Field Trip to the Vicktory Gardens!

God’s Eyes and Apple Eating

This morning’s handwork was making Eye of God and/or a woven spider web.  The kids enjoyed it so much they continued to make them for most of the afternoon, especially Cyan.  She has made 4 so far.  All more beautiful than the last!

This is Alex’s:

Isn’t it lovely!?! I just love how he used the blue in the midst of all these drab colors.

This afternoon was dedicated to using up the last of two laundry baskets of apples we had gotten from a dear friend.  I made batch after batch of applesauce.  And after I was done and tired of it, Cyan took over and made yet another batch.  We now have 18 quarts in the garage and more in the kitchen and still had enough left over for some for dinner tonight!

In Logan’s last workbox today was ‘make fresh apple pie with mommy’ and he just loved helping me prepare a pie for the family.  We made the whole thing from scratch and fresh apples.  No store bought dough or pie filling in this baby… Logan really honed his rolling pin skills!

With the left over dough he got to make his own little ‘pielette’. He just LOVED that!

As I put the kids to bed this evening I realized that even my ‘treat’ to myself tonight was apple:

Tis the season!

Happy FALL!!!

First day of school learning

The first day of school went well.  We were a little bit off schedule as we had an unexpected (but welcome) visitor.  Our first order of the day was to change out the nature table from ‘summer’ to ‘fall’!  The kids handed me stuff as I arranged it on the nature table.  I am sure we will have many more things to add as we take nature walks and get more into the fall season but for now, it’s just lovely and clean.

Box #1: Nature Study!  Today we got to compare bird nests that we have found over the summer.

This was a all kid activity.  They each got one and they described it as the others wrote down what they said on a comparison and contrast worksheet.

Box #2 - Animal Farm Game - was just for Logan.  He read all these and placed them so fast that I think I may have to make some harder cards for him!  The farm is expanding!

 

Box #3 was our interview box.  He wrote his name (with no help, I really wanted to see his progress between now and the end of the year), and then drew a picture of himself.

The interview was here.

Box #4 was a jar and some craft sticks.  Each day we put one craft stick in the jar.  Each tenth day we bundle the craft sticks together showing counting by tens.  However, today we only had one craft stick in our jar.  Hardly picture worthy. 

Box #5 - Cyan and Logan played number dominos!  They were both really good at it.  I am going to have to get a set of real dominos and look up the rules for another day.

Box #6 was wet on wet watercolor.

This was a Cyan and Logan activity.

Box #7 was the Dolch Word Kit.  We just worked on review for today.

Box #8 was Digraph Sorting from Pinterest.

 

Box #9 was a “September Me” from A Year of Kindergarten Writing.

No box #10 today…  just lunch!

All in all it was a great day!

Theo Chocolate Factory Tour

This year, our vacation is a low budget one… so instead of going somewhere for our two weeks off we decided to have a ’staycation’ in which we go on field trips every two days!  The Theo Chocolate Factory Tour was Staycation Day #1!

The first thing we had to do on the Theo Chocolate Tour was put on a hair net.

 

Everyone had to wear one.

Dad even had to wear one on his face!  Logan decided he needed a beard net too:

Did I mention everyone?

They sat us in a room and the chocolate eating began.  They started by describing how chocolate is processed and grown.  And in fact, I found it interesting that the tree that first grew their chocolate is called the “Theo Cocoa Tree” which is how they got their name!  I always thought it was a guy named Theo.  lol!  But in fact, it’s named after a variety of cocoa tree.

We started tasting with the very darkest chocolate (91%) and moved to the sweeter stuff.  Kind of like a wine tasting, we could taste the differences between chocolate grown in different places and climates.  It was VERY interesting! 

After that, we went into the actual factory.  We were blessed to have two workers on our tour… a tour guide and a former coco roaster!  Something else I didn’t know is that Theo is one of the only factories in the USA that actually roasts it’s own chocolate.  Most places that claim to ‘make’ chocolate actually only ‘melt’ chocolate. 

This flow chart shows how it’s done and which machines do what:

Cyan really loved watching the ‘coco liquiour’ come out of the machine and mix with the milk powder and sugar.

Then we got to go into the ‘confection room’.  With no Oompa Loompas in sight, we watched real people make chocolate bars and confections right before our eyes as our tour guide told us what was what and who was doing which chore:

This was one of the 5 bar guys.  Making the actual chocolate bars is a HUGE job.  This room is where all of the add in’s for the bar chocolates are added:

He’s making cherry almond bars in this picture.  YUM!

Our tasting time was well from over though.  When in the confections room we got to taste quite a few different confections and then went into the gift shop where all of the bar seconds were broken up and we could taste them ALL.  By the time I left I was chocolated out… for probably the first time ever!  lol!

It was a wonderful tour and a great start to our staycation!