SOCIAL STUDIES LEARNING CENTERS

Wednesday, October 2and 4, 2007

In Social Studies we've been learning about life in colonial days and about some famous early American leaders, so we decided to set aside two mornings to do activities that would highlight some of the things we've studied. 

In center #1 we made little log cabins out of milk cartons and pretzels.  We imagined that our cabins were much like the one Abraham Lincoln might have lived in.  

In center #2 we made pound cakes.  Do you know why they are called 'pound' cakes?  Because you use one pound each of flour, sugar, eggs and butter to make the cake.  And did you know that recipes were called receipts in colonial times?

In center #3 we made silhouettes of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln by weaving strips of white and red paper through a blue background, tracing the silhouettes onto black paper, and cutting out the middle.  We learned that in colonial days, children our age got lots of practice weaving.  They saved scraps of fabric from old clothing and wove the strips together to make rugs.

In center #4 we made gingersnap cookies.  Did you know that spices were so important to the Europeans that merchants decided to try to find a way to get them from Asians directly?  In trying to find a short route to Asian spice markets, Columbus landed in the New World.  The spicy cookie recipe we used features some of the favorite spices these explorers were seeking. 

A special thank you to all the parents and grandparents who took time to help us out!

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Pretzel Cabins
 

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Pound Cake
            

We enjoyed getting to crack the eggs and add the ingredients.  It was hard not to lick our fingers!

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Famous American Silhouette Weaving
 

Weaving was much more difficult than we expected it to be!  We will post a finished product soon so you can see how they turned out.  

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Gingersnaps
 

 We also really enjoyed making gingersnap cookies.  Our favorite part was rolling the little balls of cookie dough in the sugar.  Some of the pictures show us smelling the cloves.  Cloves and ginger both smelled a little strong, but combined with all the other ingredients they made our cookies taste delicious!

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