Sometimes, as a teacher, you wake up dreading the days when you can’t go outside. Whether it is raining or too cold, it is rarely a good thing when the kiddos don’t get their daily dose of fresh air and, most importantly, when they don’t get to run! Last Friday, as we knew we wouldn’t be able to go outside, we planned a special day with the toddlers. We started by baking mini egg frittatas that we later enjoyed for snack.
The frittatas were especially fun, in my opinion. It involved many tastings and even more eggs to crack! It is also a very healthy recipe that could become a balanced breakfast or lunch for them, if the portions were bigger. It was colorful and tasty. This time, we decided that I would do the slicing but, while I did, we let the children taste the bell pepper (after showing them what it looked like when you slice it open) as well as the deli ham. Four lucky kiddos got to crack eggs and the others helped us whisked all the ingredients. This recipe was also a great occasion to review colors with our yellow egg yolks, red peppers, white milk and pink ham!
Mini Egg Frittatas
Ingredients
- 4 eggs
- 3 tablespoons of milk
- 2 slices of deli ham, diced
- 1/2 bell pepper, diced
- 1/4 cup of Parmesan cheese, grated
- Salt & pepper
- 1/4 cup of cheddar cheese, shredded
Directions
1.Grease the muffin pan and preheat the oven at 375F.
2.In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, salt and pepper. Mix in the ham, bell pepper and Parmesan cheese.
3.Pour the mixture into your greased muffin pan. Sprinkle cheddar cheese over each cup.
4.Bake for approximately 15 minutes or until the egg is cooked all the way through.
The great thing about this recipe is that you can switch it up very easily. You can substitute pretty much any cooked meat or vegetable to mix in there. This is especially good for picky eaters but also if you want to add some variety.
As I mentioned, the cooking project wasn’t the only highlight of our day “stuck inside”. After we enjoyed our frittatas, we had the children paint with colored ice cubes. The activity was messy (we all had neon pink hands by the end of it) but so much fun! Not only was it a great way to teach them about cold and ice (and how it melts) but it was also a beautiful way to create watercolor-like art.
Later, we brought out the big guns (figure of speech, obviously). Before the winter break, my co-worker and I went to pick up a package at UPS and saw a huge box of packing peanuts. Of course, as teachers, we immediately came up with hundreds of possible uses for them. The nice lady at the counter told us she was planning to throw them away so we could take them all if we wanted to. Jackpot! We decided to keep them for an eventual inside day. And Friday was that day. As we couldn’t go outside to play in the real snow (it was too cold), we thought we’d make this a pretend play activity. We took the big bag of packing beans and dumped it all over the children’s heads. We told them it was snow. We had honestly never heard them laugh that hysterically! We made snow angels, threw snow balls and all around had a blast. This was all fun until we realized how messy and full of static the foam beans were. Not only did they break apart into tiny pieces of foam, they also stuck to everyone and everything. Seriously, it has been almost a week and we are still finding pieces of foam everywhere. But no one can deny that it was absolutely worth it.
The Hungry Quebbie 
I love frittatas! Great way to clean out the veggie drawer on Sundays. Thanks for posting this … I’ve never made in muffin pans but I’m gonna give it a try.