An appeal to American Sprite Stitchers

[smoni]

I spoke to the headteacher at my school today, now that we're partway through this topic. He has given me permission to hold an Independence Day party/celebration type event on the 4th July.

My question is this: Are there traditional activities for a 4th July party? (Apart from fireworks, which wouldn't be possible!)

[rockinwithrammstein]

Around here there's usually barbecue.

[SheWhoRoars]

If you're still interested in States, I'm an Illinois! Illinois is seriously Chicago/it's suburbs and pretty much nothing else with a population over 100,000. And that would be rare. I'm central Illinois, and it's so flat you can seriously see for miles. Our crops are soybeans and corn, and I think we have some hog and cattle farms. We also have the ADM headquarters along with a hecka tonna other factories. Southern Illinois is a little more hilly, and I'm not sure it has anything other than super small towns (don't quote me on that mainly because apparently we're the 5th most populous state???). The bottom half of IL is basically northern Kentucky. We talk a little more southern, and use more southern words. I'm not really sure about around Chicago, though. Our bird is the Cardinal, our Butterfly is the Monarch, and our mammal is the White-tailed deer, and our fish is the bluegill. Our flower is the violet!

Also, about the 4th of July stuff, the only thing I can think of off the top of my head is pie. I also personally remember fishing a lot on the 4th, and some of the towns set up little fairs almost where you can get glowsticks and funnel cake and play games and such! I hope soooomething there helped!

[smoni]

I love funnel cake! Had my first ever one when I was in Florida in April. Can't get it over here, and definitely not going to even think about deep frying with 10 year olds around!

[RMDC]

We usually have parades on the 4th, often highlighting local emergency responders (fire, police, etc.), military personnel, and civil servants. There's a classic iconic bit of 19th- and early 20th-century Americana featuring people dressed as Uncle Sam on long stilts, standing seven to twelve feet tall, walking in 4th parades.

[Eliste]

I usually associate July 4th with parades, burgers, and fireworks. As far as social things, it was just an excuse to all go to someone's back yard, grill food, do a big potluck, and eventually light our own fireworks if we weren't going to watch the big ones. Definitely needs to be burger and potato salad for me to consider it a proper July 4th.

Oh, and we always try to make sure we wear red, white, and blue. Usually its always been trying to get it into our outfits without it being super obvious, though. So I don't do flags or anything (although some do) but I'll do like jeans, white tshirt & a red ribbon or somesuch so that I've got it covered.

[Kareesh]

I'm central Illinois, and it's so flat you can seriously see for miles. Our crops are soybeans and corn, and I think we have some hog and cattle farms. We also have the ADM headquarters along with a hecka tonna other factories.

My mother's family is from central Illinois. Decatur to be exact! My Grandpa use to work for Staley's and I *think* my cousin works for ADM.

[Firehawke]

I spoke to the headteacher at my school today, now that we're partway through this topic. He has given me permission to hold an Independence Day party/celebration type event on the 4th July.

My question is this: Are there traditional activities for a 4th July party? (Apart from fireworks, which wouldn't be possible!)

Fun!!! A lot of places also hold baseball games

[smoni]

My apologies to keep this topic going! The topic is almost over...

Our Independence Day went well, the children loved it, we had a BBQ and played 'baseball' (rounders).

Our next project is going to be opening a coffee shop after school one day. So we're going to make cookies and lemonade.

Does anybody have a good recipe for either one please? Oh, please don't give measurements in cups - we Brits can't measure like that! Ounces are ok, grams even better!

[yessamaca]

I don't have any recipes but don't let a recipe with US measurements stop you. That's what is used in the US so most recipes from Americans are going to be using those measurements. I use lots of US recipes but live in the EU so I just use online converters to go back and forth until I have it memorized. This one I use a lot: http://www.traditionaloven.com/conversi ... erter.html
It'll take you to the butter page, because that's what I use most often, but on the right there are lots of other links for other types of measurements. Or, just do what I often do and type into google something like '1 cup of flour in grams' and there you go!