Homemade yogurt in the Crockpot!

Yes, you really can make delicious, creamy yogurt at home, in your crockpot!  It's true!

I was a bit of a skeptic myself.  I had seen this on several blogs as well as on Pinterest, but I was always a tad leery about it.  Could I really make homemade yogurt?  What if I messed it up, and wasted a half of a gallon of milk?

Well, I decided to throw caution to the wind and give it a try.  And let me tell you... I am so glad I did! 

The results were stellar!  We all enjoyed a bowl, along with a drizzle of honey, some homemade granola, and a few sliced cherries. 

 

Homemade Crockpot Yogurt:

• 1/2 gallon of whole milk.  We used pasteurized, but I'd eventually like to go to using raw milk.

• 1/2 cup yogurt starter--any yogurt with live cultures.  I started with Stonyfield organic.  You can use store bought for the first batch, and use a 1/2 cup of your homemade yogurt for your starter in subsequent batches.

Directions:

• Pour your 1/2 gallon of milk into your crockpot and cover with lid.  Turn it on low and let sit for 2 hours and 45 minutes.  (We have the large crockpot, but I've seen that your can do this for 2 hours in the smaller ones.)
• Turn your crockpot off, and unplug.  Allow your milk to sit for 3 hours.
• Next, spoon 1-2 cups of your milk into a mixing bowl, and whisk it together with your 1/2 cup of yogurt starter.
• Add the mixture back into your crockpot and whisk well, to distribute the live cultures so that they can grow.
• Put your lid back on your crockpot and wrap in a couple of thick beach towels.  This helps to trap the heat.
• Allow the crockpot to sit undisturbed for 8-12 hours.
• At this point, you now have homemade yogurt!  Stir the yogurt and transfer into storage containers.  Refrigerate before serving.

We really enjoyed this yogurt, and I'm planning on making this regularly.  Next time, I think I'll even strain some to make greek yogurt as well as some homemade cream cheese! 

Making our own yogurt is such a money saver!  I can make a half gallon of yogurt for less than what I'd pay for a quart of the store bought stuff!



Enjoy!

Our Family's Favorite Bible resources

The most important aspect of our homeschool is our relationship with God.  It's one of the main reasons that we felt led to homeschool.  It's also the reason that we decided to go with the curriculum from My Father's World.  We love how it is all bible based.

My Father's World: Learning God's Story includes My Big Book of 5-Minute Devotions as well as the Bible Reader and Bible notebook, so we will be using those as needed throughout the year.  We are also memorizing the Proverbs along with the lesson plans.

As great as I think these resources are, our family still likes to include more Bible time.  In the mornings, we usually read from 365 Read-Aloud Bible Stories if there isn't a reading from the Devotional book.  These stories are short and sweet and include a couple of questions at the bottom. 



In the evenings before we go to bed, we like to read out of one of our other bibles. We've been reading through the Jesus Calling Storybook the past few months.  They kids seem to really enjoy the stories, and the illustrations are captivating. 

We recently bought The Rhyme Bible Storybook, and have been reading from it some nights as well.  It's a joy to read and keeps all three of our young children's attention.

We also bought The Mystery of History Volume I: Creation to the Resurrection.  Although we haven't done much out of this yet, what we have read has been wonderful.  Our kids loved the lessons and we also did some crafts to go along with the stories.  

 

 

Do you use any of our favorite bible resources?

What does your family use?  Let me know in the comments! 

FREE for Kindle: The Crucial Questions Series by R. C. Sproul

As of writing this, books 1- 17 of R.C. Sproul's Crucial Questions series are FREE for Kindle.

 

Who is Jesus? (Crucial Questions Series Book 1)

 

 

 

Can I Trust the Bible? (Crucial Questions Series Book 2)

 

 

 

Does Prayer Change Things? (Crucial Questions Series Book 3)

 

 

 

Can I Know God's Will? (Crucial Questions Series Book 4)

 

 

 

How Should I Live in This World? (Crucial Questions Series Book 5)

 

 

 

 

 What Does It Mean to Be Born Again? (Crucial Questions Series Book 6)

 

 

 

Can I Be Sure I'm Saved? (Crucial Questions Series Book 7)

 

 

 

What Is Faith? (Crucial Questions Series Book 8)

 

 

 

What Can I Do With My Guilt? (Crucial Questions Series Book 9)

 

 

 

What is the Trinity? (Crucial Questions Series Book 10)

 

 

 

What is Baptism? (Crucial Questions Series Book 11)

 

 

 

Can I Have Joy in My Life (Crucial Questions Series Book 12)

 

 

 

Who is the Holy Spirit? (Crucial Questions Series Book 13)

 

 

 

Does God Control Everything? (Crucial Questions Series Book 14)

 

 

 

How Can I Develop a Christian Conscience? (Crucial Questions Series Book 15)

 

 

 

What is The Lord's Supper? (Crucial Questions Series Book 16)

 

 

What is The Church? (Crucial Questions Series Book 17)

 

 

 

 

 

Small Space Homeschooling Pt. 1: Workbox system

I keep seeing all of these pictures of other families beautiful homeschool rooms, and I begin to daydream about all that I would do if I had an extra room to put all of our homeshooling stuff in.
 
