Books for Women's History Month

March is Women's History Month! We have had a very busy month, but we have been enjoying some books for Women's History Month (and still have quite a few to read). I thought I would share them with you today. All of these books we took out from our local library. First I will share two fictional picture books that lend to Women's History Month.

Shark Exploration of Underwater Creatures

Today we continue our underwater creature explorations with sharks. Now we are giving you some of our activities and books that we use in preparation of our reviews of a book and DVD on The Octonauts. The review of the DVD including a giveaway will be on Tuesday!! If you missed our first underwater creature exploration, you can check it out on jellyfish.

March Happenings

This month promises to be a good one. However the beginning is a bit crazy. A good friend has her young son (less than one) in the hospital, and I have been helping with her older son's care, so if I miss a few days this week you will know why. This month will be filled with fun activities, crafts and reviews plus a giveaway!! I know I am excited for spring and cannot wait for it to get here. We will continue our Hawaii escape posts until then. I am also looking forward to Easter and the preparation of it with Lent. We will also continue our Friday Fruit Explorations and Hazel has been asking to do some under the sea discoveries, so expect to see some of that as well. It is so fun to have her at an age where she is asking questions about things and we can do some research together on them.

Now for our monthly clubs and posts. This month  for Virtual Book Club for Kids, the author is Marcus Pfister. Do you know his books? They are amazing. The first book I was introduced to of his is The Rainbow Fish. My sister had given it to us as a hand-me-down. She had bought it for my nephew when he thought he should be given things by strangers because of his cute looks. It is the perfect book to deal with that issue. So many of Marcus Pfister's books help teach life lessons. A little about Marcus Pfister: he was born in Bern, Switzerland and still lives there. He became a graphic artist. In 1986 his first book, The Sleepy Owl, was published. Then in 1992 when The Rainbow Fish burst into the international book scene, he stopped his work as a graphic artist and focused solely on his book authoring career. (Source)

Hazel and I have been enjoying so many of his books and we are having a hard time choosing which one to pick for the club post. It will be one on this collage though.

Update: Here are our posts: Ava's Poppy and Hopper Hunts for Spring and an older one on Rainbow Fish.

March begins a new season for Around the World in 12 Dishes. It is hard to believe we have been through a year of it already. We had so much fun joining in this journey, that we have signed up for another year. Here is this year's schedule:

Our first stop is Iceland! This summer my sister happened to take a trip to Iceland, so I have a few of her beautiful photos to share!!

I also wrote an introduction to the country for the Around the World in 12 Dishes blog, so I will not be sharing as much of the country's background here and will just provide a link for you to the introduction. That will give me more space for our crafts and such. Here is the cover for this season's passport pages. You can begin your exploration of Iceland with the placemat and passport pages. Join us the week of March 17th to see our Icelandic adventures!

So stay tuned this month for St. Patrick's Day crafts, Lent crafts, spring crafts as well as our fruit explorations, under the sea crafts and explorations, Iceland, Marcus Pfister, and a few reviews including some on The Octonauts. I hope you will join us!!

Sharing Saturday 14-9

Thank you to everyone who shared with us last week!! There was a little technical problem on the part of Linky Tools and I apologize for it. Apparently they were upgrading there servers and had a hard drive crash. It was the one with the images for the linky parties. Of the three back-ups only one was good and it did not include anything from 2014. Thus why all the images for the Linky Tool link parties for 2014 are gone. However the few that linked up after this issue still have their image and all the links still work. However I did still pick many features to share with you and highly suggest you check out some of the great ideas even without the pictures.

Dreaming of Hawaii -- Luka's Quilt

With snowflakes flying again today and the arctic cold coming back, it is time to dream of Hawaii again. Last week I posted our first Dreaming of Hawaii and introduced pu'ili. Today I am going to share another wonderful book and look at Hawaiian quilts.

Dreaming of Hawaii with Pu'ili, Hawaiian Rhythm Sticks, Music and Stories

Now this winter has been harsh for most of North America. The past two weeks it seems it snows five to six inches every few days here. I am so over winter and cannot wait for spring!! My friend, Daria, invited me to make pu'ili with Hazel and tell you about her fabulous giveaways!! Daria is giving away a ukulele and a pair of pu'ili [POO' ee lee] which are Hawaiian rhythm sticks. Now she thought of us because she knows about Hazel's ukulele and knows how much Hazel loves to play it as well as any instrument really. We have even made our own ukulele. I should also add that Hawaii is my dream vacation. Steve has already been there, but it is the place I really want to go. One day I hope...

All in Just One Cookie Book & Fun Activity

So while browsing at the library we found a wonderful book that we have to share: All in Just One Cookie by Susan E. Goodman. Now the premise of this book is a grandmother is preparing for a visit from her grandchildren, so she is making their favorite cookies--chocolate chip. Her cat and dog get excited to have her cooking. The cat uses the internet, library and encyclopedias to find where each ingredient comes from and the dog just cannot wait to be able to eat.

After the beginning/introduction each page is about an ingredient. It says what and how much the grandmother used and what the cat found out. Now the recipe is the same as the Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe, except she did not put in nuts (nor did we since we were sharing them with Hazel's best friend who is severely allergic to nuts).

