Can I just say Open Ended Art and Muffin Tin Monday are the two most anticipated events in our home! My two oldest ask repeatedly,"Why can't we do them more often?" You guys should give them a try if you haven't--so much fun! This week's theme at Teaching My Little Bookworm's Open Ended Art is a collage with yellow.
Here's what we did--I put anything we had on hand that was yellow themed on the table to create with, which included:
This week I began using standard sized, acid free cardstock so that I can make our open ended art projects into a book at the end of this school year for Hanna and Joe. This was an idea from Teaching My Little Bookworm and Chic Mama, and it is a great one!
Here is what my little artists created this week:
Hanna
Joe--Do you see that tiny little object (made from the wax craft sticks) to the right of the donut? Joe told me this is a car--it really looks like one--how cool!!
Now that you've seen our open ended art, head over to Teaching My Little Bookworm and see everyone else's--and if you haven't yet, I bet you'll want to make your own after you see all the fun everyone is having:-)!
I've realized I've been posting things we've created in the kitchen-- edible crafts and recipes for fun--weekly for a couple of months now. So....I have decided to come up with a new weekly carnival, Simply Made Sunday--In the Kitchen With Mom, here each week. I try to cook or create something in the kitchen weekly around our theme, letter of the week or current unit study. Sometimes it's edible and sometimes it's just a craft we've made in the kitchen together.
Simply Made Sunday--In the Kitchen With Mom--will be a linky carnival where you can come and link up any recipes, kitchen crafts or edible yummies you and your little ones have made throughout the week together. If your little ones haven't helped you in the kitchen that's ok too. Have you made something too cute or too yummy for them you're just dying to share with others? You can link it up at Simply Made Sunday! (Older posts welcome.) I love getting ideas for kitchen crafts from other blogs and I hope this will be a way for us to all share our kitchen craft time with each other each week.
Hope you'll join me this Sunday! *Posts can be linked anytime during the week--not just on Sundays--and older posts welcomed!!*
**Leave a comment and let me know what you think! Do you think you'll participate? Want others to participate too--grab a button from my sidebar and post about it:-)!!**
Today there was no theme for Muffin Tin Monday but....since we have been working on a pioneer unit study this month I chose to make pioneer themed muffin tins.
Here is what I put in each tin:
edible covered wagon
homemade butter in a baby food jar (the kids made this Sunday afternoon--it was so quick and so much fun for them!)
milk
trail mix
corn muffins
fruit leather
I can't wait to serve these tins at lunch today! I'll post an update with a picture later this afternoon and tell you what Hanna and Joe thought--I've been posting an update the last few weeks and I really like being able to go back and read later how they reacted. I will also post a "how to" for the edible covered wagon in our pioneer unit study weekly post this Saturday for anyone that is interested:-).
Make sure and head over to Michelle's and join in the Muffin Tin Swap coming up--deadline for entering is July 31st. This should be lots of fun! Don't forget to look at all the fun ideas from MTM today too while you're there. And if you haven't yet, join in--MTM is a highly anticipated time in our home each week:-)!!
**UPDATE** The kids LOVED their tins today! They thought the wagons were cute and fun. My daughter enjoyed all of the foods in her tin. As you can see, Joe couldn't wait to dig into his, going for the sweets first:-). He did not want the corn muffin so I made him a traditional PB & J instead.
My mom's birthday was Thursday and so my little kitchen helper, Joe, helped me whip up some yummy chocolate cupcakes. I'm not one that makes too many box cakes or box desserts. I will sometimes out of convenience, but for me part of baking is doing it from scratch or I feel like I'm cheating--it's crazy, I know:-). Anyway....I decided on chocolate cupcakes. Joe wanted to help me so I chose a recipe that was super quick and easy so he could help with the whole process.
