Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Antarctica ~ World Geography for High School

What's Cookin'?

~ This is oldest dd's recipe for the local fair's food contest.  I made it recently with some organic bulk cherries that we had gotten in the summer and she loved it.  I use a very simple pie crust.  Poor thing even put cherry pie on her Christmas wish list.  I guess she figures that she had better make one if she's going to get another any time soon! [Update:  Bummer - we couldn't get cherries so she chose blueberries and made a gorgeous blueberry pie but we forgot to get the foil pie plate when we were out :(.  This is the first time I really felt it living out of town.  Then she made a cranberry pumpkin bread but it didn't work well (but was delicious); then tried a pumpkin raisin bread and it collapsed (probably because of my bright idea to use the new mixer).  So... she made 3 foods and entered none.  At least her art entries won some ribbons (bragging here!) and we enjoyed a delicious pie and hearty pumpkin craisin bread.]
http://www.food.com/recipe/cherry-pie-4861

~ Middle dd wanted to do a bundt cake for the food contest.  She chose this recipe.  We have everything except the orange juice and we needed more eggs anyway.  It's wonderful to have what you need on-hand for from-scratch cooking! [Update: This cake came out just like it was suppose to :).  I tasted a crumb and it was too sweet for me, but then I'd much rather eat potato chips... Relieved to say it got a ribbon since it was her only entry aside from cockrels (another brag!)]
http://www.finecooking.com/recipes/orange-soaked_bundt_cake.aspx

~ I'm hoping youngest dd will make Laura's truffles again.  Mmmm.
http://heavenlyhomemakers.com/special-valentines-day-treats-peanut-butter-truffles-and-chocolate-caramel-truffles [Update:  no truffles, but brownies instead so how can I complain? (last brag - another ribbon.  All entries should get ribbons for the perseverance and the effort to enter so I was glad to see that all foods got some type of ribbon)]

~ Weekly plan (sort of):  I have a long list of cooking to-dos for this week, but mainly I'll be making peanut butter, soaked beans, soaked rice, soaked biscuits, soaked muffins, soaked tortillas, and soaked pita bread to be ready for meals.  Meals will be:  beans/rice with chicken sausage from Fran's Fryers; spaghetti; tacos; onion/apple sausage stir fry. That's 4 meals for a family of 5 with just 1 lb of ground chicken and 1 package of sausage. Yesterday we had bean/cheese quesadillas with "instant" refried beans from my gottatries list for lunch (beans didn't work so great but the Amish cheese made up for it!), and the spicy garlic prawns also from my gottatries list (which were excellent but peeling raw shrimp was an act of love for this germ freak, let me tell you! And then I forgot to save the peels to make stock, ugh).  Basically, it's chicken, chicken, chicken because we've gone through all of our stashed beef and set aside pastured pork (which is a rare treat anyway), and won't have any more beef for this week at least.  When I haven't had good beef for a while I start to seriously crave it so I took some soup bones out of the freezer and will make some beef broth for our rice cooking this week.

What's Schoolin'?

We're not doing Antarctica right now, but it's always a good time to add to our continent boxes.  Here are some awesome free penguin 3-part cards from jojoebi.  Thanks for sharing!  Browse through the other available 3-part cards on the next link (and printing directions).  We were planning out the rest of the school year Sunday with dc (long story for another post...) and while discussing how they like to learn Geography middle dd said that she has realized that she likes to learn Geography through books more than shelf work -gasp! - (we have Trail Guide To World Geography that she'll use) and oldest dd really likes the shelf work and she said that she particularly likes 3-part cards.  See?  Even high schoolers can still benefit from 3-part cards!  BTW, youngest (10) especially likes the world felt map :).



Regarding the olders' World Geography (needed for their high school transcripts)... As mentioned above, middle dd will use the book Trail Guide To World Geography while older dd will use the shelf work.  However, after studying the continent of her choice thoroughly, oldest dd will then skim through the book just to make sure she didn't miss anything. We will also check out library books and scour the internet to supplement the cultural aspects of the continents.  I never could get Continent Folders put together... I tried a few times but books are more our style!

Here is the book we'll be using.  I know it just looks like another teacher book, but... isn't "following the child" actually listening to them and trying to implement their learning style?  This is a great curriculum with 3 different "trails" for each day for different levels of ability.  Quite an awesome book.  I also have the Trail Guide to Bible Geography and am sad to say that it's just sat on the Geography shelf for years.  I think it's amazing and there's still hope that we'll do it!  Years ago I use to give the an annual pre- and post-test of Geography by having them simply draw a world map in as much detail as possible at the beginning and at the end of the year.  It was very cool to see their growth.  I think it's time for another one!





Antarctica Books (some I've used and recommend; others looked good and I thought would be worth looking at further):











Free Kindle Book:










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