We recently moved to a new state and are temporarily living in an apartment for at least the next year.  Since we have a lot less space in our new place, I've had to adjust how and where I'm storing stuff. 
 
First of all, I have our portable workbox system.  I'd love to have a cart to use for workboxes, but it just isn't possible with the limited space we're working with right now.  Instead, I use this Sterilite container with latchable lid.

Our Workbox contains:

• My Teachers Manual
• Student workbook
• A Spiral
• Daily folders for Squirrely Girl and Miss Bear (10 total)
• Our current lapbook
• 2 Clipboards
• Games for the week
• Manipulatives for the week

Daily Folders and Clip Boards:

We use daily folder in lieu of the workboxes due to space issues.  Each of my girls has a daily folder plus a clipboard that they use every day. 

 Here is an example of what I put in Bear's daily folder.  In one side she has her math sheet's for the day.  On the other side she has her handwriting work and a stack of flashcards what she'll be using to play a game that day. 

Usually math goes in the left pocket, and science stuff goes in the right hand one


 

Here's an example of Squirrely Girls Monday folder.  Since we do our science reading on Mondays, we usually don't have any work in the folder for that.  On the right is her four square card as well as her math worksheet.

The Expanded Form cards are in the right hand pocket.



 




I place any handwriting and Language Arts worksheets onto their clipboard the night before, and set it along with their daily folder onto the table so that it's ready for the next day.





 I usually reload the workbox and daily folders Friday evenings so that its ready for Monday morning.  This helps streamline our day.  Pretty much everything we need for our week is in one convenient place, so I'm not running around gathering things like a chicken with it's head cut off.

How do you organize your homeschool day?  I'd love to hear about how you make your day easier down in the comments!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Week 3 of MFW Learning God's Story

http://www.kidsofintegrity.com/

This week has been a rough one!  We've had a lot going on with our extended family recently, and stressed mama = stressed babies!  Squirrely Girl has also taken to lying, which is something we obviously are wanting to nip in the bud.  In our search for something to address this issue, I ended up stumbling upon Kids of Integrity.  It's from Focus on the Family, and is a site with lots of parental resources with some important topics.  We're planning on using the site as needed for character development, along with a few other resources. 

Learning God's Story

School work for the past week has gone well.  Much of the initial stuff is still review for Squirrely Girl, but she hasn't complained of boredom, so it's all good!  Can't hurt to cement the phonics rules in her mind in any case.

Bible:

Our verse for the week is Proverbs 9:10:

"If you really want to become wise, you must begin by having respect for the Lord."

We've all been working to memorize the verse and apply it to our lives.  We were also able to tie in our talk about obeying our parents and being honest with how we show honor and respect for God.  It was great! 

Both of the girls have been doing really well with memorization!  In all honesty, I wasn't quite sure how well they would do with this, but I can see that sometimes we really are just dumbing things down for them when it doesn't need to be!  They're little sponges, just waiting to soak everything up!




Language Arts:

Squirrely Girl and Bear have been working with short vowel sounds.  I went ahead and laminated the foursquare cards and added some Velcro for the sentences.  This way, they're more durable and can be used again and again!

Bear has been continuing to practice her ABC handwriting as well.  I'm still using highlighters to write out much of what she's writing, but her work is already much neater than it was a few weeks ago.  She also has gotten a lot better at matching upper and lower case letters together.

Squirrely Girl has also continued with her leveled readers, and has taken it upon herself to read books to Bear and Bubba in the afternoons as well!










Math:

This weeks topic was sorting and classifying.  We went ahead and went with the lesson plans, and Squirrely Girl ended up completing all of the worksheets from CBM for the week.  She really likes the expanded form cards.  A lot.  She has asked to use them several times after we've already finished school for the day, and has sat there using them. 

Bear did the hands on work for this week as well as some worksheets with comparing quantity.  We also got quite a few free printables from 3 Dinosaurs a while back that I had laminated, so she's been using those to practice counting and addition.

Bubba has been playing with lots of our manipulatives this week as well.  One of his favorite activities right now is to play with the magnetic letters on our front door!  

