Great Pyramids

Our middle gent turned 7 last week.

Sniff. Seven??? Already??? Can't your sweet momma have one more year of delightful six? Excuse me for a moment while I collect myself. Alas, and hooray!, it seems I get a year of delightful seven instead, which is just as marvelous.

He asked for chocolate cupcakes, and we all decorated. The frosting was really that bright blue. Yowza!
For his birthday, he got the new Playmobil Sphinx with a Mummy. And, way cool, some Tomb Raiders with Camels! Let's side track for yet another moment. (Bear with me.) We've been studying Egypt. Our Egypt study has stretched several months past our timeline because the fine young gents have been so fascinated by the ancient Egyptians, middle gent in particular. We've even priced airline tickets to Egypt, mostly to explain why we're not going. He's not even deterred by the fact that it's blazing hot in Egypt. He wants to sail on the Nile River, visit the Sphinx, and go inside a pyramid. "Someday, Mom," he promised earnestly, "I'll go to Egypt with you." I certainly hope so, my darling.

To my point. Playmobil sells a Pyramidtoo. It's pretty awesome. It's also pretty expensive, and they were out of stock at the store for which we had a 50% off certificate. So, no pyramid. A fact my fine young gent noted. "Hmmm. We need a pyramid."

Note the "Teachable Moments" label at the bottom of this post. My poor gents.

"You're right, honey," I said. "Let's build a pyramid!"

We started with paper:
We printed several pyramid templates. The gents and I spent a happy half hour cutting and folding paper pyramids from different kinds of templates. I didn't do a lot of teaching or talking. (I know, right? Me! I didn't talk a lot. Maybe I should go lie down.) I just let the different templates, which ended in the same pyramids, work for themselves.

My fine young gent noted that the little paper pyramids weren't quite big enough. So I pulled moving boxes out of the attic. Then the real work began.

"How am I going to make a template for you?" I asked the gents. They blithely asked me to print one. Then they said, "Oh. Yeah," when I reminded them of the limitation imposed by the size of our paper. They were a little stumped, so I measured the templates with them...each side of the base was the same length because the base is a square. Let's measure the edges of the triangles that make up the sides....OH!

Fortunately, loving math-brain was available to work with our eldest gent:
They did it the math way, with multiplying and such. I helped middle gent. I didn't want to think that hard, so we did it the measuring and observing way, recreating the template by deciding how long our sides should be then copying the model. Fortunately again, loving husband had to go to work, so eldest gent and I created the largest pyramid together the measuring and observing way, which meant that he got to see how both equally valid methods ended with the same results. He cut it and folded it almost all by himself.

Ancient Egypt has taken up most of our living room floor.
Now we just need a white-walled palace from which the Pharoah and his soldier can dangle the captured tomb raiders.
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Pyramid Templates:
The template the boys chose, as our boxes were rectangular. You have to check out this whole site: Paper Models of Polyhedra Could it possibly get any more math-awesome?

Pyramid template at Do To Learn Kids

And from our beloved Enchanted Learning: Make a Pyramid

Wordless Wednesday

I Spy with my little eye.....

Can you see it?

"Tell the boys to watch out for the iguanas that are black and orange," said Mazey the housekeeper/advisor/handy-woman. "They're pretty mean and agressive. Not that they'd want to touch something that looks like that."

Ha!

I went and warned my fine young "Mom, can I keep it?" gents right away.

Nature, Nature, Everywhere

Nature Study: The boys found an ant nest outside the Dolphin Center in Nuevo Vallarta. It's what they do.

They also catch pollywogs.

And throw rocks, and build dams.

Who says we took the week off school? Outdoor studies abounded in Mexico: Ants, pelicans, iguanas, butterflies (mariposa!), water, rocks, sand, trees (Bananas! On a tree!), flowers, birds.

Life is good.

Wordless Wednesday

Merry Christmas

Our Christmas surprise: We bought a few small gifts for the fine young gents and a lovely young lady, then we pooled the rest of our Christmas budget and some savings, and we took them to Mexico for a week-long vacation. The picture above is where we stayed. I was relaxing on the balcony, picked up my camera and snapped that shot. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

We'd been planning this for almost a year. The kids knew something big was up, but had no idea what it might be. "Is it the mall? Is it a trip to Baker?" asked the younger lovely young lady. I am terrible at keeping secrets, but I did it despite nearly blowing it several times. Thank goodness for oblivious children, eh? By Christmas Day I was thrilled to finally reveal the big secret, partly because I was so excited about it and partly because I could finally stop worrying about accidentally telling. Heh.

A little funny story: The eldest of the fine young gents opened his packing list on the outside of the big box. His mind immediately leapt to the most cool and exciting trip he could imagine: "WE'RE GOING TO GRANDPA'S!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" The annual trip to Grandpa's is the highlight of our year, especially for the ladies and gents, who love to fish with Grandpa and work at the store for donuts and hot chocolate. So excited was he at the prospect of going to Baker City that when his sister opened the box and pulled out a Puerto Vallarta travel guide, he groaned. "We're not going to MEXICO are we?????"

