My Montessori Journey

Resurrection Rolls

I am so thankful that I teach in a faith-based preschool.  That means I can talk to the children each day about God.  It also means that I can teach them about the REAL reason we celebrate Easter.  My favorite book for teaching this story to young children is The Story of Easter by Patricia Pingry.  Patricia Pingry writes a whole series of simple board books about the holidays.  I own nearly every title.  This book teaches the basic tenets of the Easter story without mentioning the more gruesome aspects which would not be appropriate for young children.  We have listened to this story several times within the past few weeks. 

On Monday and Tuesday this week some moms came into the classroom to help with a baking activity for Easter.  Before the children left the classroom four at a time to bake, I read the book aloud again.

 
The baking project we did was Resurrection Rolls.  I had made these a few years ago with my own sons.  They are super easy to make, super yummy to eat, and symbolize the important part of the Easter story.

To make resurrection rolls you need:  crescent rolls, large marshmallows, melted butter, cinnamon and sugar. 

We found that these work best if you use only half a marshmallow. 

To make these, dip the marshmallow in melted butter, then roll it in the cinnamon and sugar.  Place the marshmallow on a crescent roll and fold in the edges to completely enclose the marshmallow.  It's important to try to seal the seams really well, but know that they will probably still burst open in the baking process.......it will still work out fine though even if they open up.

To emphasize the symbolism, tell your child that the marshmallow represents the body of Jesus once it was removed from the cross.  The crescent roll represents the tomb where Jesus' body was placed.

Following are a few photos of some students preparing their rolls for baking........

 

 

When we do these baking projects, we bake on parchment paper and write each child's name next to their baked item as shown below.  That way each child gets their very own without any confusion.

 

The best part is after the rolls are baked.  During baking the marshmallows melt, but the space they occupied is still there.  This represents the "resurrected" body of Jesus.  When Jesus' friends went to the tomb on the first Easter morning, they received the good news that his body was not there because he was risen!  Good news indeed!  Although some of the children could easily figure out that the marshmallow had melted, others were surprised that the marshmallow had disappeared.  I'm sure the parents of my students heard some interesting explanations of this project.  Hopefully this post will clarify what we did!   Have a blessed Easter!

 

Heart Tarts Baking Activity

In lieu of a traditional Valentine "party", we celebrated the day of love in our classroom by having a few parent helpers come in and bake "heart tarts" with the children.  I am loving these little seasonal activities so much and feel that the children get so much out of the extra one-on-one time with our adult helpers.  I think the parents have also enjoyed the opportunity to come in and help without having to plan and organize everything (which was how we did holiday parties previously).  I just have everything ready and tell them what to do!! 

Today I had four parent helpers and they took the children in groups of four into an adjacent classroom to make "heart tarts".  I saw this idea in the February issue of Family Fun magazine and thought it would be an easy and fun cooking activity to do for Valentine's Day.  Of course, it would be fun to do at home with your little ones at any time!!  CLICK HERE for the recipe on the Family Fun website.  The photo below is from that website too.  I forgot to take a "finished" photo of our tarts today!  However, I did sneak in to snap several photos to show the process the children used to make their tarts.  Scroll down to see those photos.

First of all, the children rolled out a little section of pie crust.  The recipe called for rolling it a little thinner than it comes in the package.

 

Then they cut out two hearts with a cookie cutter and spooned some strawberry jam onto one heart.

 

Then they wet their index finger and traced the outside of the heart to moisten the edge so the top heart would stick to it.

After adding the top heart, they used a fork to "crimp" the edges. 

 

Then they brushed some melted butter on top with a pastry brush.

 

The final step was to place their tarts onto some parchment paper on a cookie sheet.  We just wrote their names right on the paper with a pencil so each child could eat their own tart after the moms baked them. 

 

This was a really fun experience for the children.  They were about 50-50 on whether or not they liked the tarts.  Nearly everyone took a nibble at least and many had only crumbs left on their plate afterwards!

Shakin' Up Some Yum!!

This week we had a bunch of fun making (and tasting) butter in the classroom.  I did this at home with my boys a few summers ago, but had never done it at school until now.  It kind of fits with what we have been learning about life in Pilgrim times, so I thought November would be a great time to try this.  If you have never made your own butter it is SUPER simple. 

You need a clean jar with a tight-fitting lid (I used an old mayonnaise container---it was plastic but glass would work well too) and a small carton of whipping cream. You can find this right in the milk section at the grocery store.  Pour the whipping cream into the container and shake it up until butter forms.  This takes about 10+ minutes.  I will describe it a little more below.

