Lesson in a Picture Book

I am hoping to start planning more activities to keep us busy during the week. We have been watching too many movies, and the boys started asking for them ALL. THE. TIME. So, as I used to do when I worked as a home-based teacher, I picked a book and created a "Lesson Plan" out of it. And, I thought I would share it.

  

You may or may not know, I have been wanting pancakes lately. So, I figured we could make some. And what do you know: there is a children's book about just that! Eric Carle's Pancakes Pancakes. I figured we could do just one activity a day, with our week being 3 days this week (because of other scheduled activities.)

Monday: Read the book. The book explores where each ingredient in the pancake comes from. Something I think our society is very disconnected from. Milk from the cow, egg from the chicken, flour from wheat, ect. I don't have access to a farm where we can see these things, but I can find videos online!
Milking a cow
Gathering eggs (I was going to find a video of egg laying, but I didn't find any that showed anymore than the chicken's backsides.)
Wheat to Flour (Plus an activity book I found for older kids, thought I would share.)

Wednesday: Because L2 is gluten, soy, and dairy free we needed an alternative recipe. I found this one over at The Mommypotamus. So, we will be making Almond Meal from raw almonds in our food processor. We'll see how it turns out! We will also make fresh butter. Not dairy free, but I have yet to find a homemade butter dairy free, and this is any easy activity for kiddos. Besides, only L2 is sensitive (and my restriction my breastfeeding association.)


Homemade Butter:
Supplies:
Glass jar with lid
1/2 pint of cream
water


Leave cream out on counter overnight. Pour into jar, seal lid. Shake it! Steady shaking until it separates forming a ball. Pour our buttermilk. Add water, gently shake to rinse. Drain water, consume!


EDIT: My friend found a link to making two butter alternatives! I think we will be trying the olive oil one since finding soy free miso seems too big a challenge.


Thursday: Pancake time! Yay! (Talk about delayed satisfaction!) Mixing, cooking, eating! Not much more can be said about this, but I will add pictures to this post when we do. My husband is a chef, so my boys are already well on their way to running the kitchen. They are so cute!

We checked out a large collection of Eric Carle books from the library. His themes and style make for great "organic" planning material. The art, the topics, the stories! I hope to plan a few more weeks like this, keep your eyes out!