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.

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.  

Leaf Prints

 We've been picking up tons of leaves on our nature walks recently and I've been looking for ways to incorporate them into projects. These leaf prints worked well with the big sturdy leaves we found. 

We painted the leaves with lots of bright colors.

 Then we turned them over on the paper and and pressed them with our hands.

When we peeled the leaves off of the paper, we had beautiful prints!

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 Beans

We have been reading books about seeds and plants. Our favorite right now is Ten Seeds by Ruth Brown. The book shows how the seeds produce roots and then stems and leaves. Yesterday wwe planted our own bean seeds in plastic bags. This way when the roots and stems appear we will be able to see them.

We started with a paper towel and a bean seeds. 

The children sprayed their paper towels with water until they were pretty wet. 

 We had a little bit of trouble aiming the spray bottle at the towel. Every few moments I would be misted with water or hear one of the children exclaim,"Hey! You're spraying me!" 

Once the paper towel was wet, each child folded (or rolled) the paper towel around the seed and placed it in a ziplock bag. 

We hung the seeds in the window and are waiting for nature to do its work.