Week 6 in My America

This week's lesson went even better than I had hoped.  I wasn't expecting the kids to have as much prior knowledge and that made all the difference.

The song for this week was "Swing Lo Sweet Chariot".  We looked at a map with the states painted different colors based on what side they were on during the Civil War.  I briefly explained the conflict, I really did not want to get mired down in fighting and death with kids this little.  I kept it at:  There were slave states and free states and when Lincoln was elected the slave states decided to break away.  I wanted to move away from the actual war at that point, so we talked about Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad.  We read a book called "The Patchwork Path: A Quilt Map to Freedom" by Bettye Stroud and made a quilt square in the "Drinking Gourd" or "North Star" pattern.

Although I under-estimated how much time I would need for everything, most of the kids were able to complete the craft in under 10 minutes.  I gave them a template like this: 

I also gave them squares and triangles of pre-cut paper - I used mostly scrapbook paper from Joann's.  To minimize confusion I had a baggie for each kid with the right combination of shapes already selected.  I think they look fabulous!

I think the kids really liked making them!

Annalise's class studied muscles this week :)

And for September we very half-heartedly studied Kentucky.  But we know: they have caves, they have horses, and they lay claim to both Abraham Lincoln and Daniel Boone.

For our dinner we had Kentucky Hot Brown Bake.

And for dessert we had Thoroughbred Pie - minus the Kentucky Bourbon.  YUM

Extracurriculars have suffered since PEP and Awana began, but hopefully we will study Louisiana this month.

Kansas

August found us smack dab in the middle of the United State.  We studied Kansas.

We made sunflowers (Kansas' State Flower) out of paper plates.

The kids drew veins on the leaves and I lined their lines with hot glue and then they painted them.

We read a book about tornadoes and had a tornado drill.

And we ate smoked shredded pork with baked beans and cole slaw.  I made the beans and slaw.  We got the pork from a take out place.  I did a little research and it turned out one of the most highly rated smoked BBQ places around is less than a mile from our house.  It was yummy!

For dessert we had frozen custard.  The recipe I used said it made 12 servings.  I knew my ice cream freezer wouldn't hold that much, so I halved it...and that would have been perfect except when I took the lid off the chilled mix, my hand slipped and I poured half of it right in the sink.  I should be thankful I was opening it over the sink and not the oven, but I'm still pretty bummed that I wasted half of this yummy stuff.

We also read part of Little House on the Prairie.  Up next...Kentucky!

Indiana...Iowa

Ahem...Indiana, I apologize.  There are some states which have unfortunate timing in our schedule and show up at an especially busy month.  That was you.  2 VBSes, new baby frogs, a wildy addictive slip and slide.  I make excuse.  I wish we could have dug deep enough to really get to know you.

Is he gone?  ok,  there is another reason we didn't do much Indiana (but the busy factor was the biggest) - Indiana also turned out to be not all that different from Illinois.  More Lincoln, more corn.  They're even right next to each other!

We did read a book about the Indianapolis 500.  And Indiana has Hoosiers, which unfortunately has no interesting story behind it.  No one actually knows where the name came from.  But we had Hoosier Pie at the end of the month anyway.  It was very good. 

And speaking of corn...we moved on from Indiana to Iowa.  Iowa was a little more interesting.  July was a pretty calm month for us too. 

Iowa is the only state whose east and west borders are both rivers.  Probably the most interesting thing we read about in Iowa was a book about the Neal Smith Prairie Preserve. 

A friend of mine lived in Iowa for a couple of years and she assured me that people there most commonly eat meals made with condensed soup and have large amounts of jello for dessert.  I thought about it and decided to make pork with apples and onions and corn of the cob instead.

For dessert I scoured the internet, very much hoping that Iowa was well known for its double fudge brownies or its molten chocolate cake, but I only found Iowa Applesauce Cake - and it turned out we all liked it a lot :)

August finds us in Kansas and I'm already looking forward to the smoked BBQ we are going to have for dinner in a few weeks!

Illinois

May's state was Illinois. I've decided what when we hit a state that our library can't help us with much, we should focus on some side interest that relates to the state - in this case we picked Abraham Lincoln. Besides Lincoln we were able to find a couple of farm stories - which were very interesting to me because my mom is from Illinois and her father was a farmer. Probably his father was a farmer and so on. So I've been to an old Illinois farm and associate that part of it with the state more than the tall buildings in Chicago.

