How to Make an Apple Pie - FIAR and an Apple Orchard

I love this book!  Its just so much fun.  I'm not sure I could ever get tired of it.  Daniel had a great time with it too.  We did a few new things this time around that added to our fun!

We started our salt evaporation experiment on the first day.  We've had some trouble with this in the past and I wanted to get a good start.  Keep reading and you will see more of our results.

Each day we read the book and focused a little on the country or food that was represented.  Daniel has been wanting to do more cooking and this looked like a great book to incorporate some of that into our snack time!  For the bananas - we made smoothies.  That is a hit with everyone in our family!

Eggs were made into deviled eggs.  Not a hit with the chef, but the rest of us appreciated them.  Eliana loves them!

Our field trip this week was to an apple orchard!  We found one close to our home a couple of years ago and it was fun to go back again this year.  The season ended earlier this year due to weather.  It was fun being there with friends.

We listened to a demonstration and then sampled 3 different kinds of apples.

Eliana was excited to try this one, but found she didn't like the tart taste.

Then it was time to see how they make cider.  They use a blend of several different types of apples to get just the right flavor.  IT was delicious!!!

Several of the children and even some of the parents got into turning the crank.  It was hard work!

We saw the machine that washes the apples.

We were at the end so most of the apples had already passed through this part.

This is the end of the line.

Next we went out into the fields to pick some.  As part of the tour, each person picked 3 apples.  You could pick and buy more if you wanted to.

Daniel got some help getting to the hard to reach apples by a friendly Grandpa with our group.

Part of our group.  :-)

I just love the peaceful setting.  Isn't it lovely?

When Eliana saw someone else posing for a picture, she had to get in on the action too!

Next, we went on a hayride tour of the farm.

This one was calm relative to some of our more "adventure-filled" rides in the past.  It was nice and we enjoyed it.

We were split into 2 wagons for this trip.

After the ride, we stayed for a picnic lunch and then the children played on the swings and just ran around the property.  It was a beautiful day and a fun place to play!

We couldn't leave without trying the apple cider slushies.  Oh, were these good!!!

Two of my favorite cuties!

Part of the group at the end of our visit.

Another day, we learned about wheat, but instead used other ingredients for our crust.  We cook completely gluten free and so this is our GF pizza!

It seems to take a lot longer to cook GF pizza (the crust) than it did to make them with wheat so we don't do it nearly as often as we used to.  I need to do it more often as we all love it - and miss it.

The water is definitely evaporating - and this is after about 4 days of being outside in the sun.

We then brought it inside to get a closer look at salt.

We tried first using the hand-held microscope.

Then switched to a larger one.  (It helps to have older siblings who need a good microscope for science labs.)

These are some of the books that we read to go along with our study of apples.

And of course, our week would not be complete without making our own apple pie.  Again, gluten free.  This is a crust made from scratch with Daddy's help.

Daniel is loving to cook - and I love when my children enjoy it!

Doesn't it look yummy?!

We were all excited to taste it.

And were not disappointed!

What a delightful time with our book!  Off now to more fun adventures!

Blessings
Leslie

The Wild Horses Of Sweetbriar - FIAR

After visiting here this summer.

We of course read the book Misty of Chincoteague.  Love it when a book comes alive like this!  I love tying in field trips with what we are learning!

It was so neat to actually see the horses and then the characters and actions in the story are so much more real.  After our trip, we rowed the FIAR book, The Wild Horses of Chincoteague.  This is a delightful story with many fun lessons.

I don't seem to have captured many pictures of our studies, but we did try our hand at making gluten free blueberry muffins.  They were a hit!

Daniel is enjoying having more time in the kitchen and I'm working to incorporate more cooking together into our weeks.  If you haven't yet tried this book, I encourage you to do so.  And if you live anywhere close by - its worth a trip!

Blessings
Leslie

Ask Mr Bear - Before FIAR

Well,  I'm clearly having a hard time catching up on my posting.  Its just that we have been so very busy!  I'm going to see if I can post several now (to post a new one each day) and hopefully that will help me.

In the last couple of weeks, I've taught 2 co-ops, planned 2 local field trips and helped plan a field trip to NewYork City!!!  This was after celebrating two birthdays last month too!  Lots of fun things and hopefully I'll get caught up soon on all of this!

This was from our Before Five in a Row co-op last month.  We read the book Ask Mr Bear.  In the story, the main character Danny, meets a variety of animals while looking for a gift for his mother.  The last animal that he meets is Mr. Bear.

We had a bear mask so that the children could pretend to be a bear.

 We played a game where each child was given a card with either an animal or an object pictured on it. The object was the suggested gift that the animal told to Danny.  The children then tried to pair the gift with the animal.

 Then made a sequence of the animals and gifts found in the story.

 We looked at a variety of pictures of farm animals.

 While the younger children were doing this, Rebecca was with the group of older children.  They had all read the first chapter from The Mad Scientist Club.  They each then made something to bring and show that related to the story in some way.  It was fun seeing the creativity behind these creations!  There were models, remote control cars, lego creations and more.

 For our snack we had an "unbirthday" party.  Since Danny was looking for a birthday gift for his mom, we celebrated birthdays too!

  Its a fun reason to have a party, right?

 The younger children then went and worked on a craft.  They made cards to be sent to family or friends.  No occasion specified so that their cards could be used whenever they wanted.

 Lots of materials so that they were free to create!

 Eliana really likes to glue things.  I'm not sure why and I am sure that we don't do enough of this at home!

 The older children finished up with a variety of water science experiments.  I wasn't able to get many pictures of this group since I was with Eliana.  This last one was creating a tornado in the soda bottles.

It was a fun morning with friends and we look forward to our next week.

More tomorrow!  I promise!

Blessings

Leslie

Beyond FIAR Co-op - Cricket in Times Square 1

We are in our 3rd and final year of doing our Beyond  Co-op.  What a fun couple of years we have had and I look forward to even more fun together this year!  We are in Volume 3 this year and our first book is The Cricket in Times Square.  We covered topics in the first 3 chapters in this co-op.

We started out learning about New York City.  Each student was given a card with a picture of a prominent landmark in Manhattan.

 They were then asked to find its location and place it on the map.

They discussed the artist and the author.  They then looked at some of the pictures from the book.  Later they chose one of the favorites and drew a copy to include in their lap book.

 There was also a discussion about mammals, rodents and insects.

 The students were each given a lapbook with pieces included from Homeschool Share.  You can find it here.  They filled out a number of the books from the things that they had learned (NY, CT, Mass Transit, Rodents and more).

 After all of that hard work, it was time for a snack.  More than a snack really - a spread!

 This was our menu for the day.

It was a fun start to a delightful book!  I look forward to sharing more of it with you!

Blessings
Leslie