Vermont: Facts & Fun

Vermont Fact Sheet

Vermont is a beautiful state! The leaves are very pretty in the fall and Vermont is famous for their covered bridges. My favorite thing about Vermont is the maple syrup! I really loved having pancakes with maple syrup for dinner! I was surprised this week when my great-grandmother mailed a sap spout to me from their trip to Vermont.

Facts about Vermont:

• Capital: Montpelier
• Nickname: The Green Mountain State
• Statehood: March 4, 1791 (4th)
• Motto: Freedom and Unity.
• Bird: Hermit Thrush
• Highest Point: Mt. Mansfield

Children’s Books by Vermont authors that we read:

• Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter. My family read this chapter book together. I love the story of Pollyanna. Pollyanna is an orphan who comes to live with her aunt and teaches the whole town to be glad and give thanks. We also watched the movie Pollyanna and I enjoyed it very much.
• M is for Maple Syrup by Cynthia Furlong Reynolds. This is a Vermont alphabet book that tells about the many things Vermont is known for including maple syrup, covered bridges, and dairy farms.
• Here Comes Darrell by Leda Schubert. This is the story of Darrell, a Vermont man who helps all of his neighbors in his small town and then the neighbors help him.
• Silent Night by Will Moses. This is the story of the people in a Vermont village getting ready for Christmas. The illustrations in this book are really beautiful.
• From Dawn till Dusk by Natalie Kinsey-Warnock. This is the story of a Vermont family and their experiences year-round on their farm.

Animals from Vermont that I learned about:

Common animals in Vermont include the honeybee, Morgan horse, monarch butterfly, trout, deer, squirrels, and many more.

Life Cycle of the Monarch

We especially studied the state insect, the Monarch Butterfly, this week. I love butterflies! Every year, my family visits the Butterfly Festival at Powell Gardens and we have visited several Butterfly Houses on vacations… my favorite is the Sophia M. Sachs Butterfly House in St. Louis. We read, Starting Life Butterfly by Claire Llewellyn & Simon Mendez and learned about the life cycle of the Monarch and Usborne Beginners’ Caterpillars & Butterflies. We also watched Illustra Media’s Metamorphosis: The Beauty and Design of Butterflies. I think it is amazing the way God made butterflies and how they grow and live.

Fun things I learned about Vermont:

• The Apple is Vermont’s state fruit. I go apple picking with my family every autumn.
• Vermont Teddy Bears are made in Vermont and we read the book How Teddy Bears are Made: a Visit to the Vermont Teddy Bear Factory by Ann Morris and The Legend of the Teddy Bear by Frank Murphy. I also took a virtual tour of the Vermont Teddy Bear factory online.  Then, I designed my own teddy bears for an art project.
• Calvin Coolidge, one of our presidents, is from Vermont.
• Vermont has 107 covered bridges.
• Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream is made in Vermont.

Vermont: State Fruit… the Apple

The state fruit for Vermont is the apple! This weekend, my family went apple picking and we picked 49lbs of apples. We then used the apples to make apple sauce, apple stuffed pork chops, apple crisp, and other yummy treats! This is the story of our apple picking adventure:

On Saturday, our family went to St. Joseph, Missouri to pick apples at Schweizer Orchards (5455 SE State Route Ff, St. Joseph, MO. 816.232.3999). It was very easy to pick apples! The trees are short so my sisters and I could even reach without a stool. We picked golden delicious and fuji apples. We also enjoyed playing on the playground that looks like a big wooden train.

The next day, we worked together as a family to make crockpot applesauce! My job was peeling the apples with our special apple peeling machine. Then, mom and dad put the apples in the crockpot with 1 c. water, 1 c. apple juice (can use water only), 1/2 c. sugar, lemon juice, and cinnamon and apple pie spice to taste.  We stirred the pot several times during the day and tasted the sauce to make sure it was delicious.  We froze some of the applesauce, we gave some of it away, and we enjoyed some this week!

