"We made our own recipe!"

Earlier in the week, a friend brought some apples for the class.  There has been discussion throughout the week about what to do with these apples.  Several friends thought that if we put them in the blender, it would make apple juice.  Today a small group went to the kitchen to explore this theory.

"They have apple juice in them." -Savannah

After washing the apples, we developed our plan.

"First we need to cut the stems off because nobody wants to eat stems!" -Finn

"It's called a core.  We don't eat it." -Daisy

In doing this, we discovered something.

"I see lots of seeds!" -Savannah

"We can plant them!" -Daisy

We talked about if there was anything else we needed to do to the apple slices, but the group was sure they were ready to be blended. 

But the apples weren't blending... What do we need to do?

"We need sugar to make it sweet!  2 Scoops!  But the blender's not hitting the apples.  We need water." -Finn

"1 cup water!" -Henry

"It doesn't look like apple juice." -Daisy

"It looks like a smoothie." -Finn

"It's green!" -Kingston

"Oh, we didn't take the skin off." -Finn

"We should add more water.  It'll make it more like a drink." -Daisy

We decided to taste it to see how we were doing.

"It almost tastes right." -Savannah

"We made our own recipe.  We didn't do the research." -Finn

The group decided we needed to add more sugar and water...

And blend it up some more.

Time to let the class taste it.

"Ewww!!!" -Landon

"I like it, but I don't like the little pieces." -Tommy

"That's the peel." -Harvey

It's Small Caper Thursday

Today during small capers friends went out on the playscape to look for creepy crawlers. We knew friends would enjoy themselves since there is such a big interest lately.

There was even a shadow show in the motor room performed by friends from different rooms.

After small capers, a small group went to the motor room. They created a maze for the remote control car to travel through that was brought in (thanks to Ellie's family).

"Don't fall!"

Yesterday friends were very excited to find a long strip of tape (measuring tape) stretched across our Pink Room floor.  Their first instincts were to walk across it, which led us to a recurring conversation about balance. 

"Balance means you're keeping your balance on something and you can't fall off." -Landon

"If you put your arms out then you don't fall down the side." -Eli

Today, a small group went out to explore the playscape and see what else they could balance on.

"This is like the high beam at gymnastics!" -Anna

"I can't stay on this one because it's not big enough." -Landon

"I can because I'm good at the balance beam." -Melody

"This one's wobbly but I can still stay on it." -Nolan

Friends also found our outdoor maze and practiced balancing while moving through it.

"I can go fast!" -Haley

Pineapple Banana Smoothie

Yesterday friends went to the kids kitchen to make pineapple banana smoothies. Our friends have had conversations about making smoothies since trying to make our very own frozen lemonade. At our class meeting, friends shared how we made the smoothies and all the ingredients we used. 

Today, conversations continued as friends talked about different ways we could use the fresh pineapple and apples that were donated to our classroom. Hopefully, this week we can agree on a plan.

"My dad is good at cutting pineapples."- Nora
"We could make pineapple apple juice. I could bring my cutter from home so then we could get all  the nester juice from it."- Finn
 How do we get the juice out?
"We can blend the apples and pineapple really good to get the juice, but not the stem."- Finn

"Look, it's a fruit tower."- Finn

"Maybe pineapple pancakes, you won't even know if it's yuck if you never tasted it before."- Ellie

"We would have to make dough to have pancakes."- Finn

"Magnet Art Painting with Trains"

Today, a small group worked on a painting using magnectic trains and magnet wands.  They moved the trains forward, backwards, and in circular motions to design a piece of art.

   "The trains are making train tracks.  They're moving by themselves." - Savannah

   "It's like the trains are in a video game.  They're moving and leaving paint behind." - Daisy

    "Look!  It's moving!" - Anna T.
    "The train tracks are long." - Jayden

    "Look at all these tracks!" - Jayden

    "They are muddy!  They are paint muddy!" - Savannah

    "It's like the paint is sticking to the train.  That means the magnets are sticking together." - Nolan

    "It's too hard to paint because it's sticky." - Henry

   "This looks like Blue Room's picture!" - Savannah