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.

Mad Scientists Day 2

Our second day of camp was all about the science of sound.  

When we ask children to understand sound, we ask them to make sense of something that they can't see.  Using the drum and some pompoms, we were able to "show" them how sound waves are created by vibration.

This very cool slow motion video is a great way to "look" at sound.  

During center, we explored common tools used by scientist.  

We used pipettes and  test tubes to mix colors.  

We checked on our water cubes from day one and they had really changed.  We talked about how they were different and made hypothesis as to what had caused the changes.  We noticed they had grown larger, they felt wet, that they were jiggly, and that they bounce now.

We made a water xylophone too!  We tried really hard to play some songs, and we did play songs, they were just not recognizable!  We played by number, note, and finally color.

Our last project of the day was to take what we had learned about sound and apply it to making a musical instrument.  We set up a buffet of materials from recycled materials to beads and fabric.  

Children had access to staplers, tape, yarn, foil, and anything else they requested.  

It was amazing to see each child generate their own idea and bring it to fruition.

Children created guitars like this one, shakers, drums, didgeridoos, flutes, and tambourines- just to name a few.  

This is an instrument that plays two ways, it modifies your voice and also makes a swish sound when the paper plate slides up and down the tube.  

Once we had all shared our instruments, we formed a marching band.  

After our parade we went on a sound hunt.  We went outside and were absolutely silent (for the most part).  Our job was to listen for 3 sounds and record them in our science notebooks. Our mixed age group recorded many ways.  Some drew labeled pictures, some drew approximations of items,  some wrote in print, some in cursive.    Regardless of how we got there, we all got there in our own way.  We heard the tweet tweet of a bird, the fan at the new Camino Real, the air conditioner, a car horn, children playing, crickets, bugs, and cars passing.  Someone even said they heard a snake in the ditch!

Mad Scientists Day 1

The first day of Mad Science Camp was more fun than should be allowed at school!

This morning we learned about scientists and how they protect themselves when they are conducting experiments.  

We got our PPE on just in time to begin our first experiment with water cubes.  

We took turns pouring warm water in each bowl and began the long process of watching and waiting, otherwise known as patient observation!

Our focus today was physics.  We used these BIG words with the children and they caught on quickly. Our big project of the day was rocket building.

We used empty mini m&m containers and decorated them with tape and stickers. 

After snack, we went outside to launch them.  We poured a little water in the tube, dropped the bath tub fizzy in and snapped the top back on.  Then we ran for it!

The anticipation was more than most of us could handle!  

At first the rockets were not going very high.  We needed to regroup and make a change, just like scientists do.  We decided to try less water, and what do you know, those rockets when at least 3 feet into the air!

After our rocket launch, it was time to document and record our data in our science journals.  

We drew pictures of what happened and some wrote words to match.  W wrote, "My rocket went really high".  

Our story today was The Cat in the Hat.  That guy really knows a lot about balance and nothing about gravity!  We made our own Cat in the Hat inspired snack.  

We prepped our fruit by slicing it, then we stacked it in a pattern to match the Cat's hat.

Speaking of balance... we played a very silly game.  We had 2 dice. One listed body parts, the other objects that the Cat hat balanced in our book.  We rolled both dice and the children to balance the specified object on the specified body part.  Here E has a hat in left hand, a saucer under her chin, and her right foot on a ball.

This crew had to put a ship in their left hand, a saucer under their chins, and a ball AND a fish on their heads.  They did some serious balancing.

Our last activity of the day had us creating a group art project,SPLAT!  We tried dropping paint soaked pompoms from a variety of heights.  It was neat to see how the size of the splat changed with the height of the dropper.