Homeschool Group Meeting

Today was the first homeschool group meeting of the new school year! The kids got to play for a while and then we gathered for a lesson. Barb & Susie did a presentation on coral reefs. The kids started by putting together a notebooking page.

Laural still needs to finish some of the answers & she wants to make it look pretty with some coloring & stickers.

Next the kids did a group project - building a coral reef.

Can you guess what each item of the cake represents? Don't peek, but I'll put the answers below!

Finally, the kids got to make an edible model of a coral polyp.

I only got a couple pics and that was before everything was finished but here we have a banana as the body of the polyp and twizzlers as the tentacles. We added sugar sprinkles as algal growths and a round cracker underneath as the base. I think there were supposed to be oyster crackers as skeletons of dead polyps, but we ran out of time.

A big woohoo to Jeanette who provided snacks - tortillas & salsa, pb crackers & carrots. Yum

Everyone had a great time. The kids got to run around and burn off some energy and the moms got to hang out and chat which is always a good thing when you spend most of your days with only little people to talk with. Before we even got out of the parking lot, both kids were asking when we could do that again. I think they had a good time.

Ok, here are the answers to the coral reef cake question: 

Cake: limestone reef base

Pink Frosting: coralline algae that encrusts & holds the reef together

Green Coconut: sea grass bed in the back reef

Stick Pretzels: branching coral

Cauliflower: individual coral polyps

Bite Size Cookies: plate coral

Sprinkles: sand

Corn Chips: sea fans

Mini Marshmallows: barrel sponges

Chocolate Chips: sea urchins

Goldfish Crackers: schools of fish

Doesn't that sound like a yummy cake? Ok, leave off the cauliflower and we have a winner!