Holiday Joy from Montessori Children's House

We're Cooking

Winter is a great time to initiate, or expand on, a child's role in the family kitchen. Our weekly cooking classes at MCH follow the Montessori principles of empowering young children to be independent and feature hands on developmentally appropriate and fun projects for young children. Each year we compile a cookbook of our child friendly recipes for families to try at home and have their children take the lead in the kitchen. There are several good cookbooks on the market geared toward preschoolers, such as Molly Katzen's Pretend Soup, Honest Pretzels and her newest, Salad People. Habits for healthy eating and participation in family life can never start too early. It's a great way to empower your child to develop fine motor skills, concentration, a sense of order, independence and more. The end results are sweet rewards--you'll be surprised what even picky eaters will try if they have helped to make it themselves.

Farm

to

Table

Orchard

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Table

First Lady Michelle Obama's blog, Let's Move, has a treasure trove of recipes from Healthy Lunchtime Challenge and Kids' "State Dinner" winners over the years. Go there while it's still up...and get cooking.

Look Into the Camera...

We had the opportunity to welcome a student filmmaker into our school for two days last month. It was fascinating for the children--the cameras, the microphone, the chance to talk and talk. It was so interesting for me, as well, to watch the process and to facilitate interactions (or not) between the college students and our young students. The crew then filmed at a nearby elementary school and the filmmaker sent us the finished product to share.
Enjoy.

Mommy, Daddy and Me