I made a mess of beans yesterday in an attempt to make a white chicken chili. The chili was pretty yummy. It was the first time I tried to use dried beans and we could all tell, but it was edible, I learned a lesson and I'll do better next time.
First lesson, when a recipe calls for 3 lbs of beans, you don't have to buy a 4 lb. bag of dried beans.
Second, read the alternate instructions at the end of the recipe for using dried beans rather than the instructions on the bag of beans, unless you want to have a lot of beans left over for a sensory activity with your children.
Here are pictures of Layla spooning beans, scooping beans, spooning beans into the scoop, emptying the small dish back into the big pot and continuing. After this occupied her for 45 minutes this morning, I was glad I made way, way too many beans.
Then, I really let her dig in when I hid a few "treasures" in the pot and asked her to find them.
(Sorry the picture quality is horrible. She wasn't really cooperating, but what more could I ask, she was playing very well by herself.)
We also talked about whether the beans were small or big, wet or dry, warm or cold, a few or many ;-) and smooth or rough. She did really well with all of those descriptions and then starting naming some more opposites for me.
I won't intentionally cook extra beans next time as I could have done this activity many, many times with uncooked dried beans, but if I ever have too many of something like this, I'll know to save it for a rainy day activity!
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