field trip

Field Work Friday – Stained Glass Windows

July 18, 2014 by Amy

We recently had the opportunity to learn about stained glass from a local artist. Always interested in the creation of this art, Dr. Saunders had taken a class years ago and made a workshop for himself. In the years since, he created stained glass windows for a local church and gifts for many. Our children – and their moms! – were excited to learn about this process.

Dr. Saunders showed us how he begins his work with a pattern. After planning the design, he must purchase the materials. At $12 per square foot, that’s not a light task. One must also take into consideration any accidents that may happen as each piece of glass could be a tinted a bit differently and therefore not match, making it important to have enough from the same batch for your current project before beginning.

After drawing a curvy line on a small piece of glass, Dr. Saunders showed us how to use a glass cutter to cut the piece. After tracing it with this tool, he used another tool which carefully separated the two pieces.

The children were curious about how the piece comes together. After explaining the soldering process, Dr. Saunders explained that the stained glass is like us – it isn’t beautiful until God’s light shines through it. To illustrate that idea and to allow them to see how the light affects each color, the group went to the window to check out the light streaming through this lighthouse window.

Afterwards Dr. Saunders let all of us look at some of his tools, and he answered many questions about the creation of stained glass.

My Big Helper was fascinated to learn that a perfect window is never set inside a church, as the only perfect thing there is God. Others were interested in seeing how the shapes could be put together to create pictures. My Little Man liked hearing about how the glass is colored from the addition of chemicals to the molten glass before cooling.

If you ever have the chance to explore this art further, check it out! Stained glass is beautiful. 🙂

Field Work Friday – Russia

July 18, 2014 by Amy

This week we vicariously traveled to Russia, via a fabulous native who is now a US citizen. She shared many stories of life in Russia.

Daily life is very different; one needs only to hear about the commonality of caviar and the sheer numbers of apartment buildings to know that. From school at night to a mile-deep lake, our guest’s information was fascinating.

My Little Man was particularly excited about the pictures and souvenirs. He liked looking at the writing in Russian inside her Russian passport, …

and he loved the nesting dolls. Known as a Russian item but coming originally from Japan, these dolls are hand-painted with special colors and flowers to indicate in which state they were created.

Aren’t they beautiful?

February 23rd is a Russian holiday – Military Appreciation Day, when parents and teachers give all males gifts to show their appreciation for military service. Even young boys who have not yet served receive presents for their future dedication to their country.

In honor of this holiday, our guest brought cupcakes decorated in the Russian national colors for the children to enjoy – and they did! The vast amount of icing on his cupcake amazed My Little Man. 🙂

Have you met anyone from another country lately?

Field Work Friday – Rogers Cattle Company

July 18, 2014 by Amy

Today we headed to Rogers Cattle Company to learn about raising animals for meat. Coming from a dairy farm background, I didn’t expect this type of animal raising to be very different from what I’m familiar with, but it was.

Sharon and Johnny Rogers are the operators and sole workers of this operation, and they went the extra mile to show us how their farm functions – they drove us in a haywagon! It was a great way to tour the farm and visit with the animals.

The ewes were neat. Knowing that it was their normal eating time, they came running to greet us. A type of sheep that shed their hair naturally, they closely resembled the few goats sharing their pen.

We just happened to visit this one mid-shed. I’ve never seen sheep that didn’t need to be sheared!

The rams seemed a bit antsy today. Perhaps, with the cooler weather, they knew that mating season will soon be arriving?

These young bulls were content to hang out under a large tree and watch us watching them. They seemed very calm and will not go out ‘dating’ for a while yet.

Of course, the heifers and the calves were my favorite.

Unfortunately, these are some of the animals that provide this farm with their livelihood – fresh beef. Mr. Rogers shared that in order to sell fresh meat, they had to be inspected by the Department of Agriculture and that the meat had to be processed in a USDA-approved facility.

