Weekend R&R (Review & Resources) ~ 31

The weeks are flying by.  Just 4 more weeks of school before summer break.  Wow.


Week 31 Review:

• Began final history unit with 3rd & 5th grader, Adventure on the High Seas, a study of explorers & pirates.  First on deck, Marco Polo & Vasco da Gama.  What interesting lives these men led.  I had no idea, until reading about da Gama, of the role Portugal played in establishing a European presence in the East.  Also, I did not really understand until this week, how much the spice trade propelled European exploration in the 13th & 14th centuries. I already appreciate my spice cabinet more!

• Presentation Night was this past Thursday evening.  Subjects included Stravinsky, John Milton, Martin Luther, and Vermeer.  Works are displayed in The Gallery.

• Learning some hard lessons about faithful stewardship and respect for belongings~many items have been confiscated this week, possibly never to be returned.

• The week is book-ended by two family birthdays; oldest boy is 14, youngest boy is turning 9.  It's my baby's last year in the single digits and I'm feeling a little sad.

• First week back on the TV-Free Weekday Diet.  So far, so good.  I've gotten a bunch of quilting done on my Brown Project (in the works for about 4 years now).  The chess board has been dusted off and returned to the top of the coffee table where it has seen renewed interest and more than a handful of games.  We only had to stop a game once for too much trash talk between opponents.

Week 31 Resources:

• Adventure on the High Seas Study, Part 1 & Part 2 (with link to free PDF notebook pages)

• Living books on Marco Polo & Vasco da Gama

• Molasses Spice Cookie Recipe:

Ingredients:

1 cup brown sugar, packed

1/3 cup butter or shortening

1/3 cup + 1 TBS unsweetened applesauce

1/4 cup molasses (spray your measuring cup with non-stick spray first and the molasses will slide right out)

1 large egg

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/4 cup all purpose flour

1 1/4 cup whole wheat pastry (graham) flour

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1/4 tsp salt

3 TBS white or turbinado sugar

Instructions:

Preheat oven 325º.  In large bowl, beat brown sugar, butter/shortening, apple sauce, molasses, egg, & vanilla until smooth.  In another bowl combine flours, baking soda, spices, & salt.  Mix well, then add to wet ingredients, gently mixing to combine.  Once all dry in incorporated it will look like this (pretty wet):

Drop dough by heaping 1 TBS onto parchment-lined cookie sheet.  Bake 13-16 minutes or until set.  For chewy cookies, remove from pan immediately and place on cooling rack.  For more crisp cookies, allow to cool on the pan a little while before moving to rack.  Makes 34-36 cookies.

1 cookie=2 ww points+

We enjoyed ours during presentation night with milk/coffee/hot tea.

And for the rest of the batch:

SpICE Cream Sandwich.  YUM!