Week 7 Term 4 2013

 

 

 

I have written this post a little differently this week as I took advantage of fast internet at school and posted all of my photos before doing any writing – not sure how it will go!! The photos may not be quite so well grouped – I have found that as soon as I start to move them around on this blog site they disappear on me! I will make comments on the photos themselves this week I think.

So here goes!!

Favourite photo of the week is this one – “Red Class Visits the Chooks” – they managed to get the kids there travelling through the rough terrain of what is still really a building site AND having three students to push by only two staff! (I have had to mask a couple of students faces because of publicity permissions.)

 

It was the repeat menu week this week –

Sicilian Toast
Pizza of the Imagination
Pasta with a Tomato and Vegetable Sauce
Waldorf Salad
Bashed Neeps and Carrots

I am very happy with the change in programing that I made this year – running menus for two weeks instead of changing each week.  Time spent shopping (I now shop for two weeks at a time), developing the interactive activity and preparing visuals is now just about halved, leaving me more time to work on educational goals. Significant developments have been:

·         recording student progress

·         increased use of technology (mainly the remote switches), enabling increased participation

·         more student involvement in –

o   cooking (as opposed to preparing),

o   plating up

o   serving food

It is never possible to mention all students and their achievements; sometimes we are so busy I hardly get my camera out! Hopefully most students will be acknowledged at some stage over the school year.

Great involvement by Steven this week - all it took was a verbal prompt
from Regina and pizza dough was made!

Gayle and Matthew planted some coriander, labelled it and watered it too!

We found that if we lowered the workbench sufficiently Amelia was
able to get close enough to roll out the pizza dough - she did
manage to eat some too!

I can’t publish his photo, but was delighted to hear about John’s participation in cooking last Monday – great news!

And the two photos below show how involved Patrick has been this year - plating up his 'Bashed Neeps and Carrots' (mashed swede and carrots) with very little support.

Great teamwork by Cameron and Tom

Thomaz continues to be a star in the garden - he has really gentle hands when
planting and harvesting

Scarecrow clothes - but
who is wearing them??!!
 

Matthew and Gayle planting coriander
 

I think this may be a photo taken last week, but
it deserves inclusion - Ryan does such
a great job

So good to see Jaime back with us in the kitchen!

 

Here is a group of photos that I would like to talk about. Each week I produce a Boardmaker interactive whiteboard activity. Yesterday I had a little time to spare (gardening was cancelled due to rain) so I invited myself along to a combined Pink and Purple Class session using the interactive activity. Gabrielle led the lesson brilliantly and I was really pleased to see how well the students participated – it was so rewarding for me to see that the time I spend on development of the activity is worthwhile. Maybe I could develop it even further.

Students start the activity by playing a game where they have to ‘find’ the five items that they will be cooking from a choice of 12 boxes. Then a screen comes up with all the classes – they have to touch their class colour.

The screen then shows 5 boxes containing photos of their cooking groups and 5 photos of what they will be cooking. If they touch their own photo the computer tells them what they are cooking. They then ‘drag’ the photo of what they are cooking to their group’s box.

 

Next they move to a screen display of their recipe. I try to make this as interactive as possible. When they touch the ingredients, for example, the computer ‘speaks’. The ingredients can also be moved so students may be asked to drag items to a wok or mixing bowl.

 

 

 

A few more photo comments:

Aidan is so independent in the kitchen!

Frank used the remote switch to operate the food processor to chop
all the pizza topping incredients and to grate the cheese.

Ellen and Tracey blended the bashed neeps and carrots

Another photo from last week - well done Jaime!

Aaron enjoyed tasting the celery for the Waldorf Salad

There goes the walking scarecrow again!!

Bron gave us a small food processor this week - Daniel used it to blend herbs

Really great involvement!

Cameron is our 'scarecrow man' - great work on the compost heap!

Aaron's Waldorf Salad was delicious!

Thomaz made a delicious pizza - here he can be seen adding
a huge amount of chopped herbs

Matthew cooked pizza too this week - lovely hopping on (to Nadine's hand)
to slice an onion

Well done Daniel! Here he can be seen blending his lunch

Stephan made pasta with a tomato and vegetable sauce this week

Good to see Stephan plating up

Jobe decided to do some scientific investigation
while waiting for lunch to be cooked - the tumblers
fell on the floor shortly after this!

Jaime rolling out the pizza dough

Cameron is such a good gardener!

Kylen planted lettuces

Kylen found time to inspect the herb garden as well as plant lettuces!

 

Great work in the kitchen and greenhouse Darcy

Checking for eggs

Bashed neeps and carrots - an amazingly popular dish!

Jed whisking eggs for the Sicilian Toast

The next three photos show some really good work in the kitchen by Jack - he participated
in all stages of pizza preparation!

Frank loved using the food processor to make the pizza toppings

William operated the whisk using a wireless switch

Jaime worked with William - she mixed the parsley into the egg
mixture that William had whisked

William added oil to the frying pan for the Sicilian Toast

William was also very interested in the broad beans!

Cooking the Sicilian Toast

William is definitely in the running for Chef of the Week this week!

We have had few problems with broken eggs this week – great debates about why chickens break their eggs. After lots of research we have changed the design of their nesting boxes to make them darker, are providing them with more calcium by providing ground oyster shells and milk (for a short time), are trying to give them more outside time and are giving them lots of hanging vegetables to peck at when they are shut in their hen house. Personally I think the change of nesting boxes and shell grit is the answer.

Next week we start our final three week menu – a three week repeat because there will be lots of cancelled classes (assemblies, excursions, clean-up time ………….). We have to have curried eggs of course (this must be number one in popularity!!), pizza and pasta, baked potatoes stuffed with vegetables and cheese (because we have lots of potatoes) and Moroccan Chickpea and Quinoa Salad (because it’s time we revisited Quinoa and everyone loved this salad).