What we used: 6 T. unsalted sweet cream butter 2 oz. semisweet baking chocolate 1 1/4c. dark brown sugar 1 tsp. vanilla 2 eggs pinch of salt 1 tsp. baking soda 1 1/4c. plain flour 1/2c. very hot water
Directions:
Melt butter halfway in a medium saucepan.
When butter is halfway melted add chocolate and melt while stirring with a wooden spoon.
When chocolate is a little more than halfway melted remove from heat. Continue stirring until chocolate and butter are thoroughly blended.
Stir in one at a time, mixing well between ingredients: brown sugar, vanilla, eggs, salt and baking soda.
Stir in flour, mixing very well.
Stir in hot water.
Spoon into muffin cups filling about 3/4 full.
Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes, or until cupcakes are puffy and spring back when you touch them.
Cool and frost if desired.
*I took the very easy way out and frosted these with store bought white icing and then let the kids decorate them with sprinkles we had on hand. However, in the past I have used a couple of different recipes for frosting these like white chocolate or chocolate cream cheese frosting. They were super yummy even with the storebought icing!*
Let me know if you try these--I would love to know if your family enjoys them.
I thought I would also share the book with you that I got this recipe from--the frosting recipes I mentioned above are also in this book. The book is titled, One Pot Cakes. My mom gave this book to me when I moved out on my own years ago. I have always enjoyed baking and this book has become one of my all time favorites. I have used it over and over again through the years. I like it because all of the recipes are from scratch, it has a variety of recipes from super rich, to oatmeal based and fruit and vegetable based recipes. The best thing about it is all in its title--every recipe you make uses only one pot and a wooden spoon to mix--that's all!! I have never made anything from this book that I don't like. A few of my favorite recipes are carrot cake, the chocolate cupcakes above, best ever chocolate cake, banana cupcakes, bleeding heart cupcakes--just to get started. If you enjoy baking cakes and cupcakes you can't go wrong with this book. The simplicity of the recipes make it a great one for baking with kids or teaching kids how to bake.
Ever since Hanna was 3 years old I have had her participate in our local county library Summer Reading Program. Joe also began participating in it when he was 2. I've never quite figured out what the kids love so much about this program, but they do, and they anticipate getting their rewards and medals upon completion as soon as they sign up!
They have both had enough books recorded in their logs for a couple of weeks to get their medals, but wanted to keep recording until they could earn all of their "extra stars" as well. They reached this point Tuesday and after lunch we headed to the library so they could receive their medals. Can you tell by their grins below how excited they were to get them:-)?! I am glad they both have such a love for reading anytime, and not just when being rewarded, but they do look cute with their medals and big smiles:-)!
We had a fun week of Tot School at our home this week. We learned alot through play. I had many intentions of introducing some new tot tools to Jack that I've been working on but...I didn't get them finished up so we used what we already had. I hope to have a few new things for him this upcoming week.
Jack had fun slippin' and slidin' and playing in the sprinkler at his Nana's house with his older brother and sister. He spent quite a bit of time sitting in the itty bitty ring pool trying to take his shoes on and off over and over again. This has been a fascination of his with any pair of shoes he finds at home this past week. It's been fun watching him and seeing the big smile and look of pride on his face when he actually gets a shoe on.
Jack had fun playing hide-and-seek and peek'a'boo with Hanna and Joe in his tunnel. He also enjoyed taking books and matchbox cars into the tunnel to read and play for awhile by himself.
Jack played with some of his musical learning toys and his favorite Mega Blocks farm too. He can recognize and retrieve all of the farm animals and imitate their sounds if asked as of this week with his farm or in a book. He also knows by name and will point to his eyes, mouth, hands, feet and nose.
I've been trying to teach Jack how to aim and throw with his animal basketball game. Let's just say he really enjoys watching the rest of us throw and he claps when we make a "basket", but his attempts at the game for now consist of throwing the animals around the room, running to get all of them and then placing them back in the container. He'll catch on soon:-). He has fun watching us and we're having fun together--that's what matters most!
