Cooking with Kids - Chocolate Pudding Ice Cream

My boys LOVE cooking with us so we try to let them be a part of our cooking whenever possible.  Not I know that this isn't technically cooking but they loved it and it was perfect for both boys even the two year old.

Since we were working with the 2 year old on "A" this week, we let him wear an apron and reinforced that apron begins with "A".  I like to let them experiment when we are cooking so we let tehm taste, smell and touch at each step in the process.

What you need:
Two boxes of Instant Chocolate Pudding
Milk

What to do:
Open the Instant pudding packets and let them touch, taste and smell the powder.

Prepare as directed on package (add milk and mix) and let them  touch, taste and smell again.

Pour into your ice cream maker we added "dirt" (crushed chocolate chips) which we also let them examine.

Once it is frozen let them taste again.  Talk to older children about the changes in the product from start to finish.

It was super easy and a great way to involve the little ones in making dessert.



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Letter of the week "A"

My husband is a stay at home dad and I have challenged him to begin working with our 2 year (27 months)old in a more school like format.  He has been spending time working with our little man on letters, colors, shapes, etc...but on a less planned format.

We started this week with the letter A and our little man is doing great and is so proud of himself. 

Using pictures, activities, play, books and snacks.  Our little man now will point out Apple as being an "A" word as well as Alligator (aggagator) and Ant.  He will also make the "a" sound if you ask him to.

Part of this is coming from some speach issues that we have been seeing (we are seeing the ENT for evaluations due to failed hearing tests).  This is primarily being used as a tool to get him to copy sounds and words.

Next week it is on to "B" while still re-inforcing our "A" words and sounds.  As we continue we will see if it is more useful to stay on a letter longer than a week.


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"Free Play" Playing with Jello

I am always looking for things around the house that we can use or incorporate into our activity time and today was no different.  I know that Jello isn't technically free, but it is super cheap so it is a very good item to incorporate into you "Free" play activities.

My boys almost never have Jello and we never keep it in the house, so I sent my husband out this morning to pick some up.  Before the 2 year olds nap we made the Jello together.  While we were making it they smelled it and the 6 year old guessed the flavor. They both got to pour the packets into the bowl and both got some time to stir.  They also both tasted it in it's liquid form before putting it in the fridge to set.  The 2 year old said "yucky" so I wasn't sure how step two of our project would go at this point.

After his nap the Jello was set and it was time to play.

I put together a tray of cookie cutters, measuring spoons and measuring cups and some other items.  I put this in the middle of the table and gave each of them a plate with Jello on it.  I didn't give either of them any direction (except telling the 6 year old to make sure that he didn't take too many of the cookie cutters) we just let go at it.

The little guy took some spoons and started playing.  He didn't seem to want to really touch it at first.

Once he saw his big brother eating it, he decided to taste it too.

The older one had fun playing with the medicine dropper.

They played with the Jello for about a half hour and then I brought out a tray with water...Just an inch or so at the bottom.  This gave them some more play time and they added bonus of clean heands before they left the table.

I had not idea that they would enjoy the water so much, but our 6 year old brought out some dinosuars and they played for at least another half hour.  They would have played longer, but I wanted to get them in the bath before dinner.

I am so glad that we decided to do Jello play with them today (I know my husband was a bit unsure at first), this we be in our list of "Free Play" activities in the future for sure.

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Teaching Your Toddler - St Patricks Day

March is here and I know that I for one am always looking for ways to incorporate new themes into some of the activities that we do with our boys. 

I found this site - Teaching Your Toddler that has put together a St. Patricks day themed lesson plan and I will definately be trying this with my 2 year old.  I also plan to modify some of the ideas so that our 6 year old can play/learn with us too.

Some of the ideas are as basic as using "I" as your letter of the week and pointing out all of the things in your house that begin with the letter "I" and having them trace the letter with their finger or in some sand.  However, it also incorporates links to songs that you can do with you toddler to fit the St. Patricks day theme as well as links to stories, snacks, activites and Yoga poses.