The turkeys were another story. The first crop of turkeys for this farm, they arrived on site in mid-June and are growing quickly. Mr. Rogers farms with a type of plastic-polymer fencing that he moves around the farm to give the animals fresh pastureland. To keep the turkeys safe from predators, they remain inside their smaller enclosures except when there are people around.

They eat a type of crushed grain, which Mr. Rogers was happy to show us. The children decided that this was much like the chickens some of them have at home!

Immediately after commenting that the turkeys didn’t resemble the ones we typically see displayed at Thanksgiving, this one decided to strut his stuff. After puffing out those tail feathers, he took off across the pen. I couldn’t get a shot from any other angle!

These birds will be kept until early November, at which time they’ll be available for purchase.

At the conclusion of the tour, the children enjoyed digging in this large pile of rocks. Why buy toys – they need only sticks and stones to be happy!

Of course, seeing a few hundred farm animals makes their day, too.

For more information about Rogers Cattle Company or to order meat, visit their website.

Where do you purchase your meat? Have you ever gone straight to the source?

Field Work Friday – Pei Wei Asian Diner

July 18, 2014 by Amy

How do you cook good Asian food? This was a question that we really wanted answered as we worked our way through a recent Chinese unit. It became even more urgent as we realized that we were going to host a Chinese New Year party and had no idea how to make a good Chinese meal!

Fortunately, we knew where to go to find out. Pei Wei Asian Diner is one of our family’s favorite places to go for dinner. The food is good, healthy, and comes at you fast, but the best part is the open concept kitchen. If you’re lucky enough to sit at the bar/counter, you can watch the cooks preparing all of the food – and with the flames rising and the food flying, it makes quite the dinner show.

Fortunately for us, Pei Wei’s general manager was up to the challenge of teaching us – and about 25 of our friends. We headed out to crash their restaurant during their prep time one morning before opening.

The general manager, or GM, greeted us in the dining room and explained the format of our tour. Because most foods are cooked to order, the kitchen is very small, and we toured in small groups and rotated through.

Our group started here in ordering line. We learned about their computer system, the menus, and what happens if you order to eat in vs taking your food away.

Then we moved to the back. In the kitchen, we learned that there are two dedicated tasks. This is the protein man. His job is to prep all of the protein for the day. While we visited, he was carefully cleaning chicken and cutting it into pieces that were the right size and shape for stir-frying.

There’s also a dedicated spring roll woman. She also makes the rangoons and won-tons. Each one has to be the precise size and weight so that it cooks properly in the time allowed. The way that she could eyeball this was amazing!

We also visited the walk-in refrigerator. We learned that all of the produce is brought in daily, except for weekends, and that very few items arrive frozen. As many things as possible are prepped daily for the freshest food possible.

Aren’t all of these veggies beautiful? This is what goes into the stir fries and noodle bowls.

This is the cook’s set-up. It takes six months to learn how to be one of the line cooks! That’s an amazingly long time – but they have a very difficult job. Their woks range in temperature from 350 to 500 degrees Fahrenheit, and each dish cooks in minutes. Here the GM was explaining how they blanch the veggies prior to frying them so that they reach the perfect texture.

After the tour, the GM generously asked what we wanted to see cooked – and then this man made it for us while we watched. They even added several dishes, saying that there were so many of us that we needed more food to sample. Then they brought us plates, chopsticks, cups, fortune cookies, and the works for us to have a mini-party.

By then Pei Wei was open for lunch and, after sampling lots of yummy dishes, we ordered our meals and settled in to eat. Everything we tried was fantastic and the crew couldn’t have been more kind or generous.

We can’t wait to go back to Pei Wei – and maybe our own Asian cooking will be just a bit better from now on.

What’s your favorite ethnic cuisine?

Field Work Friday – The Oreo Olympics

July 18, 2014 by Amy

The Oreo Olympics are here! We spent a morning playing around with Oreos – and doing a lot of math, too. To do this activity, each family brought their own package of Oreos – or imitation Oreo cookies – to work with. Each pulled out a few to eat later, and the rest were used for this project.

