In the Kitchen for Preschoolers - Part 3

Our "kitchen" theme is now coming to its end. What a broad topic this was! We never even got to talk about nutrition! Fear not...school year is not over and I shall be back! LOL

Tasting Bottles

Raise your hand if you remember doing some tasting bottles at some point in your life! How did you like it? Well, Adrian loves seeing these little bottles. He loves science and associates these droppers and small bottles with experiments. Of course, after tasting the first bottle, he wasn't so sure he liked the bottles anymore but he stuck with the activity. I was almost surprised but very proud. 

Here's what each bottle contained:

2 x sugar water (sweet)

2 x salt water (salty)

2 x lemon juice (sour)

2 x almond extract (bitter)

Matching the bottles wasn't fun for him since he had to taste everything "over again" but he still pushed through it. He really liked the sweet and really disliked the bitter. If you do not have almond extract, unsweetened cocoa or coffee can be used in place of almond extract.

Lacing Pasta / Making a Pasta Necklace

Although you could dye your pasta for this, I chose to go with natural pasta (penne) for this activity. I put a dozen one along with a pipe cleaner. Adrian then laced them all. It's one of the only time he lets pasta get this close to his mouth! haha 

Measuring/Pouring Wet Ingredients / Preparing a Snack

Adrian's regular cup. A measuring cup. About a cup of orange juice in an orange juice container. Adrian's mission: Measure half a cup from the container in the measuring cup, then pour it in the snack cup. Enjoy! :)

Straw blowing Art

Straws belong in the kitchen so I thought it'd be a good time to bring out thinned out paint and straws for a "blow out"! I did that as a kid in Kindergarten with ink and I still remember it. I had absolutely loved it. Adrian didn't quite care for it. In fact, he doesn't quite care for the arts period. Well, not true. I take that back. He does enjoy looking at it; not making it. Anyhow, I thinned out the paint the consistency of fat-free milk,  put a drop on the paper, he'd put his straw in the puddle and blow. He didn't quite find it exciting...*sigh* :)

Matching front and back of boxes

This is a bit elementary. Adrian had no trouble whatsoever matching the front to the back of the boxes I had cut up. I believe there was a dozen on the tray. Of course, he knew most of them (yes...he is the one eating the "FiberOne" cereal, "Wheaties" and "Kashi 7Grain" crackers) so that may be why it was easy peasy. It was still fun though and different. Novel is always pleasant.

This concludes our "In the Kitchen" Unit. I feel like lots of possible activities were left out but isn't that always the case? For example, I had planned on doing smelling bottles but had to back out at the last minute for a lack of matching bottles to present the activity. That being said, I am now collecting spice bottles (did I really throw them all away when we moved last year?) and planning on introducing the smelling jars at a later time...:)

In the Kitchen for Preschoolers - Part 2

Having a kitchen themed week usually involves a lot of culinary arts (aka cooking) but I tried to respect our usual array of activities too (fine motor, literacy, math, science, etc). I am presenting below some of those instead of the recipes we worked on during the week. After all, I'm sure you've got plenty of your own. ;)

Thirsty Celery - Thirsty body - All about Capillaries

A very basic "kitchen" themed science experiment involving a celery branch, water and food coloring. We observed our freshly cut celery branch over one week. Adrian loved that even the leaves turned blue, not just the capillaries! :) Prior to inserting the celery in water, I had shown the capillaries to Adrian and told him the celery would drink water through them just like his body needs water and has a similar way to transport it through his body. The point was proven at the end of the week when the capillaries were blue and the water level had significantly lowered. He was impressed and drinks plenty of water! :)

Salad Spinner Art

I hesitated before bringing out this activity. I may not use it a lot but I actually like my salad spinner and thought it might never look the same after making some art. But then again, since I use washable paints and never had trouble removing leftovers, I decided to give it a shot. I let Adrian choose the paint colors (he chose them all of course!) and we squirted a bit of them all in the middle one at a time and he simply pushed down the spinning button. He had to push it down quickly to make it spin and get the paint flying (maybe I should have thinned the paint a bit?...Something to keep in mind...for next time! :))

Sugar Tray Writing

Adrian loves practicing writing letters next to me in a tray. Being under the theme "kitchen", I made of tray of sugar this week. It's only the third time we practice tracing in such a material but Adrian is already quite good. I may just try to have him trace on paper soon...

Tweezing Corn

We are tweezing itsy bitsy things now in our household. Look at the size of this corn! And it's a tad bit slippery too. I put a dozen only in the bowl thinking it may pose a challenge to Adrian but it did not. I think he just found it a bit boring if anything. I'll need to make things more interesting for the tweezing trays now I guess.

