geography

World Tour – Germany’s Appelfpannkuchen

July 18, 2014 by Amy

Our World Tour began with Germany. We decided to make appelfpannkuchen, a type of pancake with caramelized apples on the bottom – something I thought both kids would like. We used a recipe from Emeril’s There’s a Chef in My World cookbook as our starting point.

Since this is not my recipe and I couldn’t find it online, I can’t share it exactly, but here are the highlights:

First, you peel, core, and slice two apples very thin. Cook them in a bit of butter over high heat in an oven-safe frying pan, then add brown sugar until cooked through and caramelized. Meanwhile, mix up the pancake ‘batter’ (which was very heavy on the eggs and gave it a very eggy texture – if we make this again, I’ll reduce the egg count) and pour it over the top of the apples. Slide the pan into a very hot oven and bake until golden brown. When finished, ours looked like that (see above).

I sliced our appelfpannkuchen into wedges and we served it with powdered sugar or syrup.

My picky Little Man gobbled his down without a single comment – especially rare when trying new foods! – and ran off to play.

My Big Girl firmly declared the apples to be her favorite part and promptly asked for a second slice.

So far, we’re very fond of Deutschland!

World Tour – Painting Like Monet

July 18, 2014 by Amy

There are too many wonderful artists from France to pass up, and so this week we chose to study Monet. We read Monet by Mike Venezia to learn about his life and artistic style. We also read a book by the same series called Picasso by Mike Venezia. (Picasso was actually Spanish but lived in France for most of his life, so we included him for this project.)

We began with a blank canvas. Each child chose his/her colors and the colors that s/he wanted to paint with. Each child, when given the choice between Picasso’s contemporary shapes or Monet’s more traditional subjects and style, chose to paint like Monet.

My Big Helper chose to paint a seascape like Monet. She wanted to paint a house along the shore and chose to paint in blues and browns.

My Little Man wanted to paint like Monet, but he is fascinated with fire, tornadoes, and spiders. His artwork always includes at least one of those. This time, fire won out. He described his picture as red fire and blue water. (We put the finished art on a shelf in his room – his color choice was perfect!)

I had hoped to hang My Big Helper’s art in her room, as well, but her colors completely clashed – but they do match our playroom. I hung it there on a nail, and she’s been quite proud to show off how she painted like Monet. 🙂

While we do many art projects in different styles, this was the first time that we studied a specific type of art or a specific artist and learned what made it unique. We’ll definitely be doing more of this. The kids loved it, and they are looking at paintings in a new way now.

How do you ‘do art’ with YOUR kids??

World Tour – Invent A Cake in France

July 18, 2014 by Amy

Now that we’ve spent a few months studying other countries, one thing that stands out to us all is that some are known (more than others) for their cuisine. After watching Ratatouille, we all became even more curious about how to create your own recipe – so we decided to try it.

We used Jenae from I Can Teach My Child‘s base plan for creating a cake recipe and went from there.

(Basically, you have a group of dry ingredients that you must use – things like flour, sugar, and leavening. Then you choose the liquids, seasonings, and extras and mix it up. There are printable charts on Jenae’s webpage to make it easier.)

My Big Helper chose to use milk, butter, cinnamon, vanilla, chocolate chips, and marshmallows.

We compared the ingredient lists with similar cake recipes and used the following:

2 c. flour
2 eggs
2 t. baking powder
1 1/2 c. sugar
1 t. baking soda
1 1/2 c. milk (I’d try 1 1/4 next time)
1/2 c. butter
1 t. cinnamon
1 t. vanilla
a handful of chocolate chips
a handful of marshmallows, chopped

Stir all dry ingredients together and then add in the wet ones. Stir in the chips and marshmallows at the end and pour into a greased 9X13″ cake pan. Bake at 250 for about 30 minutes or until done.

While the Big Helper asked to do this project, My Little Man soon came running to join in. He suggest using M & Ms when we couldn’t find enough chocolate chips, and both kids were happy to stir the ingredients and watch it bake.

I must admit, I was a bit skeptical about this whole process, but it worked really well. The cake was super moist and tasted pleasantly cinnamon-y. The chocolate fell to the bottom and the marshmallows all rose to the top and roasted, making the top of the cake a pretty, puffy golden brown. If you happened to get a bite of both the chocolate and the marshmallow, it even tasted a bit like a s’more!

