heirloom cornmeal

We're in our third year of Story of the World, which is a four year world history program that begins with the beginnings of known man and carries on up to the present.  I absolutely love it!  It think it is a phenomenal program--Maddie and Caleb have learned so much.  I have even learned a lot, and it's filled in gaps for me that I had, having learned "random" portions of history throughout all my school years. 

 But anyway, around October, we were studying the first settlers at Jamestown, the pilgrims, Native Americans, and so on, so we slowed down since it was nearly Thanksgiving.  We spent half of October and all of November reading extra books about that time period. We read a book on Squanto, on the founding of Maryland, a fictional pilgrim boy, a real pilgrim girl, and on Louis Joliet who was an early Canadian explorer. 

It's been lots of fun studying all of this during the Thanksgiving season!  And, as a teacher, I love it when we can make those real life connections.  Kids learn so much better. 

Since corn was so integral to the first pilgrim's survival, to the Indians, and Squanto taught the pilgrims how to grow corn, I wanted to do a cooking project with corn.  I love bringing food into school--so fun! I happened upon this heirloom cornmeal, grown for well over 150 years on VA's eastern shore. It's stoneground using historical equipment.  I bought some because it was far more authentic both in color and texture to what people were consuming back in the 1600's. 

And so we made cornbread for dinner one night.  Kids loved the project, it was easy to do while the babies were napping (a must these days), and we all enjoyed the cornbread with our dinner.   

(pic by Caleb)