Honey Treats

6/30/2016

Honey Cake

This simple honey cake is a delicious and lighter version of the 'lebkuchen' my grandma used to make. The kids ate every bite!

Step 1:

Mix together:

4 large eggs
1/2 cup honey
1/3 cup coconut oil
2 ripe bananas
1 tsp vanilla extract

Step 2:

Add in:

2 1/2 cups of almond flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp sea salt

Step 3:

Mix well together with an immersion blender and pour into a greased loaf pan. Bake at 325 for 1 hour.

Step 4:

Once your cake has cooled you can top it with some honey butter. Simply mix honey with softened butter to desired sweetness.

Sun Tea with Honey and Garden Mint

The kids loved making and drinking this refreshing drink!

Step 1:

Zest one large lemon.

Step 2:

After zesting, juice the lemon.

Step 3:

Measure 1/4 cup honey.

Step 4:

Pick 2 large handfuls of garden mint.

Step 5:

Roll the mint in your hands to release the aromatic oils.

Step 6:

Put the lemon zest, lemon juice, honey, and mint into a large mason jar.

Step 7:

Pour 2 quarts of water on top of ingredients.

Step 8:

Find a nice sunny spot and let the power of the sun 'cook' the tea for at least 2 hours.

Step 9:

Once chilled, garnish with a lemon slice and fresh mint sprig. Yum!

Honey Coconut Treats

These are so simple to make and the kids loved them!

Step 1:

Pour a little coconut oil (approx 1/2 inch) into an ice cube tray and freeze for at least 10 minutes to harden.

Step 2:

Squeeze 1/2 inch of honey on top of the hardened coconut oil.

Step 3:

Pour another 1/2 inch of coconut oil on top.

Step 4:

Freeze for at least 30 minutes and then pop out these cool little 'candies'.

The healthy fats in the coconut oil help keep your blood sugar stabilized!

Honey Taste Test

The kids made a hypothesis of which of these 3 types of honey they would like the best and then tested their hypothesis with a taste test.

Many of the kids hypothesized that they would like the honeycomb the best.

The kids loved checking out the honeycomb and bits of pollen and propolis in the different honeys.

We love to sing this little Waldorf song while we appreciate some delicious honey!

"Little bees work very hard,
Making golden honey,
Taking nectar from the flowers,
When the days are sunny."

The 'Really Raw' Honey was the the preferred choice from all the taste testers in this group - not the honeycomb.

We read 'Bee Dance' by Rick Chrustowski to learn how honey bees communicate through a 'waggle dance' to tell the other bees where the best pollen and nectar flowers are.

Mr Ben played a waggle dance game with us!

The direction that the scout bee dances in (towards the sun or to the left or right of the sun) lets the other bees know where the best nectar is.

We also read "Flight of the Honey Bee" by Raymond Huber and learned how the bees help the flowers make seeds by carrying pollen to different flowers.

We played Pollination Tag! The pollinators (bees) chase the flowers. When a flower is tagged, it must give its pollen to the flower to pollinate it, and then turns into a fruit. The game ends when most of the flowers have been pollinated and turned into fruits.

The bees need our help to survive! We discussed the following ways we can help honey bees thrive on our beautiful planet:

1. Plant a variety of flowers, herbs, and flowering trees.

2. Don't use toxic chemicals in gardens. Buy organic produce.

3. Don't pollute the air or water.

'More Than Honey' is a great documentary about this topic on Netflix!

Bee Breath is a lovely practice that calms the nervous system.

To begin, inhale and then make a humming bee sound as you exhale.

With your next breath, close you eyes as you make a humming sound with a long exhale.

With the third breath, close your eyes and block your ears with your hands as you make a humming sound with a long exhale.

Doing Bee Breath in these progressive stages introduces kids to the importance of the senses and how sometimes it helps to close off our senses to find a quiet place to calm, soothe, and focus.

(thekidsyogaresource.com)

Beeswax Candles

These are awesome ideas for holiday gifts!

Beeswax produces negative ions that actually clean the air of odors, pollens, smoke, dust, viruses, plus other allergens and hazards.

First we cut out different flower shapes with cookie cutters to add on to our candles once they are finished.

Then we rolled up our candles and added on our cut out pieces!

This Stockmar Modelling Beeswax is a wonderful medium to create with.

We warmed the wax with the heat of our hands as we molded different shapes.

Smells like honey too!

These Stockmar Beeswax Block Crayons are a staple in Waldorf Education and produce delightfully rich colors and textures.

More beautiful Beeswax Crayons!

We made 'honeycomb' from hexagon blocks and stamps!

Exploring hexagons with the Spielgaben set.

Bees and Honey had the kids also talking about... Bears! We loved reading 'Moon Bear' by Brenda Guiberson and were inspired by the original collage artwork to create our own collages from National Geographic magazines.