Exploring Ramadan

We are participating in the Multicultural Kid Blogs Ramadan for Kids Series. This is our post for the series. As a Christian family, we do not know much about Ramadan except that it lasts a month and includes fasting. So our first step was to find out more about the holiday. We started with a DVD from the Holidays for Children series called Ramadan.

It is an older video we found at our library. It explains the holiday and some of the why for the holiday. It also shared a craft that was similar to the craft on In the Playroom: Watercoulour Mosque Silohouette Pictures. So we did not do this one. Next we read some books from the library.

The History of Zero--Asian Pacific American Heritage Blog Series and Giveaway Post

This post is part of the Asian-Pacific American Heritage Blog Series and Giveaway on Multicultural Kid Blogs. You can enter the giveaway at the end of the post. There is a link party for all Asian-Pacific American Heritage posts on Multicultural Kid Blogs. We also have a link party for Japan posts in our Global Learning for Kids this month. Next month will be India.

History of Zero:

Can you imagine a world without zero? Or perhaps you wonder why we need to represent nothing at all? For centuries there was no mark or symbol of zero. The history of the number zero begins in Asia. It is believed that the first people to have a symbol for zero were the Babylonians. The Babylonians had inherited the counting system of the Sumerians which was the first to have a symbol instead of hash marks for each number.

Around 1450 B.C. By Свифт/Svift (my work) 
[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

A Seder Dinner: Exploring Passover

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As a Christian I have only been to a Seder Dinner twice in my life. The first was as a child and the second was as an adult. Both were held at churches. I have always been fascinated by it. Perhaps it is because of the Last Supper being a Seder Dinner. Our exploration has brought with it many questions from Hazel with things like why don't we do this if Jesus did, but that is another story. My goal for this year was to look at what is involved with a Seder Dinner. We of course first looked at books like we always do.

Mary and Mary Magdalene for Women's History Month

With today being Palm Sunday and Easter a week away, I thought we would learn more about two of the women who loved Jesus, his mother, Mary, and Mary Magdalene. Besides the Bible I wanted to share with Hazel what is known about these to Biblical women. I found a few books on each of them. We have only been able to read one from each person, but I found these books on Amazon or available at our public library.

Multicultural History of Pi

Mathematicians around the world celebrate the number pi on March 14 every year. This year is a very special year and is being called the pi day of the century because besides the date the year gives more digits of accuracy and if you look at time of the day to the second you can go nine digits after the decimal point for your celebration! Various celebrations are planned around the world including in Chicago, MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Arizona, New Jersey, and San Francisco (where the first Pi Day Celebration was held).

Pi is a very special number in our world. It is a number that has been explored for thousands of years in just about every culture. Why? Because people wanted to learn about their world and started to realize that the same number kept appearing when taking the circumference of a circle (distance around the circle) and divide it by the diameter (distance across the circle through the center). The Babylonians and Egyptians were the first known to start the hunt for pi about 4000 years ago. Some say they figured out the ratio of a circle's circumference to diameter is slightly bigger than three or about 3 1/8. 

Hypatia Multicultural Mathematics in Women's History Month

This week I thought I would share with you one of the first known women mathematicians as part of the Multicultural Kid Blogs' Women's History Month Series and my Multicultural Mathematics. Be sure to visit the  main page of the Women's History Month Series to see all of the posts and link up your own!

Gift Bringers Around the World

So the other day Hazel came home from school and told me she had been arguing with some of her friends at school about whether Santa Claus is real or not. She asked who was right. In the past (maybe November) I told her Santa Clause only brings gifts to children who believe in him. She grew very concerned that one of her friends at school did not believe in him so she wouldn't get any gifts. At almost six I didn't want to ruin the magic for her, but I was not going to lie to her face. We had a discussion of how she learned about St. Nicholas in her old Waldorf School and how Santa Claus came from his stories. However since St. Nicholas is no longer alive there really is not a Santa Claus alive, so Mommy and Daddy buy the gifts from him since the spirit of Santa Claus is really part of the holiday spirit. She took this information and decided she was right--there is a Santa Claus. The next day she wanted to get her picture with Santa again at the mall when we were there (though she did tell this Santa that she already told the Santa at the other mall what she wanted for Christmas and he did not know what to say to that).

