Pretend Cooking with Real Food

So we have been doing pretend cooking for a long time now, but when I saw this post at Play Create Explore, I knew we had to bring it up a notch and try it out! We saved up our expired food and made some wonderful foods! Soon after we raided Emmi's kitchen for expired food and Great Papa's kitchen and we had a feast with cousins!!

The set up: 

Step 1: Must have vinyl tablecloth (makes clean up a breeze) + hose!!

Step 2: Muffin tin - parsley, lawrys salt, pepper corn (with mortar and pestle) brown sugar, bread crumbs, hard marshmallow, cocoa powder, used coffee grounds, flour, corn starch, expired milk, slimy carrots, 

  

A pinch of parsley (hmm smells like "sketti" - Monkey 1)

Step 3: Add food coloring

A pinch of coffee grounds (smells like Emmi's house - LOL)

MMM... Good!! Would you like to try some??

30 Treasures from God's Glorious Work

1. Walking sticks
2. Birds nests
3. Outdoor Sound Hunting
4. Waterfalls
5. Acorns, pinecones
6. Different shape and colors of leaves

7. A cave

8. Worms, 
9. Pill bugs and rotting logs

10. Moss

11. A stream
12. Fish

13. A bridge

 14. Biggest tree
15. Littlest tree
16. Birds
17. Flowers

(Don't forget to take pictures!)

18. A dead tree
19. Wood pecker holes

20. Animal Holes

21. Grass Snake

22. Wasp or bees nest (not too close, I recommend using your camera zoom for a closer look)

23. Biggest Rock you Can find

24. Rocks to take home and paint

25. Broken trees

26. Tree Roots

27. Butterflies

28. Bird feathers

29. Mushrooms or berries

30. Animal Tracks

What a fun day we had as a family! 

Praise the Lord, my soul.

Lord my God, you are very great;

    you are clothed with splendor and majesty.

² 

The Lord wraps himself in light as with a garment;

    he stretches out the heavens like a tent 

³ 

    and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters. 

He makes the clouds his chariot 

    and rides on the wings of the wind. 

⁴ 

He makes winds his messengers,^[a] 

    flames of fire his servants.

⁵ 

He set the earth on its foundations; 

    it can never be moved.

⁶ 

You covered it with the watery depths as with a garment;

    the waters stood above the mountains.

⁷ 

But at your rebuke the waters fled,

    at the sound of your thunder they took to flight;

⁸ 

they flowed over the mountains,

    they went down into the valleys,

    to the place you assigned for them.

⁹ 

You set a boundary they cannot cross;

    never again will they cover the earth.

¹⁰ 

He makes springs pour water into the ravines;

    it flows between the mountains.

¹¹ 

They give water to all the beasts of the field;

    the wild donkeys quench their thirst.

¹² 

The birds of the sky nest by the waters;

    they sing among the branches. 

¹³ 

He waters the mountains from his upper chambers; 

    the land is satisfied by the fruit of his work. 

¹⁴ 

He makes grass grow for the cattle,

    and plants for people to cultivate—

    bringing forth food from the earth:

¹⁵ 

wine that gladdens human hearts,

    oil to make their faces shine,

    and bread that sustains their hearts.

¹⁶ 

The trees of the Lord are well watered,

    the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.

¹⁷ 

There the birds make their nests;

    the stork has its home in the junipers.

¹⁸ 

The high mountains belong to the wild goats; 

    the crags are a refuge for the hyrax.

¹⁹ 

He made the moon to mark the seasons, 

    and the sun knows when to go down.

²⁰ 

You bring darkness, it becomes night, 

    and all the beasts of the forest prowl.

²¹ 

The lions roar for their prey 

    and seek their food from God. 

²² 

The sun rises, and they steal away;

    they return and lie down in their dens. 

²³ 

Then people go out to their work, 

    to their labor until evening.

²⁴ 

How many are your works, Lord!

    In wisdom you made them all;

    the earth is full of your creatures. 

²⁵ 

There is the sea, vast and spacious,

    teeming with creatures beyond number—

    living things both large and small. 

PSALMS 104:1-25

Sensory bath tub!

So I know I have said before how torturous bathtime can be in our house. So imagine my excitement when I saw the new sensory bath post from Growing a Jeweled Rose.


Here is our first attempt:


Bath time started with screeching. Which stopped abruptly when monkey 1 spotted the tub like this!

She bent over took off her own clothes climbed in and laid down!! I have to admit I was tempted to do the same thing when I set it all up!


A large $1.50 bag of spaghetti noodles plus food coloring = money well spent! We spent at least an hour playing in the tub!

One Happy CLEAN kid!! 

Colored Noodles for Sensory Play

 

How to dye noodles:

noodle variety (very cheap at the dollar store)

food coloring

vinegar

Apparently you can also use rubbing alcohol instead of vinegar but since I knew Monkey 2 would definitely try putting these in her mouth we went with the vinegar.

