Thursday 26 September 2013

Club Day. The Nature Version.

A gentle rain drizzled down upon our part of the world for the better part of today.  Many soggy leaves now litter the ground in colours of rust and gold.  Nature Club was cozy and dry, though, as we celebrated the harvest season with homemade pizzas.

We kicked off our meeting with the story By the Light of the Harvest Moon.  It is a beautifully illustrated tale that shares what really happens when the leaves are swept off the trees...leaf people in the pumpkin patch celebrating autumn with a dessert party!  There are lots of pies to be shared, which was the segue into our pizza pie making.

Some of the vegetables we prepared for the pizzas were from the pizza garden the clubbers planted seeds for...tomatoes, onions, green pepper, basil.  I offered a choice of pizza sauces - homemade marinara sauce or homemade salsa verde made from our prolific tomatillos.  I stuck with store bought cheese and crust, mainly because the late night preserving have limited my time and energy for other time-intensive projects which would be nice, but not necessary.  I also supplied other store bought ingredients that are kid tested and loved in our home - ham, pineapple and salami.

As our pizzas cooked we gathered together to read We Gather Together:  Celebrating the Harvest Season.  We talked about the equator and how it divides the Earth into the northern and southern hemispheres, and how the tilt of the earth changes the hours of daylight as it travels around the sun.  The book also contains ancient customs adopted by various cultures, and we pointed their origins out on the globe too.  I think we'll explore some of these customs in more depth in future meetings.

A little bit of science, a little bit of geography, a little bit of sharing, and a lot of tasty food made for a wonderful Nature Club. 

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