What they used to eat: Quick Homeschool History Lesson

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This is an exerpt from Foodtimeline.org's webpage on school lunches in the 20th century. You can find more menu ideas at the website. These are examples of what kids used to eat in the 1920s. Try to make some for your family.

[1905] Some of Margaret's school luncheons

1. "Two Boston brown bread cream cheese, and nut sandwiches, and two white bread and jam; a little round cake; a pear.
2. Two chopped ham sandwiches, two with whole wheat bread an peanut-butter; a piece of gingerbread; a peach.
3. Two whole wheat-bread and chopped egg sandwiches with French dressing; two crackers spread with jam; three thin slices of cold meat, salted; a cup custard; and apple.
4. Two whole wheat sandwiches spread with chopped celery and French dressing, two of white bread and sardines; three gingersnaps; three figs.
5. Three sandwiches of white bread filled with cooked oysters, chopped fine, one of whole wheat with orange marmelade; a few pieces of celery, salted, a spice cake; a handful of nuts.
6. Four sandwiches, two of minced chicken moistened with cream, two of whole wheat and chopped olives; a little jar of apple-sauce; gingerbread.
7. Two date sandwiches, two of chopped cold meat; sugar cookies; three olives; and orange.
8. Two fig sandwiches, two whole wheat with chopped celery and French dressing; a devilled egg; a little scalloped cake; an apple.
9. Three lettuce sandwiches, one with brown sugar and butter; three tiny sweet pickles; ginger cookies; fresh plums."

DIY CRAFT TIP : MELT & POUR SOAP

yaley.com

Interested in making soaps? If you want an easy, safe alternative to using lye when making soaps. Try Soapsations glycerin soap blocks. These blocks act as a base for you to ad your own extra ingredients such as scents and colors to your soap while taking care of the saponification process for you. Just melt the soap in the microwave as the directions instruct, add your extra scents and colors, then pour into your mold. It's as easy as that.

You can find it on Yaley website here..

Homeschool Home Economics Craft Lesson Plan : Making a Bag

Learn how to make a bag with this sewing lesson. This is a great tutorial for homeschoolers to practce their manual skills and develop useful sewing techniques.

These instructions are great for beginners.

Homeschool Chemistry Lesson Plan ~ Make your own soap

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A great way to plan a lesson for home economics and chemistry is making soap. Students will use chemicals that react with fats and oils, through a process called saponification, to create real soap.

This project requires adult supervision and will require adequate protection for safety reasons.

You will need:

16 ounces of vegetable shortening
2 ounces of lye
6 ounces of water
Long Gloves
Eye Goggles
Napkins and towels for clean up
Spatula
Food scale or measuring cup
Vinegar to neutralize the lye
Storage pans
Soap mold
Stick blender

1. Start by weighing your 6 ounces of water and placing it in a large pan
2. Weight out the lye and slowly add it to the water while stirring until completely dissolved.
3. Rinse out the measuring cup with vinegar to remove any remaining lye particles.
4. Measure out the 16 ounces of vegetable shortening and place it into the lye solution.
5. Take your stick blender and blend the mixture until it gets thick; taking short breaks in between blends.
6. Once it has become thick, pour the mixture into a soap mold and let it sit for 24 hours.
7. Clean up your area with vinegar solution.
8. After 24 hours, the soap has hardened and you can now take the soap out of the mold.
9. Let the soap sit for about 2 weeks to allow it to dry and become more stable.
10. The soap is now ready to use.

Now it is time for your student to document their observations throughout the soap making process. Saponfication began when the oils mixed with the lye mixture and ended when the soap was fully hardened and ready to use. This is because the oils reacted with the lye in order for the oil and water to mix, which usually does not happen. Ask your student to complete the following questions in order to complete the activity.

• What special ingredients were used in this activity that you hadn't used before? 
• What happens when you normally mix oil and water together? What made it different this time?
• What causes the soap to harden?
• What do you think each ingredient you used does to the soap?
• What would you do differently next time to make the soap better?
• What do you think would happen if you took out one ingredient out of the soap? Lye? Vegetable shortening? Water?

Cooking from the Past: FREE Homeschool History Lesson Plan Grades 5-9

Here is the lesson plan for the "Food from the Past" activity in the previous blog post.

This lesson will help students get a historical understanding of home economics and the resources available back then for families to make meals.

CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL LESSON PLAN.

