BLOGGER TEMPLATES AND TWITTER BACKGROUNDS »

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

fun with food and other things.

This month we have been learning about Thanksgiving, of course. Lots of fun facts about the Mayflower, Pilgrims and Indians. It's been fun. I had planned to do a lapbook but opted not to at the last minute. Instead we have been reading some books and doing sporadic activities and worksheets. On Monday and Tuesday we will have two fun filled of Thanksgiving crafts and food making. In fact we have been doing lots of food making already. It hasn't been related to our study of Thanksgiving, we have just done things with food.

One day last week we had baked potatoes for lunch. I let the kids each choose, wash and poke their own potato. You would have thought I had planned the best craft of the year. The had so much fun. Who knew a potato and a fork could be so exciting

We also made yogurt last week. Actually, there isn't much to do in yogurt making, we just waited for it to become yogurt, which happens overnight. I made it in my crockpot from the recipe on this blog . It came out very tasty but thin. We used it for smoothies and it was so so so yummy! I tried it again this week and it came out a little thicker. Still thin compared with store bought but definitely tastier in my humble opinion.
It was Seven's birthday last week too and we made a cake. Seven and her husband are opening a coffee shop soon so I thought it appropriate to make her a coffee cake.


One morning after watching Sid the Science Kid, Isaac suggested excitedly that we make fruit popsicles. Funny thing to do since it was about 20 degrees that morning but whatever. Sid used bananas to hold the pop sticks in place and then added juice. We had no bananas so we used kiwis. They were actually very yummy pops. I got to eat every one's left overs (as usual).
Our last two food excursions worth mentioning were making stone ground corn bread with honey like Native Americans might have made (minus the baking soda and baking powder I suppose) and making sourdough bread. My friend Nancy gave me a sourdough starter and I tried it out today. My plan is to make most of my own bread from now on b/c I am so sick of buying it. We go through a lot and it's expensive to get it w/o high fructose nastiness in it. Anyway, I have a little experimenting to do before I'll be making most of our own bread. It came out pretty good (I love sourdough) but it was a little too dense and didn't rise as much as it should have to make sandwich sized bread. I'll keep trying. It won't go to waste. Sourdough toast w/ peanut butter and homemade yogurt for breakfast tomorrow!
We had pajama day last week. It was fun. Being homeschoolers we could actually have pajama day any day we want but we get dressed most days. This particular day we didn't get dressed, didn't go anywhere and went back to bed in the same jammies! Talk about lazy bums! It was great.
We had book club at Nancy's last week too. We read "Attaboy Sam." It was a cute book about a boy who tried to make perfume for his mom for her birthday. For an activity we had to identify smells. It was fun. The kids had a great time, we love going to Nancy's house.
The kids have been doing lots of building lately. They took some pictures of their favorite accomplishments. I love to see how creative they can be!


We did a special thing for Veteran's Day at our church. The kids at TLC Academy were commissioned to sing on Sunday as we honored the veterans at our church. The kids sang My Country Tis of Thee (which is actually called America) and America the beautiful. They did such a great job. (no pix b/c I was singing w/ them) It was really a great thing to be a part of. I feel it is so important that we make sure that our children have patriotism and respect our amazing country. We pledge the flag every morning that we have school together and sing patriotic songs. God has blessed this country immeasurably and the freedoms that we have, we can't take for granted. We also can't forget that our freedoms were and are won with a price paid by men and women willing to lay their lives down for us. It was a privilege to lead the children as they sang to honor our veterans.
On a much sillier note, we pretended to be baby kitties at snack time on Tuesday. I lined up the kids snack bowls on the floor (it was pretty clean) and gave them all kitty names (snuggles, darling, rainbow, pinky, milo and boots). I poured cat food (goldfish) in their bowls and they happily mewed and ate on all fours.

Yesterday I took just my kid to the local museum. We had fun. We hadn't been since around last year at this time. We went through the dinosaur exhibit (by the way they are not allowed to climb on the excavation exhibit. It's posted in one spot in tiny tiny letters, we hadn't noticed any of the times we had been there but it was very specifically pointed out to us this time!) and the room of "stuffed things" where we posed with Tom Turkey in honor of the season. The room of rocks and minerals was glossed over rather quickly but they did like to see the glow in the dark ones and the pretty ones. Down stairs there is a small aquarium and a little area to handle starfish, hermit crabs, horseshoe crabs etc. Sadly we didn't get to see the ancient civilizations, which is what they were looking most forward to, because they were upstairs and we weren't allowed upstairs w/ our library pass unless we paid extra to see the festival of trees. No big deal though, just another reason to go back after the holidays.


Ian listening to different bird calls on the phone.
Bella, Isaac and Tom Turkey. Isaac really liked his beard.

This is the kids before we were told we were being a little too hands on w/ the hands on exhibit.
Today we made toilet paper roll turkeys for art class. It was fun. The turkeys came out pretty cute and aside from the stapling, they were able to do most of it themselves. This one is Ian's

I'm looking forward to next week when we do lots of fun Thanksgiving stuff! I love Thanksgiving, I just have so much to be thankful for! God is so good!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It looks like you have been busy!!! I love the Turkeys the kids made! Too cute! Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Mallory

Anonymous said...

hey send the blog to my lesley e-mail if you can!!!! i am always like 2 behind because i forget to check my aol mail..thanks love you

kmmie