A few last tidbits about Brazil

A little Brazilian Portuguese...

Since Brazil was a Portuguese territory for many years, the national language of Brazil is Portuguese.  They, however, have a slightly different way of pronouncing a few words so their dialect is called Brazilian Portuguese.  Here are a few phrases you can learn...

good morning - bom dia      good evening - boa noite

thank you - obrigado (if thanking male) obrigada (if female)

beautiful and marvelous - lindo maravilhoso

hi, how are you? - oi, como vai? (que the Santana - if you have no idea what I'm talking about than you are missing out on some great music )

A few other tidbits you could do ...

• Soccer is the most popular sport in Brazil, they have the largest soccer stadium in the world and have won the World Cup 5 times!  So go to the park and kick the ball around , or if you really want to learn the game, this book -Everything Soccer Book  has everything  you need to know (it says so right in the name)!
• Have you seen the movie Rio ? The opening sequence is my favorite- all the birds of the rainforest doing a synchronized song and dance!  Love it and it has a nice message about saving the animals of the rainforest without being preachy.
• There are many great books at the store and library about the rainforest.  This is a good one about saving the trees- The Great Kapok Tree.
• While we're talking about saving trees - have you seen The Lorax?  It has nothing to do with Brazil but is a good example of what would happen if we cut down all the trees.  I'll admit it, I cry at the end everytime I watch it (many times already)
• (Another good segway) The Brazilian rainforest has over 3000 different fruits and many of them are super healthy.  This Brazilian Superfood is one that we tried this week-Zola Acai Berry juice .  I usually get a lot of guff when I try to bring home "superfoods" since sometimes they taste kinda, well, healthy - but this was gone in 2 days and was really tasty AND loaded with anti-oxidants and omegas. 
• Finally, if you'd like to learn more about Brazilian Portuguese, this book promises to teach you -Everything Brazilian Portuguese Book!

I hope you all enjoyed Brazil and get a chance to try some of the fun and games we did this week!  I really would enjoy reading some of your comments- I opened up the comments section so that ANYONE can post a comment and not just subscribers or people with a google profile.  See you next week................

Brazilian Rainforest: Who, What and Where?

The Brazilian Rainforest

No area in the entire world is more important to our future than rainforests.  The Amazon rainforest, in Brazil and some surrounding countries, is the most diverse rainforest in the world.  Sometimes called the "lungs of the planet", the plants of the rainforest create almost 20% of the world's oxygen through photosynthesis.  Over 100 prescription drugs already come from plants and over 3000 plants are known to be active in fighting cancer cells - and that is with less than 1% of the tropical trees and plants having been tested.  There is soooooo much more to be discovered. Unfortunately, the rainforests are being cut down and burned to make farmland, cattle grazing land, or to sell the wood for timber. 

500 years ago there were over 10 million Indians living in the rainforests, but now there are less than 200,000 and as we lose them we lose the knowledge they have of the medicines they use.  The destruction of the rainforest is hurting everyone but as the countries figure out that harvesting the nuts, fruits and plants is more profitable and renewable than cattle lands and wood, the destruction is slowing down.  Conservation has tripled since 2002 and deforestation has slowed down by more than 50%.  Great news for all of us, but especially the many, many species of animals that make the rainforest their home.

There are so many living things in the rainforest.  It is said that 1 out of 10 known species live in the Amazon Rainforest!  There are 2.5 million species of insect - not TOTAL insects- SPECIES of insects!! YIKES!! At least 40,000 different plants, 2,200 fish species, 1,300 bird species, 427 different mammals, and 378 types of reptiles.  And that is just the already discovered ones!  Some of the animals you've heard of, like the Squirrel monkey, the toucan, anaconda and jaguar.  But do you know what a Capybara is? Or an Ocelot? How about a caiman or tomato frog?  We found a great website,  http://kids.mongabay.com that shows all the pictures and has lots of great facts.  And we decided to make a Tropical Rainforest parrot for our next project.

