Little Miss Muffet

Do you remember what Little Miss Muffet was eating? Curds and Whey...what's that? By slowly cooking 4 c. milk and 6 T. lemon juice to a boil, we were able to use a coffee filter to separate the warm curds (looks and tastes like ricotta cheese) and the whey (nutritious greenish/yellow liquid leftover).

Egg, Alevin, Fry...Oh my!

APRIL 25, 2005


MARCH 11, 2005


MARCH 4, 2005


FEBRUARY 24, 2005


FEBRUARY 3, 2005

Looking at the immature alevin through a microscope!

Inspiration from Mindy Dwyer's "The Salmon Princess: An Alaska Cinderella Story"

With its familiar Southeast Alaska setting, this story captured our imaginations and sparked creativity in our art projects this week. As we were reading Mindy Dwyer's picture book about the "Alaskan Cinderella" we noticed the beautiful watercolor paintings throughout the book. There were several pages that included gorgeous watercolors with a particular special effect. We then set out to create some of our own paintings using this secret technique - sprinkling salt on the wet watercolor! Here is the cover of the story (pay attention to the splashy look in the waves between the salmon).



Another one of our favorite parts was, "The skiff pushed through the waves, it phosphorescent wake glowing like the train of a great wedding gown" (p. 16).



To see some of our own salt paintings inspired by this delightful book, take a visit to our art gallery back in the main menu on our class page!

We are Thankful...

...for animals! We have been learning about the animals in our enivronment that help our community to sustain their traditional way of living off of the land. Two fur-bearing animals that provide meat, leather and fur are seals and deer. We got to touch the hides of these magnificent animals and talk about how we take care to use all of they have to offer us.



Here we are exploring more animals that come from our local surroundings...beaver, marten, ermine, mink, river otter, sea otter, and squirrel.

Our cooking project this week: SOFT PRETZELS

STIRRING the water, yeast, salt, sugar and flour...



ROLLING the dough...



TWISTING it into a knot



EATING the warm pretzels with cheese!

CELEBRATE NATIVE AMERICANS!

This month and throughout the school year we are celebrating Native Americans. We began talking about subsistence and what it means to live off of the land. With the help of some brown playdough (that we made to look like meat) and some plastic bones, we can now practice our "butchering" of deer meat during playtime. Deer and seal are the largest "muscled" animals most often eaten by the families in our class. We also discussed the other animals that we eat from our local Southeast Alaska environment. Our list included salmon, crab, cockles, clams, gumboots, beaver, herring eggs, squid, octopus, ducks, geese, and many more. We not only talked about what we do to prepare the meat for use, but also what we do with the skin (leather or rawhide), fur, bones, and organs. We will talk about plants next.