Four Seasons of the Apple Tree by Candace Lindemann
(tune: The Farmer in the Dell)

The apple tree in spring,
has tiny buds of pink.
Those buds will start flower
before you even blink

The apple tree in summer,
is full and green and tall.
It grows tiny little apples
the size of a rubber ball

The apple tree in fall,
its leaves are turning gold.
The apples are delicious
to be picked or baked or sold.

The apple tree in winter,
the temperature is low
The roots rest for the spring
in a bed of snow.

Happy Children
(Tune: Did You Ever See A Lassie)

Happy children in the springtime, In the springtime, in the springtime.
Happy children in the springtime,
Sway this way and that.

Change springtime to other seasons and also change the action. We allowed the children to decide on each action: Swimming in Summer, Raking in Fall, and Skiing in Winter are all possibilities.

A Seasonal Song
Tune: When the Saints Go Marching In
Oh, when we build a big snowman,
Oh, when we build a big snowman,
The season is called winter
When we build a big snowman.

Spring: Oh, when we plant some tiny seeds…
Summer: Oh, when we all go to the beach…
Autumn: Oh, when we rake up all the leaves….

Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall
(to the tune of “This Old Man”)

Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall
There are seasons, four in all.
Weather changes, sun and rain and snow,
Leaves fall down and flowers grow.
Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall
There are seasons, four in all.
Look outside and you will see
Just what season it will be!

Seasons of the Year by Meish Goldish
(to the tune of “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush”)

CHORUS:
Here we go round the year again,
The year again, the year again.
Here we go round the year again,
To greet the different seasons.

Winter is time for snow.
To the south, the birds will go.
It’s too cold for plants to grow
Because it is the winter.

CHORUS

In the spring, days grow warm.
On the plants, new buds form.
Bees and bugs come out to swarm
Because it is the spring.

CHORUS

In summer, the days are hot.
Ice cold drinks I drink a lot!
At the beach, I’ve got a spot
Because it is the summer.

CHORUS

Fall is here, the air is cool.
Days are short, it’s back to school.
Raking leaves is now the rule
Because it is autumn.

CHORUS

At another Mommy & Me at Garden of Eve, Eve led us in picking wheat, threshing the wheat to separate the grain from the chaff, grinding the wheat (in a blender..though my kids have stone-ground grains at some local colonial-themed events), stirring in the eggs, sugar, baking powder, and milk, and frying up the pancakes.

Unless you have a field of wheat growing in your backyard, you may need to take a few shortcuts–but making a batch of pancakes is a great cooking with kids activity that we do most weekends with our children.

Pancakes, Pancakes! A great book for this fun and tasty activity is Pancakes, Pancakes!, by Eric Carle. A boy wants pancakes for breakfast and his mother sends him on errands to get flour from the mill, select an egg from the hens, milk the cow, churn the butter, and gather firewood for the stove.  The young man learns everything that goes into making his favorite breakfast and enjoys the delicious pancakes all the more.

Making Pancakes with Your Kids

Your children will also discover that food you make yourself just tastes better.  My daughter has her own whisk and loves stirring the batter with her Daddy or her Papa.

You can use a simple pancake recipe to make them from scratch or try these banana-cormeal pancakes at Crunchy Domestic Goddess.

Even using a just add water pancake mix provides opportunities for pouring, measuring, and stirring.

Go maple sugaring for added fun and a scrumptious treat!

Make sure to observe kids in the kitchen safety rules for a fun and memorable experience!  We have a Guidecraft Kitchen Helper that allows our kids to safely measure the ingredients into the bowl, stir the batter, and even pour batter onto the griddle and decorate the pancakes with chocolate chips or fresh fruit slices.

Educational Opportunities

• Math: measuring the ingredients
• Motor skills: pouring and stirring
• Science: What is the importance of each ingredient? Why does the batter transform into solid pancakes when fried?
• History and Culture: What role did this simple treat play in our culinary history? Why were pancakes important on the frontier? What types of pancakes are popular in other cultures (crepes, dosa, blintzes)? Wikipedia has a good starting place for pancake research.
• Ecology: What is the origin of the ingredients that go into the pancakes? Can these all be found locally or do some come from other regions or nations?
• Literature: Read Pancakes, Pancakes!, by Eric Carle. Make up a similar story about another favorite dish.

We have the good fortune to live near an organic farm (Garden of Eve) owned by young parents. The mom runs a summertime “Mommy & Me” that includes a circle time and a farm “chore”. One week the children picked blackberries and turned them into jam!

