Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Recipe: Frozen Strawberry Lemonade

I love getting the Frozen Strawberry Lemonade at Panera Bread when we go there, so a few days ago, I decided to try and find a recipe to make it myself. I found this one, and it was soo yummy!

Ingredients:

2 cups ice, cubed
1 cup water
1 six ounce can of frozen lemonade concentrate
5 large strawberries, hulled

Directions:


Minute Maid Pink Lemonade
 Frozen Concentrate
 Put the ice cubes, water and frozen concentrate into the container of a blender.

We substituted the lemonade concentrate with pink lemonade concentrate. We found that regular lemonade made the slushie drink a bit too tart. The pink lemonade tasted great with it, though! Also, the juice concentrate we used came in a 12-ounce can, so we only needed half of the can.

Process until ice is finely blended. Add strawberries, and puree until well blended.

We ended up adding 8-10 strawberries instead of 5. It's a simple recipe though, and can easily be adjusted. Taste, and experiment until you figure out how you like it!



The finished product! Serves four. I got my recipe here: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Frozen-Strawberry-Lemonade/detail.aspx


If you try it, let me know what you think!



Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Homeschooling Q&A's, Part 5

This should be the final installment of my Homeschooling Q&A's. I'm curious to know what you guys thought, because I'm thinking of other Q&A topics that I could do if you guys have been enjoying this. If you could just check the 'Like' or 'Dislike' buttons at the bottom of this post when you've finished reading it, or leave a comment, that would be helping in knowing if I should do more series like this or not. :)

About School

1. Do you like your teacher?

This question always makes me laugh. Yes, I do like my teacher. A lot of people think that it would be weird to have your mom as your teacher, but I don't think it's weird at all. My mom is a great teacher, and it's nice to be able to work one-on-one with her when I don't understand something, rather than being in a big classroom.

2. Do you actually have to do schoolwork?

Of course! That's why it's called homeSCHOOLing. :) I wish that people wouldn't just assume that homeschoolers get to lounge around and do nothing all day. We do work, just like you do. 

3. Where do you find your schoolbooks?

There are tons of companies out there that sell schoolbooks, and there are a bunch of companies that makes schoolbooks specifically for homeschoolers. For example, we could buy the exact same books that they use in the public schools and use those. We don't, though. We buy our books through a variety of different companies.

4. What schoolbooks do you use?

We use books from a couple of different places. We use books from Sonlight, Apologia, Math-U-See, and a few other places as well sometimes.

5. How long does it take you each day?

It depends on the day. On average, it takes me about 6-7 hours to do my schoolwork.

6. Do you have any "real" classes?

ALL of my classes are "real" classes. Just because I'm not learning in a classroom with a group of 20-30 other students, doesn't mean my classes aren't "real". Just because I do my work at home, doesn't mean that it's not real schoolwork. Do you consider your homework "real" work for school? Even though I'm working at home, it's still is a perfectly "real" class.

(If you meant did I take any classes at a local public/private school, no, I do not. But I could if I wanted to. :] )


7. Do you get homework?

I suppose it depends. Some people will say "Well all of your work is homework!". The way it works for me is that I do as much work as I can before about 2:45-3:00 in the afternoon. At 3pm, we have to leave for my gymnastics practice. Sometimes, I don't finish all of my work by 3:00, and have to finish it after gym. That could be considered homework. :) So, if you want to look at it that way, then yes, I do have homework.

8. Do you have to do your subjects in a certain order?

No, I don't HAVE to, but I do. I like having a routine, and it helps me if I work on things in the same order each day. So I always do my subjects in the same order.

9. How many subjects do you have? What do you study?

I have 7 subjects this year. I'm taking World History, English, Algebra 2, Chemistry, Latin 2, Bible and Reading.

10. So, are you like, super smart?

This made me laugh. :D I don't think I am "super smart". Homeschooling is not like a magical potion where we read a special book for 2 hours a day and then become genius's. Homeschooling is pretty much just like a regular public/private school, except we just do all of our schoolwork at home. We're not always "super smart" but we're not dumb either. :) [Although, it is shown that many homeschoolers do better on national tests such as the SAT/ACT. I talked about that here. , on #8.]

11. Do you go to a co-op?

For anyone that doesn't know, a co-op is where a few families will get together and do a class, or a couple of classes together. A co-op can be big or small, and usually a parent will teach. Sometimes, when a couple of classes are being done in one co-op, different parents will teach different things. I have done co-ops before, and I usually do a co-op every year for science. :)

12. Do you know what grade you're in?

Of course! I'm in 10th grade. :)

13. Do you get to do school whenever you want?

No. We have to start school by 8am each morning, and I try to get all of my work done before I have to leave for gymnastics at 3pm. I don't always finish by then, so I have to finish after gym sometimes. I talked about my schedule a bit more in Part 1.

14. Is there such a thing as honors and regulars in homeschooling?

Yes, I suppose so. Some of the books we buy are listed as "Honors" textbooks, so yes, I guess there is. :)

I've finished answering all of your guys questions about homeschooling. :) I hope you've enjoyed reading about it, and as always, if you have any more questions, you can always put them in the comments.

[I got my pictures from here, here and here.]