That wraps up our Tot School learning this week. We mainly played and were really busy getting ready around our home for our newest little one who will be joining us very soon! We had a busy, but fun week. We are looking forward to a day trip to a large, nearby park next week to see animals, wildlife, paddle boats and much more!!
To see what else we've done in our Tot School so far, click *here*. To see what everyone else has done this week for Tot School head over to 1+1+1=1 for tons of great ideas!
This week in our Preschool Corner our letter of the week was "Ss". We studied about snakes and read lots of books about them too. I let Joe choose several different kinds of snakes he wanted to learn more about and we checked books and a few DVD's out from the library. He enjoyed learning about snake habits, homes, body parts and the snake life cycle.
Joe continued on with his Code lessons, loving every minute of them:-). He worked on his Alpha Animals file folder game and we did some extra writing practice too. When I started preschool with Joe a few months ago he didn't even know the alphabet song in its entirety or any of the individual letter sounds. As of this week Joe knows all of his letter sounds, even the ones we haven't studied in depth yet, and has mastered the phonics file folder games I made for him. Time to make some new ones to challenge him all over again. He is so eager to learn and wants to try anything I throw at him. I am so proud of him!
Books
Crafts Joe made a snake letter "S" and a paper plate snake. Together we made a yummy chocolate snake. You can see our chocolate snake and get the recipe *here*. We also participated again in Teaching My Little Bookworm's open ended art--you can read about and see that project *here*. This was our third week into our pioneer project unit study. Joe helped us make candles and a wagon. You can see these projects *here*.
Math Joe worked through the next five lessons in Abeka 4K math. We also practiced counting to 100--he hasn't mastered this on his own yet, but gets a little better at it each week. We practiced number recognition with our flashcards. I did a couple different things with our flashcards this week: I randomly placed numbers 0-20 on the floor and had him put them in numerical order; I also had him make numbers that I called out for the numbers 1-50.
Joe is doing really well with number sequence and recognition. I want to start working on even/odd and maybe counting by two's next. I had Joe practice writing numbers this week on his dry erase board. Some of the numbers are really tricky for him and I know he can use lots of practice in this area. I try not to do too much of the writing practice though, because it's really hard for him and I don't want him to become burned out or grow to dread writing.
New Learning Materials I ordered a few new learning tools/toys for Joe within the last week. I've gotten a couple of the items in the mail already and we tried out one this week--a lacing tree. I wanted to practice lacing and wanted a unique toy for this. I found this lacing tree at Amazon. He caught on pretty fast and demonstrated lots of patience. This was his first attempt at lacing and he enjoyed it. I was surprised by how much time and patience he put into placing and attaching so many items to the tree. He asked to do this a few days this week and enjoyed it each time.
I have some new lesson ideas/unit studies for Joe beginning next week in History. If they go as planned you'll hear all about them in next week's wrap-up.
To read about all of our other Preschool Fun, click *here*. To see what others are doing in their Preschool Corner this week visit Homeschool Creations for some great ideas!
Hanna got alot done this week. She worked very independently, efficiently and was super productive. I'll have to say this was her best week yet! ELA/Math She finished up copywork last week for Sandi McQueen's Language Lessons and picked up another set of lessons this week on creative writing. Next week she will begin a week's worth of lessons on grammar in this course. She also completed her daily Spell Quizzer tests, Wordly Wise lesson of the week and Grammar Ace lesson 2. I can't believe she went from dreading (almost to tears) Rod and Staff ELA to loving and actually having fun with Language Lessons and Grammar Ace--this is a blessing to both of us!! Rod and Staff Math is still a good fit for Hanna. She did a bit better with her times tables this week, but still needs practice and is still practicing these daily. It amazes me that she has trouble with times tables but can figure out a word problem in no time!
History Hanna is still completing her book for history, Tales of Ancient Egypt. She will finish it this week and write her research paper on it next week. She also worked on her Ancient Egypt history pocket this week, finishing up the first 3 sections, as well as doing reading and crafting for our Pioneer Unit study which you can read about *here*.