Of course I should add that the two Santas looked very different from each other. Having just written the history of Christmas trees and Christmas tree traditions around the world post, I was curious as to the Santa Clauses or Gift Bringers from around the world. I of course turned to two of my favorite sources for information, Multicultural Kid Blogs bloggers and the library!

Travel with Books at Home Product Reviews

Disclosure: Candlewick Press gave me a copy of this book free of charge to review. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease, but receive no compensation.

Do you love to travel? Or do you dream of traveling without hassles? We love to explore the world from home with dreams of someday getting to see more of it. For now we like to explore with books and posters and such to see and learn about the world without leaving home. Candlewick Press has some products that makes this really fun and easy. The first three books are from a series called Panorama Pops. We got to explore The Louvre, Australia and Venice in this form. It was so much fun. These books are like pocket guides with pop-up pictures. The book is double sided since it folds out and has the pop-ups on both sides.

Autumn Lights for Darker Days

Autumn has definitely begun even if the temperatures in New England have been in the 70s this week. How do I know autumn is here even with unusually warm weather--the shorter number of daylight hours. It is getting dark much earlier. This time of year always makes me think winter is coming too fast. It is also reminds me of our days at the Waldorf school and the holiday Martinmas. Martinmas is not until November, but I feel like I could use it now. In past years we were part of the lantern march at the Waldorf school. It is where the children carry lanterns they make at school with a lite candle and march around together singing.

Must Read Christmas Books!

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 One of my favorite ways to teach Hazel about Christmas is using books that share the true meaning of Christmas. I have shared some here previously, and I have been pinning them to a special board. Today I am going to share all of them with you. I have divided them into two categories: the ones in Biblical time and the ones in more modern time.

Biblical Times

1) The Christmas Story by Patricia Pingry I love The Story of Mary also by Patricia Pingry as well for this time of year. It has a little more details in it.

2) Asleep in the Stable by Will Hillenbrand is a wonderful story. It describes all the animals sleeping in the stable except the owls. The baby owl notices the baby sleeping in the manger and asks his mother about him. The mother explains who the baby is as well as Mary and Joseph and God.

3) Hare's Christmas Gift by Eleonore Schmid is a tale about a little, shy hare who awakes to see all the animals heading towards him. He begins to follow the crowd to see what is going on. They all surround a stable. Eventually the hare gets enough nerve to go in and see the babe lying in a manger. The baby calms him so much that he curls up and keeps the baby warm while they sleep together.

4) The Birds of Bethlehem by Tomie dePaola

5) Christmas in a Manger by Nola Buck is a board book about what each animal and person will do for the newborn baby in the stable. It ends with the baby and stating that He is the reason for Christmas Day.

6) The Cobweb Curtain: A Christmas Story by Jenny Koralek, William Barclay, and Pauline Baynes is a tale about a spider at a cave who sees the Holy family hiding from the soldiers and spins a web over the cave opening so they will not be discovered. It is a wonderful tale for the Escape to Egypt part of the story.

7) Three Wise Women by Mary Hoffman is a tale of three women in different places who see the star and drop what they are doing to follow it. Each brings the baby a gift of her own without realizing where they are going or why, but having the faith to know they must go.

8) Voices of Christmas by Nikki Grimes is a tale about the various people in the Christmas story. It has a line about each person and then has what the person might say or think. It even includes a neighbor in Nazareth. It gives lovely perspectives on the story.

9) Who Is Coming to Our House? by Joseph Slate

10) The Third Gift by Linda Sue Park is the story of myrrh. The tale is told by a young boy whose father is training him to harvest myrrh (sap from a special type of tree). His father lets him remove the biggest tear, as they call them. When they go to market to sell their tears, the spice market merchant calls them in to meet his special guests who have been waiting for them. The special guests are the wisemen. Eventually it is asked who the gifts are for and the young boy wonders why they would bring myrrh to an infant since it is used in funerals. This book answered so many questions I had about myrrh. I really enjoyed reading it and learning from it.

