Paint, Water, & Smoothies

Today we had some painting & water fun and even got to enjoy some fruit smoothies! Ah, what a great way to enjoy a hot summer day :)

As always, the keiki enjoyed painting. Because I believe children learn through their senses, they have free choice to use hands, fingers, or paint brushes when painting. Most of the children began painting with the brushes, but then began experimenting with their hands and fingers. I wish I had a camera that could just capture all of the moments of the keiki learning; I too sometimes get so caught up with the keiki that I forget to capture their priceless snap shots while the keiki are in action.

 

 With any messy activity, I usually have the water table filled near by so the keiki can wash up as they please. Today was no exception--except that the water table turned into another learning activity for them.  One keiki decided to take the paint brush to the table. Before she put the brush into the water, I posed a couple questions to her (and the others): What do you think will happen to the water? Will the water change?

Eager to see what would happen, she began swishing the paint brush into the water. To their surprise--it did change! Again--I wish I could take snap shots of keiki in action, but they were amazed to see the water changing. The others quickly went to grab the other brushes to see if it would have the same effect in the water.

 We also had a new friend visiting, so she got to see what a glimpse of what our day is like. After our water play and painting fun, we washed up and had some yummy fruit smoothies! I'm not big on filling keiki with sugary treats, so instead of giving them popsicles or ice cream I decided to make fruit smoothies! It's perfect for using up over-ripe fruits and it's totally healthy!! Here's our recipe:

Yummy Summer Smoothies 

Ingredients

Fruits (Mangoes, Strawberries, & Bananas)

Strawberry Yogurt

Crushed Ice

Water

• I used frozen mangoes (you can purchase or freeze it yourself), chopped strawberries and bananas.
• Place the fruits into a blender (I used a Magic Bullet). Because the Magic Bullet is smaller than a blender, I first blended together the fruits to free up some space. You may just add all the ingredients into a blender at once and blend until desired consistency.
• After blending fruits, I added crushed ice, water, and yogurt.

Enjoy!

Smoothies are simple to make and there are so many variations with fruits, yogurts, instead of water you can add 100% Fruit Juice, etc.

More pictures: