Cook Me A Story

We've been reading fairy tales for the past few weeks and we are having the best time. It is part of our Jot it Down! curriculum from Brave Writer. I honestly didn't think we would enjoy it this much, because I thought I didn't like fairy tales very much. I have nothing against them, I just always thought they were boring. Jot it Down! has us take a week or more on one fairy tale and read several different versions of it. This has really gotten the kids interested. Then we do a simple art project to go along with it and the kids retell the story to me in their own words, which I "jot down" for them. While this in itself has been fun and quite educational, we have found ourselves going into even more depth with each story.

One of my favorite things to do with the kids is to connect the things we're reading with food. I have found a lot of great cookbooks that have food from childrens' books, and I just found another at my library that I think is so awesome:

Cook Me A Story by Bryan Kozlowski

It has recipes for each of the stories we're doing in Jot it Down! plus a ton of others. The recipes we've tried so far have been easy and they taste great. My favorite part is that the recipes themselves are so fun. They tell a little bit of the story then have you add an ingredient, so you cook as you read it. Of course, the stories are changed slightly (and humorously) to go along with the cooking. Because we have read so many other versions of the fairy tales, with slight changes in each one, the kids have really enjoyed that aspect. Okay, so the ones we've done so far:

Goldilocks and the Three Pears - Pear and Sweet Milk Porridge

Rapretzel - Braided Pretzel Twists

The Fizzy Frog Prince - Sparkling Green-Slime Punch

Of course, I have no pictures of the results because they were eaten too quickly! My five year old son asked me today if we could skip doing the art project for the story we're on and just continue cooking our way through the cookbook. Coming from that art-lover, that was quite an endorsement. I have no affiliation with this book, other than loving it, and I highly recommend you check it out!  

Welcome!

Hello!  My first blog post - woohoo! Let me introduce myself: my name is Danica and I have a husband, Hank, four kids ages eight and under, and a new one due this June. Hank and I started dating in high school and finally got married seven years after our first kiss. Our 10th Anniversary is coming up this year!  For the first eight years of our marriage we traveled around the country for the Army, but two years ago we moved back to our hometown in Utah so that our kids could be closer to their grandparents.

We have been homeschooling our kids since the beginning. Which, I guess, adds up to about three or four years. That by no means makes me an expert, but I have learned a few things along the way and we absolutely love it. I have a vision in my head of the kind of school and kind of home that I would like to create for my family. I want learning to weave it's way through our life without the kids realizing how much effort has gone into it. I want learning to be natural and joyful for them. I want my home to be comfortable, inviting, and a place where love abounds. So far, this vision is still just a vision, but it's something that I am daily striving for.  

I've had the idea of starting a blog rattling around in my head for a few years, but I've been hesitant to start for a few reasons.  One is the aforementioned lack of expertise. I hate to offer any kind of advice or make it sound like I have all the answers when I've still got so many questions. I also acknowledge that everyone has different styles of doing things and a lot of them work well. I've been disappointed at times when I've given a glowing recommendation to a friend about something I love and after they try it out they don't like it. I feel like I'm somehow to blame if they waste their time/money/whatever.  My hope is that on a blog where my readers are not people I know in real life, but who are truly interested in the same things that I am, that I can share the things I am excited about without fear. I would love to grow a community of people who have similar interests so that we can be a great resource to one another.  I have found that true friends are rare and hard to come by, but that relationships formed online can be some of the most meaningful.

On this blog I plan to share what I have learned through homeschooling, ideas that I'm considering to make our school life better, and some of our day to day activities. I also would love to talk about recipes, homemaking, books, parenting and whatever else strikes my fancy.

So, welcome to Cozy Homeschooling. I hope you'll come back and see if there are ideas here that you can connect with. I hope you'll leave comments and join in discussions. I hope that we can become good friends.