Booking Across the USA - Kentucky (Derby Activities)

Jodie from the blog Growing Book by Book has brought together bloggers from across the nation to bring you a list of books and activities for every state in the USA.  That's kind of fun, huh?  I am lucky enough to share some things about Kentucky!

I love Kentucky.  Most of you have probably never been to Kentucky.  It's a great place to live.  The people are friendly, the country is beautiful, and the seasons are mostly wonderful.  I grew up in California, but my husband is from Kentucky and I am so glad to be out here with him.  You really should visit sometime, especially in the spring and fall.  (I admit I still have issues with the summer humidity. We are not friends.)  

There were lots of Kentucky books I loved, and which I'll share a list of at the end of the post, but the one I chose to do my activity with is "B is for Bluegrass" by Mary-Ann McCabe Rhiehle.  It presents a multitude of facts about the state using the alphabet, from natural landmarks to famous citizens. If you're a baseball fan you will know that the Louisville Slugger baseball bat is the official bat of Major League Baseball.  If you're a fan of the outdoors, you might have heard of Mammoth Cave, the longest cave in the world.  If you like gold then maybe you've heard of a place called Fort Knox.  (Actually, this is totally unrelated, but once my husband was talking in his sleep and yelled out "Fort Knox! Are you crazy?" haha.  Sorry.  It just makes me laugh every time.)

And then there are the horses!  I love the horses and the fences of the horse park and horse farms.  You might have heard of something called the Kentucky Derby.  It's kind of a big deal here.  I decided to share some Derby related activities with y'all.  You will find references to horses and the Derby with the letters E, H, J, and R in the book.  

First some facts: The Derby happens on the first Saturday in May at Churchill Downs.  Some things traditional to the Derby include wearing fancy hats, and drinking Mint Juleps.  Tickets to sit in the stands are expensive, but many people buy tickets to watch from the infield.  The song "My Old Kentucky Home" is played as the horses are led on to the track.  The track is 1 and 1/4 miles long and horses usually run it in about 2 minutes, often called the most exciting 2 minutes in sports.  Only one horse has ever run it in under 2 minutes, and that was Secretariat back in 1973. A garland of roses is placed over the back of the winning horse, which is why the Derby is sometimes called "The Run for the Roses".  

Here are some Derby related learning activity ideas:

Music: learn the song "My Old Kentucky Home" and the trumpets "call to the post".  Or just listen to them or watch on YouTube

Science:  ya know, learn about horses and stuff

Math:  With little kids, you could talk about ordinal numbers. With older kids you could do a bunch with odds and probability, but I understand if you want to stay away from the gambling aspect of horse races with the kids.  I always just tell the kids "Some people gamble, but we don't." You can also do word problems with comparing number of people in attendance in the stands vs. the infield, or with the cost of tickets or cost of horses, etc. You can also talk about pace and the length of the race.  Just some ideas. 

Language Arts:  Naming horses - the horses always have ridiculous names, like "Bodemeister" and "I'll Have Another".  You can have the kids either name a horse and write why they chose that name, or you can have a list of actual names from the Derby and ask them to choose one and say why they like it or why they think the owners named their horse the way they did.  

History: Um, talk about the history of the Derby.  Sorry.  Just boring.

Drama:  Act out a horse race. Or, first listen to a radio announcer calling an actual race and then take turns pretending to call a horse race on the radio, using really excited voices towards the end.  That might be fun. 

Cooking (which is also science):  Make Derby Pie! (which is pretty much a chocolate pecan pie and very popular here, meaning with my husband)  Also, in lieu of Mint Juleps (which is an alcoholic drink), maybe try making mint milkshakes (a little mint ice cream, a little milk, and voila!) 

Art:  Make Derby hats!  You can either add decorations to a ball cap or other hat the kids already have, or you can use paper bowls or plates as a base and tie them on with string or elastic.  Then add all sorts of crazy things on top, like fake flowers, miniature plastic horses, dinosaurs - anything goes.  Then have a parade or a contest of sorts.  

- You can also make stick horses to have a Derby of your own!  That's what I did with the kids the other day.  They were really easy to make and the kids love them!  You can see more pictures and instructions if you click here.  

