Easy No-Bake "Cinnamon Rolls" {Cooking with Kids}

Here's a snack that kids can make themselves.  It's a great exercise in Montessori Practical Life skills.  All you need is sliced bread, softened butter or margarine, cinnamon, and sugar.  Here's how the kids make it...

Cooking with Kids: Crepes {France Learning Unit}

In our study of France in Homeschool Kindergarten, the kids and I made crepes.  It was a great Montessori-style practical life activity with plenty of fine motor skills work.  Here's what we did...

Apple Peanut Butter Crunch Snacks for Kids

My kids absolutely love snacks that they can make themselves, and this apple peanut butter crunch do-it-yourself snack fits the bill perfectly!  It's really simple, fun, and tasty.  Here's how we made it..

Making Soap With Kids

I bought a soap-making kit back in December, hoping to make holiday presents for everyone with the kids.  We ended up going to visit my in-laws a week earlier than planned, so the soap making never happened.  Instead, we made soaps as a little Valentine's Day activity.  The girls (3.5 years old) and I had so much fun.  It's such a great sensory and fine motor exercise for kids with even a little science thrown in...

Montessori Monday - Painting and Washing Plastic Animals

One of my kids' favorite Montessori-inspired activities involves painting their plastic animals and subsequently giving them baths.  They've been doing this activity every once in a while since before they were 2 years old.  This morning I made the mistake of asking the kids what they wanted to do (I usually pick what we do for Preschool in the morning).  L said she wanted to paint, and E said she wanted to play with animals, so I was reminded of this animal painting/bathing activity, and both kids were happy...

What's in the Castle? - Sound Identification Game

"What's in the Castle?" is a Montessori-inspired sound-matching game which my 3-year-olds absolutely LOVE!  It challenges them to isolate their sense of hearing to identify sounds of various animals, objects, and musical instruments...

Montessori Practical Life Snack: Banana Skewers

This Montessori-inspired snack takes no prep-time, and kids get great practice with fine-motor skills making it themselves.  Here are the steps..

Cooking with Kids: Process not Perfection

The girls and I made banana bread the other night as an early Fathers Day present for their dad.  Now that I've left my job, I feel a lot less stressed in general, and I had a really good time just observing how much the kids enjoy the process of creating something new..

Cooking With Kids: Mini Pizzas

For our weekly Cooking Day, the girls and I made mini-pizzas.  Not only was this a fairly easy kid-friendly cooking activity, but the results turned into a great lunch that my husband and I enjoyed as well.  Here's how we did it..

Five Minute Teddy Bear Cape

Today we read Corduroy, the classic story of a bear who goes in search of his missing button.  In less than 5 minutes, I put together some capes for their stuffed animals, so they can practice their buttoning skills...

Cooking with Kids: Deviled Eggs

For our weekly Cooking Day this week, we made deviled eggs.  The process is a lot of fun and uses some wonderful Montessori practical life skills...

The Great Rice Incident

My husband and I have an ongoing debate on the subject of what types of activities kids should do.  My opinion is that kids should be given as many opportunities for sensory exploration as possible; That splashing in water, digging in sand, and painting with their fingers (and feet) are an essential part of early learning.  My husband's opinion is that kids should not be given anything that could end up messy until they are old enough to play with it 'properly' (without making a mess).  One source of contention is the rice box...

Making Orange Juice

I like to let the kids make their own orange juice once or twice a week (it's actually made with clementines not oranges, but we call it orange juice anyway).  It's a great Montessori motor-skills exercise with cutting, squeezing, and pouring practice. It is also useful for being able to describe the sequence of events (they tell me what we do first, what comes next, etc..).

Here are some pictures of the kids making their own juice:

The twins (31 months old) are not strong enough to really squeeze all the juice out, so for that part we either do it together or take turns.  Usually two clementines only produce a shot-glass full of juice, but it's the process that counts.  I always try to sneak in some liquid vitamins into the juice since the Vitamin C from citrus products helps with iron absorption.

In the past, we would also include a lengthy first step that involved scrubbing the clementines and then rinsing them in water, which the girls loved to do.  Unfortunately, my husband decided that the wonderful fruit-and-vegetable-scrubbers we had would be great for cleaning the bathroom, so we've stopped that part until I can get some replacement scrubbers. 

