Flamingo Friday: Marco Flamingo

I have been waiting for the cold weather to share this flamingo book with you. In New England it has been winter cold lately, so I think this is the perfect time to share. The book is Marco Flamingo by Sheila Jarkins. This book is in both English and Spanish. Hazel got frustrated when I read her the Spanish, but we keep trying. Apparently there is a whole series of books about Marco Flamingo. I will try to find some of the other versions to see where Marco explores.

In this story, Marco is curious about winter. He asks the winter birds when they return what it is like. They all tell him, "You don't want to know." However he really does, so he takes off to fly north. He discovers all sorts of new things like skiing, snowshoeing, snowballs, etc. He has a great time and loves the weather. He does add winter gear in each picture: scarf, hat, sweater and mitten boots. It is a wonderful book about trying new things and not being afraid to be curious. 

To go with this book, I made Miss Mingo a scarf. I am in the middle of making doll clothes and one of my patterns included a loop scarf, so I tried it out. I also had some fabric that looks knitted that I bought ages ago for dollhouse crafts and I thought this would be perfect. I am going to use it with Hazel's Christmas/birthday gifts. She is getting an 18-inch doll from Santa this year and most of her gifts stem around that. So that is the first adventure of Marco Flamingo. I hope you will join us for Sharing Saturday!!

Thanksgiving Books and Being Thankful!

Congratulations to Rebecca P. for winning the Snowman and the Snowdog DVD! 

This year we discovered a great book that really helps hit home the whole Moms Fighting Hunger. Since Thanksgiving is so much about food around here, it is the perfect time to think about giving to those who do not have enough to eat. The book is The Can-Do Thanksgiving by Marion Hess Pomeranc. The story is about a class who does a can food drive and one little girl wants to know where her can will end up, so she writes her name and the school name on a label on it. The class gets invited to serve a Thanksgiving meal at a soup kitchen and the girl finds her can there. She also is able to save the day when the vegetable platter gets dropped on the floor. It is a great book about caring and sharing.

Hazel noticed the other day that the library was collecting food and asked about it. I told her that the library collects food for the local food pantry every November and December. If you bring in food for it, they forgive your overdue fines. Hazel wanted to bring some food to it, and since we were going to the grocery store I let her pick out some cans. Of course, I didn't take a picture of those, but I did buy some more to drop off there.

I hope you will join us in giving to those who are hungry this holiday season!


While on the topic of food, we did a quick corn craft. I am calling it our Thanksgiving Corn. I found it on Pinterest earlier today, but it comes from Highlights for Kids. I love how they do it for the Thanksgiving table, but we did it putting in things we are thankful for since we haven't done that yet this year. I also had Hazel use fingerprints to be the kernels since I knew she would not like drawing that many circles.

At Thanksgiving time we have fun reading books about Thanksgiving, turkeys and Native Americans. Here are some we have read and/or shared in the past:

 1) Thanksgiving on Plymouth Plantation by Diane Stanley
2) Gracias the Thanksgiving Turkey by Joy Cowley and Joe Cepeda (will be sharing about this one soon!)
3) 'Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving by Dav Pilkey
4) Squanto and The First Thanksgiving by Joyce K.Kessell and Lisa Donze and here
5) A Child's Story of Thanksgiving by Laura J. Rader
6) Turkey Trouble by Wendi Silvano
7) The Very First Americans by Cara Ashrose
8) The Naragansett by William S. Simmons
9)  Native American Stories by Joseph Bruchac
10) Children of the Wind and Water by Stephen Krensky
11) Algonquian Indians by June Behrens and Pauline Brower
12) The Wampanoag by Laurie Weinstein-Farson
13) Crafts for Thanksgiving by Kathy Ross
14) Messner Holiday Library Thanksgiving Fun by Judith Hoffman Corwin
15) Holiday Handiworks by Gillian Souter
16) Thanksgiving Day Crafts by Arlene and Herbert Erlbach 
     and more crafts here

We also shared a round-up of our Thanksgiving crafts here in case you missed it!