Science:

This weeks science topic was Flowers.  In addition to the reading and activity in the TM, we read quite a bit about flowers.   The kids really enjoyed reaching The Magic School Bus Plants Seeds.   

We also used this simple little game to remember the parts of a flower and talked about what each part does.  It's just a worksheet that we colored and laminated.  I wrote numbers on the back and the kids rolled dice to get a piece of the plant.

Art:

For Science/Art, we ended up making these great Season's collages instead of making a seasons booklet.  I went ahead and laminated them because I'm planning on cutting them apart and using them, along with plants and animal cards, for sorting.  I figure it will be a great way to include harvest times as well as hibernation.

How was your week? What fun things did your kiddos do this week?  I'd love to hear about your activities in the comments!

Circle Time

I love how our "circle time" starts our school day off.  It gets the kids into learning mode in a gently way, and I am able to knock out some of our books that we are reading together.  I love that we will be able to do part of our learning together before breaking apart to do age appropriate work. 

I had read numerous blogs about what they were doing for their "circle time", but none of them seemed to be exactly what I was wanting our morning to look like.  Then, I stumbled upon The Unlikely Homeschool.  This seemed to be just what I was looking for! Instead of the traditional circle time we think of with preschool, her family uses a "Start the Day Together Basket". 

I immediately fell in love with the ideas presented in her post, and went to work putting our own version of the basket together.   This is also where we keep the book basket books pertaining to the weeks topic.  I love that I have everything that I need for starting our day all in one convenient, portable place.

What does circle time look like for our family?

• I usually begin with a few songs. 
  These include hymns/worship songs, learning song, and game songs. 
• Following singing, we work on our memory work.This includes our verse for the homeschool year as well as the Proverbs we will be learning each week.
• We then read out of our devotional or bible storybook.
  
• Next, I read aloud from one of our read-alouds.This includes folk tales, fairy tales, poetry
• Then, we read a book about our science topic.On Mondays, we read from the Usborne Science books from MFW.  The rest of the days, we read various books about the topic from the MFW "book basket" suggestions and others we find.
• Finally, I go over any instructions needed for the day.

 

So, what exactly is in our Start the Day Together Basket?

Every week the contents of our basket change a bit since we are using this as our book basket as well.  I include books on topics we will be covering and some pertinent flashcards as well if we have them.  Even so, a few things remain in the basket.

•  Science with Plants
• Science with Water
• Things Outdoors
• Fun with Nature: Take-Along Guide
• The Big Book of 5 Minute Devotionals
• Folk Tales from Many Lands
• 365 Read-Aloud Bedtime Bible Stories
• Index cards with our memory verses on them.
• An activity to keep little hands busy.  (I really like these and these.)
   

As the kids grow, I'm planning on adding composer and artist studies along with map work in the mornings.  For now, this is just enough for a 6 year old, 4 year old, and 2 year old to handle.

 

 

Does your family have a circle time to start the day?  What all do you include during this time?

I linked this post to

Hip Homeschool Moms

The Pursuit of God

I recently read The Pursuit of God by A. W. Tozer.  I had actually never read the book before, but I had seen some great quotes from the book and decided that it was time to read it for myself.  And I'm so glad that I did!

I read the book on my Kindle, and if the pages of notes and the amount of highlighting I did say anything, its that the book is just wonderful.  Tozer's insight and writing highlights a way to a deeper relationship with God.  It's a book that I think can be of tremendous help to Christians that aren't satisfied with the status quo of Christianity today.

Having been written by Tozer in the late 1940's, the style may not be what many are used to reading, but I definitely think that it's worth the effort.  I loved how Tozer addressed the issues pertaining to the Christian's walk with God.  Each chapter also ends in a prayer, which I enjoyed. 

The Pursuit of God  isn't just some formulaic outline promising to bring us closer to God.  It is more an explanation of how we go about living this.

“We have almost forgotten that God is a Person and, as such, can be cultivated as any person can.” 

When Chris and I began dating, we wanted to be near each other all the time.  I wanted to know what his hopes and dreams were, what his favorite food was, and what made him feel happy and loved.  Through all of this, we forged a strong connection and grew closer and closer to one another.

It is the same with God.  When we become a Christian and are regenerated, we should desire to pursue a deeper understanding and relationship with God.  He has drawn us to himself, and now he is waiting for us to pursue Him just as he continues to pursue us. 

Over the coming weeks, I am going to be writing about each chapter in detail.  I'd like to share my thoughts about the writing as well as share how I find it applicable in my everyday life.

 

Please, join me on this journey!  Grab your own copy of the book, a cup of coffee, and let's pursue our God together!