Salt Dough Map of Cali.

In order to reinforce some of the geography we have studied recently, and because I needed to be a "fun Mom" with a hands on activity I decided to make a salt dough map of California. I remember doing this when I was younger. I think I made the whole USA for a school project one of those elementary years. I got the recipe and basic directions from Jimmie's Squido lens about the project they did. I think the recipe she gives makes a lot more dough than we needed (unless your map is going to be really big!) so I would half it next time.

Salt Dough Recipe

4 cups of flour
2 cups of salt
2 cups of water
2 tablespoons of cream of tartar

Mix with your hands (that's the fun part) until the consistency of playdough. Add more water or flour as necessary.

The kids had fun making the dough all by themselves. When else are you ever going to use almost a whole box/cylinder of Salt?!

I drew the outline of California onto the cardboard and then the kids filled it in with the dough.

Then the kids got busy putting in the mountains and the long central valley by pushing and poking the dough around. I am sure they aren't that accurate but they certainly look pretty good. Henry put in a very tall Mt. Whitney and Sophie pressed the dough very thin  for Death Valley.

We had to wait a day before painting. I can't believe it but they waited two days. We finally got around to painting it today. 

 We used a lot of blue, brown, green and some yellow. The kids really loved it when I gave them some gold paint too so they added in a few dots of gold all around the state to show where you can/could find gold.

We haven't put the cities in yet. I think we are going to label a number of important places once it dries completely. My boys especially noticed that we didn't put in the Channel Islands, off the coast of our map of California. I guess we are going to have to draw them in. I am so surprised that they really loved the Island of the Blue Dolphin book so much. They talk about it all the time. I guess it also helps that we are going to be going to the Island of Catalina soon. These kids are so excited for the cruise.

I don't know how we are ever going to part with it. My kids are under the impression that this piece of artwork is going to be on display for years to come.

I am glad they had a good time.

A touch of Hanukkah

Our history chapter for the week was about the Jewish Diapora. I took this opportunity to study Hanukkah. I didn't know that much about this holiday. I knew it has something to do with a miracle of oil in the lamps lasting for a lot longer then it was supposed to. I also knew that the Menorah played a big roll and the dreidel was a toy they played with but I honestly didn't know how it all fit together. We have been reading a bunch of children's books on the subject and I have learned a lot. The kids have had a lot of fun listening to Hanukkah songs and reading about this holiday. Today we decided we would sample some traditional food eaten for this holiday.

We made Challah, braided bread. Mine was just one braid and didn't turn out quite as nice as it is supposed to look but it tasted good.
We also made Latkas. I don't usually fry much of anything at our house but I guess the oil is to remind the people of the oil that lasted longer than expected. For some reason they eat these with apple sauce. I didn't really care for the taste. They were fine just plain.
I did set the table with our blue table cloth since blue is a Hanukkah color. No menorah at our house we settled for one candle
I don't know if everything was kosher but we had grilled chicken (Maybe it should have been fried?), applesauce, and peas to go along with our bread and potato pancakes.

This afternoon while waiting for the Challah to raise we made some borax snowflakes. This had nothing to do with Hanukkah but it just sounded fun. We boiled water, poured it into a wide mouth mason jar. Stirred in a lot of borax and then dangled a pipe cleaner shaped snowflake into the solution. Left it there while we got everything else ready for dinner. After eating we checked on the snowflakes.

We pulled it out and it had lovely crystals to look at. My only question about this little project.... Why did I spend two weeks making sugar crystals earlier in the fall. This took a matter of hours and we got more crystals. Maybe I will have to dig out those sugar crystals we made and we will see what the difference is between them.

School has been really light this week so I am glad we have had a little fun studying about Hanukkah. We haven't forgotten Christmas by any means. We are still listening to tons of Christmas music and reading all sorts of Christmas stories. It is just nice to understand a little more about what others are celebrating at this time of year.