Yogurt

As I have explained before, my greatest interests are young children, nutrition, and cooking.  Fortunately for me, these interests combine easily and work together well.  This does not always happen - imagine trying to cook while skydiving...  Anyway, I have begun making my own yogurt.  It is easy, cheap (a week's worth of yogurt for about 99 cents), and it really impresses people who don't know how easy it really is.  Yogurt making is very simple, and children can help. 

All you need for successful yogurt making is a kettle, thermometer, whisk, 8 cups of milk (any kind - I use skim), and a small container of plain yogurt.  You do not need olive oil - that was just on the counter.

Heat the milk to 180 degrees to separate the proteins.  If your thermometer is the kind that is encased in Pyrex, make sure that it is not touching the bottom of the pan, since it will not read correctly.  Stir the milk occasionally to prevent sticking.  If you are the type that multitasks, do not wander off.  scorched yogurt tastes terrible, and if it boils onto the stove it makes a mess (trust me on this one!).

 



Take the pot of milk off the burner and let it cool to between 120 and 110 degrees.  Put about 1/2 cup (more or less) plain yogurt into a bowl.  Add about a cup of the warm milk, whisk until smooth, and add to the pot of warm milk.  Stir.  Do not try to save time by stirring the yogurt directly into the milk - you will have lumps of yogurt (trust me on this, too!),

Place the mixture into a container with a lid.  The mixture will have to stay warm to incubate for at least eight hours.  I found that the best way for me was to wrap it in an old bath towel and place in one of those foil-lined insulated Wegmans bags with a zip lid.  Any kind of container that would hold the temperature would work. 

 

 

The yogurt can be removed after eight hours, or it can stay longer.  I often make mine after work and leave it overnight, and I have left it as long as 24 hours.  The longer the yogurt incubates, the thicker it becomes and the more the flavor develops.  To thicken it a little more, I strain it through a colander that is placed over a bowl.  I line it with an old cotton dish towel, and I strain a few cups at a time just to make it easier to scoop into the containers that I use to store it (in my case, I have a complete matching set of margarine containers).

Draining the yogurt takes off some of the whey and thickens the yogurt.  Exactly how much you drain off will depend on the thickness of the yogurt when you start and on your patience while you are draining it.  It is okay to wander away during the draining; in fact, I recommend it.  Make sure to save the whey in the refrigerator - it is wonderful for baking.  You do not need to use anything fancy to store the whey, although I do have a lovely matched set of mayonnaise jars.

Your yogurt will be thick, much like Greek yogurt, and will be tart because it is plain yogurt.  It can be sweetened with sugar or honey.  I usually eat mine plain, since I put it over fruit which sweetens it enough.  This is a matter of taste.  Once you have made a batch, there is not need to purchase more yogurt, since you can use the batch that you made to start a new batch.

Yogurt is very easy to make, especially once you have made it several times.  It is a great feeling to produce something that is so good and healthy while saving money also.  Have fun and enjoy!



Spin, Spin, Spin

When I was cleaning closets in the center, I found a spin art thing.  The staff told me that it was a lot of fun - all you needed was batteries, some paint, and a round piece of paper.  The child would put the paper in the machine, squirt in some paint (carefully supervised by a teacher), and push a button.  Voila!  A piece of art work.  This was used with the children who were in the school age program.

The teachers were amazed when I would not let them use it.  While the children might perfect their button pushing technique, I could see no other value in the experience.  I brought in a salad spinner that I had purchased at a yard sale many years ago for $1.00 that the children could use for spin art.  The school age teachers had a great deal of difficulty trusting the children to use it "correctly", and tried to micromanage the whole process.

Fortunately, the teachers who are now working with the children at the center understand that children need to manipulate, explore, and experience to learn.  They also understand that children are capable of doing many wonderful things by themselves.  A few days ago I went into the four year old room and watched the children have wonderful adventures with the salad spinner.

 

The children loved to squirt in the paint, and used liberally.  There was no teacher telling them not to use too much, or to use all of the colors, since their teacher understood that children need to have control over their own art work.  Even more that squirting, the children loved turning the handle.

The teacher held the spinner steady while the children spun and spun.  When it looked at though they might be tired, they spun some more.  Some of the children spun for five or more minutes.  They spun and spun.  They twirled the basket so hard that the handle popped off and had to be stuck back on (sorry - no picture of this!).  When they finally stopped, everyone admired the masterpiece.

