Montessori Practical Life at Home--Two Ways to Make Banana Pudding

Food Prep:  Bananas Two Ways

Both Begin with Banana Slicing, Which Toddlers Can Do!

Find Ways Children Can Be Independent at Snack Time or Help You Make Dessert

Both of these banana dishes came from cookbooks from the nineties, so they may be hard to find (but see below if you want to buy used copies).   The first is a simple and straightforward snack that would be great for mid-morning or the afternoon munchies.  I used a small applesauce that's in our "school lunch" stash, but you could easily have a child use some from a larger jar of store-bought applesauce or make your own (that's another video on another day!).  Be aware:  peeling open these containers may be tricky, so I would suggest starting the opening process when setting up your snack area in the early morning.

Here are the steps laid out as index cards.  You can create these easily for any snack.

Banana Yogurt Pudding Sequence

Applesauce lid already "started" a bit, two sizes of measuring spoons out, fork and grapefruit knife ready to go.  Any safe serrated knife will do, even a disposable one.  The knife is not pointy, so that's not a safety concern, but you should point out the teeth, explaining that the back-and-forth motion can really cut--even a finger!  (Oops I forgot the yogurt. Set that out, too, unless it's going to spoil in a heat.  You could try setting the yogurt in a bowl of ice.) 

Slice in half.  You could also just provide a banana half to begin with.

Mash with fork.

Measure and add applesauce.

Stir together with fork.

Measure and add yogurt.

Mix together and eat!  This was surprisingly sweet and yummy.

Banana Chocolate Chip Pudding

Oopsie--This Was Supposed to Be Banana Bread (See Video)

But it Was Delicious and Gluten-Free Without the Flour, as a Pudding!

Apparently learning how to film while baking was a bit too much for me, so I forgot a very important ingredient to the banana bread.  But no worries--it came out delicious as banana pudding!  We enjoyed eating it straight, as a dessert, and also put it on top of ice cream.  A good lesson in "happy accidents"!  Also, in order to mash the banana I used two different kitchen tools:  the potato masher and the pastry knife.  It's always nice to find an excuse to introduce new tools and for the child to have to use various grips.

Tweet

Montessori Practical Life at Home: Peeling a Potato

Food Prep:  How to Peel a Potato

Montessori Hack--Remember a Non-Slip Mat

A Grapefruit Knife Wouldn't Hurt, Either

We're having Cream of Potato Soup tonight and it calls for four peeled, diced potatoes.  Dinners that require a lot of steps are great for involving children and teaching or practicing discrete skills like peeling.  Just remember:  when you introduce the peeler for the first time, point out the sharp parts! 

It's always good to model a seated position, using a quality peeler with slow, deliberate movements, and taking the time to do the work almost meditatively.  There are smells and sounds associated with this work, as well as graceful movements.  When done, demonstrate how you discard the peelings into the compost or trash.  Important hack:  use a damp towel, a non-skip mat, or a silicone baking mat under the tray to keep things from jiggling around.

Tweet

Montessori Practical Life at Home--Independence at Breakfast

 Self-Serve Hot Breakfast Sequence

Practical Life at Home

Food Prep:  Oatmeal with Milk, Fruit and Honey Sequence

If you have a tiny workstation set up in your kitchen/classroom, it's easy to teach children to be more independent at breakfast.  Here, I've already cooked and spooned the oatmeal into a bowl.  As your child grows, he or she can learn to cook it, but this is a good starting point for beginners.

Start with the bowl of cooked oatmeal, a spoon, a pitcher of milk, some fruit  (already washed and cut in small container at left), and honey.

Another reason for lots of previous practice in pouring!

Opening this container, which has a screw-top, requires previous practice and some dexterity.  The Montessori Open-Close Basket helps children practice.  See previous post.

The honey container has another kind of lid.

I hope by now you can see how a child's mastery of simple Montessori works (like pouring, opening and closing various containers, etc.) add up to independence at home and in the classroom.  

Tweet

Tea Time is Time to Practice Food Prep, Manners and Conversation

We celebrated the return of Downton Abbey today with teatime!

Teatime Comprised of Several "Works"

Think of it:  Flower Arranging, Silver Polishing, Food Preparation, Folding Napkins, Grace and Courtesy, and Washing Dishes.  These are all works that can be part of an afternoon tea.  Extensions can include making your own butter, baking biscuits, growing the chives and parsley for the cucumber sandwiches, dipping candles, and making jellies and jams.

Shortcuts:

We really liked these frozen biscuits with clotted cream:

Cucumber Sandwiches:

We cut the bread the night before using this sandwich maker we already had.

Even if you aren't a D.A. fan, this activity could be a great way of introducing another culture (if you are studying England, for instance).  Who knows, maybe it could become a "new tradition" at your house or school, or you could try this for Mother's Day?  Enjoy!

P.S.  We also have a ducky and an elephant creamer left over from our Practical Life days in the classroom.  If you'd like to find those, click here and here.

Tweet

Food Prep Work: Apples are Appealing

Alleluia has been taking a little cookbook on Cake Pops to bed with her for about a week.  She wants us to read the names of each of the yummies in the book, most of which are really sugary (not to my liking).  But the back has recipes more to my taste.  The Rustic Apple Tartlet sounded good and it looked like a good opportunity for hands-on fun in the kitchen with a toddler.  This is our story. (I'm going to ruin the ending by telling you that although it was fun to make and the filling was good, the store-bought pie crust was blah and overall I wouldn't recommend this recipe--anyone have some good ideas for a sweeter crust?)

Also the main "yippee" factor came from this apple peeling contraption I bought at a Pampered Chef party years ago (and have barely ever used).  You might find these at thrift shops or garage sales, but don't expect them to work well with mushy apples.

After washing, impale the Granny Smith on the prongs of the peeler.  Depending upon how you adjust it, the peeler will produce a long, thin peel that is fun to play with, wear, and eat!

You can make the peel thicker or thinner and this cutting edge isn't super sharp.

It also produces these fun rings!

Once everything is chopped, add cinnamon, sugar and lemon juice.

Cutting the crusts for the tartlets is easy and do-able for a toddler.  The advantage of the prepared crust is that it isn't messy or sticky.

She was losing interest by now, so I spooned the filling on.

Interested again, she was happy to stab the egg yolk and "wash" the tartlets.

Honestly, she was asleep by the time these were done, so I got to enjoy most of them!  Next time I might make the filling a day in advance and find a sweeter crust.  Feel free to send in some ideas for that!

I got lazy and stopped crimping the sides--is that why they were too crackery?

Tweet