Wednesday 4 December 2013

Fraction Smoothies with Seniors

Well last year I did baking with fractions, click here for the muffin recipe and fraction activity (these are sweet muffins).  You don't have to do the baking part if you do not have access to a kitchen with your class; however, everything is better with food and the kids loved it.  We had so many muffins after each group made a batch of 12-24 muffins that we decided to share them with other classes and the Summerland senior community.  My class visits a group of seniors at the Summerland Senior Village every 3 weeks and our next visit was just a couple of days away from when the students completed this baking activity.  Of course we brought muffins and enjoyed them over good conversations with the seniors.

This year my goal for our senior buddy visits was to incorporate fun curriculum based activities with the seniors.  Of course the baking with fractions activity came to mind, which would involve curriculum, a lot of fun, and something to eat over conversing with seniors.  We invited the seniors to come to our Home Ec kitchen, which has 6 stoves and all the supplies for a class to bake a batch of muffins.  However, the seniors wanted to be at their facility in the comfort of their home environment.  Of course we adjusted, but this meant that we would only have 1 oven to use at their facility.  Not the best situation with a class of 26 and 13 extra seniors!!!!  Muffins were out and an easier recipe, using the same concept, was used.  Thank you, Lana Manuel for your recipe and adaptations to make this work in one block and limited ovens.

Well, we packed 10 blenders and the ingredients needed for smoothies to the Summerland Senior Village country kitchen.  It was fabulous!!!  Some of the student/senior conversations were interrupted with the sounds of blenders going, but boy did they taste great!!!  Some of the seniors mentioned that they had never tried a smoothie before and now they really like them.  Funny how all of the students had tried a smoothie and some of them have them on a regular basis.

Below are some pictures of this activity.




Post courtesy of Jessa Arcuri