We also made some more little Swiss flags to hang up on our playroom window.
And we made a Swiss Onion Pie. It was ok. I had to use almond milk and almond flour in it to accommodate food sensitivities so it didn't turn out exactly how I would have liked (plus I couldn't put a crust on it, but it was still pretty good.
We did a ton in our Switzerland lapbooks and read a bunch a couple of books about Switzerland, but I don't want to show the lapbooks until they are completely finished, so this post will just make it look like we hadn't done so much. We read a fascinating book about St. Bernards. It's always so weird. The book I think is going to be really boring and the one I think doesn't really apply to our unit but I check it out from the library anyway, is generally one of my favorite books! St. Bernards are so awesome! If we ever get a dog, I am getting one of those! Nobody knows when they first really appeared in Switzerland, but they are definitely a Swiss dog. They were trained by the farmers to work on the farms, but a couple hundred years ago a monk took some dogs up with him to the Bernese Pass - a mountain pass from Italy to Switzerland. The monks lived up there in the monastery so that when travelers got lost in the blizzards they would be able to help find them and restore them back to health and send them on their way - saving many lives. The St. Bernards are natural life savers. The monks began breeding them and the dogs were so good at saving people, the monks didn't even have to go out to look for people. They would just send a group of dogs out, the dogs would find the travelers, if the travelers were unconscious, the dogs would lick their faces until they woke up, then one or two dogs would lie down next to the nearly frozen traveler to warm him up while the other dogs would run back to the monastery and get the monks. Sometimes you see images of St. Bernards carrying little hot chocolate barrels around their necks. The book didn't really mention those, but Derek said that is what they were for - the hot chocolate barrels were for stranded travelers. There are more recent stories of St. Bernards saving lives - one newly adopted St. Bernard was home when his owner's house exploded (I know, weird, the book didn't explain how the house exploded) and while the house was on flames the dog ran inside and brought out the first little girl, then ran back for the second little girl, and then ran a third time into the house to save the pet Chihuahua! Honestly. These dogs are like people. How can a dog think of something like that? Somehow they appreciate life and have a natural instinct to protect life. Anyway, I want one. They are so good with children that they are often called Nanny dogs (think of Nana in Peter Pan. Didn't you always think it weird that the parents just left their three kids home alone at night with only a dog to watch over them? Well, Nana was a St. Bernard, so I guess it was ok. We had to get out our Peter Pan book to make sure.)
Another book we read is called "The Apple and the Arrow" about Wilhelm Tell. It was kind of over the kids' heads but they really enjoyed it and wanted me to read it again. It is about the famous defiance of Wilhelm Tell and how he was challenged by the evil Gessler to shoot an apple off of his son's head with his crossbow (it wasn't much of a challenge since Gessler said if Tell didn't shoot the apple, Gessler would kill him). Anyway, Tell was successful and shortly thereafter the first three cantons of Switzerland joined together to revolt against the king of Austria for their freedom. Later the other cantons joined them and today we have Switzerland. There are other things I would have liked to do with this story - such as listen to the Wilhelm Tell Overture and some bow and arrow practice in the backyard, but we just didn't get that far. Maybe if I have time at the end of the unit...
We made Schenkeli. They are kind of like cake donuts but flavored with lemon rind. They are really easy to make, although I think ours were a little too thick. Next time we will make them thinner and sprinkle powdered sugar over them.
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| "schenkeli" means, roughly translated, leg or thigh. Derek thought they looked like, ahem, something else. |
And this last week (it was a short week because my friend and I ended up spending two days canning pears) we had our Swiss chocolate week. We learned about the Swiss chocolatiers and learned where chocolate comes from and how it is made. We also had a chocolate taste test. I wanted to show the kids that not all chocolate is created equal and you can change the flavor of the chocolate by adding different things. Had I been more prepared, I would have also had an extra dark chocolate bar to sample, some baking cocoa, and perhaps a chocolate bar with chili's in it, or other fun ingredients (my favorite is with sea salt and toffee chips!) The chocolate taste test was a great success.
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| We represented dark, milk, white, Swiss, French/Swiss, American, and Utah chocolate |
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| The results are in! Abigail likes white chocolate the best - 7 stars out of 5, in fact. |
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| Lukas wanted me to take a picture of his chocolate taste test results, too. |
And to help the kids remember the chocolate making process, we made books about it. From cacao tree to chocolate Easter bunnies. These books are so cool because there is a secret panel you have to discover to find the last page of the book. These are what Joshua and Abigail's books look like. We did sort of skip one step in the chocolate making process (the grinding of the nibs) but oh well. Also, just FYI, did you know milk chocolate and white chocolate are Swiss inventions. AND white chocolate has absolutely no cocoa in it. It is made purely of the expressed cocoa butter, sugar, and milk. (somehow I already knew that.) And it is my favorite, too.
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| I love how Joshua spells "Chugr" |
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| It is really hard to tell from this photo because it actually takes two hands to reveal the secret panel, but you pull apart at the middle of the book, sort of where you see me opening it up and then right above my hand as well, you pry the page open and pull in opposite directions and the panel just pops right up. It is really cool. |
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| Lots of chocolate chips :) |
Next week is Swiss cheese week! And we are taking the first of our two Swiss field trips! (Both are to Midway, Utah, but they are for different things so it will be lots of fun.) We are having so much fun with home school! I love it. We are still doing our math and writing and reading every day, and after the Swiss unit we will plug right into our regular course work for the regular school year, and that will be a lot of fun too, but this summer has been especially fun and it is kind of sad to see it go. But I am looking forward to this upcoming school year. Abigail is in a neighborhood pre-school co-op so that will be fun. I've stopped teaching her how to read because I think she isn't quite ready for it, so we will still work on all the letters and numbers during the pre-school year and then start up reading lessons again next summer. And Joshua will be starting piano next month. Abigail and Lukas were going to a music class this summer and another session is starting up sometime this fall so I am excited for that too! Lukas loves music class and Abigail was the star of the class. She has got a natural musical talent which is fun to see. So all in all, things are going well and we are excited for the future.
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