Author: jmcremps

As with any holiday, it’s important to know the real reason why we celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday.  If your answer to the “why” is that we’re just so thankful for all the Black Friday deals coming on the following day, I’d have to rap your knuckles with an imaginary ruler.  Allow me to set you straight.

Let’s start at the beginning.  A most beloved and festive holiday, Thanksgiving has its origins all the way back to a time when the America we know today was still a vast wilderness teeming with wild animals who were hunted by the fierce Native Americans living there.  Following the harvest of November 1623, the governor William Bradford of the 1620 Plymouth Colony, “Plymouth Plantation”, in Plymouth Massachusetts proclaimed:

Pilgrims and Native Americans alike gathered to share in that year’s bountiful harvest.  Just like that a timeless tradition was born!

Over the years the actual date of Thanksgiving has been changed, but the true reason we celebrate has, of course, remained solid and unchanging.  On November 1, 1777, the first National Thanksgiving Proclamation was proclaimed by order of Congress and signed by Henry Laurens, President of Continental Congress.  The third Thursday of December, 1777 was thus officially set aside: “…for solemn thanksgiving and praise. That with one heart and one voice the good people may express the grateful feelings of their hearts, and consecrate themselves to the service of their Divine Benefactor;… and their humble and earnest supplication that it may please God, through the merits of Jesus Christ, mercifully to forgive and blot them (their manifold sins) out of remembrance… That it may please Him… to take schools and seminaries of education, so necessary for cultivating the principles of true liberty, virtue and piety under His nurturing hand, and to prosper the means of religion for the promotion and enlargement of that kingdom which consisteth of ‘righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost’…”

Then, on January 1, 1795, our first United States President, George Washington, wrote his famed National Thanksgiving Proclamation, in which he says that it is… “…our duty as a people, with devout reverence and affectionate gratitude, to acknowledge our many and great obligations to Almighty God, and to implore Him to continue is… our duty as a people, with devout reverence and affectionate gratitude, to acknowledge our many and great obligations to Almighty God, and to implore Him to continue and confirm the blessings we experienced…”  George Washington had the 19th day of February, 1795 set aside as a National Day of Thanksgiving.

Many years passed until, on October 3, 1863, Abraham Lincoln proclaimed, by Act of Congress, an annual National Day of Thanksgiving “on the last Thursday of November, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.” In this Thanksgiving proclamation, our 16th President says that it is… “…announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations are blessed whose God is the Lord… But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, by the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own… It has seemed to me fit and proper that God should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people…”

And so to this day, in homes all across America, we will sit down with family and friends on Thanksgiving Day and take time to be thankful for the many blessings and gifts we’ve received throughout our lives.

Making a volcano is an ideal science experiment, home school project, or just something for the kids to do on a rainy day. Even adults will enjoy this one!

Note: Always pour the lava ingredients somewhere that it’s safe to make a mess. It is recommended to set off the actual volcanic explosion outside if you don’t want to clean up a mess!

Step 1: Get a good working surface. You will want a surface that can get messy, because this will get very messy.

Step 2: Get a container. You will want a fairly large container, such as a 32oz soda bottle.

Step 3: Form the outside of the volcano. You can make the outside from clay, playdough, dirt, soil, or tin foil. Paint it brown and black to make it look more realistic. Let it set until it is all dry.

Step 4: Pour your hydrogen peroxide. Get a bottle of hydrogen peroxide from a beauty supply store. You will need a 6% solution (usually labeled as “20-volume”. Pour half a cup of the hydrogen peroxide into the container in your volcano.

• Be careful with hydrogen peroxide. You hurt yourself if you touch it too much or get it in your eyes. Only adults should handle hydrogen peroxide.

• If you want to make the reaction even more dramatic, use a 30% solution of hydrogen peroxide. This may be more difficult to find, however.

Step 5: Mix in soap and food coloring. Mix in at least six drops of red food coloring and two drops of yellow food coloring. Then mix in about two tablespoons of dish soap.

Step 6: Mix yeast. Get a tablespoon of dry yeast and mix it with 3 tablespoons of water in a separate small cup.

Step 7: Pour the yeast. Pour the yeast mixture into the volcano

• Stand back!

For more rainy day activities and science experiments, don’t forget to check out our Toys & Games, Science Kits, and Discovery Kits as well!  You might as well throw the word “bored” out of your word bank, because you won’t be needing it anymore.

The instructional portion of this article was provided by wikihow, a wiki building the world’s largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How To Make a Volcano.  Content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons License.

One of our favorite fall-time activities is pumpkin carving, but let’s not forget that pumpkins are good for more than just decorations!  Cinnamon roasted pumpkin is a delicious, healthy autumn dish that can either be served as a side-dish to your main course or as a dessert.