Fun with... Laundry!

Today (after throwing all the clean laundry from my bed to the floor) the kids helped me sort and fold the laundry.  It actually turned out to be quite a bit of fun, and used lots of good fine and gross motor skills. 

First we sorted the clothes into categories, and then I showed the girls how to fold different types of items:

The kids worked very carefully on this task and did a fantastic job.  If the folding was not quite right they kept trying until they got it.  Folding blankets was an extra challenge because it involved teamwork:

Finally we played a little game with matching socks (I confess - I pulled more clean socks out of the dresser for this).  We put all the socks into a pile and then had to run to the pile, find a pair of matching socks, run back to the other side of the room and put them down on the tray.  At first L didn't want to play, but after I offered to time her with the stopwatch, she suddenly became interested (a little competitive spirit in that girl).  She made me take a turn while she timed me, too (workout for the day - check!). 

 

E didn't want to play the sock game at all because she was sitting in Baby H's carseat pretending to be a baby.  It brought tears to my eyes to see what a big girl she looks like in the chair that we used to bring her home from the hospital as a 4-lbs preemie only 2.5 years ago.  How quickly they grow!

The good time we had with laundry reminded me that kids' activities don't always have to be complicated or pre-planned... there is fun (and learning) in even the simple everyday things. 

Oh, and I'd love to say this activity helped me get something done around the house.  But, alas, after the clothes were folded, the kids decided it would be fun to throw them back into the laundry basket and then engage in other miscellaneous mess-creating activities around my bedroom...

Jamberry Jam: Montessori Style Cooking

Just like our art experiences, when I have Cooking Day for the kids, I try to focus more on the process than the final result.  Yesterday after I read the girls Jamberry by Bruce Degen, L asked if we could make jam.  After looking at jam recipes online, I realized I don't have pecitin powder, which seems to be a key ingredient in all of them, so we improvised.  We dragged out the process and used lots of Montessori Practical Life and fine motor skills until I came up with something to actually make with the berries.

The first activity was plucking the leaves from the strawberries:

Next, the girls transferred blueberries into their containers:

A pouring activity followed - the girls emptied the large water cup into their bowls without a spill:

The girls' favorite part was washing the berries with their hands:

I realized that I'd never done any filtering or straining/draining with the girls, so they got to use a colander for the first time:

Next, the plastic knives came out and we cut the strawberries into smaller pieces (I'm happy to say no fingers were harmed in this exercise by my knife-wielding toddlers):

Then the majority of the cut strawberries were eaten by L.  This preparation process took a long time, and by now I'd devised a plan for making "jam".  The girls helped me add 1 cup of water and 1/4 cup of blue jell-o powder to the berries, and then watched as I boiled and stirred the mixture.

The result was basically a berry compote with a bit of jelly consistency.  Both girls tried it at dinner (even picky E).  Unfortunately the jello added a texture that they were not used to and even L who eats everything tried it and then told me it was 'weird'.  Now there's a tupperware container full of "jam" that my husband and I will have to finish.  Oh well - it's the process that counts, right?

Update:  after some time chilling in the fridge, the jam turned out delicious!   I ate it all by myself over the course of three days in yogurt parfait - YUM!

Cooking with Kids: Banana Pops

L and E are 30 months.

I try to do a cooking/baking day with the twins once a week, which they love (what's not to like about wearing aprons and wielding knives!).  Today we made banana-pops out of banana slices, yogurt, and sprinkles.  I've seen a couple yogurt-dipped-fruit ideas floating around Pinterest, which gave me this idea.

First the girls peeled their bananas, and then cut them into smaller pieces with plastic kitchen knives:

(All the practice with cutting playdough is finally paying off).  Then we put little food picks in them and dipped them in yogurt.  If you try this at home I would use something other than these foodpicks / toothpicks because the banana pieces kept falling off and then at the end I removed them all for fear that they would snap in two while the girls were eating their pops.

Then we shook on some candy sprinkles ($1 at target) - I think the girls enjoyed this part the best.  You could probably also just dip them in the sprinkles for more consistent results.

Finally, I put them in the freezer for a tasty treat.  Putting them on wax/parchment paper is probably a good idea so you don't have to pry them off your plate when they're done like I did.  These were REALLY good - I had one or two (or five!) before L and E woke up from their naps.

YUM!