Sunday, July 31, 2011

Week 4

Week 4--PIE-o-neer

* Nursery Rhymes: "The Queen of Hearts," "Sing a Song of Sixpence," "Jack Horner," and "Simple Simon"
* Recipe: Mini Tarts
* Craft: Tinkly Tambourines


Mini Tarts

1 stick butter
1/8 tsp. salt
1 c. all-purpose flour
2 Tbs. sugar
3 Tbs. water

assorted fruit, cut into small pieces

1/2 c. clear red jelly, apple jelly, or strained apricot jelly


1. Mix flour, salt, and sugar.  Cut in butter until mixtures resembles fine crumbs.  Add water, 1 Tbs. at a time until dough cleans the bowl.  Knead a few times.  Roll out thinly (I did all these steps myself for ease of clean up).
   Cut into circles larger than your pans.  (Can use tart pans or muffin pans).


   Press into pans.  Prick all over with fork.



   Bake in 400 degree F oven for 15 minutes, or until brown.  Let cool on wire rack.

  Place jam/jelly in saucepan and melt over low heat.  Brush into cooled pie shells.




   Decorate with fruit.  Brush more jelly glaze over top.  Let cool and ENJOY!!
  



~ TiNkLy TaMbOuRiNeS ~

These are popular with the younger kids and WARNING--these are loud!  We limit the time these can be used :).

What you need:

Aluminum pie pans
String
Bells, buttons, beads, shells, etc...

1. Punch 10-12 holes around each pie pan, using a hole punch.

2. Cut a piece of string at least twice as long as the pan's circumference.

3. Thread string in and out the holes, adding a bell, button, bead, or shell, in between each hole.

4. Tie string ends together (not too tightly--you want a little slack to make noise).





Time to make some noise!!



Saturday, July 30, 2011

Week 3

Week 3--Science summer camp...

The girls had day camp on the Puget Sound.  Every day they spent roaming tidepools, parusing the aquarium and happily handling sea creatures [and learning a lot].  For the boys, I was hoping to take them to the beach, at this time, but the weather wasn't cooperating.

We decided to take some typical outdoor fun and do it inside!

Recipe: Indoor S'mores
Craft: Sand Castle Clay


Indoor S'mores

5 c. miniature marshmallows
1/3 c. light corn syrup
6 Tbs. margarine or butter
1 1/2 c. milk chocolate chips
1 tsp. vanilla
8 c. Golden Grahams or Honey Grahams Square cereals
1 c. miniature marshmallows


1. Measure cereal into large bowl.
2. Butter a 13"x9"x2" rectangular pan.


3. Melt 5 c. miniature marshmallows,
corn syrup, margarine, and chocolate
chips in saucepan over low heat, stirring
constantly; remove from heat.  Stir in vanilla.

4. Mix melted ingredients with cereal quicky until
completely coated.  Stir in 1 c. marshmallows.
5. Grease hands.


6. Press mixture, evenly, into prepared pan.


7. Let stand at least 1 hour, or refrigerate for a
firmer bar. Cut into squares/rectangles.  Enjoy!!!


Sand Castle Clay

1 c. sand
1/2 c. cornstarch
3/4 c. liquid starch

1. Combine sand and cornstarch in an old pot.
2. Add liquid starch and mix.


3. Cook the mixture over medium heat while constantly stirring.
Eventually the mixture will thicken and turn into dough.
(This is a good arm work out--for the adult to do!)

4. Remove pot from stove and let cool.




5. Remove clay from pot and knead it 20-30 seconds before using.



 6. Cover surface with an old tablecloth (sand scratches!)
7. Mold the sand to your liking (playdoh toys work well)!



8. Add shells, sea glass, pebbles to your liking. 
9. When dry, you may have to glue some pieces on :).





Thursday, July 21, 2011

Happy belated 4th!

Since he wasn't around at President's Day....

If you are a baby in my household you will wear a George-Washington-looking-diaper-wig at some point in your young life. 


I may have a weird mom--but at least I'm cute!!!

Monday, July 11, 2011

Summer Fun! Weeks 1 and 2!

Summer fun, our way, means finding things to do at home and away.  It's not hard to do things away, swimming, hiking, riding bikes, etc.  But, with a little baby I don't enjoy being away from the house every day.  I'm trying to keep a schedule for him, some what.

Summer break isn't [ever] long enough, so I've broken it down to our 10 weeks of summer.  Before the mayhem began (aka, kids out of school) I made us a little schedule.  The only way I can be sure to get things done, it seems, is to make lists.  I have weekly themes centered around nursery rhymes.  The nursery rhyme idea is to help with my incoming kindergartner's reading/language skills.  We have a recipe and a craft each week. and some times a science experiment--if I'm up for it!

Week 1--Months and Dates

nursery rhymes: "The Days of the Months" and "A Week of Birthdays"
recipe: Cookie Art
craft: marathon letter

COOKIE ART

Sugar cookie dough (store bought is okay or use my recipe below)
2 egg yolks
1/2 tsp. water
food coloring
tiny cookie cutters
clean paint brushes

Chill cookie dough a few hours.  Roll out on a baking sheet.  Divide into sections, if applicable.  Mix egg yolks and water well.  Separate mixture into small bowls or cups.  Tint each to desired shades (I kept it simple with red, yellow, green, and blue).

Let each child decorate a cookie section.  Pressing cookie cutters down gives good shapes to fill in, or children can paint free style.

Bake as directed.  Let cool.  Eat your "art" out!




 Before the oven


The finished product.


Sugar Cookies
1/3 c. butter or margarine
1/3 c. butter-flavored shortening
3/4 c. sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 c. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/8 tsp. salt

Cream butter and shortening.  Add sugar and beat until fluffy.  Beat in egg and vanilla extract.  In separate bowl sift together flour, baking powder and salt.  Stir in to wet ingredients, mix well.  Cover and refrigerate a few hours.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Roll out dough to 1/8 inches thick.  Cut with floured cookie cutters.  Bake for 7-10 minutes 'til edges are firm and bottoms are very lightly browned.  Cool on rack.


Marathon Letter
My brother is on the Hill Cumorah Pageant work crew right now http://www.hillcumorah.org/Pageant/.  The whole extended family is feverishly writing him letters to help him win a contest, whoever gets the most mail wins.  We thought he might enjoy a 40 foot letter.  I found a long roll of paper at a nearby parent/teacher store for $8.00.  There is still a ton of paper left on it (I threw away the wrapper which had the total length on it).  We rolled it up an sent it in a cardboard poster tube, along with some candy.





Week 2: Patriotism

nursery rhymes: "Yankee Doodle," "The Grand Old Duke of York," and "Humpty Dumpty"
recipe: Fruit Jewels
craft: Pinwheel Wreath


FRUIT JEWELS

2 3-oz pkg. jell-o, any flavor
1 1/3 c. water, divided
small pieces of fruit
mini-muffin tins

Place a small piece of fruit in each mini-muffin tin.  Dump jell-o packages into two separate bowls.  Boil water.  Stir 2/3 c. water into each bowl.  Stir until dissolved.  Use small cup to pour jell-o into muffin tins.  Refrigerate until set.  Use butter knife to loosen fruit jewels from muffin tins.  Enjoy!
You missed a spot.
Mmm...
Patriotic fruit jewels

Patriotic Pinwheel Wreath
http://www.playsational.com/4th-of-july-crafts-pinwheel-wreath/

We didn't get to make this--it's really more for the 5-year old.  We were going to put stars on ours, too.  However, 4th of July week was busy so we missed doing this one--the kids didn't even notice :).