We started out with Oreo towers. The kids assembled themselves into small groups and began working with their package of Oreos. The idea was to see who could create a tower using the most Oreos.

(I had issues with my camera that day – mainly because I forgot it – so I used my cell phone. I apologize for the blurriness.) First, the groups started stacking Oreos ….

but even the smallest ones quickly began to get creative with their towers.

A few people stuck with single towers …

Many others began to experiment with foundations to their towers.

The towers started to get wider …

and then taller …

and then even thicker as the groups began to find ways to incorporate more cookies into each tower. It was great to hear the kids counting their cookies over and over again (using one-to-one correspondence) and finding stopping places to begin later (counting on) and adding like towers (addition) and balancing cookies (symmetry and physics).

After finishing our towers, we used the cookies as a means of nonstandard measurement. Instead of measuring with rulers, we measured with cookies! This is easy for very young children to do and also encourages counting and one-to-one correspondence. This group didn’t quite have the same vision, so each child measured the length of the table going in a different direction!

Another group did the same thing. In the end, this is how their measurement looked.

Next we competed for the longest Oreo roll. This used more nonstandard measurement, because we used the floor tiles to determine how far each cookie went instead of inches or feet. One talented youngster rolled her cookie for a grand total of 21 tiles – and they weren’t tiny ones! (We did find that the REAL Oreos worked best for this part of the project. The generic ones were just too bumpy along the edges. Just a hint.)

And then, finally, we ate those cookies being held in reserve. One can only stand to be in a room smelling of Oreos for so long without eating them, you know? 😉

Other activities you could do with Oreos:
– write an “Ode to an Oreo”
– research the history of Oreos
– determine how long you are in Oreos
– determine how heavy you are in Oreos
– make “dirt” pudding
– write an original recipe using Oreos
– determine how many Oreos it would take to cover your desk/table
– write a fictional story about Oreoland

May the best Oreo Olympian win!

Field Work Friday – Old Salem Village

July 18, 2014 by Amy

Earlier this week we headed west to visit Old Salem Village, one of the first Moravian settlements in North Carolina. This now-restored village was established in 1766 and now reflects the lifestyle lived there from its inception through the Civil War era. The village is seven blocks long and three blocks wide, with lots of gardens, buildings to tour, and demonstrations to see.

Our first stop was in the gunsmith’s building. This man was carving the stock of a new gun they were building. This process was fascinating to watch!

Inside the tavern’s barn sat a man beside a pile of corn husks. He explained that the early Moravians stuffed their pillows with this material and allowed the children to tear up husks for stuffing. The barn itself was large and very sturdily built.

Our next visit was to the cider mill and press, located directly outside the barn. Here we learned how the two cylinders, made of wood, turned when the beam at the top was pulled, usually by a draft animal. The cylinders then squished the apples, allowing the juice to run out of the bottom for preservation. Next the apples were pressed in the cider press.

The Big Helper and My Little Man each took turns powering the cider press. They seemed to think this would be a great job to have back then!

The tavern itself was the local inn for travelers. George Washington stayed here and made a speech in 1791. This room, located on the second floor, was the dining area for the travelers and prevented people who might wander in from taking food. Since food and drink was the primary money maker for the inn’s owners, it was important that they take care in tracking their expenses here.

What’s an inn without beds? The kids were eager to check out this rope bed and stuffed mattress. They decided that they were most happy with their own modern beds!

Downstairs, in the main kitchen, a woman was baking breads with different grain combinations. She explained how poorer people couldn’t afford wheat flour and sometimes baked their breads with other, rougher grain combinations. She had samples of four different types to try. The wheat-rye kind that I tried was really good!

The kitchen looked like it must have been a very busy place then.

Many of the beds were very simple – almost cradle-like in structure – but this one was elegant and beautiful. My Big Helper particularly liked this one!

The Fire Engine House was a neat building. There were two small pumpers inside, and the kids were amazed to see a fire ‘truck’ without an engine. Seeing the horse stalls in the next section of the building was enlightening, as well.

