Adventures in U.S. History Week 22

I got a bit behind in my blogging about our weekly Adventures! I'm going to catch up now because I know there are lots of other homeschool mamas out there looking for ideas and inspiration in their own homeschool adventures. I hope to stay caught up after that!

This week we learned about George Washington Carver. He was an African-American scientist who developed hundreds of uses for peanuts, soy beans, pecans, and sweet potatoes. His innovations were a great boon to southern farmers. To honor his contribution to history, we made sweet potato pie.

Miss M mashing sweet potatoes for sweet potato pie.

The recipe was included in our Teacher's Manual for Adventures in U.S. History by My Father's World. And oh, my stars! It is so good!!

Delicious sweet potato pie!

We learned about why a body needs a head and why Jesus is called the head of the church. The human body is one of Miss M's favorite subjects and she spent several hours pouring over human anatomy books. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of that part of our week! And we didn't get around to making a quilt to go with our study of covered wagons, but that's okay.

At the end of the week we took a trip to the county fair! Miss M and I had each entered some items. Last year it was so hot that we didn't go to the fair at all. It was a much more tolerable temperature this year!

This is about as good a family picture as we're able to get these days.

The first thing we did at the fair was to visit the exhibit room. I always enjoy seeing the variety of items people enter! One year I won first place for my loaf of yeast bread…of course, it was the only entry in that category! You just never know what there will be from year to year!

Each of Miss M's items received a ribbon! A blue first place ribbon for the skirt she made.

A red second place ribbon for her Get to Work Apron. She said she thought this one would win first place and was surprised that the skirt did in stead.

And a white third place ribbon for the Hello Kitty figurine she painted with her Nana.

Hubby's parents went to the fair with us and in typical grandma fashion his mom started bragging on Miss M to any stranger who happened to be standing nearby. It's always so much fun to enter items into the fair!

Afterwards we rode some carnival rides. Miss M and I made the mistake of riding the Spider Octopus. Our mismatched weights caused the car to spin out of control the entire time so that we both came off it a bit green. Hopefully that's out of her system for a while. At least until she's a teenager, right?

It was mostly a week of the same-old, same-old. We're chugging our way through the murky middle section of our school year. But we have some really fun and exciting weeks coming up! Next week we get to Missouri…the one Miss M has been waiting for!

Our adventures from previous weeks:

Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5, Week 6,

Week 7, Week 8, Week 9, Week 10, Week 11, Week 12

Week 14, Week 15, Week 16, Week 17, Week 18, Week 19,

Week 20, Week 21

The rest of our adventures:

Week 23, Week 24, Week 25,

Week 26

Fall SWAP progress

I finally have some progress to report on my Ottobre SWAP. There are actually six garments finished, but I only have pictures of four of them so far. You can see that the brown Maya blouse is lacking buttons. I didn't have anything suitable in my stash, so I'll "have" to go find some at JoAnn's. I'm thinking something to match the medium pink in the trim, but we'll see. I almost never buy buttons...I usually always make do with what I have on hand. The cream Maya blouse is made of a vintage pillowcase I picked up at Goodwill a while back ($0.50). It carries that oh-so-fresh smell that I love on my pillows and is super soft. I have a bit left that I'm going to hoard until just the right project comes up. I'm delighted with how dressy the little skirt came out! It's made of chocolate brown stretch velvet. Miss M thought it was great fun to pet it like a kitten. Modeled by the lovely Miss M...and just before naptime (what was I thi...

Cocoa Krispie Sod House: a model you can eat

Ahh! I just realized I haven't blogged our Adventures in U.S. History since Week 26!! What happened?! We've just been plugging away contentedly at our work and are nearing the end of our school year. So, while I go get myself sorted and whip up the rest of our weekly reviews for you, I thought you might like to see our latest project. A Cocoa Krispie Sod House Ingredients: 6 tablespoons butter 6 cups miniature marshmallows 9 cups cocoa krispies 3/4 cup fancy shredded coconut ("fancy" looks more like grass, but any shredded coconut will work) green food coloring extra butter or cooking spray Also needed: large sauce pan (or large microwave safe bowl) wooden spoon jelly roll pan or cookie sheet waxed paper small glass bowl fork knife clean scrap of cardboard popsicle sticks kitchen shears Directions: Melt butter in a large sauce pan over low heat. Don't let the butter brown! When melted, add in the marshmallows and s...

12-gore denim skirt

The other evening I drafted a pattern for a 12-gore skirt following the instructions found here . The next day I cut gores from worn out pairs of jeans! Now I have a gorgeous denim gored skirt. I used 1 1/2-inch wide elastic in the waist and designed it to sit on my hips rather than my true waist. I’m so short waisted that if I wore bottoms at my actual waist…well, it wouldn’t be pretty! I plan to reuse some of the original belt loops so I can wear a belt with it…let’s just say that a toddler and an elastic-waist skirt are a recipe for disaster! You can see a few places where I removed pockets before cutting my gores – adds character, don’t you think? And a skirt without a pocket is simply ill-conceived, so I reused a pocket from one of Hubby’s pairs of jeans. Now I can carry my cell phone when I run errands!

CHRISTEPHI

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