I am checking out the links now and putting together my favorite ideas.  I will post out "lesson plan" and modified "lesson plan" once I have completed it.  We will be incorporating Irish Dance as I was brought up learning Irish Dance from my grandmother (my mom now runs the classes) and taught myself while I was in college. 

Check out Teaching Your Toddler for the St. Patricks day lesson plan ideas and click on the "Past Themes" link for other fun ideas for teaching you little one.

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"Free Play" Shaving Cream Fun

I am always looking for things around the house that we can use or incorporate into our activity time and today was no different.

Our latest activity, which was initially designed with the 2 year old in mind was shaving cream play.  We pulled out some of our free shaving creams (we almost always get free shaving cream with coupons)and brought out toys to play with (small dinosuars, spoons, cups, etc...).  We were preparing everything while the 2 year old was napping and my husband and 6 year old decided to get a head start on the shaving cream play.

At first the 6 year old completly freaked out when he got the shaving cream on him, but within a minute he was covered (really covered) with shaving cream.  As were my windows, walls, table and both my husband and myself.  This was all while our little guy was napping. 

We finished playing and cleaned up a bit so that the little one would be able to play when he got up. 

When our little guy got up from his nap we let him have some time to wake up and investigate the table with the play items on it.  He looked at it and began playing, but as soon as he got the shaving cream on him he has a complete meltdown and he did not stop crying until he was completely clean.

If you ask him if he wants to play shaving cream again he says "yucky".  I think it will be a while until he is ready to try shaving cream play again. 

What we learned....that our 6 year old LOVES messy play, however the 2 year old is not a big fan of messy play.  The 2 year old's favorite sensory activity has been the bread crumbs by far.

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"Free" Play - Guess that Food

I am always looking for things around the house that we can use or incorporate into our activity time and today was no different.  While planning our sensory activity for the 2 year old, our 6 year old decided that he wanted a sensory activity too.  We decided to play "Guess That Food".

This is great because you can not only do this with the items that you have around the house, but you only need a little bite of each item so there is little or no waste.  Try incorporating it into snack time, it will be a nice change from the norm.

We gathered some cupcake inserts and put an item in each one.  We used:

• Peanut Butter Cup
• Cheese Cracker
• Banana
• Apple
• Frozen Peas
• Potato chip
• ice cube (just for fun)
• lemon slice
• and more

We were doing this for a six year old so we did a bunch of items.  Depending on the age of the child you will want to modify the number of items to fit their attention span.

We blindfolded him (put a winter hat on that covered his eyes) and had him guess the item by touch.  He then guessed the item by smell and finally by tasting.  

It was a fun, easy and free activity and we all had a great time.

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"Free" Play - Bread Crumbs

I am always looking for things around the house that we can use or incorporate into our activity time and today was no different.  We were planning on doing sensory activities with the 2 year old and our 6 year old got really excited about helping me plan what we would do.  He also wanted us to incorporate an activity for him. 

The original plan was to let the 2 year old do a shaving cream sensory box and the 6 year old wanted to play "Guess that Food".  The plans changed slightly when everyone got involved in making meatloaf.  It has never taken so long to make a meatloaf but the 2 year old feel in love with playing with the bread crumbs so we let him go with it (and it still covered our sensory objective that we planned).

We were making the bread crumbs from toasted bread so he helped crush them.  He also used a sifter to seperate the "sand" and the bigger pieces.  We let him play with measuring cups, spoons, etc... in the bread crumbs.  I think he would have played with it all afternoon if we weren't actually trying to make dinner.

I love this idea because you can create this activity with items found around your house.  The added bonus is that it is a great way to utlize stale bread too.  If you can incorporate your children's activity into you meal making that is just one more added benefit.

Of course I immediately began to think about how else we can incorporate bread crumbd into our play time and here is what I came up with...

1. Bread Crumb Sand for dinosaur play
2. Bread Crumb Sand with "work trucks"
3. Bread Crumb Sand with worms (toy or gummy worms, be sure to use gummy worms for you older children only as they can pose a choking hazard for little ones)
4. Bread Crumb sand to practice writing letters in

What bread crumb activities do you/would you do with your little ones???

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