Each month one of the four moms in our group has a turn to host and teach. Last week was my turn and we were on chapter five of the Apologia Botany book. There were not a lot of experiments in either the notebook or the textbook and the chapter was about fruit, so I decided that we would do a cooking show.
First we reviewed the information and had the students match fruit vocabulary words with the matching fruit. A pumpkin is a pepo, an almond is a drupe, an orange is a hesperidium and so on.
Then we moved on to the real fun. My ten year old picked out a recipe for Mango Salsa which he would prepare using our Blendtec blender. My twelve year old decided to do homemade cranberry sauce which he did Iron Chef style, mixing up the ingredients and then pulling the previously prepared batch out of the fridge to sample.
Other members of our group prepared mini apple pies, cinnamon apples and an artfully designed fruit tray. Even my little six year old took a turn, with a glassful of home squeezed lemonade which she demonstrated with her adorable face just clearing the top of the counter.
It was a fun day, the best part was gathering around with the happy children sampling their delicious dishes.
