Our two days together this week flew by, and soon it was time to enjoy Thanksgiving with our families. We stayed at the center both days, and things were kind of quiet as several of our friends were absent this week. Here's a summary of our two days!
Monday
We only meet one Monday a year, and it was this week. It always seems a little weird at first, but we quickly adapted! After dance warm up, we had a lesson about sweet potatoes. We harvested some from the garden recently, and plan to cook with them tomorrow. In addition to finding out that they are high in vitamins A and C, high in fiber, and great for helping to boost the immune system (very important this time of year), we also learned that anything you can do with a white potato, you can do with a sweet potato. Our guys took notice of this recipe for baked and stuffed sweet potatoes that was part of our informational video. 😋 This may show up on our lunch menu in the near future!
Everyone had one of our harvested sweet potatoes to observe, and we also compared them to a few that Lisa bought at the market. The market ones were much bigger. Liz and Kevin helped us conclude that the ones we grew at the Williamsburg Botanical Garden may have been smaller because we grew them in a smaller space.
Devin and Abraham agreed that large farms probably produce larger sweet potatoes, but they also concluded that ours will taste great despite their smaller size. We'll find out tomorrow!
James stopped by early in the day and left some lids that needed to have gaskets applied ASAP. Liz and Alexis got right on it, completing a couple hundred of them in an hour's time! Jorie picked them up before lunch and they were off to another satisfied Eaton customer. Thanks, Liz and Lexi!
Part of our lesson about Thanksgiving included a video from one of our favorite series, Homeschool POP. In addition to learning about the history of this holiday, we also learned cool facts like 46 million turkeys are eaten on Thanksgiving each year and 50 million pumpkin pies are eaten! There are a few other countries which celebrate a holiday called Thanksgiving, too...but not with the same history as ours. Click on the pic below if you'd like to watch the video and learn what those other countries are!
We followed up the lesson with a couple of worksheet activities. Sam was overheard saying, "I'm thankful to Devin for helping me with my work." How do you not love that?!
We did a multi-step art project today when we drew and colored a turkey on a background, and then glued pumpkin seeds and pretzels to fill out the turkey's feathers. Here, Drew and Alexis had finished the grass and sky, and were working on filling in some sunshine.
This was Annmarie's reaction to being complimented after she figured out that her grass and sky needed to meet each other on the background, rather than be thin strips of blue and green along the top and bottom of the picture.
The next step on our project was to glue pumpkin seeds and broken pretzel pieces for the feathers on the turkey. Lisa put glue in place for Kevin, but he selected his colors and carefully placed the seeds on his own!
Here are our creative masterpieces! Everyone did a great job following directions, and personalizing their turkeys. It's hard to see, but in addition to some traditional birds with multi-colored feathers, we have several themed turkeys representing W&M, UVA, Bridgewater, and Clemson, plus one in support of the World Series champion, Atlanta Braves!
When we checked the National Day Calendar for today, November 22, we found that the only celebration listed was for Cranberry Relish Day. So, we learned about cranberries before going home. Did you know that family farms in the state of Wisconsin produce more than half of the world's supply of cranberries?! Click this graphic for a short video about Wisconsin's impressive cranberry production:
We also made Lisa's "famous" cranberry relish that we'll enjoy with our lunch tomorrow. Check out our first time using one of the glass bowls with covers that Sam's grandmother, Nina, sent us for a Christmas gift! It's perfect for our cranberry relish! Thanks again, Nina!
Tuesday
Today went by really quickly. Even though we only had 9 in attendance, we got a lot done! First on our minds was getting lunch prepared, as we wanted our chicken and pasta salad to have time to chill, and our sweet potatoes to have time to roast. Plus, we needed to get several tubs of Eaton parts sorted. We got busy early! Sam, Kate, and Nan cooked pasta and prepared the greens for our salad.
Liz and Alexis worked with Carol to make her "famous" roasted sweet potatoes with citrus vinaigrette. It smelled so good as they combined such ingredients as fresh lemon juice, lemon zest, chives, shallots, and cilantro! We were excited to eat the sweet potatoes we had grown and harvested at the Williamsburg Botanical Garden with our master gardener friends!
Patrick and Devin wrapped silverware in napkins and sealed them with our custom made napkin rings before heading over to help with the Eaton work.
Drew and Xavier got a head start on sorting several tubs of parts while others helped with lunch chores.
After she finished helping with place settings, Annmarie went to a sorting station, too! We were all multi-tasking this morning!
After our busy work morning, but before lunch, we had movement time to songs from our Thanksgiving playlist. We found this last year, but it's still out on the web. If you'd like to check it out, click the dancing turkey! (Just be sure to skip #22 as it has a "parental advisory.")
How does our pre-Thanksgiving luncheon look?! From left to right, it included roasted sweet potatoes with citrus vinaigrette, cranberry relish, chicken and pasta Caesar salad, and more sweet potatoes. On the far right is a salad made with gluten-free pasta and no cheese for Xavier, and in the orange box are some cookies Nan brought us, which were just the taste of sweetness we needed after our meal. (We decided to hold off on making MG Carolyn's Lemon-Thyme tea cake until next week...for Carol's birthday!) Even though she wasn't with us, we'd like to thank Laura's family for the donation of Thanksgiving plates and napkins!!
For our master gardener friends...here's a close up of the sweet potato dish. It was sooo good!!!
We ran out of time and had to postpone our Fall Challenge Corn Hole game to next week, but we made sure to get in a yoga session. Here's our version of turkey pose. We're supposed to be shaking our tail feathers. 😂🦃😂🦃
We chose "Super Mario" yoga with Jaime today on the Cosmic Kids app. This looks like a great stretch.
Liz helped Drew with tree pose today. Sometimes it's helpful to lean on a friend for support!
Devin and Patrick were in sync!
With our quick two day week coming to a close, our turkey experts wanted to wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving! (We watched a video, so we know a few things!) Enjoy time with family and friends! We are thankful for EACH and EVERY ONE of YOU!
We'll be back at the AoA on Tuesday, November 30. Here's what we have planned:
Tuesday: It's still a ways out, but the weather forecast looks good for being outside today. We will go to Jamestown Island for a brisk walk around and if conditions allow, we'll eat lunch at the picnic area by Jamestown Settlement. If you have an NPS Access card, please bring it for admission purposes. Thanks! Wear Arc shirts and bring a bagged lunch.
Wednesday: We will update our calendar for December, discuss holiday plans, and select Secret Santa names! It's Rosa Parks Day, so we'll have a social studies lesson. It's also Eat a Red Apple Day and Pie Day, and we're going to make Chicken Taco Pie with a side of juicy red apple slices for lunch.
Thursday: Hanukkah began on November 28, so today we will learn about its history and customs. There isn't much on the National Day Calendar to celebrate today, so we'll have math and science activities, too. We'll also play another round of Fall Corn Hole Challenge. Lunch on your own. JRES Cafeteria is available but the menu isn't posted yet, so pot luck! (Note: Lately, it's been pot luck all the time with the cafeteria. Twice recently what was posted on the menu was not what was served. This works fine for most of our guys, but not all. FYI!)
Friday: We're celebrating Carol's birthday today! For lunch, we'll prepare chicken spaghetti with a side of grilled veggies (Carol's fave) and we'll make MG Carolyn's Lemon-Thyme Tea Cake, too. We will use the thyme we dried! We'll also put up our Christmas tree (on the wall) and begin making holiday decorations for our room. We'll end the week with yoga, so dress to stretch, too!
Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang
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