Our adventures in homeschooling through High School

Author: Caroline

What we cooked in 2023

One of the life skills we spent time learning in Term 4 was cooking. I’m a passionate foodie and I think everyone should know how to cook, at least enough basics, to be able to feed themselves when they move out of home.
Lucky for me, both my kids are keen to learn. The youngest is getting to be a bit of a whizz with our Thermomix.

So in Term 4 I suggested to the eldest they pick 2 recipes to cook from our menu plan each fortnight and I’d teach her how to make them. Lemon Ginger chicken from the Women’s Weekly Chinese cookbook was one of the first and is now in regular rotation, even so much so they can cook the entire meal by themself.

Main meals include
(with link or Recipe book title)

Lunches

  • Pizza Pockets
  • Muffin pizza (no recipe, just our favourite pizza toppings on English muffins)
  • Mac & Cheese
  • Devilled Eggs
  • French toast (no recipe, I’ve been cooking this since I was a kid – it’s egg & milk then you dip your bread in, then fry in butter. It’s also known as eggy bread)

Desserts & baking

  • Raspberry Flummery (off the Aeroplan jelly packet)
  • Beltane cakes
  • Solstice bread
  • Rocky Road
  • White Christmas
  • Rum balls (my Mum’s recipe. I’ve got it on my personal blog)
  • Scottish Shortbread (my Gran’s recipe. Also on my blog)

Term 4 2022 Food - 1 Term 4 2022 Food - 2 Term 4 2022 Food - 3

We’ve done some cooking over the holidays (Slow Roast Leg of Lamb, Apple Crumble and a ham pasta salad) and are looking at doing 2 recipes a week in Term 1. I have a feeling it may end up being 1 recipe a week though.

The plan is to turn all the recipes they learn into a cookbook that they can continue to add to over the years.

We’ll be back at the end of Term 1 to share what we’ve been up to in the kitchen.

My Reading List

I’ve been making myself a list of books about home schooling and I thought I’d list them here then write a review as I finish each one.

Feel free to suggest any books that aren’t on the list that you really enjoyed.

  • And the skylark sings with me – David H. Albert
  • Anyone can teach art – Julie B. Abels
  • Everything you need to know about homeschooling – Lea Ann Garfias
  • Home Learning Year by Year – Rebecca Rupp
  • Homeschool Bravely – Jamie Erickson
  • Homeschooling Essentials – Carlee Westbrook
  • Homeschooling for Dummies
  • Homeschooling High School – Shirley Erwee
  • Homeschooling the teen years – Cafi Cohen
  • Simplify your homeschool day – Tamara L Chilver
  • The Brave Learner – Julie Bogart
  • The four hour school day – Durenda Wilson
  • The unschooling handbook – Mary Griffith
  • … still to come

Hello world!

and welcome to Schooling from the Den. Be sure to check out our About Us page.

Mum (Caroline) & the eldest will be the ones posting here the most. We’re hoping to share:

  • General home school stuff
  • Resources (including printables made by Mum)
  • Our cooking adventures (including recipes)
  • Recipes for other things that aren’t food
  • Book reviews
  • Our online portfolio

We hope you’ll join us. Feel free to say hi and let us know where you are visiting from.