Month: November 2011

Quote of the Day

Benjamin Franklin, on the National Bird, in a letter to his daughter:

For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the Representative of our Country. He is a Bird of bad moral character. He does not get his Living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead Tree near the River, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the Labour of the Fishing Hawk; and when that diligent Bird has at length taken a Fish, and is bearing it to his Nest for the Support of his Mate and young Ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him and takes it from him.

With all this Injustice, he is never in good Case but like those among Men who live by Sharping & Robbing he is generally poor and often very lousy. Besides he is a rank Coward: The little King Bird not bigger than a Sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the District. He is therefore by no means a proper Emblem for the brave and honest Cincinnati of America who have driven all the King birds from our Country…

I am on this account not displeased that the Figure is not known as a Bald Eagle, but looks more like a Turkey. For in Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America… He is besides, though a little vain & silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red Coat on.

Thanksgiving Crafts

I thought it would be fun to share some of the Thanksgiving crafts we’ve made over the last few years:

Glitter Turkey Stick Puppets

Turkey Coaster

Turkey Hats

Pilgrim Hat Cookies–Fun to make, and delicious!

Oreo Cookie Turkey

Indian Vests

Indian Headdresses

Indian Corn

Silhouettes–Not only a Thanksgiving craft, but fit in well with the time period.

Paper Plate Pilgrim Boy

Paper Plate Pilgrim Girl

Paper Plate Mayflower with Stick Puppet Pilgrims

Hand and Footprint Turkeys–A yearly tradition!

Woven Construction Paper Placements

We’ve done a variety of thankful decorations, as well. We may have to start over next year, because I’m out of ideas!

Thankful Wreath

Thankful Tree

Thankful Trees with Handprint Leaves

Thankful Turkey

Thankful Cornucopia

Tasty Tuesday Part Two–The Thanksgiving Menu

For anyone who is interested, here’s what we’ll be having for dinner on Thanksgiving Day:

Yes, that’s a lot of desserts. But we have a tradition of having pie for breakfast the day after Thanksgiving, so I have to make sure there are plenty of leftovers!

Tasty Tuesday–Cranberry Sauce

A few years ago, I decided to make homemade cranberry sauce, just to say I’d done it once in my life. What I didn’t anticipate, however, was just how popular it would be. Even I, who loved the canned cranberry sauce, if only for the noise it makes when it slides out of the can, had to admit it was amazing. And so, I’ll never go back–we are homemade cranberry sauce converts! I usually double, (or even triple!), the recipe, just to make sure that everyone gets all the leftovers they desire the next day. Plus, it has the added bonus of being very fun to make–how many other recipes involved the main ingredient “exploding” during the cooking process?

  • 4 cups fresh cranberries
  • 1 1/2 cups water
  • 5 whole cloves
  • 5 whole allspice berries
  • 3 cinnamon sticks
  • 2 cups white sugar

Place fresh cranberries and water in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Wrap cloves, allspice berries and cinnamon sticks in a spice bag. Place in the water with cranberries.
Cook until cranberries begin to burst, about 10 minutes. Stir in sugar and reduce heat to low. Continue cooking 5 minutes, or until sugar has dissolved. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Discard spice bag. Chill in the refrigerator 8 hours, or overnight, before serving.

Quote of the Day

“You can’t have Thanksgiving without turkey. That’s like Fourth of July without apple pie, or Friday with no two pizzas.” Matt LeBlanc as Joey Tribbiani on Friends (“The One With the Rumor”)

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Yes, I’m one of “those people,” and I’m not even sorry!

When other people are dealing with putting up decorations after the rush and busyness of Thanksgiving Day, I’ll be relaxing in front of my already decorated trees!

“But You’re So Hard to Buy a Gift For!”

I’ve come to the conclusion that this is a completely crappy thing to say to someone.

First is the obvious–it puts the responsibility for bad gift-giving on the recipient, not the giver. It can’t possibly be that the giver isn’t creative enough, or didn’t put enough time or thought into gift giving…no, it must be because there’s something fundamentally wrong with you, the receiver, that makes you the one impossible person in the world to shop for.

Aside from that, it’s insulting on several other levels. It’s worst when it comes from a close friend or family member. They may just as well say that they don’t know you, or anything about your interests, at all. I can understand gift-giving frustration from an acquaintance or co-worker…but from the people who are supposed to know you best? Talk about stomping on someone’s heart!

It’s also like telling someone that they’re boring, and must not have any interests or hobbies. Because that’s always a fall-back when shopping. If you know someone has a particular hobby, you can buy them a gift related to that. But the person that’s impossible to shop for? They must not do anything for fun, and have no hobbies in which they’re interested. No one wants the bother of shopping for a boring person.

Never mind that with gift cards available for everything under the sun, it’s theoretically much easier now to buy a gift than ever before, so even the laziest shopper, the most clueless giver, should be able to accomplish this task. Yes, I know some people gift cards impersonal. But I’ve never understood that. Knowing that someone likes to shop at a particular store or eat a certain restaurant shows that you *do* know them, and gives them a chance to indulge in something they might not otherwise buy for themselves. That’s a great gift on several levels!

Now that I’ve had the chance to ponder this, I’m going to be careful never to say it to someone, myself. It’s just not a nice thing to do on a holiday or special occasion!

Third Grade: Week Thirteen Wrap-Up

This week, we got to enjoy one of my favorite features of Adventures in My Father’s World–a week-long Thanksgiving unit.

This is something that I’ve done every year, anyway. But it was nice to have everything planned out for me for a change. Some of the books were new to us, (somehow we had never read The Thanksgiving Story, even though we have enjoyed the sister book, The Fourth of July Story), and we also used some old favorites (all of the Kate Waters books about colonial children). Some of the crafts were new, (somehow, we had managed to never make woven construction paper placemats before!), some we had done before, (hand and footprint turkeys are a yearly must around here), and some we had done before and skipped doing this time, (we didn’t feel like making paper grocery bag Indian vests again).

There were even dedicated science lessons for this week. There were estimating and measuring assignments, and I added the book From Seed to Pumpkin, particularly for Ladybug’s benefit, so we could see the life cycle of the pumpkin. There was even a fun experiment for discovering the density of a pumpkin, as well as growing your own plant using the pumpkin seeds from the previous estimating and measuring experiments.

I love that this was incorporated right into our school year. The unit is designed to be done whenever necessary in your school year, (although it is labeled as week 13, and is arranged in that spot in the teacher guide), whether you start earlier in the year, and so need to delay the Thanksgiving study, or if you start later, and need to do it even closer to the beginning. The flexibility of this program is another big must!

I wish that My Father’s World could find a way to add a similar Christmas unit to one of their programs. I’m thinking that their global curriculum, Exploring Countries and Cultures, would be the perfect opportunity to learn about Christmas around the world, (and would offer a nice counter-option to Winter Promise’s Children Around the World program, which does have such a unit). While I also create a Christmas unit every year, it would be fun to look at it with fresh eyes, and get some new ideas that I might otherwise overlook, or never think of at all!