Fat Tuesday!

I like celebrating Mardi Gras.  It's fun with the bright colors, masks, and just another reason to make a day extra special.  My sophomore year of college, I got in a car with five friends and we drove from Boston to New Orleans to experience Mardi Gras.  We made the decision to go just days before, and I think I had $300.00 for the whole trip.  Honestly, I don't even remember the names of two of the people I traveled with, but the trip was a lot of fun and I'm glad I went.  I'm rarely that spontaneous.

My Mardi Gras celebrations are VERY different these days!

I made a Mardi Gras sensory bin for Kate using rice that I dyed, beads, and pipe cleaners.

 Kate is learning the letter M this week (perfect for Mardi Gras), so I threw in the M find it cards.  She was so excited about the sensory bin that she quickly found all of the M cards and put them on the matching sheet.

 This made a HUGE mess, but it was worth it.  Kate really had a lot of fun scooping, pouring, and just playing.

 I added some play dough for an extra layer of fun.

 You cannot have a Mardi Gras celebration without masks, and M is also for mask (I love how that just worked out without me even thinking about it or planning it ahead of time).  I cut masks out of cereal box cardboard and the kids decorated them.

 

I saw these whoopie pies with Mardi Gras frosting at Whole Foods (this means NO ARTIFICIAL COLORS) and could not resist them.  I cut them up so that everyone could have a piece of each color.

Fat Tuesday is also National Pancake Day.  I made two kinds of pancakes from one batter.  Pioneer Woman has a recipe for pancake mini muffins.  To make the muffins, you put pancake batter (I used PW's recipe, but any batter would work) in a mini muffin pan and bake them in the oven for about ten minutes.  The kids liked dunking them in syrup.  I also made traditional pancakes using the batter that was left after I filled my mini muffin pan.

Hooray for all of the fun that March brings!  

More Jazz Music and Books

We just finished learning about the state of Louisiana.  During our studies, we spent some time learning about jazz music.  I wrote a post about some of the jazz books we read a few weeks ago, but we came across a few more that I have to share.  We also listened to a lot of jazz music.

We listened to two collections of jazz music from Putamayo Kids.  If you are not familiar with Putamayo Kids World Music Adventures, you should check your library for their fantastic CDs.  We own a few of them, but we borrowed Jazz Playground and New Orleans Playground from the library.  The Jazz Playground CD features jazz music from all over the world, including the USA, France, Israel, Japan, and more.  We all enjoyed the music, and C was thrilled to hear the jazzy rendition of the Spider-Man song.  New Orleans Playground features great music from New Orleans, and this CD is a fantastic way to immerse yourself in the culture.  I love love love Putamayo kids, and I strongly recommend their collections of music to learn about different countries or parts of our own country.

When I wrote my last post about jazz books, the Mom from What Do We Do All Day recommended Bebop Express by H.L. Panahi.  This is a fun rhythmic read that celebrates jazz from New York to New Orleans.  As the jazzy train makes its way across the country, each stop along the way features a different type of jazz musician - sax player  in New York, drummer in Philly, bass player in Chicago, jazz singer in St. Louis, and the whole jazz band in New Orleans.  This is a fun book to use for geography studies too.  C and I really enjoyed the book, but R didn't care for it.

Our final jazz selection is Jazz by Walter Dean Myers.  This book uses poetry and paintings to explore jazz.  I have to admit that we didn't read the entire book; we just read selections from it.  This book is probably better for older elementary aged children.  We enjoyed what we read though.

If you are studying the state of Louisiana, don't forget to watch The Princess and the Frog!

For more great reads, check out What My Child is Reading at Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns and for more geography inspired posts, head over to Children Grow, Children Explore, Children Learn.
   

Louisiana Swamp Snack and Books

We are currently studying the state of Louisiana.  I put together a swampy snack for C and R.  The swamp is vanilla pudding with a few drops of green food coloring.  There are a few candy rocks in the swamp, as well as gummy worms and alligators. 

I made the alligators by covering Nabisco sugar wafers with melted green Wilton candy melts. 

For the eyes, I attached tiny pieces of green jelly beans while the green candy was still melted, and added white icing with a toothpick. 

I also used the toothpick to dot on a tiny bit of black gel icing for the pupils.  White icing also worked to make a few teeth on the alligators.

C loved the snack and ate every bite.  R declared it gross (it's a swamp, isn't it supposed to be gross?) and gave it to T.

We followed snack time with two swamp books.

Swamp Song by Helen Ketteman is a fun rhyming book that begins with Old Man Gator tapping his toes.  Soon all of the animals are moving and grooving to a swampy beat.

Catfish Kate and the Sweet Swamp Band by Sarah Weeks is another fun rhyming book.  Catfish Kate and her all-girl band liven up the bayou with their music, but the boys want quiet in the swamp so they can read.  Is the swamp big enough for the girls and the boys?  This is a fun book about compromise and conflict resolution.

Speaking of Louisiana and swamps, have you seen the show Swamp People on the History Channel?  I don't know why, but I am so intrigued by the show.  I can't even imagine spending my life catching alligators on the swamp.  You can watch full episodes about the people who depend on the Louisiana swamps to make a living by clicking on the link in the first sentence of this paragraph, or you can purchase the DVD through Amazon* using my link below. 