You will need:

• Three pounds pumpkin, peeled and seeded
• Quarter cup brown sugar
• One teaspoon cinnamon
• Half teaspoon salt
• Two tablespoons peanut or olive oil

Total Time: 1 hour | Servings: 4-6

Step 1: Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit (162 degrees Celsius). In a small bowl, add the sugar, cinnamon, and salt. Mix together.

Step 2: Slice. Use a chef’s knife to cut the pumpkin into 2 inch (5.1 cm) pieces. You can either cut them into cubes or slices that are about ¹⁄₄ inch (0.6 cm) thick.

Step 3: Coat the baking dish. Coat baking dish with cooking spray, olive oil, or butter to prevent the pumpkin from sticking. Place the pumpkin into the baking sheet.

Step 4: Add oil. Use a basting brush to cover the pieces with peanut oil, olive oil or butter. If you do not have a basting brush, then use a spoon to drizzle the oil onto the pumpkin, being sure to coat each piece.

Step 5: Sprinkle seasonings. Sprinkle the pumpkin with the cinnamon and sugar. Cover the baking dish.

Step 6: Bake. Have the pumpkin bake in the oven for 40 minutes. Remove the baking dish and stir the pumpkin, then bake again, uncovered, for an additional 15 minutes. Pumpkin should be soft when finished.

Step 7: Allow to cool and then serve. Pumpkin can be served as a side dish or as a dessert. Consider serving with whipped cream or vanilla bean ice cream. Dust with a little bit of spice for a nice presentation, & enjoy!

The instructional portion of this article was provided by wikihow, a wiki building the world’s largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How To Roast a Pumpkin.  Content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons License.

An avid reader myself, I was overjoyed when I found out that quality, age-appropriate fiction books can actually help to cultivate morality in children.  I’d suspected as much just from seeing the benefits in my own life.  Books and stories have played a huge part in shaping me to be who I am today.  Seeing the research behind the facts though gave me one of those “I knew it!” moments.  In fact, there are actually a lot more benefits to reading fiction books than you might realize!  Certainly there are more than I ever expected to find.

Ever since Plato tried to ban fiction from his ideal republic, the question “does fiction build morality of individuals or does it break it down?” has been asked.  Until recently, we’ve only been able to guess at the answer.  Because we read non-fiction with our intellectual guard up, we’re much less able to be moved or persuaded.  In contrast, we get so absorbed in fictional stories that we drop our shields, which allows us to be moved emotionally.  When we’re moved emotionally, a point is really driven home.  For example, most stories show the good guy being rewarded after a struggle, and the bad guy ending up much the worse for wear.  This causes us to understand at a very basic level the power of “good”.  Fiction mainly shapes us for the better – promoting our ability to understand other people as well as promoting a deep morality that cuts across religious and political creeds.

History has shown fiction’s ability to change our values at a societal level as well. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” helped spark the Civil War by emotionally moving Americans to show that slaves are people, and slavery is inhumane and cruel.

Apparently the brain doesn’t make much distinction between reading about an experience and actually living it in real life.  In both cases, the same neurological regions of the brain are stimulated.  Keith Oatley, a professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Toronto has proposed that reading produces a vivid simulation of reality, one that “runs on (the) minds of readers just as computer simulations run on computers.”  Fiction – with its endless textured details, imaginative metaphors, and in-depth descriptions of people and situations – offers a particularly rich simulation.  In fact, in one way the experience is one completely unavailable to reality: the ability to fully enter into a person’s mind to see what they think and feel what they feel.

Maybe it is because of this experience that fiction has shown to promote empathy.  Another body of research proves this point – that the act of reading hones our social skills.  Dr. Oatley and Dr. Mar, along with several other scientists, reported the result of two studies, published in 2006 and 2009, which show that those who frequently read fiction seem to be more adept at understanding others, empathizing with them, and seeing the world from another’s perspective.  A 2010 study by Dr. Mar showed a similar result in preschool-age children.  The more stories that were read to these children, the deeper their ability to understand people and their actions.  Truly, brain science shows that the claim to fiction cultivating morality is more accurate than we imagined.  As Oatley puts it, fiction serves the function of “making the world a better place by improving interpersonal understanding.”

The old fashioned virtues of reading novels can seem to be frivolous or inconsequential.  However, you can see that emerging-science studies have proven time and again that fiction is good for more than a casual enjoyment.  By building empathy, fiction helps reduce social friction.  In addition to this, quality stories seem to exert an almost magnetic force, drawing us together around common values and feelings.  Plus, it gives us a wonderful opportunity for dialog with our children.  As parents, it’s important to be aware and discuss what they are reading.  We want to make sure they’re reading things that we approve of.

What a wonderful pastime reading is!  Share with your children the joy and values you’ve discovered in reading fiction books.  JM Cremp’s has a vast selection of classic, history, and fantasy fiction books that are all just waiting for your child to pick them up and venture into their riveting worlds.