What does yeast do?

 This morning, we made challah dough. The children watched in awe as the yeast reacted to the sugar and formed bubbles. One child noted that if we didn't have yeast, "challah would be flat." We mixed up 1 batch and placed it in a zip lock bag and began our second batch. When we put the  next batch in the bag, we noticed  that the first batch was much bigger.  The yeast  made our dough rise!Tomorrow, children will have the opportunity to make a challah to bring home.

Elias turned 4 years old today!

Elias turned 4 years old today! Karen came into the classroom to celebrate with all of us. First we sang "Happy Birthday" in both Hebrew and English and then Karen read a few books...Engineer Ari and the Rosh Hashanah Ride and the special book the Tel Aviv children made for Elias in honor of his birthday.

It is tradition in the Tel Aviv classroom to make a book with personal messages for the birthday girl or boy to take home. The children love the idea of being able to take the book home and keep it forever!

After we read the books Karen baked an apple cake with the entire class! Everyone participated! Karen had the children all take turns cutting, measuring and mixing all the ingredients together! Then we all walked down to the Community Room kitchen and watched Karen place the cake in the oven with some help from Elias of course. We are all looking forward to eating a piece of cake tomorrow!

Karen thanks so much for coming in to celebrate Elias's birthday with us! Happy Birthday Elias!

Irresistible Treats on a Stick!

Maria stopped by the Temple yesterday to let me borrow her new book...Ice Pops. Every single recipe in the book looked simply delicious!

Jesse, the children, and I looked through the book together and decided to make smoothie ice pops. I brought in my Magic Bullet and we all went to work! We made pineapple, cantaloupe, strawberry, peach, plum and blueberry smoothie pops! Some of the children decided to write their name on their stick so tomorrow when go into the freezer to eat their pop, they will be able find the one that they made with ease!

On Thursday we will eat our smoothie pops with our Shabbat snack! I can't wait!

Pizza Dough Today Homemade Sauce Tomorrow!

Homemade pizza! Today we made our own dough from scratch and tomorrow we plan on making our own sauce! Julia Child watch out, here we come!

It was "Prince Pasta Day" in Lunch Bunch!

Last week I asked the children, "What is the next thing you want to cook in Lunch Bunch?" The children that come on Thursdays suggested we make pasta!

We watched the water boil, put the pasta in the pot, gathered the toppings( butter and red sauce), waited for the pasta to cook and last but not least had a pasta feast! Every single child ate up a "storm"! They all had seconds and some had thirds! What a fun day we all had in Lunch Bunch!

Hanukkah Cookies!

Making Hanukkah cookies is one of the great pleasures of celebrating Hanukkah! We mixed together all the dry ingredients first, then we added the melted butter, vanilla extract and one egg. We all worked together and mixed the ingredients until it turned into dough. What is nice about this recipe is that we do not have to refrigerate the dough before we can use it.

Rolling, kneading, and pounding the dough was the best part! The final step was to shape the dough with the cookie cutters. On our way down to the Community Room to dance with Nancy, we put the cookies in the oven. Everyone is looking forward to eating them for snack tomorrow!

Pizza!

Bread dough, tactile and sensuous, is very attractive to young children, especially if you have a miniature rolling pin available for shaping the dough into a pizza crust. Children like spreading the sauce and sprinkling the cheese on top. Cutting up vegetables like broccoli, tomatoes and peppers is a lot of fun too!

Today we joined the Unicorn classroom and made a delicious and very colorful pizza!
Fun was had by all, to say the least!

Here is what the critics had to say:

"Look at the tiny seeds."-Olive

"The broccoli looks like a tree!"-Max Goldberg

"The broccoli is the hardest to cut."-Max

"The pepper smells good."-Abby

"The peppers are long and thin."-Eliza

Smoothies

Once you've made this with you child, you may find yourself making it frequently for yourself as well-it's really good! It tastes delicious!

There's very little that can g wrong with this recipe. Make this on a hot summer day for snack, or at lunchtime to wash down a sandwich. The main attraction to a small child- in addition to the ritual and delight of consuming the smoothie- is the process of blending various ingredients into a uniform consistency. Children are interested to observe how the ice, yogurt, juice and fruit will seem to disappear when blended, and how the resulting concoction becomes all bubbly, cold, and thick (this definitely the best part of making smoothies).

The Critics Rave:

" It's good!"-Molly
"It turned pink!"-Eli
"I like the yogurt part!"-Jacob
"It turned pink and it a some bubbles!"-Aviva
" It is good!"-Max
"You have a mustache!"-Rachel

Pancakes!

