Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Making Butter

I asked Hannah about her kindergarten screening the other day, and she could not remember most of the questions.

"Oh, I know!" she exclaimed. "She asked me what french fries are made out of, but I didn't know, but then she told me it's potatoes!"

"Hmmmm," I thought, "perhaps my kids need to know a little more about where their food comes from... other than the grocery store!"

Josh is out on Wednesday nights, so I often look for activities to reign in some of the wildness that bubbles out of the kids in the evenings. As they began to bounce around the living room, I announced, "I'm making butter! Who wants to help?" Instantly, three kids hopped up and down at my side, yelling, "Me! Me! Me!"

I grabbed a glass jar and poured about a cup of heavy whipping cream into it. Then, sealing it tightly, I handed it to Hannah. "Here, shake this!" As she gently wiggled it back and forth, I laughed, "No, like this," and I grasped her hands and the jar together and shook as hard as I could. Giggling loudly, she began jumping and shaking all over the living room.

After a minute or two, she handed the jar to Ben, and he took a turn.

Then, Becca shook the jar for a while.

As the cream became stiffer, the kids passed the jar to each other more frequently. Soon, I opened the jar and showed the kids how the cream had become whipped cream.

Of course, everyone needed a taste!

Eventually, I did most of the work, as the whipped cream was much harder to shake. The kids and I sat on opposite sides of the room and rolled the jar back and forth. The cream became thicker and thicker, until suddenly it separated into a solid clump of butter surrounded by buttermilk.

I removed the butter from the liquid and pressed the remaining liquid out into the sink, shaping the butter into a pretty pale yellow lump.

With the kids circling my legs, I grabbed a couple slices of bread and spread the fresh butter on each slice.

The kids loved the taste of the creamy, slightly sweet-tasting butter on the bread.

I explained to the kids that the cream had fat in it, like tiny floating balls of play dough. As they shook the cream, the little balls of fat stuck together, like balls of play dough would, until eventually they formed one big ball.

Hannah finished the evening by writing a beautiful journal entry about making butter. In case you can't read it, it says (with the spelling corrected), "We once made butter. We took a can and poured some milk in the can. We shook it. It turned into whipped cream and then butter. We had toast."

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

How Stuff Works: Heaters 101

I discovered another benefit of having a husband who loves to fix things and take everything apart. The kids learn some interesting lessons about how appliances and household items work.

On Monday, after Josh fixed the heater (it was an igniter, not an ignition coil, I think), he brought all of the kids downstairs into the basement, removed the cover from the side of the heater, and asked me to turn up the heat. Then, keeping them at a safe distance, he explained to them exactly how the furnace worked as they watched.

This morning, the kids were running around and playing a game.

Hannah: "Oh, the igniter is broken! Quick! We have have to fix it!"
Ben: " OK, now turn the heat on. See - the igniter is glowing orange. Sssssssss... here comes the gas! Whoosh! Now the pipes are blowing blue fire. Yay! It's fixed!"

Josh and I just laughed.

Monday, March 16, 2009

An Impromptu Safety Lesson

This winter, a house about a mile from us exploded because of a gas leak in the house. The house was completely flattened, but fortunately, no one was hurt. A few days after the incident, I drove by the house with the kids in the car, and I pointed it out to them. The mess was shocking! The roof literally sat in the back yard surrounded by nothing but rubble. The kids asked questions about gas leaks for days, and I reassured them that our house was unlikely to explode, but also explained the importance of leaving the house immediately if someone smelled gas.

On the way home from preschool today, out of the blue, Ben asked, "Can we drive by that house that blew up again?" I told him that they had already cleaned up the house and it was just an empty lawn now. He asked me again what had happened, and I told them all about the gas leak and how important it is to get out of the house immediately if you smell gas.

When we got home, I winced at the strong odor of gas that met my nose as soon as I opened the door. I quickly told the kids to get out of the house, and I peeked inside one more time to see if I was imagining the odor after our conversation in the car. No, I could definitely smell it! So, I
shut the back door and brought the kids to the far side of our back lawn, which also happens to be our emergency meeting place in case of a fire. Grabbing the kids' extra jackets from the car, I spread them on the ground so they could sit while we waited.

