Toasted Marshmallow Day: August 30

Today is Toasted Marshmallow Day!  Yum, yum, yum.  Marshmallows have to be one of my ALL TIME favorites.  Whether toasted or made into treats makes no never mind to me.  According to yahoo news,

The second-to-last day of August provides a great excuse to have a bonfire and toast up the remaining summer marshmallows. Whip up some Double-Dipped Marshmallow Sticks or classic S'mores. Marshmallows are an abundant and cheap summer treat, but that was not always the case. They were "once so rare that that only pharaohs could eat them" according to Campfire Marshmallows. Ancient Egyptians mixed the sap of the marshmallow plant was mixed with honey to create a sweet treat in 2000 B.C. Today's marshmallows are made from corn syrup, sugar, water, dextrose and air.

"The marshmallow plant is native to salt marshes and shorelines in Asia and Europe and is now grown in the eastern United States "according to Campfire Marshmallows. The plant, specifically the skin of the Althaea officinalis plant, can be used to treat irritated skin.

Make a mini unit to do with your picklets...they will have fun, learn and remember the hands on fun!

Read:

How Stuff Works:  Marshmallows
The History of Marshmallows 
The Marshmallow Story (good for around a campfire)
How Did the Marshmallow Get It's Name?

Make some yummy treats!

Homemade Marshmallows
Toasted Marshmallow Shake
Chocolate, Peanut Butter Cookie Dough, Toasted Marshmallow Cupcakes
Warm Toasted Marshmallow Malted Milk S'mores 
Toasted Marshmallow S'mores Cake

Marshmallow Crafts

Marshmallow Building
Marshmallow Faces
Holiday Marshmallows
Marshmallow Tea Cups
Halloween Marshmallow Heads
Make a Marshmallow Popper
Make a Marshmallow Shooter

Art
Marshmallow Art
How to draw the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man
Art lessons from Mr. Marshmallow

Get Active with Marshmallows

Marshmallow Kick, Throw, and Blow Activity
Tie pillows onto your arms, legs and body.  Race down the sidewalk.  Give s'mores awards.

Watch:
Ghostbusters

Parents:
Test your kids!  We tried this once.  It was a disaster.
Marshmallow Experiment 

Science

Marshmallow Masher
Monster Mallows
The Anatomy of a Marshmallow
Marshmallow Catapult
Marshmallow Tower
The Marshmallow Machine
Marshmallow Lab

Have a fun, stick, gooey day!

Mardi Gras Lessons

Today is Shrove Tuesday. A day for fun and mayhem. :) Here are some ideas for ya. Have a happy celebration.

Wicked Pickles Mardi Gras Celebration 2009 - pancake races and flipping, special food, learning and fun

Education World - lesson plan

Lesson Plans - a number of lesson plans to go through

Mardi Gras Celebration - grades 4-5

History of Mardi Gras - grades 3-4

Mardi Gras Day - grades 9-12

Mardi Gras Mask - craft project

Mardi Gras ESL

Knowledge Hound - lessons, recipes, more

Healthy Mardi Gras Recipes

Activity Villiage - crafts and more

Olney Pancake Races - read about this race and then watch the 2007 races

Peace and Poetry

We did a quick mini unit for MLK day. I did no research, just a google search this morning at 7:30 for lesson plans, before walking out the door for Gaga's house.

On the way to Gaga's we discussed why we celebrate MLK and how life as we know it would be different if he hadn't been courageous enough to do what he did.

The rest of the way we played the last letter game. Basically what ever word is said the next word has to start with the last letter. An example would be: day, yellow, Wallace, each, house, entire. It can get quite involved. In our ongoing game through out the day Dill tried to give Sweet only words that would begin with E...lol

On and off throughout the day the picklets worked on their school work. They listened to "I Have a Dream" on the way to the grocery store. Dill and Sweet wrote Diamante Poems (see their poetry below), did copy work (poem at bottom of linked page), read a biography of MLK and completed a dictionary page while at Gaga's. (Chip did his at home.)

Once we were home, had the van unloaded and the picklets got back from the sledding hill, we did an art project on peace (see project below). While working on their art project they listened to Drum Major for Justice, a free download I received this morning from Learn Out Loud. We talked about the Martin Luther King Jr. poem, what it means etc. We then discussed if they thought there were people who don't think MLK Day should be holiday and why while we ate some pizza and drank some pop.

To end the day we talked about Dr. King's vision of people helping people in need and what we can do to help. We found that the Civil Rights Commission is holding a book drive all week. So, we cleaned out our books to donate. We then talked about Haiti and the devastation caused by the earthquake. We are working on donations of toys and household items that might be of help.

Hopefully by the end of the week we will have a nice pile of donations for those in need.

Diamante Poetry by (in order) Chip, Sweet and Dill Pickle

Freedom
love right
needed loved admired
liberty justice money greed
wronged loathed death
distrust hate
Slavery

Dream
hope vision
hoping wished desired
illusion enchanted scary frighten
screaming scared quivering
terror horror
Nightmare

Freedom
sweet powerful
loving limited caring
gift property hard cruel
uncaring hating condemned
jail destructive
Imprisonment

Hearts of Peace Pictures

Caption and Picture by Sweet Pickle
"This is what it should be like across the world." (the captions say "thank you" and "you're welcome")

Caption and Picture by Chip Pickle
"Even when all chance of peace seem lost there's always HOPE."

Caption and Picture by Dill Pickle
"Dark and light. Balance and harmony. Just as life should be."



(c) 2008-2010 Wicked Pickles-Homefront Lines

Sweet's Pi Day Activities

I cannot believe I didn't post these earlier. I just found them in a pile of papers on my desk. My bad. Anyhoo, I found them, I am posting them, I feel I have conquered them. :-D

Pi-Ku

It's a big number
Fourteen nines in first hundred
Goes on forever

Graphing the first hundred numbers of Pi.

