The invasion of Spooky Spiders

We have been making spooky spiders at the art table this week.  The
children have been very engaged in this activity. They have shown
great concentration and fine motor control when pressing the
plasticine over the styrofoam balls.
This kind of activity really helps to strengthen fingers.

Also some children have been extending the spider theme to the art
easel.  "K" drew a whole family of spiders.

Counting Your Maple Leaves

 We did some Autumn Leaf counting today. "K" spent a long time doing this work. When it was completed it looked quite beautiful.

Off the Hook Goodness!

 Sunday morning 6:45 I am up making fish sticks for the Maple Tree Children.  It is a labour of love.  Like all things, I am committed to good food that is local and sustainable.  What it means, is that some times, most times, I am working on my weekend.

I've been wanting to add fish for a long time to our menu and finding the right way to add it has been tricky.  I am not a fan of wasting food and so you will never find anything on our menu that we haven't tested til perfect or that the children don't love.

 Let me say this, they love our homemade fish sticks!  They were served up with some roasted potato wedges and a side of raw veggies.  not a scrap was left behind!

The fish was purchased fresh from Peter at the Fish Shop at the Farmers Market.  Peter loves that I am buying fish for the school and so he gives me a bit of break on it.  THANK YOU Peter!  Line caught fish is expensive. Our Halibut came from Sambro head.  It was beautiful and fresh.

Because of all the different food needs at the school I had to get creative.  I had to come up with an egg free and gluten free version of our fish sticks and so I did!  I almost love this kind of challenge because I need to research and pour over cookbooks and well, I love that.  our regular version is simply, fish sliced into sticks (I did not wast a bit of our fish so don't be fussy if your fish stick looks wonky).  I seasoned some flour with salt and pepper, dipped the fish stick in the seasoned flour, next dipped it in egg wash and lastly bread crumbs.  Our gluten free version was done with seasoned corn flour, Flax eggs and gluten free crackers.  Both versions are super tasty.

Flax eggs, 1/4 cup flax seeds and 1 cup water.  Grind the flax seeds in your processor and then add water and mix until they are the consistency of eggs.  Fax eggs keep for 1 week in the fridge.  1/4 cup of flax eggs is equal to 1 egg.

When I was done making all the fish sticks, I stuck them in the freezer and quick froze them and then transferred them into a ziploc bag.  As you can see my portions were generous and each child had two for lunch plus we gave out seconds, because we can :)   Now that I have figured this out I will be taking some parents up on their offer to come in and make these for us!