making ice cream

Tena koutou e ngaa maatua, me ngaa kaitiaki,

28th Oct 2009 Wed
Awesome day today. We hope the panui that has been sent out to Ngaa Whatu iti parents (2-4yrs) regarding our kaupapa 'Cooking' has reached you all. Please fill in the 'Parents voice' and send them back into the centre as soon as possible. If you have not yet received a panui regarding this, dont' worry, the staff are still recording your tamaiti voice about what their favourite food is before sending on to you.

This morning we made ice cream with some of the tamariki and it was awesome. We asked all our tamariki what kinds of kai they liked to eat and then what kinds of kai they would like to cook while at Matariki. A request from Tuhaka to make ice cream was a definite yes. We found an awesome picture book called Te mahi aihikiriimi, (making ice cream) written by Maringi Riddell and followed this. Below are some of the tamariki making our yummy ice cream and also the recipe so that you may want to try it with your tamaiti at home. Don't forget, we love to read your comments and we read these to all the tamariki during mat time. Kia ora!

Ice cream ingredients:
1 300ml cream
1 can of condense milk
1 cup of milk
1/2 tsp vanilla/strawberry essence

Pour all ingredients in a bowl and mix with a mixer till its almost thick. Place in fridge for 2 hours. Pull out of fridge and mix mixture for another 2 mins before placing it back in the fridge to set. Enjoy whanau, it was yum!

Followed are just some of our children making their ice cream:

Tue 27th Oct 2009

This morning the tamariki made some wonderful pancakes and Haedyn Reeve wanted to add some of her huge strawberries that she brought from home. They were absolutely delicious. Here Eru is flipping his pancake. Kai pai Eru.

"I'm making some pancakes." Te Kereama

"Pancake. Strawberry." Rita

"I'm mixing my pancake around. I'm using the spoon and the bowl." Haedyn-Reeve.

"I'm make pancake." Aniheta

"I'm making pancakes. I'm putting it in there, the pan." Riki

Today we had a VERY busy day-with our photo day. But there was still lots of time for checking out the fish tank, watering our plants (three nectarines can be seen starting to grow on our tree!)

Playing Ben 10 on the computer.

Here are some of the girls in their beautiful dresses, waiting so patiently for the photographer, who was a bit late. The tamariki looked so lovely in their special outfits.

Matua Vila is reading Stick Man, by Julia Donaldson, one of the children (and staff's ) favourite books. We also really enjoy reading The Gruffalo, by the same author, and checking out the Gruffalo website
"Look! I've got a Stick Man! This is Stick Man my rakau!"Riki. Riki played with this rakau a lot yesterday, using It as a stirring stick for the plant food when we watered our plants, throwing it for Zac the puppy, and playing "Stick Man".

Here are some more Starlights children checking out those fish again.

Wishing everyone a very nice long weekend! The staff would also like to send a big Kia Ora to Wiremu and Mihiata's Aunty Wena who sent us a lovely email. Please do feel free to email the centre with any ideas, feedback, recipes or ideas you might like to share. Your imput enhances your child's learning and creates links between home and centre which are so important to the tamariki. Comments left on the blog will be read out to the tamariki at whariki time so please stop in and say "hello". We'd love to know that you've visited the blog and hear what you think of it and about what the children have been up to!

Cracking eggs- Tutepako is so good at this. We wonder if he helps with cooking at home with his Nan?

Adding some milk to make scrambled eggs.

Today we also made dog biscuits, using this recipe

Dog Biscuits

500 grams liver (we used chicken liver)

1 cup wholemeal flour

1/2 cup plain flour

1/4 cup fresh parsley (the Starlight's garden was all out of parsley so we used dried mixed herbs)

1 large egg

Blend the liver into a paste in a food processor. Add egg and parsley. Combine all the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Mix the dry ingredients and the liver paste together and knead on a floured surface to form a stiff dough. Roll the dough out to about 1cm thick and cut out the shapes using cookie cutters (we got ours here, and this seller is also a great resource for other cooking and baking items for children.)

Te Kereama and Mia playing together in the sandpit.

