to grow it, and then do that, and start experimenting with another.

Researching it all, experimenting, seeing if you can do better, what works best for your yard or porch. Keeping records so you can do it again, not repeat mistakes or what didn’t work, and so you can share what you did with others and they should get the same results if they followed it exactly.

A group could each take a plant, do this, then swap their write-ups and see how well they can duplicate the effort of another. It would be the test of how well the original was done: can it be duplicated, and a bunch of plants could be tested at a time, then everyone can plant them all for a garden at each house or an empty lot the city says you can use, (after testing the soil, composting with [city’s] free compost, or raising worms, which you can sell online, by the way) and expect good results. That is Science.

You know, us grown ups could do this too. There is more than one story out there about making a business out of empty lots. Food from the Hood is one.

What better than to feed oneself well and make money doing it. Maybe not riches, but check out the price of worms online.

And there are so many books on worms and water use, composting. Once a kid is interested, they will read. Just be sure to teach use of a dictionary, or how to look up words online. That’s the main reason kids need a teacher is to explain the words they don’t know. But teaching them to use a dictionary allows them to become self propelled learners. You know they aren’t going to understand what they’re reading if there are words there they don’t understand. It’s not the idea, it’s actual words and sometimes it’s the simple ones.

Just as a plug for reading to your kids, I read a Harry Potter to my son for at least an hour every day when he was 9, and gave a quick explanation of any words I thought he wouldn’t know, continuing on when he got it, nodded, until he started reading on after I stopped. He’s 29 and can’t stop reading.

I have to admit, I unschooled my son, letting him learn what he wanted. He watched a Discovery channel, Animal Planet, the yellow school bus a lot. I gave him geometry early, since it’s hands on, and I had him dictate stories and essays to me. His handwriting took a while, never great. I taught kids to write using Texas Scottish Rites program, a video series. When he was ready for math, I got him a tutor who was great at trying different ways to explain, and he did three years in three months.

I am a science person, so I taught him a lot about that just in daily conversation. By the end of third grade he had a 10th grade Science Level.

I stayed home with him and did independent study with other home school students, assigning work and meeting with them once a week for about an hour to look over the work mom had done with them. Older students and I would correct their work and I gave new assignments for the week. I took him with me on these home visits for months, and he saw other people as examples of learning at home.

He’s probably the smartest person I know, and is embodies the mission statement I read at a school. “A person who can read and understand and is a life-long learner.” He studies subjects he’s interested in, and teaches himself how to do things he likes.

A word. The only reason a person loses interest in a subject or book is that there is one or more words they did not understand. Get them easier books from the library, read to them and check words as you go along. Just say the word, then say, that means blah, get a nod, and go on. Unless it generates an “Oh! So he . . .” Get the win and really listen. If they are not eager to go on, ask if there was a word they didn’t understand. If you are not SURE you know the correct meaning for the word as it is used there, look it up on your phone or in a good dictionary. Better not to have your child more confused!

I’m really well educated, and I have found that simple words, like “table” have a lot of definitions! I found 5!!! I didn’t know! Best to do a quick check if your attention sticks to the word, or if your eyes slide over it. This also teaches your child by example. (Oh, if you skip or stumble on a word when reading, look that one up. It may be used differently than you are used to. Or one just before that. You can do that with your child reading aloud too. (I have found I had a completely wrong definition for a word. It’s startling!)

Kids mostly want to do what you do, learn from doing with you, if you can let them make mistakes and say good! Or good effort! Then gently demonstrate it again or maybe five times and maybe gently help them do it a time or two, them let them do it and Don’t Fix It. Eat the cake the way it is, or if inedible, let them eat it and declare so, and laugh about it. “We’ll do better next time!” They need to see that you can make mistakes too, and you might even do it purposely to demonstrate handling making mistakes.

Healthfully Yours,

Marilyn at RA