The process was fairly simple:

1. Pick the berries
2. Wash and dry the berries
3. Meanwhile, sterilize glass jars in boiling water
4. Crush the berries in a bowl
5. Add mixture to a pot and pour in pectin according to the recipe
6. Bring to a quick boil and stir
7. Add sugar according to the recipe and bring to a boil again
8. Ladle jam mixture into the sterilized glass jars.

Since we did not plan to keep the jams for a long time, we did not process them in a Boiling Water Canner.

Books About Jelly, Jam, and Berries

Jamberry (ages 0-3)

My daughter’s favorite book when she was a baby, Jamberry is a rollicking, rhyming journey through the land of berries.  With just the right amount of playful silliness, a boy and his bear pick blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, and raspberries for jam.  Their journey through Berryland ends in an explosion of flavorful berries as delicious fireworks fill the night sky.

Blueberry Shoe (0-3)

A clever story that makes a connection between a young family’s berry-picking and the natural environment.  A young toddler loses a shoe hiking with his family and the local wildlife makes use of his unintended gift.  When he finds it again the following year, he brings a bit of nature home with him.  Amazon has this listed as a book for 4-8 year olds but despite the more advanced vocabulary, the simple sentence structure, short pages, and beautiful woodcut-style illustrations will keep younger children’s interest.

Jam and Jelly by Holly and Nellie (Ages 4-8)

This touching story focuses on the bond between a mother and her daughter.  Holly’s mother wants to make sure she does not miss a single day of school for lack of a warm winter coat and boots.  So, the pair gather the bounty of the forest to make and sell jams and other berry treats.  I love the focus on the importance of education, personal responsibility, and hard work.

More berry book suggestions at Gardenaut…

Educational Connections

• Mathematics: Measure out the ingredients.
• Science: What makes berries sweet? What is pectin and why is it important in making jam? Which fruits are highest in natural pectin? Why do we boil the jars?
• Ecology: What other animals eat the berries? What is the difference between cultivated and wild berries? (Remind children to never eat berries without confirming with an adult that the berries are safe to eat.)
• Colors: Even young toddlers will enjoy identifying which berries are ripe and which are not yet ready based on the color.

With our preschoolers, we made dyed pasta rainbows.  We also gave the toddlers in our group the option of making the craft with fruity cereal o’s on paper–but this generally resulted in them just eating the cereal!

Materials:

• Rotelle (Wagon Wheel) Pasta
• Food Dye
• Wax Paper
• Cotton Balls
• Glue
• Thread (for hanging)

1. Dye the pasta by mixing 1 tablespoon of vinegar with pasta and a few drops of food coloring.  Our pasta was very yellow and so that affected the colors.  I might try multicolored pasta next time. (instructions via Frugal Family Fun Blog)
2. Begin by gluing 3-5 of the violet/purple pieces in an arc on your wax paper.
3. Glue each color of the rainbow in order around the previous one. (my daughter stopped halfway through the orange and switched to red–but that’s okay!)
4. Tear cotton balls into two or three pieces and glue at the ends of the rainbows.
5. Once the rainbow is dry, run a needle and thread through one of the top pieces of pasta and tie in a loop. Hang on a window.

While the rainbow is drying, you can enjoy a rainbow of fruit and discuss how eating a rainbow helps keep you healthy and gives you energy.  We were out of grapes and kiwi but managed most of the rest of the rainbow.

We also made rainbow star melted crayons but these took longer than I thought they would (and I didn’t love the way my kitchen smelled afterwards). If you want to make layered rainbow crayons, try this process at Chica and Jo.

And we read books about rainbows:

• Duckie’s Rainbow: A cute story that follows Ducky through all of the colors and at the end the pages create the rainbow.
• Rainbow and You: A quirky book that covers how rainbows happen as well as the myths various cultures developed about rainbows.
• Mouse Paint: Not really about rainbows but a fun story about color mixing that the kids really enjoyed.
• We also read a cute little poem about Rainbow Fairies that is available in If You See a Fairy Ring: A Rich Treasury of Classic Fairy Poems.
• I haven’t read these yet, but I am eager to find: The Magic School Bus Makes A Rainbow: A Book About Color and The Rainbow Goblins

More rainbow crafts and recipes:

• Beaded Rainbow (My Montessori Journey)
• Recycled Paper Rainbow (No Time for Flashcards)
• Beaded Rainbow (Kaboose)
• Tissue Paper Rainbow (Kansas City Public Library)
• Fruity Cereal Rainbow (Kansas City Public Library)
• Rainbow Streamer Mobile (Kaboose)

Find a local Maple Syrup Festival or take a road trip!  If you are heading to Vermont, check out Find & Go Seek’s listings of Vermont Maple Festivals.

