stART - The Matzah Man: A Passover Story

This week our theme is Passover to help get ready for the holiday next week.  The Matzah Man: A Passover Story by Naomi Howland is a great story for children.  It is a Passover version of the Gingerbread Man.  This was a great book and Sprout seemed to enjoy it.  She like the sing song rhythm of the book and the repetition, but I do think it was a little long for her as her attention definitely started to wander as we got to the last couple of characters.  I'm hoping that reading it a couple more times might keep her attention.  She also picked it up to read later.

To go with this book Sprout and I made matzah men (women).  Or I should say we tried to make...  I've never really made matzah before.  I've been to matzah factories with students, but never really did it myself.  Passover on the Net suggests a 1 part water to 3 parts flour mixture.  This is what we used, and the rolled it out by hand.  This Mama used a pasta maker to get her dough thinner.  I think that would have been a great idea, but I don't have one...

After rolling out the matzah dough, we used cookie cutters to make the men and women.  Around this point I started thinking that the dough was probably too thick, but I really couldn't get it any thinner (maybe more water??).

Then sprout was given a fork to poke holes in the men and women.

Then they went into a 500° oven for 5-7 minutes (my guess is 5 minutes would have been perfect if they had been the right thickness).  Sprout thought she would check on them for me.

Here is our final project.  As I said it came out a little too thick.

I did give one to Sprout to try later on, and she wasn't very interested.  I will let you know if this changes.  I will say that it didn't exactly taste like matzah, but that would because it wasn't cooked as crisp as it should have been.
To see what others read and made this week go to A Mommy's Adventure. 

Hamantaschen

So after reading our book for our stART project this week, D made a craft hamantaschen and then we made the dough for real ones.  We finished up our real ones yesterday afternoon.  D was not so into it at first, and had more fun playing with Jolly Green Dad.  Which I can't be upset about because normally when I'm cooking dinner, this is favorable to having a munchkin underfoot in the kitchen.

When we first put her into her high chair to play with the dough, she really wasn't interested.  We have played with playdough a few times, but it's not always her favorite thing to do (though I definitely like the benefits for manual dexterity).  Then again, maybe getting her hair out of her face would have been good too!

I showed her how to use the cookie cutters on her dough like JGM was on the counter, which definitely helped.

I will say that even if she wasn't into rolling out the dough and cutting out the circles, she was more than happy to eat the final product.

stART When It's Purim!

This week's stART project went along with our Purim week!  We read When It's Purim, by Edie Stoltz Zolkower.  

This book is very cute for a youngin' like D.  It is about a family that is getting ready for Purim by making Hamantaschen, a very yummy treat! 

After reading When It's Purim, we made our own craft hamantaschen.  I was looking for a craft project to go along with this book, and decided to make one up.  We used a paper plate.  D colored the bottom of the plate with a brown crayon.

Then we glued Pom Poms on the "top" of the plate.  D especially liked this part of the project.  We have found that she really likes glue.  In fact, when she saw me bring out the supplies for the craft, she went straight to her high chair and was ready to get going!

When she was done I folded up the sides like I do when I make real hamantaschen, and made the circle into a triangle.  I then stapled the ends together (making sure that the staple closed entirely).  Here is D checking out her new hamantaschen.

Now that we finished our craft, we made the dough for our hamantaschen .  It has to sit in the fridge overnight, so we made it this morning, and will do the cutouts, filling and baking tomorrow.  Mmmmm... can't wait. 

Here is D inspecting the measuring spoons!

Go to A Mommy's Adventures to see what other people read this week.