I think that's about all for the Derby ideas.  Other things you can do to celebrate Kentucky would include listening to bluegrass music, cheering for the UK basketball team (go Cats!) and eating at KFC.

(Giveaway is now closed. Winner announced here.)

For this book event I am hosting a giveaway! (for those in the continental US)  I will give one lucky friend a copy of "B is for Bluegrass".   To enter this giveaway, do the following:

1. follow my blog in some manner (you are going to want to anyway, because I always post such interesting things)

2. do 10 jumping jacks (because I'm helping you be fit and healthy)

3. leave a comment on this post saying hi and telling me what you would name your Derby horse (it doesn't have to be creative. i.e., my son named his horse Nathan, which also happens to be his name, but you will get brownie points if it has some reference to chickens)

The giveaway will close on 3/3/13 at 9:00p.m. (EST).  One entrant will be randomly drawn and announced on Chicken Babies the week of 3/3/13.  I'll send them an email. If I haven't heard from them in 48 hours, I'll choose someone else. 

The other books I had looked at deal with less fun facts about Kentucky. The eastern side of the state is in Appalachian country, and some of the people there have a different kind of life.  These books introduce children to that perspective.

  "Mama is a Miner" by George Ella Lyon (a book about life in the coal mines)

  "A is for Appalachia!" by Linda Hager Pack (a great collection of Appalachian stories and facts)

  "The Rag Coat" by Lauren Mills (it might make you cry)

  "That Book Woman" by Heather Henson (a great book about the Pack Horse Librarians of Kentucky)

  "Silver Packages" by Cynthia Rylant (this is a Christmas book and one you should add to your collection)

Hope you all have enjoyed this post and found something useful. Thanks for reading!  And also, head on over to Growing Book by Book to check out the other states, some of which are also hosting giveaways.  

last minute baseball dinner and my sweet daughter

My husband has been a Cincinnati Reds fan his whole life.  He used to stay awake at night as a child listening to the games on the radio.  THE RADIO.  It's hard enough for me to stay interested watching it live or on tv, but I can not even imagine trying to follow it on the radio. (Actually, I have tried during car rides with him. I fall asleep.)  Every year since I met him he's said "This is their year, I can feel it" and then they have an awful year and he says "next year they're going to be great!" I guess you could call him a fan.  This year they did actually have a great year and made it to the playoffs. (We won't mention what happened in the playoffs as the wound is still tender.)

Anyway, last tuesday the Reds were coming back to Cincinnati after winning the first two games in the series against the Giants.  Jason was really excited to watch the games with the kids, since it was going to be at a reasonable time for everyone.  Tuesday morning, as he was walking out the door for work, he said "so, are we having a Red's baseball party tonight for the game?"  Uhhh, maybe? I guess so? I had other things to do, like homeschool, but the kids were really excited because daddy said we were going to have a baseball party.

I looked for a bit on pinterest and saw lots of cute baseball cookies and cakes and decorations.  Sometimes pinterest can be more discouraging than helpful, ya know?  I decided I just didn't have time to do anything fancy.  I ended up buying powdered donut holes, sticking them on a skewer, and using that red gel in a tube to draw on baseball lines.  I didn't even do that good of a job.  I threw some bags of peanuts in a container and put it on the table, served hot dogs and chips, and called it good.  I happened to have red colored dishes, so at least that seemed a bit festive.  Personally, I thought the whole set up a pretty weak offering and not my best work.

But then my daughter came into the room, saw the baseballs and said "Wow mom. Those are awesome.  Now I KNOW my mom is the best mom in the world."

And I stopped feeling bad about myself and was reminded that kids just don't care.  They don't care how great an artist you are or if your creations are magazine worthy.  They are just thrilled when a little imagination is used to make a normal event just a bit special.  It doesn't have to be expensive or huge, or take a lot of planning time.  Just a little thing like donut holes on a stick can turn a boring dinner into a family memory.

