Virtual Vacation: Student Work

Virtual Vacation
Student Participation

The Kidlink Who-Am-I? Program

from Fjørå (Fjoeraa)

Hei!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We want to visit your class. You had some questions to us, and we are ansering them now: A fjord is a sea that comes in to our village, it's not so big, it's aboute 200 meters across the fjord and it's aboute 100 kilometers long. It's looks like a river but the water comes from the sea. (:-)

From David Chessler in Maryland:

We are on the Potomac River, about 150 kilometers from the sea. The water is fresh (not salt), but we still get some tide every day, and big ships can visit (but they do not visit very often). The river is about 800 meters wide here, but it is not very deep.

We have som questions for you to: Have you ever heard aboute Maryland cookies? That's a cookie here. It's a wery taisty cookie with som bits of choclate in. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!!!!

Could they be talking about chocolate chip cookies? I do have the "Nieman-Marcus" recipe, which I think is pretty good (some others disagree). Here it is (cleaned up--I edited out the bogus story).

COCOLATE CHIP COOKIE RECIPE: (Recipe may be halved.)

2 cups butter
4 cups flour
2 tsp. soda
2 cups sugar
5 cups blended oatmeal **
24 oz. chocolate chips
2 cups brown sugar
1 tsp. salt 1 8 oz. Hershey Bar (grated)
4 eggs
2 tsp. baking powder
3 cups chopped nuts (your choice)
2 tsp. vanilla

** Measure oatmeal and blend in a blender to a fine powder.

Cream the butter and both sugars. Add eggs and vanilla; mix together with flour, oatmeal, salt, baking powder, and soda. Add chocolate chips, Hershey Bar and nuts. Roll into balls and place two inches apart on a cookie sheet. Bake for 10 minutes at 375 degrees. Makes 112 cookies. ENJOY!

Conversions:

1 cup = 250 millilitres (in the United States home cooks measure baked goods by volume rather than by weight)
1 tsp = 5 millilitres
8 oz = 450 grams
375 degrees Farenheit = 190 degrees Celsius (Centigrad).

I prefer to bake a bit more--perhaps 13 minutes--because I like my cookies a bit crisper. Crisp or soft is a great controversy; see how you prefer them.

Why do you not have school when it's snowing? We have to go to school when it's snowing.

Greatings from Fjørå (Fjoeraa). Lars Ivar and Ole Martin.

It does not snow here very often; often only once or twice a winter. In the winter of 1972 there was no snow at all in Washington. There are not enough snowplows (trucks with blades like a bulldozer) to remove the snow in time. Also, the snow we get is very wet and is often mixed with ice: freezing rain (rain that falls and freezes when it hits the ground) and sleet (rain that freezes in the air and falls as little bits of ice). This makes it very dangerous to drive.

The school systems here all assume that they will close 5 days for snow each winter, and schedule 5 days more school than the students are supposed to go. If it does not snow 5 times, students do not get the extra days of vacation. This year there have been only 3 days of snow. If the schools close more than 5 days, students make up the time by going extra hours or even giving up some of their vacations. A few years ago there was a lot of snow and students had to go an extra 40 minutes a day for the last 6 weeks of the year.

There are places in the United States where it is much colder. In some places, like the states of Minnesota, North Dakota, or Montana, it is colder than Norway. In those states the students go to school even when it snows.

David Chessler

Dear Lars and Ole,

I have no idea what Maryland cookies are. When it snows around here the schools close because the snow sticks to the roads and it gets very slippery and the school buses are to big and cary kids.

Sincerely,
Jesse

Dear Lars and Ole,

I have never heard of Maryland cookies. We close school on snow days because the school is scared of getting kids all messed up and other things they bring with them. My name is Paul Hudson and I am 11 years old. I am a boy. What do the cookies taste like?? Do you guys like sports?? I live in Delmar, Delaware. I have a e-mail address at my house. You can write to that too. Kids go crazy here because of snow days and we have snowfights. It is fun when we get off from school for snow days. I will send you a picture of me when I get to my house. I will send it to you.

Write soon,
Paul

Hello Delmar Maryland.

Thanks for the chocolate chip cookie recipe! We are going to bake this cookie on our domestic science. We have three hours a week (friday) Our school have som questions to ask you. What is chocolate chips and hershey bar ? We have a nice recipe of "Tilslørte bondepiker" (Veiled countrygirls)

3 dl. bread crums
3 dl. whipped cream
5-6 dl. mashed apples

Whip the cream and put the three products in layers in a bowl. You must make it just before serving, or else the breadcrums will get soft.

This is Lars Petter`s favourite dessert.

Good luck!!!!!!

From the sixth class:Lars Petter, Stig Erik, Reidun, Jeanette and Sander.

From a teacher in Maryland, David Chessler:

Hershey Bar is an American brand of milk chocolate. The taste is distinctive, very different from good European brands of chocolate, but you can substitute any brand of sweet milk chocolate.

Chocolate chips are small bits of milk chocolate. They are readily available in the United States. They are cone-shaped, about 1 cm in diameter and 1 cm high, or maybe a little smaller. If you cut or break milk chocolate into bits about that size, you'll have a good substitute, because they lose their shape when they are baked. Indeed, some people who bake these cookies use broken bits of chocolate instead.

David Chessler

To Delmar, Maryland.

Do you have a big schoolyard, we don't. It's about 50 metres long and 10 metres broad at the broadest part. What do you do in the breakes at school. We are playing football (soccer), baseball and someone are playing in the sandpit. If we are playing football and baseball in the same time, than we have just fifteen metres to play football on, and twenty metres to play baseball on. Here are some questions to you:

How big is your schoolyard?
How often do you have breakes, and how long are they?
What do you do in your breaketime?

From Ole Martin and Lars Ivar.

Hello!!!!

What food do you eat in Maryland??? Do you have warm meal at school??? We don't, we bring our own food to school,but we get milk. Traditional norwegian food is getting more and more un-traditionel, like pizza, hamburgers, hot dogs and stoff like that. What is your traditionel food????

From Berit

Hello !

This is what the students of the two upper classes wrote to you this last day before we take our Easter holiday. Tina was going to write to you about all the fun things we do in the snow, but she had to go to the optrician today. When we are going to the hospital or the optrician or other specialists we have to go to Ålesund 90 km away. So the students usually have to take a day off, but it is not very often. Have a nice Easter!

All the best !
Nina (the teacher)

Hello Ole, Lars, Berit, & Nina!!

My name is Kerry!! Our schoolyard is about 2 football fields wide & 2 & a half football fields long. We are off of school Saterday & Sunday!! We eat breakfast. We eat all kinds of food. We do sometimes. I don't know. Thank you Nina we will!! At your school do you have a cafeteria?

See Ya!!
Kerry!!
P.S.A football field is where you play football.A football field is a 100 yards long.

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