halloween experimenting

halloween orange bell peppers 

 Most of the time its all about the process and not so much the result. On occasion the result can surprise you - it worked out as you hoped - or even better than you imagined. This evening the children got a bell pepper each as one of their dinner time veggies - talk about pleased when they saw what was for dinner!

oranges

 The other day we sliced the top off an orange and scooped out the insides. Its like peeling and orange from the inside out - despite having spoons it ended up being easier to use fingers. The children designed their own faces and they asked me to cut out their designs. I really am going to have to get a stanley/craft knife so that they can do this themselves - I had one - but when we moved apartment this was one of the things I just could not relocate again!!! But there again there are some boxes still left to unpack (reminder to self - never start a masters at the same time as moving home!!!)

halloween muffins

 Yesterday we had friends over - suddenly the house was filled with 6 children instead of 3. Michael and his friends got busy decorating his room in a spooky way while Isabelle and Sophia and their friends made spooky muffins. I gave them the recipe to make chocolate muffins and they just got on with it. It was wonderful to sit and just listen to them work together. When the muffins cooled they wanted to ice them - I told them how to make icing, this time not writing it down. When I went into the kitchen I could not believe my eyes - there were four bowls full of icing even though all the muffins had been decorated a-la 11 and 12 year olds... I have to giggle - I mean its not easy working out how much liquid and how much icing sugar is needed!! This was a true experiment where my "you will not need much water" had not truly been appreciated... the best bit was that they had all tried to eat the extra icing to reduce the amount of waste - I don't think they will be wanting iced cakes until at least next halloween... hehehehe. We talked about how next time it could be managed better - for example make one batch of white icing and then divide into 4 bowls and then colour... but I think this was a much better way for them to learn. Giving the gift of daring to make mistakes is an important gift to give.

left over icing