Monday 24 September 2012

How To Make An Apple Pie and See The World

Amazon.co.uk
An apple pie is easy to make...if the market is open. But if the market is closed, the world becomes your grocery store. This deliciously silly recipe for apple pie takes readers around the globe to gather ingredients. First hop a steamboat to Italy for the finest semolina wheat. Then hitch a ride to England and hijack a cow for the freshest possible milk. And, oh yes! Don't forget to go apple picking in Vermont! A simple recipe for apple pie is included. 



I love this book. There are so many different themes to create activities from and it is such a fun book that it doesn't even feel like work!

We are still collecting FIAR books so we had already rowed this back in March, when we focussed mainly on apples. This time we had fun with all the ingredients. I put the apple pie ingredients in bowls and blindfolded Harry, who then tried to guess them by touch and feel. He did really well - I was surprised that he got cinnamon straight away without smelling. I was also surprised that he couldn't guess egg, as it felt so different from all the others.





I didn't anticipate the next part but it turned out well! The boys tipped out the ingredients and mixed them together to create their own version of apple pie. Harry even topped it with vanilla ice cream as in the book.





We recreated the visit to the apple orchard in Vermont by using bricks to represent apples. Harry counted out 8 then fed 1 to the cow, 1 to the chicken and ate 1, to leave 5 for the pie. I asked him how he could halve his group of apples and he said 'cut it down the middle', so he then created 2 equal groups of 4.


 He changed this to 4 equal groups of 2 when I asked how he would quarter the group.


We had a look at the State flag of Vermont, as we were also exploring our culture swap packages at the same time and looking at other State flags. We talked about how flags represent things within the State, being wildlife, forests, agriculture and dairy industry in Vermont. We also watched the American National Anthem on YouTube, comparing it to ours in that we sing about the Queen, but the USA does not have a Queen so they sing about freedom and their flag.



I wrote out the ingredients and Harry read the word then wrote it too. He is getting better at forming the letters now and generally does them correctly.



I found a good book of first art projects at the library so we used that to create a jungle bird, that could live in the rainforest of Sri Lanka. We used feathers and pom poms for his tail feathers and handprints for his wings.



1 comment:

  1. Harry's writing skills have really come on so much in the last six months, Well done to you Hayley for being a brilliant teacher & making everything fun fun fun.
    The jungle bird is also an excellent copy, better than the picture with his fabulous tail feathers, Harry's manual dexterity is really becoming finely honed now, amazing as he's only four and a half. All down to your dedication & skill again Hayley.

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