Pulling out my cell phone, I called Josh and then the gas company. Josh got here first, and the kids started screaming at him to get away from the house. Because Hannah had to leave for preschool in less than 30 minutes, he watched the kids while I walked to the gas station to get lunch for everyone. Grateful for the warmer weather, Josh and the kids enjoyed their picnic lunch in the lawn while we waited for the gas company.

"What happens if there is gas in the house?" Hannah asked anxiously.

Ben cheerfully replied, "Then the house would BLOW UP and the wood and bricks would go ALL over!"

Hannah burst into tears. "I don't want my Magic Tree House books to burn up!" she wailed.

A man from the gas company arrived shortly, and his meter didn't detect any sort of gas leak. However, when he checked our furnace, the ignition coil never came on. He acknowledged that I may have smelled the puff of gas put off by the furnace while it was trying unsuccessfully to turn on. Before he left, he let a tiny bit of gas out of a valve so we could know definitively what it smells like, and the odor was unmistakable.

So, we are thankful that we did not have a gas leak, and we are all safe. The heater only needs a small $35 part that Josh can install himself, so the repair will not cost us too much, and the weather has been beautiful so we are not missing the heat while it is off until Josh can fix it later tonight. Additionally,the kids got a little lesson in what to do in case of an emergency, and Hannah was particularly excited because she would have a fun story to tell her class this afternoon...

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Aggression Cookies

"Is there anything for dessert?" Josh asked me over the raucous noises emanating from our living room.

"I don't think so," I replied, glancing into the room to make sure that the kids were screaming in play, and not in pain. Josh shrugged. "You could make cookies," he said.

"Mmmmm... cookies," I thought, "and I have the perfect recipe for a night like tonight."

I dug through my recipe box and pulled out the card labeled "Aggression Cookies" (recipe at end of post). I cut up the butter into a large bowl and measured the dry ingredients into three separate containers. Then, I grabbed a glass and some butter, and spooned a small amount of sugar into a flat dish. Glancing out the window, I noticed the evening sunshine and remembered how warm the temperature felt earlier in the day. "Perfect," I thought, placing everything on top of a cookie sheet and grabbing my camera, "We'll do this outside."
"C'mon, guys," I called to the kids as I made my way to the front door. "Ben, get the door for me. Everyone out on the porch!" The kids' eyes lit up at the thought of doing something outdoors, and they scrambled out the door.

I placed the bowl on the porch and let each kid dump a container with dry ingredients into the bowl. Then, I pushed their sleeves up and told them to squish all of the ingredients together with their hands. Hesitantly at first, and then with delightful abandon, they squished and mashed until the dough began to stick together quite a bit.
Next, I formed the dough into tiny balls and arranged them on the cookie sheet. I only got about a dozen cookies from this recipe.
Taking the glass, I rubbed a small amount of butter on the bottom, dipped it in the sugar, and used it to flatten the cookies on the pan.
While I worked, the kids began to clean themselves up a bit, and by "clean", I do not mean that they diligently washed the sticky cookie dough off of their little hands and faces. No, they cleaned themselves in quite the same way that good little kittens would have cleaned themselves... with their tongues! Needless to say, this was only mildly effective, and I sent Hannah inside to get the box of baby wipes for at least a slightly more sanitary clean-up job.

Once we had contained the mess a bit, I carried the cookies inside to bake. "I want cookie!" Becca yelled. "How long until they are finished?" Hannah chimed in. When I replied that they needed to cook for ten minutes, Ben wailed, "Ten minutes!!! That's a really long time!"
After ten minutes, the timer beeped and I removed the cookies to cool. An extremely long (according to Ben) two minutes later, the kids happily munched on their completed cookies. "Mission accomplished," I thought to myself, "Three happy kids, a yummy dessert, and a fun activity that filled that wild hour between dinner and bedtime."
"Aggression Cookies"

1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup oats
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup flour
1-2 tsp sugar, set aside

Preheat oven to 350. Place all ingredients in a large bowl. Mash, knead, or squeeze dough to combine ingredients. The more the kids mash the dough, the better the cookies will taste. Form into balls and place on ungreased cookie sheet. Butter bottom of glass, dip in sugar, and flatten cookies. Bake 10 minutes.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

A Sweet Adventure

A local farm hosted its annual Maple Syrup Festival this weekend. We missed last year's festival due to snow, so we made a point of attending this year. We knew the kids would love it, and we also needed to buy some more maple syrup, as the gallon we bought two years ago was beginning to run low.