The fun, however, didn't stop there.  As soon as one painting was done, the children hurried to start another.  The discovered that colors swirled together to make other colors.  They discovered that if they turned the spinner really, pulled off the top, and dropped more paint into the spinner they could watch the paint swirl around the paper.  One child discovered that he could turn until the basket was moving very rapidly, lean over, and watch the paint cascade down the sides of the bowl.

The children kept making spin art for several days.  They explored velocity, centrifical force, colors, decision making, cooperation ... the list is endless.  Unfortunately, however, they did not have a chance to perfect their button pushing technique.  $1.00 yard sale kitchen find vs. a $12.00 electric toy - which is better?  The children know and, fortunately, so do some teachers.

A Boy Scout is Truthful

Work and life have been very busy lately, so blog entries have not been getting done.  That doesn't mean that my mind has not been on them; I am often writing entries in my head while I am occupied at another task.  I have been tying to decide which order to use when writing them, but one thought has been coming to my mind more often than any other - the need for absolute truth when caring for young children.  Everyone knows (I hope) the need for truth at work - not stealing, not faking illness to get out of work, not lying about reimbursable expenses.  I am talking about the need for absolute truth when dealing with children and their families.

Everyone who has worked in a child care center can probably relate a few horror stories - the director who tells a parent about a child's day when she has not been near a child all day, the staff member who tells a parent that they applied sunscreen when they didn't, the staff member who "fixes up" a child's project to impress the parents... the list can go on and on.  Little white lies and harmless untruths?  No.

This was brought forcefully to mind by a mother who visited the center seeking child care for her son.  The administration gave her a tour, explained the center's policies, and explained the center's curriculum, which consists of developmentally appropriate activities that allow the children to explore and investigate their environment.  She told us that her son (who had just turned three) had been in a home day care.  When he was 18 months old the owner had moved him from the infant/toddler room to the preschool room (ages three and up).  There he had learned how to count in English and in Spanish and to say the alphabet.  The mother was very proud that her child had such a body of knowledge.  The only trouble was that most children his age can count and recite the alphabet.  That does not mean, however, that they understand what numbers are and how letters are used; it is the first step to learning that every child must take.  The mother ultimately decided to take her child to another center because we were not "advanced enough" for her child.

It is okay that she decided to use another center; not every center is a perfect fit for every family and every child.   What bothers me is that her child care provider was not honest with her.  If a child was moved up to another room 18 months before he was old enough, he was most likely moved because the day care provider wanted to enroll another infant but did not have enough room until a child moved up.  This means that a child was moved into a room of three, four, and five year olds.  He was playing, socializing, and learning with children who were as much as three and four years older than he was.  I do not mean to belittle the child - he could very well be very bright.  Even so, each child has certain developmental stages that he must reach before he can go on to the next one.  Forcing a child to skip a stage or two does not help him and may even make things more difficult for him in the future.  Convincing a parent that a child is ready to do something that he is not is inexcusable.  The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) has developed a code of ethics for those who care for young children.  The first principle of the code (P 1-1) is "Above all, we shall not harm children".  This does not refer only to physical harm, but to emotional, social, and intellectual harm.  While this child may not have been hurt physically, being put into an environment that the he was not not developmentally ready to enter was not in his best interest.  Was he happy trying to play with children who were on a completely different developmental level?  Was he stressed trying to do work that was not appropriate for him?  Was he frustrated trying to do activities that his hands and eyes and brain were not ready to do?

So often it is tempting to take the easy way out - to tell the little white lie or to stretch the truth a little.  We must remember that we are not just making Aunt Rose feel better by telling that we enjoyed her prune pie, but that we are dealing with children's growth and development as well as with parents' perception of their children.  We need to truthful if everything if we are to be professionals who are dedicated to the growth and perception of young children.  No exceptions!

This post is entitled "A Boy Scout is Truthful" because I was thinking that was a part of the Boy Scout code that would apply to caregivers.  When I looked it up, I discovered that truthful is not part of the Boy Scout code.  Boy Scouts are cheerful, reverent, loyal, trustworthy, etc., etc., etc., but not truthful.  (It is, however, implied!)  Anyway, even though I was wrong about the Boy Scout code, I liked the title so I kept it (and that is the truth!).