Around the World in 12 Dishes: Thailand-- Banana Cake

Enter the Little Pim Giveaway!!

This month Around the World in 12 Dishes is stopping in Thailand!! We have had some fun with Thailand. A few weeks ago we shared a wonderful version of Cinderella from Thailand. Today we will share more stories, resources and food!! For a brief introduction to the country of Thailand, visit our Cinderella post.

Around the World in 12 Dishes is brought to you by the following blogs. Each month each of us picks a recipe from the selected country to make with your child(ren) and share it on our blogs. You can see the line-up here.
Adventures In Mommydom, Afterschool for Smarty Pants, All Done Monkey, Babes in Deutschland, Crafty Moms Share, Maroc Mama, Creative World of Varya, Glittering Muffins, Here Come The Girls, Kid World Citizen, Mermaids' Makings, The Educators' Spin On It and The Mommy Talks.

Hazel and I found many books with recipes from Thailand at the library as well as some multicultural books about food and schools. We looked through them and decided on a recipe for banana cake or kanom gluay. We found this recipe in The Cooking of Thailand by Matthew Locricchio. I adapted it to be gluten free. I also made a Thai dinner, but Hazel did not help with that food since she was tired from school, so we will only be sharing the recipe for the cake.

Banana Cake or Kanom Gluay Recipe adapted from The Cooking of Thailand by Matthew Locricchio. Now the fact that it had rice in it intrigued me and I found some jasmine rice from Thailand to use!

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups unsweetened shredded coconut
1 1/4 cups cold water
5 ripe bananas
1/4 cup cold cooked white jasmine or basmati rice
3/4 cup canned unsweetened coconut cream (take thick top layer off when open can without shaking or stirring)
3 eggs
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 cup all purpose gluten free flour
1/4 teaspoon xanthan gum
 1/2 cup canned coconut milk
2 tablespoons confectioners' sugar

The first step is to soak the shredded coconut in the cold water for 10 minutes. Then drain in it in a strainer and push the back of a spoon to get more water out. Then set aside 1/4 cup of it to use on the top of the cake.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Peel and slice the bananas and then add them to a large bowl with the coconut, rice and coconut cream. Using a potato masher, mash these together until well mixed. Set aside.

Break eggs and add sugar to the eggs. Beat with an electric mixer for two minutes.

In separate bowl mix flour and xanthan gum.

Add about 1/3 of the egg mixture to the banana mixture along with 1/3 of the flour mixture. Use electric mixer to mix together. Then add another 1/3 of each and mix. Then put final 1/3 of each in and mix.

Turn mixer off and add coconut milk. Use a rubber spatula to blend it into the batter.

The recipe called for a 10-inch cake pan to be lightly greased and floured. I found it filled 2 9-inch round pans. I used a baking spray instead of butter and flour. Once pan is prepared pour batter into it. Put in oven and bake for 60 to 65 minutes. The cake should be lightly brown and a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool the cakes on a wire rack for 15 minutes and then turn out onto the racks. Sprinkle with the coconut you set aside and the confectioners' sugar. Let cool to room temperature before eating!!

All three of us liked the banana cake! Hazel and I tried it warm and found it was too hot and one of them fell apart coming out of the pan too early. I added time to the cooling here to help with this problem. It tasted much better after it was cool.

After making the cake, I made some chicken satay with a peanut sauce and stir fired vegetables (recipe from Sue Townsend's Thailand book). The satay recipe I combined several different ones that I found in the books above. Steve really liked the chicken, Hazel did not like it and I thought it was all right. Being the only one to have tasted satay before, I didn't like it in comparison to what I have had at a Thai restaurant. However we all liked the stir fried vegetables even though it did not really have a sauce on it. The lemon grass and ginger in it was  delicious. Now I went to four grocery stores to find lemon grass, but finally did. We also had sticky rice from Thai with our meal. I also found Thai fortune cookies, which we all liked as well.

