summer school

Summer School 2023

Time for a look back at this year’s Fairytale-themed summer school!

I came up with four crafts to go with all of the stories we read, and I’m actually pretty proud of how creative I was to come up with them. My favorite might have been “Rumpelstiltskin’s straw-into-gold ornaments.” We made traditional Scandinavian straw stars, and then spray-painted them gold…they’re really pretty, and we have the materials and tools to make more at Christmas!

If that wasn’t my favorite craft, our Lego enchanted rose was. The idea was mine, and I bought all the necessary parts, but the execution was evasive to me…Ladybug, however, sat down with all of the materials and figured out how to make a beautiful centerpiece in no time!

I bought some gingerbread houses last Christmas and put them away for this summer…that’s always a fun craft, and it never turns out the same way twice!

And we also put together a fairy garden…we couldn’t believe how quickly the sprouts started coming up, and we’re looking forward to continuing to care for it!

We didn’t do as much cooking and baking as I had hoped (mainly because we were so busy making recipes from Lilo and Stitch: The Official Cookbook), but we did have a few fairytale dinners:

  • Fennel and Red Cabbage Slaw (The Brothers Grimm Cookbook)
  • Rapunzel…Angel-hair Pasta (The Brothers Grimm Cookbook)
  • Apple Punch (The Brothers Grimm Cookbook)
  • Mini Marbled Kugelhopfs (Fairytale Baking)
  • Golden Mountain Paella (The Brothers Grimm Cookbook)
  • Chocolate Ring (Fairytale Baking)

The only thing truly missing from this year’s summer school was a field trip…try as I might, I just couldn’t make that kind of connection. But it was a pretty fun, relaxed way to learn this summer, and that was really nice!

What We’re Reading–Fairy Tales

The theme for this year’s summer school is “Fairy Tales,” which I think follows last year’s Disney theme nicely. Our reading list is a little shorter than normal, but we’re going to be doing lots of cooking and crafts, too (right now, I’m planning on a fairy garden, a gingerbread house, “straw to gold” ornaments, and an enchanted rose centerpiece)! Here’s a look a the books I’ve assembled:

  • An Illustrated Treasury of Grimm’s Fairy Tales
  • The Blue Fairy Book
  • Who Were the Brothers Grimm?
  • The Irresistible Fairy Tale
  • The Fairy Tellers
  • The Brothers Grimm Cookbook
  • Fairytale Baking

I don’t know if I can come up with any field trips that fit the theme, but even if I don’t, it should be fun!

Summer School 2022

What can I say about this year’s summer school? One thing is for certain…I know I’ll never top it!

Yes, we had a reading list, and there were some amazing choices on there (Ladybug in particular really enjoyed many of the titles), but this summer was all about travel and experiences, including visits to Walt Disney World’s EPCOT, Hollywood Studios, Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom. It was like four days of field trips on steroids, where we went on rides, built things, and even learned things! (And let’s not forgot the three days of field trip equivalents in Washington D.C., where we visited monuments and memorials and museums, toured the US Capitol, and walked the grounds of George Washington’s Mount Vernon! Plus the day at Kennedy Space Center after our Disney fun concluded!)

Back at home, we kept the Disney magic going with art projects:

And games:

And lots and lots of cooking! We had 12 “Disney Dinners” at home over the summer (plus the one we indulged in at The Hollywood Brown Derby), which let us sample copycat recipes from the theme parks and the Disney World resorts:

Ladybug and Bunny especially enjoyed baking and decorating some Mickey Mouse cookies:

It wouldn’t be summer school without a Lego build, and we found the perfect set to reflect our summer fun!

And we squeezed in a few craft projects, including an amazing pumpkin coach, a cupcake liner lei modeled by Stitch, and a string art Mickey Mouse head that left glitter everywhere!

We also watched a ton of Disney documentaries (thank you Disney+) and classic Disney movies, some we had seen before, and some that were new to us. I especially loved the mid-century documentaries from when the theme parks were just getting their start, but the more modern ones, that focused on attractions we saw at Disney World (and their California counterparts) were fascinating, especially after we had the experience of seeing them first-hand.

Like I said, there won’t ever be a summer school like this again, where we were able to blend fun and learning and so many experiences together, but I’m really glad we got to do it once in our lifetime!

What We’re Reading–All About Disney!

