December 02nd, 2022

This week we got to celebrate our friend Jade's 5th birthday! 

When we were thinking about Jade's preferences and her favorite things, our ideas immediately went to her lovie, Auz. 

Auzzie! Maybe we can ask if she could bring him. - Cape
Maybe there can be monkeys because Auz is a monkey. - Frannie
Real monkeys? - Cape
We could draw them. They could swing. Maybe we could have a rope and they could zip-line across the classroom. - Frannie

Strong and competent monkey bodies

​While drawing their monkeys, Frannie and Luke thoughtfully considered details about them in order to give them personalities, movement and a connection to home and family. After drawing a couple drafts, Frannie and Luke added fur pieces and details to their monkeys, including eyes, mustaches and expressive tails.


I'm making arms. They are connecting to branches. - Luke, considering the body position of his monkey, intending for him to be able to swing 
​It (the tail) needs to be curled up so it can hang on. - Frannie


Monkeys have tails like my kitty (lovie).
​I'm gonna attach them together because it's a baby and a mama. - Frannie, wishes for her monkey to have a family

Tita is gonna wonder why I have fur on my body. - Frannie, noticing pieces of fur on her shirts after cutting 

(drawing ears) So it can hear everything in the whole wide world. My monkey can only hear things in Washington DC. And I think Lukie's can hear everything even from France because the ears are gigantic. - Frannie, sharing her theory of the ear size of the monkey being connected to the monkey's ability to hear, factoring in distance 

Hi, my name is Mr. Monkey - Luke

This is sparkles and her nickname is spark. - Frannie

​Lukie discovered that it looks like he has a tail when he attached a piece of wire fur to the chair he was sitting in. They decided to include that technique in their birthday decorations for Jade's chair.

---

WHISK
​It's a mixer like for pancakes. - Luke


For Jade's favorite meal we made Chicken Tenders and breaded our chicken, using flour, eggs, breadcrumbs and salt, before baking it in the oven.

Luke's grocery list

How do you bread chicken?

We dip it in flour, then you dip it in the eggs and then dip it in the mix and put it in oven. - Frannie
​
Flip it and flip it and put it in the eggs. - Luke
​

Frannie's grocery list

Our cooking required a multi-step process, sequencing and careful handling of the ingredients (e.g. cracking and whisking eggs).
​
​That's raw (chicken). You can't eat it because you get a tummy ache. We need to cook it and we need to go wash our hands because all of this is raw. Even the eggs. This is a chicken egg. The chicken is gonna go first in the flour. - Luke

It feels massage-ey. - Frannie, rubbing the breadcrumbs between her fingers

These are all muscles (pointing to the chicken tenders). I love muscles. - Luke
How did you know that? - Ines
My brain told me. - Luke

It's so fun, Luke, right? - Frannie
Yes! Because it's so blobby. - Luke
It's gonna be so good when we cook it. The breadcrumbs will make
​ it really good. - Frannie
It makes it super crunchy. It smells so good. The eggs and
​the breadcrumbs and the chicken. - Luke

​After baking our chicken, we mixed Jade's "special sauce" using ketchup and mayonnaise. 

Jade told us we would know when the sauce is done when it would reach a certain color ("The color of Auz's zipper" - Jade). To support our work, she mixed the desired color with paint for us.

This is the color for the sauce. - Luke
It doesn't have to be exactly like it. It's always different. - Jade

It looks like yoghurt. - Frannie
It looks like blood to me. - Luke
I do this. It looks like this color when I mix tomato sauce and sour cream. - Frannie

---

Today we got to celebrate our friend Jade together with her mom and dad. Her dad, Tim, read a great story about a dragon that likes to be a vegetarian. Many of us tried Jade's special sauce for the first time and we LOVED it!
"Wow, I actually like it. I like it, Jade. Can we have more sauce?" - Finlay