Sharing Saturday 13-37

Thank you to everyone who shared their amazing ideas last week and thank you to all of you who visited to see what was shared and of course to those who left comments on others. If you have not had a chance to visit them, you should since there are wonderful ideas. Now for some features. We had one most clicked, so to check out this amazing idea (and there were several other wonderful fall inspired play that she shared last week) click on the picture!

Some Fall Favorites

1) From Mums Make Lists: Fall Foraging Fun for Kids

2) From Let's Play Music: The Autumn Fairy

3) From P is for Preschool: Leaf Confetti

4) From We Made That: Scarecrow Wreath

5) From The Chirping Moms: Pumpkin Pie Pudding Paint

6) From Little Bins for Little Hands: Fall with Earl the Squirrel

Thank you to everyone who shared last week!! I hope you will join us and share again!! If you are featured here, please feel free to grab a featured button to display proudly on your blog. 

From Your Hostess:
This week we shared kicked off Hispanic Heritage Month by sharing two wonderful picture books of Puerto Rican legends and the Multicultural Kid Blogs Blog Hop and Giveaway, continuing our celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month we shared a Chilean Snow White and we learned about Andean flamingos; we also shared our Around the World in 12 Dishes "visit" to New Zealand with kiwi and ginger cake and growing our own kiwis and another Bill Martin, Jr. book--I Pledge Allegiance for the Virtual Book Club for Kids.

Now for This Week's Party  
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Flamingo Friday--The Andean Flamingo

Source:
Copyright Trevor Rickard and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

Today I want to share with you a little about the Andean Flamingo. First I want to share that they are on the endangered list because their numbers are plummeting.I am going to share information I found in Birds edited by Tim Harris. It is part of the Facts at Your Fingertips and Endangered Animals series by Brown Bear Books. I will also add some information I found on-line. We will start with this YouTube video of some Andean flamingos in Bolivia.


The Andean flamingo is the rarest of the world's five species of flamingos. They belong to one of the oldest bird families which originated over 50 million years ago and are now threatened by the continuing exploitation and deterioration of their habitat. The Andean flamingo has show a decline equal to 24 percent in 15 years. Breeding success is consistently low and the adults live 50 years (therefore considered long-lived).

By Valerio Pillar (DSC_5251.JPG (DSC_5241 cropped)) [CC-BY-SA-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

They live on the puna. The puna is a high, cold, dry plateau in the Andes Mountains. These flamingos live in Peru, Argentina, Bolivia and Chile. The flamingos live in lakes where the water is ten times as salty as the sea. The lakes are home to diatoms which are microscopic single-cell algae which is what these flamingos eat. Like all the other flamingos, the Andean flamingo is an upside down filter feeder. (For more on feeding see my post here.) Here is a YouTube video of some Andean flamingos feeding Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust near Slimbridge, Gloucestershire, United Kingdom.


In the winter the Andean flamingos migrate to the lower wetlands. It is expected that this migration is due to the extreme aridity of the lakes in winter.  (Source)

The species nest in only ten or so major colonies and the breeding sites are under increasing pressure. Away from regular colonies, the flamingos are still hunted for their meat, feathers and fat (used in traditional medicine). Most of the birds killed are juveniles. Some people also remove their eggs for personal consumption or to be sold. There have also been an increase in mining near the breeding colonies and the development of the mining industry and towns to support it are major threats. There is water pollution as well as water diversion which cause fluctuating water levels. (For more on breeding and the life of a chick see my post here.

Source: Arpingstone at Wikimedia Commons

Now what makes the Andean flamingo different than the other species of flamingos? They are the only flamingos with yellow legs. Their bodies are pale pink with bright underparts and noticeable black patch on the wings.  Their bills are yellow and black and of course curved. (Source) They have three forward facing toes with no hind toes. Their voice is nasal and raspy in the calls in the colonies. The young Andean flamingos are grey in color. (Source)

By Paulo Fassina (Flamingo Flying 2) [CC-BY-SA-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

I should note that only the greater flamingo is not considered threatened. Even with several million birds (all four species combined) they are threatened due to hunting, long breeding cycle and there are fewer than 30 major breeding sites in the world.