11) Little Owl and the Star by Mary Murphy

12) The Story of the Three Wise Kings by Tomie dePaola

More Modern Christmas Books that Teach the Christmas Message

1) An Early American Christmas by Tomie dePaola

2) God Gave Us Christmas by Lisa Tawn Bergron is another one of her books with Little Cub. I love this series because they explain so much of God and religious ideas in ways children can somewhat understand. This one of course covers Christmas and who invented it. As always there are lessons about how God loves all of us in it.

3) A Goodnight Christmas by Nola Buck goes through saying "Good night" to all the people and animals in the Christmas story and more as you realize it is a little boy saying it as he goes to bed on Christmas Eve.

4) The Night of Las Posadas by Tomie dePaola is a great story to show what another culture does and a little Christmas magic.

5) Angel Pig and the Hidden Christmas by Jan Waldron gives the true meaning behind Christmas. There is no money for gifts and the pigs are upset, but they learn the lesson that the best gifts do not come from a store.

6) The Birds of Bethlehem oops! That was in the one above!

7) Moritmer's Christmas Manger by Karma Wilson

8) The Sparkle Box by Jill Hardie is my new favorite Christmas book. I won it recently from Teach Beside Me. (She has some amazing giveaways going on still.) This book is about a young boy who sees a sparkly box on their mantle and asks his mother about it. She says it is a gift for all of them that they will add things to it and then open it on Christmas morning together. The boy sees a homeless man while riding in the car and asks his mother about him. He sees him again when they are leaving a store. The boy had picked out a pair of mittens for his class's mitten tree and a piece of candy for himself, but he gives both to the man and yells "Merry Christmas!" as he leaves. On Christmas morning the boy sees the box under the tree. When he opens it, the box is filled with slips of paper. On the paper are the things the family has done for others this Christmas season. The parents explain that this gift is for Jesus. The boy asks how it is for Jesus since it was a gift for others. Needless to say it brings home a wonderful message about charity.  

I also won with this book The First Christmas Night by Keith Christopher. It is another wonderful version of the Christmas story. You can read a review of it at Teach Beside Me: Christmas Books Review and Giveaway.

9) The Legend of the Candy Cane by Lori Walburg is an amazing story about a candy shop opening up in a small town. A stranger came and bought the shop and no one knew what it would be. One girl bravely knocked and asked if the stranger needed help. She was happy to see the boxes full of candy. Then she saw something she had never seen before, a candy cane. The shop owner tells her about the candy cane. How it looks like the shepherd's hook and a J for Jesus. Basically all the legends I have ever heard about it are in this book. The message however is that the candy cane represents a more important message. How God sent Jesus to save the world. The shopkeeper asks the girl to help him spread the message to everyone.

Now I am sure we will have more to share, but this at  what I have at this point. I am thinking maybe next year we will do a story Advent calendar. Hazel is loving the craft one this year though!

Around the World in 12 Dishes: Exploring Egypt Part 2

Last week we shared our first Egyptian cooking, which was Date Cake. Today we are going to share our Egyptian Dinner recipes. Our dinner recipes came from Foods of Egypt by Barbara Sheen.

Sharing Saturday 13-32

Thank you to everyone who shared with us last week and to everyone who came to be inspired and visited all the great posts shared. I once again am amazed by the great ideas shared. If you have not had a chance to visit them, please do so!! Also make sure you check back here on Sunday for a new giveaway!!

Around the World in 12 Dishes--Egypt Part 1 Date Cake

Today we are starting our exploration of Egypt. Since there are so many wonderful resources out there, we will be sharing our adventures over several posts. The first recipe we tried was for a date cake. The recipe came from A World of Recipes Series book called  Egypt by Sue Townsend and Caroline Young.

Dates are plentiful in Egypt, so they are used often in Egyptian cooking.

