Cake, A science experiment we can eat!

I am always trying to learn new things, particularly new ways to teach the kiddos, so I was very excited to find out about an online article called Helping Your Child Learn Science, by Nancy Paulu and  Margery Martin.  In the article they suggest many ways parents and other caregivers can help children learn about science, including over a dozen science experiments.  Today we did one called Cake!                                                                                                                                                             

First we had to decide what we might need, and I also wanted to find out if the children knew why we might need them.

Everything they suggested was possible, even vegetables, as we often make pumpkin muffins.  I can tell that cooking with the children every week has paid off, they know a lot about cooking!

Next we washed hands (always before cooking!) and gathered the ingredients for this particular recipe.

One of the ingredients we needed was an egg, so one of the kiddos cracked that for us. We measured and scooped and poured everything into the mixing bowl.

 Of course we all took turns mixing!

This activity called for making 4 batches of cake mix.  One batch included all the ingredients, and each of the other batches was missing one thing: eggs, oil, or baking powder.  I used different colored muffin liners so we could tell the batches apart.  It's hard to tell from this picture, but the cakes in the yellow and blue liners weren't as full and fluffy as the ones in white and pink liners.

 We observed all four versions of the cake, first by smelling...

 ...then by looking and feeling...

 ... and finally by tasting.  Yum!

There were some differences between the batches.  The cake without egg was crumblier, and the one without oil was a little chewy and dryer, but overall, they were all delicious.  If you decide to try this recipe at home, I strongly recommend tripling the recipe.  It is written to use 1/3 of an egg, but that was very challenging!  All the batches tasted wonderful, and we have eaten them all up, so you don't need to worry about wasting the "incorrect" versions.

So, you might wonder if there was a clear winner.  Yes, there was.  The children were very attached to the first batch they tried (yellow liners), even although they were the flat cakes, without baking soda included!  When we were tasting, they seemed to prefer the texture of the complete recipe (white liners), but they had started raving about how yummy the cake was when they ate the ones in yellow, so that's what most of the children decided they preferred.   Me?  I'm with Pete the Cat on this one, "It's all good!"

It's cold and wet out, what can we do?

It's been colder than usual this week, and we haven't made it outside.  I've managed to find "new" toys several times, and of course, the box creations have kept the kiddos busy, but it was time for something special... making play dough!

 

You can see the recipe here, we made the kool-aid dough.  The last batch of this we made lasted for 6 months, this is a great recipe!  What's more, I goofed up and had the kiddos put all the ingredients in the pan and mix it up - and it still came out perfectly! 

The kiddos put in flour...

 

 water...

 salt...

 mixed a little...

 then I remembered the cream of tartar...

 We liked the smell of the drink mixes I had, and pink lemonade and cherry seemed like they would go together nicely, so in they went.

 Remember me goofing up?  I forgot to have the kids add the oil, so put that in as I started to cook the dough.  This stuff is seriously goof proof!

 Isn't it pretty?  It smells wonderful too.

 Best of all was kneading warm dough on a cold afternoon.  It felt marvellous, and the kiddos enjoyed the warm squishy dough for a long time before they started playing with it.

Play dough, anyone?

Underwear, ugly upside down cake, and unicorns

We love unicorns for the letter U.  We started this week by reading The Midnight Unicorn, by Neil Reed.  To follow up, we made stick horse unicorns, and each child decorated theirs just the way they wanted it.  We had a unicorn sensory play tub, with pompons (white, sparkly, and colors to sort), a rainbow, and some ponies and unicorns.

 We rode our beautiful unicorns around the room all morning!

 Chinese New Year started last Friday, and we made some cute fire breathing dragons that I found on http://babyccinokids.com.  They weren't dry enough to play with when the kiddos left on Friday, so we enjoyed those this week too.  We did do other things for Chinese New Year, I just didn't take photos: we ate fried rice and stir fried veggies, read some books, and even got red envelopes with money in them.  Gung Hay Fat Chow!  Happy New Year!

 Our pompons needed to be pinned while they were drying, so they wouldn't roll off.  Pinching clothes pins to hold them was a good fine motor work out!

We read a couple of underwear themed stories, Underwear by Mary Elise Monsell, and Arthur's Underwear, by Marc Brown, then made a letter u craft that was covered in fancy underwear.  We also made a class book about Pete the Cat's underwear - but that's the next post.

We all did a foot print painting this week - can you tell it tickles and feels good?  We made unicorns.

 The teachers painted everyone's feet, then the kiddos added manes and horns with paint.

 Once they were dry, they added eyes and colors in the mane, and everyone made a pretty rainbow background for their unicorns.  We know the order of the colors in a rainbow!

 I had to include this one... we had a couple of unicorns with pompadours!

Another day we made a USA flag snack.  I saw several variations on this idea on the internet, and put it all together to suit this group of kiddos.  We used graham crackers, cream cheese, and pieces of fruit roll up to make our flags, and they were YUMMY!

We had to do something with umbrellas for the letter U, so the kiddos covered their U craft with umbrellas, and dripped white paint onto them immediately before hanging them up.  The paint ran down the umbrellas like rain.  I got this great idea from  mama-jenn.  She used glue, but when I tried this project with glue, it dried too clear!  The paint may be too white... maybe next time I'll combine the two!

One of the kiddos brought in another funny underwear book, and we put baby doll underwear on our dinosaurs.  Crazy!

I try to do a cooking activity with the kiddos every week, and this was no exception.  This week we made ugly upside down cake.  We washed hands, and got out all the ingredients...

 Our peaches were in slices, so many of the children had turns cutting the fruit into smaller pieces.  This is when I thought it would really get ugly!  We had several friends try to lick their knives - that wouldn't have been pretty - some knife dropping, step stool flipping... but in the end, everything was put together.

 We cut butter into tiny pieces...

 ...dumped yellow cake mix and cinnamon on top of the peaches...

 ...sprinkled the pieces of butter on top, and baked it for 45 minutes at 375*.

Was it tasty?  Did we like it?  Oh yes!

Pete the Cat's Underwear

This week we've been looking for things that start with the letter U, and there are so few that are relevant to preschoolers.  One that they love is underwear - what could engage the children's attention better than underwear?  Pete the Cat!  The idea of Pete the Cat's Underwear was born.

If you don't know Pete the Cat yet, check it out!  James Dean and Eric Litwin have created a super popular character, and Harper Collins has published many Pete videos, activities, and lesson ideas, in addition to the books.

 This is the story my class and I created, inspired by Pete:

 The kiddos worked hard to trace a stencil of Pete, and to color it, after filling in all the blanks.  They've been reading the resulting class book over and over again!

We LOVE Pete!