I'll be sharing this in the Multicultural Kid Blog Hispanic Heritage Blog Hop. Have you entered the amazing giveaway yet?

Virtual Book Club for Kids--I Pledge Allegiance

Today I am going to share a second Bill Martin, Jr. book for the Virtual Book Club for Kids. If you missed our post last week, we shared The Little Squeegy Bug. Today's book is I Pledge Allegiance and it is co-authored with Michael Sampson. Now the main words to this book are the Pledge of Allegiance:

I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Skirt-a-Day Sewing Review--New Twin Skirts

Today I get the pleasure of sharing with you Skirt-A-Day Sewing by Nicole Smith. I was sent this book to review here and I have been enjoying it. Since September is National Sewing Month, I figured this was the best time to share it with you. This book helps you design your own patterns for the skirts. It has four basic type of skirts: wrap skirts, straight skirts, flared skirts and high-waisted skirts. For each of these types there are instructions for seven variations for a total of 28 different skirts--almost enough for one each day of the month.

Now I really have not designed my own pattern for clothes before. Or at least not very successfully. And to review this book, I really wanted to go through the steps, so I could give you an honest opinion of the ease. The first three chapters of the book are about sewing essentials, fabrics and the basics to drafting your own custom pattern. I spent quite a bit of time with Chapter 3, "Draft Your Own Custom Pattern." My first tip, is to read it carefully so you do not make a silly mistake like I did the first go around. The explanation is wonderful and easy to follow as long as you actually read it. Once you have your basic skirt sloper as it is called in the book, you are ready to try a variation. I decided to try a wrap skirt. (I am hoping to lose weight now that I'm exercising while Hazel is at school, so I didn't want to put time into a skirt that I couldn't easily adjust later.) I loved the "Double-Time Wrap," which is a reversible skirt with a scalloped hem. 

Next it came to choosing fabrics. Because the skirt is one piece of fabric plus a waistband, I found it hard to cut the fabric in the direction I wanted for some prints. Therefore I chose prints that the direction did not matter. I found the directions easy to follow and loved the suggestion of tracing a round can or object for the optional scalloped edge. I found the waistband instructions a bit confusing. In fact I stopped working on it for awhile and thought about how the waistband would work. I kept going back to Chapter 2 to read about the waistbands. Finally I figured it out and finished the skirt for me. Then I drew up a pattern for Hazel. She, of course, wanted a matching skirt. The second time around was much easier. Plus I took out some of the darts since she does not have the curves a grown woman has.

Hazel likes the pink and orange side the best and I like the brown side the best, but we are planning on wearing them tomorrow so we can be "twins". Although Hazel did point out to be twins we need matching shirts as well. 

Trying on our new skirts

We of course had to try them on together and have Steve take pictures. (Steve is not the best photographer, so I apologize for the picture quality--at least he did not cut off our heads like he has in the past.)

Now I cannot wait to adjust my skirt sloper to try the Jazz Age Skirt (the red one pictured on the cover), the High Definition Skirt (the orange and pink one on the cover) and the Girlie Show Skirt (a flared skirt). Now if I can at least some weight, so I know I will be able to wear them longer. Stay tuned. I know I will be using this book more and posting more great skirts made with it.

So I have to say, I recommend this book especially if you have been wanting to get into customizing patterns, but did not know where or how to start or if you are just looking for some great skirt patterns. This book has wonderful ideas that you can use to fit any body type. Happy Sewing!!