While there was not much action to see in the tavern’s kitchen, the one in this house was hopping. The woman here was preparing a soup and a stew, as well as a few other dishes.

After her speech was over, she kindly showed us how her fireplace tools worked and shared more information about the peppers, carrots, cow beans, and leeks that she had cooked with that morning. We’d never heard of cow beans before!

In the doctor’s summer kitchen the children were invited to make sachets. They scooped two spoonfuls of dried lavender flowers into each prepared bag and tied it closed. They loved their sachets, and I loved they way they smelled for the rest of the day!

The next building over had costumed leaders showing how to play a Native American bean game. Both kids liked this, and it was great for counting practice. I think we’ll be playing this for school this semester!

I must admit that the Winkler Bakery was a highlight of our tour. The bakery is run by men who still mix everything by hand and bake their bread in a brick oven heated by a wood fire. My grandmother recommended the sugar cake, and we all agree – you can’t go wrong there. It was fabulous!

I can’t imagine baking 94 loaves of bread in this thing, but it’s still done today.

Many of the plants in the Misch House garden were nearing the end of their season, but the gardener was hard at work and kind to explain what each plant was. Taking care of this – and the two beds like it nearby – must have been a full-time job.

Inside, this woman had finished her cooking for the day and was cleaning butter. She explained that butter was salted to preserve it, but this left it inedible, so the women would put it in a bowl with fresh water and squish a knife all through it. After a while, they would pour off the water, and much of the salt would go with it. After doing this three or four times, the butter could be eaten.

This new oven was outside the Miksch House. I can’t imagine having to power this one!

This tailor was sewing a fancy cuff for a sleeve. He explained how tailors of the time would sit on a table by a window to work so that they had enough light. All sewing was done by hand and the clothing worn by everyone was quite formal compared with the clothes we wear today.

This woman is weaving a broom together. After growing the plant that produced straw-like stuff used for the bottom of the broom, it was cut, dried, and then soaked to make the top part pliable for weaving. Seven pieces were woven together to make the inner core for this broom, and then another 13 pieces were woven around this core to produce a big enough broom for use. Without a handle, this broom might have been used to clean the hearth after cooking. Adding a handle increased the expense and the time needed to finish the broom by about 50%. Brooms with handles would have been used to sweep wooden floors indoors.

The demonstrators had extra brooms so that the kids could try them out. Both of mine agreed that it’s easier to use a broom with a handle than this kind!

This nearby pump enthralled all the kids. I bet it was somewhat less fun when this was your best – and only – source of water, especially in the cold winter months.

These women worked together to make pumpkin fritters. They mixed pumpkin puree, cornmeal, eggs, milk, and salt until it was thick, then fried it in a spider (pan with three legs) over hot coals in butter. The women sprinkled cinnamon and sugar over the top.

The finished fritters were a bit bland but not bad, though my kids chose not to eat any more after their initial taste. Fritters of all kinds – apple, pumpkin, squash, carrot, etc. – would have been staples at this time, often eaten hot at the noon meal and then cold for supper.

I’m happy to have a bit more variety in our meals!

We had a really great time on this trip, both opening and closing the village. Neither the kids nor I were ready to leave at the end of the day. The actors were super polite and very kind, and they shared lots of neat information.

We learned lots of things that will translate beautifully to background information about life without electricity over the next few months as we learn about the Pilgrims and early life in America.

If you have never been to Old Salem in Winston-Salem, be sure to plan a trip. There are lots of special events coming up over the next few months, and it’s definitely worth your time!

What’s your most favorite field trip??

Field Work Friday – The Museum of Life and Science

July 18, 2014 by Amy

This week we journeyed to the Museum of Life and Science in Durham. This is a fabulous place for kids to learn while playing! From animal exhibits to science, nature, machines, safety, sounds, and more, this place just rocks. (Even adults get caught up playing here. You can’t help it – it’s just too fun.)

