Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Fat Tuesday Fun!

It's hard to believe that Lent begins tomorrow already! Time flies when you're not fasting... or something like that. I'll spare you the comments about "Fat Monday... Wednesday... Thursday...." Regardless of your body type, today is "Fat Tuesday." It's the last day before the fasting of Lent begins.... a day when kitchens are traditionally cleared of sweets, butter, etc. The parties and parades are in full swing in New Orleans... it's Mardi Gras!

We have a few Fat Tuesday family traditions. First of all, Jon has to have these ---


Paczki (pronounced "poonch keys") are a Polish traditional food for this day. Every year Jon takes them into the office. Here's Ray enjoying a Paczki before school this morning....

 
He and Adam found masks, necklaces, and gold coins hidden around the house this morning.
 
Our other Mardi Gras tradition is to have pancakes for dinner... which we did tonight. My mom joined us for a yummy dinner of pancakes, eggs, and bacon. I must have been too busy or too tired... forgot to take pictures. 
 
In addition to all the Mardi Gras fun.... we also had a very "sweet" book club meeting today!


The boys had read The Chocolate Touch by Patrick Skene Catling in preparation for today's meeting. It's the story of a boy who was very greedy and wanted to eat chocolate all the time. He eats a special piece of chocolate that cause everything that touches his lips to turn to chocolate. He quickly learns to change his selfish ways. It's a twist on the King Midas story.

For homework the boys had to make story maps about The Chocolate Touch.


We discussed the story and then watched a youtube video of the story of King Midas and the Golden Touch. We compared and contrasted the two stories and then the boys completed a fill-in-the-blank activity about what kind of "touch" they would like to have. Two of the boys wished for "Lego Touch" so they could turn lots of things into Legos. Two of the boys wished for the "Anything Touch" so they could turn things into whatever they wanted them to be. And one boy wished for "Electronic Touch" so he could beef up his collection of electronic devices.


Next, we reviewed the difference between nouns and adjectives. We had fun with a few Mad Lib sentences and then played a noun/adjective matching game with "chocolates" (blocks with chocolate stickers on top and words on the bottom).



 The boys then designed their own chocolate bars. They came up with a name for their creations and designed a package. Then they listed the ingredients in their bar, drew it's shape, and wrote some adjectives to describe it. They did a great job!





We got together with the girls, moms, and babies and we all ate lunch. THEN.... we enjoyed some yummy chocolate treats! Our aspiring chef did a great job dipping lots of ingredients in chocolate! And we all enjoyed eating them.



So, we've had our fill of sweets. I just enjoyed one of my mom's delicious butterscotch cookies (which she brought over for Valentines Day) and then hid them in the cupboard until Thursday. From feasting to fasting we go.... ready or not.... it's time for Lent.


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