Homeschooling is less of a task then it is a way of life. Every opportunity can be turned into a learning experience. My children asked, no begged, for both Thanksgiving and Black Friday off of school so I agreed. Secretly though, I had a plan. I told them that on Saturday, our makeup Thanksgiving since Dad had to work on the holiday, they were in charge. The girls were told that they were to figure out the budget, cost per person and menu as well as to cook the entire meal. They were beyond excited to be able to do this as they thought it was just fun in the kitchen...but being the sneaky mom I thought that this was going to be way better than any home ec class I ever took!
They took their task seriously and prepared the menu the night before checking to see what ingredients we had and what we still needed to run to the store for. We estimated the food cost to put on the entire meal for our family of 7 and made it fun. Here is the menu:
They took their task seriously and prepared the menu the night before checking to see what ingredients we had and what we still needed to run to the store for. We estimated the food cost to put on the entire meal for our family of 7 and made it fun. Here is the menu:
They originally got a bit carried away with what they wanted on the menu, but when we talked about cost and how much we really needed since it was just going to be our family, this is what it was narrowed down to. They got busy peeling and cutting potatoes the night before so they would have one less thing to do in the morning.
The day of our feast I ran to the store with my 11 y/o and we picked up the things on their list and compared what we thought it would cost to what the actual cost was. We also discussed why shopping at a local market was much pricier than if we would have headed into a neighboring town to pick up our items (lesson learned for the millionth time on my part!) The girls then got busy. I really did take a completely hands off approach. I popped in and out of the kitchen and sat at the counter a few times to offer suggestions. I was pretty surprised though at thier skill. My girls are only 14 and 11, but I guess they have watched me more than I realize as they had a pretty good idea of how to do most of the things on their own with minimal guidance.
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This is my 11 y/o making her great grandma's Fool Proof pie crust recipie from scratch.
We ended up with a table full of delicious food all prepared by the girls. They truly did an A+ job and they definately learned more than I ever did in home economics, I remember learning how to make cinnamon rolls, that was it!
Just in case you were curious to know what else went on at our house this day, we went out on our annual Christmas tree hunt...cutting down the perfect tree. It just so happens that there is a Christmas tree farm about 1 mile from our farm so we headed out while the turkey was still baking and picked out our tree, when we returned that is when we feasted on what you see above. Here are a few pics of our adventure finding the "perfect" tree.