Source: Phillip Martin

Date Cake
11 oz fresh dates
5 oz blanched almonds
4 oz soft brown sugar
1 orange
4 eggs, separated
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
1 1/2 oz butter
3 tbsp cornstarch
1 tsp confectioners' sugar to dust

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Grease a 9-in cake pan with butter or margarine and line it with wax paper.

Cut dates in half and remove pits.

Put almonds and brown sugar into a food processor and chop/blend them until coarsely chopped. (The recipe called for a blender, but I found my blender didn't do the job and I needed the food processor.)

Add the dates and chop until finely chopped, but not ground. Put aside.

Using the fine side of a grater, grate the rind from the orange and set the rind aside. Then cut the orange in half and squeeze the juice from half of it.

Whisk the egg whites until they make soft peaks and set aside.

In a large bowl, beat the yolks, granulated sugar and cardamom. Stir in the date mixture, butter, orange rind and 1 tablespoon of orange juice, and cornstarch.

Carefully fold in the egg whites. Spoon the mixture into the prepared pan and bake for 35-45 minutes until the cake springs back when pressed.

Cool the cake in the pan for 15 minutes and then place it on a wire rack. Dust with confectioners' sugar before serving.

Here are some of the resources we have been exploring. The first are a set of books that were definitely stories from modern times. Some are meant to take place in ancient times and/or explore ancient times. Hands Around the Library Protecting Egypt's Treasured Books by Karen Leggett Abouraya is a wonderful modern book about the student led protests they had a few years ago. It is really one of the only children's books I found about more recent events in Egypt. Mummy Math and Count Your Way through Egypt I shared as our math exploration on Sunday with activities to go along with them. The other two are modern twists on seeing the sights and understanding Ancient Egypt.

Here are our non-fiction reference books. These books give a good look at Egypt both present day and ancient and also offer quite a few great crafts to go along with them. One of my favorites is What Did the Ancient Egyptians Do for Me? by Patrick Catel. It really explains how some of the things we use in every day life came from Ancient Egypt.

So far we have played with pyramids. We made one out of Legos and made some out of paper nets we found at Activity Village. We are hoping to make the sand clay ones from The Crafts and Culture of the Ancient Egyptians by Joann Jovinelly and Jason Netelkos, but have not had time yet. Hopefully we will have them to share next week.

I hope you will join us next Tuesday for our second adventure in exploring Egypt. We will share more food, ancient tales and music. Here is a great Egypt placemat to color for the younger children. Here is the four page passport for Egypt. Now you can check out these great Egyptian posts or add your own.

Fairy Tales in Different Cultures--Rimonah of the Flashing Sword

Since we are exploring Egypt this month with Around the World in 12 Dishes, I thought I would take us back to Egypt for a fairy tale. Since we already shared the Egyptian Cinderella, we are sharing today an Egyptian Snow White. First a few details about Egypt. Since the history of Egypt is so long and intense I will not do it justice, but this is meant to be an introduction.

Source

The Arabic Republic of Egypt is in two continents: Africa and Asia. Egypt is the fifteenth most populous country in the world. The majority of the people live along the Nile River. The Nile River is the longest river in the world and flows to the North. The only land that is arable is found along the banks of the Nile. The rest of the land  in Egypt is desert.

Source

Egypt has the longest history of all modern states since it has been continuously inhabited since the tenth millennium BC. With the advances of the ancient civilizations to include the pyramids, the Great Sphinx, among other amazing discoveries. The Egyptians were one of the first civilizations to codify art and architecture. They also are given the invention of paper from the papyrus plant and among the first to have an written alphabet.

Source

The official language is Modern Standard Arabic. Ninety percent of the residents of Egypt identify as Muslim and the other ten percent are a form of Christian. Islam arrived in Egypt in the 7th century. At that time Egypt emerged as the center of politics and culture in the Muslim World. 

Source

In more recent times there has been an on-going revolution. It started with protests in 2011 and continues in our current news today.

Now onto our story. We are sharing Rimonah of the Flashing Sword adapted by Eric A. Kimmel. In the Author's Note, Kimmel mentions he came upon the traditional version in Miriam's Tambourine by Howard Schwartz. He knows the tale is from North Africa and Schwartz said it came from Egypt.