I explained to the children how people long ago did this using a churn.  I didn't have a real churn to show them, but now that I am typing this I realize I should have Googled a photo to show them.  I'll have to do that anyway.  It will still be educational after the fact.  Anywho.....I poured the cream into the jar and we talked about how it looks just like milk.  Then I screwed the lid on tightly and taught them the following little "butter song" while I demonstrated shaking the jar vigorously.  (I don't have a source for this song, but I'm sure I found it on the internet somewhere.)

Butter Boogie

Shake it up,

Shake it down,

Shake it, shake it all around.

Shake it high,

Shake it low,

Shake it, shake it to and fro.

Shake it over,

Shake it under,

Pretty soon we will have butter!

We passed the jar around the line, giving each child a turn to shake.  They could each decide whether we would sing to them or count for them (we counted to 20).  The photo below shows some shaking action.

 

After all the children had a turn I opened the jar so we could see what was happening.  At that point, the jar didn't sound "sloshy" anymore when shaken.  That's because we had transformed the whipping cream into whipped cream.  The photo below shows what it looked like at this point.  If you've never done this before it's important to know that you will reach a stage where it doesn't slosh around and you'll think it's not working.........

 

............but if you carry on and continue to shake it for a bit longer, you'll notice that you can start to see through some spots on the jar again and it starts to sound sloshy again.  Shake a bit longer until most of the cream has come off the sides.  When you open the jar again, you'll see a lump of butter along with the remaining liquid.  Now your butter is done!  It will look like what you see below.

 

Pour off the liquid and spoon the butter into a bowl.  (I wish this photo had turned out better.)  Oh.......I forgot to say that when you start the whole process with pouring the whipping cream into the jar you can add a dash of salt if you want.  We didn't do this and it still tasted delicious.  At snack time we tasted the butter spread on some crackers.  Nearly every child who tried the crackers and butter exclaimed over and over how yummy it tasted.  Maybe we should make butter every week!!!

 

Cutie Pies

Monday and Tuesday were big-time fun days in our classroom.  We finally baked our little apple pies with the apples we had picked last week.  I recruited the help of a few moms and grandmas with this project.  We set everything up in a separate room from the classroom and my assistant took the children out in small groups so they could each make their own little apple pie.  During this time I stayed in the classroom with the remaining students and we had a normal work period.

The first step was to use the awesome apple peeler/corer/slicer machine (we borrowed these from some moms and grandmas too!) to peel, core and slice the apples.  The children loved being able to turn the crank.  Who doesn't love using a new gadget? (Now I want one of my own.  I have told my favorite thrift shop owner, Terri, to let me know when she gets one in again.)

 

Next the children chopped their apple slices into smaller pieces (with close supervision........although Miss Melissa told me the knives weren't that sharp.  Maybe because I bought 4 for $1 at Dollar General!).

 

We used refrigerated pie crust for the crusts.  The children used a drinking glass to cut out circles from the dough.

 

Next, they placed a circle into the bottom of a muffin tin and added their chopped apples on top.  Then they sprinkled the apples with a teeny bit of flour and a teeny bit of cinnamon/sugar mixed together.  Then they added the top crust and cut a little slit in the top with the knife.  To keep track of whose pie was whose, I made a little "muffin tin map" on a piece of paper and color-coded the muffin tins with a piece of tape.   When a child made their pie, the adult wrote their name in the corresponding circle on the map so that when the pies were removed, they could place each child's pie on a paper plate marked with their name.  Good sanitary habits are our motto!

 

 

 

I loved how cute and kid-sized these pies were when they came out.  Oh.........the adults sprayed the inside of the muffin tins with cooking spray and the pies came out just great!  Most of the adults who helped remarked about how easy these pies were to make and how yummy they tasted.  We baked them in a convection oven at 395 degrees for about 10 minutes.  I had made a trial batch at home in my regular oven at 425 degrees for 20 minutes.  We will definitely plan to make some little "cutie pies" again next fall.  It was a wonderful hands-on learing experience for my little ones and I know they won't forget making their own little pies.