Science Hanna completed lesson 6 of Apologia Zoology 1--Flying Creatures this week. This lesson was about eggs. Some of the terminology that was referred to in this lesson was a bird's clutch, precocial birds, incubation, development of birds in eggs, and hatching, among lots of other very interesting bird facts. This was a short lesson in comparison to others in the book, however it covered alot and was really fun. She and I both enjoyed it and are looking forward to the experiments for this lesson, especially the one on egg candling. She will begin this experiment Monday, and it will take about 3 weeks of observation to complete. I will give an update on it each week beginning next week.
This week we continued crafting and learning about pioneers. Hanna finished reading the Kirsten (American Girl) book series and the first two Little House books. She began work on her Little House lapbook. I will post pictures of it when she completes it. We watched lots and lots of Little House episodes from our DVD collection--I'll use any excuse I can get to watch Little House:-). I caught my 4 year old at the bathroom sink numerous times this week washing his face. He has never done this. I asked him the first time I found him doing this, what was he doing and his response was, "I'm washing my face like Pa does." This was so cute, I had to try so hard not to laugh because he was completely serious:-).
We read several books and articles on our religious history of the pioneers and watched a movie titled Legacy.
Hanna finished her covered wagon complete with a yarn doll family.
We also made a very simple version of candles. Originally I had all these grand plans of making small dipped tapers, but.....I decided on these mainly because I wanted to involve my 4 year old in the whole process and there was no way he would stay with it for as long as it would have taken to do the tapers. This isn't as old-fashioned as I would have preferred, but the candles turned out cute and the kids (both of them) were able to help lots and had fun making them too!
We used:
small baby food jars
paraffin wax
weighted wicks
liquid color concentrate for candles
tooth picks
hot glue/glue gun
Directions:
Break wax into small chunks and melt in saucepan (or double boiler) in stovetop.
Place a small dot of hot glue in bottom of baby food jar and secure wick to bottom of jar.
Pour melted wax into jars.
Add color concentrate to wax in jars and mix well with a toothpick.
Keep adding concentrate until candle achieves the color you desire.
We had a fun week with this unit! I still have a few more things for us to complete before we wrap it all up. We are learning alot and having fun in the process and that's what is most important!!
This week's Open Ended Art theme at Teaching My Little Bookworm is painting with the color yellow. All I did for this was just simply put out yellow paint and a whole lot of different types and textures of brushes for Hanna and Joe. Joe ended up doing a little fingerpainting as well. They both painted a duck and a sun along with other various objects. Joe and I had just finished our "Code" lesson for the day and he had his letter sounds on his mind, so he painted things that began with the letters we'd been learning and reviewing which made me very happy!!
Here is Hanna's:
Here is Joe's:
Now that you've seen what we've created, create your own masterpiece with your little one(s) and then head over to Teaching My Little Bookworm to check out everyone else's and "link up"!
Our letter of the week is "Ss", so we made some yummy chocolate snakes today. Thought I would share the recipe for anyone who wants to try it. This was so easy to make--so easy, Joe made the majority of it himself. If you try it, come back and let me know what you think!
What we used:
1/2c. pnut butter
1/2c. powdered milk
1/2c. honey
1 T. cocoa powder
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/2c. chopped pnuts
2 T. shredded coconut
What we did:
Combine pnut butter and powdered milk in mixing bowl with wooden spoon until well blended.
Stir in, one at a time, honey, cocoa, vanilla, nuts and coconut.
Place on waxed paper and shape into a thick snake.
Wrap in the waxed paper and chill.
Cut into slices to serve.