We also explored some great books. One of our favorites was Peek!: a Thai Hide-and-Seek by Minfong Ho. It is a simple story of a father looking for his daughter who is playing hide-and-seek and he keeps finding the various animals of Thailand instead. The Life of Rice and The Story of Silk by Richard Sobol are two amazing books. Richard Sobol is a photographer. He traveled in Thailand for work and discovered the importance of rice to the people there. He went and told the rice farmers story. When he was back during non-rice farming season, he asked what the people in the village were doing and discovered the silk making. These books are about the life of average people in Thailand's small villages and country.

That is what we have explored in Thailand. Now it is your turn. Have you tried cooking a Thai recipe and want to share it here. I hope you will!! And in case you missed it, here are the pages for Thailand passport and placemat!

Fairy Tales in Different Cultures: Native American Cinderella 2

Check out the Little Pim Giveaway!

Last week I shared two Native American versions of Cinderella and I promised two more this week. All four are very similar and I think they all come from the Algonquian Native American tribes. Since I gave you a quick history of some of the Algonquian tribes last week, I'm not going into it this week. These stories however seem to be from tribes in Canada rather than the United States. 

The first story is called "The Indian Cinderella" and I found it in The Children's Book of Virtues edited by William J. Bennett. This story is definitely written to be an explanation of why the aspen leaves shake in the wind. In this story the tribe lives on a bay of the Atlantic Ocean. The second story is The Rough-Face Girl written by Rafe Martin and David Shannon. In this story the tribe lives on Lake Ontario.

Both stories are very similar. A few differences are that the girl comes from a poor family in one and is the daughter of a chief in the other. In both stories she is the youngest daughter of three and the older two are cruel to her. They dress her in rags and make her tend the fire or burn her with the coals to make her ugly. In both stories there is the Invisible Being who all the maidens want to marry. In one he got his magical power to be invisible from a god for whom he did good deeds. Similar to last week's stories, the sisters try to win the hand in marriage and fail. The youngest decides to try, but does not have the nice clothes or jewelry so she makes do with what she has and birch bark. In one story she is honest with the sister about not seeing the Invisible Being and is rewarded by being able to see him. In the other story she sees his face everywhere in the village. In both he has a bow made of the curve of the rainbow and the runner on his sleigh is the Milky Way. This is one of the few differences from last week's stories since sleighs/sleds were not mentioned in them. As in all the stories, she is able to see him and marries him. In one he turns her cruel sisters into aspen trees and he was called Strong Wind and this is why the leaves of the aspen shake so much in the wind. They fear him. 

Next week I will share our last Native American Cinderella which is different from these four. It is from the Zuni culture. I hope you will join me!

Sharing Saturday 13-44

You can also enter the Little Pim Giveaway!!

Thank you to everyone who shared with us last week!! If you have not had a chance to check them out, I hope you do. There are some amazing ideas there. I hopefully will find time to do some more visiting once I get my big projects done in the next few weeks! This week we finally did not have a tie for the most clicked!!

Our most clicked last week came from Bible Fun for Kids: Moses: Tabernacle Worship in the Wilderness.

A Few of My Favorites

1) From Afterschool for Smarty Pants: Gratitude Game to Promote Writing and Math

2) From Enchanted Homeschooling Mom: Thanks for Giving Gift

3) From Homegrown Friends: Pine Cone Turkey Place Cards

4) From The House of Hendrix: Our Thanksgiving Advent to get the full effect of this one, you need another picture as well.

5) From Helena Haakt: Elk Paper Mache

6) From Doodle Buddies: Pizza Box to Canvas for Mixed Media 2

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. 

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From Your Hostess:
This week we shared two Native American Cinderella tales, a wonderful Christmas story for Virtual Book Club for Kids, what we are using to teach Spanish to Hazel, the Little Pim Giveaway, an easy Thanksgiving craft plus a round-up of the Thanksgiving crafts we have shared in the past and our jingle bell fun with Daria's Jingle Bells e-book!

Make sure you enter my current giveaway!! 

The prize is a wonderful, heartfelt DVD!

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