This morning’s home school activity was brought to you by Harcout School Publishing.

With multiple options to choose from The Diva was not thrilled with her first choice. She chose Art Activities and then went to the color wheel game. I could hear her mutter under her breath that she didn’t like it.

The volume came up loudly, with no ability to change it on the page, as she played with it in her “I don’t like this” chant and then she looked at me and said something that those of you who’ve known me since childhood would get a kick out of.

I WANT MATH!

I had to stop for a moment to check if this was my child demanding Math, but whadda’ya know, it is.  Adjusting the volume on the computer itself she immediately went into the math section for K level and just attacked it with gusto, finishing one exercise to jump into the next.

We’ve not given up on Time4Learning – but I have to put money in the bank before we have access to the account again. It wasn’t in the summer budget, and when my check comes in tomorrow I’ll renew the membership – it’s not a very expensive fee and for her it’s well worth it. Until then the account sits suspended – and I’m ok with that – it’s just a day or so.  Being responsible means sticking to the budget.

Anyhow – she’s enthralled and is working through the program there and identifying numbers, counting games, and just having fun. This I can handle.

The subjects covered on the Harcourt School Publishing ELearning website include the following

  • Reading
  • Language Arts
  • ELL/ESL
  • Spelling
  • Math
  • Social Studies
  • Science
  • Health
  • Art
  • News Break – stories from the news that children will appreciate.

Compared to Time4learning it does cover far more got the kindergarten age rage. As a supplement I think it’s awesome, and as a filler for the day, it definitely rocks.

If you are looking for free learning activities to assist your wee one in their development – check them out. http://www.harcourtschool.com/index.html

Now on to the Chicken N Dumplings part of my post…

After lunch today I set up the bread maker to make dough, and I got out three frozen chicken breasts.  Filling up a stock pot with water half way, I dropped the frozen chicken into the pot, set it on low heat and went upstairs to check email, work on job submissions, and see if I could get my two year old down for a nap.

A couple of hours later I had a decent chicken stock, and I pulled out the breasts to dice up.  Now diced up, the bread maker beeped to let me know that the dough was finished.  I dropped a package of Bobs Red Mill Veggie soup mix in to the pot with the chicken, and began to portion out small balls of dough, each into the stock pot as well.

In about twenty minutes we should have a rather hearty chicken n dumplings with lentils, barley and assorted other vegetables.  It’s smelling divine and given that my children have started with this rattley cough, I think that the timing for Chicken Soup couldn’t be better.  Don’t you agree?