This year’s summer school is going to be exceptionally fun, because we’re learning all about Disney! Walt Disney, Disney World, Disney animation/animators (including my favorite, Mary Blair), and Disney movies/characters. We’ll be reading books, watching movies, building an iconic Lego set, cooking, coloring, playing games, and doing crafts. Oh, and taking the biggest field trip of them all…a trip to Disney World! Here’s a look at our (mostly) book list, with a few fun extras thrown in:

  • Birnbaum’s Walt Disney World
  • A Portrait of Walt Disney World
  • The Disney Book
  • Disney World at 50
  • One Day at Disney
  • Holiday Magic at the Disney Parks
  • Yesterday’s Tomorrow
  • Ink and Paint: The Women of Walt Disney’s Animation
  • Pencils, Pens & Brushes
  • Pocket Full of Colors
  • The Art and Flair of Mary Blair
  • It’s a Small World
  • Walt Disney: An American Original
  • Who Was Walt Disney?
  • Where is Walt Disney World?
  • Disney Ideas Book
  • Art of Coloring: Walt Disney World
  • Delicious Disney
  • Entertaining with Disney
  • Mickey Mouse Cookie Cutters
  • Codenames: Disney Family Edition
  • A Visit to Walt Disney World board game
  • Lego Mini Disney Castle

We’ve had a lot of fun summer school themes in the past, but I’m pretty sure this will go down as the most fun summer school ever!

Summer School 2021

It seemed like the postponed Tokyo 2020 Olympics would never get here, and now they’ve already come and gone. Here’s a look back at our Japan-themed summer school.

We visited Origami in the Garden at the Missouri Botanical several times over the summer. The large-scale art installation was the perfect field trip to coincide with Tokyo 2020 (and was also postponed from last summer).

We also visited the Olympic Spectacular in St. Louis at Francis Field, home of the 1904 Summer Games:

I made a few fun treats for the Olympics…Olympics torches (white chocolate covered pretzels) and Team USA CHEERios treats.

We did a lot of cooking and tried a lot of Japanese foods. I worked really hard to find things we hadn’t had before, and used a variety of cooking methods and unfamiliar ingredients. We tried:

  • Spicy Ramen/Udon
  • Pork Gyoza
  • Coffee Jelly
  • Okonomiyaki
  • Matcha Mochi Cake
  • Vegetable Tempura
  • Potato Korokke
  • Fluffy Japanese Cheesecake
  • Kani Cream Korokke
  • Chicken Katsu Sandwich
  • Matcha Green Tea Cookies
  • Oyakodon

We were supposed to go out to a Japanese restaurant this summer, but COVID-19, so we got a party platter of sushi instead:

I’ve been holding on to the Lego Architecture Tokyo skyline since last year, and we finally got to build it!

Our American Girl dolls got into the Olympic spirit:

In between watching as much of the Olympics as we could, we also did some more traditional school work. We learned about Japanese history and culture, as well as the history of the Olympics. We read a lot of books…some I read out loud, and some were book basket choices. We also watched a selection of Olympic documentaries:

  • First—London 2012
  • The Everlasting Flame—Beijing 2008
  • Atlanta’s Olympic Glory—Atlanta 1996
  • 16 Days of Glory—Los Angeles 1984
  • Athens 2004: Stories of Olympic Glory
  • Seoul 1988

And we also did several crafts, including origami, paper lanterns, Koinobori (Japanese carp windsocks), pipe cleaner and tissue paper cherry blossom branches, and medals (of course!):

I’ve been holding on to Ticket to Ride: Japan since last year, and we finally had a chance to play! I really enjoyed the new game mechanics introduced in this edition, and it was fun to get to know the geography of the area a little bit better.

We updated our medal chart every evening…here’s a look at the final results…we were very excited that the US won the gold medal race and had the most medals overall!

And, better late than never, our Family Olympics, which was delayed due to heat. We only had four events this year (frisbee throw, broad jump, soccer kicks, and a running race), thanks to time constraints and a lack of basketball hoops on the backboards we normally use. Technically, Turkey came in first, but since we participate as a family, we all won gold!

This summer school was a long time coming. I think we all still have mixed feelings about the fact that the Olympics were held at this time, but we had to just accept that that was out of our control, and embrace the Olympics as we usually do. It’s always hard to say goodbye when they extinguish the flame, but the Winter Olympics are less than six months away, and we only have to wait three more years for Paris 2024!

What We’re Reading–Tokyo 2020(1)

Ok, let’s try this again!

Last summer, we were supposed to have our quadrennial summer school focusing on the Olympics. Of course, thanks to COVID-19, the Olympics were postponed, and despite my good intentions of having a cooking-themed summer school instead, we really didn’t do a whole lot of anything, which fit in nicely with the year in general. That brings us to the summer of 2021, and the rescheduled Olympics (about which I still have doubts in every way), and come heck or high water, we’re going to learn about Japan, Tokyo, and the Summer Games!

Here’s a look at our reading list. There are old Olympic favorites and a new addition or two:

And a whole section of books about Japan in general and Tokyo in specific (plus a brief look at Japanese Americans). Some are familiar titles from past units on Asia, and some are also new:

And a section of other items, just for fun. This includes a Lego set (of course!), a game, some hands-on activities, and some TV shows and movies:

Whatever happens with the 2020(1) Olympics, and regardless of my feelings about them, I’m looking forward to a more normal summer school!