We received several surprise visitors in the days following this experiment, and both kids were excited to offer their cake as a refreshment option. I’m sure we’ll be experimenting more with this recipe – and many others – in the future!

If YOU were inventing your own cake, what would you put in it?

World Tour – Creative Crepes

July 18, 2014 by Amy

This week we ‘jetted’ off to France for another leg of our world tour. As always, we began by finding North Carolina on the globe and then the various continents and countries that we’ve already studied, until we found France.

Next we read two books that provide a simple overview of French culture. (France by Alan Blackwood and Brigitte Chosson, and Take a Trip to France by Jonathon Rutland). Of course, the kids were more than ready to sample some French cuisine, so we began with crepes!

My friend Isabelle, who is a French citizen, gave me this recipe (the following does include a few of our own modifications). She told us that she had never actually eaten crepes for breakfast until she moved to the United States – that at home they were always eaten as a snack or for a dessert. You learn something new every day!

Since this week has gone haywire and the only meal we seemed guaranteed to eat at home this week was breakfast, we went ahead and ate our early-morning Americanized version. They sure were good, though!

Start with a crepe batter:

1 c. flour
1 pinch salt
1 T. sugar
1 1/4 c. milk
2 T. melted butter + some for the pan
2 eggs

Whisk together until smooth. (Isabelle’s original recipe says to refrigerate for an hour or overnight. I tried that, and it worked, but we liked it better prepared just before eating. Isabelle doesn’t mix hers ahead, either.)

Over medium heat, butter a small non-stick frying pan and let it get hot. Add a few tablespoons of the batter and rotate the pan until covered. Pour the rest back into the bowl and let it cook until the top appears dry. Flip with a rubber spatula. The second side will cook in seconds. Slide out of the pan and repeat until batter is gone.

Now comes the fun part!

My Big Helper wanted to make cinnamon apple crepes. (Something we saw on Pinterest.) To make these, we peeled and thinly sliced two apples, added a drizzle of water, a drizzle of honey, and a small pat of butter. We cooked them in a small saucepan over medium-low heat until soft, then added cinnamon to taste and stirred.

After cooking a crepe, we filled it with apples. My Big Helper wanted to try chocolate sauce on hers, so we used Hershey’s (Don’t tell Isabelle – she makes the real stuff!)

She loved them!

My Little Man was less sure, but he thought the apples were great.

The best part about crepes is that like a tortilla, you can fill them with anything. So, next we went with fresh fruit – and again with the chocolate.

The pineapple-chocolate combo was my personal favorite.

Today for breakfast we served these again to our guests – they liked both the fresh fruit and eggs/ham/cheese varieties.

How do you like YOUR crepes??

PS – Thanks, Isabelle, for the recipe! We’ll definitely be making these again!

France – Chicken Cordon Bleu

July 18, 2014 by Amy

Each week I try to have at least one nice dinner where we can all eat together and not be in a rush. We generally are all home and eat at the same time, but often someone’s hurrying off somewhere or bathtime is approaching.

I decided this week to make our French dinner our fancy one, and we served chicken cordon bleu.

This isn’t difficult, and it tastes great – but it calls for ingredients we don’t always keep on hand, and it makes a mess getting it ready for the oven – but after that, it’s easy as pie. Well, easier, maybe.

Here’s my easier American version:

– Slice open boneless, skinless chicken breasts.

– Lay a thin slice of ham inside and top that with a slice of Swiss cheese. Fold the chicken closed and secure it with toothpicks.

– Give the chicken a bath in melted butter and then dredge it in seasoned bread crumbs.

– Lay on a greased baking sheet (I lined mine with foil for easier clean-up) and bake at 350F for about an hour.

Next, we made a simple bechamel sauce to go with it.

– Melt two tablespoons of butter. Stir in two tablespoons of flour.

– Slowly pour in milk – maybe a cup? – and stir slowly over medium-low heat until sauce is thickened.

– Add shredded cheese of your choice to taste. Swiss would be yummy! but we were out, so we used cheddar.

– Pour over your cooked chicken.

Our finished plates looked like this:

Voila! Chicken cordon bleu!

We all liked this dish. I used to stuff chicken with cheese and broccoli often but quit doing that when the kids came along since it’s a bit more labor intensive. This was so popular, though, that I may have to start doing it again!

