grinding coffee beans

I had some old coffee beans in my cabinet so I thought we would finish them off by grinding them with our mortar and pestle. Oh, the aroma was delicious! It brought me back to my college days when I was a barista at U of I! :)

The beans proved fairly easy to grind:

The children wanted to 'make coffee' but alas, it was caffinated.

The end!

grinding corn with the mortar and pestles

We received a gift of corn kernels from Ms. Kelly and Ms. Beth after they were finished using them in their room. Score! We poured them in our sensory table and added some for grinding in the mortars. We quickly discovered that the less kernals in the mortar the easier it is to grind. 

The end!

ice in the mortars

A while ago I posted about our new mortar and pestles. 

We've been crushing various natural items like dried leaves and seeds but a little extra left over ice from the kitchen got me to thinking about switching it up a little bit. So I added to ice to the center and the children began to grind away.

The end result looked like slushy! Hmmmm homemade slushies?


The end!