Cinnamon Dough Ornaments- Pre-School Cooking Project
Cinnamon Dough Ornaments
I want to share with you a fun, aromatic, yearly tradition of making cinnamon dough ornaments. On the day we make these decorations the entire child care center smells absolutely wonderful and we love that! We get the same reaction from families when we make popcorn. It is important to our senses to surround ourselves with “good” smells.
To begin gather a large bowl, mixing spoon, cookie cutters, ribbon and the 2 ingredients required for this recipe, cinnamon and applesauce. The amounts are listed below. Since there are only two ingredients in this recipe, cinnamon and applesauce, it is fairly easy to do with young children in a group childcare setting.
Making Cinnamon Dough Ornaments
Recipe
Cinnamon Dough
½ cup cinnamon
½ cup applesauce
Pour cinnamon and applesauce into a bowl. Mix until the mixture turns into dough.
It is so much fun to hear the children try to say “cinnamon” as we discuss and measure the ingredients for the project. Mix the ingredients together remembering to use rich vocabulary as you mix the dough. Give each child a small ball to play with, this activity helps children to strengthen the small muscles in the hand which are used in writing! The dough also keeps the children busy and allows the parent/educator time to work individually with each child to roll out the dough for cutting with a cookie cutter.
Roll out your dough to your desired thickness. We have been rolling out 1/4” slabs. This thickness works well with special holiday shaped cookie cutters and it stays solid for putting a hole in for hanging. We like to make snowflakes, Santa Claus, reindeer, snowmen and stars. After you shape the dough poke a large hole with a straw in the top of the ornament This is for stringing after the ornaments dry.
The dough stores nicely in the refrigerator for several days if you want to return to the project.
It takes about four days for these ornaments to dry, please keep this in mind as you plan your holiday activities. Turn the ornaments daily for best results. We tie ours when dry with a pretty ribbon. Once they are dry they last for years and will retain their cinnamon scent for many, many seasons to come.
What is your favorite holiday tradition?
Benefits to Sharing time in the Kitchen with Children
A quick word about cooking with your nursery school aged child!
Young children love to prepare and cook foods. This week we will look at some of the benefits of cooking with your child and I will share with you a recipe for a snack we like to make at Thanksgiving time.
But, first the benefits of sharing time in the kitchen.
Physical Development: Small motor skills such as slicing, chopping, dicing and whisking help to develop pincher control which is needed for writing. Large motor muscles are developed in rolling, mixing and pouring. Another added benefit is developing good eye hand coordination.
Early mathematical skills: You will be counting and measuring. Volume, fractions, numbers, size, and shape are all skills that can be developed while cooking with your nursery school aged child. Practicing mathematical vocabulary and concepts such as less than, equal to, and as much as are easily accomplished while in the kitchen. Children learn sequencing and time in making a dish.
Science Skills: While you are cooking you will explore the concepts of temperature (hot-cold), liquid to solid and solid to liquid, cause and effect, and making predictions. You will be using your senses of touch, taste, smell and sight.
Social Development: In this area your child will learn working together cooperatively and sharing space. He/she will be gaining self confidence while using kitchen tools appropriately. Your child will learn and then practice kitchen rules for safety. Self control and patience are additional areas of learning in the kitchen.
Language development: Your young child will be developing important pre-literacy skills. Building vocabulary is natural. Don’t you just love it when a young child whips out a “big” word? Don’t be afraid to use words like sauté and julienne. You will be modeling functional reading when pointing out that words make up the ingredient list, and instructions that make up a recipe. Your child will be listening to follow directions, and recognize sequential events.
Social Science: There are many children’s books that depict other cultures and their foods! Learn how to make something from a culture other than your own. Ethnic foods are just one area where you can practice diversity and acceptance.
Have fun in the kitchen!
Thanksgiving turkey chocolate dipped pretzel
Sugar Cookie Recipe
1 cup butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
1 large egg
¼ teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon of salt
1 ½ teaspoon vanilla
2 1/3 cups all purpose flour
Using an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until very fluffy and well blended. Add and beat in the egg baking powder, salt and vanilla until evenly mixed. Stir in flour until well blended and smooth.
