Update: Growing Tators In Buckets

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     Growing Tators In Buckets was first published on December 29th. Just 2 days before I published Our Top 10 Posts of 2014. In just 2 short weeks, the post is now #3 on my top 10 views of all time. AMAZING! Thank you to everyone that has shared, commented, tweeted, pinned and loved our Tators post. However, it was not just the views that has grown at an alarming rate, the tators have as well! 

     Now if you remember, our potatoes started out like this. They were just in a box, under my kitchen cabinet, waiting to be planted in the spring. Or so I thought... I guess they had a different idea of when they should be planted. 

     January 8th was when we first noticed we were getting stems growing up. Previous to that, we would uncover the potatoes just to make sure they were still in there. It seemed to take forever for the little stems to show up. Then, they started to grow fast! 

     Due to weather and my job hours, we were unable to cover them up on. It was a few days later that we added 3 inches of compost soil. They were already starting to form leaves. I'm sure after we watered them, the depth was not still 3 inches, but they were still covered.  

That following Monday, we looked again. One side of the bucket was already growing from up out of the soil. The other side was still growing, just not as fast. We decided not to add any more soil to the lower side of the bucket. Zoey added 3 more inches of soil to the higher side. 

     Now here it is January 14th, and they have already grown out of the new soil. It is so amazing to watch them grow! The lower side is starting to catch up, but the high side still towers over them. Unfortunately, we have to wait till Saturday to cover them again. I work from sun up to sundown at my job, but just the 2 days a week. 

   Honestly, I did not think the potatoes plants would grow this big, this fast. I thought it would at least take until spring to get to the top of the bucket. At this rate, I think we are looking at another 2-3 weeks. That might be a problem. While I have said all along, plants under the soil only need the sun for warmth, once they get to the top, they will definitely need the suns rays to survive. It is the dead of winter and I do not think they will survive indoors. At this time, we do not have any indoor growing lights and I am afraid they will not grow well in the garage with just the florescent lights over head. I may need to invest in a grow light soon... Not really wanting to grow using electricity in winter, but man, this is so exciting! 

     Zoey has been keeping up with the growth in her Science Journal. Every few days she gets out her spiral notebook and draws what she sees in the bucket. Then, she writes a small paragraph about what it is doing, or what we have done. This brings science and writing together. (AND a bit of art! ;) ) If I had really thought about it, we could have created a little chart to keep up with how fast it has grown in so many days. Also, I think it would have been a really good idea to have written an inch line from the bottom of the bucket to the top of it in a Sharpie Marker or some other permanent marking tool. That would of been fantastic! I just was not expecting this to go this well! 

Want to see the original post?

    

So what do you think? 

Will they actually grow some spuds?   

Disclosure: I am Amazon Affiliate and may receive a small compensation for including links on my blog. Buying through my links is not necessary, just appreciated. Amazon does not charge extra for linked items recommended by their affiliates.  I only recommend products that I use and trust OR plan on using in the future. Please buy responsibly and do your own product research before buying anything online. 

The Little Business Woman

   

     Every year, I set up a booth at our local Fall Festival Arts and Crafts show to sell my homemade children's clothing. For the first 2 years, My children nickled and dimed me so much, that in the end, there was not much of a profit for momma. So I devised a pan. My son would be my road crew and help with packing up the trailer, unloading and set up. In exchange, he would get a percentage of sales. Zoey would help with that as well, but she would also make her own stuff to sell. Both children learned to budget their money, knowing that was all they were going to get. They also decided getting all the small trinkets and useless carnival stuff was not a very good investment of the money they were making. But they still wanted to enjoy the carnival! 
     Usually, my daughter sells doll bedding and bottle cap jewelry she makes, but she wanted something a little different this year. For months, she brainstormed ideas on what she could make and what would make her the most money. One day she was in my fabric closet and asked, "Mom, can I make pillows for children?" I told her that was fine by me as long as she choose fabrics that were scraps or what I did not use regularly. 

     She measured out and cut her own pattern to use. After the first test pillow, she decided it was too small. Back to the cutting mat she went to make a larger pattern. When she was satisfied with the size she had, she choose fabrics she thought children would enjoy. She did not want to make the pillows the same on both sides, so she mixed and matched the fabrics. She spent a lot of time making sure she cut out her pillow pieces evenly and perfectly. She ironed and pinned the fabrics with out any guidance or help from me at all. I am very proud of the way she just got in there and did her own thing. 


