M-m-moon!

We finished our M-m-moon unit today. We had a lot of fun with this one! I did get one "Not ANOTHER moon book!?" from Miss K (and we didn't even get to read all the books in our book basket!). We got a little ahead of ourselves and went apple picking. Lots of pictures this week!

Playing Memory with the ABC Game Cards
(I really wish I had laminated these!)

Miss K working on the letter "M"
in the Cuisinaire Rods Alphabet Book

Exploring moon phases with Newman-O's
(They had to name the moon phase before eating it)

We decided to map out the distance between the Earth, moon and sun. Fortunately we got a long enough break from the rain to do this! We made a 4'4" sun out of construction paper, a 1/2" earth, and a 1/8" moon. We placed the earth and moon 14" apart and then took the project to the street. I think I may have gotten more out of this project than Miss K did; it was really interesting to contemplate the sizes and distances involved. We took our earth and moon up the road and measured out 461 feet. This was not really an exact science, but by the time we got to the sun's location, we had gotten pretty good at working together to measure out the 20 foot increments.

Our sun, earth and moon

Starting point!

...and 461 feet later...

The girls' favorite discovery was that the sun made a good kite....

"The earth and moon go around the sun, around the sun, around the sun!"

I later asked Miss K what she thought about the project and how it made her feel. She told me that when we are on the earth she feels big, but when we are in outer space, she feels very tiny.

We read a couple books about space travel (Floating in Space (Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science 2) and Man on the Moon). Miss K, of course, wanted to know when we could go to outer space. David made some "space suits" for the girls out of an extra sleeping pad. They had a great time playing "Outer Space Penguins to the Moon"...

We learned about the moons of the other planets in our solar system and put some glow-in-the-dark planets up on our bedroom wall:

Doing this reminded me of the hospital scene in Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium where the nurse asks Eric what he is doing standing on the chair, and Eric replies, "I am making sure he has enough space!" (Great movie, by the way, for anyone who hasn't seen it!)

For book day we read Happy Birthday, Moon and then painted a scene from the book. Here is Miss K working on hers:

Work in progress!

And her finished masterpiece! I really like how it turned out!

Miss K's finished painting

I couldn't resist.. I made one, too:

Mommy's masterpiece

And finally, we explored how the craters on the moon are formed:

It would have been nice to use plaster for this, but we just used flour. 

M-m-moon reading list:

Floating in Space (Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science 2) by Franklyn M. Branley

Man on the Moon by Anastasio Suen

Happy Birthday, Moon by Frank Asch

Mooncake by Frank Asch

Why Does the Moon Change Shape? by Melissa Stewart

Sun, Moon, and Stars by Mary Hoffman & Jane Ray

I See Myself by Vicki Cobb (discussion about how light reflects & simple experiments)

Moons by Anne Weisbacher

and of course... 

Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown

By the way, Goodnight Moon Story Adventures is a cute addition to this unit. I downloaded it from Currclick for $0.50. It includes study on the letter M and number 2 (and the concept of pairs), dictation, copywork, narration and nature study.  

I Am Focused- Brazil Nut "Parmesan"

You didn't think I would leave you with just the picture, did you?

I absolutely LOVE the "I Am Focused" brazil nut parmesan recipe from I Am Grateful: Recipes and Lifestyle of Cafe Gratitude.
Simply toss 1 cup of brazil nuts, 1 clove of garlic, and 1/3 tsp salt into a food processor, process with the S-blade until fine and fluffy, and enjoy! According to the book, this is one of the most popular garnishes at Cafe Gratitude, and after one taste I could understand why. It's great on pasta (or raw veggie noodles), but I  think it is especially fabulous on leafy green salads.  Having recently reaffirmed my love of garlic, I admit that I add more than one clove of garlic to my mix.

As long as I am raving about the brazil nut "parmesan", I should say that I have found I Am Grateful to be one of the more accessible raw food recipe books that I have read. The recipes are very tasty, and many of them do not require a lot of exotic ingredients (though a dehydrator and good blender are recommended). For instance, it seems that young coconuts are a staple in many raw food books, and although I love them, it is just not feasible for me to prepare a lot of food with them since I have a hard time finding young coconuts around here. (And when I do, they are expensive!) Granted, there are a few recipes in I Am Grateful that do call for young coconuts. You will also need Irish moss to prepare some of the desserts and, I think, a couple of the cheeses. Overall, though, there are enough recipes with more common ingredients to make this book well worth it; the "I Am Original" onion bread, the recipe through which I was actually introduced to this book, is amazing, and probably worth the price of the book alone.

Yum!