Week 3 of Nutrition Expedition: Rainbow Confetti Slaw

September 26-30, 2016

Rainbow Confetti Slaw

Surprise! We made "Rainbow Confetti Slaw" in Nutrition Expedition this week. It was like a party in a bowl! 

I based this recipe off of one I ran across online: Detox Apple Cabbage Salad. However, to make it a little more child-friendly, I omitted and replaced a few ingredients, and it turned out great! Here is our altered recipe below:

The children were so excited to help in creating this healthy snack, each taking a turn in adding an ingredient to the dish. I think we may have some future culinary geniuses in our presence ;) 

The toddlers helped create a yummy apple dip (1 cup of greek yogurt, 1/4 tsp cinnamon, and 1/8 cup of pure maple syrup), and they enjoyed dipping "apple fries" (julienne-sliced apples) in it! The infants had a blast making apple prints!

Week 2 of Nutrition Expedition: Meet Your Farmer

September 12-16, 2016

Meet Your Apple Farmer!

Farmer Kelli came to visit this week in Nutrition Expedition! It sure was fun going incognito for our lesson:  it was all about apple farmers, orchards and the process involved in growing apples. 

We talked all about how apples are grown from seed; there are several ways to grow an apple tree, but this was the least complicated to explain :). You can dry an apple seed, keep it in a cold environment (fridge or freezer) for 3-4 months, then plant it in the soil, tending to it and protecting it from the environment as it grows. It gets a bit more involved after that, but I'll spare you all the details! Follow this link if you are thinking of becoming an apple farmer yourself! Dwarf varieties take about 2-3 years to mature and bear fruit, whereas standard trees can take up to 8 years!

With the 4-year-olds, I took the discussion a step further by describing the pollination process. Did you know that in order to complete pollination (or cross-pollinate) and create an apple, a bee must deliver pollen from a different variety of apple to another blossom? Pollen from the stamen (the pollen-producing part of a flower) sticks to the bee, who then flies to a new blossom (must be of a different apple variety in order for fertilization to occur) to collect nectar. This pollen falls off and is deposited into the pistil (the egg-producing part of the flower), where fertilization then occurs. And there you have it, the formation of an apple! Bees have a busy job :) Read more about pollination here. We also talked about the process of grafting, which most orchards use for growing apple trees and new varieties. Grafting involves making a cut in an existing tree or trunk, and inserting a twig from another tree to create a new variety of apple. Read more about this complicated process here.

The toddler and 2-year-old classes enjoyed playing with a bee that I created out of a pom-pom, and practiced "pollinating" a silk flower. After our discussion, the children got to sample 3 varieties of apples:  Red Delicious, Granny Smith, and Pink Lady. It was a taste sensation!

Super Sleuth Questions

1. What do apples grow on? (answer:  trees)

2. What do you need to plant in the ground in order to grow an apple tree? (answer:  an apple seed)

3. What type of insect makes it possible to grow apples? (answer:  bees)

4. What is it called when a bee helps to make an apple grow? (answer:  pollination)

5. What kind of apples did you try? (answer:  red, green, and "pink" or Red Delicious, Granny Smith, and Pink Lady)