Back in February, I read an email that invited all of CHS, (Cary Home Schoolers) to participate in the 4th Annual Geography Fair. We were kind of busy back then, you know, getting ready for the Regional Spelling Bee, preparing for the big B/C States swim meet...life in general. The idea sounded like fun, so I signed our family up and then promptly put it on the back burner.
It wasn't until late March that the kids and I dug in and started our research and planning what we'd like to do for the fair. Each family was to choose a country they wanted to learn more about. We were to make a display and cook a regional dish to bring and share with everyone. The kids and I chose Greece. Maya's always been into mythical creatures, especially mermaids, and since she read the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series by Rick Riordan, mythology has been a bit of an interest. Scott is in the middle of reading the series now, and I've loved Greek mythology since Mrs. Fredricks, my seventh grade lit teacher, taught a semester of it. Cool thing is, I've got some Greek ancestry on my dad's side...and what a beautiful country. We all agreed and dug in.
Of course the mythology was a huge pull for the kids. Maya decided she wanted to do something with Medusa. We thought about it, decided maybe she'd make a Medusa head with all the crazy snakes. The more we contemplated it, the more ridiculous the making of a Medusa seemed. Then Maya decided she was going to be Medusa herself.
We started out by making her a wreath out of chicken wire. Our idea was to papier mache a snake 'hat' for her to wear.
Scotty wanted to construct a hydra. The hydra was a pretty disgusting beast. The stories differ, but basically, a hydra had the body of a serpent with many heads, (some say five, some say up to 100, but most versions say nine) and lived in the swamps of the ancient city of Lerna. It could never be harmed by any weapon and when a head was severed, two would grow back in its place. Heracles was the mythical hero who finally killed this beast by cutting off its heads and cauterizing each one of its necks with a flaming torch. The hydra almost killed poor Heracles with its obnoxious breath, but the hero prevailed. Once the hydra was dead, Heracles dipped the tip of each of his arrows into the hydra's blood which was extremely poisonous, making them very deadly weapons. We also learned that the hydra was a female. She was one, mean girl.
We took to the chicken wire again and Scott made a pretty cool looking skeleton of this dreadful beast.
I was having a hard time figuring out how to successfully construct a papier mache snake hat, so we headed over to the Dollar General, dropped $10 on some rubber snakes and threaded them through Maya's wreath.
Pretty cool, huh? So...what do you know about Medusa? I'll fill you in a bit here:
Medusa was a Gorgon, or a monstrous creature covered with impenetrable scales, with hair of living snakes, hands made of brass, sharp fangs and a beard. She lived in the ultimate west, near the ocean, and guarded the entrance to the underworld. Her gaze could turn whoever she looked upon to stone. There is a particular myth in which Medusa was originally a beautiful maiden. She desecrated Athena's temple by lying there with Poseidon. Outraged, Athena turned Medusa's hair into living snakes. Medusa was killed by the hero Perseus with the help of Athena and Hermes. He killed her by cutting off her head and gave it to Athena, who placed it in the center of her Aegis, (a cloak or a shield) which she wore over her breastplate. From Medusa's dead body the winged horse Pegasus, her son by Poseidon, sprang forth.
Okay, now that you're all caught up, back to our preparations.
This face pretty much explains what papier mache is like. Gooey, slimy, sticky...and it gets all over absolutely everything.
And I mean everything.
Yikes.
We got her tail and her body covered, then wrapped some of her heads separately.
We named the hydra Myrtle. As we found out during our research, there are a lot of oleander, olive and myrtle trees in Greece. Oleander was too much of a mouthful, and this critter really deserved a name. Myrtle just seemed to fit.
Myrtle was a mess.
Did I mention she was ugly?
We were up until about 11:30 on Thursday night finishing up the papier mache part of Myrtle's construction. I set her up in this dish in hopes that she'd dry overnight. It looks like we're going to bake her, doesn't it? Ewww...baked hydra. Not a pleasant thought.
On Friday morning, we got up and Myrtle wasn't quite dry. Her belly was a bit soggy so Maya got the blow dryer out and I did my best to harden the beast's underside. Then Scott spray painted her a deep blue.
It's anyone's guess what color a hydra should be. Scott thought blue was a good idea, so blue it was.
Myrtle was taking shape. Meanwhile, in the house....
