I just started following Along the Way because I liked her Moon Festival ideas so much!
Today we made Moon Cakes, based on her post about it on Wednesday.
I got the ingredients ready and at circle time, we introduced the "process" of making moon cakes (our way). We also talked about how exciting the Harvest Moon is because that's the day when things are ready in the garden (like beans!).
They turned out very yummy (and very sweet!).
I collected the toppings and the dough that we had mixed in the morning and refridgerated for an hour (they each got to squish their own balls of dough and save them in a bag). At circle, I made an example moon cake.
I showed them how to roll the dough into a ball, poke a hole on top, fill it with jam, and brush it with egg yolk paint. Simple!
They did a fantastic job of doing the whole process with almost no help (the fact that I could take pictures proves how autonomous they were).
The hardest part was waiting for the moon cakes to cool when they came out of the oven! I loved the color...the cooked egg yolk glaze made it look more like traditional moon cakes.
But it was worth the wait!
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Sukkot
We also talked about Sukkot and for this holiday we are (sort of) turning our our patio area into a Sukkah. At circle time, we did a mini-board story about the people of Israel and their pilgrimage through the wilderness, building temporary houses all along the way, in which they would eat and sleep. We decided that we would eat our morning snack outside in honor of Sukkot. The children also helped to decorate the patio area by making paper chains (which they were quite good at!) and hanging them from the roof of the patio. Sukkot is also a harvest festival of sorts, and we were happy to have so many special snacks today, like the moon cakes and our very healthful smoothies* in the afternoon.
Here are some photos of our paper chain productions:
Have a great weekend, everyone!
*Stephanie*
*Smoothie ingredients:
-bananas
-strawberries
-cantelope
-spinach
-sprouted grain cereal (for the vitamins and second food group)
-chia seeds (for the omega fatty acids)
and for seconds (they finished the whole pitcher of the first smoothies):
-apples
-cinnamon
-a touch of agave nectar
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Just say no to cookie cutter art projects!
You Rock! And so do your students. Another program I wish I had a kid to send to! And I've never heard of SUKKOT! That is something I didn't learn in preschool while they had us making cookie cutter projects:) I will have to learn more about it. Fabulous thanks!
ReplyDeleteBLOGGERS PLEASE POST THE COOKIES AND YOUR NON-Cookie cutter art too!
This is so great. THis is the third year in a row I wanted to find mooncakes for the girls AND DIDNT. Thank you!! ALso, T actually asks for your smoothies at home, so the recipe is much appreciated.
ReplyDeleteR
TGFP (Thank Goodness For Preschool)
ReplyDeleteSo our smoothies are never the same, but usually consist of leftover fruit from the week, frozen fruit from the freezer, something fatty (nuts or seeds) and something grainy (oats or granola) and in this case something oober healthy (kale or spinach).