Do you stuff your chicken? With what??

France – Bread, Cheese, & Wine

July 18, 2014 by Amy

When French food comes to mind, bread, cheese, and wine are always in the mix somewhere! We decided that we definitely had to try out some of these basics.

Since our week’s schedule went from calm to crazy quite unexpectedly, we decided that this would be the perfect time to have a French snack. (We did do things other than eat this week while studying France – stay tuned for more!)

We started with my bread machine. (The heat index has been over 110 F for several days now – I’ll do about anything to avoid turning on the oven, and my machine makes great bread.) I discovered that my Breadman Ultimate includes a recipe for French bread, which I’ve never tried. We layered the ingredients in the pan as directed and got it going. You can see a similar recipe here.

We purchased a wedge of Brie from a local grocer.

We also found some grape juice – the regular Welch’s kind that I was saving for snow cones, but this will work, too – and our snack was ready.

On each plate, we assembled a piece of hot, crusty French bread, fresh from the machine, sliced tomatoes and cucumbers (because we were hungry and they were available), some Brie, and a glass of grape juice.

First we tried the cheese on a few crackers, and then the kids decided to slather it right onto their hot bread.

I don’t know how French that is, but my Little Man certainly loved it. He decided that the cheese was better than my bread and just licked it right off!

My kids rarely drink anything other than milk or water, so the juice was a real treat.

By the time I realized that I’d forgotten to take a picture of our bread, this was all that was left. I’ve waited waayyyyy too long to try French bread in my bread machine. I’ll definitely be experimenting a bit more. This was delicious!

I think our French snacks were a success!

Have you ever made French bread? If so, how did you do it?

World Tour – European Castles

July 18, 2014 by Amy 2 Comments

While studying Germany and France we looked online at webshots and saw some amazing pictures of castles.

When we began to study the United Kingdom, we decided that this was the time to really dig into the history of castles: how they were built, who built them, who lived in them, what they looked like, and what castle life was like.

We started out by reading a few good books for background information:

The Knight at Dawn by Mary Pope Osborne
The Best Book of Knights and Castles by Deborah Jane Murrell
Ms. Frizzle’s Adventures: Medieval Castle by Joanna Cole

Of course, now that we knew all about castles, we had to build our own.

We hit up a local grocery store for some boxes and completely lucked out. They let us take as many as we wanted – and they had really big paper towel cartons that hadn’t been broken down yet!

After getting them home, the kids carried them down to the back yard.

And soon the assembly began!

My Big Helper was much more interested in the construction than the little guy, and she developed a plan for how to build it. We broke out a knife, and after she drew the lines for the cuts and for the drawbridge, I started cutting.

We lined up the boxes and used heavy tape to cover the seams, inside and out.

Then they used smaller boxes that we had been saving to construct different things inside – beds, bathtubs, etc. They both got really excited about planning the interior layout!

Next, the kids decided to embellish their castle with paint. We broke out some ancient clothes we didn’t mind staining and a few old buckets of paint leftover from various household projects.

My Little Man didn’t stick with painting in one place for long …

My Big Helper got a bit more creative and used both colors to paint doors, window panes, and decorations on the drawbridge.

The whole thing never did get painted, but they had a blast – and they were so creative! We had loads of fun learning about castles – and the whole project was completely free, too.

Who knew you could have so much fun with some old cardboard??

Do your kids play with old boxes? What do they do with them?

World Tour – Chinese Calligraphy

July 18, 2014 by Amy

We’ve been studying China this week, and today we had a special calligraphy lesson. My mother-in-law, who knows calligraphy and can do all sorts of fancy writing, researched the Chinese language and the characters used in the written language.

She prepared packets for the children with the characters for ‘love,’ ‘mother,’ ‘father,’ ‘family,’ and ‘thank you. First, she showed us what a few characters looked like and how the writing works. Chinese writing is done vertically, top to bottom, left to right. This character means ‘love.’

My Little Man chose to color in this character next. He used green, one of his favorites, and a regular short marker. Since he is just learning to write his letters, this was great fine motor practice for him – and he stayed in the lines very well.

After that, he explored the way a wedge-ended marker made different kinds of lines and headed off to race his cars.

