Teen Cooking Program - Easter

This is a major throwback to a program I did over a year ago.  It was in April of 2014, in fact.  I think this was before I decided to do a Chopped program with them.  In fact, this may have been what kicked off that idea.  I'm not sure.  Anyways, with Easter coming up, and me not necessarily wanting to do an egg-dying program, we came up with something else.  

The teens were going to make their own deviled eggs.  Rather than me tell them how to make them though, I just set out a bunch of ingredients and let them come up with their own recipes.  It was an adventure to say the least.

I cooked the eggs at home, and made about 4 dozen or so. Then I gave them mayo, mustard, relish, wasabi, soy sauce, sriracha, bacon bits, scallions, chives... there may have been more, but I really can't remember right now. Then I just let them go to town. There were only 4 of them, and in the end, I wanted everyone to try everyone else's.

While they were busy making theirs, I had my own recipes, one of which is a delicious wasabi and sriracha egg, found here.When it came time to taste them, they were not too thrilled with my eggs. In fact, I'm pretty sure some refused to try them.  Their parents liked it.  I guess pearls, swine, blah, blah, blah. I *think* the other was just the standard - mayo, mustard, relish.

You can see that some had a little trouble with ratio of ingredients and had a different way of cutting their eggs.  Others certainly kept plating in mind while working on their recipes.  They all had fun, and we ate a TON of deviled eggs that day.

This is a great way to do a cooking program without *really* doing a cooking program.  It lets them be creative too, without going too far out of the box.  I suppose I could have given them things like anchovies and olives and things like that, but I do have budget constraints, and at the end of the day, I did want them to actually eat whatever they came up with. There will be more teen posts, I'm just having trouble finding pictures, and this is the first one I ran across.

The Farm

There are probably some people that would break the theme "The Farm" into a week each of cows, pigs, and ducks.  There are probably enough books featuring each animal to do so.  Instead, we lump them all together and have one SUPER AWESOME week of stories. 

Punk Farm by Jarret J. Krosoczka. Farm animals by day, punk band by night. Will they get caught by the farmer?  It's near impossible to read this book.  Luckily, there's a great online resource for the book where they have the song! (Well, songs - there's also Punk Farm Goes on Tour, which is pretty cool too)

Baby Danced the Polka by Karen Beaumont. Maybe not the first book you'd think of when it comes to farm, but it's great! It's lift the flap, and it rhymes, so I have kids try to guess the word (which is an animal) at the end of the verse.  I always establish that they understand rhyming words first, of course.  There are always at least one or two kids who get it and get the ball rolling, even if the rest take a little longer to catch up.

The Cow Buzzed by Andrea Zimmerman. I haven't used this book in awhile, just because it can be a bit lengthy. It's about a bee who brings a cold with him to a farm.  When animals catch the cold, they also catch the sounds of the animal before them.  I like to do it at the beginning of the school year to emphasize to kids the need to cover their mouths when they cough and sneeze.

Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin. The animals find and old typewriter in the barn, and decide to start making the demands. The farmer refuses the demands, and the cows go on strike.  Eventually the chickens join in and the duck is the neutral party. The kids love saying "Click, clack, moooo", but it can be really hard to break their cycle once they get going.

Pigs to the Rescue by John Himmelman. This series of books is so cute.  In case you're not familiar, there's also one for chickens and another for cows. I like the pig one though, because in contrast to the other two, the pigs are total screw-ups.  The path to hell is paved with good intentions, and while these pigs have the best of intentions to help out, they ruin everything.  I get the kids to help me out with the book by yelling out "Pigs to the rescue!"

Other great books include:

Duck on a Bike by David Shannon.

The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate the Wash by Trinka Hakes Noble.

The Cow Loves Cookies by Karma Wilson

Hogwash by Karma Wilson.

There are also a TON of songs and fingerplays you can do for this theme, such as Old MacDonald, Down on Grandpa's Farm, and 6 Little Ducks. Not to mention nursery rhymes like Hey Diddle Diddle, Baa Baa Black Sheep, Hickety Pickety, Mary Had a Little Lamb, etc.

Cooking with Kids: Farm to Table Edition

So to explain how I came up with the themes for all these Cooking with Kids programs, what I did is pretty much list all the books that I thought I could pull recipes from (or knew already had recipes). Then I started grouping them together in whatever way I could to squeeze a theme out of them. Sometimes it was easier than others.  Farm to Table wasn't hard, but most people would argue that you don't exactly "farm" bananas anywhere in the US.  Fair point. It pretty much should have been called Fruits and Vegetables, and we probably would've gotten the same amount of attendance.  Which is to say, hardly any at all.  Actually, I only had 2 grandmothers and their grandchildren.  Why the sudden drop-off in attendance?  I HAVE NO IDEA.  Maybe all the parents knew their kids were WAY pickier than I realized and they wouldn't try what we were making. *shrug* On to the books!

