Story Cooks "On Top of Spaghetti"

Why didn't I think of this sooner???  

We are having the best time cooking together this summer.

Today we read the old story of Strega Nona and her magical pasta pot. 

 Then we mixed a batch of our own homemade pasta dough.

There are no pictures of this part because we were all elbow deep in a big pasta dough mess!  

While it rested, we painted our new recipe boxes.

Each box contained our very first recipe card- Strawberry Shortcake.

It was  now time to prepare our salads.  We learned how to chop cucumbers.

Then  we mixed up our marinara sauce and got it cooking!

Earlier, we mixed and kneaded our own portion of the pasta dough.

Now it was time to roll it out!

Our sheets needed to be very thin so that we could cut our noodles. The kids loved turning the crank to make their pasta sheets.  

While we cooked the noodles, we mixed up a batch of fresh shortcakes using our new mixing bowls, measuring cups and spoons.

Shew!  Finally time to enjoy the fruits of our labor.

Yum!

After lunch we chopped our strawberries and assembled our individual strawberry shortcakes.  

What a delicious day at Sunshine!

We have 2 more Story Cooks in August, come cook with us!

I must add that Windsor was so excited about her new tools and skills, that we invited her grandparents over for homemade spaghetti tonight.  She used her new tools and whipped up another batch of pasta.  I loved hearing her tell her family about what she did today, in the most wonderful detail!

Story Cooks: Pizza Party

Today was the day!  A long-time idea finally came to fruition.  

Basically, Story Cooks came about because I thought Windsor and other kids would like it and because I think we have a need for quality, children's programming right here in our town (area). I combined 3 things that I love- children, books, and baking- and took off with the idea.  Honestly, I didn't know if anyone would sign-up, but I had decided I would hold the classes no matter what.  

I am happy to say that lots signed up and that we had the best day ever!  

Story Cooks is a one day cooking class centered around literature.  Children attend and sharpen their skills in many areas including math, science, reading.

 

We began by reading Curious George and the Pizza.

We talked about planning healthy meals and learned that our meals should include components from the major food groups.

We made a plan and set right to work.  First we washed our most important tools, our hands.

Then we washed and prepped our vegetables. 

 We learned knife skills and diced peppers and mushrooms.

Now it was time to mix our pizza dough.

We worked with partners and took turns adding each ingredient.

I have rarely seen such excellent turn taking and sharing of materials.

Once the dough was mixed, we set it aside to let the yeast do its thing.  We really leaned a lot about yeast, what it likes, and how it makes bread rise.  While it rose, we watched Pete's a Pizza come to life on the big screen.

Time to roll the dough and press it into the pan.  We were introduced to our first new tool to add to our kit- our very own rolling pin.

Next we added the sauce.

And sprinkled the toppings. Time for the oven!

While the baked, we painted aprons with different vegetables.  They turned out so neat!

We learned how to set the table correctly, worked together to accomplish the task, and got to work making our dessert- fruit kabobs.

Blueberries and strawberries might seem boring in a pile on your plate, but when you get to make your own kabob with them, well, that is entirely different!

Finally, the pizzas were done.  We leaned to use a pizza cutter safely and promised to not use it without an adult.

Time to eat!

It was SO yummy!  Event he grown-ups thought so.  We added our last tool to our kit, the pizza cutter/scooper and headed for home.  

Next week's class will be making spaghetti, it is full, but we are planning at least one more class for August.  Let us know if you would like more information.

A REAL Water Feature

My desire to have a safe, child friendly water feature on our playground began 4 years ago when I visited Marbles with our family.  We found this little running water table in a court yard there.  She was fascinated, as was I.  Nate and I studied it and thought about it and he agreed to help me make one.

We considered many options and ended up making one with a cattle feed trough.  

It was perfect for a little while.  They loved it.  But we could never get it to flow like the one at Marbles, and it was difficult to keep the water clean.

Which lead us to this.

I am so tickled to say that after all these years of wishing and hoping, we are getting the real thing!  Thanks to a group of Sunshine Moms, families and friends, our first ever Consign and Shine event was a big success.  All the proceeds from the consignment sale benefited playground improvements.  We earned enough money to freshen up our wood chips and buy this amazing piece of equipment.  If all goes well, we will have it by the beginning of the school year.  

Mad Scientists Day 4

Finally, the day we had all been waiting for- Chemistry Day.

We read the story of Bartolomew and the Oobleck.  Then we followed a recipe to make our own oobleck.

I scoop of cornstarch, 2 scoops of water. For the most part, we got what we were trying for.

Once we had our oobleeck mixed we explored with it for some time.  

After getting to know the substance, we made predictions for what some common household items would do if dropped in oobleck.  Would they sink or float?

This was a great exercise in the scientific process.  The boys and girls learned the importance of accuracy in measuring and recording results.

Next it was time to make Elephant Toothpaste.  

This was a little anti-climatic because in order for the experiment to be safe for children, I had to use a more diluted peroxide.  We had a typical reaction, just not as BIG as we had hoped for.

The good thing about this version is that the children can touch the results and actually feel the warmth of the exothermic reaction

Finally, it was time to make our last entry in our science journals.

We each wrote about our favorite experiment of the day.  Many listed Elephant Toothpaste, which just goes to show that in that which I perceived as a disappointment, they found wonder.

Mad Scientist Camp was a blast!  We will definitely do this again next summer.  We already brainstormed some new experiments!

Mad Scientists Day 3

Today we explored states of matter.  Solids, liquids, and gases have never been so exciting! We began our day with One Fish, Two Fish.  Such a silly book, one that I was glad I left in my purse at home.  (oops)  That just meant that I didn't have to read that tongue twister, and that we could use some of our fabulous technology!  We showed the book on the big screen with several celebrities reading it to us! They were far more interesting than me!

After centers, we got right to work with our first phase change, liquid to solid.  

We measured and mixed all of the ingredients for our ice cream recipe.

We placed our sealed cups in Ziploc bags...

filled our cans with ice and rock salt...

placed the baggies in the can and topped them off with more ice and rock salt.

Once the cans were sealed it was time to roll those ice cream freezers.

This was so much fun with our partners.

Some of us even got to see another phase change when our cans started leaking.  We saw the solid ice change to liquid water. Our ice cream needed more time to freeze, so we put our cups in the freezer for tomorrow. 

Next it was time for our final phase change demonstration: liquid to gas.  We went outside and frolicked in the sprinkler and dipped our toes in the pool.  We had an all around good time.  I am sorry there are no pictures from this part of the day but I chose not to take or post bathing suit pictures.

Once we were good and wet, we stopped to talk about evaporation.  We traced damp spots on the sidewalk and left them for a bit while we played on the slides.  A few minutes later, we noticed the spots were disappearing.  The boys and girls really were fascinated by the missing spots.  

Tomorrow is our messy chemistry day.  I hope I can grab some more great pictures.