Homeschool History Lesson Plan ~ Making Food From the Past

As your students learn about history and home economics, a great way to combine the two is to develop a lesson plan involving cooking meals that people used to prepare for their families, school lunch meals, and for restaurant menus.

Students will learn a bit about the economics of that time and what resources were available at that time. For example, in the 1920s, during the Depression, many people had to come up with meals without using the essentials such as bread, milk or even eggs. Some of these meals that were made out of necessity have become unique meals that we still enjoy today.

Start the lesson by choosing a time period and researching menus from that era. Foodtimeline.org is a great website to start with. Prepare all of the ingredients, aid your students in cooking their meals, and get your studentts to serve it at dinner time.

After clean-up or for the next day's assignment create a worksheet identifying what historical inferences the students learned during their activity. You can also tie the time period that your students chose, with a historical event of that time and ask your students questions on why they think the food may be different from the way it is cooked and prepared today (e.g. the advancement of technology, the economy, cultural influences) to help your students better understand the objectives of the history activity.

Keep the graded worksheet in your portfolio for record keeping. For a free worksheet for this activity click here.

Kids Eat FREE @ Woody's Bar-B-Q ~ Every Monday

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Woody's Bar-B-Q is offering a kids eat FREE night from 3 pm to close at their restaurant locations on Mondays.

Click visit Woody's website for more details.

Kids Eat FREE @ IKEA ~ September 3- 5, 2011

Ikea.com

Ikea is offering a FREE meal for kids valued at $2.49. They can choose from Mac & Cheese, Chicken tenders or meatball dishes.

No purchase is necessary. Find out more at Ikea's website.

FREE Shipping on Sears.com Online Orders ~ Coupon CODE

For the Labor Day weekend, Sears.com is offering free shipping on all orders from its website.

The coupon code is LABORDAYSHIP. Find out how to use it at Sears' website or by clicking here.

Top 5 Ideas for Homeschooling Field Trips

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As a homeschool instructor,you may want to incorporate a special homeschooling field trip into your curriculum. This is not only beneficial to the student, but you can also document this in your homeschool portfolio.

When deciding what venues you would like to use as field trips, you need to figure out what you want your students to get out of the field trip. While some homeschool parents enjoy taking their children to the more traditional science museum or zoo, many others choose to participate in apprenticeship types of venues.

These type of trips involve students getting an early, hands-on experience of trades and/or careers that they can learn from that will most benefit and prepare them for providing an income for themselves and their future families.

Many traditional schools incorporate this type of vocational learning into their curricula, in the form of shop class or other electives, so it is not uncommon. Here a few ideas for this very useful portion of your child's education.

Bakery. Your best option when finding a vocational based field trip is a venue that involves a great deal of entrepreneurship. Many young individuals are often only faced with the employment side of the economy and never usually see what the business owners do on a daily basis. Bakeries offer a great way to expose your children to that side of it. Students will not only be given an opportunity to understand business but they can also learn a very useful trade in the process. Contact your local bakery and ask if your students can stop by for an hour or so and talk to you about what they do for a "school" project. For older students, there may also be volunteer opportunities that your students can participate in, with the bakery.


Factory or distribution center. These venues offer another great way for students can get a background insight to how things in their world operate. Students will be able to see how products on shelves at their local grocery store are produced and distributed, what it takes to operate these centers and a bit about the benefits of productivity.Call your local center's human resources and see if you could set up a small field trip to visit.

Farm or nursery. Again, another great entrepreneurship/trade skill enhancing field trip.Students can learn how to operate a farm both as a business and as a trade. Students can also volunteer for these business to help them learn more. Call your local farm or nursery and ask the business owner to help arrange a field trip or volunteer opportunity.

Workshop or training course. While it is true that your students are being homeschooled, they may want to learn or find out more about a particular interest outside of academia. Woodworking courses, cooking classes, business seminars and career fairs are all good places to get experience and find out information that will help them after they finishing their homeschooling education.

Take your child to work day. What better way to get real life experience, then seeing what your parent does for a living. Whether the parent is a business owner, manager or an employee they could gain a great deal of experience from different areas. Depending on what the parent does or where he works, you may need special permission for your student to attend the workplace.

FREE Backpack with Office Depot Purchase ~ Online Coupon Only

Officedepot.com

With the new school year starting, your homeschoolers may need lots of supplies to get the year started. Office Depot is giving out FREE backpacks with attached lunch tote with every $15 online purchase.

Click here for more details and how to redeem your gift.