Friday Fruit Exploration: Raspberries

Have you entered my current giveaway yet?

Sorry for getting this post out so late. It has been a bit of a crazy day and I am finally getting time to sit at the computer. Anyway, we continued our Friday Fruit Exploration with raspberries. We love raspberries and even have a few raspberry bushes in our old garden. One of Hazel's favorite summertime activities at my parents' house is to be outside with my father in the raspberries. Funny how I never seem to get any, but she always comes in with a very red, messy face. 

Inside of Raspberry

The serving size of raspberries is one cup. In that cup of raspberries there are 67 calories of which 7 are from fat. They have 15 grams of total carbohydrates if which 8 grams is dietary fiber and 5 grams is sugar. Raspberries have a good amount of vitamin C. The serving gives you 54% of the daily recommended amount. They also give you 12% of the vitamin K daily recommendation and 41% of the manganese. They also have some Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids. (Source) Scientific studies have shown that the  phenolic flavonoid phytochemicals in raspberries help fight cancer, aging, inflammation, and neuro-degenerative diseases. It is among the top rated ORAC fruit. They are rich in the vitamin B complex, vitamin E, potassium, copper, iron and magnesium. Therefore raspberries help with controlling heart rate and blood pressure, production of red blood cells, and metabolism of carbohydrates, proteins and fats. Raspberries are very perishible and should be purchased only a day or two in advance. (Source)

 

There were not very many books just on raspberries. We have enjoyed Berry Magic by Teri Sloat and Betty Huffmon. It is a wonderful Yupik Eskimo folktale of how a young girl uses a bit of magic and song grow new berries since she hears the old women complain about the crowberries every year. She gets  blueberries, cranberries,  raspberries and salmonberries.

The other book we found is Our Raspberry Jam by David E. Marx. It is a wonderful easy reader about a young girl who enjoys some raspberry jam which her family made together. 

For our raspberry exploration we used Hazel's magnifying glass to look at the outside and inside of some raspberries. We recorded what we found in Hazel's fruit journal.

Then of course we ate them!! Did I mention I can get Hazel to do almost anything if I promise to buy some raspberries?

For a craft I was inspired by this craft at Luntiks. We took some red Crayola Model Magic Clay and made a raspberry shape. Then we tried to roll them in red and pink seed beads. The beads should have been bigger and we needed stickier clay. We did discover it worked better to put the clay around your finger so you could put some pressure on it when you rolled them. Now we are leaving them out to dry.

So that is our raspberry adventure!! I will have to think about some more raspberry crafts since there are not many out there!!

For more posts on fruits and raspberries in particular check out:

• Blueberry Exploration
• Strawberry Exploration
• Pectin-Free Raspberry Jam
• The Berry Book by Gail Gibbons
• Raspberry Picking
• My Fruit Pinterest Board

Welcome, Spring!! Spring Craft Round-Up

What comes to mind when you think spring? There are so many wonderful parts to spring. The weather gets warmer; the flowers bloom; the world seems to wake up and then there are all the animals that return. Since spring officially began today at 12:57 p.m., I thought we would do a round-up of my spring crafts, activities and books so far on Crafty Moms Share. I will do an Easter round up another time and I did a Lent round up a couple of weeks ago.

Virtual Book Club for Kids: Hopper Hunts for Spring

We have been having so much fun with Marcus Pfister books this month, we decided to share a second one. If you missed our first post for Virtual Book Club for Kids this month, we shared Ava's Poppy. Today we are going to share Hopper Hunts for Spring.

The Octonauts & the Sea of Shade Book Review & Giveaway Reminder

Disclosure: I was sent this book digitally to review free of charge from Immedium. All opinions in this post are my own. I did not receive any other compensation for this review. I am including links to each item for your convenience but do not receive anything if you purchase them.

Today I have the pleasure of reviewing one of the Octonauts books! Hazel and I were so excited to review this book. Hazel loves to watch the Octonauts on television and loves the Octonauts: To the Gup-X DVD we reviewed and are currently giving away until March 25th. I had requested to review one of the Octonauts books to go with this giveaway. It is perfect timing as well as we have been so focused on sea creatures!

Today we are sharing The Octonauts and the Sea of Shade by Meomi. This is one of the four Octonauts books written by Meomi and published by Immedium. All four are available for $15.95 at Immedium as well as other book retailers. Meomi is the original creator of the Octonauts and these are the original books.

Our Tweak Peg Doll

The Octonauts and the Sea of Shade starts out with Tweak Bunny realizing that shadows and shade are missing. The Octonauts adventure to the Sea of Shade to find the Shade King. The Shade King is in charge of all the shade in the world. The Octonauts want to find out what has happened to cause all the shade to be missing. As they adventure through the Sea of Shade they see sad looking shadows. Captain Barnacles begins to play his accordion and the shadows begin to cheer up and remember how nice it was outside of the Sea of Shade. They all go to the Shade King and discover the Shade King thinks no one appreciates or loves their shadow since they are stepped on and such all the time. The Octonauts show him how creatures are missing their shadows and he agrees to let the shadows return as long as the Octonauts make sure the shadows are treated well.

