Gingerbread Cookie Update

It has been almost three weeks since our gingerbread cookies ran away

and we have received a lot of stories from them as they travel the world.

At school Ms Green's grade 3 class visited and left us some stories too.

A New Balance

A week or so ago I shared a post about the children playing with a small scale.

They showed quite an interest in balancing the animals on both sides of the scale

that I decided to offer another opportunity.

While thrift shopping I found this stand with the dowel that goes through.

But I thought my crafty husband could modify it to make 

a balance.

He screwed the dowel on to the front so it can pivot up and down.

He added two little nails to stop the dowel from

going to far down on either side.

He also cut notches at both ends of the dowel for the cans to rest.

I bought two cans from the dollar store

and set it out with our pom poms.

The cans do occasionally fall off but part of the process

is learning how to put both of them back on at the same time.

It takes team work.

These two boys challenged each other to see who could fill their can

up the fastest.

 Once full they quickly tried to empty their cans back into the tray.

It was fascinating to watch the older children work together with the balance.

Younger children enjoyed putting the pom poms into the can

and it appeared they did not really notice that the can was getting heavier.

And this child loved just the pom poms.

 He pulled my toadstool closer and started placing them on the circles.

I thought that was very clever and observant.

National Child Day

Last Sunday was National Child Day.

Our local ECE group, in conjunction with our Early Years Collaborative,

put together a kit for schools and Early Year Centres in our Valley.

It included posters, games, activity suggestions for the day

and this book.

I love the book and the illustrations,

the parents loved the book,

but it was too long for a big group of mixed aged children.

But I think it would be wonderful to read it with one to three children.

Talking about what they see happening in the illustrations

and sharing their rights with them.

I photocopied some of the pages and added them to our display

in the main foyer of our school.

One activity suggestion was to have the staff submit photos

of themselves when they were a baby or toddler.

Not all the staff were able to find pictures, for various reasons,

but the ones that did are posted and waiting for students and their parents

to guess who is who?

I challenged my families to try to guess which one is me.

Whole Oats to Granola

This morning we rolled our own oats.

Starting with whole oats that I picked up at a bulk store

the children put them in the grinder and went to work.

 I like this grinder because the children watch how the whole oats

change to flat oats as they grind.

 Once we had enough oats rolled we made our granola.

I used this recipe from superhealthykids.com

As one child mixed all the dry ingredients another mixed

the sugar and wet ingredients.

Sometimes spills happen when we are stirring such a full bowl

but we work together to sweep it up.

We modified the recipe slightly by substituting pumpkin seeds

for the sunflower seeds, flax seeds instead of sesame seeds

and chopped dried apricots instead of mango.

It is so good and makes a huge batch.

We needed to use two baking sheets so it would 

spread out and not take too long to bake.

Enjoy!