Plain and Not So Plain – Page 958 – Free Homeschool Books & Resources for Every Family

large family food ideas snacks energy bites

amy / 10/18/2013

Here is another large family food ideas for snacks…energy bites

This is something that our family enjoys very much. Very simple, healthy ingredients. I can’t even feel guilty feeding it to my children because I know it is good for them. This also works great for those of us who are trying to lose some weight, because it takes away those “sweet” cravings that we have. When I was losing my 70 lbs, there were times when I just craved junk food. These energy bites were the key to helping me not gorge on something unhealthy.

This recipes makes about 175 golf ball sized bites. We store these in our freezer and just grab one when we need a pick me up.

If you want the “smaller family” version scroll down to the end.

Energy bites

15 c oatmeal
6 c unsweetened coconut
5 c flax seeds
4 c mini chocolate chips
5 c (40 oz) peanut butter
5 c honey

Place the oatmeal in a large bowl

Next add the coconut Then the flax seeds–you can use either type golden or the darker one…I have used bothAnd the mini chocolate chips, you can add regular ones, the smaller ones make the balls more uniform.

In a separate bowl mix the peanut butter and the honey

Pour the peanut butter/honey mixture over the rest of the mixed ingredients. Stir until well combined.

Here are the ingredients that I used. I used a whole 40 oz jar of peanut butter. Our honey I get from a local source and they sell it in 1/2 gallon milk jugs. I used 1/2 of the container. For next time, it is easier to just pour directly into the bowl, instead of having to measure sticky honey. I purchase my items at a Mennonite bulk food store. This is from the flax seed. It was 1.5 lbs The unsweetened coconut was 1.3 lbs The mini chocolate chips was 1.75 lbs For the honey I used half of the container The oatmeal we buy in a 50 lb container and the peanut butter was purchased at Aldis.

Ok back to our energy bites……after you have thoroughly combined your ingredients, it is time to roll them into balls.

This works best if you just slightly dampen your hands. Then grab some of the mixture and form it into golf ball size balls.

I put them on a cookie sheet and freeze them individually. After completely solid, I place them in tupperware containers and store them in the freezer.

Energy bites for the “smaller family”

1 cup oatmeal
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/3 cup honey
1 cup unsweetened coconut
1/2 cup flax seed
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

Mix as in above and store in freezer

fall books and crafts for younger children

amy / 10/17/2013

It has been a long time, since I have had any real sanity in my life….actually I probably don’t have any “real” sanity, I am a mother of 10!!!! but anyways……having children, I have realized the importance of fostering a love of books in them.

Our first set of children(the upper half) I read books to almost every night, and pretty much anytime a child wanted me to read to them, I did. Now our second set of children(the lower half) came along and life has just been crazy, one baby after another. I can’t honestly say that I was consistently reading to them, as much as I would have liked to.

But that all changed this year. I was determined to make sure that I read so many books each week to my children. To some it may seem like a lofty goal , but for me, I could literally go all week and not read a book and not even think about it. Before this school year began, I took some time, and scoured the internet for crafts, books, and ideas for me to do extra with my children. I organized all of the information into weeks, printed them out and placed them into my household binder.

Along with theme crafts and ideas I put together a book list for each week as well. At the end of the month, I order all of the books from our local library so that they would be there before we start each new month. So far this system is working well for us.

**please note I am not being paid to endorse any of these books, they are ones that we just enjoyed reading.

Here are the books we have read pertaining to fall……

Too many pumpkins by Linda White

**please note, there is a jack o lantern reference in this book. My children do not partake in Halloween to any extent, in this book the woman carves pumpkins and places a light in them, to light a path to her home. My children didn’t really ask or think much about the carved pumpkins except that the woman used them as a lighted path to find the “party.” Wanted to note this so that maybe you would view the book before you read it to your children to see if that is something your family would like to be exposed to.

Fall leaves fall

Front Cover Why do leaves change color by Betsey Maestro

This is a good informational book to explain about the leaf process.

Front Cover The Pumpkin Runner

Hello Mr. Scarecrow

Leaf Man

Leaf Jumpers

Apple Cider Making Days

The apple Pie tree

Applesauce Season

A Friend for all Seasons

Bear has a story to tell

Earl the squirrel
fall mixed up

**note some halloween reference pages, we just skipped them

Front Cover Hello, squirrel

Front Cover Hooray for fall

Leaves

Front Cover Maple syrup season

Front Cover Nuts to you

Front Cover Red leaf, yellow leaf
Ten red apples
The scarecrow dance

**this is a great book that references God in it:)

Front Cover Tuckers apple dandy day

Front Cover The stranger

Front Cover Apples, apples, apples

These are the crafts that we have done…….

Remember I do not have many “skilled” artists yet:) My children’s ages that did the crafts are 2,3,4,6, and 8.

Easy, trace the child’s hand and let them color it in brown like a tree trunk. Use bingo dabbers to let them make fall leaves.

For this we found a fall themed poem and printed it out onto cardstock. The poem– I had some of my older ones memorize for school, so I thought we would turn it into a nice craft to hang on the wall. I then had the children make a tree in the corner with branches. We then used Dollar Store foam leaves and placed them on our tree.

This was a time consuming craft, but looks neat if you have “skilled, patient” children. I don’t have that just yet. Not that my children aren’t skilled, they are just not ready for these types of crafts. In time, but the website busybeekidcrafts.com has a version of this and it looks very cool.

I have a group of little ones and it didn’t turn out as nice as there website. My daughters sat and watched a video while they were tearing their leaves. You were supposed to paper hole punch them out and it started out that way, then we realized we had to make this craft 5 times over. After awhile, we just decided to tear the leaves as best we could. You gotta improvise once in awhile. Okay most all of the time. Click on the picture to see how to make it.

We also did some salt dough pumpkins. Click here to view how we did it.

images e1378436331992 How to make salt dough pumpkins

Our leaves are changing here in the Northern part of the US. I hope to collect some leaves and do some more pictures with the children. Maybe after reading the book Leaf Man, up above, we might glue some different shaped leaves together to make a person with googly eyes.