1. Dump noodles in bag with 1-2 tsp vinegar depends how much noodles you have

2. Add food coloring. CLOSE BAG... TIGHT!!! (oops!) It is possible that I may have ruined a shirt! Possible! Yet to be determined I suppose.

3. Shake Mix dance do whatever to get these all mixed up. Then we layer them out to dry for the night. 

 The large shells were perfect size for monkey 2, plus they were stinky and didn't taste great so after 2 attempts at eating them. She kept them clear of her mouth!!! Vinegar will do that for you!


Monkey 1 also enjoyed sorting them and playing  and stringing the noodles to make necklasces. I will post some of our noodle art soon. 

Paint in a Bag is activity I remember doing in preschool as a little kid. We practiced writing letters with paint mess free! I was reminded of this great project from Let's Explore Here.

We started with each primary color in a baggie taped to our table. As we added colors and learned about mixing colors to make new ones they are sometimes hard to see as the color as mixing. So grand idea..... Tape them to the deck door (or window) the way the light shine through as you are mixing is beautiful.  

Monkey 1 was very proud of her color mixing creations!! Monkey 2 mostly enjoyed the fact that she could actually touch a plastic baggie (very closely supervised). She eventually realized she could move the colors around, but I would recommend double bagging these for the little ones... You don't realize how strong their little fingers are until they break open a bag of paint, or pinch you with their painted fingers....! haha!

Teaching Toddlers Tantrums with Playdough Balloons

 

Do you have a tot that has a tantrum for no apparent reason?? 

A happy playing child suddenly is running around screaming and crying? 

Here is a little lesson for them on emotions, helping kids to learn ways to express there emotions is important for getting rid of those tantrums. 

So create STRESS BALLS!!

We saw these here!

She has great instructions on how to make them, basically you fill a balloon with play dough. It works best if you have a tot who is able to help you with this or a second adult to help out. Tie them off and you're done!

We had three different emotions, happy, sad, and angry. Then we talked about how to express each emotion...

HAPPY

SAD

ANGRY

ANGRY again

 Playing with them. 

Monkey 1 got all logical afterwards. She stacked them up and explained them to me. The one on the bottom is angry because he is getting squished, the one in the middle is sad because he wants to be on top, and the one of top is happy because "he's on top of course MOM!"

Amazing how quickly they learn sometimes. I was so proud of Monkey 1, what great insight for a 2 1/2 year old!! Now tantrums stop quicker we get out our stress balls and ask how do you feel? mad? "I understand your mad about...." Plus these things are a lot of fun to play with. We have had them going on 6 months now and they are still lasting!

10 Way to Play With Cars

Who says little Girls can't play with cars??? 

Here are some of our favorites:

Above: Who doesn't love sidewalk chalk! There are endless possibilities. 

1. We draw chalk roads and drive cars, play follow the leader (I have done more skipping the the past 2 months than I think I have in my whole life....), pull behind puppies (or snoopy as we call him), use ride on toys, and pretty much everything else we can think of to do with a road! 

2. What does daddy do with cars?? In our house it is a serious crime to have a dirty car! So we wash them!

Daddy sets Monkey 1 up with her own sponge and soapy bucket and she goes to town scrubbing her tractor!

3. Ok so we didn't get a good picture of this but paint with cars! Monkey 1 loves to make hand prints foot prints finger prints, dog prints, etc. So we learned about what kind of "print" a car makes, run them through the paint and on the paper they are really beautiful!!! (FYI I even used it when I was scrapbooking for a border on a page... the tractor makes very cool prints)

And like I said cars cannot be dirty.. So we wash them again... Haha

This also works on little play cars, we make little "car wash" with toilet paper tubes for them to drive through... etc. 

4. Make a Little Car Wash

So this isn't the best but painters tape has a million uses to a kid!! One of our favorites... Making roads... They usually go throughout the entire house and they stop at our playmobil house, pool, farm, etc. Its our own little city. So 5. BUILD A CITY!

And wash and wash....

 This is like never ending entertainment at our house!

6. Race them (usually down the slide or the deck stair rails at our house) look around and be creative! Do you have gutters, empty pipes paper towel tubes, a long hand rail?

And here is our list of things we haven't tried yet... 

7. Build a car matching mat. Hmm... Hard to explain but the picture of it is stuck in my head. Black paper, colored squares, and parking cars on there color. Does that make sense?? Hmm well I will post a picture after we try it!

8. Card board box car. We are waiting for a large enough box that we can use to make a car (think of the flintstones!!) Paper plate wheels and all!

9. Build a balloon powered car 

10. and last but not least a hot dog car lunch (can you make a hotdog look like a car?? we are going to try)!