Middle Eastern Feast Night

Super did a fantastic job of preparing the food for our feast! Phil said he thinks Super may be a master chef in the making! We even added a few things to the menu.

For our appetizers, we had a mixture of nuts and dried fruit, pita bread, hummus, and garlic stuffed olives. The boys loved the hummus. I thought it was awesome that the nut mixture had both pistachios and pine nuts in it. It seemed unusual to find a mixture like that in the grocery store. It had some basic nuts like almonds too.

For the main course, we had beef kebabs, couscous with split peas, fried eggplant, and the cucumber and yogurt salad. Tutone really enjoyed the eggplant, which was funny since he was wrinkling his nose at the name of it before dinner. But it was really spicy and anything spicy is right up his alley. Super liked the beef kebabs that he made, but he wasn't too into the couscous. He thought it had too much curry in it.

For dessert, Super made a banana date nut cake. We are still waiting to digest so that we can try that!

Tutone was very thrilled about the idea of reclining on pillows while eating. Now that I think of it, that was one of the things he enjoyed about our feast last year as well. As he patted his belly during the appetizers, he announced that he felt good to be in his "natural state". I think he meant with his stomach being filled and relaxing at the same time. He's a weird kid. But you've got to love him!

Persian Breakfast

We started our "Sultan Saturday" with a Persian breakfast. According to the websites that I read, breakfast in the Middle East is "the most relaxed meal of the day." I am all for that on a Saturday morning. So after a leisurely start to our morning, we ate breakfast late around 8:30.

Our menu was...

Fruit Salad - bananas, oranges, and dates
Pita bread and goat cheese mixed with garlic and herbs
Yogurt

Tutone loves dates. Super isn't into the idea of fruit "salad". He likes his fruit to be separate.

After breakfast, Super started working on his Banana Date Nut bread that we will be having for dessert tonight. I am sure that when he has prepared it, he won't mind that the bananas and dates are touching each other. ;)

Middle East Feast Menu

Tomorrow, we will be celebrating the end of our unit on the Muslims.

I let the boys pick the menu. After some research online, they chose the following menu.


Appetizers
Pide Bread (like Pita)
Hummus
Olives

Dinner
Shish Kebabs
Couscous
Maast-o Khiar (Cucumber Yogurt Salad)

Dessert
Date Bread


Super loves to cook and chances are that we will be rained in tomorrow anyway! So it should make for a fun day!

Finishing the Dome of the Rock Project

The next day our Dome of the Rock model was ready for decoration.

The top was painted gold so if anything shown through it wouldn't be noticed. The bottom was painted sand color, and the middle was painted blue.

Then we started adding our details. The real Dome of the Rock is very beautiful. The artwork would be difficult to copy but the boys had a very good time creating patterns on the counter while I hot glued them onto the model. Patterns were created using sequins and confetti.

Because hot glue guns can be very hot, they are too dangerous to be used by children. Even adults can be burned by them. I got a few burns working on this project.

The roof of the mosque was created by layering on large gold circles that I found beading section at the local craft store.

Here is the finished project!

The Dome of the Rock Project

We began our project on the Dome of the Rock today.

It's paper mache. Of course! What a mess! why do I always forget what a mess paper mache is going to be until it is all over me, the counter, the floor? Because I love it, that's why!

Step one was to find pictures of the mosque. Then we figured out our plans for the model. It was pretty easy because it was an octagon.

If you have ever seen the paper project models online then you know that you will have to fold one side of the cardboard on the lengthwise side and one side of the cardboard along the bottom.

Fasten the octagon pieces to each other by fitting them into each other. Then fasten the whole piece onto another cardboard piece. We used the bottom of a water bottle box so that we would have a nice tray to carry our finished project in.

Once the base of the project was done, we fit a flat cardboard piece across the top to be a foundation for the next part. We took a styrofoam bowl and blew up a balloon and set it inside of it. We took pieces of newspaper and rolled them up to the the columns in the front.

Then it was time to cover the whole thing in the paper mache pieces. Our paper mache recipe consists of 1 part flour to 2 parts water. Then we pour in 1/4 of a bottle of Elmer's school glue.

When we covered the model in our strips of paper, we used newspaper followed up by white computer paper. That way when we were done, it would be easier to paint.

Now we just had to wait for it to dry! This is how it looked at the end of the first day!

Find out more about the Dome of the Rock by clicking on the highlighted word.

Week 2

Week 2 in Tapestry of Grace focuses on the Byzantine Empire. The boys favorite part of this week was learning about illuminated text. Each boy enjoyed creating their own rendition of illuminated text by making a picture of their initial.

To the left is a picture is a picture of Super creating his "S". The finished product is on the right.

Tutone's picture shows off his personality very well.
His favorite part of studying history is looking at the different weapons.
He created a minotaur chopping down his "T" which was made into a tree.
The minotaur is holding a labrys, which is a double headed axe.
He pointed out to me all the T's in his picture. Can you find them all? (There is more than 1.)