Apple Pie Tarts

       
This morning the children were welcomed with an invitation
to make apple pie tarts.  I had made a few already so the room
smelled delicious.
           
It started with a simple photo recipe.  Take two slices
of apples and cut them into little pieces.
 
     Then fill your pre-made tart shell
      
   and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.
 
Sprinkling with cinnamon sugar, rather than mixing the
apples, sugar and cinnamon in a bowl, meant less sugar in
the pie and less dirty dishes.
   
            Bake, cool and enjoy.

Educators Learn and Play

Sorry I haven’t posted in a few days but I have been busy, not just with work, but with co-planning and facilitating a conference for local educators in the early years.
    
It was a wonderful experience bringing many early childhood educators, and a few primary teachers, together for several hours to inspire and be inspired. 
Local Early Childhood Educators presented the topics Explore your Backyard, Social Media, Art, and Oral Storytelling.  We are privilege to have such talented peers in our community.
       
Another ECEr provide an opportunity to chat about ‘loose parts on the playground’.  He brought a large variety of props he built and uses to encourage outdoor exploration.
       
A variety of displays, including documentations, invitations and posters, were available around the school to provoke conversations.
       
Bringing this conference together, with my friend Jackie, was an honour to give back to our learning community.  To have the opportunity to bring us together in a field that is often difficult to do filled me with very positive energy.

Apple Boats for Snack

    
          Today we ate sailboats for snacks.

               But we had to build it first.

Sticking the mast (pretzels) into the hull was fairly easy.
      
But sticking the sail (cheese slice) onto the mast proved tricky for some. 

Some of the boats went sail-less.  Or the sail was eaten separately.
         
I was inspired by a post at Creative Kids Snacks

         to create this recipe today.

Happy Dot Day~ish

       
Today our school celebrated “The Dot”.  As the families entered the school they found the floor littered with dots.  Some children walked around the dots others skipped and hopped from one dot to another.  Many students and staff wore dots, spots and polka dots too.

Some of the activities they found in StrongStart were:
   
                        Dot stickers and chalk at the art table.

                                Twister on the carpet.

                     Bingo Dotters at the easel.
     
The Dot encourages an "I'll try" attitude and that is what we've been seeing at the art table for the pass two weeks leading up to today.
            
              I hope you made a mark today.

Art from the Sign In Table

The first week back to school is a very busy time and that includes taking a new picture of every child that comes in.  Usually I would take their picture, print it off in the afternoon and the next visit would put it on magnet so they could sign in. It's time consuming.

The first week of school so many families are coming in that it makes me extra busy to put them on magnet as new families are arriving.  So this year I decided to change it up.  I still took their picture on their first day but waited to give them their photo till the second week.
              
This is what awaited them at the sign in area.  A pre-painted canvas and triangle shaped sticky notes.
 
This art piece worked on several skills; colour identification, fine motor (peeling the stickees apart), and turn taking.  We also learned how to apply the stickees and problem solve when they wouldn’t stay stuck.
           
It was a non-threatening entrance to a new environment for some little ones.  Families could work together to help create the art piece.  And children could come back and add more if they wished.
                 
Now we have a colourful piece of art that we worked together to create and at the same time helping to make the beginning of the year a little more peaceful.

How I Spent My Weekend

I’m taking you away from work today to share with you my
husband’s latest adventure.
       
We were out for a bike ride one day, not long ago, and as we
were crossing the train tracks my husband insisted on stopping
to take some measurements. 
Measurements? 
For what? 
         
He has an idea to ride his bike on the rails from here down island.
 
So he measured and took pictures of the width and height of a rail,
the distance between the rails and went home to create.
        
On the internet he found pictures of how other people have adapted
their bikes and set to work finding items to piece a rail bike together.
 
Everything he used was recycled, except one bolt that he had to buy. 
The front part is an old dry ground training ski, the outrigger is a
scooter that we found abandoned, and the connecting bars are from
an old cartop carrier and a piece of bamboo.  Plus he also used lots of
zipties and old bike tubes.
          
All ready to try it out he quickly learned that balancing it would be difficult. 
“When we ride a bike we turn the handle bars to help keep us balanced”
he tells me.  He couldn’t do that on the rail bike. 

He also discovered that the bamboo wasn’t strong enough to keep the bike
from leaning inward and pushing the outrigger off the track.  So he replaced
the bamboo with another metal bar from the cartop carrier.
           
Once that was fixed and an additional bracing bar was added he was ready to go.

As I watched him develop his idea and build it, problem solve and recreate it reminded me how children play.  They learn through what interests them.  A child will explore an item of interest, take it apart, rebuild it, change it or make something new all the time learning many different concepts.  And most importantly learning by doing not by being told “this is how it’s done or this is the way it should be”. 

                      And having that thrill of success be yours to show. 
                                Doesn't his smile just tell it all?

 Note:  The rail line that my husband is riding on has no trains in operation this year so risk is limited.


In a future post I’ll talk about how I’ve been developing an area in our centre
where children can use their imaginations and create using loose parts.

Story – The Cat, The Rooster and The Young Mouse

I discovered a new-to-me storytelling website. 
Dr. Mike Lockett’s site has a long list of stories, tales, fables and folklore. 
Some are very easy to tell stories and I picked one to tell this week at school.

The Cat, The Rooster and the Young Mouse is an Aesop fable with
the moral ‘Never judge anyone by their looks”.
      
I decided I wanted a visual so found pictures of each of the animals and cut the cat and the rooster into parts, like a puzzle, to place on the board as I told the story. You'll see how I used them in the following video.

 When I first found the site I was thrilled and instantly ordered two of his CDs.  Now to find the time to listen to them.  Hope you can find time to check out his site and learn a story or two.