Spices!

 

There’s nothing better than tramping through the woods with an 18 pound baby on your hip, enjoying a warm and sunny January day. 

Ahhh, the benefits of homeschooling!

It all started with our science unit study.  We are studying spices and the spice this week is cinnamon.  Apparently, cinnamon comes from the bark of an evergreen tree.  The tree grows for 2 years and is cut down.  Shoots grow from the stump and the bark of those shoots become cinnamon sticks.  I could tell that some of my younger students were lost on “bark”, “evergreen” and “shoots”, so we headed outside to “see”what we were leaning.  Now, we don’t have a cinnamon tree, but we do have Bartlet Pear Trees that have marvelous shoots and we have several examples of “evergreen” trees, and every tree in our woods have bark, so off we set to study!

Jeremiah was especially excited about finding different types of evergreen trees.  We found three basic types right in our yard!  It was especially fun finding the miniature evergreen tree that stood about the same height as Natalie.  We got to talk about how this tree never grew taller, while the pines above got bigger each year.

Natalie was especially concerned about keeping Jadyn safe as we tramped in the woods.  She said multiple times, “I don’t want our baby to die” which I think stemmed from our conversation this morning about abortion.  As we were walking back home Natalie said the sweetest thing.  She was holding back branches and briers so they wouldn’t hurt Jadyn and she said, “mommy you’ve always taken care of me and now I get to take care of you and Jadyn.”

Carlos and Ben mostly enjoyed throwing rocks into our creek and hunting for sticks.  But, they did enjoy finding the shoots from the pear trees and comparing the textures of bark.

After about an hour of tramping, we headed back inside for some water and an aroma test.  Each of my big kids got to smell and taste a cinnamon stick.  Then they each closed their eyes and had to guess what spice was cinnamon (the other options were garlic powder and chili powder) using only their noses. 

It was a good science class! And my house has a lovely aroma cinnamon wafting from the kitchen.  Boiling cinnamon sticks makes the best smell.

Week one of the 2012 school year is now complete!  We survived!