With 25 in our group this week, it was too difficult to stay together, so we splintered off into little groups and began to explore.

The dinosaur trail is our favorite part of the museum. My Little Man headed out in search of Troodons (we read a book about them the day before) and he found this guy hiding in the grass.

We had a whole discussion here about whether these eggs would really hatch – at which point we reviewed what extinct means. 🙂

I can’t remember this dino’s name, but just look how big he is compared to MY little guy!

Of course, we had to dig for fossils. I’m not sure how much My Little Man cares to actually find anything – I think he just likes the digging.

Later we headed to the butterfly house.

Aren’t they beautiful? Look at the speed of those wings!

Our final exhibit before leaving was a mathematical volume exhibit inside. My Little Man began pouring beads into one container and then into others to see which was bigger.

The tiny beads are fun to dig into and pour, and this exhibit is always surrounded by kids.

There are many fabulous exhibits here, and with all you could prepare your kids in advance, teach them directly with the exhibit in front of them, or remind them of what they’ve seen at home to study. My children are so excited when they’re there that we usually discuss what we’ve seen after the fact.

What’s really great about these types of museums is that you see something new each time. The animals always do a new thing … you notice a facet of something under the microscope that you’ve missed before … or you understand something in a deeper way. In fact, our children seem to learn there best by building on their experiences a bit more each trip.

An annual membership fee for this museum can be recouped in only three visits. With reciprocal privileges at hundreds of other children’s museums around the country, joining this type of museum is well worth it.

Do you have a great museum near you? Can you recommend one?

Field Work Friday – Marbles Museum

July 18, 2014 by Amy

This week we traveled to Marbles Museum, a fabulous children’s museum in downtown Raleigh. Marbles is a two-story interactive museum where everything is kid-sized and kid friendly. Each exhibit allows children to explore grown-up tasks in a safe, fun way.

My Little Man loved the science exploration center inside the giant submarine.

Everyone loved the water play area! What’s not to like about water falls and pouring toys on a hot summer’s day?

A huge part of the upstairs is centered around economics. My Little Man liked driving the secure money transfer truck.

Of course, he enjoyed driving the ambulance, too …

and doctoring on his sister, who was fascinated with the kid-sized crutches!

This museum also includes an IMAX theater, where we saw the 3D documentary Born to be Wild, about elephant and orangutan rescue.

It was a beautiful day for a picnic in the museum’s courtyard.

And after some afternoon surfing, we headed to the construction area.

Everyone loved the real tools and had to take a turn with the clamps and handsaws.

If you’ve never visited a children’s museum, find one near you and check it out. Some admission fees can be expensive, but most have good deals on memberships. These usually include reciprocal deals at museums far away, so it can also be a fun activity for a rainy vacation day in another city. Other museums run special grandparent deals or freebie afternoons for local residents. Coupons can sometimes be found in special books or at your visitor’s bureau, too.

Visiting a children’s museum can be a great way to spend a day – and learn a lot, too!

Field Work Friday – Makin’ Pizza with EnZo’s Pizza Company

July 18, 2014 by Amy

This week we traveled to EnZo’s Pizza Company in Durham for pizza making lessons.

Yes, real pizza making lessons from their catering manager Kyle and awesome part-time helper Stuart.

EnZo’s is an Old World-style pizza shop, making everything fresh and with real ingredients – but in funky, gourmet ways. We were excited to travel to their shop to learn some pizza secrets – but we were even more impressed with the effort and talent that the EnZo’s men demonstrated to us. Not only did they go above and beyond to call of duty to answer our questions, explain their pizza process, and keep us comfortable in their shop, but they also opened early AND were super affordable. We’ll definitely be visiting EnZo’s again!

Here’s how our visit went:

After we arrived, we were ushered to our very own section of the dining room and given handouts explaining the rising process of dough making. (My Little Man is fascinated with this, and we sometimes activate yeast just so he can watch the results of their burping.) It seemed that Kyle prepared this just for us – how many people would go to that kind of trouble for a group of kids?

