Fiesta!

As our culminating activity we had a Fiesta!  I pulled everything we have learned over the past few weeks and put it all together.  Using each concept we created a fun Fiesta! 

I started by reading the book Chicks and Salsa by Aaron Reynolds.  This is my daughter's favorite book to get from the library.  We have read it so much that this book inspired the Fiesta.  I thought we could use it for our cooking because it fits perfectly.  The farm animals are tired of their regular food, so the rooster watches a cooking show and discovers salsa.  The chickens go into the garden and pick their supplies and make salsa.  Then the ducks make guacomole, and the pigs make nachos. It is a great book and I like how the author uses alliteration.  Example: succulent, spicy, southwestern cuisine, the limes had been lifted, the peppers had been pilfered, the scallions had been stolen. 

After reading we made our own salsa. I wanted to do this last summer because we grow all the ingredients in our garden.  However, we never made any.  We were all excited to make salsa.  Come to find out it is very easy to make and I am looking forward to our garden this year so we can make more.  The children took turns chopping vegetables and adding them to the food chopper.  We spoke Spanish saying hello, good bye, hot, cold, counting, please, and thank you.  I found it interesting that I speak Spanish throughout the day and the kids never repeat it.  W can count to 10 in Spanish but other than that they don't say any Spanish words.  After today's cooking experience they were saying please and thank you in Spanish while playing and using their cooking journals. 

In one part of the book, when the animals are getting ready for their Fiesta, the bull practices the Mexican Hat Dance.  So I thought it would be fun to try this.  I looked up how to do it.  We gave it a try.  It was fun to dance together and learn a new dance as part of another culture.

I was so wrapped up in what we were doing that I forgot to take pictures.  The children wrote in their cooking journals.  They drew a picture of the salsa we made and labeled it.  Then I asked them what their recipe for salsa is and wrote that down.  Some very interesting recipes! W chose all fruit ingredients for a fruit salsa! M chose various items including fruit, oatmeal, yogurt, and onions!  L chose bananas, yogurt, and strawberries!

Watching the kids from the first cooking experience until now and seeing how much they have improved on their skills and how much they have learned and retained from cooking amazes me.  It is the simple things in life.  As a parent you don't need a lot of supplies or equipment to teach your children. They just need to be involved in the everyday operations and they can learn dozens of life long skills.  As a teacher providing cooking experiences in school would give children an experience they may not be able to have at home.