Raddish: Culinary Skills and Healthy Eating for Kids

A few months ago at the CHEA convention in Anaheim I discovered the Raddish booth. I fell in love with the adorably illustrated recipe cards and the concept that cooking and curriculum can connect so seamlessly.

Raddish is sold in a subscription format and every month you get a box that contains three recipe cards, table talk cards to encourage coversation over meals, activity ideas to complement the recipes, a skill card to teach new culinary skills and so much more. The recipe cards offer additional educational information and suggestions for putting what you learn into action. The Raddish website even offers supplemental recipes, activities, and lesson plans to accompany your Raddish subscription.

I really wanted to try a box.

You can imagine how excited I was when I was given the opportunity. I am a contributor for dandelion moms and was so kindly given a box to try with my family. You can see my full post here.

Maybe your kids love cooking, maybe you want to improve your culinary skills and create an opportunity for family time, or maybe you are looking for an elective to add to your homeschool curriculum. No matter your situation, I highly recommend Raddish. My kiddos and I give it three thumbs up!

Our Sand and Water Table Garden

We had a sand and water table on our patio that we were ready to toss. The kids rarely remembered to put the lids on when they were done playing and the eucalyptus trees wreaked havoc with leaves and sap. Our beautiful sand often turned to an ugly mess and so we thought it was time to retire our good friend.

But we were struck with an Aha! moment and decided to go a different route. We filled it with soil and seeds and plants and turned it into a garden for our kids to play in and observe. Originally the garden had tomato plants, strawberries, carrots and radishes, but we didn't have much luck with the carrots. They didn't have enough room to grow. The radishes did well but the kids didn't like the way they tasted. The strawberries didn't stand a chance against the baby opossum that stopped by to nibble them every night. But the tomatoes are going strong and we've since added a few flowers and another old strawberry plant (just in case the opossum gets hungry).

The kids enjoy helping water the plants and tend to the garden and my daughter loves the tomatoes. Do you have a garden planted in something out of the ordinary? Tell us what you're growing and share your pictures with us!

Hunting for Harlequin Bugs

The harlequin bug is an insect that migrated north into America from Mexico sometime after the Civil War. These beautiful bugs can be found in various spots around southern California and we like to hunt for them when we are out on the nature trails. They are often found in coastal scrub areas setting up shop on bladderpod plants.



Harlequin bugs on a bladderpod plant

Where we've found harlequin bugs:

• Bolsa Chica Wetlands: Take the trail that starts at the interpretive center (3842 Warner Ave, Huntington Beach, CA 92647)
• Peter and Mary Muth/ Upper Newport Bay: Lots of bladderpods on the trails near the interpretive center (2301 University Drive, Newport Beach, CA 92660)
• Crystal Cove State Park: Explore the Environmental Study Loop, an accessible trail loop with eight field stations where you can learn about science, conservation, and even contribute to research. One stop asks you to count the number of harlequin bugs you see on the nearby plants, write down your count, and drop it in the collection box.

While the harlequin bug prefers cabbage, mustard, collards, cauliflower, radish and other cruciferous vegetable plants, bladderpods seem to satisfy them here in the coastal areas. On the trail, keep your eye out for a bristly shrub with yellow flowers and hanging pods. We've spotted bladder pod plants with zero harlequin bugs on one bush, and on a neighboring shrub up to twenty-five bugs. So look around and see if the nearby shrubs are occupied if you don't spot them right away.

Bladderpod Image thanks to California Coastal Commission
 

The harlequin bug looks harmless enough, and they are quite pretty. You can even pick one up and observe it up close, but be gentle and return it to its home when you are done. These little guys are quite powerful though. They are considered pests and are capable of destroying entire crops. By sucking the sap from plants, the bug causes the host plant to dry out, wilt and die.

Not the best for local farmers, but always fun for little insect hunters.

Ham and Broccoli Swirls - Kid Style

I love cooking with the kids when I can find recipes with tasks that are safe and manageable for them. Sometimes recipes call for too much mixing over the stove or lots of chopping with sharp knives. And we all know how that can turn out when youngsters are involved. I prefer to keep all their digits and allow them to remain free of 3rd degree burns so I limit their activity to prep work they can do at the kitchen table.

I found an old cookbook the other day with some fun appetizer recipes that gave the kids the chance to do more than just one step so I let my son choose one to try. He chose the Ham and Broccoli Swirl. You can find the recipe here.

