My turn for Playgroup

As many of you know, I am lucky enough to be part of a great little playgroup, which the kids love so much, and I think we moms probably love it even more!! Well, this week it was my turn, and I really wanted to plan something cute and "blogworthy"--let's be honest, right? So, I thought of doing something with the story of The Little Red Hen and having them make bread. That part I even thought of by myself, and then I found a ton of other ideas online. Anyway, knowing that I am not that talented, I abandoned some of the puppet and other crafty ideas, although they looked awesome. I found some simple, cute animal images for them to color and my version of the story had enough animals for each child to "be" one while we did the story. So, we sat in a circle and the kids said "Not I" and then made the corresponding animal noise when it was their turn, but how was I to know that there would be a fight over the turkey and no one wanted to be the dog? So, we took turns and rotated around, and this part actually went pretty well. I was surprised at their insight when we discussed how it is good to be helpful, and then we re-told the story with everyone helping.

Then I had them color their animals, but since they all wanted that dang turkey, I decided to go print off a page with all five animals for each child, which I probably should have anticipated, but alas, I did not. So, when I got back downstairs, they were finishing up with the attention they could muster for coloring, so instead of taking a bunch of cute pictures, I hurried to get the bread-making started. Have you ever tried to get five pre-schoolers to wash their hands? That takes forever, but again, I am not talented enough to do this and take pictures, so you'll just have to envision, I guess.

So, they take turns helping me add ingredients to the mixer to make the dough, and then are excited and ready to eat that bread. Well, they were pretty disappointed that it wasn't ready right that second, until I gave each of them a chunk to knead. Again, this was cute, but a little too messy to get the camera out, but I'm sad there are no pictures. Sorry! Of course they were treating it like play dough and making different little shapes, and wanted to keep playing with this for a long time, but I had to hurry them to get it in the oven. They also were bummed that I made them just make it into a circle kind of loaf so that they would all cook the same, but they did seem pretty proud and happy when they finally got their bread out of the oven. I guess I should have let them be creative and make whatever shape they wanted, but then I didn't think they'd all fit in the pan. Anyway, I think they had fun with it.

And, to go along with that whole helpful thing, I did have them help clean up the toys they had gotten out in the basement, and they did pretty well. I should have had them move on to my laundry room! :o) Maybe next time we'll do Cinderella, and I'll have them scrub the floors, too!