I loved picking apples and I really enjoyed peeling the apples. It is great to help my family prepare food for all of us to eat.

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The Vermont Menu

Vermont is famous for its Maple Syrup! I was very excited for our Vermont dinner of pancakes with maple syrup, bacon, and eggs! I made the pancakes from scratch with mom. We followed our favorite recipe for buttermilk pancakes and they were delicious.

Tapping the Trees for Sap

I learned the steps for making maple syrup from reading about it and watching a video. The steps are:

1. In the winter, they drill a hole into a maple tree and put a spout into the tree. Sap (sap is kind of like blood for a tree) runs from the spout into a bucket if you do it the old-fashioned way, or the spout might hook up to a series of pipes at newer farms.
2. The full buckets of sap are poured into a tank. They boil sap carefully till the water evaporates and skim off any dirt and run it through a filter. Then you have syrup.
3. The syrup is then bottled and sold at stores.

To prepare for the dinner, we watched a video about how Maple Syrup is made and we read books about Maple Syrup:

• From Maple Trees to Maple Syrup by Kristin Thoennes Keller. This was my favorite book for kids. It explained the whole process and included pictures.
• Sugaring Season: Making Maple Syrup by Diane Burns. This book explains the step by step process for making maple syrup with great photos.
• Maple Sugar Festivals: Tapping for Sap by Lisa Gabbert. This book tells the history of maple syrup in the United States from the Native Americans tapping for sugar to modern maple sugar farms. I like the photos that helped show how they get syrup.
• Sugaring by Jessie Haas. This is the story of a family during “sugaring season.”  In the book, a girl named Nora works with her Grandpa to gather sap for syrup. Her grandma makes special maple sugaar that she loves and shares with her horses. I liked the illustrations.
• Maple Syrup Season by Ann Purmell. The pictures in this storybook are really fun. In this book the whole family, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins work together during maple syrup season! At the end of the story their reward is sugar on snow, a candy they made with syrup and snow. The pictures are really great.
• Sugar on Snow by Nan Parson Rossiter. This is a story of a family during “sugar on snow” season in Vermont.
• Sugaring Time by Kathryn Lasky. This book uses photos to tell the whole story of sugaring.

  

  

  

  
  

  

  

  

  
  

  

  

  Tapping the Trees for Sap

  
  

My entire family loved the dinner and so did I! It was really fun to have breakfast for dinner. I love maple syrup, it is very delicious!!!!

The New Hampshire Menu

Finding a New Hampshire menu was a little bit tricky, so I asked my uncle from New Hampshire and aunt with friends from New Hampshire for advice. They all suggested that the MOST popular food in New Hampshire is the Fluffernutter. Fluffernutters are very popular in all New England states.

So, we enjoyed a dinner of Fluffernutter Sandwiches, Apple Cider, and Chili (the people of New Hampshire love chili like other Americans do, and mom said we needed something healthy with dinner).

To make a Fluffernutter Sandwich:

First spread peanut butter on one slice of bread. Then spread Marshmallow Fluff on another slice of bread. Then, put the two together for a sandwich and you’re all done!

Our Family Reviews of the Fluffernutter:

My sister Kayla, “Yummy in the tummy!”

My sister Brielle… she is too little to talk, but she ate it right up!

Me, “It was so good! I love it. It tastes like dessert. I can’t believe how good it is! You have to try it.”

New Hampshire: Facts & Fun

New Hampshire is an interesting state to learn about.  They have a lot of granite in New Hampshire including the “Old Man of the Mountain” at Franconia Notch, where you can see the face of a man in a mountain. New Hampshire is also the Apple Cider state and I enjoyed learning about apple cider and how it is made.