     My mother had my aunt's sewing machine. (She has recently passed.) Zoey asked her grandmother if she could borrow it to use. (She has her own, but mine needs servicing and I have been using hers. She did not want to share a machine.) My mom was happy to loan it to her. My daughter gathered all of the materials she needed and set up in our living room. After her first pillow, she exclaimed, "Aunt Sissy would be so proud of me!" 
     This is actually the first time she has used a machine that did not have a speed control on it. It did not take her long to figure out how to control her foot pressure to get to the speed she was comfortable with. She worked long and hard to get them all sewn together. Finally, she was ready to stuff her pillows. I didn't any pictures of the stuffing process. At first, she was stuffing them too tight and it was making the pillows lumpy. Zoey pulled all the stuffing out and started over. Soon she was ready for me to help her close the openings. I pinned them shut and started out the first few stitches, then she carefully and slowly sewed them shut. In the end, she had completed 12 pillows to sell at the arts and crafts festival. 

      She planned on selling them for $5 each. She sat with her pen and paper and figured out if she sold them all, she would have $60. It was finally Fall Festival Day! She set up her own table near my booth. Stood behind it and waited... 

     She sold 2 pillows within just 30 minutes of setting up her little selling table. She helped her first customer choose the perfect pillows for her grandchildren. She was so excited to make her first sale! 

      However, she did not sell anymore that day. She had stopped standing by her table, she ran around with her friends that stopped at our booth, or she sat over in the corner and complained she was tired. 
     That night, she was sad. "But Momma, I only sold 2 pillows..." So we had a little talk. I explained to her about selling things. You can not just let your product sit there and expect people to want to buy it. They will just pass by your booth and look and say, "Oh, how nice." but they will not buy anything. You need to say hello to them, engage them, ask if they would like to buy a pillow. Tell them you made the pillows all by yourself. For my shy daughter, this is a little easier said than done. She was not sure if she could just talk to strangers. 
     The next day started slow. She would say hello but she would also look away embarrassed. When people turned to see how said hello to them, they wold not see anyone and just walk on by. I encouraged her to look at the people and catch their eye. TALK TO THEM! Not to the ground! It was not until I reminded her, if you do not sell any more pillows, you will not be able to go to the carnival tonight. A whole new child emerged. She said hello, asked if they wanted to buy a pillow, and then explained how she had made them all by herself. Some times people said no, but they would still stop to look at her pillows. But sometimes, people would stop and buy a pillow or 2. They more they stopped, and the more they bought, the more confident Zoey became. Within a few hours, she had sold all of her pillows but one!      

      She was becoming a bit discouraged she would sell her last pillow. Even having her cute little cousins around was not helping. Suddenly, my daughter had an idea. She took the pillow and called to me, "I'll be back in a minute!" I was in the middle of a sale with my own customer, and before I could ask her where she was going, she had disappeared into the building where there were more arts and crafts booths set up. She was gone for 30 minutes. I started to worry before she came skipping back, $5 in her hand. 
"What did you do?" I asked.
"I sold my last pillow!"
"How? To Who?"
   She began telling me about walking around inside of the building, looking for someone with a little girl. She saw a lady with a little girl and walked up to her, asking if she wanted to buy a pillow. The lady looked at it while Zoey explained she had made it herself. In the end, the lady bought it from her, telling her what a great job she did. Zoey beamed with pride as she told me the story. Then she said, "And momma, you should have seen the pillows she made! She made an elephant pillow and it was sooooo cute!" 
Wait, what?
"You sold a pillow to someone that was selling pillows?" I asked.
"Yes!" and she continued to tell me the story. 
"Wait, what?" I asked again. She sighed and slowly began again. 
"I was walking around inside, looking for a mommy with a little girl, when I saw a lady with a booth kinda like yours. She was selling kids clothes and the cutest little animal shaped pillows. So I walked up to her and asked if she would like to buy a pillow. She looked at me kind of funny until I told her I made it myself. She took the pillow from me, looked at it, and told me I did a good job. Then, she gave me $5 for it."
     I was stunned. My shy daughter just actually sold a pillow to another vendor selling pillows. When we told her dad the story he laughed. "She could sell ice to an Eskimo! Way to go, baby!" 
    My daughter became quite the little business woman this Fall Festival. Unfortunately, all her profits went to the carnival. Next year, I am going to have her use a bit of her savings to buy her materials, keep records of what she is spending and profits made. With the proceeds, she will budget out money to replace what she spent from her savings, add more to savings, and then use the rest to spend at the carnival. After all, that is why she works hard. It's all about that carnival money! (And it is not coming out of my pocket!)