My family headed to Benner’s Farm for their annual Maple Sugaring event. My children had an opportunity to learn about the Sugar Maple Tree (which New York, Vermont, Wisconsin, and West Virginia share as their state tree), tap trees for sap, watch the sap being boiled, taste fresh maple syrup, and even watch them making maple sugar candy.  I think the candy was the highlight for my daughter.

If you have Sugar Maples at home or near your school, you can also make your own maple syrup–we used to do this at my school when I was a child.

Discuss the process of photosynthesis and how the Sugar Maple is part of its ecosystem.

Learn about the history of Maple Sugaring, from the role it played in the lives of the native people to its use as a domestic (and slave-labor free) sweetener for colonists.  Changing technology has allowed large maple sugaring operations to flourish but small-batch maple syrup manufacture remains a cottage industry for many Americans today.

Calculate how many gallons of sap you will need to make one gallon of maple syrup.

Watch the temperature rise and fall as the sap reaches it boiling point and then cools.  Discuss why different fluids have different boiling points and why boiling turns the sap into syrup (and the syrup into candy).

Check out some more educational activities for enjoying Maple Sugaring Season and some great lesson plans about maple syrup from photosynthesis to weather to history to marketing the finished product.

And then whip up a batch of pancakes or waffles and enjoy some tasty syrup or try another maple syrup recipe!

Photo Credit: Hounds in the Kitchen

Like many children, my daughter is fascinated by birds–their spectrum of colors, array of tuneful songs, and familiar yet wild presence in our yard.

We’ve read her books on birds, taken her to the bird rescue at the nature center, and fed our local feathered friends.

In honor of National Bird Feeding Month, we went to a bird feeder craft playdate.  We made birdfeeders from pinecones, peanut butter, raisins, birdseed, and sunflower seeds.

I must confess, however, that we ended up feeding several fat squirrels.  Next time, I think we’ll try some squirrel-discouraging measures.

• Here’s a thorough round-up of some DIY birdfeeders.
• Check out the Best Backyard Bird Feeding Practices.
• PetCo’s blog has some important Winter Bird Feeding Tips, including nutritional needs.
• Check out some of the fun bird crafts at No Time for Flash Cards.
• If you are ready to invest in some bird feeding equipment, check out Audobon’s Bird Feeding Basics.

Educational Experience:

• Science: Find out the different names of the birds in your backyard. What other birds are common in your region? How do naturalists classify birds (raptors, song birds, waterbirds, jays, swallows, etc.)? What do different types of birds eat? (Check out some great activities for middle school students from the National Bird Feeding Society)
• Ecology: Consider how human actions affect birds. When we remove native plants or plant invasive exotics, we sometimes destroy habitats or a food source directly, or indirectly by discouraging certain insects. Insecticides can cripple birds when they eat the contaminated bugs.
• Mathematics: Participate in the Great Backyard Bird Count.
• Arts: Identify the various hues of birds found in your backyard. Enjoy some of Audubon’s paintings of birds and discuss how the descriptive drawings of the naturalist are considered art.
• Language Arts: Write a story or poem about the birds you observe in your backyard. Describe the colors and movements of the birds. Imagine the relationships between between the birds you see.
• History and Government: Find out the state bird and why it was chosen.

Extensions:

• Field Trip: Find your local aviary or avian rescue center.
• Agriculture: Research how to landscape to attract birds and plant some bird-friendly trees and shrubs.
• Language Arts: Birds have inspired many famous songs, tales and poems, from the upbeat rhythms of “Rockin’ Robin” to Poe’s haunting “The Raven”. Read an age appropriate story about a bird. Have your children use adjectives to describe birds.  Discuss why some birds have been seen in some cultures as powerful, frightening, mischievous, orcheerful.

Some of our favorite bird books for children:

Bird Calls (Hear and There Books)	The Bird Alphabet Book (Jerry Pallotta’s Alphabet Books)
Birds, Nests & Eggs (Take-Along Guides)	Backyard Birds (Peterson Field Guides® for Young Naturalists)

And nothing says Halloween quite like a glowing Jack-o-Lantern. My daughter made hers with some left-over tissue paper and a glass baby-food jar.