Teaching Responsibility

Drawing diameter.



(c) 2009 Wicked Pickles-Homefrontlines
All Rights Reserved

How to Dye String

Sweet had a great idea for her responsible poster. She was going to tie actual ribbons around the elephants tail. She thought it would look great! Unfortunately, we used the last of our ribbons to put in her hair for the St. Joseph Day Dance. So, she decided to make her own "ribbons".

She took 4 bowls, a spool of string and food coloring and set to work. She cut a piece of string.


After putting the string in the bowl she squirted it with food coloring and then mixed it around with a spoon.


After soaking the string in food coloring she layed it out on waxed paper to dry.


The end result is deeply colored string.

We will definitely do this again!

Responsibility Posters

During our repsonsibility unit I had Dill and Sweet make posters to teach others how to be responsible.

Sweet's poster contains a picture of Dumbo and also has a picture of an elephant she drew herself. She has pointers on how to be responsible such as "Do Only Good Things" and "think before talking". The tail of the elephant she drew has home made ribbons tied to it to represent not forgetting.


Dill's poster has an "Ansvar". He explains on his poster that "Ansvar" is Norweigen for the word "responsible". He has pointers on his poster for being responsible like "I'll try to do as I'm told". He also has several peace symbols indicating that responsibily equals peace.


I think they did a great job of "teaching" by making posters.

(c) 2009 Wicked Pickles-Homefront Lines
All Rights Reserved

Responsibility Mini Unit or the Banishing of Not Me

We had a run in with irresponsibility today. Cool was looking for his jacket and couldn't seem to find it. Thinking it might have been left in the van he went out and checked. It seems the picklets didn't bother to shut the van sliding door last night after getting home. Each blamed the other, none took responsibility. It really didn't matter to us who didn't shut it, the problem was that it was someone else's fault. It seems that "Not Me" lives here more than I would like. So, I decided a mini unit on responsibility was in order.

1. Take Responsibility Quiz
2. The Right Thing to do (study guide from United Streaming)
3. Go over posters (I printed out posters from google images and taped them up as reminders of what responsibility is)
4. Watch responsibility videos from United Streaming

• A Kid’s Guide to Responsibility
  ~~ This program impresses upon students the value of accepting responsibility, carrying out assigned tasks, and meeting obligations. It also encourages them to think about others by fulfilling their responsibilities.
  
• Focus on Responsibility
  ~~ This program examines the ideas of personal, family, and social responsibility. It stresses the benefits of discipline and of meeting obligations, and shows that being responsible brings great personal rewards.


• The 4th R: Responsibility
  ~~ This video takes a new look at responsibility in an attempt to help students explore what it means and understand the ethical choices and decisions that are the basis for responsible behavior. It examines four issues that affect teens, helping students fathom the consequences and see where responsibility lies.

5. Responsibilities of adults, children, teenagers, workplace (from united streaming study guide)(boys worked as a team), taking responsibility(Sweet)
6. Problem solving
7. Ways to be a responsible person
8. Rate yourself on responsibility and give examples of how you are responsible or not responsible and ways you can improve
9. Draw the feeling of responsibility
10. Make a poster teaching about responsibility
11. Make a list of their responsibilities (personal, family, social)

I have to say this was not the picklets favorite unit study by any means. Chip moaned and groaned through most of it. He argued about what he thought was responsible as opposed to what I think is responsible. We both had good points but instead of stating his point calmly he was very loud and disrespectful making the whole situation tense. I hope it is just teenage hormones because if it isn't, I have failed as a parent and more importantly, failed him.

© 2008-2009 Wicked Pickles-Homefront Lines

Columbus Day

We studied a bit about Christopher Columbus this week. Now, I don't buy into the whole "Columbus discovered America" bit by any means. But, I do think his voyages were important and are worthy of learning about. We certainly didn't spend a lot of time on this study but we had fun. We used this for history as well as Enchanted Learning.

We started off by going over important dates:

• year of birth
• year of death
• year of first voyage
• years of several voyages
• year new passage idea presented to India and to Spain
• date he left Spain
• date he returned to Portugal

After we had the dates down, the picklets did the math and recorded Columbus's age at each of these "milestones".

Did math problem from here.

We went over Cinquain poetry and each picklet wrote two cinquains about Columbus.

• True Cinquain
• Modified Cinquain

We read IN 1492.

Went over the parts of a ship.

Filled out Columbus map activity.

Colored the flag of Spain and filled out worksheet.

Wrote two paragraphs:

• paragraph about what a ship was like: what they looked like (inside and out), who was on it, what equipment and food was on it, how big, how many people
• paragraph about Columbus: where born, what he did, goals, dreams, what he might have looked like

Sweet colored a Columbus ships math sheet.

Antiqued a map that shows Columbus route to the Bahamas and Cuba and back using this map.

Talked about and made a meal like what would have been eaten on the ship and dined by candle lite. Talked about the risk of fire on a ship using candles. The picklets thought it was great because utensils were not allowed and I permitted them to put their elbows on the table, chew with their mouths open (ewwwww) and belch...lol.

Our menu consisted of: beef jerky, carrots (old world food), potato wedges and hard tack. Since the picklets are not old enough to drink a good ale, A&W was put in it's place as the drink of choice.

OK, so we know potatoes (especially Jojo Potatoes) are a new world food but don't make me walk the plank. I was looking at mutiny if I didn't feed the picklets something that would fill them up. By the time I came up with the idea of eating this kind of menu, it was too late to make dried beans or rice.

All in all a fun time and we have several notebook pages to show for it.

© 2008 Wicked Pickles-Homefront Lines
All rights reserved