Ohana Iron Chefs - Ireland - Pancakes

Unfortunately, Shelley was not feeling so well today and returned home this morning. We all wish her a speedy recovery and our love. Also unfortunate was the fact that she missed a wonderful day of cooking, counting and singing all in the chosen language of Irish today. Yes, we were introduced to Ireland and had a special guest from Ireland, 'David' who is Nanako's  husband. First thing in the morning Vincent, Zachary, Lilian and Marc all worked together to build a railway track, before moving on with Iva's and Hana's help to start cooking in the play kitchen. We had some very nice music playing too; 'Enya' but later on we tried some of our favorites from 'The Wiggles', such as Hot Potato, Shaky Shaky, Shake your Sillies out and The Monkey Dance. We like to play along to with our musical instruments to these songs as they are very happy and upbeat. On the 3rd floor Clodia, Abiya and Ava Grace all headed straight for the toy kitchen too and started setting up the plates, cups and cutlery to serve their friends breakfast. It was great to watch as they tried to find space on the two small tables for every piece of crockery and cutlery in the area as well as the food. They soon moved their 'breakfast' to the library area as a picnic instead.Nanako and Liezel had very kindly provided all the children with an Irish flag template for them to color, cut and mount on a chopstick 'Flagpole'. We had a quick look on our map to check the colors of the Irish flag were in the right order and then used the orange and green markers to color the appropriate areas. We all did a great job with these and they look really nice.When the children came down to the join their friends on the 2nd floor we discovered them making some wonderful looking play-dough cookies. The play-dough was all pink and when we smelled it, it was very sweet and smelt just like strawberries. We got to roll it out, choose a cookie cutter and then decorate the tops of them with jewels and sparkly bits. They looked good enough to eat but of course we know that they are just for play! Then came the really exciting part of our day....cooking. On the table there were lots of ingredients and we all helped mash, spoon, measure and mix them together to make tasty Irish oatmeal pancakes...yummy. Tokutaro and Beckett peeled some bananas which Clodia then mashed up in a bowl. Abiya and Olivia then measured out some flour and poured it into a bowl for us. Ava Grace added some whole wheat flour too which looked just like brown sugar. Sean and Jenny carefully poured in some milk from a measuring jug and Tom used a big spoon to add a whole pot of plain yogurt. We then all had a turn at mixing the ingredients together while we sang along with "This is the way we mix it up, mix it up, mix it up, This is the way we mix it up, so early in the morning". Finally Clodia added some honey, Elisa and Hana then added the mashed bananas, Marc and William the baking powder and Lilian a pinch of salt. They then helped each other hold the bowl and gave it a final stir. It was great watching the pancakes cook and they smelled so yummy. We all tried the pancakes at snack time with some kiwi fruit, bananas and blueberries. They were so delicious that many of us asked for more. In our circle we sang our "I'm looking to see who is stamping their feet" song and said Good Morning in English, Japanese and Irish which sounded like "Maidin Mhaith". David (Nanako's husband) then taught us how to count in Irish 1-Ahein, 2-Ado, 3-Atree, 4-Acar, 5-Akui, 6-Ashey, 7-Shokt, 8-Ahut, 9-Ani, 10-Aje. He used potatoes to help us count as potatoes are a popular food in Ireland. We then got to hear David and Nanako's beautiful singing voices as they sang a beautiful song in Irish about a yellow boat.We then all gathered around as Nanako read us a book by Eric Carle titled 'Pancakes, Pancakes' which was great and showed many of the things we had practiced and learnt earlier in the morning. We couldn't go to the park today because of the rain so we went to the multi-purpose room on the ground floor and climbed, played with balls and helped Ayaka play 'Twinkle, twinkle, little star' on the piano. At the tables after we came back to the classroom we saw some gooey brown liquid in bowls and some colored paper. When we smelled the liquid we realized it was cocoa powder mixed with water and smelled just like chocolate. We used our fingers, spoons, forks and straws to make nice smelling pictures.We hope Shelley is well enough to return tomorrow and send her all our love and wishes for a speedy recovery. Lots of Love, Darren, Shelley and The Ohana Team.