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What's Cookin'?
Swamp Rice: I made "swamp soup" the other day following a friend's recipe (split pea soup) and had 2 quarts left over. I thought that would make another meal for our family of 5. However, I needed fast veggies Sunday night for dinner since I was very tired from the weekend and had just come in from visiting my mom. So, after the chicken had baked in the oven for about 40 minutes I thought I had better put in something else to eat with it. [Yes, our oven is now fixed!!] I put about 4 cups cooked rice (cooked ahead in homemade bone broth for good nutrition) and mixed 1 quart of the split pea soup in it. Then I simply reheated it in the oven. It was good and dc ate all of it. It was so easy but I knew it had lots of hidden veggies.
Thermos Choices: Not a food, but since it involves food I guess it fits under What's Cookin'? for now. I thought I wanted a stainless steel thermos but I mainly want it to keep tea warm (as I transition from coffee to tea to herbals...)(so I type as I sip a cup of coffee!). Well, tea is acidic and can leech out baddies. Using a glass-lined thermos is recommended several places in articles at the Weston Price Foundation. I thought, "Where on Earth am I going to find a glass-lined thermos?" Lo and behold they have several to choose from at Amazon :). I'm still deciding but here are several glass-lined thermoses in case you are also looking for a thermos in the near future (and so I can remember to look!). Just make sure to check the product details before ordering any to make sure it is a glass thermos inside the plastic shell:
Search Amazon.com for glass-lined thermos
Tortas de Aceite
: If you ever need a treat for anything related to Seville keep these in mind. I like them because they are not too sweet but have a hint of orange (we got the orange flavor by Ines Rosales that 
are actually imported from Seville yet still affordable, about the same as a box of crackers). The dc like them because they do have a sweetness to them. I had seen them in a few stores around town so when a saint came up that had been bishop in Seville (St. Leander of Seville) I thought it was a good reason to try them :). I found this recipe that I may try later:http://spanishfood.about.com/od/dessertssweets/r/tortadeaceite.htm
What's Schoolin'?
20th Century Lesson Plans: I'm pasting part of the first section of the lesson plans file here because I want to make sure anyone using them sees my notes about one of the books I used (librarians may want to close their eyes while they read through this part!)... The link for the actual lesson plans are at the bottom.
Main Resources:
Our Century in Pictures for Young People (Life)
(note: parental guidance suggested; there are a few graphic photos of war and death so this is not a book to just leave out for the children to read independently – use your own discretion; I even covered some photos, taped 2 pages together and actually tore out one page!)[I have major issues that such graphic photos are given prominence (even full page photos at times) in a book with "for young people" as the subtitle!][Why did I use this book? I had such a time finding a spine for US 20th century history. I'm using it with older children. Even though it's not perfect it gives me more depth and structure than just the unit study from A Journey through Learning. One of the photos I taped over was regarding the civil war in El Salvador and US involvement so I taped over an event that happened where I was at the time... weird. I didn't censor every intense photo, but if I was horrified and I saw no benefit to their seeing it then I had no problem 'defacing' the book. The editor should have done that for me :).]
An Overview of the 20th Century
Unit Study (A Journey through Learning). Unfortunately I accidentally ordered the unit study, not the lapbook,
by accident. If you get the lapbook adjust plans accordingly. They follow the same topics so it should be basically the same.The 20th Century by Cindy Barden (Milliken).
This has timelines for each decade, an overview of each decade, and some overhead pages at the end. I used these timelines for ideas for cultural activities (like the hula-hoop invention and such).~~~~
Instead of doing a day by day lesson plan I've put lessons in order under each decade. This works better for us as we go along in order during our allotted History time each week. If you need to divide it into daily plans, simply count out the activities/readings, divide by your calendar days, and then assign that many activities/readings per calendar day.
This unit is mainly for older children (I am using it with 8th grade and above but it could go down to 6th or 7th depending on the child and the editing while you read aloud). Younger children can join in with the lighter, fun activities, or you can just take out the Life book Our Century in Pictures and it can then go as low as you need. The unit from A Journey through Learning says 2nd-7th and the Millken book says 4th-6th, so this unit can be flexible with ages (I think it can go lower and higher). For the older children I've added the Life book, we'll get a little deeper into some topics, we'll be using websites, and we will include literature to give it more meat.
Books (fiction/non-fiction) used with this unit will be added to the blog as we go along since I'll be checking them out before posting them. There will be as much variety as possible for the age spans, some chapter and picture books, fiction and non-fiction, classics, biographies, photo essays, etc. Stay tuned!
Throughout:
-Keep a list of library books read on the Book Log sheet or in the Reading Response Log.
-Do biography book reports as appropriate and as time permits throughout the unit for writing. Use the outline form in Journey thru Lrng as needed.
-Make a timeline using Timeline Creator Software on the computer (each child makes her own).
Here are the lesson plans:
http://tinyurl.com/49g2948
Please see notes above about this Life book:
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