open house is even better with snacks

open house at the bean's school is always a good time, but this year was extra fun.  one of the projects in 5th grade starts off with pulling a piece of paper out of a hat that assigns a state to research, and then the students have several months to put together a board to display with everything they've learned about their state.  the final piece of the project has them dressing up as someone who hails from their state and serving up a snack that their state is known for.  we've enjoyed visiting this part of open house during previous years, and finally it was the bean's turn to be a participant.

i was pretty stoked when she came home and announced that maryland was her state - my family and i lived there until i was 7, so i have some pretty fond (although rather blurry because 7) memories of that time.  i do remember going crabbing once or twice, and definitely remember eating lots of crab while we lived there.  the bean lit up at this idea, but i vetoed the idea of making crab cakes to serve 50.  heh.

maryland has a state dessert called the smith island cake, and it's made up of something crazy like 8-10 layers of cake with chocolate frosting in between.  she lit up again until i told her that there was no way we were going to slave in the kitchen to make that business for 50 people.

but then we happened upon something that seemed a lot more reasonable - berger cookies.  they're a soft cake-like sugar cookie topped with a generous serving of chocolate ganache frosting, and while i'd never had them before they sounded delicious.  and fairly easy to make.  and they're a cultural icon that anyone from maryland will recognize instantly.  so we looked through several recipes and settled on the one that had great reviews and sounded like it would be the most authentic.  we had planned on doing a test run before the big day, but somehow never found the time.  oops.  and so on the day before open house, i pulled up the recipe and sat in the kitchen supervising the bean as she got to work.  as much as i knew i could get those things done in no time, i also knew that it was important for the bean to do the work and be able to claim ownership of her project.  luckily she enjoys baking and is pretty comfortable in the kitchen.  while she moves like molasses, she turned out those cookies like a pro.

earlier that week, she finally turned in her finished state board that she and her daddy had worked on over spring break.  we were all pretty happy with how it turned out:

another project that they were displaying was an interesting assignment where the kids had been tasked with setting up a taco truck business.  they made up a name, created a logo, curated and priced out a menu, and then put together a miniature version of their truck using paper and basic craft supplies.  the bean had a lot of fun with this one, and i thought her finished product was super cute.  she cut up a sheet protector to use as the windows, added an umbrella for the outdoor dining area, and even put little pieces of "trash" in the bin.  i love her creativity.

she decided to dress up as babe ruth - while he played for the new york yankees, he was born in baltimore.

and of course we got a picture of her with her buddy - he'd gotten texas and brought the most delicious bbq brisket that he and his dad smoked for 16 hours.

there were lots of delicious morsels to graze on, from fresh blueberries to krispy kreme donuts to fried chicken.  the old lady and i were happy clams as we went from one display to another, filling our bellies with the tasty tidbits.

and when all of the bean's cookies were gone (which didn't take long at all, as you can imagine), we headed into her homeroom to check out all of their hard work that they'd completed throughout the year.  there was a wall of silhouettes that was fun to look at, and the bean was easily recognizable by her glasses and profile.

this was a cute math assignment:

and the old lady sat at her desk and looked at the portfolio of essays and art projects and things.

the hub and i attended the parent junior high orientation last night, and everything is just moving too damn fast.  holy cow.  there's just one full week of school left, with the final few days all being half days full of fun and play.  and then the elementary school years are over...just like that.

yikes.

snacks make everything better

with the school year winding down to a close, the bean had one final project to complete before open house.  the kids had been tasked with finding their closest relative who moved to california from another state or country, and they were to interview that person with a list of questions provided by the teacher.  the second part of the project involved putting together a display using a small suitcase or hatbox or some sort of decorative container that showed some things that that person may have brought with them.

while the bean could easily have chosen me, since we moved here from maryland when i was 7, she thought it would be more fun to talk to her lola and learn about when she emigrated here from the philippines.  of course, that meant cutting out the whole part where she actually lived in new york and maryland before coming to california, but that's okay.  it would make for an interesting report and display, and we got my mom to come out for a quickie overnight visit.  she arrived with a bunch of fun items that the bean could use for her suitcase, and they spent some time together chatting about what it was like for my mom coming out to the u.s. so many years ago.

