Recipe: Mary's Ginger Bends

One of the best parts of moving alot (we've moved SEVEN times in the past 11 years!) is you become friends with some really cool folks. Added to that are the tools available nowadays: the Internet, email and unlimited long distance on cell phones. This all equals the recipe below.

I had posted on an internet forum that I wanted to make cookies today and was uninspired with my usual recipes. It's an overcast, rainy day here and I just felt like doing some cooking math and baking something that would make the house smell good, put smiles on my littles' faces and generally taste really good!

Good friend from Colorado, Our Domestic Church, immediately posted that she always makes ginger-snaps on dreary days. Sounded perfect, so I got out the cell phone and called my dear Coloradan. Here's her recipe for ginger bends (they bend rather than snap!).

Mary's Ginger Bends
(preheat oven to 375)

¾ cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
¼ cup molasses
1 egg
2-1/4 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp cloves

Cream first four ingredients than add dry and blend well. Roll into balls and than roll in sugar. Place on greased cookie sheet and bake at 375 for about 10 minutes -- till baked but still soft.

Don't they look luscious? And they completely answered my needs -- the house smells of lovely, warm spices; the kids are smiling and feeling good about life in general; and the cookies are SENSATIONAL!

Thanks, Mare!

Simple Craft-of-the-Week: Paper Weaving

Sarah at Plainsong, came up with a great idea to make it easier for moms to include an art/craft activity in the weekly lesson plans. Each week different 4 Real homeschoolers will be posting the instructions for making a craft geared toward the 4-9 age group. The projects are meant to be non-complicated and use materials that are readily available.

This week is my week! The following is a project that I can remember doing when I was in Kindergarten or 1st Grade: Paper Weaving! It's a great hand-eye cooordination exercise as well as great practice before trying weaving with yarn. This project also gives lots of options for what and how to make.

I invited the gang from Our Domestic Church to come craft with us ... and boy did we have fun creating all different types of paper weaving from the simple to the elaborate!
First, get all your supplies -- different kinds of paper (construction, scrapbook, typing, wallpaper book .... ANY kind of paper will work for this project!), crayons and markers for embellishments, ruler, scissors, glue (either stick or liquid), tape (either masking or clear), pencil for drawing (draw lightly, then it's easier to erase if you make an error or change your mind!).

SIMPLE RECTANGULAR WEAVING -- placemats or pretty designs for the wall

Mark a pencil line at one end of your paper about 1/2-1" in from the edge -- you will then cut lines of equal width toward this line (using a ruler for placement or eye-balling it -- either way it comes out great!). Another way is to fold the paper in half and cut lines toward the end line (this way both ends of paper are solid).

Begin weaving with strips of paper -- either all the same width or differing widths -- first row, under/over across all the "legs". Alternate for the next row doing over/under across. Push the rows together gently so there are no gaps. Keep weaving until the paper is full -- you can center the weaving by stopping with a "hem" the same depth as your original pencil line.

When your weaving is complete, trim any ends that may stick out and tape or glue the lose ends. You can either laminate the finished piece or mount it on another sheet. Here are some of the "simple" shapes done ...

Simplest -- all strips (warp and weft) are approximately the same width
Different widths, colors and "decorator" scissors Wavy lines with straight strips -- kinda 60s-ish, eh?

WOVEN PICTURES -- More Elaborate Drawings with Weaving

Now, this is where the imagination can REALLY kick-in! The kids really had fun with this -- and the more you do, the more ideas you discover!
Draw any shape -- animal, plant, geometric, etc -- on a piece of large constuction paper. Cut out your shape. Decide which way you want to weave and cut drawing for your "loom".

When you're done with the weaving -- and remember, you don't have to weave the WHOLE THING (just a section of the overall drawing) -- you can draw eyes, wings, other embellishments (using paper, glitter, etc) and outline the overall picture.

And the finished products:

This craft was "remembered" when I was looking through The Usborne Book of Art Projects. Thanks to MaryM's suggestion, I've gotten many of these books and they are wonderful -great projects, clear instructions and lots of room for creativity. Here are some others that are definitely worth a look: The Usborne Book of Art Skills, The Usborne Book of Art Ideas, Usborne Art Ideas: Big Book of Things to Draw, The Usborne Book of Paper Engineering, and The Usborne Book of Papier Mache. They also have one that combines art appreciation and projects -- The Usborne Art Treasury -- which has 22 different famous works of art, a bit about the artist and a project that imitates the artist's work. VERY COOL! Usborne has TONS of great craft books, but these are the ones that seem to have a great mix of ideas.

So to everyone, a prayer for you for a wonderful new school year -- whether you're learning in the heart of the home or the heart of the classroom. Here's an apple for each of you teachers:

Nature Study: Denver Botanic Gardens

Yesterday, the "littles" and I went to the Denver Botanic Gardens with Our Domestic Church (+ a friend) -- this was our first visit, but definitely WON'T be our last!

This is a wonderful place to do nature study -- it's got different environments including the rain forest, alpine plants, cactus and succulents, ornamental grasses, dryland mesa, plains garden, Japanese tea garden (where they host full Japanese tea ceremonies!), herb garden, cutting garden, water smart garden and more.

There is a kids' area with a REALLY cool Mulberry Tree hide-out (which would be a GREAT substitute for a sunflower house!) where we could get away from the "hovering round 100" weather we had yesterday! The kids' area also has container gardens such as a "Pizza Garden" with peppers, tomatoes, herbs or the "PeanutButter and Jelly Garden" with grapes, peanuts, strawberry, and wheat grass all growing happily together.

The best spot for String Bean, though, was a water garden with water lilies ... she just loves these and we used up many digital pictures on trying to get a good one of these lovely, floating flowers.

This field trip was yet another example that on our outings with friends ... we ALWAYS have good times and good learning intermixing to create GREAT memories!

LOOK at this picture ...

... taken by our good friends over at Our Domestic Church yesterday. Good friends, good times AND a morning of nature study at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal (which used to be on the top-10 list for Superfund recovery --ie, REALLY bad waste stuff) .... what more could kids want??????

(And, because I'm a bit nature-challenged, it really makes it GREAT to go with a biology major -- especially when my PhD biologist husband is unavailable!).