Pancakes for Breakfast

This month's featured author at the Virtual Book Club for Kids is Tomie dePaola.  

We chose to share the wordless book Pancakes for Breakfast with our Mommy and Me Book Club friends.


Gathering: Wheat Exploration Box
(Sensory exploration, fine motor skills, self help skills)
 

We created a sensory bin with whole wheat kernels and measuring cups, spoons, spatulas, and plastic eggs.  The children had a wonderful time scooping and pouring the wheat.  

It was such a simple box to put together, but something about the texture of the wheat was soothing.   It was also a really neat opportunity to teach that flour comes from wheat kernels. 

Circle Time
(pre-literacy skills, listening skills, rhyming, story retell, language development, counting backwards, one to one correspondence)
 

 
We read the wordless book Pancakes for Breakfast by Tomie dePaola. The story shows through classic DePaola artwork the morning in the life of a woman who wants pancakes for breakfast.  Unfortunately she discovers she is missing most of the ingredients.  So she must gather eggs from her chickens, milk the cow and churn the cream into butter, go and get syrup from a neighbor.  When she returns from her last trip for ingredients and is ready to make the pancakes, finally, she finds that her pet dog and cat have broken the eggs and spilled the ingredients on the floor.  Discouraged, she is about to give up, until she smells something delicious coming from a neighbor's home....pancakes.  She invites herself there for breakfast. 

Fingerplay: We used 5 foam pancakes to help act out this fingerplay.

Five Crispy Pancakes
Five crispy pancakes in a frying pan,
Flip them and toss them and catch them if you can.
Along came (child's name)
For a pancake one day
Sprinkled with sugar and took it away.
Source: Youth Services Organization Program Page

Make Pumpkin Pancakes Together
(fine motor skills, self help skills, cooking, cooperation)

 
 
We had all of the ingredients ready to go to begin with. The kids helped pour and mix the ingredients for our pancakes and we had a mommy cook them for us. 

 When they were cool enough to eat,  they devoured them!

I can't really call this part a snack, none of us had to feed a lunch afterwards! One of our moms has a fantastic recipe, and I have included it here for you!  Seriously, the best pancake recipe ever!

Pumpkin Pancakes

2 cups Flour (or whole wheat or spelt flour)
3 Tbs. Brown Sugar
2 tsp. Baking Powder
1 tsp. Baking Soda
1/2 tsp. Ground Allspice
1 tsp. Cinnamon
½ tsp. Ground Ginger
¼ to ½ tsp. Ground Nutmeg
½ tsp. Salt
1 ½ cups Milk
1 cup Pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix)
1 Egg
2 Tbs. Grapeseed Oil
2 Tbs. Apple Cider Vinegar
1 cup Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
Stir together dry ingredients. Add wet ingredients and mix just until moistened.  Stir in chocolate chips.  Drop about a 1/4 cup of batter (an ice cream scoop works great) onto a warm griddle (350 degrees).  When edges begin to set and bubbles pop in middle, flip pancakes and cook other side until done.  Serve warm or at room temperature.  Makes about 16 pancakes.
 

Art-Squeeze Paint Art
(strengthening hand muscles, art exploration, process oriented project, literacy and real world connections, sensory development) 

We wanted to do an activity that replicated pouring syrup on pancakes.  We were inspired by this great  Squeeze Paint Dough project from Family Fun.  You can go here to get the recipe.  We found our bottles at Michael's craft store in the cake decorating department. 

We discovered something fun though, that is not included on the website. This works well as microwavable paint, too.  We tried it to see if it would dry enough to bring our projects home, and it worked!  It also created a pretty fun texture to explore.

The children enjoyed squeezing the paint and making fun designs.  Each was unique.



Activities- Pancake Races
(pretend play, fine motor, gross motor, balance, throwing, hand eye coordination, cooperation, sharing)

 
We cut out"pancakes" from foam to use to play several games.

1-We practiced flipping these with spatulas and small frying pans.
2- Also allowed them to try to carry them on the spatula while walking across the room.
3- Tried balancing the pancakes on their heads.  
4-Threw the pancakes into the pan from across the room.  
5-Played Hot Pancake (like hot potato).

This month we are spotlighting books by Tomie dePaola for our Yearlong Virtual Book Club for Kids!

Will you join us?

All you have to do is...

1. Pick a Tomie dePaola book to read with your child!
2. Do any activity, craft, cooking project, or other book inspired activity that goes along with the book your chose.
3. Share what you did with us starting Monday, November 19th! We will have a linky up for 3 weeks where you can share any blog posts (if you are a blogger) or you can post what you did at the end of the linky post in the comments or on our Facebook wall.

I can't wait to see all of your fabulous ideas! Thanks for participating!

For more updates and to see loads of the posts by participating bloggers, head on over and "Like" our Virtual Book Club for Kids Facebook page.

You can also check out lots of fun ideas on some if the other participating blogs! 
 

Toddler Approved - Rainy Day Mum - Adventures in Reading with Kids - 3 Dinosaurs - Royal Baloo - The Educators' Spin On It - Inspiration Laboratories - Pleasantest Thing - Edventures with Kids - Two Big Two Little - Playing With Words 365 - Kitchen Counter Chronicles - Outlaw Mom - Mommy and Me Book Club - Crafty Moms Share - No Twiddle Twaddle - The Good Long Road - Ready. Set. Read 2 Me - Reading Confetti - Mama Smiles - Juggling with Kids- Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas - Creekside Learning - Creative Family Fun - The Usual Mayhem - Teach Preschool - PlayDrMom - CraftoArt - Here Come the Girls - Being a Conscious Parent - Smiling like Sunshine - Crayon Freckles - Train Up a Child - Smile Play Learn

Please only share activities inspired by Tomie dePaola books.  All other links will be deleted. 

Want to get a head start on December?  Our featured author next month is Jan Brett!