Maya was working hard on labeling her map of Greece. Notice the flour and water goop stuck to the table.
Both kids created some mythology coloring pages,
and Scott took some time out to shoot his gun at the camera. Silly boy.
The kids and I had watched a couple of documentaries about Greece and read several books to gather information about the country. We took notes and discussed the facts that we'd like to include in our presentation. I typed them all into the computer, then cut them all out to make up our big fact sheet poster.
Maya hard at work on her Medusa coloring sheet.
This is one of our finished posters. Maya's map was awesome and Scotty colored the Greek flag. It was hard to get all of our facts to fit but we figured it out. (Click on this to see it larger.)
After we got this poster done, Scott went and did some touch up painting on Myrtle. Then he came in and helped me tackle the job of making baklava.
I've never made baklava before. As far as I can remember, I've never even tasted baklava, but I figured this would be a perfect food to take to the fair. Scotty beat the snot out of some walnuts for me to begin. He liked this job. He was good at this job.
We tossed the walnuts, (a whole pound of them) with some cinnamon. Then we layered some phyllo dough into the pan and brushed it with butter. This dough is so very, very thin and incredibly fragile. We made several layers of dough, then butter, then nuts. The top layer had about six sheets of phyllo dough. When it was all put together, I cut it into 30 diamond shapes.
My diamonds weren't exactly even, but I was happy that I didn't destroy any of the pieces. Like I said...this dough is really delicate.
While the baklava was baking, Scotty helped me make the sauce. It's made of water, white sugar, honey, lemon zest and vanilla. Incredibly sweet...and it smelled amazing.
Here is the finished product. After I pulled it from the oven, we poured the sauce over the pastry. It sizzled and coated the dessert. Did I mention how good it smelled? Notice the corners are gone. Scott and I had taste test our creation. Scott was on the fence. He thought it was okay, but wasn't real excited about it. I, on the other hand, thought it was pretty darn tasty. Next time I make it, (and I will...Steven missed out on it and I want him to give it a try,) I will cook it for about five minutes less. Other than that, I considered it a huge success.
After the baklava was finished, the three of us got our mythology poster organized. This is what we came up with:
Don't forget to click on it for a larger view. Here is a shot of Scott's artwork on this poster. He's such a great artist.
With our displays done, it was time for Maya to do her transformation from beautiful almost 12 year old girl to Medusa, Gorgon monster.
This is a whole new twist on Medusa. There are no scales, no brass hands or a beard...but there are some cool Converse boots and a sports watch. She thought it was best to keep her sunglasses on...She didn't want to turn anyone at the fair to stone. She's a goth Medusa. She turned quite a few heads while in the car driving to the fair, too. I giggled the whole time.
The fair was held at the Kirk of Kildaire church in Cary. There were about 30 families that set up displays, but there were many, many people that came to see the displays and to eat all of the varieties of foods.
Here was our display:
I got online and put together a list of fiction books for children and teens about mythology. I made several copies of them and kids took them when they came to see our display. There were passports for each child to fill out if they wanted. They would go to each table and answer questions about each country such as what is the capital city, the language spoken and its location. Each table had a stamp pad and a stamp and the kids stamped their passports until they had each and every country filled in.
Most everyone knew who Medusa was and Maya got a ton of compliments on her costume. One woman, however, asked me who Maya was. When I introduced her as Medusa, the woman smiled, extended her hand and said, "It's nice to meet you. Medusa is a very unique name. Why did you decide to name your child Medusa?"
Here's hop-a-long. He did a great job of explaining the hydra to those that didn't know what Myrtle was. Most people did, though, and Scott was praised for his creativity many, many times.
After we made our way through the room and looked at all of the displays, the kids and I hung out at our table and answered questions. The displays were amazing and the kids put in a ton of work. I sampled some of the food, and even got Maya and Scott to try a fried rice ball from Sicily and a round donut hole kind of pastry from Kenya. I also tried a grape leaf wrapped around some rice and spices from Cyprus.
We got to see a lot of our home school friends and talked to all the people milling around the fair. My baklava was a hit and was all eaten by the time we left. The fair lasted about two hours and was a ton of fun. I was proud of the work the kids put into our display and was happy that we took part. I'm already looking forward to next year.
Oh...if anyone knows what we might do with Myrtle now that the fair is over, I'm taking suggestions.
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