His Treasure Seekers

It’s been almost ten years since I wrote about rowing How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World by Marjorie Priceman with my oldest two boys. Now those rowers are in high school and junior high, but I’m revisiting as many Five in a Row books as I can with my youngest two children (and occasionally a few older ones who like to lurk in the living room to listen in).

With my older kids, I had so much fun doing lots of extras, but now I’m homeschooling a 9th, 7th, 5th, and 4th grader on top of the 2nd grade and Kindergarten rowers, so I’m pretty much just sticking to the original Five in a Row manual (Vol. 1), which means there hasn’t been much to write about. Many of the resources found online and shared in my older post are no longer available, and we had a completely different experience this time around.

With this book, however, we had such a neat experience that I just had to share. Unlike last time, we didn’t go apple picking, make our own butter, or make salt crystals, but somehow I got it into my head that I really wanted to show my kids what sugar cane looks like. I went onto a local Facebook group and did a search for “sugar cane” to see if anyone had ever talked about it. Lo and behold, there were two old posts. The first mentioned four stores where people had sometimes seen it, and the second, from about four months ago, was from a neighbor who had cut several stalks of sugar cane and was offering them up to anyone who wanted them. After leaving the third store empty-handed, I sat in the parking lot and texted the neighbor to see if by any chance she might still have some she could share. Then I drove to the fourth store hoping the results would be different.

As I walked into the store, my phone alerted me to a new text. The neighbor had responded saying I could come by right then to get some sugar cane! I hopped back in the car and drove over.  As I pulled up to the address, I was greeted by a tall man with a Jamaican accent, who helped me load several stalks into my car! He hadn’t just cut one branch for me to show my kids, he had cut enough for us to have some to plant to grow our own! AND he had stripped several branches already and put them in a baggie so the kids could chew on them right away. He told me he had brought the plant over from Jamaica and gave me instructions on how to plant it. I wish my kids had been with me to meet him!

They were so excited when I showed them our sugar cane. They all tasted some of the sugar cane, amazed at how juicy and sweet it was, and then we planted the stalks we’d been given, hoping to cultivate our own little sugar cane patch in the corner of our yard (although since I have a pretty black thumb, I’m not holding my breath).

We also watched a video on YouTube about turning sugar cane into sugar at home, and of course, we finished our week by baking a pie, which almost everyone in the family enjoyed (just not the two main rowers and my oldest)

Oh well, at least they had fun making it!

To see what other FIAR books we’ve rowed, see my “Index of FIAR Posts.”  Also, a great place to see what other people have done with FIAR books is the FIAR Blog Roll at Delightful Learning.