cracking nuts

Nut cracking is the thing to do around here lately!

Not only do the almonds, walnuts, and hazelnuts taste delish,
but their shells split open with a satisfying "CRACK!"

Unlike apple slicing and lemon juicing,
there aren't a lot of steps,
so even the littlest ones are able to take a turn.

All you really need is a little elbow grease!



The materials:

a dish for holding the nuts
a nutcracker {I've seen them at thrift stores, too.}
a dish for serving the nuts
a crumber for sweeping up broken shells
an assortment of nuts
{Before doing this lesson, we made sure NO children had nut allergies.}

Because it's a food lesson,
the child washes his hands and puts on an apron.
Then, he chooses 4 nuts from a basket near the lesson on the shelf.
{There's a little sign on the basket that says "4."}
He sets his materials up on a mat and starts cracking!
The meat the child picks out of the shells is placed in a dish.
After the child has cracked all 4 nuts, he sweeps up the shells,
and puts the lesson back on the shelf.

At this point, the child can either serve the nuts to the other children,
or eat them himself.
The older children tend to choose serving,
and the younger children tend to gobble the nuts up themselves!
{This is slowly starting to change as they discover
the joy of sharing food, though!}