 

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today is Thanksgiving here in the good ol' US of A.  My little family of four will head over to my parents' house for a feast.  It will just be the six of us so it should be restful and relaxing.  My mom is cooking the turkey, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, cranberries, green bean casserole, and I'm not sure what else.  I will be bringing Dilly Spoon Rolls.  I made these a few years ago using a recipe from a cooking magazine.  They are really good and really easy.  You stir them up and spoon them into a muffin tin.  Much easier than forming individual rolls and much better than frozen dinner rolls.  I googled to find a recipe and (hopefully) they will turn out as well as I remember.  I am kind of notorious for trying out untested recipes on major holidays.  It usually works out okay.  I am also bringing a Corn Casserole that I've never made before.  I got the recipe from Stacy Julian's blog (she is the founding editor of Simple Scrapbooks magazine) and it sounds easy and good.  So we'll see.  Scroll down in the link I've provided for the recipe.........you'll see it near the bottom of her post.  AND............I'm making a sweet potato casserole that.........I've never made before.  I got the recipe from Janice, who has been the babysitter of my children since they were infants AND she is a fantastic cook and swears by this recipe.  I have typed it up for you here.

Sweet Potato Casserole

3 cups mashed sweet potatoes

2 eggs

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup half and half

1/4 cup butter, softened

2 tsp. vanilla

1/8 tsp. salt

Combine all ingredients in mixing bowl and beat until light and fluffy.  Spread into an 11X7 baking dish.  Sprinkle with topping (see recipe below) and bake uncovered at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

Topping:

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 T. flour 

1/4 cup butter, cold

1/2 cup chopped pecans

Combine first two ingredients.  Cut in butter.  Add pecans.  Sprinkle on top of mashed sweet potato mixture and bake as described above.

Sorry for no photos.  I've actually been up to a lot that I'll be posting about soon.  Something Christmasy and a couple more lapbooks.  And lots of new activities for the classroom once I get in there this weekend.  So.......stay tuned.........and until then, consider what you have to be thankful for.  Following is my list:

I am thankful for............

my family (a husband who is a kind man and a loving father and two beautiful healthy sons)

my parents, who taught me to work hard, love God and give to others (THANKS, Mom and Dad!)

my mother-in-law, who is loving, laid-back, and fun to be around 

my home which is cozy and comfortable, just how I like it

my job which I love so much that I blog about it nearly every day!!

my faith (I am so grateful to have faith in a loving God and to pass that faith on to my children)

my friends who like me even though I am a lame-o and don't call them often enough!

my material loves such as:  Diet Pepsi, books, craft supplies, my computer!!, flannel pajama pants, hot tea on a cold day (Ginger Peach tea is the best tea EVAH!!  I am asking Santa for 2 tins of it; one black tea and one green tea) , blankets to snuggle under, warm mittens, Camille Beckman glycerin hand therapy (best lotion ever!)

I am reflectively amused by the "material loves" list.  It is definitely indicative of the kind of weather we've been having here in the Midwest recently.  However, this week has been pretty warm for November. Seriously, though, if I had my family, friends and that (pretty short and not-too-materialistic) stash of material items I would be totally set.  It was kind of fun making that list.  I need to do it more often!

PS:  If Santa is reading this list.......I would love some new flannel PJs in addition to the 2 tins of tea if that's not asking too much!

A really good soup

As I've said before, I realize this isn't a food blog.  However, I made the most amazing homemade soup tonight and wanted to share the recipe.  I didn't take any photos.  Actually, I don't think it would have photographed well.  To be honest, I won't even tell you what it resembles because you may not want to make it.  But trust me.........it was REALLY good.  And healthy.  The recipe is from Jane Brody's Good Food Book which I have owned for years.  I haven't cooked out of it very much lately (because I haven't truly "cooked" very much lately) but I was looking through it the other day for some good soup recipes.  And this one sounded very intriguing.  Here is the recipe:

Pureed Peanut Butter and Vegetable Soup

1 large onion, diced 

1 large clove garlic, minced

1 T. vegetable oil (peanut, if available)

1 stalk celery, diced

2 carrots, diced

2 cups peeled and diced potatoes

2 leeks (white part only), washed well and diced

4 cups chicken or vegetable broth (I used 2 cans veggie broth)

1/4 t. cayenne

1/4 t. black pepper

1/4 t. salt

1/2 cup smooth peanut butter (I used JIF reduced-fat)

1.  In a large saucepan, saute the onion and garlic in the oil, stirring, until the onions are transparent.

2.  Add the celery, carrots, potatoes, leeks, and broth.  Bring the soup to a boil, reduce the heat, cover the pan, and simmer the soup until the vegetables are tender, about 15 minutes.