"How I Became a Pirate" Pre-K Book Club

I started a summer book club for my 4 1/2 year old daughter and some of her friends. We're meeting once a week through the summer. Each time we will read a book, do a few activities, and have a snack. Yesterday was the first meeting and it was FUN!
We read the book "How I Became a Pirate" by Melinda Long, illustrated by David Shannon. The kids all repeated Braid Beard's (the pirate captain's) instructions as though they were the crew.
A pirate crew needs proper attire, so we made ourselves some pirate hats following these instructions.
Next we played Captain, Captain, Pirate (Duck, Duck, Goose) on the trampoline.
A sword is very important to a pirate, so the children all painted a sword made out of the free paint sticks from Home Depot. I used a large paint stick for the blade and glue gunned half of a small paint stick for the hilt.
In the beginning of the book, the boy Jeremy Jacob is making sand castles when he notices the pirates approaching the shore. We made sand castles out of rice krispy treats. This was really fun. I spread out a rectangle of Press 'N Hold paper on the table and gave them each a good amount of Rice Krispy treat to play with. I greased their hands so it wouldn't stick to the treats. They molded and snacked.
The whole morning was really fun!

Apple Day

The kids really enjoyed our Teddy Bear day a few weeks ago, and so I decided to do another themed day, this time in honor of Johnny Appleseed's birthday on Sept. 26, although we didn't do anything until friday.  We had gone apple picking a couple of weeks before, and had some badly bruised apples left over, which we used for apple printing, which was probably the kids favorite activity.

Yay!  Paint! 

We also talked about varieties of apples, and did some apple math word problems for Maren and Joshua.  We learned about Johnny Appleseed and watched the disney video.  We made applesauce while we talked about solids, liquids, and gases and heat causing irreversible change.  Maren wrote directions for making applesauce.  For Christopher, we made necklaces out of Apple Jacks.  The older kids estimated how many Apple Jacks were in their cup, and then counted to figure out how close they were, before they made their necklaces. 

Joshua put his apple jacks into groups of 10 to help him count

The kids really look forward to theme days, so I think I'll use them as a reward for good school work.  If they do a certain number of days of school work without complaining or throwing fits (hard to believe my kids do that, right? Ha!)  then we'll do a fun theme day.  

"mom, I'm trying to watch the show"

Teddy Bear Day!

Last thursday was teddy bear day, in case you didn't know, and so we decided to celebrate at our homeschool.  Actually we celebrated on friday, because it's better to put the fun things at the end of the school week for my kids.  Thursday night I wrote each of my children a letter, inviting them to bring their favorite teddy bear to a special teddy bear homeschool day.  They were very excited.  

We started our day with teddy bear pancakes, using chocolate chips to make eyes, nose and mouth (or just for eating)

We then did our usual morning homeroom activities.  During journal time they wrote about their teddy bears - describing how they looked and what kinds of things their teddy bears like to do and what the kids like to do with them.  We then shared what we had written and had a little "show and tell".  I discovered that my son's teddy bear likes potato chips and cheese and my daughter's likes to play a game called catch and cuddle.  Who knew? We also drew pictures of our bears.  I read them "Corduroy" while they finished their drawings.

Next we solved some teddy bear word problems, and then did work in our regular math books.  Then Maren and I talked about the history of the teddy bear.

To help get my 3 year old involved, we read "We're going on a bear hunt" and acted it out.  We made signs to hang up around our house for each area we had to go through, and hid our teddy bears in the cave.  The 3 year old thought it especially fun when he had to save me from the mud and stop his sister and brother from being blown away in the snowstorm.  Who wouldn't love running back through the house screaming because we were "scared" by the bears in the cave.  And yes, we woke up the baby.

For our final activity, we dance to the classic "Teddy Bear's picnic" with our teddy bears, and then went on a teddy bear picnic ourselves.  I really was going to have the kids help me make sandwiches, but it turned out we didn't have enough bread, so we HAD to go to McDonald's to get our picnic food.  

I had planned some other teddy bear activities, including but not limited to:

    singing the "teddy bear, teddy bear" song and playing the little singing game

    making bread or pretzel dough and shaping it into bears before we baked it

    doing a puppet show with our bears

    acting out Goldilocks and the Three Bears                                                                                                                                                               

but we weren't able to get through all the things I planned.  And that's okay.  There's always next year.