September 21st, 2022

Birthdays in the Tucker Room

​Over the years in Brown Room and Rainey Room, the children have gained a strong understanding of the importance and beauty of celebrating a friend on their birthday. We are not only looking forward to celebrating together but also to create meaningful, personal and intentional work, always with the birthday child in mind during our birthday committee process. 
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"I want to be on the committee every day
​for every person because it's the best!" - Lucas

Over the past two years we have also noticed the children's continuous and ever-growing interest in baking and cooking as well as trying and tasting new foods. Many times we got introduced to a new kind of food through the interests of our friends. Just to name a few examples, Wilder once brought in home-made apple cider he had made with his family the weekend before, Lucas shared his family tradition of Sunday morning pancakes with us and we enjoyed baking snicker doodles in the shape of dog bones for our lovies. Come and check out our birthday committee documentation in the studio to see more photos and memories of our classroom food explorations! This year we decided to follow the children's curiosity and natural interest; for the Tucker Room birthday presents, the birthday committee will research, prepare and cook the birthday child's favorite meal and we will enjoy it as a group together during their special celebration.

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We started our conversation about the new classroom
​birthday tradition with the question "What is a meal?"

Our first birthday committee of the year...

When we asked Finlay the question, what his favorite meal is, he immediately responded with "Cheese pizza! I don't even have to think about it. It's definitely cheese pizza."

So the first step for the birthday committee, which consist of Hugh, Cate and Lucas, was to research how to make cheese pizza. We consulted two kinds of cook books, flipping through the pages, looking for images of pizza and using the cookbook's index to search for the word 'pizza'.

When Finlay heard we would be making his favorite meal from scratch he replied "From scratch? Like from home? I think that's actually my favorite type." 

What is home-made? - Saul
It's when you make food not from a box. You have to make everything yourself. - Hugh

Cookbooks teach you ....

...how to make pizza. And how to make cookies, you know how to make toast,
and how to cut vegetables. How to stretch the dough. - Cate

We decided to combine the two recipes we found to create exactly the kind of pizza Finlay would love!

Cate: So we can split the books together and we can add both ingredients onto one big pizza and it could taste even better. We can mix all the ingredients together and make a pizza that tastes even more good. We have to add lots of good ingredients to make it yummy. 
​Ines: What are good ingredients?
Lucas: Like cheese.
Hugh: Basil.
Cate: Mushrooms. 
Lucas: Yuck!

The most important part of cheese pizza? Selecting the cheese!

Hugh: We totally definitely don’t have this but we could add it to the pizzas somehow. If we had it we could add it to the pizza. And I don't think anybody knows what this is and it’s Italian food and it’s buffalo mozzarella. 
Cate: Mozzarella is so good. We could add it on the pizza. It would taste really good to us. 
Ines: I do remember that Finlay likes cheese a lot. Are there other kinds of cheese we would like to add?
Lucas: Shred cheese. Cheeses that are really little and they’re about this size and they’re shredded in little circles. 

Hugh: I have had that one at home before (pointing to an image of brie cheese). It’s at home right now. It’s very soft.
Cate: I had that one in North Carolina. It has this very strong taste. And it has wax protections on the sides. These are wax protections (rind) so they just make the cheese get more stronger of the taste. 
Hugh: At home I eat this cheese with the rind on it.
Lucas: I never had it. 
Ines: I wonder if Finlay has a favorite cheese.

Finlay shared with us that he doesn't care what cheese we would use so the committee
decided on mozzarella and swiss cheese. 
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​How do we know what to get? What do we need?

A list! My dad told me. - Lucas
A grocery list. - Cate
This is a grocery list to buy the things. - Hugh

Which store do we go to? We could go to Trader Joe's or Safeway. Safeway has toys. - Cate

(left) a grocery list created by Hugh

We began the cooking process by creating our tomato sauce. Some ingredients we were already familiar with, such as tomatoes, salt and pepper. Ingredients like tomato paste in a tube or garlic were new to some friends. Sensory experiences like feeling, crushing, rubbing, cutting, smelling, licking or chewing are exciting steps in cooking. Multi-sensory investigations support us in exploring food, its texture, feel, color, and taste. 
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Tomato paste

It smells good but it tastes sour. Like a tomato. - Cate
​It tastes like a brick wall. - Lucas
Delicious! - Hugh

Garlic

Why does it have so may layers? I want to get to the real garlic. - Hugh
​Spicy! - Cate, taking a bite out of a garlic clove
It's too spicy. - Lucas
Tastes great! It's pretty spicy though but not too spicy for me. - Hugh

Basil

It smells good. It smells like basil. - Hugh
It's minty. - Cate

Hugh and Cate examining the inside of a tomato; the seeds, skin, stem and juice.

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We also used a variety of tools to create our sauce such as a garlic press ("I think it's to crush them because there's holes and there's spikes. So it goes like this." *opens and closes the garlic press* - Hugh) and a can opener ("You have to turn the can and the cutter at the same time. Twist and turn." - Lucas).

When cooking the tomato sauce....

I wish we could eat it. It's bubbling! It's cooking. I wonder how the pizza will taste. - Cate

It melts like the food that is in it. It melts down and then it turns into yummy tomato sauce. - Lucas

It's like the yummiest I've ever smelled in my life. - Hugh
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I can see the fire! - Cate, pointing to the gas stove underneath the pot

How do you make pizza dough?
You have to stretch the dough and roll it with a rolling pin. - Lucas

​the recipe asked for 4 tablespoons of butter...

You can cut on the measurements! - Lucas, referring to the printed tablespoons unit on the butter wrapper
What number of measurements to we need? (checks recipe in the cookbook) 4. So we should cut here. (pointing to number 4 on the butter wrapper) - Hugh

Butter tastes and feels...
CREAMY (Hugh) - SLIPPERY (Lucas) - BUTTERY (Cate)​

​I love this part! (when adding the liquid ingredient to the dough) This is when it gets sticky. And i know after this part it looks like dough. - Hugh

Getting ready for the celebration!
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To create a festive environment, the birthday committee decided to decorate our tables with beautiful table cloths, some of Finlay's favorite toys (Bakugans) and special pizza creations. The collaged and digitally drawn pizzas were created with the support from Lily, Wilder, Saul and Luke. 

Pizza by Lily

Pizza by Luke

Pizza by Wilder

Finlay's mom, Camille and dad, David joined us for the special celebration in the Tucker Room! Thank you for reading the hilarious book "The Three Little Wolfs and the Big Bad Pig" by Eugene Trivizas to us. What a silly and fun story! 

"Wait, did we really make these?" - Hugh, inspecting the fresh pizzas 
Indeed, the pizzas were amazing and a big hit in the classroom!

The goodest means ... (sticks two thumbs up) - Luke
The goodest means it's the best. - Cape
This is the best pizza i ever had. - Frannie
This is the best homemade pizza I ever had. - Lily
I like the crust a lot. It tastes like cookies. - Remy
It's the best ever I had in my whole life. - Hugh
I didn't know cheese pizza could be this good. Did you? - Luke

We loved sharing this special meal with our friend Finlay for his 5th birthday and we can't wait for so many more celebrations in the Tucker Room!

​... what will we cook next?