Cookie Decorating

I like decorating cookies with thing-one and thing-two. We have done it a few times now and it has always been a good experience-- albeit a messy one. But making messes is good for kids. It means they are able to be carefree and creative without having to worry about getting a little dirty. Making sugar cookies is a fun and easily cleaned way to let them express themselves.

Here is my sugar cookie recipe-- I don't remember where we got it from, but it works fine so if you don't have one... Here you go.



---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1/2 cup butter1cup sugar1 egg1/2 tsp salt2 tsp baking powder2 cups all purpose flour1/2 tsp vanilla
Blend together cream and sugar until creamy. Blend in egg. Add dry ingredients and vanilla.
Roll out on lightly floured surface and cut to desired shapes
Bake at 400F for 8-10 minutes on un-greased cookie sheet. (I generally cook it slightly less time than this. Watch them)------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You can let your little cookie monsters help pour in the ingredients, stir, and help you cut out the shapes and then help decorate them. What they can do depends on their age and coordination, as well as how much mess you are willing to deal with. Just remember this is not about making something beautiful, or even appetizing. It's all about letting them help you and be creative.
I usually just buy my frosting from the store and then use a couple of drops of food coloring to make it fun for whatever holiday we're coming up on. If your kids can spread the frosting on that's great. If they can't you can always let them stick little candies on afterwards. Try green frosting and red candies on a Christmas tree shape, or orange on a circle and then a variety of candies to make jack-o-lantern faces. 

For St. Patrick's day we did green cookies with sprinkles. Thing-one piled the frosting about 2 inches high and had almost the same amount of sprinkles before she declared her cookie ready to be eaten. Thing-two was in a hurry to take bites out of all the cookies she could. I showed her how to spread the frosting and helped her to try it out along with shaking on some sprinkles. It was fun for all of us.


Also, I have never done this, but it would be a fun way to teach colors and shapes. just a thought. I'll have to try it out sometime.

Now go have some fun with your kids.

Animal Homes

I have been thinking alot about what to do with this blog, and I have decided to turn it into a place to write down my ideas and lesson plans for teaching my kids. I plan to put in successful projects, not so successful projects (along with notes for improvement), product reviews, and ideas. That way I have a place to store ideas, and you have a place to find them. Comments and suggestions are always welcome.................................................................................
Today's project is all about animal homes and I must admit that it was mostly thing 1's idea. I was watching her play on the playground and noticed that she kept bringing little sticks and leaves to her spot under the slide. So I went over to see what she was working on:

she was building a nest

This project really has almost endless possibilities.
First we talked about soft vs. hard and worked a little bit on vocabulary. The sticks were hard, and poky. Rough.  What can we find that is soft, smooth etc.? Those things will make it more comfortable for the baby birds. 
You could take this farther into a lesson on shapes: What shape are eggs? can you find anything that is round like an egg so that we can put them in our nest? (we used some acorn seeds)
Building a nest led naturally into curiosity about  other kinds of animal homes, and could we find a real birds nest? So we went exploring and it turned into a great biology lesson.  You don't have to go anyplace fancy for this lesson. You wouldn't believe all of the animal homes we found in just our little apartment complex. 
The first home we found was some type of little burrow:

Ask questions about whatever animal homes you find. This is a great way to practice critical thinking. What kind of animal might live here? Is it a big animal or a little animal? Can we see any tracks? Why would an animal build this kind of home? What would it be like to live in this home? And if you're up for it you can always try to build the homes you see. My kids wanted to dig their own burrow. So I let them try. It was great because even little toddling thing 2 could participate!

They learned that it is quite a bit harder than it looks. Hands really hard to dig with. So they tried sticks. A little better, but still hard. We didn't spend very long on out burrow making attempt. This led to a short lesson on animal anatomy. How does that animal dig holes? It must have strong paws! Animals are different than people. Do you think a bird could dig a hole like this? How about a fish? Why? How?
Just continue your walk. Follow your child's lead. They'll pay much better attention if you're talking about what interests them. Thing 1 was excited when we saw the swimming pool. Fish live in the water, mom! Well there aren't really fish in the swimming pool, but whatever. :)

The point is, just be creative and let them get excited about things. We turned over rocks to find bugs, looked at spiderwebs in dark corners, we even found some snails and talked about how they carry their homes on their backs. Like I said, this one has endless possibilities, we even ended up talking about how in some countries they eat snails. Eww! Mommy that's so yucky!  Cultural diversity?? Maybe not.
Now go have some fun!