Toddler Ideas Tuesday: December 9, 2014

Welcome back to Toddler Idea Tuesdays! I hope you will join with me again in sharing the fun activities, crafts, and lessons that you are doing with your young children. 

Today I wanted to share our rainbow muffin tin that we made last week.

We were learning about rainbows as our science topic with My Father's World 1st grade. Additionally, one of the Bible stories we read was the story of Noah's Ark. I figured having the children make their own rainbows for this muffin tin would be a great sorting and fine motor activity for Harold and Hannah. Of course, the older girls had fun too.

We used Fruity Ringers cereal, large marshmallows, and pipe cleaners.

I gave the children their own bowl of cereal and had them sort them.

Harold did a pretty good job.

Once they were sorted, I had the children thread them onto a pipe cleaner which had one end pushed into one half of the marshmallow.

It was actually easier for me to just bend the end of the pipe cleaner for Harold.

The older girls placed the cereal on in the order of the colors of the rainbow. I allowed Hannah and Harold to put them on in whatever order they chose.

We left enough room at the end to push the pipe cleaner into the other marshmallow.

Unfortunately, the pipe cleaner wanted to keep popping out and straightening. I decided it would work better in the muffin tin, though they didn't stand up very well. The children loved them though. 

In addition to the Fruity Ringer Rainbow, the children had:

Red grape tomatoes

Orange carrot sticks

Yellow pineapple 

Green broccoli

Blue Jello

Purple yogurt

In the center of the muffin tin the had a Noah's Ark shaped peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Now onto:

Toddler Idea Tuesday Features

On my last Toddler Idea Tuesday post, there were 5 wonderful posts linked up. I will be picking one randomly selected post to share, plus the top clicked-on post. 

This week's randomly selected post is:

Channon from Sunshine By Channon shared this cute decorating idea: Decking the Halls With Perler Beads.

The following post had the most clicks:

Jen from Chestnut Grove Academy shared a wonderful collection of Workbox/Learning Tray Christmas themed ideas in her Workbox Wednesday - Christmas post.

I would love to have you join in this week! What sort of activities do you do with your toddlers and preschoolers? Do you have some favorite activities you would like to share? I invite you to link up below. I will be pinning posts on my Toddler Ideas board and I would love to feature some of the activities each week from what is linked up. Please know I may share a picture from your post and link back to it, along with sharing how we used your idea in our toddler time. By linking up you are giving me permission to use a picture from your post. I will ALWAYS give credit and link back. Additionally, if you choose to try out any of the ideas with your toddler, please make sure you give credit where credit is due.

Linky will be open through Sunday night, to give me time to check out all the posts and get the Features organized. Please take the time to visit some of the other wonderful posts linked up.

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Kids and a Mom in the Kitchen #77: Veggie Ranch Pizza

Time for Kids and a Mom in the Kitchen

(A weekly linky to share what you and your children have created in the kitchen.)

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The linky is at the bottom.

This week our letter is V and our topic is Vegetables. What better time would there be to make a Veggie Ranch Pizza. I have always enjoyed a good veggie pizza at fellowship meals and picnics, but I have never made my own. We followed this recipe I found on allrecipes.com.
(I have to say, I would recommend cutting the cream cheese, mayo and ranch mix back by half or making 2 pizzas, because the dressing was overpowering. However, the ingredients listed here are the amounts used in the original recipe.)

Ingredients:

2 (8oz) Cans of Refrigerated Crescent Rolls
2 (8oz) packages cream cheese, softened
1 cup Mayonnaise
1 oz dry Ranch dressing mix
Choice of Veggies, chopped/shredded (several cups total)
(We used veggies in the color of the rainbow)
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

First we rolled out the crescent roll dough into a 9x13 cookie sheet, making sure to pinch the seams together.

Then we mixed the cream cheese, mayonnaise and ranch dressing mix together.

Next we chopped and shredded the veggies.

We baked the crust in a 375 degree oven for 12 minutes.

(This probably could have been done while we were chopping the veggies, but I was waiting because I had to go give a child a bath.)

After it cooled we spread the ranch topping and arranged the veggies in the order of the colors of the rainbow. We actually made it on St. Patrick's Day so we could continue our focus on rainbows.

Grape tomatoes, carrots, corn, broccoli, and shredded beets

Do you have your children help you in the kitchen?  What lessons do they learn? Do you have any kid friendly recipes to share?

I'd love to see your posts, whether you have done something this week or some time in the past. Just link up below. This is a weekly linky.

I am linking up to:

Melt in Your Mouth Monday
Try a New Recipe Tuesday at Home to Four Kiddos
The Gathering Spot at Mamal Diane
Friday Food Frenzy at Close to Home
Fantastic Thursday at Five Little Chefs
Foodie Friends Friday at Robyn'sView
Family Fun Friday at Happy and Blessed Home
Find a New Recipe Friday at Almost Supermom

And here is my Kids and a Mom in the Kitchen linky

Toddler Ideas Tuesday: March 11th, 2014

Welcome back to Toddler Idea Tuesdays! Have you been busy with your young children?

This week I would like to share our St. Patrick's Day Sensory Bin.

In this tub you will find:

Green rice

Colored pasta (in all 6 colors of the rainbow)

Pompoms (small, medium and large of all 6 colors)

Pipe cleaners (again, in all 6 colors)

Gold coins

The children loved placing the pasta on the pipe cleaners. 

I had hoped they would match the colors, but that hasn't really happened yet. Hannah may have been trying, but she did get some blue in with the green.

Now that they have had a chance to use the color sensory tub I have buried some of the items in the hopes they will go digging for it.

I just wanted to share that the children also help dye the pasta and the rice. It is a great opportunity for counting one-to-one and also for observing color mixing.  We used the same instructions for dyeing the rice/pasta as we did the last time we did this. 

You need 1 cup of rice or about 15-20 noodles

1 tsp of rubbing alcohol (much better results than vinegar)

6 drops of food coloring

plastic zippy bags. 

All you need to do is pour the alcohol in the bag, add the food coloring and mix it together. Then you add the rice/noodles, zip the bag shut and shake. You have to be a bit more careful with the pasta so it doesn't break.

Pour it onto a cookie sheet lined with foil or wax paper and let it dry.

Now onto:

Toddler Idea Tuesday Features

Lisa from Our Country Road shared her Preschool Totschool Wrap Up post filled with fun Fruit Themed Tray ideas.

There are color matching and fruit matching activities, along with sorting and counting. She also shared some great Montessori activities, including fruit prep. 

Jennifer from Hint Mama shared 7 Easy & Frugal DIY Ball Pit Ideas Beyond Plastic Swimming Pools.

There are so many great ideas, sure to keep kids busy for a while.

What sort of activities do you do with your toddler? Do you have some favorite activities you would like to share? How about some fun St. Patrick's Day activities or crafts?  I invite you to link up below. I will be pinning posts on my Toddler Ideas board and I would love to feature some of the activities each week from what is linked up. Please know I may share a picture from your post and link back to it, along with sharing how we used your idea in our toddler time. By linking up you are giving me permission to use a picture from your post. I will ALWAYS give credit and link back. Additionally, if you choose to try out any of the ideas with your toddler, please make sure you give credit where credit is due.