Heh heh.

Obviously they changed their minds:

Our vacation was spectacularly perfect. More to come.....

Pumpkin Buttermilk Pancakes: Edited

Fine young gent requested pumpkin pancakes for his birthday breakfast and even helped make them. He's decided that he wants to be a cook when he grows up. These buttermilk pumpkin pancakes are a lovely rich orangey color, with a mellow pumpkin flavor and they're not too sweet, perfect with just a little maple syrup on top.

Note (12/30/09): I'm changing the recipe. Want pumpkin pancakes that are even better? Add 1/3 c. sour cream for pancakes that are even fluffier and more flavorful.

Buttermilk Pumpkin Pancakes

Heat your griddle to about 350 degrees.

Mix in a large bowl:
3 cups flour
4 Tablespoons brown sugar
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon salt

Mix in a smaller bowl:
2+ cups buttermilk
1 1/2 cup pumpkin puree (directions for making fresh pumpkin puree here)
1/3 c. sour cream
2 eggs (For fluffier pancakes separate the eggs, mix in the yolks now and set aside the whites in a small dish)
3 Tablespoons melted butter

If you've set aside the egg whites to make fluffier pancakes, beat the whites until they're nice and fluffy but not stiff. You can use a stand or hand mixer, but with two egg whites it's almost as easy to beat them by hand in a small bowl with a whisk.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, stirring until just mixed. Particularly if you're using fresh pumpkin, the thickness of your pancake batter will vary. Add more buttermilk or milk until your batter is of the desired consistency. If you've set aside and beaten the egg whites, fold them gently into the batter. Let sit for 5-10 minutes before pouring your pancakes.

Pour the batter onto the griddle, about 1/4 to 1/3 cup per pancake, depending on how large you'd like your pancakes. Brown on both sides. Serve with maple syrup. This recipe makes about 2 dozen pancakes, giving my family of seven enough for breakfast with a few pancakes left over for lunch or the freezer.

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Still have pumpkin to use? I'll post my pumpkin oatmeal scone recipe soon, and fine young gent and I are are planning on trying out a pumpkin gingerbread recipe this week so we'll let you know if it's delicious.

Or try this pumpkin bread/muffin recipe from The Fresh Loaf. It is to die for. We made nearly two dozen muffins, some with mini chocolate chips and some without, and they were all gone by the end of the afternoon.

Lucas Cranach the Elder (German, 1472-1553). The Nativity, ca. 1515-20

Whom have we, Lord, like you?
The great one who became small,
the wakeful one who slept,
the living one who died,
the king who abased himself to ensure honor for all,
blessed is your honor.

It is right that heavenly beings worship your humanity.
It is right that earthly beings worship your divinity.
The heavenly beings were amazed to see how small you became,
and earthly ones to see how exalted.

(4th century prayer, Ephrem the Syrian)

A Wordless Wednesday (Very Late)

Cave Painting

History and art rolled into one big messy fabulous project. We're studying ancient history, so what better way to start off the year's art studies? Cave painting has several advantages as an elementary-age art project: It's big. The materials are easy to find and to use. Cave paintings are very simple when it comes to subject and color. The pictures are not intimidating for children to imitate. You can fingerpaint or paint with sticks, draw with charcoals and pastels, or get even more creative and try to mix paints using dirt, leaves and spices.



You need:
Printed pictures of cave paintings from around the world and/or books with photos and brief explanations of cave paintings
Brown paper bags for practice paintings, or for your project if you choose not to do a large wall painting, crumpled then flattened
A large sheet or two of brown paper, crumpled and flattened
Charcoal sticks for drawing
Pastels for drawing (reds, browns, oranges and yellows)
Paints (Black, brown, red, yellow, orange)
A drop cloth
Rags for clean-up


Session one:
We studied cave painting as an art form. Look at cave paintings from aroud the world. Notice what makes them the same. What differences do you see? Why might people have painted these paintings? What did they paint? What do you think they used? Then do a warm-up drawing. Cut open a brown paper grocery bag. Crumple then flatten the bag. Draw your cave painting on the bag using charcoal and pastels. This step allows the children to experiment with the materials to find out what works and what doesn't, and to experiment with themes and lines and colors. Naturally, the fine young gents drew many weapons. Arrows, spears and blood were popular.


Session Two:
If you've got the time, the materials and the space, create a wall-sized cave painting. Use large paper, the kind teachers put on their bulletin boards. Crumple it then flatten it to simulate the curves and rough texture of rock. Attach the paper to the wall, put down a drop cloth if you're using paint, and let the children paint and draw their cave paintings using paints, pastels and charcoal, even dirt, sticks and leaves. Allow plenty of time for exploration of the materials and of the subject matter.

A flash from the past, a segment of our first cave painting, painted by our eldest lovely lady when she was in seventh grade:
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Internet lesson plans:

Cave paintings: Animals in Art

Art History: Create Cave Paintings

Cave Art: Discovering Prehistoric Humans through Pictures