Kids in the Kitchen

Since our new unit has to do with foods each of us shared what we had for breakfast this morning.  Everyone had such yummy breakfasts, we heard that some of the kids had waffles, bananas, cereal, eggs, pancakes, fruit and berries...yum!

Next we heard the story Bear Wants More!  It was about a bear who was very hungry and couldn't get enough to eat...the kids joined in and read along whenever the story said, "but bear wants more!!"  It's a book with lots of rhyming phrases, great illustrations and a good transition from forest animals last week to foods this week!

Speaking of forest animals, all the kids finished their raccoon headbands that they worked so hard on last week and most of them wore them all day.  Then we found out that the name "Mika" means wise raccoon in Ojibwa!  

Jayme is "maple leaf of the week" and he brought in a great poster with lots of pictures.  Jayme had a lot of fun sharing his pictures and experiences with the class...he especially likes 4 wheeling!!

After circle time it was time to get together and cut open a pumpkin!  The kids thought we were going to open up a big pumpkin but instead it was a rather small pie pumpkin.  It was really hard to cut in half...Mrs. Gould and Mrs. Chyko used 3 different knives....trying to find one that was sharp enough...we ended up using a serated knife and sort of sawing the pumpkin open!  Then each of us had a chance to pull out some of the pulp and seeds inside.  Some of us wanted to do this but some of us preferred not to touch that stuff inside.  Mrs. Gould got pumpkin gunk all over her hands!

Once the pupmpkin was cleaned out we put it in a pan, covered it with foil and baked it for an hour and a half at 375 degrees.  When it was done we each took a fork and poked around a little bit to see how soft the inside of the pumpkin was.  Tomorrow we're going to turn it into pumpkin bread. 

 In the meantime, while we were eating lunch, Mousie, the mouse puppet that lives in our classroom and causes all kinds of mischief, hid the pumpkin seeds.  It turned out he put them in the oven and roasted them for us to try at the end of the day!  We have enough to have for snack tomorrow too!

Today was an extended day and 9 of the kids decided to stay for lunch and some extra playtime.  We all had a chance to look through books after we ate lunch.  Then Mrs. Gould read the whole group a few books before we broke into small groups and our "choice activities".  

During choicetime a group of kids worked on creating an airport out of blocks while another group used crayon pastels and foam stickers to create beautiful works of art.  We also had a matching activity with puzzle pieces and letters as well as painting at the easle with Mrs. Chyko. 

Look through the window and you'll see the rest of the extended day class working on their artwork!