Woodland Walk

I took some of the toddlers to East Carlton Country Park last week where we collected lots of leaves, twigs, conkers, acorns and pine cones.  They had lots of fun running around, feeling the bark on the trees and jumping in the crunchy leaves on the ground.

When we got home we made a Woodland Small World tray with all of the bits and pieces we found.  Then we added some woodland animals to it.  The children have loved playing with it throughout the week, feeling the different textures, making owl and fox sounds and role-playing with the animals and getting very muddy in the compost!

Gruffalo Crumble

The children and I went blackberry picking this morning.  We picked just enough to make our afternoon activity: Gruffalo Crumble!

Here is the recipe we used.  It is a Rachel Allen recipe from the Good Food channel website.

Ingredients

·         4 large cooking apples, peeled, cored and cut into big chunks

·         1 tbsp water

·         3 tbsp sugar

·         225g fresh or frozen blackberries, or mixed berries

For the crumble:

·         170g plain flour

·         75g butter

·         75g Demerara sugar

Method

Preheat the oven to 180C/gas 4.

Put the apple chunks, water and sugar into a saucepan over a lowish heat and cook until the apples are soft and mushy; this should take about 10 minutes. While cooking, stir it every minute or so to prevent sticking. Taste and add more sugar if it needs it.

Transfer the apple pulp into individual bowls or one big pie dish and allow to cool slightly. Stir the berries into the apples.

To make the crumble, rub the butter into the flour until it resembles very coarse breadcrumbs. However, if you rub it too much the crumble will not be crunchy. Combine with the sugar. Sprinkle the crumble mixture over the slightly cooled apple and bake for 15 mins for small crumbles or 30-45 mins for larger crumbles. Serve warm with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

I added some Gruffalo eyes, horns and a poisonous wart on top of the crumble which is made from sugar paste.

At the end it looked like this:

We all had a piece served with ice cream.  It was delicious!

Gruffalo Woodland Walk

This afternoon we all went on a woodland walk at Fermyn Woods.  We met up with Naomi and her nannying children and set off into the trees to find the things on our list.

I made a sheet with pictures of things the children had to find; green leaves, brown leaves, acorns, conkers, a squirrel, a bird, ants, trees, bark, sycamore seeds, pine cones and.... a Gruffalo!

Unfortunately there weren't many signs of autumn at Fermyn this afternoon.  It was very sunny and warm, and all the leaves were still on the trees!  We did see some birds and an eagle flying in the sky and collected a few green leaves. There were no Gruffalos!

After our walk we went to the Tot's Corner where the little ones had some fun on the wooden train and enclosures.

After we'd been in the park for about an hour, the heavens opened and we had to run back to the car!

We had a great time.  I do love Fermyn Woods.  There's so much to do and it was lovely and quiet today, now that the kids have all gone back to school.

This afternoon's activity; Gruffalo Crumble.  Look out for the recipe coming up!