We began the morning by eating pancakes with syrup, and then we headed out to the farm. A tractor drove cart-loads of people from the parking lot to the waiting area down the road. From there, several teams of draft horses pulled people in wagons back into the woods to the place where they made the maple syrup.

All along the road and on all of the paths, metal buckets hung from trees to collect the sap. Many of the buckets were full, with a thin layer of ice across the top because of the freezing nighttime temperatures.

Once we got out of the wagon, we walked through a small trail with a few stations showing the early methods of processing sugar maple sap. At the first station, people wearing period costumes and traditional Native American dress explained how Indians in the region first harvested maple sugar. They collected sap in wooden buckets and poured it into troughs carved into large logs. Then, they heated rocks in a fire and placed those rocks into the sap-filled logs. The hot rocks boiled the water and condensed the syrup, eventually leaving nothing but maple sugar. The Native Americans formed the sugar into cakes and used it on everything until their supply diminished. Unfortunately, this method left a lot of sand in the sugar, which shortened the people's lifespan by wearing down their teeth rapidly.

At the next station, women demonstrated how European settlers later used large kettles to boil down the sap and make syrup.

They needed to stir the sap frequently to prevent it from burning. Many gallons of sap are needed to make a single gallon of maple syrup.

Finally, we entered the "Sugar Shack" where they currently process their maple syrup. Steam filled the room as it evaporated constantly from a large heated vat of sap. In this more modern facility, sap comes directly through tubing that taps into the maple trees, so that people do not have to collect it from buckets every morning.

A man explained the current process of making maple syrup and gave everyone tiny samples of fresh syrup. It tasted wonderful!

After a quick picnic lunch and a stop in another small museum, we purchased some freshly made maple syrup, a piece of maple sugar candy for each of us, and a wonderful smelling maple sugar candle for our house. Once the kids settled into the warm car and the sugar rush began to wear off, they became quite drowsy and literally begged for their beds when we got home! We had a wonderful day, and the kids learned a lot. Hannah and I have already read Little House in the Big Woods together, but I think I will finish off this adventure by reading them all the two chapters from the book that describe how they made maple sugar. Overall, I would say that we had a very sweet adventure!

In Napoli, Where Love is King...

I meant to write this entry around Valentine's Day, but as you can see, I have not updated in almost two months now! But that does not mean that we have not been working...

Hannah recently read Vacation Under the Volcano, a Magic Tree House book that focused on the story of Pompeii. Something about the story captivated her, and she still plays "run away from the volcano" with Ben almost every week. The day she read it, she completed it all at once during her afternoon quiet time. When she came downstairs, she proceeded to describe in great detail the city of Pompeii, the Romans of that time period, and even Mount Vesuvius. She knew all of the correct names and even the appropriate pronunciations. I was shocked! She seemed so curious about the story that Josh and I looked up pictures from Pompeii and showed her the stone people who had been buried in ash. We talked about the sadness of the disaster, but also the blessing that many people were able to escape to other towns.

Around the same time, Ben became enthralled with the song "That's Amore." Josh printed out the words for the kids and they both memorized the entire song as they listened to it on their mp3 player again and again. One night, while I was out for the evening, the kids asked Josh what Napoli was. He explained to them that Napoli is a town in Italy, and then he looked up a map online and found that Napoli is only about 15 miles from Pompeii. He showed the kids where Italy is and pointed out the two cities on the map.

The next day, Hannah was looking at our inflatable globe and sounded out Europe on the map. Suddenly, she yelled, "Mama, look! Here's Napoli and Pompeii on the globe! I know they are in Italy, and Italy looks like a boot, so this is Italy!" I looked at the globe and she was correct. I am continually amazed at what the kids learn from impromptu lessons like the one Josh had given them the night before.

Where homeschooling is just a small part of becoming life-long learners.