Blog Archives

Vegetable Paella

9/30/2014

This version of the traditional Spanish dish is quick, simple and a great way to revive left over rice.

Ingredients:

2 cups left over cooked brown rice
2 Tbs olive oil
2 pinches celtic sea salt
3 pinches saffron threads
1 red pepper, sliced in strips
1/2 bunch asparagus, spears
1 cup frozen peas and carrots
1 lime, cilantro, and carrot flowers to garnish

The kids were intrigued in learning that saffron comes from the inside of crocus flowers!

Step 1:
Heat olive oil in a paella pan or dutch oven. Some tips when cooking with kids is to use a portable burner to bring the stove to their height and to cook on a low flame so that they can still see the food transforming and releasing aromas, but any possible burns are eliminated.

Step 2:
Add 3 pinches of saffron to the warm oil. See how quickly the saffron makes the oil a beautiful golden color!

Step 3:
Add vegetables and rice and stir thoroughly for several minutes. We love counting to ten in Spanish while we stir!

Step 4:
Garnish dish with carrot flowers, cilantro leaves and fresh lime juice.

We checked out where Spain is on the globe while enjoying our paella and looked at pictures of some magnificent Spanish castles.

We learned some flamenco moves in music class...

and sang a Spanish counting song with the parachute.

We read the beautiful book "Colors, Colores" to practice our colors in English and Spanish. Check it out at the Twin Oaks library!

We learned about the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso. "Just Behave, Pablo Picasso!" is about the artists life and introduces cubism as an abstract use of simple shapes. The book also has great quotes from Picasso like "Everything you can imagine is real" and "All children are artists".

We learned about all different kinds of shapes by coloring them, drawing them, and cutting shapes out of different kinds of paper.

Then we identified shapes in Picasso's "Three Musicians" and his "Guitar" sculpture. Did you know that Picasso made a lot of his original sculptures out of cardboard?

We got to work coloring our cut out shapes with a variety of materials.

Then we glued our colored geometric shapes together to create our own cubist sculptures!

The Pre K group took a field trip to The Natural Gardener to help pick out plants for our garden and explore the grounds.

We planted herbs, greens, lettuces and marigolds in the garden! The kids are learning each step of how to transplant: dig an appropriate size hole, loosen the roots, pat the soil gently and water the plants in.

The kids have been a great team in designing some awesome pvc structures to explore water and gravity.

Making muffins! This crinkle knife is an excellent first knife for children as it allows them to chop with their fingers safely up high on the handle.

Mixing is great for gross motor development and in learning how to take turns.

And spooning helps develop fine motor skills,coordination of movement, and concentration.

We love helping to make snack and lunch! Here we are making pizza quesadillas and our beloved PB+J's.

The kids help set the table, serve themselves with various skill-building utensils, and pour their own water from a pitcher. Our table manners are really improving!