We love crafts, especially ones made from natural or recycled materials but I’ll admit…we take shortcuts sometimes. Especially when I’m hosting a play date, I buy some craft kits from Oriental Trading company. I like their sun-catchers but we always have left-over tissue-paper squares.  This craft was a fun and easy way to use up the extra materials.

Materials:

• Glass Jar (Baby Food or Jam)
• Orange Tissue Paper or Crepe Paper
• Black Construction Paper
• Glue + Water Mixture
• Tea light

Instructions:

1. Mix glue and water (about 50/50) and spread on the glass jar.
2. Paste on squares and continue to add glue mixture until the jar is covered.
3. Draw and cut out a jack-o-lantern face from the black construction paper.
4. Coat with a thin layer of glue mixture and let dry.
5. Add a tea light.

Variations/Modifications: Instead of a tea light, you could also create a candle with melted wax and a wick.

Educational Experience:

• Language Arts: Introduce the term “translucent”.
• Science: Describe the effects of candlelight as opposed to electric lights. Research the invention of the electric lights and the use of candlelight prior to its invention.
• Arts: Explain color blending and secondary colors with younger children.
• History: Examine how immigrants bring cultural traditions with them to their new homelands and how those traditions sometimes change.  Research the origin of the “jack-o-lantern”.

Extensions:

• Literature: Read “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and discuss the role of the jack-o-lantern head.
• Arts and Crafts: Carve real Jack-o-Lanterns from pumpkins.
• Emotional and Social: Talk about how changing the features of your jack-o-lantern transforms it from playful to scary to angry, etc.

More Pumpkin Crafts from Other Sources:

• Paper Bag Pumpkins (at Little Elephants)
• Mod Paper Pumkins (at Hostess Blog)
• Toilet Paper Roll Pumpkin (Real Life Kids’)
• 3-D Paper Pumpkin

Home baked goods can be shared, donated, or sold to raise money, teaching social skills and responsibility.

The process itself is a delight for the senses–the tactile pleasure of kneading dough, the crackle of popping corn, the sight of various foodstuffs browning, caramelizing or blending, and of course the smells and tastes of the finished product.

So, I thought it was a great question when an Education.com community member asked about easy recipes for children.

Here are some resources I know about and ones that others suggested as well:

• Teaching Tiny Tots Toddler Recipes
• Martha Stewart: Cooking with Kids
• Family Fun: Kids’ Recipes
• Food Network: Cooking for Kids
• The Science of Cooking

Even preschoolers can cook up a great time in the kitchen.  Check out these tips for age-appropriate kitchen activities for preschoolers to teens.

Safety is always of paramount importance anytime you are in the kitchen with kids.  Here are some great tips for cooking safely with kids from the BBC.

Do you cook with your kids?  What are your favorite recipes and tips?

Photo: Slicing

Here’s a fun activity that turns your apple pickings into a beautiful and fragrant craft: apple pomanders.

Materials:
1 Apple
Whole Cloves
Spices (Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Ground Cloves)
Sandlewood Oil or Orris Root (optional for additional preservation qualities)
Ribbon (optional)

Instructions:

• If you plan on using ribbon, you can also first mark off where the ribbon will go with tape, then add the cloves over the rest of the surface, then remove the tape.
  

1. Push cloves into the skin of the apple, until the surface is covered.
2. Roll apple into spice mixture (mostly cinnamon)
3. Let sit out on a plate or in a paper bag until it cures

Here’s another set of pomander instructions including some fantastic photos.

Variations/Modifications:

• Younger kids may enjoy this activity but have trouble pushing in the cloves or grow bored after pushing in about a dozen. You can start the cloves for them and do the activity over several days.
• Pomanders may also be made with citrus fruits.

Educational Experience:

• Science: Why do spices preserve the apple?
• History/Social Studies: From where do these spices originate? Older kids can explore the history of the spice trade.
• Home Arts: Where should we display the pomander to best enjoy its scent?
• Mathematics (older kids): Calculate the surface area of the apple and estimate the number of cloves used.

Extend Your Learning (more posts to come):

• Community: Visit your local apple orchard and go apple picking.
• Science: Find out about the life cycle of the apple tree.
• Literature: Read about Johnny Appleseed or story books about apples.
• Arts and Crafts: Make apple prints or apple head dolls.
• Home Arts/Cooking: Bake apple pies or apple muffins, make apple sauce or apple butter, drink apple cider.