Other than Lincoln and the farms, we watched a youtube about the Chicago fire (very interesting, done by the Weather channel - I didn't realize that although 4 square miles were burned, only about 300 people died - and the same night there were also huge fires in both Wisconsin and Michigan. The Weather Channel video attributed the source to the traditional "Miss O'Leary's cow" story, but a commenter cryptically suggested that the three fires were caused by a comet. Perhaps the world will never know...). I also taught the kids the little song:

Chicken in the ca(r) and the ca(r) won't go! That's how you spell - CHI-CA-GO!

They liked that a lot :)



We (that is I) made Abe Lincoln hats.  Caleb complained, "Mommy, you are doing all the craft", but I didn't realize in the planning that it would require as much from the glue gun.  We watched a video about Lincoln's presidency (it was a cartoon) and Caleb was really affected by learning about the civil war and slavery.




And we made little books about Illinois - instead of the Crayola state page, I didn't think it was that great for Illinois.



Our state outline collage - see the t-rex in the center?  That's Sue, we read a fun book called The Field Mouse and a Dinosaur Named Sue. 

For our meal we had Chicago-style Deep Dish Pizza.  It was fantastic, but I've never had Chicago style pizza before, so I don't know how it compares.

For dessert we had Mary Todd Lincoln's Vanilla Almond Cake. 

Yes siree, Abe Lincoln himself ate this cake!   It was good, but kind of a grown up dessert.  The kids weren't that impressed.

The next two states are Indiana and Iowa  - and both of them border Illinois!  After that is Kansas.  So geographically we are going to be in the heart of America for the summer. 

Idaho

After a big month studying Hawaii, I think our enthusiasm just wasn't rejuvenated enough to tackle Idaho properly. It did not help that our library did not have much to offer about Idaho. Still, the nice thing about our state studies is that even a state without a lot of glitz looks like a very nice place to visit - and it was agreed all around that we would like to visit Idaho.

A few months ago, we had an old potato in the pantry and on a whim we cut it up and tossed it in the garden box.  It grew and looked very impressive from the top, but I made the kids wait until we got to Idaho to pull them up.  Wow, we should have waited a few more months!

The entire harvest in the palm of my hand.  They weren't big, but they were very tasty.

We read about skiing during our Colorado study, so I decided not to revisit it just now.  Instead we read about Lewis and Clark and Sacajawea.  We tried to read-aloud a history book for young people by Olive Burt.  It was very interesting, but also over the kids' heads.  We struggled through a chapter of it, but we still learned some interesting things.  Like, did you know that Lewis was quiet and kind of a loner, but Clark was friendly and talkative and had red hair!  Sacajawea was also very interesting.  She was married to a French Canadian and had baby named Pomp while they were on the journey.  The labor was really difficult, but someone ground up some rattlesnake rattles and mixed it with water and she drank it and it turned out ok.  She also helped them identify edible wild plants along the way.

Other than the potatoes and Sacajawea, we read a book about the Nez Perce Indians, who developed the Appaloosa breed of horses and whose Chief Joseph is famous for his quote "I will fight no more forever."  Talking about Indians and settlers and justice and freedom to your six year old is a hard thing. 

Our Idaho meal - Idaho Finger Steaks and Scalloped potatoes (and peas).  The finger steaks I found in two places listed as a particular favorite from a cafe called Milo's Torch in Boise, but I am not sure the place is still open.  Deep frying is not my preferred method of cooking and I am not good at it, so they were not pretty, but they were yuuuuuuuummy.

Dessert - Idaho Potato Cake - it had a cup of mashed potatoes in it.  Very nice moist cake.

Our friendly, talkative redhead covered in crumbs of Idaho.

Up next, Illinois...and we have already made arrangements for a native of Illinois to visit us this month.  (That is, my parents are coming to visit.  My mom was born and raised in Illinois.)

Hawaii

I know at least one of my readers has been eagerly awaiting this post :)  We had a lot of fun with Hawaii.  It actually was one of the easiest states so far to investigate.  For one - Grandma and Grandpa had just returned from Hawaii and brought us back a nice pile of brochures and a highway map (Annalise enjoyed looking for the map symbols on it) and we had the local experience of Bekah to draw on, plus I discovered that a lady at our church had lived there in the 50s - at the same time Hawaii became a state.  It also helped that things like pineapples, coconuts, and hibiscus flowers are readily available here.  Our library also came through big time with several great children's books both fiction and non-fiction that gave us a taste of Hawaii.  But you want pictures - and I've got lots of them.