Next, we moved out into the main part of the dining room, where they had prepared pizza-making stations for us. With the dough already stretched and the other ingredients premeasured, they were definitely ready for us.

Kyle then demonstrated each step of the process, explaining each part, such as how to spoon on the sauce and spread out in a spiral fashion.

Each person was allowed to choose his or her own toppings. Everyone wanted pepperoni except me, as I’m trying to eat more veggies than meat, and they kindly brought me a whole plate of peppers and olives for my pizza. As the only one in my family who likes that combination, it was fun to have a whole pizza my way!

I’m sure our pizza skills weren’t exactly EnZo ready, but we definitely had a great time! Because Kyle and Stuart were so super prepared, even our youngest children could make pizzas with their mother’s help. (I was next to an almost-two-year-old, and he seemed to be having a blast.)

Next we split up into groups. One group went back into the kitchen to find out about the baking process. We learned that the pizzas were cooked for 6 minutes at about 600 – 625 degrees. I can’t imagine using an oven that hot!

Here Kyle is using the bubble-popping tool. I’ve never heard of this, and I think it’s great! This special long-handled, two-tined fork is used for popping bubbles on pizza. Someone has the special task of watching for and popping those bubbles using this tool. Kyle did this service for us.

The ovens operate conveyer-belt style and have three tiers. The pizzas are put in on the left and come out on the right. These are a few of our personal-sized ones emerging from the oven.

Kyle said that when they’re in full operation, they can bake 27 pizzas in about 10 minutes. Wow!

While one group was touring the kitchen, the rest of our party was out in the dining room, learning how to make dough balls from Stuart. I thought this was just the neatest activity – and also very generous of EnZo’s. After teaching us how to handle the dough, they actually brought out 10 dough balls and let us work with them. In our nearly two years of touring, nobody has ever sacrificed some of their own product strictly for our learning pleasure!

Making our own pizza is something that we do often at home, but I use a super simple pizza dough recipe. While we love the taste and I love the ease of making it, I’ve never let the kids knead it. They roll it, but not knead it. My Little Man was fascinated with this task, and all of the kids worked with their dough balls for quite a while.

Maybe I’ll have to turn over all kneading responsibilities to the kids!

After the pizzas were all out of the oven, we returned to our private dining area, where Kyle and Stuart served our pizza. The restaurant opened about this time, and we began to see customers pouring in.

Kyle and Stuart were generous throughout our entire experience. They did everything they could to teach our children and to give them a fun and hands-on learning experience. With 18 children aged 7 and under, that isn’t easy, but these two seemed to take it in stride.

We made it as far as the parking lot, where my Little Man was in awe over this cool EnZo’s car, when he began to ask when we could return. “I want to come back to EnZo’s, Mommy,” he said, and when I asked why, he replied that “That pizza was yummy! I can’t wait to make another one!”

I had to explain that one didn’t usually get to make one’s own pizza when dining at EnZo’s, and he was disappointed, but he’s still asking when we can go back.

But wouldn’t it be cool if they had a ‘make your own personal pizza’ option like the Mad Hatter does for cupcake decorating?

All told, the few bites that I got were great. The pizzas are cooked on a special mesh pan, which adds texture and crunch to the bottom crust. The crust itself is not the super thin style but not deep dish, either, which would please my whole family. I would’ve loved to have more, but my Bottomless-Pit ate all of his and most of mine. (I got a salad, too, so this worked out well. Incidentally, the other kids ate most of theirs and took some home – a personal sized one seemed plenty for them.)

We brought a menu home so we could show the rest of our family and because we just love reading menus. EnZo’s has some really creative and yummy-sounding specialty pizzas. My Big Helper can’t wait to go try them out.

If you’re in the Duke section of Durham, be sure to stop in and visit EnZo’s Pizza Company. Your pizza is sure to be excellent!

Thanks, EnZo’s!