My Big Helper, on the other hand, colored in a few of her characters and then took a wedge-ended marker to try making the characters on her own. She really enjoyed this and wrote several of them over and over. She liked the way that the wedge shape changed the lines as she drew.

When her daddy came home this evening, she told him all about how her name would be pronounced in China. Hearing her takeaways from this activity was really neat – and she was so excited about her Chinese characters that she asked to hang them up.

**Our library did not have many books about the culture of China that were aimed for the ages of my children. We did talk about the photographs in a few books that they had, but our favorites for learning about China were:

Ms. Frizzle’s Adventures: Imperial China by Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen

Day of the Dragon-King (Magic Tree House #14) by Mary Pope Osbourne

We also enjoyed designing our own giant panda habitats at this site:

http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Education/ConservationCentral/design/default.cfm

World Tour – An English Tea Party

July 18, 2014 by Amy

Who can study the UK without studying tea? We read about tea traditions online, and then we chose a date and time for our tea party.

My Big Helper created an invitation for her friend, and we delivered it to her mailbox that night.

We chose to have our tea party on an early release day from school – so the Big Helper and her friend were finished at noon. My Little Man and I picked them both up, and then they played while I added the finishing touches to our table.

I covered the table with a simple tablecloth and used a cake plate to arrange our treats. We planned our menu after studying the recipes on this site. We learned that it is standard to have a few sandwiches (usually with a cream cheese base), to have a few sweets, and to have something fruity.

We made our menu be a kid-friendly version of this. We served cheese and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, with the crusts cut off and in different shapes for easy identification. We also made simple cream puffs, brownies, blueberry muffins, and crumpets. We served everything with strawberry jelly and honey. Instead of tea (to avoid the caffeine and sugar), My Little Man chose to have sugar-free strawberry juice.

When the time arrived, our trio decided to “dress” for tea. I”m not quite sure how they think the Brits appear for tea, but they were having too much fun for me to rain on their parade.

Studying England: An English Tea Party @ A Nest in the Rocks

My Big Helper took her role as hostess very seriously, and she practiced pouring for days leading up to the party with a miniature tea set.

All three children found this small set difficult to use, but they got a kick out of using it – and they loved holding onto the lid to keep it from flying off!

Tea didn’t last long – the kids were too hungry and too excited to try everything to linger. They inhaled several pots of ‘tea’ and sampled everything on the platter – which I refilled several times. We decided that English crumpets are not quite for us, and they weren’t fond of cream puffs, either, but they loved the idea of different sandwiches in shapes according to a certain identification ‘code.’

While I thought they might have eaten enough to warrant a very small supper, they were true to the tea party spirit and were ready for another meal just a bit later.

I’m definitely seeing more tea parties in our future – and we’ll be checking out the UK section of Epcot to see what tasty treats they might feature!

Do your kids have tea parties? How do their parties work?

Field Work Fridays: Krygzstan

July 18, 2014 by Amy

Have you ever heard of Krgzstan? I hadn’t – until a local pastor’s wife offered to share with our group about a mission trip that she took there.

She began by showing our children just how far away this country is located. It must have taken forever to get there!

She brought along her photo album, and with the kids all seated on the floor around her, she shared about her experiences there. Some of the highlights were:

At the time she took her trip, about 15 years ago, this country would not allow Christian evangelism. She spent a summer there with other college students working for an undercover Christian school under the guise of teaching English.
There were tall mountains within the borders that were always snow-capped, even in the summertime. The natives were not often financially able to visit them, but her group took a trip to a super-rustic “resort” to go skiing. I’m not sure that anything with squatty-potties qualifies as ‘resort’ material in my book, but apparently it does in Asia.
The most common foods eaten were fruits and vegetables, and everything was made from scratch at home. Boxed and other convenience foods were not available. Neither were grocery stores – most food was purchased from street vendors, and anybody could set up a table and call it a shop.
Far from an ocean, there was a large lake with a sandy beach. It was beautiful – especially with those mountains in the distance on the other side.
With no water available and hot summer weather, native kids liked playing in local city fountains. Bathing suits were not common, however – so they played in their underwear.

Our friend bought this at a local market. She’s not sure what it is but liked the variety of colors and fabrics. It’s very 3-D with lots of folded fabric sewn onto a base. The kids loved feeling it.