South America Part 2

When we got together this time for South America, we focused on their cuisine. We had a lot of fun with this! I went out to the Latin Markets around town and picked up different flavors of Empanadas to sample as well as different fruits. These were the empanadas that we made.

Chicken Empanadas 

These were delicious! You could even freeze these for a treat later. I haven't had time to do this yet, but it's on my to do list.

 Apple Empanadas-Oh my! These were even more delicious than our savory chicken pocket. But you can't really go wrong with apples and cinnamon. Hands down, the favorite of everyone.

The different fruits we sampled. Some were new to us and some not so much. There were some funny faces after they tried jackfruit. They were all good sports though and tried every single one. Mango was a winner! 

Quinoa a product of Bolivia(it said so on the package) haha Mama Shelly made this and it was the best quinoa I have ever had. It sure hit the spot for me! Broccoli with anything is always a winner in my book!

It's such a good feeling to be able to enlighten these youngens about the different countries and cultures out there. Summer learning is the best kind of learning! I wonder what we'll do next year?!?

South America Part 1

For our summer learning session, we chose Evan Moor's South America. As an enrichment to the book, we got together with some friends and did an art project on a Toucan(native to South America). I found a video from YouTube that we followed. We watched it a few times and then they went to town with it. We also had a box of Fruit Loops, as a sample, to eat and to look at!

 Look at them concentrating so hard! I love these kids! The best students ever!

The end product! They had such a good time and I had a good time too.

Self Portrait Mosaic

We made these as part of our summer learning. Pinterest made it seem so easy...Lesson learned; don't cut the paper too small. Small pieces of paper means more gluing and the kids were losing their steam towards the end. 

Somehow, I forgot to take a pic of our family's artwork. These are all of our friend's kids. Hmm, another lesson learned!!!

S'mores Solar Oven

One of my favorite things we did over the summer, was making these solar ovens. You can get the details here . Not only was it easy to make, but de-li-cious! A shout out to Round Table Pizza on Marlow for these 

pizza boxes.

Finished product!

 We let the marshmallows sit out in a moderate 75ish degree weather for about 30 mins. If it would've been hotter, they could've been done sooner. The chocolate though was instantly melting. I don't know if it was because of the residual heat it had or it got hotter as we waited. Nonetheless, yumminess ensued!

That's a happy face!

Aw, the sweetness of childhood!

Love how Cutie's eyes are closed! It must be good, right!?!

There's even a stance for eating these so you don't mess up your clothes!

Nothing beats summer with good friends, good food, and good learning!

The Car that Went Nowhere

For part of our summer learning sess, we made rubberband cars. The kids colored and labeled their wheels and they were so excited to put it together and race. I saw a video online and thought this was going to be such a fun project. But sometimes the things you see on TV doesn't always work out in real life. No matter how much we tweaked it, it just wouldn't budge. So the kids were gracious. They ran around the house and played. Just being together was enough!!! 

                       


















They did such a good job coloring and designing. So creative these kids!

Rock Candy

During the summer, we got together with some friends and did a little learning. I saw this on Pinterest and it reminded me of my 2nd grade class. I don't think it was edible, but it was still pretty cool to watch it grow. Maybe we were just growing crystals as oppose to rock candy. Who knows, that was quite some time ago. This however is devourable! Although I have to say it uses a lot of sugar! It puts into reality of how much sugar is in our candy that we buy from the stores. Since we don't see the process, we don't think about it. It definitely made me rethink candy. 

We made a simple syrup. Rolled our chopsticks in sugar. Poured some of the syrup into our jars, mixed food coloring into it, stuck the chopstick in with a clothespin to hold it from hitting the bottom of the jar and that was it! The instructions said to let it sit in a sunny spot uninterrupted for a week, but ours were not growing big enough. We let it go to 3 weeks and it was perfect then!  

Magnus with his favorite color.

Our friend with his all mixed up.

A cutie with hers!

Cutie's sister with hers!

And of course Soph's.

Yum!

I loved this project, but my tongue did not. I made the mistake of rubbing this on my tongue and the rough edges were not kind to it. Maybe I'm not cool enough to eat this!!!