Or buy a mix and follow the instructions
Confectioners Frosting Recipe
4 cups confectioner’s sugar (icing or powdered sugar), sifted
1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
4tablespoons milk or light cream
Assorted food colors (if desired)
Or buy a can and open
Other ingredients
Pretzel rods
8 oz bag of chocolate chips or microwavable dipping chocolate
White frosting
Food coloring
Supplies
Mixing bowls and mixing spoons
Measuring cups and measuring spoons
Double boiler
Baking sheet
Skewers
First make your sugar cookie
Divide the dough into smaller balls for coloring. I used 4 colors so I made 4 small balls.
Add food coloring and mix each ball separately.
Blend all your smaller colored balls gently. Be careful not to over mix.
Flour a flat surface. Gently roll out your dough, again be careful not to over mix. Use a leaf shaped cookie cutter to cut the cookies. A circle would work as well.
Use a double boiler to melt you chocolate chips. Add a little tablespoon of butter, margarine or oil if the chocolate seems too thick for dipping.
Set up for the next step. Lie your cookies out on a cookie sheet. I used bamboo shish k bob skewers to make the pretzel level with the cookie for a solid chocolate bond. You don’t want your cookie to fall off!
Now dip the pretzel rod into the melted chocolate, stick it to the cookie and let harden.
Mix up white frosting. With food color make one third
of the frosting yellow and one third of it red.
Leave the remaining one third white.
Now you are ready to pipe on two eyes, a beak and a wattle. If you do not have a pastry bag, snip a hole in the corner of a plastic sandwich bag. Let dry and enjoy!
Friendship Garden Pre-School Hatching Project
Our Falmouth MA pre-school hatching project
Every year at our Falmouth MA preschool we put a few fertile eggs into an incubator and hope for good results.
Before you set forth on this project be sure you are either able to raise the chickens properly or you have a reliable backyard farmer who will take your chicks. While they area fun as babies, they quickly outgrow being an indoor preschool project.
We have a backyard chicken coop and we are ready to increase our flock.
This year we bought 12 eggs from a farmer on ebay. We chose the breed, Cuckoo Maran, since you are supposed to be able to sex them by the color of their down when they are small chicks. This was important to us since 2 years ago we raised 3 beautiful ROOSTERS. Boy did they fight! They had to be hauled off in a farmer’s truck!
The 12 eggs went into the incubator and we started our 21 day countdown. We faithfully monitored the temperature and turned the eggs 2-3 times/day. We began every morning with an all preschool assembly to discuss the project.
Day one. We open a raw egg from the grocery store and examine it. We start learning the vocabulary associated with the project: incubator, temperature, thermometer, 100 degrees, embryo, yolk , chicken, hen, rooster to name a few. It is fun to hear the children tossing these new words around.
Days 2-6 Our Falmouth MA nursery school children make sure that each day 
before handling the eggs I wash my hands. We have learned that eggs are permeable and we don’t want to compromise our project with germs. We read different stories, some fiction, some non-fiction. Every day we open another of our plastic eggs to see what our chicks should look like. (see photo)
Day 7 We are able to “look” into our eggs by candling them. During this process we concentrate a strong light on each of the eggs individually to try to see the air sac at the bigger end of the egg. We find one egg where we can clearly see the yolk and no developing chick. In the rest of the eggs we can see that the chick is developing and the air sac is evident. Candling is harder to do on Cuckoo Maran egg since it has a darker shell than some breeds.
Days 8-20 Time is passing quickly as we have weekends to account for in this 21 day process. We continue to turn the eggs, read stories, ask questions and hope for chicks. Our Falmouth MA preschool children have begun discussing names, something I have to shy away from in case nothing hatches. We learn more vocabulary: embryo, membrane, wattle and comb.
Day 20 We use another grocery store egg and this time we each try to break it open using our index finger nail to get an idea of how much work it will be for a little chick to break the egg shell. We find out it is very hard to break an egg. The chick will be very tired when it hatches. We set up a brooding box with a nice warm light. We have a fun pre school discussion, “which came first, the chicken or the egg?” 
We are ready for hatching day.
Day 21 We can hear the peeping, we see a pip in one egg. All day there is no progress. (see photo)
Day 22 We arrive at school and we have 5 chicks. There are cracks in 2 more eggs. Over the next day we end up with 8 chicks in all.
