Finishing our Maple Syrup unit study

We finished up our study of maple syrup last week. We read a number of books and did some mini books to put in our scrapbook.

Books we read:
The Gift of the Tree by Alvin Tresselt
The Sugaring Off Party by Jonathan London

The Sugaring Off Party was a very cute book about a young boy who is talking with his grandmother about her first sugaring off party. It brought back many memories of being with my grandparents.

The Gift of the Tree is another cute book. It takes you through the woods visiting all the animals in the forest. It talks about different trees in the forest. This is a must read for children.

On Saturday we went to the Genesee Country Museum on a Sap, Sugar, Syrup tour. We had so much fun. The day started with a wonderful pancake breakfast.

This was an all you can eat breakfast. It was delish, with real maple syrup. The kids noticed how different it tastes. We even bought some for home.

After breakfast we headed out into the woods. There were many stations set up along the way. The first station showed us how to tap a tree. The above picture is Andrew drilling a hole. It was more difficult than it seemed.

The next station was to show us how sap is boiled down into syrup. Here we are looking into the boiler. My parents went with us along with our nephews.

Then it was off on our hike in the woods. We walked about 5 miles total. It was such a nice walk. There were different trees labeled and a little history about the area.

All along the way we saw many trees tapped collecting sap. The museum makes their own syrup. You will see that later.

This gentleman talked to us about how sap collection has changed through the years. From wooden buckets to steel ones. The different drills used back in the 1800's till today.

The kids were able to see how the sap was collected and carried. Using a yolk they were able to carry buckets of sap or in this case water. They enjoyed themselves, Andrew would like us to get one for him.

Here we were able to see one of the yolks being made. Andrew and our nephew Ryan loved watching this.

Here museum interpreters are telling us about the process of making maple sugar. Since they had no way to preserve the syrup they turned it into sugar. Nothing like the smell of wood burning and sweet sap! They used this instead of white sugar in our area in the 1800's. It was so interesting on how they do it. Each one of the kettles holds sap, they are all at different stages, but start out as the same amount of sap.

We then went out into the village and learned how maple syrup was used back in the 1800's. The kids were so good and asked a lot of questions. This young man was really good at answering the questions asked, even if some were pretty silly!

This is the cook at one of the houses, she is making maple oatmeal cookies! YUM!! I'm going to try and get the recipe because they were the best ever!! We were even allowed to taste them. Of course they were made in a "safe" kitchen as they say.

This is the village farm house. Usually in the summer time they are showing how cheese was made on a farm in the 1800's. But today she was making butter and a noon meal with maple syrup.

Here Andrew is trying his hand at churning butter. The kids didn't realize how much work went into it. When the woman asked my 3 year old nephew if he wanted to make some butter he said, "No I buy mine at the store". It was so funny.

Another stop was for the kids to make a tin ornament to take home with them. Here they are practicing before actually nailing into the tin.

My Husband ended up finishing up the ornaments. We have the tin plates hanging on our windows.

We had such a wonderful time here. Since we live pretty close to this museum we go here all the time. I'm really looking forward to sharing more of the museum with you later in the season.