Attitude Is Everything!

  
   People ask me all the time how homeschool is going.

"FABULOUS!" I always say. 

     Honestly, there are ups and downs to every day. Some days, my children wake up bright eyed and busy tailed, ready to learn. Some days, it is a battlefield with teeth gnashing and hair pulling. Let's get real, this is real life, and real life has it's ups and downs. Just because we are a happy, homesteading, homeschooling, gardening, prepping, working, playing, and all in all fabulous family does not mean my family is full of rainbows and glitter all of the time! 

     Life is still pretty good even with it's ups and downs. I believe your attitude is everything. It can change everything. If you are running around with an attitude about things you don't want to do, don't like or things just are not going your way, having a bad attitude makes things even worse! Having a bad day? Yell out to the world, "THAT'S IT! I'M DONE! FROM NOW ON, TODAY WILL BE THE BEST DAY EVER!" Try it, it really works.. At least for me it does. 

     When you have a child in full swing 'I'm going to be a woman soon' mode, ya... not so much. When you are homeschooling said child, things can escalate quickly when she feels she 'Can't do it' or 'It's too hard' or the phrase I get a lot, 'Really, Mom? Do I really have to do this?' Well, yes you do! ATTITUDE! 

     ~Sigh~ Sadly, I have to report this is the attitude I got today on our first day back officially homeschooling. This summer, we did a bit of a review on things we learned and/or mastered last year to help with her retention. We also did new research and activities for our homesteading side. But, today was our first official day back into the homeschool swing of things. At first, she was happy and kind of excited about what I chose for her first assignment. We got new chickens that are very cool and different from our other chickens. Since we do not know anything about them, I asked her to research them online, find out a bunch of interesting facts on them, take photos of our new chickens, write up a report on them, and then I would edit that report and she would be a 'reporter' for me on my blog. 

     This morning, she was excited about this, even told a few of my co-workers. By the time we got home, her attitude about the assignment had changed. Maybe someone said something, maybe she got tired, maybe pre-pms caught up to her.. I don't know. All I know is, suddenly my child had major attitude about the whole thing and I was not having it. The stern looks and me saying, 'Watch the attitude!" were not helping. Her slam/bouncing a crayon onto the counter top because she did not want to go get a pencil to write with, was almost enough to change my attitude. So, I decided it was time for a change in hers. 

Recently, there was a photo posted of a 

chart that looked like this... 

I have no idea who to give credit to for this photo, but this is amazing! 

     So she was sent huffing and puffing back into her room for a pencil AND a spiral notebook. I started her out by writing a few letters out and leaving space between the first line and second line, she finished the rest. Then under it we added the numbers. She was intrigued at this point. I told her we were going to find a secret message that would make everything better. And it did make everything better. Saying it was a secret code made her relax and become interested in finding out how much 'hard work' added up to. She was not happy with the extra math for the day, but her attitude had greatly improved by the time she had found out the sum of 'knowledge.' By the time she was on 'attitude' I had my rainbows and glitter girl back. 

"What is the secret code, Mom?"

"Let me ask you this first, baby. Do you know what 100% means?"

     She told me if you get 100% on your paper that means you got them all right. I smiled and explained 100% means all, everything, the total of something. 

Sometimes things are hard for us, you can work hard

and still you might fail. 

You might have all the knowledge in the world 

and still not succeed. 

 But your ATTITUDE determines EVERYTHING!

     She looked at me with a 'Okay, you got me!' half smile and turned the page in her notebook. Then, she got out her computer and typed in 'All about Jersey Giants' on the Google home page. 

Measuring Cup Fractions

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      Our first homeschooling by momma lesson! We has just un-enrolled from her online charter school. Suddenly I found myself scrambling to come up with her lessons on such short notice. So I decided to find out what she knew and didn't know. one of the first things i asked her about was fractions. I was amazed she did not know anything about fractions. Finding free worksheets on fractions was easy, but i thought we would start with a little hands on activity first. 

