Virtual Field Trips - Meet Me At the Corner

Looking for virtual field trips? Meet Me At the Corner is a fun website which focuses on sharing short, educational videos which get kids thinking about a wide variety of topics.

I've been receiving the Meet Me At the Corner virtual field trips newsletter for several months now and I've been really impressed with the range of topics. Recent topics include:

• Canine Companions for Independence
• Falconry at the United States Air Force Academy
• An American Cowboy Interview
• Homing Pigeons

These all sound great to me. It's too bad that my computer is not letting me view the videos - hopefully you'll have better luck. Upcoming topics sound great too and include: Cable Cars; The History of Chemistry; and Wolf Rescue.

As well as the videos, Meet Me At the Corner provides related websites, quizzes, and reading suggestions to accompany the virtual field trips. You can also submit your own field trips to share with other homeschooling families and there are lessons on how to make a podcast.

Do you have another virtual field trip site to share? What do you think about virtual field trips compared to live field trips?

Sound of Music Lesson Plans

The Sound of Music at Amazon.com
It's movie madness with the Sound of Music! Game Boy (that's my son) watched The Sound of Music for the first time ever this week. I'm not sure why we waited until he's almost a teen to let him see this - perhaps because it's one of my favorites and I wanted it to be his choice to watch. Anyway, he thoroughly enjoyed it.

I asked Game Boy and Artist Girl to come up with a list of lesson plan ideas related the The Sound of Music. I hope you find something to enjoy! In no particular order:

• A live or online field trip to a cathedral or monastery. Check the Illustrated Guide to Cathedrals - there's lots of photos and also lists of shrines, temples etc. Wikipedia has a list of cathedrals by country - many don't have individual entries in the index but with the names in hand you may find more information on Google. Oddee.com has photos of monasteries in amazingly dramatic locations (be warned, this site does have some odd links on their sidebar - check it out before you pop it up in front of kids).
• Crisp Apple Strudel. Mmmm... the mention of this delectable dish was quite possibly Game Boy's favorite part! Pepperidge Farm have a simple Apple Strudel recipe. With the Food Network you can watch a demo for a simple recipe, or choose Paula's more upmarket version. Here's Apfelstrudel from the Global Gourmet and a phyllo dough version from allrecipes. You can even order Organic Apple Strudel online.
• I'm sure that Shnitzel with Noodles is just as yummy, but I don't eat veal so here's pork shnitzel with noodles. Wikipedia has plenty to say about wiener schnitzel, but no real suggestions for a vegan version. Do let me know if you have a suggestion.
• There are plenty of internet links to information about Julie Andrews, however I'd say most are at a teen level. The BBC has several Julie Andrews interviews. About.com has a filmography, achievements list, and brief bio of her childhood.
• Artist Girl suggested an activity - write a skit that uses one or more of the Sound of Music songs with a different storyline. Look up the lyrics to make your job easier.
• Put on a puppet show on the Sound of Music theme, or anything else that catches your fancy. Watch Julie Andrews with the muppets - hilarious! Here's a puppet theatre plan from HGTV. Personally I've found that cardboard in front of and across a doorway works just as well. You can find plenty of plans for making puppets: Danielle's Place has cute ideas; Teacher Help has a big list; and Enchanted Learning has some unusual ideas, like a mini theater.
  

This is less than half the ideas we came up with, but the others are going to have to wait for another time! I do love The Sound of Music and I'll want to come back to it again :-)

Cooking - 10 Attributes to Positively Influence Your Family and Community and How to Grow Them #4

This is part 4 of a 10 part series. Read part 1...

#4 = cooking

My kids say I'm a good cook. I'm not talking here about gourmet cooking; I'm not someone who spends hours in the kitchen following recipes, or who watches cook shows on TV then shops for ingredients and creates fabulous meals. Artist Girl says my style of cooking is Comfort Food. It's just fairly plain and wholesome.

My best cooking uses simple, wholesome, inexpensive ingredients - the fewer the better. It's done without a recipe book. It's the food that reminds you of happy grandmas who put love into what they do and who are economical and can make-do in the kitchen. It's a mix of the frugal cooking I watched Gran do every Monday, incorporating the little adventures Mom made with the aid of recipe books, and my own sense of what tastes right, using whatever I have to hand.

Kids need to know how to cook basic food. Adults can benefit from ideas on being more frugal - saving time and energy in their meal preparation. Let's explore cooking up some good, wholesome, comfort food!

• If you're an adult and the closest you've come to preparing dinner is lifting the phone to order pizza don't despair. You can learn to Cook Like a Grown-Up. Joylynn is doing it and you can too!
• About.com has plenty of links on home cooking. They have Cooking 101 and also plenty of classic recipes. It looks like a good place to start if you need some new ideas or just want to increase your skills.
• Recipes at Home Cooking Recipe Box look to be straightforward and use basic ingredients. Many of the recipes have accompanying photos, always a help when deciding whether something will look appealing!
• You can take online classes at Dinner Made Simple. Hmmm... that looks intriguing.
• How about going to a live cooking demonstration? Places you might find demonstrations include farmers markets, ethnic festivals, and local TV stations.
• One of the most fun field trips I've done with my kids was to a local herb and spice store. Other ideas are ethnic food stores, candy factories, and ethnic restaurants. If your kids are at all adventurous it's fun to try foods from different parts of the world. For world cooking at home I can recommend the Usborne Children's World Cookbook. It's full of yummy foods with additional information and internet links to learn about the countries.
• Your kids can learn the joy of giving by baking cookies or preparing a meal for a friend or neighbor. They might even want to sell cookies or brownies to raise money for their favorite cause.
• Learn about Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) and shop locally.
• There are plenty of lesson plans related to food and cooking. AtoZTeacherStuff has a multitude of ideas that relate food to all areas of the curriculum. KidsCookingActivities has explanations of which skills different ages are ready to learn with age appropriate ideas. EducationWorld has lots of food and nutrition ideas, and this site has links on everything from agriculture and forestry to food science.
• If all this talk of food has made you hungry, you might head off for a simple, healthy snack of peeled carrots, or wholewheat bread with sunflower butter. If you want a book to look at while you are snacking, check out Starting Cooking (a favorite in our home for the last 8 years), Pasta and Pizza for Beginners, or the absolutely fabulous Children's Book of Baking with photos that make your mouth water and not a hydrogenated fat in sight.

Do let me know your favorite cookbook, style of cooking, or your kid's favorite food.