President's Day Week

Last week I mentioned how bored I am with our home school. I decided to fun it up a bit this week by implementing the first of, hopefully, many theme weeks. Appropriately, this week's theme was President's Day. Possibly inappropriately as you'll see below, most of my themed activities centered around food. But...apparently, that is just how we roll around here.

We started Monday morning (yes, we schooled on President's Day!) with a President's Day Scavenger Hunt which covered George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and the requirements for becoming POTUS.

The kids used our friend Google to come up with the answers.

Monday night we enjoyed Chicken Fricassee for dinner accompanied by Farmhouse Buttermilk Biscuits. According to The Questing Feast, this is a dinner of which Abraham Lincoln was particularly fond.

And ready for more food?

There were Hoe Cakes for breakfast one morning.

Yes, it may look like just a pancake, but it is made with a mixture of cornmeal and whole wheat flour. The cornmeal adds a really great texture. Additionally, there is some sugar in the recipe as well, which obviously adds a delightful sweetness...accentuated by the honey. Supposedly, honey and melted butter is how George Washington enjoyed these cakes. Interestingly, they were dubbed Hoe Cakes because they were often made using the end of a hoe warmed over a fire as a pan.

And more food:

Cherry-filled cookies to remind us of the legendary cherry tree Washington cut down.

There was one other non-food activity, though I suppose one could easily relate it back to food. I like to educate the kids about health whenever possible. I put together a little PowerPoint presentation about Lycopene. I'm sure later you'll totally see how lycopene fits neatly into the theme.

Thanks to my much-more-tech-savvy-than-me husband, I was able to present my slideshow on the big screen TV. I love that he showed me how to hook my computer up to the TV because I always gain the children's attention with a large screen. This week we were also able to watch YouTube videos about Washington and Lincoln through this media.

And just to emphasize that this week was not ALL about food, we learned about the proper format of a business letter after which we wrote letters to the president. Some of my students' (*cough* the 7th grade girl's *cough*) were a bit more well thought out than others' (*cough* the boys' *cough*). In the letters, they told the president what they like about living in America and what they would do if they were president.

Of course we ended the school week with some homemade pizza.

Because pizza is covered in pizza sauce.
And pizza sauce is made of tomatoes.
And tomatoes contain lycopene.
And lycopene starts with an L just like Lincoln.

Duh.

Linking up with Kris at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers for her Weekly Wrap-Up.