Pavlova

We are continuing our Author Study of Mem Fox. As we were reading Mem Fox's Possum Magic this week, we discovered many Australian foods that we were not familiar with such as lamingtons, Anzac biscuits and pavlova! So for our Fun Friday Treat we decided to have one of the delicious Australian delights... until we looked at the recipes, which were a little more complex than we had imagined! So... we decided we'd Americanize one of the deserts, Pavlova, which is really a meringue-type dessert with fresh fruit. Our version included a slice of white sponge cake, whipped cream topping with fresh strawberries and blueberries. We discovered that many of our children were eating blueberries for the first time! Some of the children loved them and Chloe even told us about going blueberry picking on a farm last year (we recalled the pattern book that she wrote about the experience), but other children DID NOT LIKE THEM AT ALL! Whether the children liked our version of pavlova or not, the point was to give them some background experience so if they ever come across that word again, they will have a mental image of what it is and what it tastes like and will even remember that it is an Australian dessert. This is the same process we go through with any new vocabulary word although we can't TASTE every new word that we learn! Make sure to ask your child how they enjoyed pavlova as our Fun Friday Treat!