3.  Stir in the cayenne, black pepper, salt, and peanut butter.  Transfer the soup to a blender and puree it.

I was very intrigued by the peanut butter.  And very impressed by the soup.  I like to make soup when the weather gets colder and I feel really good when I make a recipe that requires chopping lots of vegetables.  Even though my youngest son didn't touch the soup after all that chopping.  Chopping vegetables appeals to the Earth Mom wanna-be that I am.  My oldest son ate about half of his bowl of soup and the DH ate two bowls which was very gratifying.  I love it when he likes what I cook.  Actually he is very easy to cook for; I am blessed that way.  THANKS, hun!  (I know he skims the blog, so we'll see if he actually reads this or totally blows it off since it's a recipe.  So..............DH............if you are reading this, I challenge you to go out on a limb and post a comment to prove your careful reading of your wife's words in cyberspace.  Go for it!)

And as for the rest of you...............go forth and chop and try this out.  I am pretty sure you won't be disappointed.  I am already looking forward to heating up the leftovers for lunch tomorrow.

Fall cooking

You may have noticed that I don't write about food very much.  The first reason is that the blog isn't really about food.  The other reason is that I don't consider myself blessed in the culinary area.  However, I DO actually like to cook when I find the time.  And recently I tried a few fall recipes that I have decided to share here.

I recently subscribed to the Kiddio blog and saw this recipe for homemade granola.  Years ago I used to make homemade granola, but I hadn't made it since the boys were born.  So it's been over 8 years at least.  My husband doesn't remember me ever making it and we've been together for 16 years now.  Anyway, I decided to try the Kiddio recipe and it was AWESOME!!!!  I am thinking about making some to give as Christmas gifts all prettied up in pint-size Ball jars with cute ribbon and tags.

The first photo shows the mixture in the bowl.  I used maple syrup, dried cherries, dried blueberries, and chopped pecans.  After mixing everything, you spread it on cookie sheets which have been covered with foil.  I was thinking the finished granola would be clumpy so you could kind of eat it with your fingers, but it was more cereal-like in consistency.

Here is a bowl of the finished granola all ready to eat.  My oldest son LOVES this granola.  It is good with milk and I particularly have loved eating it stirred into my Yoplait Light Thick & Creamy vanilla yogurt.  Oh my YUM!

The other thing I made from scratch recently was homemade applesauce.  I remember absolutely loving the chunky homemade applesauce my grandma used to make me.  I have made applesauce before, but again, I think it was before I had children.  I had gotten some free apples from my friend Amber's mother-in-law (Thanks, Grandma Susan!) and I knew Amber was planning to make some applesauce, so that inspired me to do it too.  I googled for a recipe and ended up using this recipe from Sarah Cool Recipes.  The finished applesauce was very good.  However, it isn't quite like what I remember from childhood.  I am now pretty sure my grandma didn't put cinnamon in hers.  So next time I think I'll make mine without so I can relive my applesauce memories from years past.  Still, it was really good and my oldest son is really loving it.

The first photo shows the apples before they were cooked.  In the past I think I chopped up the apples into chunks before cooking.  This recipe suggested slicing them then using a potato masher to mash them up when they were soft after cooking (see second photo).

In the fall I also always love to bake pumpkin bread.  So, I'm thinking that will be next up on the baking list.  We'll see..........

BTW:  The homemade granola sprinkled over some of the warm homemade applesauce is heavenly!!

Cake in a Cup

NOTE:  I didn't mean to do two posts today.  Actually, I was experimenting with Typepad because we are going to be out of town for a few days and I thought I could set this to publish tomorrow morning on its own.  But it published today instead.  So..........I'm just giving you a heads-up that I am going out of town and will be back on Sunday night.  See you then!

The other day we tried out a "Chocolate Cake in a Cup" recipe that I had gotten from a link on Melissa's blog (scroll down for the link).  We don't eat many sweets around here, so it was really fun for the boys to stir up and make these little "cup" cakes.

Here are our gathered ingredients:  flour, sugar, oil, cocoa, and egg (milk is not in the photo).

Little hands measure the dry ingredients.

Stirring up the wet ingredients.

The batter is all mixed up and ready to pour into.............

   two mugs.  (I sprayed the mugs with cooking spray first.)

Then into the microwave to bake for 3 minutes.  You can kind of see from this photo that the cake in the white mug puffed WAY up over the top during the baking process.

Here are the finished cakes fresh out of the microwave.

The little cakes slid right out of the mugs into the bowls.  Then we sprinkled on some powdered sugar and ...................yummmm!!!

For your convenience, I copied the recipe into a word file.  You can download it here.

Download chocolate_cake_in_a_mug.doc

Also, I made some "cake in a cup" mixes to give as Christmas gifts a few years ago.  I am making the recipe I used available here.  This recipe makes about 8 servings, I think, and uses packaged cake mix as a base.  It also includes a glaze mix that you pour on the top.  As these cakes tend to me a little on the dry side, it is nice to have the glaze.  Finally........the recipe is for orange cake; however, you can substitute any flavor of cake mix.