Kids like to eat pancakes because it's delicious, but they like making it even more because it's a messy, tactile, fun experience! Remember, simple procedures like, cutting up fresh fruit, cracking eggs, whisking, and frying might be common to adults, but they are a very big deal to little children!

The Haifa and Tel Aviv children had a ball making pancakes yesterday in Lunch Bunch!

Everyone raved...

"These are delicious."-Rylan
"Those are looking like pancakes now."-Lily
"I like mine with strawberries."-Drew
"These are so good!"-Sadie
"Wow these are good!"-Jake
"Yummy!"-Jacob F

Jello Pudding!

The teacher's thought finger painting with jello pudding would be a finger licking fun sensory experience! Well the children had another idea..."Let's just eat the pudding with a spoon." So we made the vanilla pudding and then ate it for snack!
Most of the children asked for seconds and thirds, they really enjoyed the yummy pudding!

Pizza!

Making pizza today was fun for all! We kneaded and rolled out the dough, used plastic spoon to spread out the sauce and sprinkled on some mozzarella cheese.
The children spent a lot of time playing/kneading the dough. After the pizza came out of the oven everyone came over for a slice. We all sat down for a group snack and when snack was over, there was not one piece left!

Pizza

2 bags of prepared dough
1 jar of red sauce
2 bags of mozzarella cheese

Rosie's Place

The children enjoyed making a tuna casserole for Rosie's Place. They cut the cheese, added the tuna and butter to the macaroni then mixed away! We talked about how it is a mitzvah to think and give to others in need.

Vegetable Cookies!

The children that stay for the extended day Summer Fun Program made sugar cookies for open snack tomorrow morning. The children enjoyed measuring, mixing and rolling out the dough! We used vegetable cookie cutters and made carrot, pepper and lettuce sugar cookies. They look yummy, we can't wait to eat them!

Everyday Sugar Cookies

1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tablespoon milk
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon vanilla

Bake at 375 oven for 10-15 minutes

Honey Cookies!

In honor of Israel's Independence Day we made honey cookies and sang Happy Birthday to Israel in Hebrew. The cookies were a big hit...Yummy!

Honey Cookies

3 eggs
1/2C. oil
8 oz. honey
3 1/2C. flour
1 tsp. baking soda

Preheat to 350, and bake for 12 to 15 minutes until golden brown.

Placemat Making

Our Scientists have been hard at work for the last few weeks learning about nutrition. Earlier this week we started classifying foods into the food pyramid, and then we worked on deciding what foods are healthy and which are not. Continuing on this theme, our students diligently combed through supermarket flyers, and sorted different items between healthy and unhealthy. Between yesterday and today, we have created our own healthy vs. unhealthy placemats. These placemats will be laminated and will be usable at home!

-Alison Simpson

Learning the Food Pyramid!

To continue with our learning about nutrition, the Scientists noticed something different in the room: a blank pyramid! At circle time, the teachers introduced the pyramid as a food pyramid, showing what are the things we should eat more of and what we should eat less.

As the teachers pulled out a different piece of food from the envelope, we decided as a class where to put things. Some things, such as cheeseburgers and spaghetti and meatballs, were placed on the outside because they could fit in a number of places on the pyramid.

The pyrmaid was left out during free play so that the children could continue classifying foods on their own or with one another. It was a real treat watching their minds work to figure out where we should put each food!

-Alison Simpson

Chocolate Covered Matzah

Chocolate-Covered Matzah

6 ounces bittersweet chocolate
2 tablespoons water
1 sheet of Matzah, cut into 6 rectangles

1. Melt chocolate
2. Using tongs or fingers, dip the matzah in the hot melted chocolate. Place it on wax paper on a baking sheet. Let harden for a few minutes in the refrigerator.

Most Important Part: Lick the pot as the first, very necessary step in cleaning up!

The Lunch Bunch children enjoyed one of their most favorite Passover foods...CHOCOLATE-COVERED MATZAH!

Purim Cookies!

We made Purim cookies in both the morning and afternoon programs! We made crown and mask cookies and placed one large candy kiss on top of each cookie. It does not get better than that!
Some of us measured, mixed, stirred, used the cookie cutters, others(Sam R)smelled the dough because, it simply "smells good". Check your mail boxes tomorrow Sam P mailed you your cookie. Enjoy and HAPPY PURIM!