*I added raisins for eyes and shaped part of a fruit roll-up into a forked tongue.*
Today's Muffin Tin Monday is all about dips and sauces. I kept mine really simple today. The pretzel rods are my big "to do" for today:-). Here's what I used to fill our tins today:
dipped pretzel rods (the kids have been begging for these since the 4th of July MTM)
assorted fresh fruits or carrot sticks
Ritz crackers with pnut butter
ranch dressing
Cool Whip
Like I said, keeping it simple:-). Make sure and head over to Her Cup Overfloweth and take a peek at all the other tins today. If you haven't given MTM a try at your house, what are you waiting for?! Join in--it's so much fun!!
These are both very simple recipes, but I had several comments asking for them so I thought I would post the recipes I used for popcorn balls and pudding pops earlier this week in case you'd like to make them too.
Popcorn Balls
1/4 c. butter
2 c. mini marshmallows (I used the pastel colored, fruit flavored ones)
6 c. plain popcorn (I took the easy way out and used 6c. pre-popped Kettle Corn)
1/2 tsp. vanilla
Melt butter in medium sized mixing bowl in microwave for 30 seconds.
Add marshmallows and place back in microwave for one minute (high power). Remove and stir butter and marshamallows together. (Marshmallows should be melted.)
Stir in vanilla.
Pour liquid mixture over popcorn in a large mixing bowl. Mix until well combined with a wooden or non-stick spoon.
Spray your hands with Pam and shape popcorn into balls.
Place balls on waxed paper until they are completely cooled and have had time to "firm up". Store them in an airtight container.
Pudding Pops
1 5.9 oz. package instant choc. pudding
3 c. milk (I used 2%)
8 chocolate chip cookies, crushed (I used Chips Ahoy Chunky)
3/4 c. thawed Cool Whip
craft sticks
3 oz. or 5 oz. plastic cups
Beat pudding mix and milk with a whisk in a large mixing bowl.
Crush cookies. (I let my daughter crush them in a ziploc bag with the rolling pin.)
Add cookies and Cool Whip to pudding in large bowl and stir.
Spoon into plastic cups.
Insert one craft stick in each cup in the middle.
Freeze about 5 hours (I just left mine overnight) or until very firm.
To remove pops from plastic cups: Run bottom half of plastic cup under water (doesn't have to be warm) for a few seconds and then gently squeeze bottom of cup releasing the whole pudding pop.
I served these in the kids' tins for Muffin Tin Monday this week so below is a picture of both of them.
We also made some homemade fingerpaint this week. You can find that recipe *here*.
This week our letter of the week is "Pp". Joe began book B in the Code series. He was so excited to start his new book. Each morning we do his Code lesson first because he enjoys it so much he can hardly wait to begin. I think he would do half of the book in one sitting if I let him:-). Joe used our consonant cards from Homeschool Creations again this week--we both love these cards!! We didn't have a big theme this week. We were gone alot throughout the week, so we didn't do a whole lot of extras, but we had lots of fun out and about, especially on our day trip to the beach!
Books For our books this week, I didn't even get to the library as I normally do for our themed letter of the week/animal books. Joe was pretty disappointed, so I won't let this happen again--he reminded me of it often:-). He loves to read and looks forward to his library time and new books each week more than I realized! We read books from home that began with or included animals about the letter "Pp".
Crafts Joe made an upper and lowercase letter "Pp" out of popscicle sticks and pasta on purple paper.
Joe also fingerpainted along with his brother and sister for his little brother's Tot School. You can see the fun we had with this activity and get the recipe *here*.
Math Joe continued with daily Abeka math lessons this week. I am in the process of finding fun math games and lessons for Joe. I just want to liven up what he does for math a couple of times a week. He is perfectly happy with his workbook, flash cards and writing practice for math--it's me that wants more:-). History We crafted this week and learned more about the Pioneers in our unit study. Read about and see all that we did this week in our study of the pioneers *here*.
*To see what else we've done so far in our Preschool Corner, click *here.*
Don't forget to peek in at Homeschool Creations and see what others are doing in their Preschool Corner's too!
