Blue

What is blue? It was much harder to think of things that are blue! 

Red

We have begun to work on some short poems. Each week, we will add another colour poem to our repertoire. 

We read the poem all together at the carpet, and then focus on the words that we know, and on some new words that we are trying to figure out. 

Next (in another gathering that afternoon or the next day), we brainstorm and list all of the things that are usually that colour. 

In small groups we re-read the poem on our own - some children are focusing on pointing to each word as they say it, some are noticing new words or sounds.

(Some students are working on more advanced poems at their levels). 

We started with Red! 

And we created some dots in shades of red. 

Applesauce! Crabapplesauce!

We made some crab-applesauce on Tuesday! We usually make applesauce a bit later in the season, but the crabapples were ripe and free! I (Ms. Brown) picked the crab apples from the park across the street from my home, and did a test run at home (I canned 14 pints :). 

1. First we had to cut the pre-washed crabapples in half — (mostly to check that they didn’t have worms inside, but I didn’t stress this because I don’t want the children to be afraid to eat an apple). For this step, I did the cutting while they watched (I pre- cut all except for about 10)

2. Then we had to cook the apples. We cooked them in a big pot with a few splashes of water. At this point, everyone went off to centres and came back over to the cooking pot when they wanted to watch and / or stir. We used an induction hot plate on a table ( I stayed with the hot pot throughout, Ms. E supervised the rest of the centres) 

Next we had to strain the pulp. We didn’t take off the skins, stems or seeds before we cooked it -  and those aren’t so nice to eat, so we had to separate them. We used a special conical strainer with a stand, and pushed and mashed  the pulp through with a special wooden masher.  The applesauce goes out the holes of the strainer and then into the bowl on the table, o and the part we don’t eat stays in the strainer. Everyone who wanted to got a chance to push the pulp through the strainer. 

The crab-applesauce was bright red! Some children said it looked like ketchup. 

Some of us liked the taste right from the strainer, but most children found it a bit tart so we added a bit of sugar (about a cup to the 12 cups of pulp).

Everyone opted to have a taste! Most finished their bowls and asked for more :). 

Definitely a success!