This story begins with a queen who is eating a pomegranate. She wishes to have a child with skin is as dark as the pomegranate, eyes as bright as its seeds and voice as sweet as the juice of the pomegranate. Soon she has a daughter with these qualities and she names her Rimonah which means pomegranate. Rimonah grows up in a loving household until her seventh birthday when her mother dies. Upon her deathbed, Rimonah's mother gives her a vial with three drops of her blood to wear around her neck. She tells her if they blood turns red and to liquid (after drying) then Rimonah is in danger. Then the mother dies.

The father who vows not to remarry ever, is married before his first wife is in the grave. The new wife is a sorceress who want to increase her power by becoming queen. She used her magic to kill the first queen and to make the king not have control of his mind. She keeps her special magic tools in a tower that only she is permitted to go in. She has a magic porcelain bowl that when she fills it with water, she can ask it any question and get a truthful answer. She asks if she is the fairest of all. One day it answers that Rimonah is fairer. She gets angry and orders a servant to go kill her.

The servant takes Rimonah out and pulls out his dagger, and Rimonah begs for her life. He tells her to go far away. Rimonah escapes leaving behind her cape which the huntsman uses as proof of her death. He covers it with blood of a gazelle first. 

Rimonah finds a group of bedouin. Since they do not follow the rule of the king and queen she is welcomed. She learns to ride and use her sword with them. She becomes well known for her skill with the sword and dagger. One day the queen hears someone discussing Rimonah of the desert's sword skill. The queen is shocked to hear she is not dead. She goes to her bowl to check and learns that she is still alive. She uses a magic cape to dress as a bedouin prince and brings a magical scorpion necklace. It turns into a real scorpion at sunset. She leaves it at Rimonah's tent with the other suitors' gifts. Rimonah gives it to one of her friends, but notices the blood in her necklace turn red and liquid. She grabs the necklace from her friends neck as the sun sets and kills the scorpion. At this point her friends urge her to leave since she has been found. 

Rimonah leaves and finds a cave with a huge stone blocking the entrance. She hides and sees its inhabitants, 40 thieves, enter using the words, "Open Sesame." She tries it and goes in.She leaves her horse in the stables and discovers a beautiful castle. She finds the forty beds and lies down for a quick rest, but falls fast asleep. The thieves find her and want to kill her, but bring her to their leader. They think she is a spy for the queen. She tells them how the queen has tried to kill her twice and they allow her to join them. They call her Rimonah of the Flashing Sword after seeing her skill. All of the thieves were honest men who were destroyed by the queen (all of their belongings taken by the queen's servants). 

My Rimonah

The queen discovers that Rimonah is still alive and uses her magic to find her. This time she brings a poisonous ring. She convinces Rimonah to put it on after she rolls it under the locked castle door saying the leader of the thieves wanted her to have it. She falls to the ground instantly. However she does not die since her mother's love is protecting her.

The thieves find her and put her in a glass coffin thinking she is dead. One day a prince finds his way into the cave and falls in love with the beautiful woman in the coffin. Even though she is surrounded by forty men asleep with their swords out, he opens the coffin to kiss her. The thieves wake up and threaten to kill him until they hear Rimonah's voice saying to spare him since he is the prince of her dreams. They are so happy to have Rimonah alive, but sad that she and the prince are in love. Rimonah tells the prince she will not be happy without her forty men. He agrees. As they journey to the prince's kingdom, they find a coffin in the desert and the leader of the thieves discovers it is the king. Rimonah wants to see her father once more and asks them to open it for her. She cries at her father's death and her tears awaken her father. He tells them how the queen used her magic to control him and then kill him. They decide Rimonah will not be safe with the queen alive so all of them go to kill her. When her people see them coming they abandon the queen. The queen having gotten knowledge that her end is near from the magic bowl tries to escape on her magic carpet, but leaves the bowl behind. Rimonah runs to the tower and throws the bowl at the queen. When the bowl hits the carpet and then the ground it breaks and the carpet unwinds. The queen dies. Everyone is happy. The thieves become the guards of Rimonah and her prince.