The recipe as-is is do-able, but the slicing step was difficult to accomplish. They had no trouble rolling out the pastry sheet and spreading the cream cheese, and adding the toppings was fun and manageable. And rolling it into the "jelly roll" was only moderately challenging. The hard part was slicing these guys. I'm an average cook and while I am pretty agile with a knife, slicing that bad boy into 32 pieces just wasn't going to happen. When you press down with the knife the whole thing smushes and the contents completely fall out of the swirl. The pictures in the book look nice, but ours just weren't destined to turn out that way. Our second biggest challenge was that little sister wouldn't stop eating the partially frozen broccoli.

Instead, we sliced thicker pieces (we got 9 out of it) and ate it as an accompaniment to baked potato soup in lieu of bread. Dip them in the soup and they are pretty fantastic. Also, my kids didn't like the taste of the cream cheese so much so we've made a few alterations to the recipe:

Roll the pastry sheet as described then sprinkle with shredded cheddar or swiss. Add the broccoli and ham. Roll as directed. Slice into 10 pieces and place evenly spaced on baking sheet, or leave whole and bake until browned and cheese is melted, let cool, then slice into 10 pieces.

Enjoy!

Toothpick Sea Urchins

We were reading The Magic School Bus On The Ocean Floor and noticed a cute sea urchin in the illustrations on one of the pages. The kids in Ms. Frizzle's class all had their ocean floor projects displayed and Gregory made sea urchins out of clay and toothpicks. What a great idea!

After we finished reading, I got out the Play-Doh and a stash of toothpicks and the kids went sea urchin silly. It's amazing how much fun kids can have rolling balls of dough and sticking them with toothpicks. Before I knew it, the was an urchin army on my kitchen table.

Shortly after they finished making their sea urchins they ended up watching the Octonauts and the Urchin Invasion, so they got a fun mini-lesson. Great combo if you're looking for some at-home afternoon fun.

Sick Day Science - Volcanoes!

My son wasn't feeling well so he stayed home from school. An outing was out of the question but we made the most of our day and studied volcanoes. He was given a Smithsonian Giant Volcano Kit for his birthday a few days ago, so we decided to build it and add other informative activities to round out the learning experience.

I kicked things off by letting the kids watch the Magic School Bus Blows Its Top on Netflix. We've also read the book, but didn't have it on hand today. When the show was over, we learned some volcano vocabulary from a worksheet I printed off of education.com. I love this site for educational materials and the coloring worksheet allowed me to describe the parts of the volcano and some of the things associated with it while providing a visual reference for the kids.

 

Finally we rolled up our sleeves and built the volcano. The entire process is easy, but you will have to take two breaks - one while the plaster strips dry and one while the paint dries.Wrapping the string around the base and cone was definitely an adult job (or more coordinated older child), but most of the other steps were kid-friendly. We dipped the strips and plastered the volcano and waited patiently for it to dry.

 

 While we were waiting, I remembered the new book we have, Where On Earth? It has amazing maps and two of the pages talked about volcanoes - one talking about the relationship between mountains and volcanoes, and the other showing all the active and inactive volcanoes on the planet. We read about some of the major eruptions and learned about the Ring Of Fire.

 

Next, the kids painted the volcano. Green and brown paint and a small sponge is provided with the kit, but younger kids like mine haven't mastered the art of applying sparingly. The paint pots emptied quickly so I gave them some of our own green and brown paint and provided paint brushes and extra sponges.

 

 

When the paint was dry, we were ready to watch the eruption. My husband suggested the bathtub and that worked out nicely. The instructions give you the measurements of baking powder and vinegar, but our eruption was over pretty quickly. I think it would have put on a better show had I poured the vinegar in more slowly. We added some baking soda and vinegar to see if there was a different or better reaction but it was pretty similar to the first eruption.

Even though the eruption was small, it was a great day learning about volcanoes, how they are formed, and what happens when they erupt. Also, the volcano dried nicely so we'll be able to experiment again and see if we can create a larger eruption.You can find similar kits at NSI International. For more information about volcanoes visit http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/.

Solar System Fact Sheet and Activities

My son loves learning about everything. One of his favorite subjects is Space and our Solar System. Since we are planning on transitioning to homeschooling this fall, I've started playing with making my own fact sheets and mini-workbooks for him to use.

After reading the fact sheet, he can move on to answering the questions in the activity book, filling out the creative writing prompt, and doing the mini-activity. If your little one loves space, feel free to download the fact sheet and workbook below.

Happy learning!

 



Fact Sheet



 



Workbook