*I am an Amazon affiliate and will receive a tiny commission if you purchase anything through my links.  This does not affect the cost of your purchases.
 

A Louisiana Treat

We are currently studying the state of Louisiana, and we recently learned that sweet potatoes (yams) are an important Louisiana crop.  They grow throughout the state and each year the city of Opelousas holds a Yambilee Festival to celebrate the harvest.

R loves baked or mashed sweet potatoes, but C is a picky eater and won't even try a bite.  Since he is a fan of pumpkin bread though, I figured a sweet potato bread would be a good choice for our Louisiana food.  I was right; everyone in the house loved the bread.  It tastes just like pumpkin bread.

This recipe is from the allrecipes site:

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 eggs
• 1 3/4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/3 cup water
• 1 cup cooked and mashed sweet potatoes
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans

Directions

1. Combine sugar and oil; beat well. Add eggs and beat. Combine flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Stir flour mixture into egg mixture alternately with water. Stir in sweet potatoes and chopped nuts.
2. Pour batter into greased 9x5 inch loaf pan (or 2 small loaf pans). Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for about one hour. 

Our information about the sweet potatoes came from the book P is for Pelican, A Louisiana Alphabet by Anita C. Prieto.

New Orleans Jazz

We are still studying the state of Louisiana, and our current focus is on jazz music.  I am trying to remember to play jazz music at least once a day and we are reading a few jazzy books!

What a Wonderful World by George David Weiss and Bob Thiele features the lyrics made famous by the great Louis Armstrong.  We have owned this book for a few years now because C and R both LOVE the song.  The lyrics really come to life through the bright, colorful illustrations by Ashley Bryan.

Jazz Cats by David Davis is a picture book that offers a musical tour of New Orleans with the accompaniment of a few cool jazz cats.  I love that the book mentions real places in New Orleans!

Jazz Baby by Lisa Wheeler and R. Gregory Christie features a singing, dancing family and a fun, jazzy rhyme that we really enjoy reading.  We like the jazzy lyrics, especially, "rat-tat-tat" and "doo-wop-doo"!

We also own This Jazz Man by Karen Ehrhardt.  In this counting book, nine great jazz musicians are featured with fun, scat-filled rhyming lyrics meant to be sang to the popular counting tune of "This Old Man".  This is a great read aloud!  At the end of the book, there is information about each of the musicians featured.

Check out What My Child is Reading at Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns for more great books!
 

Mardi Gras Play Dough and Masks

We are currently studying the state of Louisiana and I decided to spend one more day on Mardi Gras fun before moving on to all of the other wonderful things about the state.

We are reading Mimi's First Mardi Gras by Alice Couvillon.  We love the way the book is illustrated mostly in the colors of Mardi Gras.  It is a great introduction to Mardi Gras, and it features all of the fun details we have been talking about - parades, King Cake with a tiny baby doll inside, beignets, and beads!

I mentioned in an earlier post that there are three colors associated with Mardi Gras and each color has a meaning.  Purple stands for justice, green symbolizes faith, and gold is for power.  The colors were chosen by Rex, the King of Carnival, in 1892 and he assigned their meaning. 

I considered making some of our favorite homemade play dough this week, but I noticed that we had three brand new containers of the store bought variety in Mardi Gras colors, so that worked out great.

I have no idea why he wanted his vest on to play with play doh.

 

When I was a sophomore in college, I went to New Orleans for Mardi Gras with some friends.  I remember that there were houses painted (the whole house, really) in the bright Mardi Gras colors.  I was telling C and R about this, and C decided to make his own Mardi Gras house using one of our cookie cutters.

He thought it would look even better if he pushed his Mardi Gras beads into the dough to make designs.

C and R each made their own Mardi Gras masks too.  We learned that by law, float riders in the Mardi Gras parades must always have a mask on.  Also, on Fat Tuesday, masking is legal for everyone else, and the elaborate masks that some wear add to the fun.  C and R used fun foam (I cut out the masks and they decorated them), pom poms, feathers, and sequins to make their masks.

Mardi Gras Beads

We are currently studying the state of Louisiana as part of our Fifty States Project.  After school yesterday, C and R made beaded necklaces using Mardi Gras colors. 

The colors of Mardi Gras are purple, green, and gold and they symbolize justice, faith, and power, respectively. 

C made a Mardi Gras necklace for me and R made me a Mardi Gras crown; here I am modeling them (I thought it was a good excuse show off the little baby bump, but the horizontal stripes make it look smaller than it typically looks):

I look like a giant because C took this photo!

Louisiana Deliciousness

Is there a better way to kick off a state study than with fried dough?  I think not. 

We began our state study of Louisiana on Fat Tuesday with some beignets from Whole Foods.  It wasn't even planned.  I went to Whole Foods to do my shopping and there they were, freshly made, the official state doughnut of Louisiana. 

They were so good that C and R had to do a little dance:

And, YES, that is Mr. Anonymous in the chair in the background.  Ha ha ha ha!