Measuring Cup Fractions

     I got out our measuring cups, 2 cups of sugar, a large bowl to hold the sugar, and a pie pan to catch any extra sugar while she was transferring it from one measuring cup to another. I explained how cups, 1/2 cups, and 1/4 cups all go together. We talked about how there is always a whole and the bottom number explained how many scoops it took to make the whole. Zoey then tested out what I was telling her by seeing how many 1/4 cup and 1/2 cup scoops it took to fill up the 1 cup. Then i brought out the 1/3 and 2/3 measuring cups. She questimated how many she thought it would take to fill up the 1 cup scoop. She then tested out her theory. We also worked with tsp and tbs. I wish i had got pictures of all of it but i really didn't think about it until we got to our extension lesson of baking cupcakes. My daughter really liked playing in the sugar and exploring with the measuring cups. So that we could extend the lesson a little further and explain in a little different way, I got out a pie pan and made a layer of sugar in the bottom. I asked her to show me a half, 1/3, 1/4 and so on. 

Baking Cup Cakes

She read the directions, and gathered up all of her materials to make them.  It was great! Mommy just sat back and watched. :) 

She read the box without even saying "I cant read!"

Not one egg shell went in! I was quiet Impressed! 

We talked about raw eggs and not eating them,

but, of course we licked the bowl when she was done!

Look at those whipping skills!

Just 2/3 full!

   

     Unfortunatley, this is as far as we got with the photos! 

The cup cakes were amazing! She was very proud of herself. I think her dad ate the most of them. :) 

We covered these areas with this lesson including the  extension lesson.

Reading, Math, Fractions, Following Directions, Health and Safety, Personal Hygiene, and Housekeeping.

FREE Fraction Worksheets:
http://www.education.com/worksheet/article/fraction-math-pizza/

http://www.education.com/worksheet/article/fraction-fundamentals-part/

Disclaimer: This post contains no affiliate links. However, I am Amazon Affiliate and may receive a small compensation for including links on my blog. Buying through my links is not necessary, just appreciated. Amazon does not charge extra for linked items recommended by their affiliates.  I only recommend products that I use and trust OR plan on using in the future. Please buy responsibly and do your own product research before buying anything online. 

Our Homeschool Classroom(s)

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     While I would love to say we have a huge room that we homeschool from, with lots of space and creativity pockets, I am sad to say our homeschool room is also my sewing room. Actually, I am not sad to say this. And it's really not a room, more like a foyer at the top of the stairs leading to my bedroom. It's tiny. Maybe a 9x12 with a big section taken away from that because of the opening of the stair well. However, I learned early on, it does not matter what the size of the classroom. A lot of homeschooling families I have talked to and have seen post about their homeschool rooms, don't even use an actual room. Homeschooling parents are resourceful and use what ever area their children are comfortable in. Living room, dining room, cabinets, cubbies, kids rooms, you name it! The only thing that matters is doing what is right for your family!

    In our 'room' my daughter and I work side by side. I have my computer, she has hers. While I sew and embroider, she works in workbooks and on worksheets, plays online educational games, researches the topics we are working on. We work well like this. I am right there if she needs my help, and she helps me as well. Space may be limited but we have everything we need right at our fingertips. Shelving was a major issue for us. We dug old milk crates out of the shed that had been given to me after a local business shut down. They are great for baskets, folders, supplies, books and knickknacks. This is our cozy comfortable concentration spot. 

     Since part of her curriculum is learning Homesteading/homemaking/survival skills we also have different classrooms as well!

                                        Like the kitchen,

                                                                      

the garage, 

and the great outdoors.

     I dream of a big lofty homeschool room with shelves upon shelves, rainbow baskets and trays, her glorious artwork adorning the walls and making everything bright and cheery. However, being the 'live within your means' type of family we are, I am sure my dreams are just that... dreams. But then, it never hurts to dream, right? So while I come up with plans for a room that does not exist, :) please go check out one of my favorite frugal homeschooling blogs and their dreamy homeschool room! 

Disclosure: I am Amazon Affiliate and may receive a small compensation for including links on my blog. Buying through my links is not necessary, just appreciated. Amazon does not charge extra for linked items recommended by their affiliates.  I only recommend products that I use and trust OR plan on using in the future. Please buy responsibly and do your own product research before buying anything online.