We’re off to the city tonight to see Above & Beyond at Roseland Ballroom. I have no idea what costume I’ll be wearing, if any costume. So here’s an awesome Halloween video to celebrate the season while I figure out my game plan.
Archive: October 2009
I already posted about the first week of October with pre-k, here’s what’s been happening the rest of the month.
Pre-K and kindergarten at my school use Tools of the Mind as their curriculum, so this year I’ve been focusing (in pre-k especially) on lots of activities and movement. Last year I planned a month-long theme like I still do, and maybe one week we read 3 books, another week we did a craft, another we watched a movie, and another we read more books. After learning more about Tools of the Mind I discovered that I really needed to be varying this every week, with kids doing activities for 10 or 15 minutes at a time only in pre-k before transitioning to something new. So I’ve been changing it up.
Yes, kindergarten and first grade had the same theme in October. But the two grades did completely different activities and books.
In first grade we started by reading Crockett Johnson’s classic Harold and the Purple Crayon and then the new Peter McCarty book Jeremy Draws a Monster. We had a big talk about all the ways drawing can help us open our imagination and make anything we want happen. We talked about how cool it was that Harold created his whole world with one crayon and only lines. I gave the kids paper and 1 single crayon and asked them what they would like to see happen if they drew just like Harold.
We had our Halloween shindig today, and it was my first. Last year I was sick for Halloween and stayed home, but this year I got to experience the full awesome craziness. Here are some photos.
This was an interesting one. It’s another Ina Garten recipe, I really am in love with her food lately. I could eat roasted pieces of butternut squash all day long, like candy. So I’ve been wanting to try out some fall recipes with its yumminess full center. This recipe had kind of a crazy flavor. It’s very savory with bits of sweet squash. There were lots of comments left about this recipe on Food Network saying it was too salty and yet also bland at the same time. I could see that as it was cooking, so I actually more than doubled the amount of white wine called for in the recipe and kept the pancetta (I used bacon) at the amount used for the full recipe (this is halved for 2). That mellowed out the flavor and made it taste a little more sophisticated, but I couldn’t really taste the saffron. Adam really liked it, and I did as well. But I might try another recipe for this sometime to compare.
Ina Garten’s Butternut Squash Risotto (adapted for 2 and for my kitchen)
Half a butternut squash (about 1 lb)
1 Tbsp olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 cups chicken stock, preferably homemade (I used pre-made, this may be part of the lack of flavor people mentioned)
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 ounces bacon, diced
1/4 cup minced shallots
3/4 cups Arborio rice (5 ounces)
1 to 1.5 cups dry white wine (to taste)
.5 teaspoon saffron threads
.5 cup freshly grated Parmesan