Fun food

If you read last week, you know we have been doing a unit study on the United Kingdom.  If you've never done a unit study I highly recommend it.  I really like unit studies by Amanda Bennett.  They have a good format and are full of interesting information on tons of fun topics. 

Our study is a geography unit study so there is a good deal of mapping involved, but when we did the first day of the study I was so pleased to see a page dedicated to interesting foods of the area.

I love to cook so food projects are more my forte than a previous project we did which you can read about here: I have to make what? 

The first food we had was Bangers and Mash. If it sounds strange don't worry, if you like sausages and mashed potatoes then this is a meal for you because that is exactly what it is.  Very easy and...it's funny to see look on peoples' faces when you tell them what you're making for supper.  The interesting tidbit we learned about this meal is that the sausages are called bangers because during wartime they had so much water in them that they would explode while being cooked.  lol. 

Bubbles and Squeak was what we found on the food page the next day.
A fun name for a fun food that uses up leftovers.  It is made with potatoes and a green veggie plus what ever else you throw in. Really it's like a potato pancake. So yummy!  We made it for lunch with eggs and bacon and the girl asked me to make it again at dinner time. Here's a recipe if you want to give it a try.  I think it will be added into our regular meal rotation even if it's only so we can say "bubbles and squeak". 

Scones were next on the list, but I was a little short on time so what did I do?  I hopped in the car and headed straight for my trusty Publix.  Because, well, Publix has an awesome deli and they carry fancy things that this southern buttermilk biscuit girl wouldn't usually eat.  With that being said, I really liked the scones!  The kids liked them too.  We got the blueberry ones, if you have a Publix and haven't tried them you should. 

Do your kids like to help you cook? Have you cooked any fun foods lately?  I love being able to incorporate what we are studying into everything, even dinner. :)

April

A Salt Dough Map

Salt Dough.  

What kind of dough? People make this on purpose?  Can't we just color a coloring page map instead?  Those were my thoughts after reading the instructions in our unit study on the United Kingdom.

The silly words "fun family project" kept screaming at me from the page though and I relented and said "ok let's make a salt dough map!"  Which caused delighted squeals to erupt from my hands on learner. (the other "not really a hands on" kid was excited too because this project was the last thing on our assignment list for the day. (-;)

You see, I'm not good at projects. Actually if I am being honest I loathe them. When my kids were in public school and had projects to do my husband would take the reigns because he is the one who excels at feather covered turkeys, volcano building and any kind of diorama you can think of. I on the other hand would rather make the snacks that are needed for such hard work. :-)

Since said husband was busy working this project fell into my lap. So what did I do, I fell to my knees covered my face and screamed "Nooooooooo" of course.

Ok not really, it was more along the lines of "if this is a big flop it better be a fun one".  I did, however, inform my artsy girl who likes to color and paint, that I was sorry in advance for the failure that might be our salt dough map. She assured me that we could it because "I like to paint and you like to cook mom!".

Uh yeah. We'll see...

So we dove right in.

I sent the kids to the garage to search for a piece of cardboard and I pulled out the flour and the salt.

Then we traced the outline on to the cardboard.

The dough was actually pretty easy to do. I followed Kris's directions over at weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers.

Then we our hands got a little sticky pressing the dough into our traced country.

We let it dry for a few days. Ok, so it was dry the next morning, but we got side tracked doing some other projects that included cooking which is much more my forte.

Anyways...we let it dry for a few days and the girl painted it.

All in all it turned out great for our first adventure into salt dough mapping.

It was messy and fun and we will be doing more of them.

Have you had to do any school stuff that is not really your thing? Remember it can be fun to try new things, plus you never know, you may enjoy that one school thing you are dreading so...go for it. Make a mess, laugh and giggle with with your little people.

April