Mystery Bag of Fruits & Discussion

Now this is not JUST your average mystery bag. Yes I had Adrian pick a fruit without looking and describe it and try to guess what it was prior to getting it out of the bag but we also had a chat after we were done. By the way, Adrian knows all these fruits and was informed that only fruits were in the bag before we started the exercise. 

Our bag contained:

-a mango

-an apple

-a banana

-a kiwi

-a clementine

-a grape

-a blueberry

Once all the food was out of the bag, we talked about the size (which is the biggest, smallest fruit), the surface (the clementine was bumpy, the grape was smooth, the kiwi was fuzzy, etc), the stone fruits versus seed fruits, we smelled each one and checked to see which could roll well on the table and which couldn't and tried to explain why, etc. 

In the Kitchen for Preschoolers - Part 1

Ever since they were little, both my kids were, like most kids, very attracted to the kitchen. They stacked bowls, nested measuring spoons, banged on pots and pans and whisked air. This week, I thought I'd bring Adrian back into this world for an entire unit on foods and culinary items. The topic was broad, so broad it could easily have been broken up into several mini-units but hey...we had plenty to talk about to say the least! ;)

Density of Liquids with Kitchen Items

Who likes science experiments? Adrian sure does. This one involved a funnel, a whisk, food coloring, measuring cups, various liquids and lots of muscle strength. It was perfect for our "in the kitchen" theme but it would be perfect for a "rainbow" theme too! Anyone needing St.Patrick's Day science experiments? ;) 

To make this beautiful yellow, green, blue, purple, yellow, orange and red glass, you will need:

yellow dish soap

blue food coloring

water

canola oil

red food coloring

rubbing alcohol

The step-by-step "recipe" for this amazing density of liquid experiment can be found at birdandlittlebird. This is where I originally saw the idea and simply had Adrian follow their directions to make our glass above.  At 4.5 years old, whisking, pouring down a funnel, measuring and such is easy enough. The hardest part was trying to pour slowly down the funnel so as to not disturb the layers. The layers moved a bit as he poured but they stabilized later as the picture above shows! :)

Sandpaper Letters & Beginning Letters of Food items

A basket of foods and sandpaper letters...Now being that it was later during the week, I didn't have food to cover all the letters but you could easily cover them all. Date, eggplant, orange, strawberry, etc. Even play food could be used in lieu of the real thing. I just preferred Adrian feeling the real produce.

Printmaking with celery

So far this year, we've made prints with various stamps but also with apples during "Apple Week". It's always been a hit. This week, I brought out a celery foot after seeing a similar picture to the one above on Punchestown Montessori's Facebook page. This beautiful rose was just something too good to pass, especially with Valentine's Day approaching! :) Being that it was done with a celery, I felt I could fit this art in our "kitchen" theme. Now, our rose prints would have looked better if my husband wouldn't have broken off a "petal" prior to our stamping but oh well... ;)

Adrian's printmaking results - I would totally wear that if it were a pair of white jeggings!

Matching Sounds with Water Glasses

This idea came about after I realized I would never, ever, buy the matching bells for Adrian or Zahavah because they are just so costly for the amount of work we'd do with them. I started thinking I needed to replace this work with something else to get Adrian to handle sound discrimination and immediately thought of musical glasses. Our theme being "in the kitchen" this week, it was just perfect timing. This first time around, I put out only 3 glasses (with their twin) filled with very different amount of water in. I made sure they each made a distinct sound by using the wood pencil. The tray was then covered up and prior to presentation, I explained to Adrian that he would be blindfolded and told him how we would proceed with the pencil tap and the matching. He did great and matched all glasses correctly. He felt so proud when I removed the blindfold seeing all glasses matched perfectly.

Counting Chocolate Chips

Don't these look yummy? I made these out of beige and dark brown felt last year. When I finished them, my son actually thought they were real cookies (how sweet is that?). This year is the first year I actually put them out as a school material though. Adrian had to count the chocolate chips (from no chip to 10 chips) and put them all in a row. Towards the end, it gets difficult as the chips are close together but he managed just fine. I saw this very tasty idea on Counting Coconuts's blog. Although Marianne does not blog anyone, it is still worth a visit; she has/had the greatest ideas and inspired/inspires my units greatly.

Baby Chef Adrian back in 2008 -  Enjoying a Kitchen Themed Day was "slightly" different than today



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