For this book I love how Rimonah is the best at the sword and becomes well known for her skill. She also does not need the men to save her as much as she can fight for herself. We made a sword, well actually a khopesh, an ancient Egyptian sword. I used the pattern from Storm the Castle. Our cardboard was a bit flimsy so we put duct tape on it. This made it a little better.

Math Lessons--Egyptian Math--Pyramids

Today I am going to share some math with you. If you have read the About Me section, you know I am a former high school math teacher. With so many kids going back to school now, I thought I would introduce a few math picture books and fun math lessons each week. Since this month's theme for Around the World with 12 Dishes is Egypt I thought I would share two books involving Egypt and math first. Plus I always like to include a little history with math lessons. I did this as a teacher as well. I loved sharing stories from Theoni Pappas' Mathematical Scandals with my classes.

Source: Phillip Martin

Some other interesting facts are that Egyptians developed a 365-day calendar--12 months of 30 days with 5 extra days, the decimal system, concept of zero, wrote in fractions, and the start of algebra. For information on the calendar click here, decimal system here, zero here,  fractions here, and algebra here.

Now the first book I am going to share with you is Count Your Way through Egypt by Jim Haskins and Kathleen Benson. This is a simple counting picture book. It introduces the numbers in both English and Arabic. It begins with a short introduction about Egypt and its language. Then it begins to count from one to ten and for each number they show something Egyptian. One canal, two parts (cut by the Nile) and each number has an explanation to go with what it is counting.

This book is very appropriate for young children who are learning their numbers. It also could work with older children with the many hieroglyph number problems you can find on-line. Discovering Egypt has some divided by ages. University of Chicago also provides some. Deciphering hieroglyphs is equivalent to decoding a message which is taught in algebra.

The next book is Mummy Math An Adventure in Geometry by Cindy Neuschwander.This book is about two children who go to Egypt with their scientist parents to help an archeologist find the burial chamber/pharaoh in the tomb he has discovered. The kids and their dog are the first to climb into the tomb and the door closes behind them. Since the kids are stuck inside without any adults, they decide to go see if they can find the burial chamber. The sister had learned to read hieroglyphics before they left home. The clues to finding the pharaoh involve faces. At first they assume the clues mean people's faces, but then they realize they mean the faces of the solids which are pictured all over the place. They manage to find the burial chamber and an exit by following all the clues and knowing their geometry solids.

Needless to say this story lends itself to lessons on the solids like a pyramid, prism, cone, sphere. It also uses words like tetrahedron and cube. Here is a worksheet with the definitions of these words. The faces of a solid are the polygons, the edges are where two faces intersect and the vertices are the points where the edges intersect.

Some Worksheets Found On-Line:

• Super Teacher Worksheets (some free and some need to be member)
• EZ School (free counting faces, edges and vertices)
• Enchanting Learning (has some worksheets and crafts)

Source: Phillip Martin

Since we are focusing on Egypt, we made some pyramids. We made some out of paper. Since Hazel is only four, we used pre-made nets that I found at Activity Village.

I printed two out on cardstock and then let Hazel decorate one. I colored one brown to look like the stone in Egypt.

Then we glued them together. So I would not have to hold them while the glue dried I put rubber bands around them. This worked pretty well.

For older children, you could have them make the net or for a real challenge have them construct it with a compass and a straightedge (no measuring allowed). For more information on constructions visit Math Open Reference.

Of course you could also calculate the surface area and the volume of all the solids. Math.com has the formulas easily available. You can find some worksheets here.

We also made a pyramid out of a Legos. This was a fun activity to do together with Hazel. For someone slightly older they could do it by themselves.

These three books also have other ideas for making pyramids. Some out of clay, sand clay (with recipe), instructions on drawing the net of it, etc.  We are hoping to make one out of sand clay, but have not had the time yet to make the clay. Maybe you will see that in one of our Egypt posts coming later this month.

For now, I hope you have enjoyed our little math lesson and exploration of Egypt.