Carrot Soup by John Segal. This is a story about a rabbit who LOVES carrot soup. He plants the carrots, waters them, etc. When it comes time to harvest them, they're gone.  He asks all the animals, they all deny taking them and say he should ask someone else.  At the end of the day, he goes home dejected and carrotless to find that his friends harvested the carrots, made the soup, and have thrown him a surprise party. There's a recipe for carrot soup in the back of the book, and while I was unsure how it would taste, we went for it.  OMG!  Have you ever had carrot soup before?  It was so good!  It was basically carrots, onions, and celery sauteed together and simmered in chicken stock, then blended together. All the adults in the building liked it.

Apple Farmer Annie by Monica Wellington. I talked about this book in my post about apple-themed story time. Simple book about an apple farmer harvesting her apples, making baked goods, and then selling them at the farmers' market in the city. There are several recipes using apples in the back, but we decided to keep it simple and make the applesauce. No, the library does not have the resources to do this kind of cooking, so both my coworker and I had to go home and do this. Applesauce was a little easier to convince the kids to eat. Both this and the carrot soup were almost impossible to do a cooking demonstration on though, so instead we focused on the next book and recipe.

Gladys Goes Out to Lunch by Derek Anderson. Again, another book I've talked about in another post. Gladys the gorilla loves bananas, but goes in search of something else to eat when she smells the most delicious food. She searches high and low, and finally she finds it - banana bread. There is a recipe for this in the back of the book (so convenient!), and since I *can* make bread in a toaster/convection oven that's what we did. 

I had two 6 yr olds helping me, so needless to say, it was an adventure.  I set one to cutting up the bananas with a butter knife, while the other helped me measure out the ingredients. I have to state at this point that we had slightly green bananas because dummy me didn't buy them far enough ahead of time. Multitasking with two kids is certainly interesting, but I try to do it when I can to show that it *can* be done! (Though I'm sure most moms already know that).   Their bread may not have been as uniform as mine was, but it still tasted great.  The kids loved it of course because it was sweet.

We always have handouts of the recipes, and when possible, other books that fit the theme.  Here's what we came up with for this one:

Farmer Will Allen and the growing table by Jacqueline Briggs Martin

Green beans, potatoes, and even tomatoes: what is in the vegetable group? By Brian P. Cleary

Growing vegetable soup by Lois Ehlert

I eat a rainbow by Bobbie Kalman

The vegetables we eat by Gail Gibbons

Apples grow on a tree by Mari C. Schuh

Muncha! Muncha! Muncha! by Candace Fleming

The Ugly Vegetables by Grace Lin

Eating the alphabet: fruits and vegetables from A to Z by Lois Ehlert

Gregory, the terrible eater by Mitchell Sharmat

A fruit and vegetable man by Roni Schotter

Pick, pull, snap!: where once a flower bloomed by Lola M. Schaefer

Tap the magic tree by Christie Matheson

How are you peeling? by Saxton Freymann

Frogs/Pond

We try to do a generic pond/swamp story time, but there are so many books that feature frogs, that's pretty much what it turns into. Remember when everyone was crazy about frogs back in the day?  Partially due to those Peace Frogs shirts. Was it just a thing then?

Frog in a Bog by Karma Wilson. I won't get into this too much, since I talked about it in my favorite authors/illustrators post. This is a good counting book to use, though as I'll mention later on, I also do 5 Little Speckled Frogs as a fingerplay, so it's not necessary to have a counting book.

Froggie Went A-Courting by Marjorie Priceman. Yes, this is like the old song, but now it's set in NYC! I have to admit, I'm not as familiar with the old one, so I'm not sure if there's a bigoted aunt with machinations to break the couple up, only to have them backfire on her.  If there aren't, well this one has it.  Sometimes I have to kinda lead the children through inferring what happened, even though it does say "Though cat ate rat, there's no denial, Aunt Rat at last made someone smile", I think I sing it too fast for them to catch. Yes, another singing book.  Because if I didn't sing this book, I think it might be a little long for my kids to listen to.  This way though? They love it.

