King Alfred the Dane

Thomas recently made Alfred Cakes to go along with The Door in the Wall. Here's a little photo of the finished product.


And here's the recipe:

1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 Tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
3 Tablespoons butter, cut up in tiny pieces
1/4 cup currants or raisins
1/4 cup cut-up dates
1 large egg
1/8 cup heavy whipping cream
1/8 cup orange juice

Set over to 425 degrees. Mix together the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Using a pastry blender cut in the butter so it looks like small breadcrumbs. Stir in the currants and dates. In a smaller bowl, mix together the egg, cream, and juice. Make a small well in the middle of the dry ingredients in the large bowl. Pour in the egg mixture into the well and mix together until all is moist. Flour your hands. Gather dough in a ball in the bowl and knead gently. Divide dough into four parts and make a round "cake" with each. Place on a baking sheet and bake until browned and done.

The beginning.....

We've had a pretty good start for our new school year!

We started our school day yesterday by swimming at a friend's pool. Then we came home and ate some homemade oatmeal-raisin cookies Carrie had made for the occasion. (Can't show you any pictures because the photographer is still gone to music school!)

Since we had been doing a little math over the summer, our lessons for yesterday and today have gone well. Thomas picked right back up with his spelling. And we had been working on reading, too, so that's been an easy transition.

Thomas is SO excited about his unit study using The Door in the Wall. He's learned about plagues ("They were caused by rats and all the people needed to take baths!"), how bells are made ("They are made from copper and tin in a mold."), and the history of London ("I didn't know the Tower of London was a jail!"). He is enjoying reading Adam of the Road, too.

Carrie has started her geography unit ("Did you know Charles Blondin walked across Niagara Falls on a tightrope with someone on his back and he pushed a wheelbarrow, too? Do you know about Jules Leotard? He was a famous trapeze artist."). What does this have to do with geography? Read the first chapter of Around the World in 80 Days and figure it out!

Abby loves The Finest Horse in Town, which we are reading for Five in a Row. We've had a fun 4th of July pinwheel, we've read about horses and The 4th of July Story, looked at pictures of America, and sung "America the Beautiful" a whole bunch of times.

My parents came today and brought some hand-me-down skates and scooters from my aunt, so there's been a lot of fun PE, too.

So far, very good!