Field Work Friday – Makin’ Soap with Red Mountain Goodness

July 18, 2014 by Amy

I have always wanted to learn how to make soap. Maybe it started when I read about a pioneer doing so in one of my historical fiction novels. I remember that coming up several times.

While I’m not interested in pouring lard through ashes or anything, soapmaking has remained at the top of my list of things to learn about for a long time, so I was super excited when a friend shared that there was a great soap company operating in the next county over. I was even more excited when founder and owner of Red Mountain Goodness, Todd Hinson, immediately replied to my request for a lesson with a ‘Yes!’

Todd began by sharing with us how his company began. A research scientist by training, he was working in that field when he began to develop a type of soap to help with his wife’s wintery skin. Friends and family loved the result, and Red Mountain Goodness was born.

The best part of Todd’s backstory was the way that he encouraged our kids. He shared with them difficulties of beginning your own home-based business, some of the details and issues that were involved, marketing strategies, and the like; all provided great information and insight to our future entrepreneurs. He told us several times, however, that we should not be afraid to look for a solution to a problem or to do something in a non-traditional way – that those are sometimes the things that help people the most. That those things can make a difference.

As a scientist, Todd looks at soap differently than many. While we might be happy to have a soap that feels good at the moment and smells great, Todd is looking for all natural ingredients. He talked with the kids about ingredient labels on products and how the list is graduated – so that the first ingredient listed is used the most by quantity, etc., and then he compared each ingredient in order to his soap. Did you know that one of the most common soap companies in our country puts the main chemical in antifreeze into their soap? UGH!

Then Todd demonstrated making his soap. While he made it look easy, he takes great care when measuring and mixing the ingredients to provide a high-quality product for the consumers.

His soaps contain olive oil …

coconut oil …

goat’s milk and lye. Regardless of what other soap labels say, for a product to be a true soap, it must contain lye as an ingredient, but the lye is used up chemically during the soapmaking process, making the end product totally safe for your skin.

Combing the lye with the frozen goat’s milk creates an exothermic reaction, one that releases heat, and so we watched this reaction melt the goat’s milk. My kids were fascinated by that part!

Todd has incorporated many scientific tools into the process of soapmaking. This ‘self-stirrer’ (I don’t know the scientific name) allows liquids to be stirred using magnet technology. Since the soap needs to be stirred for 15 minutes after the lye has finished reacting, Todd uses this handy tool to do the work. My Big Helper thought that was quite ingenious.

The next order of business is to combine the oil mixture with the lye mixture. Todd uses a regular immersion blender for this, and the kids in the group all loved watching the two elements begin to change color and for soap particles to form.

Todd scents his soaps with essential oils, and our group voted to make lavender soap. It takes 40 mg of essential oil to scent the soap. Todd shared with the kids the best way to measure liquids in a graduated cylinder, and their eyes were all big at the sight of his scientific equipment.

As one girl inquired, the soap must be put into something while it cures and hardens. Todd explained that you can use anything, but he uses these soap molds. Each batch of soap will make 16 bars, and while making such small batches is quite time-consuming for a business of this size, Todd is determined to maintain the high quality of his products and refuses to make bigger batches.

When the soap is ready, Todd poured it into the mold. He then lifted it carefully and tapped it against the table to release any bubbles that might be hiding inside. This reminded me of the trip that candy bars take on bouncing conveyor belts to do the same thing!

Next the bars will hang out in the fridge overnight, and then be cut the next day. They’ll then cure for a month, be wrapped, and cure for another month before being sold. This means that each bar has been in production for a total of two months!

Todd was a great presenter for our group. We learned about entrepreneurship, about creativity and scientific method, about the role of chemicals in our society, on marketing and goal-setting, and much more. I appreciate that so many kind people are willing to share their dreams and their knowledge with your young ones. We can’t replicate that kind of education!

I also couldn’t replicate Todd’s soap! It feels great on my skin, has a delightful scent, and the best part is knowing that I’m not absorbing antifreeze or any other crazy chemicals in the process of getting clean.

So – are you willing to give all-natural soap a try?