In the story we find out from where the ingredients that grandma used came. The butter is from Vermont, the eggs are from New Hampshire, the flour is from Kansas, the salt is from California (the Pacific Ocean to be exact), the baking soda is from Wyoming and the sugar is from Hawaii. The chocolate comes from Dominican Republic, Ecuador, West Africa and Indonesia and the vanilla from Madagascar. At the end of the book there is a map of the world with arrows saying what came from each location.

Now of course our fun activity to go with this book is to make the recipe that the book provides. Hazel of course pulled out our aprons and her chef hat. Then we got going. She helped measure things out and add things to the mixer as well as crack the eggs, scrape the sides and more.

Of course that required some help from Mom, so we did not get many pictures. Then we started scooping out the dough.

My mother got her this great cookie scoop for part of her Christmas gift. We finally got around to making scoopable cookies to try it out. My other big aha moment was putting some of the dough in a smaller/shorter bowl for her. These two things made this process much easier than the last time. Plus she loved her new scoop.

Then we baked them. The book talks about the baking process and what is happening to the ingredients in the oven as well. Hazel is sleeping at Nonni's so she took some to share there and also brought some to her best friend (since he is always baking and sharing with us). I should add that we only had mini chocolate chips, so that is what we used.

Now isn't that a fun book and yummy activity!

Columbus Day--What does it mean to you?

This Monday is a holiday in much of the United States. The second Monday of October is the day which we celebrate Columbus Day. It is to mark the day in which Christopher Columbus "discovered" the Americas on October 12, 1492. Now this holiday is celebrated in many of the "New World" countries, however it also has much controversy around it. And I will admit I believe in the controversy more than the holiday. However it will be nice to have my husband home on Monday with us.

I thought talking about this day, its history and the controversy would be a great way to celebrate Multicultural Monday as well as Columbus Day. So this day is to mark when Italian Christopher Columbus guided three ships, the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria to the "New World" backed by the Spanish monarchs King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. He of course was looking for China and did not know the Pacific Ocean existed. It is said he was the first European since the Vikings (who came in the 10th century) to come to the New World. And thus "discovered" the Americas in 1492. 

Columbus first landed in the Bahamas. Later that month he spotted Cuba and thought it was China and later he claimed Hispaniola which he believed might be Japan. He established the first Spanish colony there with 39 of his men. He returned to Spain  in 1493 triumphant bringing gold, spices and "Indians". He traveled across the Atlantic several more times in his life. By his third journey he realized he had not found a new route to Asia, but that he "discovered" a new land that was unknown to Europeans. (Source)

Columbus Day became a national holiday in 1937 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. This was due to much lobbying by Knights of Columbus. The holiday was celebrated on October 12 until 1971 when it was moved to the second Monday in October to give people a three-day weekend. However Columbus Day had been celebrated in different parts of the United States. One source says it was first celebrated in New York City in 1792. (Source) I found another source that says it was first celebrated in San Francisco in 1869. The first state to celebrate it was Colorado in 1907. (Source)

Hazel's telescope we made from a cardboard roll from parchment paper, toilet paper roll, duct tape and yarn.

The controversy is that the settlement of Europeans lead to the death of many of the indigenous people in the Americas. There are some stories that say that Columbus and his men handed the native people blankets known to be carrying many deadly diseases like smallpox. As a result there are states, California, Nevada and Hawaii, that do not celebrate Columbus Day. Native American Day is celebrated in South Dakota and Indigenous People's Day is celebrated in Berkley, California. (Source) Opposition to Columbus Day began in the 19th century. Native Americans spoke the loudest about celebrating a day that lead to colonizing the Americas and thus killing so many of their people. Plus to celebrate a man who captured the native people and forced them into slavery is rather upsetting. There are also stories of his punishments being rather torturous when he was governor. (Source)

 

Hazel and Daddy's Ships including one drawn completely by Hazel.

 

However we look at the holiday, it is a day off. And Christopher Columbus landing in the Americas is part of my country's history. So if you are looking for some crafts to do with your children to teach them about the day, here are a few resources for you. All of the places we got the above projects are listed here.

• From Enchanted Learning: crafts, coloring pages, lessons, puzzles (including Native American crafts)
• Also from Enchanted Learning: Lessons on Christopher Columbus, the Explorer
• From Apple4the Teacher: Round up of many sources
• From Kaboose: Many activities, crafts and food
• From DLTK's Kids: Many activities, crafts, and everything you need to play the part of explorer
• From DLTK's Kids: Native American crafts
• From 123 Holiday: crafts
• From Kid Craft Zone: Games and Crafts
• From First School: Boat crafts
• From About.com: Crafts, games, activities including ocean crafts
• From Artist Helping Children: Many different crafts including Native American crafts.
• From A to Z Teacher Stuff: Activities, lessons, crafts (all with appropriate grade level)
• From All Kids Network: Boat craft for preschoolers with template
• From Bright Hub Education: Three Fun Activities to do with Preschoolers
• From Holly's Preschool Place: Lessons and Activities for Columbus Day for Preschoolers

Ok, that is enough to keep you busy! Happy Columbus Day or whatever you want to call it holiday! 

Happy Family Times #18--A Bit of USA History

Have you done something fun and exciting with your family this week? Want to inspire others to do more with their families? Kelly over at Happy Whimsical Hearts and I love to hear what you have been up to and inspire others. Please read my story (and Kelly's) and link yours up below!