United States--Kentucky

Some interesting facts about Kentucky:

• Home of the largest cave system in the world--300 miles of passages
• Fort Knox is located there
• The Kentucky Derby is the oldest continually-held horse race in the country

For our activity we held our very own Kentucky Derby.  We watched a race video first and looked at some pictures of the traditions.  Then we attempted to make the rose garland for the winner of the race.  I searched for an easy way to make paper roses, and found a few ideas, but we weren't very successful. 

Then we came up with names for our horses.  We came up with a list of nouns and a list of adjectives, cut them apart and put them in 2 piles.  Each of us drew a noun and an adjective.  Put the 2 together and you have a silly horse name.  The 3 older kids didn't like their creations so they came up with their own.  The one in parenthesis is their own creation. 

Braedi--Chunky Ball (Chunky Monkey)

Corbin--Humongous Mom (Spitting Cobra)

Dyllan--Fast Peanut Butter (Fast Cheetah)

Ephram--Little Store

Faythe--Brown Cup

Me--Bald Fly

And of course we had a race.  Dyllan and Corbin have stick horses that they used/shared for the race.  Anyone who didn't have a horse just had to gallop.  Our course was around the kitchen and back to the living room.

A silly tradition of the Kentucky Derby is that people come dressed in silly hats.  Dyllan and Faythe made a silly hat.  They didn't stay on well, and I barely got a picture of Dyllan's.

Another tradition is the drink--mint julep.  It's an alcoholic beverage, but we made a kid version--mint ice cream with 7Up.  The kids loved it.  It was a fun day at the races.