New Hampshire Facts

Facts about New Hampshire:

• Capital: Concord
• Nickname: Granite State
• Statehood: June 21, 1788 (9th)
• Motto: Live free or die.
• Bird: Purple Finch
• Highest Point: Mt. Washington

Children’s Books by New Hampshire authors that we read:

• Robert Frost is from New Hampshire, so we read many of his poems including: Stars, My Butterfly, The Road Not Taken (one of my mom’s favorite poems), Evening in a Sugar Orchard, and Blue-Butterfly Day. I love poetry and enjoy writing poems too.
• I Invited a Dragon to Dinner and Other Poems to Make You Laugh out Loud. This book is full of very funny poems for children and the pictures are really funny too! I love this book.
• The Ox-Cart Man by Donald Hall. This is a Caldecott Medal winning book with terrific illustrations. A family works throughout the year on their farm, spinning wool, making candles, collecting maple syrup, to provide for the family.
• The Milkman’s Boy byDonald Hall. This is the story of a family who owned a dairy and learned about the importance of pasteurizing milk when their daughter became sick. I like the pictures.

Animals from New Hampshire that I learned about:

Moose by Emily

We read several books about the Moose this week. Some of the books were funny, like If you Gave a Moose a Muffin, Ernest the Moose who Doesn’t Fit and Chocolate Moose. Others were serious books about the animal including: Moose by Ann Squire, Moose by Jenny Markert, and The Wonder of Moose by Rita Richie.  I learned that the moose is the largest deer species and they graze for food. In the winter, they even eat pinecones!

Other common animals in New Hampshire include: Whale, chickadee, purple finch, turtle, bobcat, bears, and many more!

Fun things I learned about New Hampshire:

• 

  Uncle Sam

  My Uncle Sam grew up in New Hampshire AND “Uncle Sam” the mascot for the United States was created in New Hampshire! According to “The Slightly Odd United States of America,” in 1812, Samuel Wilson, a supplier for the U.S. Army from Mason, New Hampshire, labeled his army goods “U.S.” and the soldiers started to say that meant “Uncle Sam Wilson.”

• Alan Shepard, the first American in space, is from New Hampshire and he even golfed in space.
• Sarah Joseph Hale is from New Hampshire and she helped persuade President Lincoln to make Thanksgiving a national holiday.

New Hampshire: Apple Cider State!

Did you know that apple cider is the official state beverage for New Hampshire? Apple cider is popular all around the United States and we happen to have two cider mills in the Kansas City area.  My family visits the Louisburg Cider Mill every fall and we went again this week for a self-guided tour to watch cider making!

Touring the Louisburg Cider Mill

To make the cider, first they pick apples and they are delivered to the mill. Then they wash them, after they are washed the apples go into the mill up a belt where they are smashed into applesauce. Then it is squeezed through a filter to make cider. They chill the cider then they bottle it (we watched the bottling also, but didn’t get a photo of that step). These are photos of the tour:

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After watching as they made the cider, we went into the Country Store where they make Apple Cider Donuts… my FAVORITE!

Making Cider Donuts

Then, we had a picnic at the table eating donuts and sampling sparkling cider. They sell regular apple cider and flavored sparkling ciders including raspberry apple cider, the one I liked best. I love love love love the sparkling cider… you HAVE to try it! It’s bubbly and it tickles your nose. My sisters love it too! We took some cider and donuts home to share with dad.

Later, we read the book “Apple Cider Making Days” by Ann Purmell. The story is about a family working together to make cider for their family business. The book had nice pictures and showed every step to make cider.

Apple Cider Making Days

Other books we read about Apples:

• The Apple Pie that Papa Baked by Lauren Thompson. I loved the illustrations in this book!
• Amelia Bedelia’s First Apple Pie by Herman Parish. Amelia Bedelia books are some of my favorites. They are funny and fun!
• The Apple Pie Tree by Zoe Hall. This story tells about a tree growing and producing apples.
• The Apple King by Francesca Bosa. This story tells about the importance of sharing.
• An Apple Pie for Dinner by Susan VanHecke. This book has fun illustrations with clay and felt. It is a story of sharing.
• One Red Apple by Harriet Ziefert. This book has beautiful pictures.
• Apple Pie by Gennady Spirin. This is an alphabet book with beautiful illustrations.

I love apple cider! Do you?