Potato "Brands"

 Aliza is in a phonics unit that is organized around the theme of "cowboys." She has learned all kinds of things about cowboys--what they do, how they dress, what gear they use, rodeo contests--to name a few. Yesterday they talked about branding cattle.

The composition assignment was to design a brand (they had a page of examples), carve it into a potato, ink the potato and "brand" your composition paper and write a description of the brand.

Of course Mommy was going to carve the potato. There was no question or debate about that. I immediately questioned my ability. Out loud. Aliza had full confidence in my ability to carve anything that she dreamed up. I said we had to stick to the examples. And then I took a deep breath, resisted the urge to start twitching and clean bathrooms, and did the best I could.

I will admit it was fun to have a change from our "normal" composition assignments. I'll also admit that by the time we got to the actual writing I didn't care if Aliza wrote a description. I was just happy for her to name and brand.

Oh! And one brand was not going to satisfy. Aliza insisted on 4 brands. One for Aliza, Josiah, Anna and Mommy. I didn't take a picture of the first one. It was Anna's. The shape was a bell and was named the Blue Bell. Anna stamped and then consumed portions of the potato. I did, in fact, warn her that it would not taste good!

Here they are:

For the next one, I was just happy I had something resembling a "B" and a "Q". There was no chance I was going to try to get the holes out of the middle! =)

 However on the Bar-B-Que I did remember to carve them backwards, I forgot on the one below...

Yes, that is Josiah's. J of Royalty.

I felt quite satisfied when I finished that project. My text to Jeremy was something to the effect of "Please nominate me for the mother of the day award. I just carved potatoes. Yay for the cowboy unit?!"