What We’re Cooking–Summer School 2020

Like pretty much everything else this year, Summer School 2020 isn’t what it was supposed to be. This was supposed to be an Olympic year, and we were really excited about Tokyo 2020, and all of the fun things we were going to do that involved learning about Japan and Japanese culture. But you have to roll with the punches, so I came up with a new theme to tide us over until next summer, when we’ll hopefully have our Olympics-themed unit. Instead, this year, we’re going to do something very hands-on and practical, and learn how to cook!

Instead of our usual reading selections, I’ve come up with a list of cookbooks that we’ll be using this summer. Most are old favorites of mine (and not listed is the giant binder of family recipes I put together myself), but the first one is a recently-published book that I bought for this summer. I thought that having a kids’ cookbook would be a helpful jumping-off point for me, as far as figuring out where we should start, and what cooking basics I should cover first.

  • The Big, Fun Kids Cookbook
  • Food Network Magazine
  • Eat Your Way Around the World
  • Entertaining with Disney
  • The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook
  • Eat Like a Gilmore
  • A Literary Tea Party
  • Mastering the Art of French Cooking

Do you have a favorite cookbook?

St. Louis Greek Festival

After a fun European-themed summer school, I was really excited to take the children to the St. Louis Greek Festival at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church in the city today, especially since it’s been eight years since last we attended!

According to Turkey, the Japanese Festival that we went to yesterday (details to come!) was Japanese culture with a little bit of food, while today’s event was Greek food with a little bit of culture, and honestly, he wasn’t wrong. There was food everywhere, plus Greek music and dancing:

When you think Greek food, there are certain things that come to mind…gyros, shish-kebob, spanakopita, and baklava, for example. But they take it to the next level at the Greek Festival, with the standard Greek fare, plus specialty items such as saganaki topped with gyros (so unbelievably delicious!) and baklava sundaes!

Other than the food, the highlight of the day was the church tour. St. Nicholas is a beautiful church, and different from what we’re used to seeing on a daily basis. We also learned a bit about Orthodox history and theology, which was very interesting!

I really don’t know why it’s been so long since we went to the St. Louis Greek Festival, but I’m pretty sure we should make this an annual event, because it was a lot of fun!

Tasty Tuesday–Cooking Our Way Through Europe

I promised a closer look at the foods we tried making at home for our Rick Steves’ Europe themed summer school. This was probably the most specialized cooking we’ve ever done for a school unit, and not only did we get to try a lot of new things (plus a few old favorites), we also learned some new cooking techniques and got to use some new kitchen tools!

Our first European meal featured French dishes. We started with a cheese course, the star of which was a famous French cheese, camembert:

We enjoyed boeuf bourguignon and French bread for dinner, and Crème Brûlée for dessert. The main course was delicious, but took a lot of time and effort to make. The dessert, which I assumed would be a challenge, was super easy, and possibly the most delicious thing I made this summer!

For our (European) Christmas in July, we tried two recipes from the Rick Steves’ European Christmas book: Gimmelwald fondue and Norwegian Julekake. Both were excellent, and not too much trouble to make.

I looked forward to making a Spanish dinner of paella all summer, and it was delicious, and quite spicy! The dessert of flan was good, but a total pain to make.

Ladybug begged me to make chicken paprikash for Hungarian night, and it was also delicious. I really liked that instead of using sour cream like I expected, the recipe called for heavy cream plus white wine vinegar. For a side dish, I made nokedli (pretty much just our standard spaetzle). For dessert, I made a chocolate cake called Rigó Jancsi, and it was amazing…the star of the recipe was the chocolate mousse filling.

Our British dinner was a simple (but tasty!) one of bangers and mash, plus a lemon-berry trifle for dessert.

For our “Taste of Italy” I made mushroom risotto for dinner, and Panna Cotta with fresh berries for dessert. The Panna Cotta was sweetened (and flavored) with honey, which was a pleasant surprise.

We almost didn’t have a German meal, but while watching our very last episode of Rick Steves’ Europe for the summer, we saw him eating Black Forest cherry torte, and the children reminded me how much they like it when I make that dessert, so I decided to go full German and make rouladen, spaetzle, and sauerkraut, too.

Our final meal took us away from Europe and into the Middle East, because there are a few episodes of Rick Steves’ Europe that also step into that region. We tried Shakshouka (made with a new-to-us ingredient, harissa paste), plus pita bread and pomegranate juice, and it was also delicious!

The vast majority of these recipes were new to us, and there was nothing that was a total flop (although the flan was temperamental, it came close!). Some things were more work than I would do on a regular basis (the boeuf bourguignon and the rouladen), but some were easier than I was expecting (the Crème Brûlée and Shakshouka). I know for sure that we’ll be making many of these recipes again in the future!