Art Project: "Recycled" Rainbow Macaw

For the project you will need:

• Feathers
• An empty juice bottle
• Styrofoam Ball
• Cardboard tube and flat cardboard for wings and tail
• Pins
• Tape
• Glue or spray adhesive
• Googly eyes or eye stickers

1.  Take cap of juice bottle and push styrofoam ball so that it sits on bottle neck (like any good head should)
2.  Cut tube into a beak shape.  Make top a little longer and then bend it over like a parrot beak.  I put a little snip on either side and glued it so it looked like this. Leave a little tab on bottom and top so you can pin it to the styrofoam.

3. Pin beak to styrofoam and tape some wings on either side of body and a little flap on back to attach tail feathers.

4.  Wasn't sure if glue would stick to the plastic so we used spray adhesive and sprayed all over bird.  Also, glue + feathers + kids = BIG MESS so the spray glue was a little neater.
5.  Sort your feathers by color so you don't have to dig for the color you want. This was a great project for the 3 year old!

6.  Go to it and decorate your beautiful Rainbow Macaw!!!

Polly want a cracker?

Brazilian Food You Should Try

Brazilian Food - YUM!

We've had a busy few weeks, my daughter started Kindergarten and we had a few other things going on, so when I looked at the recipes for Brazilian food and saw that many of them needed lots of prep and long cooking times I was kinda bummed.  I wanted to make the national dish, Feijoada, which is a black bean stew with different meats and sausages in it.  I wanted to make some of their different filled rolls, a dessert, etc. etc. but I just didn't have the time.  Luckily for me, we live in such a great area that I was able to find a Brazilian restaurant that had all that wonderful food already prepared!  Yeah for America and Viva Brazil!!  So off we went, my mother and I, to Cafe di Casa in South San Francisco.  A tiny little hole in the wall that was PACKED with people - always a good sign.  Feijoada was the special of the day, so we ordered that and some coxinha, which were pear shaped fried pastries filled with shredded chicken in a mild sauce and cream cheese.  We also ordered an empada, a little hand pie with similar chicken but no cheese.  The people in the restaurant we all so friendly (which was good since we were shoulder to shoulder) and told me all the other things on the menu I should try another time, but we had enough for now, so we went home and had our feast.

Starting from the top , we have Feijoada over white rice, below that some collard greens, the pear shaped pastry is the coxinha and the round pastry is the empada.  The food was milder than I had expected - personally I like a little more spice.  The pastries were my favorite and I was really surprised by the collard greens.  I've never had them before and they were a little bitter but really good.  The feijoada was nothing special- black beans with meat.  I kinda expected more from the national dish, but I'm glad I tried it. The kids, however, took one look and declared that they didn't "like" Brazilian food!  Maybe their tastebuds are tired of all the travels :)

Little did they know I had some yummy surprises in store.  Ones that wouldn't take all day to prepare....

 Cooking Project:  Pao de Queijo- Brazilian Cheese Bread

For this delicious chewy roll you will need :

• 1/2 cup olive oil or butter
• 1/3 cup water
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 cups tapioca flour (this is gluten free if you are sensitive)
• 2 tsp minced garlic
• 2/3 cup grated parmesan cheese
• 1/3 cup shredded cheese
• 2 beaten eggs

1. Preheat oven to 375º

2. Add first 4 ingredients to saucepan and heat to boiling. Remove from heat.

3. Add tapioca and garlic, mix well and set aside 10 mins.

4. Stir cheese and eggs into tapioca mixture and mix well.  Hands were required - it got pretty messy :)

5. With your goopy hands, scoop up about 1/4 cup of dough and place on ungreased baking sheet.

6. Bake 15-20 mins or until golden brown.

They are sooooo good warm but still pretty good room temperature!

They were perfect for an after school snack with our next project -

Brazilian Lemonade (Limeade?)

