Happy Father's Day!

I am blessed to have 3 fantastic fathers in my life.  My dad, my father-in-law, and my husband.  They are all great examples of what a man and a father should be.  They are encouraging and supportive and fun. 

The kids and I made desserts in a jar for our dads.  I thought the idea was really cute, but the desserts were too sweet.  The first is Rolo Brownie Trifles and the second is Strawberry Shortcake.

 

 



Summer Fun

I was a little overzealous when I planned summer fun activities for everyday.  There is no way that we are going to be able to do them all.  We have been able to do all of our Tasty Tuesdays so far, but haven't made anything on Monday and only did one Thoughtful Thursday and one Friend Friday. 

Tasty Tuesday last week was All About Dairy.  We learned about different animals we get milk and cheese from and were surprised at some of the weird ones (buffalo).  We attempted to make butter and yogurt cheese, but must have given up too quickly.  We tried two different ways to make butter--with beaters and shaking cream in a jar.  Neither worked well.  The yogurt cheese just tasted like yogurt.  We would love to find someone who makes cheese and learn how to do it.

Tasty Tuesday this week was supposed to be All About Meat, but I was out of tuna fish for the meal so we learned how to make pudding from scratch.  The taste was good, but we didn't cook it long enough to get it thick.  The kids had to drink it.  I forgot to get pictures, though. 

We missed our WOW Wednesday last week, but yesterday my sister set up a field trip to an ice cream store.  The kids helped make cookies & cream ice cream, stood in the freezer and ate an ice cream cone.  It's always fun to see what happens behind the scene.  Too bad I forgot my camera!

Tasty Tuesday--Grains

Summer is here and our school schedule changes a little to accommodate the season.  As often as possible we will do school, but we will also add fun activities.  Each day of the week has a fun activity scheduled under theme: Make-it Monday, Tasty Tuesday, Wow Wednesday, Thoughtful Thursday, and Friend Friday.  Tasty Tuesday will include our annual cooking class activities. 

I found a set of books at the library called "All About _____".  There are 5 books for each of the major food groups.  I thought I could implement a little academic learning into our cooking class.  Today we learned about grains and each kid made their own loaf of bread following a recipe in the book.  We are also going to plant some wheat grass and go to Sprouts to check out some other grains (we were only familiar with wheat, rice, corn, barley, and oats). 

We grind grains and make bread often in our house using a mixer, so kneading by had was a new experience.  The recipe was in ounces, so we learned how to use a scale to measure.  The kids loved the idea of having their own loaf all to themselves.