Loving what we do!

 About 6 weeks ago, we made a little, but significant, change in our homeschool curriculum.  Our subjects and emphasis on Bible stayed the same, but it added in read-alouds that we didn't have time for before.  It changed the workload for me as well.  And, I must say, we are just loving it!  The hands-on applications in this new curriculum are fantastic.  It allows me to be creative, just like our old curriculum, but it has made my planning SO MUCH EASIER and it has made our days so much more fun.

I will be honest that over winter, we were all dragging ourselves through our schoolwork.  And at first, I contributed it to the usual "winter blahs" that I experienced when I was a teacher before kiddos.  But after viewing this program, My Father's World, with a friend from co-op - my mind was made up.  After some consultation with the principal, we were a go! ;-D

Let me just show you what we did yesterday - and I think you'll see why we love it so much!

We have been talking about the many names of Jesus.  The first one we talked about was that He is the Light of the world.  This week, we're talking about Him as the Bread of Life.  Additionally, we're learning about the Dutch Pioneers coming to America and how they would have made their bread and their butter.

To illustrate how yeast works, we had two glass bottles.  Each was filled with a packet of yeast and 1 cup of warm water.  The bottle on the left had 1 tsp of salt and the bottle on the right had 1 tsp of sugar - each were topped with a balloon!  Our results:

I am such a visual learner and I think kids, at this age, are very visual too!  They enjoyed this experiment.  They also enjoyed smelling the bottle with the rising yeast after I removed the balloon!!!  LOL!!

Our next assignment was to make butter.  We put 1 cup of heavy whipping cream in a quart jar and shook, shook, shook!  For about 15 minutes - which is why Q is so unimpressed in this picture - I took it at the beginning when he realized how long this needed to be done.  Or maybe it was the sun in his eyes - from our skylights.  Whatever! ;)

But, he had some happy relief shakers!

He found his joy as we neared the end!  If you look closely, you'll see there is no cream at the top of the jar anymore.  After he gave me the jar, we realized we had butter!

Pretty cool, huh?  After you remove the butter, buttermilk is left behind.

What better way to test our butter, than to make some English muffin bread to serve it with.  The kids quickly went to work pouring, measuring and mixing.

Their efforts will well rewarded - YUMMY!!!!!

Now, what to do with that buttermilk!?!?!?!

I KNOW!!!!  Let's make great-grandma's buttermilk sugar cookies!

 We all really enjoyed our day of learning in the kitchen!  When asked what his favorite part of the day was, Q answered, "When we got to eat!"