Around the World in 12 Dishes--New Zealand Kiwi Cake

This month we are "traveling" to New Zealand with Around the World in 12 Dishes. Now one of Hazel's favorite fruits is a kiwi. I don't always buy them due to the cost at certain times of the year, but she can literally eat a couple in a sitting if I let her. At the end of August she asked why we couldn't grow our own kiwis. I decided to see if there were any books on growing your own at the library and found two: Eat the Fruit, Plant the Seed by Millicent Selsam and Jerome Wexler and Grow It Again by Elizabeth MacLeod. We checked them out and gave it a try. Currently we have a bag of soil with kiwi seeds in our refrigerator. You have to chill them for five to six weeks so they think they are planted through a winter. We will be planting them in a pot in October.

Coloring Page available at DLTK Kids

Since Hazel loves kiwi it only seemed fitting to try a kiwi recipe. We decided to try a recipe for kiwi cake. We adapted the recipe from The Search for NZ's Favourite Recipe for kiwifruit and ginger cake. The first thing we had to do was figure out how to make it gluten free since the whole family has gone reduced gluten now or really no gluten when we can control it. Plus we had to figure out the measurements and oven temperature.

Ingredients
Butter (about 9 Tablespoons or 1 stick and a tablespoon more)
1 cups Sugar
2 Eggs
5 Medium Kiwis, peeled and mashed (Hazel loved mashing them)
2 teaspoons Baking Powder
1 Tablespoon Boiling Milk (I put it in the microwave for 45 seconds and that was a bit too long, so try 30)
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
2 cups Gluten Free All Purpose Flour
1/2 teaspoon Xanthan Gum
1 teaspoon dried ground ginger
Chocolate Frosting

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease an 8-inch or 9-inch cake pan.

Hazel showing off the green batter

Cream the butter and sugar with your mixer. Hazel loves controlling the mixer plus adding things to the bowl.

Add the eggs. Hazel always beats them slightly for me.

Dissolve the baking soda in the boiling milk. Then add this mixture and the mashed kiwi to the sugar mixture.

Combine the flour, baking powder, xanthan gum and ginger and then add it to the rest of the ingredients.

Put in the prepared pan and bake for 45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool and then frost with chocolate frosting.

Cooling right out of oven

We could not wait for the frosting to try it, so we cut into it before it was completely cool.

We loved it. In fact we each had two pieces before we frosted it. Hazel loved to point out the black dots and tell me they were the seeds of the kiwi.

We bought a can of pre-made frosting which I hardly ever do, but Hazel had a cold and was home sick from school when we made the cake. We both frosted the remainder of the cake. Then had a piece for dessert at dinner. Steve did not like it, but that does not surprise me since he does not like kiwis or anything new for that matter.

We of course read stories and looked at many non-fiction books to learn more about New Zealand. We discovered Margaret Mahy, a New Zealand author who has many books here in the States. We really loved her book, Making Friends. We read many Maori stories and legends. The Maori are the indigenous people of New Zealand.

We also looked at reference books.

And we looked at some of the wildlife unique to New Zealand--in particular birds.

Hazel really loved The Moa book by Tamara Green. She read it to Ducky the next morning and loved looking at the pictures of the extinct or almost extinct bird. We learned a new word, ratite which the moa and the kiwi are members of. Ratite is a species of flightless birds which include the ostrich, emu and others.

As always we also listened to some music from New Zealand. Here are some of the CD covers we found the music to listen.

So that has been our exploration of New Zealand. Hazel still wants to make a kiwi tart, so we may be doing some more with this wonderful country. However now it is your turn to share and to visit. Please visit these other wonderful host blogs.

Adventures In Mommydom - Afterschooling for Smarty Pants - All Done Monkey - Crafty Moms Share - Creative World of Varya - Glittering Muffins - Here Come The Girls - Kid World Citizen - Kitchen Counter Chronicles - Mermaids’ Makings - The Educators’ Spin On It - Maroc Mama
 

Also check out Around the World in 12 Dishes on Pinterest. Be sure to follow so you will not miss a thing! Here are the passport pages for New Zealand. Here is the placemat for New Zealand.

Please share any dishes you have tried from New Zealand or crafts, activities, etc. to teach your child(ren) about New Zealand.