Uzbek Plov

So, we've been making our way from Venice to China in a merchant caravan (child-led learning is so awesome!) Along the way, we're getting exposed to all kinds of cultures and cuisines.

As we travel through Central Asia, we meet Kazakhs, Kyrgyzs, Tajiks, Turkmen and Uzbeks. The Uzbeks introduce us to their fragrant, spicy rice dish called plov. (That's the Uzbek version of the Russian word pilaf.)

That's a whole lotta onions! (Four large ones, to be exact.)

Traditional plov calls for an entire head of garlic. You are supposed to trim the end off and steam the bulb in the middle of the rice as it cooks. I didn't have an entire head of garlic, and I wasn't brave enough to try the steaming method, so this is what we used.

By the way, if you don't have one of these nifty little garlic twisters, you should get one. I got mine from Lehman's but they are widely available.

Cook your onions, carrots, spices and garlic until the vegetables are just getting tender. The recipe we used called for cumin, coriander, turmeric, paprika, salt and pepper.

Measure and rinse your rice. Oops!

Put the vegetables in a tall pot and cover them with rice. Then pour in enough boiling water to just cover the rice.

Put the lid on and cook 15 minutes or so and you have delicious, hearty plov!

We learned about plov from this absolutely fantastic book by Kathy Ceceri. It's well-written, with lots of great information and fun projects. We got it at the library, but I like it so much, I'm thinking of buying a copy. (In fact, I almost had to buy this copy, after a near-miss with the olive oil today!)

We had lots of fun cooking together and learning about the Silk Road. Hope you had a great day, too! Enjoy your journey, wherever it takes you!

Reading Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf's a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

Magnetism Workbox

I put together this cool magnetism workbox, packed full of experiments and interesting information about magnets!

As my kids get older, I'm hoping to give them more independent activities like this. I think it's important for them to take more responsibility for their own learning.

I'm also hoping to have lots of independent activities ready so the big kids can stay on track once we're homeschooling with a toddler. (Still a ways off, but it doesn't hurt to prepare!)

Unpacking the cool stuff in the box...

...and doing the first experiment. I included several experiments from Janice Van Cleave's books (I own this one and this one.)

The kids had already correctly predicted what the magnet would and wouldn't attract. But it was fun to try it anyway.

As they moved through the activities, they checked them off the list. I didn't find a single source for the experiments and worksheets: I cobbled together this list from Janice Van Cleave's books, Evan-Moor's Teacher Filebox, The Mailbox's Science in a Box, and a couple of websites.

I used a few magnets that we already had (including the kids' Buckyballs) and ordered a couple of kits from Amazon. We had a set of buzz magnets (I think I got them at the supermarket) and a couple of magnets from Dude's Magic Penny set that he got for Christmas a couple of years ago. (In retrospect, I would not include the Rare Earth magnets that I ordered because they are so unbelievably strong, they tended to be hard to work with! However, this Dowling magnet set proved to be a good choice for our experiments.)

This was one of our favorite experiments. It's from a Janice Van Cleave book.

Make sure you tape it securely!

It didn't work exactly the way it should have because we used a magnet from the Magic Penny set and it's capped with plastic on each end.

Still pretty cool, though! It's been "hanging out" on our mantle for several days now...

Here are the magnets from the Dowling set. We sprinkled the iron filings on a plastic report cover and observed the magnetic field.

Then the kids wanted to make a ring of Buckyballs and see how the iron filings would behave.

And here is what happens if some of the iron filings "escape" from the plastic and stick to a magnet! Good luck getting them off!

All in all, my kids were very "attracted" to this workbox! (Sorry! Couldn't help it!)

This post is linked to Look! What We Did!
You can check out more great ideas there!

History Begins in the Hallway

And it ends right here in the family room! :-)

We were discussing Christopher Columbus's arrival on San Salvador in 1492, and I wanted the kids to have a mental image of exactly how long ago that was. So we used our golden bead chain to make a loooooong timeline. We counted the decades backwards from 2012. As it happens, Columbus was exploring Cuba and Hispañola right at the top of our basement stairs!

Then we talked about the world as Columbus knew it. People had been discussing the travels and discoveries of Marco Polo for a couple hundred years, so we marked his return to Venice in 1295.

My kids love history, so I'm always on the lookout for interesting ways to teach it. Over spring break, I read Doing History: Investigating with Children in Elementary and Middle Schools by Linda S. Levstik and Keith C. Barton. It's written with classroom teachers in mind, of course, but most of the ideas are completely adaptable to homeschooling.

Before spring break, I hadn't planned to revisit Columbus (we had already read about him back in October and in previous years) but I really wanted to try an activity described Doing History. (Besides, it never hurts to return to a topic and discuss it in more detail!)

We read four books about Columbus. (I chose these four solely because they were available at the library on short notice!) We made a chart with four questions: Why did Columbus make his voyage? What did people think the Earth was like at the time? What happened to the native people? and What did Columbus accomplish? We filled in the details as we read together. This one was written for little kids, as a basic introduction to Columbus, so of course it wasn't very detailed.

This one had a great map comparing how people imagined the Earth in 1492 to how it really is.

We all loved the illustrations in this one.

And this one was too long and detailed to read in one sitting, but I'm sure we'll refer to it again, possibly next Columbus Day! Of all the books we read, it's the most appropriate for studying Columbus in depth. It taught us a lot about the native people of the islands and it also has great photographs and illustrations. (We're also planning to read You Wouldn't Want to Sail with Christopher Columbus! when it comes back to the library.)

I used the story of Columbus to illustrate how history is always interpreted by someone, and how different points of view will result in very different stories. (The Taino people, for example, might have related Columbus's arrival very differently...)

We talked about how history can be controversial (just like anything that involves human beings.) We also talked about the many myths about Columbus (that he was the first "white man" in North America, that everyone thought the Earth was flat and he set out to prove them wrong, etc.)

Finally, we summed up what Columbus actually accomplished on his voyages (which is quite different from what he hoped to accomplish!)

Now that we have learned a bit more about Columbus, I want to follow up with a couple of good books about other explorers and then go into more depth on the founding of our nation. These are all topics that we have touched on before, but I'm hoping to use some of the ideas and techniques I learned in Doing History to bring our fascinating history to life!

Cimbing ROCKS!

Here is Dad, the family climbing expert! He has been trying to get us to climb for a while, and we finally agreed to go.

Now, as a general rule, I don't post pictures of my behind...but I'm hoping it's so far away it looks really small here! :-) This was my first time on the climbing wall and I made it to the top! Yay, me!

Here is Super, on her way up...

And Dude, rappelling down...

It was fun to try something new! Hope you're making time for fun, too!