with the written part of the project pretty much done, we turned to the suitcase to figure out what she wanted to put in it, along with choosing snacks to put out for open house (where the project would be displayed).  as soon as she decided that the project would be about the philippines, the bean had hit me up immediately to make a batch of puto to share with her class and open house visitors.  my mom also threw out the idea of polvoron, a tasty treat that made the old lady's face light up as she remembered it from her childhood.  we found an easy recipe online for it, and so while the bean was at school i got to work on making a batch of it.

there are just a few ingredients, with the main one being flour toasted in a pan over medium heat till it turns a golden brown.  it's an easy process, but i'm impatient and the 10 minutes it took to complete seemed more like 100.

after you let the flour cool down for a few minutes, you add some of this to it:

and then some sugar gets mixed in, and the binder to hold it all together?  melted butter.  it looks kind of like beach sand when it's done.

there are special molds for making polvoron, but i of course had no luck finding one in the local filipino markets.  i didn't have time to order one online, and so i had to improvise.  i found a small round cookie cutter and by some miracle, found a piece in my baking accessories that fit inside it perfectly to push the mixture down and pack it tightly.  i scooped some into the cutter:

pushed down hard:

and out came a slightly misshapen piece of candy.  good enough.

the traditional way to serve these is to wrap them individually in brightly colored wax paper, but i didn't have any.  the old lady came up with the best idea, though - we placed them in little plastic cups  with lids, making them easy to transport and to serve without having lots of fingers touching the candy.

like her sister before her, the bean's favorite color these days is green.  well, really more of a mint green, but whatever.  and so when i made the puto, i used a little green food dye and then packaged them up like the polvoron and i sent the bean to school with lots of these to share:

when we got to open house, her display looked pretty awesome.

it was right in front of the mission project that she'd worked on with a group in class.  it turned out really well too:

and i love when they do projects that involve taking pictures of themselves.  this is just one of those:

ah, open house.  always so much fun.  and now we're just riding out the final week of school before she becomes a...FIFTH GRADER.  holy cow.

first grade fun

it's so hard to believe that the end of this school year is coming hard and fast.  by the time spring break ends, there'll only be about six-ish weeks of school left and then it's bye bye, first grade.  this is just all happening too fast for me.

last night was open house at school.  the bean has been barring me from entering the classroom for the last couple of weeks as they've been gearing up for the event, so i was excited to check it out.  and it was great timing too, with MIL in town this week after a recent trip to china.  the bean was bursting with pride as she showed her beloved grandma and her daddy around.  i guess that since i'm in her classroom fairly often, she figured i could handle a self-guided tour.  heh.

there was a lot of really great stuff on display, showing off what they've been learning about lately.  a fun guessing game created by the kids was on the door, and even if i hadn't immediately recognized her handwriting, the first clue was a dead giveaway that it was my kid.

this picture just cracks me up.

and it was used again for this handout:

they've been learning about the amazon rainforest and animals over the last few weeks.

some basic information about 'murrica:

a fun art project during which they learned what a perimeter is.

i always love reading her writing and looking at the art she creates.

of course, a quick photo with her teacher:

then we cruised through the two second grade classrooms to get a sneak peek at what we could expect for next year.  and it turns out that the teacher in the room we liked best is expecting a baby, which means that a sub will be teaching her class for the first half of the year.  i know that she'll be in good hands in either of the classrooms though, so ultimately i'm not all that worried.

holy crap.  she's gonna be a second grader in less than two months.  MAH BAY-BEH.

working that kindergarten class

it's amazing to me how quickly the school year has flown by.  open house was last week, and the kids all loved the chance to show off all of their hard work to their families.  the bean, of course, was no exception.

i love all of the silly pictures they take.

the list of random things that the teacher had asked us to provide back in the beginning of the year finally started making sense.  like this t-shirt:

taking a closer look at it, you'll see that the iron-ons were all completely customized.  the bean told us that they'd colored the balloons themselves, and their little heads are photoshopped in.

it amazes me that this stuff is kindergarten-level now.  when i was that age, all we did was learn our letters, color and play.

plus, she was so excited to come home last week and tell us about how they'd been tested on their reading skills.  "mommy, the lady said that i read at SECOND GRADE LEVEL!  remember, i'm only in kindergarten."  ha - as if i could forget.  but really though, that's pretty awesome.  we're all super proud of her.

this also cracks me up - i love the "illustrate the sentence" worksheets.

now i'm working on getting her signed up for summer school, gymnastics camp and swim lessons.  between all that plus her regular weekly activities, she's going to be one busy girl this summer.