Cooking in the Outdoor Kitchen with Herbs and Sparkles

 

 

We use sand and water a lot in our outdoor sensory table. Last week I noticed that the children were collecting leaves and grass from the yard to add to the water in the table to make "soup". I decided to set up the sensory table on the porch, where there is more space for the children to work, and to add a few new sensory items that would expand the cooking experience.

 

I had just purchased a big supply of sparkles for the art cupboard that I thought would add an appealing visual element to the sensory experience. I mixed some sand with the sparkles to make them last longer and poured them into some empty spice containers. I also picked some fresh and fragrant herbs from the garden and put them in a basket near the sensory table along with bowls, pots, pans, and mixing spoons.

The sparkles were very popular and we had to refill a few times. I was really glad that I had decided to add sand to the sparkles, otherwise we would have gone through our entire supply. 

 

The children "cooked" lots of different things, but wedding cake and soup were the two most popular dishes today.

Some Plant Themed Ideas

Over the past couple of weeks we have been doing lots of plant-themed projects. Here are some of my favorites.

1. Silk Flowers in the Sensory Table

I filled our sensory table with potting soil, added some shovels and flowers pots, and let the children "plant" silk flowers.

2. Bottle Print Flowers

We used recycled plastic bottles to make flowers. Then we drew a little stem on each flower.

3. Sprouting Seeds

Each of the students put a seed in a ziplock bag with a damp paper towel. We hung the bags in the front window and watched them sprout!

 

4. Q-Tip Flowers

I had the children draw stems on a piece of construction paper. Then we used Q-tips to make tiny flowers at the top of each stem.

5. The Parts of a Plant

For this project, I cut out stems and leaves from green paper. I used pieces of brown pipe cleaner for the roots and real seeds for the seeds. I gave each child a set of plant parts and let them glue the parts onto a piece of paper. When they were finished, they drew a flower on their plant. As they worked, we talked about the names of all the different parts of the plant.

6. Gardening

You can always do some real gardening with children too. To read more about this, check out my post on gardening in preschool.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Gardening in Preschool

One of my favorite children's books about gardening is The Curious Garden by Peter Brown. The illustrations in this book are charming and beautiful. It tells the story of a little boy, Liam, who makes his city prettier by growing trees, flowers, and other plants. My classes have always enjoyed reading The Curious Garden. They especially like comparing the picture of the city before it had gardens to the picture of the city after Liam inspired everyone to grow things.

Since we were about to start beautifying our playground with gardens, it seemed to be the appropriate book to read. After reading it, we set out to plant gardens "just like the boy in the book", as one of our students put it.

Over the weekend, I had taken a trip to the local nursery to get some plants and potting soil. I also found some child-sized gardening tools, children's gardening gloves, and small watering cans. We already had some large terracotta pots that I moved into the outdoor kitchen area. Once we went outside, I let the children shovel dirt into (and out of) the pots for a while before we put the plants in.

The actual planting part didn't seem to interest the children very much, so I did most of it.

 

They all loved watering the plants, though. At this rate, these flowers and herbs will never be thirsty!

When we were finished, I let the children use the extra potting soil to fill small terra cota pots...

and plant other things.

They also used some of it to "cook" in the kitchen area.

Mud soup! Yum!

 

Posted with Blogsy

Flower Parts on the Sticky Board

As part of our unit on plants, we added flower parts to the sticky board.

 I cut leaves, stems and flowers out of felt. We used pieces of yarn for roots and real sunflower seeds as the seeds. 

At first the board looked like this after the children finished with it. I love that someone used a purple flower as a flower pot. I thought it was very creative. 

 After a few days of putting the flower parts together and reading books about flowers, the children became more particular about how they arranged the parts. They also started talking about the parts of the flower as they arranged them.  

Nature Collages

Every day this week we have taken a nature walk through the neighborhood around our school. On our walks we collect leaves, flowers, sticks, rocks, and whatever else the children find interesting. We decided to display our treasures by making a collage. I taped a big piece of contact paper onto the table with the sticky side up. After feeling the sticky paper with their hands for a little bit, the children began to put the leaves on it. 

When everyone was finished sticking leaves on, I covered it with another piece of contact paper so that the sticky sides were together. We taped it onto the wall where the children could see it and feel it. They can still see and feel the leaves through the contact paper without damaging them. 

 We did the same thing with the flowers that we found. 

Next, I guess, we will have to do it with the sticks! 

Planting Flowers in the Sensory Table

 This week we set up a flower planting station in the sensory table. I filled the table with potting soil and added some flower pots and silk flowers that I bought at the dollar store. 

 The children filled the pots with dirt and "planted" the flowers in the pots. 

 We also added some of the flowers to the play dough table.

We made pretty arrangements by sticking the flowers into lumps of play dough.  

Making Vegetable Soup

We have been talking about seeds and planting all week and have planted some seeds of our own. Today, in keeping with this theme, we read the book Growing Vegetable Soup by Lois Ehlert. In the book a child plants vegetable seeds with her dad and, when the seeds have grown into plants, harvests the vegetables and makes soup with them. Our seeds are obviously nowhere near ready to harvest, but we still wanted to make vegetable soup so I brought in some veggies from home. I brought tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots, but any vegetables would work. 

We carefully cut the vegetables into small pieces.

I opened a can of chicken broth and poured it into a bowl. Then the children put their chopped veggies into the broth.  

 We put the soup into the microwave for five minutes. While it cooked we sang songs to pass the time. 

When it was finally done we let it cool a little and then ate it up. 

Everyone loved it and wanted seconds!