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Friday, January 27, 2017

Week 18 of Nutrition Expedition: Cosmic Kids Yoga: The Chinese New Year!

January 23-27, 2017

Chinese New Year Yoga

To celebrate the upcoming Chinese New Year, which is occurring Saturday, January 28, we practiced some special dragon and Chinese Zodiac animal yoga! It was so much fun!

The 2-, 3-, and 4-year-olds followed along to a Cosmic Kids yoga video, Cracker, the Dragon of Wonder! They beg me all the time to do Cosmic Kids yoga, so they were super excited to participate this week :) There are TONS of these videos on Youtube, so feel free to join in the fun at home! 



The nursery and toddler classes got to practice Chinese Zodiac animal poses with me. They really enjoyed it. Here are the poses below:

The Rat:  using a variation of "Child's Pose", prop your head in your hands, wiggle your fingers like whiskers, and make a squeaking sound.

The Ox: "Cow Pose"

The Tiger:  using a variation of "Cat Pose", extend a claw into the air and growl ferociously. 

The Rabbit:  using "Rabbit Pose", wiggle your nose. You can even extend your "rabbit ears".

The Dragon:  in "Dragon Pose", extend your arms up and pretend to exhale fire.

The Snake/Serpent:  "Cobra Pose"

The Horse:  From "Downward Dog", kick your leg up towards your bottom.

The Ram:  using a variation of "High Crescent Lunge", clasp your hands behind your head so that your elbows make the shape of a ram's horns.

The Monkey:  using a variation of "Gorilla Pose", swing your arms back and forth, making monkey sounds.

The Rooster:  Sitting in "Butterfly Pose", hold your ankles and flap your legs like a rooster's wings.

The Dog:  "Downward Dog"

The Pig:  Using a variation of "Tabletop Pose", curl your hands into fists and curl your toes under (like hooves), wag your piggy tail, and make pig sounds.

Super Sleuth Questions

1. What was your favorite part about yoga this week? Was it challenging?













































Friday, January 20, 2017

Week 17 of Nutrition Expedition: Beet-berry Chocolate Cake! It Can't Be Beet!

January 16-20, 2017



Beet-berry Chocolate Cake

We continued our exploration of beets this week in Nutrition Expedition, and made a beet-berry chocolate cake! It was more of a bread, but the word cake is more enticing around here...imagine 😉. 

Here is the recipe, a healthier alternative to chocolate cake (found at Today's Parent):


I would recommend swapping out the honey with about 1/2-to-3/4 cup organic cane sugar, as the honey did not offer enough sweetness to balance out the bitterness of the cocoa powder. Our first few batches did not turn out quite as good as we were hoping, so I had to tweak the recipe a bit.

For the older infants who eat table food, I served them "Baby Borscht". Borscht is a beet soup that originated in the Ukraine, but is widely popular in many European countries, especially Russia. It was quite tasty!

Below is the recipe for borscht soup, which can also be found at this link:


Super Sleuth Questions

1. What were the secret ingredients for the chocolate cake? (answer:  baby food and beets)









Photo by Kelly V.

Photo by Kelly V.

Photo by Kelly V.

Photo by Kelly V.

Photo by Kelly V.

Photo by Kelly V.

Photo by Kelly V.