Green Wilma by Tedd Arnold. Wilma wakes up a frog one morning.  All sorts of crazy things happen at home and at school that day. She sees a fly during story time and starts chasing it through the school and out to Miller's pond. She catches it, lands in the water, and then wakes up to realize she was dreaming.  The book ends with the best line "Then she recalled the words they teach to every little frog, 'That when you dream, be careful that you don't fall off the log'".

Big Frog Can't Fit In by Mo Willems.  OMG! How could I forget this book in my last post?! Maybe subconsciously I was saving it just for this.  This is a really cute pop-up book about a frog that is too big to fit in the book. She is really sad, and then her friends get together and make the book bigger.  It's really short, but you know what? Sometimes you need something really short and attention-grabbing to help break things up.  This book is perfect for that.

The Wide-Mouthed Frog by Keith Faulkner. This book is my piece de resistance of this theme. I'd seen my predecessor do this just through storytelling - no book, so I'd gotten tips on how to do it right. It's fine to just read the book as is. There are great pop-ups and illustrations that help tell the story.  However, to really do it justice, you gotta also BE the wide-mouthed frog. So while you read what the frog says, you have to try to open up your mouth as wide as possible, and when the gator comes says it eats wide-mouthed frogs, you have to try to make your mouth as small as possible too. Apparently there is a song/musical version of this story that some of my daycares use, and they want to do that, but I tell stories my way.

Other good stories:

Jump Frog Jump by Robert Kalan. We use this for our baby story time and have the parents pick the babies up whenever we say "Jump, frog, jump!". You could have kids jump during that part.

Stick by Steve Breen. A little frog goes on an adventure while trying to eat a dragonfly.

I Don't Want to Be a Frog by Dev Petty. A little frog declares he doesn't want to be a frog. He goes on to list all these animals he wants to be, and his parents gives reasons why he can't be that. Then he realizes why it's a good idea to be a frog.

Five Little Speckled Frogs

I love this fingerplay, but man, it seems like EVERYONE has a slightly different version of it.  Here's the one that I do.

5 little speckled frogs, 

sitting on a hollow log, 

eating some most delicious bugs (yum, yum), 

1 jumped into the pool,

where it was nice and cool, 

now there are 4 little speckled frogs (glub, glub)

and then you countdown and so on.

The variation? Green and speckled frogs. Speckled log. Eating their most delicious lunch (munch, munch). I'm sure there are more, those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.  However you do it, it's right!  Sometimes I ask the daycares ahead of time what version they do, sometimes I just plow ahead with my own and the kids sing their own words anyway.

My Favorite Authors/Illustrators

I thought I'd take a minute to talk about my favorite authors and illustrators. Usually it isn't hard to pick out with someone when they mention the same books or series of books from someone over and over and over. My predecessor loved Patricia Polacco and Jan Brett.  How do I know?  Well not only did I work with her and I heard her say it, but she also ordered EVERY SINGLE BOOK both of them wrote.  We have a collection we rotate between daycares, and I swear, there are 30 Jan Brett books in there - and half are duplicated of each other.  Now don't get me wrong, I think both are fantastic.  Polacco's stories that draw from her own life and her family's are touching and extraordinary.  Jan Brett's illustrations are beautiful and extremely detailed.  However, neither is my preference.  So, here's a post devoted to my favorites (probably leaning more heavily on illustrations, since my degree is in Art, and that's just what I'm drawn to).

William Joyce

William Joyce has SUCH a distinctive style.  I just love it. Lots of his books have been adapted into shows or films and it really translates well to screen.  Anyone remember Rolie Polie Olie?  Yep, that was him.  Meet the Robinsons? Based on his book A Day with Wilbur Robinson. His latest book, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, won an Oscar for the short film adapted from it. (Made me cry.  Stupid film.)

Dan Santat

Again, here is someone with a style uniquely their own and instantly recognizable. His latest book (that he wrote and illustrated), The Adventures of Beekle, an Unimaginary Friend, won the Caldecott Medal this year. He also illustrated favorites of mine such as Crankenstein and OH NO! (Or How My Science Project Destroyed the World).

Oliver Jeffers

I absolutely adore Oliver Jeffers and his books. He is my Jan Brett.  I order all of his books.  The stories are simple, but cute and the illustrations are - well, the same. One of my favorite books of his is The Heart and the Bottle about a girl who gets her heart broken when (presumably) her father dies.  So she puts it in a bottle so she can't get hurt, but then she forgets how to love, until she meets a little girl who teaches her how to wonder and imagine and love. Stuck is another good book of his about a boy who gets something stuck in a tree, so he just keeps throwing things up there to try to get it unstuck, and it keeps getting more ridiculous.  Also, I'd recommend The Incredible Book-Eating Boy. Really, I'd tell you about all his books, but that would be the whole post, and it would be disgusting how much I'd gush over him.