Coloring page available at Disney Jr.

This is a sweet story with the same characters as the television show although one has a different name as Hazel was quick to point out. The underwater spaces in the book are much more creative and fantasy than the cartoon. Some of what is underwater in the book looks like it is really above water, but the pictures are beautiful and the story is so creative. I loved reading the story and seeing more basics of the characters than you get in the television show. For example Kwanzii is a kitten and I always assumed him to be a rough and gruff tomcat. The other main difference is there is not the information about a specific sea creature like the television show. However the story line was so creative and made me stop and think about how important shadows and shade are to all of us. It is definitely something we take for granted. To go with the book, I made a Tweak peg doll (see above). Now Hazel has four of the characters as peg dolls.

Our Octonaut Hat Craft

This story leads to so many things you can do with shadows. The first is the obvious shadow puppets. On Friday we went to a great shadow puppet show at our local library. We are going to try to make a shadow puppet box and some shadow puppets. The man who did the shadow puppet show gave us a card with instructions. Stay tuned for more on shadow puppets from us. An easier task would be to make some hand shadow puppets. Here is YouTube video with some instructions on making a few.




For older children, you could easily do a math lesson on similar triangles and then do a height estimation project like this one. To do similar triangles, the student needs to be able to set up and solve ratios.

Now if you would like to win a copy of the Octonauts: To the Gup-X DVD, be sure to go here and enter before March 25th!!

For more book reviews visit:

• The Wooly Hoodwinks vs. the Dark Patch 
• Sora and the Cloud 
• Year of the Horse 
• Julie Black Belt Series
• Rainbow Stew
• Princess Grace 
• Ava's Poppy   

Around the World in 12 Dishes: Iceland--Skonsur

Have you entered my current giveaway yet?

This month starts a new season of Around the World in 12 Dishes! One of the biggest changes is that we are trying to all post on the third Monday of the month and Around the World in 12 Dishes has its own blog with an intro to the country also being posted on the third Monday of the month. I wrote this month's introduction, so be sure to check it out. I will not be sharing about the country here since it is already on the blog for Around the World with 12 Dishes. 

Our first stop this year is Iceland! Now my sister happened to travel to Iceland this summer, so I have a few of her pictures to share with you! It looks so beautiful there. It makes it hard to believe its name is Iceland, however having read a bit about it, the country was named after an explorer spent a tough winter there. 

When looking for a recipe from Iceland, I discovered it was not going to be easy for us. Their main foods seem to be fish (Steve and I don't like it) and lamb (we don't like lamb either). However I found this great site full of Icelandic recipes.  I showed the recipes to Hazel, well I read the English names to her and let her pick one. She decided on the Skonsur or the thick pancakes/pan-fired bread. 

The recipe was in grams and milliliters, so I pulled out our scale to measure the dry ingredients. Hazel measured the flour for me. I am converting the recipe into cups since that is what we usually use.

Skonsur (adapted from Jo's Icelandic Recipes) 

• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 4 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/4 cup butter or margarine, melted
• 1 cup milk (we needed a bit more)
• 2 eggs 

Mix the dry ingredients together. Add the eggs and melted butter and stir. Thin with the milk. Stir until smooth.

Pour on a greased skillet and fry on both sides at low temperature. Cakes should be like thick pancakes.

Serve cold with any kind of topping that is good with bread.

Hazel helped with the cooking, but the batter was so thick it was hard to get into the pan. While they were still warm, Hazel and I split one to taste. It tasted pretty much like our normal pancakes, but a bit different. Then we made sandwiches with them for lunch.

Steve made a sandwich the next day and liked them as well. Overall a success!

We also have been reading books about Iceland. I shared these in the introduction post, but will share them here as well.

 

Hazel has been asking if we can do this for every country around the world, so stay tuned. Oh and she wants to do every state as well. We may be busy with this idea. 

Around the World in 12 Dishes is hosted by the following amazing blogs!!

Adventures In Mommydom, Afterschool for Smarty Pants, All Done Monkey, Crafty Moms Share, Maroc Mama, Glittering Muffins, Kid World Citizen, Mermaids' Makings, The Mommy Talks and The Usual Mayhem

Around the World in 12 Dishes also has a Facebook page and a Google+ community page, feel free to like/join them, too, while you’re there.

For this month's Iceland you can print the placemat and passport pages. Then you can check out all these great recipes and feel free to add one if you have cooked any Icelandic recipe or done a craft! Also here is the cover for the passport for Season 3!