The tamariki making dog biscuits ad talking about the different dogs they have at home.

"I'm mixing up the dog biscuits!" Wiremu

"I've got a rakau!" Tutepakorarangi

Wiremu is making a dinosaur farm. What a cool day! Those tamariki that have dogs (that we know of) will be coming home with a special parcel to share with ther kuri.

A huge welcome to Wiremu and Mihiata, who started at Matariki yesterday. Nau Mai, Haere Mai, we are so happy to have you and your whanau here learning with us.

The Starlights have a flash new tunnel, which the Nga Whatu Iti children enjoyed playing with as well!
Here's beautiful Mihiata-she had a wonderful first day.

More tunnel fun
And of course some water play as well. Please remember to send sunscreen if your child has sensitive skin, togs, towel and a hat (all named) for these sunny days.

Whaea Meri and Mihiata

Wiremu loves climbing the tree, digging in the sandpit and playing in the boat. He's also a great big brother-taking such good care of his sister Mihiata on their first day.

We wonder what adventures today will bring?

Haedyn-Reeve brought a special friend in with her today. Here she is introducing Callulah to us at Whariki Time. She tells us that Callulah eats nuts and has lived at Haedyn-Reeves' house since she was a baby. Everyone took turns giving Callulah a hug.

Then, being a rainy day, we decided to use some of the lemons that we had gathered earlier on in the week, and do some cooking!

We got our lemon recipes from here, and we decided to make the lemon bars and lemon curd. Yum! Takarea, Riki and Tutepako enjoyed cracking 12 eggs into the bowl for our lemon curd. I'm thinking these three tamariki must help with cooking quite a lot at home, as they were all experts at egg cracking.

EVERYONE enjoyed squeezing the lemons.
Omaruhuatau "I was putting the juice in the sieve, to take out the pips. Then we had to measure the juice up to the line 350." Omaruhuatau is absolutely right, we needed 350 mls of lemon juice, and he measured so carefully.

Quite and few of the children tasted the lemon juice. Apparently it's quite nice but I'm not brave enough to try it!
Forsaith "I eated a lemon! It was sour!"

By the way Whanau, if you are reading the blog, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE click "comments" at the bottom of the post and let us know that you've visited. We will share the comments with the tamariki. This link between home and centre is so important to their learning. Thank You to those few who have left comments so far. Arohanui

Today, Eru brought his xylophone in from home. He played some music for his friends at Whariki time. "Mary had a little Lamb" and "Twinkle Twinkle". Isn't he clever!

"Eru made music for us to listen!" Haedyn-Reeve

"We listening to Maui at Whariki time!" Takarea

Oh yes, we do like our Whariki times. Look at everyone listening and joining in!

Today we went for a ride to Whaea Lucy, Isla and Kyan's house. We came to pick some arani and lemons, because we want to make some marmalade and lemon curd.

But of course it's fun to play with some new toys as well.

And have a picnic with our friends.

When we planted our fruit trees at the centre recently, the tamariki really wanted a banana tree but there weren't any available at Mitre 10 or Palmers unfortunately. But then Matua Vila spotted a banana tree in Whaea Lucy's garden, so we took a cutting, and the tamariki researched on the internet when we got back to the centre all about how to look after it. We'll keep you posted!

Monday 12/10/2009

Kia ora te Whanau,

Welcome back everyone from your holidays and we hope you had a nice break. The photos below are a collection of pictures and children's voices relating to our last kaupapa which was called; 'Kohi kai'. Also included are some of the discussions staff have had with the children and written them up and placed on our kaupapa board. A big thank you to all the parents that contributed to the kaupapa, from bags for aarani and grapefruit, kopae (DVD's), resources, and guest speakers. Ngaa mihi kia koutou katoa.

This term we have another exciting kaupapa called; 'Tunu kai', 'Cooking', an extension again from the children's interests. We have some awesome ideas so far, however, you are more then welcome to share your ideas or recipes with us here at Matariki. Or if you'd like to come in and cook alongside your tamati and the tamariki, we'd love to have you here. Nau mai haere mai ki to tatou kohungahunga.

Arohanui
Ngaa kaiako o Matariki