This recipe was on a few different websites and they all referred to it as lemonade but it doesn't have lemons?!  Oh well, when in Brazil....  for the recipe you will need:

• 2 limes
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 3 Tbsp sweetened condensed milk
• 3 cups water
• ice

1. Cut up limes and put them into blender, peel and all

2. Blend them up pretty well. Add rest of ingredients except ice and blend well.

3. Pour through strainer into glass full of ice.....aaah, summer :)

Try this recipe for your next lemonade stand!! Limeade stand?!

Take a Little Trip to Brazil !!

Ola from Brazil!

Well, here we are in South America, in a country with the greatest biodiversity of any country in the world.  In a country that is home to 60% of the Amazon rainforest, as well as, grasslands, swamplands, prairies, redwood forests and famous beaches - Brazil.   On the map, the capital Brasilia is located at 15º.48S/ 47º.54W.  If you look at South America, Brazil is by far the largest country and, also, the longest at 2800 miles from top to bottom.  Brazil is home to most of the Amazon river, where 20% of all the world's fresh water flows through it's tributaries and estuaries.  The country is the world's largest producer of coffee, sugar, and alcohol and also has a few other titles to be proud of:

• Most species of Monkeys in the world
• Has won the Soccer World Cup more than any other country- 5 times! Also has the world's largest Soccer Stadium!
• 100% Energy dependent and one of the leading producers of hydroelectric power (makes sense with that big river)

Brazil is an interesting country so let's get a little history.  The first people were the Indian natives who still live in the country in more than 651 Indian reservations.  The Yanomami have the largest numbers with around 18,000 members.  The first European settlers came in April, 1500, when Portuguese sailor Pedro Alvares, landed on the shores.  They named the country for the Brazilwood trees that were found along the shoreline.  These first immigrants produced sugar and found some gemstones and gold, but soon a major discovery of gold and diamonds brought many more immigrants.  Soon, coffee plantations were adding to the wealth and bringing even more immigrants.  The Queen of Portugal and her son fled to Brazil to escape Napolean in 1808 and, even after the Queen's death and the end of Napolean's reign, the Prince (now King) stayed on until 1821.  He chose to leave his son Pedro behind to rule Brazil.  Well, his son must've really like Brazil, because a year after his dad left, he decided to declare Brazil an independent country and appoint himself the Emperor! Lucky for him his father peacefully agreed and Brazil was now independent from Portugal.  It was a monarchy until 1889, when it peacefully (again) became a Republic.  After a few periods of military rule, Brazil became a democracy in 1982 and has been one since. 

Project 1:  The Brazilian Flag

The flag of Brazil is pretty cool.  On the surface it looks like a normal flag, but it is an astronomy lesson, a history lesson and a geometry lesson, if you really want to stretch it :)  The flag is a green background with a yellow diamond on it.  Inside the yellow diamond is a dark blue circle with stars and a banner - nothing special right?  What I wouldn't ever have known without doing this blog, is that the stars on the blue circle are the constellations that were seen over Rio de Janiero on November 11th, 1889.  That was the night that Emperor Dom Pedro II was deposed and the Republic of Brazil was declared.  How cool is that?  If you want to know the names of all the constellations you can find the info on www.kidscornerbrazil.org, along with other cool facts! The banner across the "sky" reads "Ordem E Progresso" which is Portuguese for Order and Progress.  And progress we will - onto the project!

For the project you will need:

• Green, yellow, blue and white construction paper
• stars - here is where a star hole punch would be handy.  I don't have one so we used 27 silver stickers
• glue and scissors

1. Cut a yellow diamond (see? geometry.) and glue it to the center of the green rectangle.  Also cut a blue circle about 6" in diameter.

2. Glue blue circle to center of yellow diamond

3. Cut a small white banner that can go across circle about 3/4 of the way up. This should say - Ordem E Progresso

4. Now the astronomy part - place 27 stars (symbols of the 27 states of Brazil) in the exact constellations that were seen on November 15th, 1889.  Got it?  OR, you can just randomly stick them all over the bottom of the circle with one above the banner - kinda how the real flag looks to the untrained eye :)

There you go, now you are all set for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janiero, Brazil!  And you can impress your friends and family with your knowledge of Brazil :)