Karma Wilson

I thought it was time to give a shout-out to someone who is solely an author (as far as I know) now.  She has so many books that I use during my story times. Frog in a Bog, about a frog that gets too greedy and almost gets eaten by an alligator. Hilda Must Be Dancing about a hippo with a passion for dancing, who just needs to find the right place to do it. Whopper Cake about a sweet (ha!) old man making the most gigantic cake for his wife's birthday.

Mark Teague

I am sad to say that I am not as familiar with Mark Teague as an author as I am an illustrator.  I really think the mark of a great illustrator is when they put their own stamp on things, and he really does. The one book of his I *have* read is The Secret Shortcut, about two boys who have trouble getting to school on time, and whose excuses are the most ridiculous things in the world.  They find this secret shortcut, which turns out to be as ridiculous as their excuses. He's the illustrator for the How Do Dinosaurs series and Poppleton. Who doesn't love dinosaurs or animals in clothes?

Mo Willems

Maybe the illustrations in the books don't impress you, but you can't deny that his books are just fun to read. (By the way, I like the illustrations. It can be really hard to get something to be simplistic, but still look good and be expressive.) It's no secret that I ADORE reading the Pigeon books aloud in story time.  I feel like the Pigeon is the embodiment of my id. Maybe I should get a Pigeon tattoo. Oh - and the Pigeon apparently has his own Twitter account. Cute. The Elephant and Piggie books are great too, AND (how cool is this) they've been made into a play.  WHAT?!  Yep. Elephant & Piggie's We Are In a Play. Super-awesome! That's got to show you the appeal of these characters. That is Not a Good Idea is a fantastically twisted book.  It definitely leads you into thinking one thing is going to happen and then takes a big left turn at the end.

Ok. I think you guys are probably done with me praising and going on about my favorites. I have more, but we'll leave it here for now.

DINOSAURS!!!

You can tell which themes I really love because I put those in all caps.  I don't know any little kids who think dinosaurs aren't cool. Well one, but he was just trying really hard to act cool and grown-up in front of his friends. Pshaw!

Edwina, the Dinosaur Who Didn't Know She Was Extinct by Mo Willems. I use this book to talk about what extinct mean.  Sometimes I think the kids just don't get it. Maybe they just don't like it as much as I do. Reginald von Hoobie-Doobie is hell bent on explaining to everyone that Edwina should be extinct. No one listens. Finally she does, and she is shocked, but doesn't care.  Reginald is finally happy just to have someone listen to him.

When Dinosaurs Came with Everything by Elise Broach. The title says it all. In this story, all of a sudden, one day dinosaurs came with everything. A haircut at the barber's, a check-up at the dentist, even a dozen doughnuts. The boy's mom is totally freaked out by it all, but eventually she finds a use for the dinosaurs and they become part of the family.  I love this book, but it is a little long, so I try to reserve it for my elementary aged kids.

Saturday Night at the Dinosaur Stomp by Carol Diggory Shields. All the dinosaurs are gathering for a huge party! The story details out all the dinos getting ready for and gathering at the party. The book definitely has a certain cadence to it, and the kids love to point out that it rhymes - it's like once they get it, they have to tell you EVERY TIME. 

Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs by Byron Barton. A nice, short book that just goes over some basics about dinosaurs along with the names of them.  It's almost like an opposite book of dinosaurs.

How Do Dinosaurs Say I Love You? by Jane Yolen. All the books in this series are really cute. They all have the same basic formula of asking, do dinosaurs do this and that? And of course the answer is no. The second half of the book is all the things dinosaurs do.

Other good books include:

Trouble at the Dinosaur Cafe by Brian Moses.

Vacation's Over! Return of the Dinosaurs by Joe Kukla. Ugh.  This is SO cute.  Dinosaurs never went extinct! They just went on vacation, and now they're back. 

Why the Banana Split by Rick Walton.  I want to use this one SO badly.  I just don't think it will go over well because the whole book is just a bunch of idioms illustrated.  Still - it *does* have something to do with dinosaurs.

Tea Rex by Molly Idle.

For this theme I don't really have a fingerplay that I do. We'll sing Dem Bones, but my coworkers reworked the words to the chorus and that's the version we do.

Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones, 

dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones, 

dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones, 

diggin' up dinosaur bones.

Then we pretty much sing it as normal.