NOTE:  The first document is the recipe.  The second is a sheet of directions labels you can print and attach to the mugs.  These would be great teacher gifts!!

Download orange_cream_cake_in_a_cup_recipe.doc

Download orange_cream_cake_in_a_cup_directions_labels.doc

fudoo Boards

The school where I will be teaching this fall has the children take turns bringing a snack for the whole class each day.  It is VERY VERY important to me, as a teacher AND parent, that those snacks be healthy.  To be honest, when my oldest son was in Montessori preschool a few years ago, I was a little unhappy with all the sugary, sweet snacks he had.  So it's important to me to try to control the healthfulness of the snacks brought into the classroom as much as possible.  Additionally, a key part of Montessori education to teach care of self.  And what better way to teach care of self than to teach children to make healthy eating choices.  Eating habits can have a life-long impact on a person's health.  Anyway........you get the point I'm trying to make.

In this post, I am excited to share with you something that I plan to use each day in the classroom to help reinforce healthy eating.  It is called a fudoo board and it was designed specifically to help children learn healthy habits.

The board is made of metal so magnets will stick to it.  The front is divided into different color areas which represent the food groups.  On each colored section are numbered circles for the number of servings you should eat from that group each day.

The back of the board has a blank space in the middle where you can write (using the dry erase marker included) activities to do.  Then you can check them off according to what type of activity they are:  a MOVE activity or a THINK activity.  This really encourages the healthy habits of exercise and reading/creating/making music, etc.

The board comes with all these little magnets which are color-coded by food group and have pictures of the foods.  There are also magnets for water (see upper right) and blank ones to add foods within each group.

Here is a close-up of the food magnets.  There are two gray magnets to allow for "sometimes foods" (i.e. foods that don't fit into a food group).

So my plan is to show this at my parent orientation night.  I will explain to the parents that when it is their child's turn to bring the snack, the child will place the magnets for their food items on the fudoo board and we will discuss what that food does for our bodies (i.e. gives us energy, builds strong bones, etc.).  Obviously, we will want the child's snack to be "colorful", and not "gray."  This should really reduce the cupcakes, rice krispie treats, cookies, etc. that are brought for snack time.  And hopefully, it should make it easier for parents to choose what snacks to bring.  I think I will type up a list to give parents of the different foods in each of the color groups.  Then they can quickly pick something from one or two colors to bring.  We will also just serve water with snack, which will allow us to also place a magnet on the board for water.  I think encouraging kids to drink water is also a very important life-long habit to instill.

So............click over to Fudoo Boards and check it out.  They are very well-made; I think they would last forever.  I am probably going to get one to use at home too.  I think my boys would really enjoy "eating their colors" and putting them on the board every day.

Food---Real and pretend

I finished the tomatoes and mushrooms for the felt pizza last night.  The tomatoes were quite labor-intensive, but they are SOOO cute.  I think they are my favorite topping, with the green peppers a close second.

On the real food end, we tried the Muffin Tin lunch that so many people have been blogging about.  I had wanted to do it, but I didn't have a special plan to do it today.  However, the boys and I just came inside to have lunch after playing outside for quite a while.  And I decided to pull out the muffin tins and try it out.  They LOVED it!  It's all about the presentation.  They really stayed at the table and ate for quite a while, longer than usual.  My oldest ate MOST of his tin, and my little one did pretty well too.  We will definitely do this again.  And it was a really fun lunch for me to prepare too.  I gave them some things the same, but also tailored their tins to individual preferences.

They both got apple slices, strawberries, tukey pepperoni, sliced turkey (rolled up) and colby/jack cheese pieces.  On the left is my oldest son's.  He got carrot sticks and ranch dressing and ate ALL the carrots.  My little guy's is on the right.  He got sliced grape tomatoes and cottage cheese.  He LOVES cottage cheese and ate it all.  He only ate about half of the grape tomatoes.  I was eating a leftover baked potato with steamed veggies on top.  I have to say that I could eat steamed veggies EVERY DAY.  I love them.  They make me feel very healthy, eating something so close to how it came out of the earth.  I put a little teriyaki sauce and some roasted sunflower seeds on top, and shredded cheese if I have it.  Today, the boys saw the sunflower seeds and both wanted some in one of their empty "holes".  So that was fun too!

If you haven't tried a muffin tin meal yet, give it a try!  It's fun, easy, and healthy!  What could be better than that?