Lots of people grow pineapples in their yards down here.  We had started a plant in a pot back in January and online it recommended waiting two months before putting it in the ground - perfect timing!  So far, it still is alive.  Otherwise, I'm not sure about it.

Annalise got a hula girl t-shirt - we also watched a Youtube called "How to Hula".

We ate pineapple - it was on sale :)

We made paper leis.

The Hawaii state flower is the yellow hibiscus - would you believe we have one blooming next to our front door?  This picture is in our backyard though.  The bloom was a good 8 feet in the air and I wanted to take a picture of it with my little flower.

A venn diagram we made comparing Hawaii and Florida.

We got this awesome hat at a garage sale for 50 cents :)  Caleb thought holding Sharky would be appropriate.  One of the books we read was called Punia and the King of Sharks.

A friend shared some coconuts with us.  They were a little under-ripe, but they still had plenty of water.

State outline collage - using those great brochures I mentioned.

Our Luau - Ono Ribs, Aloha Sweet Potatoes, and Pineapple Rice - with fresh pineapple.  Everything was great, but the ribs were fantastic.  We decided not to have poi because based on the things I heard about it, I was pretty sure it would not be fantastic.

For dessert we had Haupia - so easy, a 4 year old can make it....well almost.  It's a coconut pudding.  The recipe was a little vague about how thick it should get and how long it would take to get that thick - and it didn't even hint at how much longer it would take if you accidentally turned the wrong burner on low and stirred the stuff for 15 minutes wondering when things would start changing.  Anyway, once I turned on the right burner and consulted over variations which suggested turning up the heat, it came right together.

The finished product - I think it looks pretty much like the pictures I saw online.  It was good too.

We also found a name translator on line.  Rob's was the best - I guess there's no R in Hawaiian - his name is Lopaka (Robert) or Lopu (Rob).  The kids got a kick out of saying, "Aloha Lopaka!"  I was Lea, the kids were Kalepa, Analike, and Nakeli.

So we've already taken down the Hawaii map and put up our highway map of Idaho - and we picked some of our potatoes in the backyard.  They were pretty small.  It is hard to shift gears, but I think Idaho looks pretty interesting - Lewis and Clark and Sacajawea and mountains.  At any rate, it doesn't look at all like Florida!

Someone gave me a very nice supplemental curriculum called the Prairie Primer.  It is a book of lessons that can be drawn out of reading the Little House books.  For example, reading in On the Banks of Plum Creek Laura gets into a muddy creek and finds leeches, so that leads you in a scientific direction if you'd like to learn more about leeches.  It struck me that our state study is the same sort of supplemental curriculum.  We just start with a state and learn a lot more than just geography.  If I had time I could really research each state for more than my kids' age levels and make my own book!  I bet I could sell a few copies.  For now though, it's a project that will have to wait.

Georgia

February's state study was about Georgia. This is our border art for Georgia. It's a shame we had to study Georgia in February. All the peaches I could find were from Chile. Evidently, the peach season in Georgia is actually very short.






One of the best parts of studying Georgia was discovering Faye Gibbons.  She has written several novels and picture books.  I found her doing a search of Georgia on our library database.  The book I found first was Mama and Me and the Model T - the Mountain Wedding book is about the same family and comes first.  We also read Night in the Barn. 

This book is really fun - it's full of noises and funny words. 

We also read a book called Swampland, which was about the Okefenokee Swamp.  We read a book called My Brother Martin written by Christine King Farris, who is the sister of Martin Luther King Jr. (who grew up in Georgia).   And a book called Peanuts...about peanuts!  Because Georgia is the leading producer of peanuts in the United States.

Did you know Coca Cola was invented in Georgia?   C&A drank it "in honor of Georgia" - to this day, Annalise will tell me, "I want some milk...in honor of Delaware."



For our meal we had Chicken with Georgia Sauce, Mustard Greens, and Georgia Cracker Salad.  The greens recipe and the salad were both Paula Deen recipes (and she's from Savannah.)  The Georgia sauce was a recipe and it made a nice tangy BBQ sauce.  I kind of overcooked the chicken though, so Caleb, who didn't like the greens at all, really felt like he does not like Georgia food at all!



Dessert was Georgia Cookie Candy - also a Paula Deen recipe - peanut butter and chocolate - yum! 

Up next - Hawaii!