Dried Foods

In a follow up to our Little House in the Big Woods post here, this one shows you our journey into dehydrating food.   Let me first start off by saying how this was my first time with a dehydrator and I truly only knew what I was doing thanks to directions that I printed off the internet!

In one section of their story, Ma and Pa mentioned drying foods (fruits and veggies and meats) which started a whole discussion on why and how.   This lead to our adventure into dehydrating foods.

Last month, the students brought in foods they would be interested in drying.  The foods included lemons, limes, apples, bananas, and tomatoes.  This was going to be an interesting experience.   

We started at 8:40am, hoping that most of the foods would be done before we left at 3:10pm.  We got to see the whole process, discuss how the dehydrator works with heat and air and then were able to taste the fruits of our labor. We also discussed how the pioneers didn't have a dehydrator but decided that they used air and heat too, just differently. 


Here are pictures that our Class Reporter took to document our process.  Unfortunately we don't have pics of them trying the foods although they did enjoy most of the items!  Dried lemons seemed to be the least favored ones of them all with tomatoes coming in second.   Check out the last picture, too, that shows all the dried foods we've tried as we did this exploration

Fiddle vs Violin

Did you know that a fiddle and a violin are the same instrument? Honestly, I didn't!  But that was just one of the learning moments I had when Ms Anne came to our class last week.  In our classroom, Mrs. Englebrecht has been reading Little House in the Big Woods (by Laura Ingles Wilder)  and we have been using that book to learn more about our world.  They have discussed bears, rag dolls, weather in Wisconsin, and soooo much more.   I'll save THAT for another post real soon.

But a few weeks ago they read in the book that Pa was playing his fiddle for the girls and Ma.  The class realized that we had several students in our room that were unfamiliar with what a fiddle was.   It just so happens that Ms Englebrecht's daughter plays the fiddle!  *You just might see her working at Silver Dollar City sometimes too, I hear! *   So Ms Anne graciously came to our classroom to show us what a fiddle was and how it was different from a violin.  

Do you know what makes those two instruments different?  NOTHING!!  There is just fiddle music and violin music...so if you're playing violin music (think Mozart) then it's a violin...if you're playing the fiddle (think of bluegrass music) then it's a fiddle!  Amazing, isn't it?!

The class really loved hearing her play, show the instruments and stopping to visualize themselves sitting in the cabin listening to Pa play fiddle music.

Here we have our eyes closed, visualizing what it might have been like

I do believe, though, that their FAVORITE part was getting to dance, just like we envisioned the girls doing while Pa played.

Be sure to ask your kiddo about this great guest speaker we had and see if they remember their favorite parts!

Constructing Ideas

Have your children been mentioning the construction flags we've been noticing?  How about the tripods?  Well let me fill you in on what's going on in our classroom.

Last week, on our way in from recess we saw these flags.

Which lead to an investigation about what they might be used for.  We've decided that they are for construction and telling the workers where "stuff" is under the ground. Some of us are pretty certain they are building a roller coaster or train track...I'm not so sure, haha.

We also noticed tripods and construction men using them.  We took a short "field trip" to the playground on Wednesday to ask the experts what exactly they were doing.   This is what we learned.

We are continuing our investigations and observations about things happening around us.  Please continue to ask your child what new things are going on as well!

Mrs. Cantrell's Class

Fire Safety

Today the local firefighters visited our school for a presentation on Fire Safety.  Please ask your child about the important things they learned.  

Here are a few pictures of their Learning Logs where they documented their learning from the presentation!

"If there is fire you have to duck down and crawl to the door"

"I learned about leave your pets. Do not stop, crawl."

"I learned that if there were a fire you would get down and crawl."

"I learned that you have to leave your pet in side."