Sweet potato pancakes
Today was another day in the Life of Ohana and we relived many of our fun experiences from our sweet potato excursion yesterday. All of us did a cooking activity together upstairs and we spoke about the many different sweet potatoes that we found. We had a few to look at on the table; some were big and some were long; some were short and 
some were round; some were small and thin; some were twisted and some even curled like a banana. We realize that sweet potatoes come in all shapes and sizes just like people! We held the sweet potatoes and smelt them too. Finn said that they were cold. Shelley asked us if we knew what colour they were inside as they were purple on the outside. We thought that they were yellow; pink or purple inside. Well we got a big surprise when Shelley cut one in half and …….it was white inside. We also saw that there was a bowl of mashed sweet potato which was yellow in colour. So now we knew that on the outside they are purple; when you cut them open, they are a pale yellow and when you cook them, they become a brighter yellow. In a second bowl, we poured some hot cake mixture, eggs and milk and we all had a chance to mix it all together. Then Kana spooned in the mashed sweet potato and it was almost time to begin cooking the sweet potato pancakes. Most of us went to sit on the floor as the cooking took a while but when we started to smell the beautiful pancake smell; we were back in our seats, ready to feast. We had to first wash our hands and then lay our tables for snack time. Oooooohhhh! They were so delicious. Many of us had at least two and some of us ate three. That is why some of us could not finish all 
of our lunch. We were still full from snack time. The smell in our classroom was wonderful and Kana cooked the entire mixture so that there are some for our friends who are coming to 
school tomorrow, can eat.
Downstairs, we made our very own sweet potatoes using newspaper, purple tissue paper and sticky tape. On the table we had a selection of sweet potatoes. They all looked quite different. The sweet potatoes that we picked yesterday were purple on the outside. So we took pieces of newspaper and rolled and squished them so that they looked a bit like some of our sweet potatoes. We taped them so that they could hold their shape and then we covered them with purple tissue paper. They really look like real potatoes. Tomorrow we will let our friends make more and also make a vine and leaves. Then we will have our own sweet potato digging to do in the classroom.
Sophie and Miya had fun doing movement to music and learning how to “freeze” when the music stops. We all walked around and then when Shelley shouted “freeze” we stopped still like a statue. We walked around with musical instruments and jumped; stood with our legs apart and clapped our hands above our heads; did star jumps; stood still and moved our arms like they were branches in the wind and also curled up into tiny balls and “hid”! We love doing this at the end of our music and movement routine. We then sat quietly together and read a story called “Goodnight Moon”. It is one of our favourite stories and we try to find all the things that they are talking about on each page e.g. the mittens; the picture with the cow jumping over the moon etc. Upstairs we made vines on a long piece of paper. After we drew the vines, we cut out leaves by folding different shades of green paper into four and pasted them onto the vine. We will continue working on activities as a follow up to our field trip.
Love Shelley, Darren, Kana, Goh and Marie