Belgian waffles and painting eggs

It was such a busy day today and we were so lucky to welcome May, Nico’s grandma and her mum, Baby, who spent a large part of the morning with us. We had a real Belgian experience, mixing ingredients and baking waffles from Brussels. On the table there were many ingredients; flour in a bag; sugar in a bowl; butter in pieces; milk in a bottle and three eggs. The yolk is the yellow part and we had to separate it from the white part of the egg. We added the yellow to the flour and sugar mixture and whisked the white so that it was stiff and fluffy. We mixed everything together in the bowl and then at the very end we folded in the egg white. Before we mixed the butter in, we had a long discussion about whether the butter should be liquid or solid. Sabine had very good advice because she said that if we put hot butter into the mixture, the egg will get cooked. And we didn’t want to use a cooked egg. So we mixed it in as it was. There was a special machine called a “Waffle Iron”. You pour the mixture into the bumpy shapes; then close the “waffle iron” and wait for the light to go off. This light tells you that the waffle is ready to be eaten. Oh, they were so delicious. We ate so many and want to say a big thank you to grandma May for coming to cook with us today.

But wait…………….there’s more! May read us a story called “At the Zoo”. It is a peek-a-boo book. On all of the pages there is either a flap or something to open and you will find an animal there. There was a monkey, a lion, an elephant, a snake and a dog. May said that she was scared of the snake that was hiding under the basket. Shelley said that she doesn’t like snakes either. Kana read a book called

“Just me and my little sister”. And then was one more activity for us to do. We painted eggs. We each received an egg and placed it in a bowl filled with yellow food colouring and vinegar. We left the eggs inside the mixture for about four minutes and when we took them out, they were pale yellow in colour. We dried them and then pasted on white stickers. Then we put them into a container with either orange or blue food colouring in it. We left them there while we were in the park and after lunch, we took the eggs out, dried them and peeled the stickers off. We had beautiful patterns and shapes on our eggs. Kana put them inside a basket filled with straw and colourful feathers.

Tomorrow we will take the eggs home and we can even eat them as the colour on them is food colouring. We sat for such a long time concentrating today with the many different and exciting activities that May prepared for us. Our teachers were amazed at how long we sat and listened and helped with everything. Outside we had a great time, running around, playing with some of the equipment that we bring each day to the park. One of our favourite toys is the set of blue plastic sticks. They look a lot like wickets from a cricket set. We run around and draw on the ground with them. Today we drew around one another and “trapped” our friends and teachers. Then we made a door to let them out! We also drew a hop scotch game and played on it. Thanks again May for all you did for us today. We loved having you. Thanks so much Baby too.

Love Shelley, Darren, Kana and Sabine