Making Muffins

January 17, 2023

O (2.5) gathered many materials and brought them to the table: muffin cups, muffin tins (small and large), and blue play dough. She picked up one muffin cup and put a handful of play dough in it. Then she asked me to squish it down. After I squished the play dough in the cup, O put the muffin in the small muffin tin and quickly realized that it did not fit. So she switched it for the large muffin tin. She put the muffin inside and excitedly said, "it fits!"

Then O and I got back to work. She put play dough into muffin cups and I squished them down. She placed each one into the large muffin tin. Most of the muffins had about a handful of play dough in them. But the last few were different. O put a penny-sized ball of play dough in a few muffin cups. After I squished them down, I said, "these muffins are so small." O repeated, "so small! Teeny weeny muffin!" Then, in the last muffin cup, O put much more play dough. The muffin cup overflowed with playdough.

O picked up the muffin tin and said, "we need to put it in the oven." So she brought the muffin tin over to the wooden climbing equipment. She put it inside the hole and left it inside for a while. After several minutes, I asked her if the muffins were done yet. O ran over to check on her muffins. She thought they were ready and needed to be taken out of the oven. We looked around for something to use as oven mittens, but we couldn't find anything. O had an idea to use wooden spoons to lift it out together. So we each used a spoon to lift one side of the muffin tin, but it kept slipping. Then we found some fabric to cover our hands. O asked me to pull the muffin tin out like that and it worked! Then we pretended to eat the muffins together!

Reflections

O has shown a great interest in baking ever since she came to Wild Roses Early Learning Center! She has engaged in sorting the muffin cups by colour, filling muffin cups with play dough, and transferring play dough back and forth from the container. 

Today she incorporated more dramatic play by pretending to bake the muffins! It was such a creative idea to use the climbing equipment as the oven! She used her imagination to make these symbols of representation; play dough as muffin batter and climbing equipment as an oven.

Through this play experience, O was exploring quantity and comparing sizes. She noticed when the muffin cups were too large for the small muffin tin. We also discussed the amount of play dough/muffin batter that she put in each muffin cup. She noticed the differences between the medium size, small, and very large muffins. 

She showed interest in the transporting and positioning schemas. This was observed through her repetitive actions of filling and emptying the muffin cups with play dough and moving them around. O would put the muffin cups in a line, sort them by colour, and place them in specific spots in the muffin tins. 

O also displayed great problem solving skills! She quickly realized the size differences of muffin tins and switched them to use the bigger one. We also worked together to solve the oven mitten problem. She thought of using wooden spoons first. When that didn’t work, we looked around the room to find other materials. Using fabric to wrap around our hands symbolized oven mittens. She used creativity, once again, to work out this practical problem. We needed something to protect our hands while touching a hot muffin tin and found fabric to cover our hands!

We can expand on this interest in many different ways! I will create provocations with various loose parts to incorporate into her muffin making such as pom poms and flower petals. We can also explore materials other than play dough to create muffins out of such as snow, slime, or bubbles!

We can bake real muffins for snack by following a recipe and adding ingredients into a bowl. She can help to pour the batter into muffin tins as she did during play and watch them as they rise in the oven! This will incorporate real life baking skills into her play!