Tots and Me... Growing Up Together

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Toddler Ideas Tuesday: November 25, 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.

The other day, I shared my Poppins Book Nook post for this month titled Surprises in the Kitchen With Poppins Book Nook. In the post, I shared a bit about the Alphabet Soup Learning Trays I created for the younger children. There was a letter matching tray for Harold.

Hannah's tray also had a letter matching sheet, using only lower case letters. She also had Word Family sheets.

For Toddler Idea Tuesday, I wanted to go through the step-by-step process for these Word Family sheets.

First Hannah had to use her spoon to find the "a" and the "d" so we could work on blending the ending. She knows the sounds of the letters, but is still struggling with blending them.

She then had to scoop out another letter and place it on the line. She would say the sound of each letter and then we worked on blending them together.

She then moves the beginning letter off to the side and moves the "ad" down to the next line. I actually made 3 lines because I was going to have her write the letter to make the word. We haven't done that yet. Letters that do not make a word are added into the pile (I realize cad is a word, but not one I wanted to really have to explain). Then she finds a new letter.

She then repeated the above step.

I plan to have her work on writing the words. I will also be adding more letters and using different Word Families to keep this activity fresh for Hannah.

Now onto:

Toddler Idea Tuesday Features

On my last Toddler Idea Tuesday post, there were 4 wonderful posts linked up. Today's Feature was randomly selected.

Joanna from Clark and Luci Learn shared her post, Germs and the Importance of Handwashing. Stop by to check out this really neat, hands-on idea for teaching children how germs spread and how to get rid of them.

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.

Monday, November 24, 2014

Tuesday's Giveaway Link Up- November 25th, 2014

Welcome to Tuesday's Giveaway Link Up with your hosts Karen @ Tots and Me and Emily @ Emily Reviews

So glad you could join us as we share our giveaways on Tuesday's Giveaway Link Ups.

Our co-hosts this week are Mellissa from Something Like Life and Danelle from Our Wolves Den.

This link up will be posted Monday at 7 PM est. and run all week long! Make sure you stop in as often as you can to list your latest giveaways.

Here is how to use the Giveaway Link Up

1. Post your reviews and/or giveaways, as many as you have, be sure to add the end date (family friendly please)

2. Help spread the word about the giveaway link up by grabbing our button, Tweeting or posting on Facebook. (Not mandatory- but it helps get more exposure to your giveaways as well!)

3. Take a moment to enter any giveaway that strikes an interest to you!

If you would like to follow the hostesses, we will gladly follow you back! Simply leave us a message to do so.

Featured Giveaway

Magic Moves Jammin' Gym from Educational Insights US only Ends 11/29

Thank you for linking up with Karen @ Tots and Me & Emily @ Emily Reviews along with Mellissa from Something Like Life and Danelle from Our Wolves Den.

Surprises in the Kitchen With Poppins Book Nook

Welcome to the November edition of Poppins Book Nook!

This month's theme was: To The Kitchen.

Now, time in the kitchen is quite common in our house. If nothing else, we have a weekly Kids and a Mom in the Kitchen time. My dilemma was trying to figure out what book I would be able to find to go with the theme. So, I headed over to the library and literally flipped through a whole shelf of books in search of the perfect book. I found a few I thought would be cute, and finally decided on Surprise Soup by Mary Ann Rodman.

This story is about a family of bears. The mom isn't home because she has just had a baby. The father bear and the sons are trying to make mama's Saturday Soup. The little brother, Kevin, wanted to help and the big brother kept picking on him. They did each do their share making the soup, though daddy wouldn't let them use the big dangerous knife of course. They added veggies (that Kevin thought were supposed to be washed with soap), and tons of cans of various foods (because Kevin was having so much fun opening the cans, he kept going), but the soup just wasn't tasting right. Finally, little Kevin got his dad and brother to listen to him. After all, he knew mom's secret as he always helps her out in the kitchen.

I loved this cute story, though the children were told that it is NOT acceptable to make fun of younger siblings. Granted, at the end of the story, Kevin is happy because he has shown he CAN help.

Last week the children and I made 2 "Surprise" recipes. I shared our Surprises Kisses for last week's Kids and a Mom in the Kitchen. Let me tell you, those are delicious cookies. I adapted them from a recipe I found on allrecipes.com.

Here the children are, hard at work:

For full details and the recipe, I invite you to stop by my Kids and a Mom in the Kitchen post where you can also link up your kid-friendly recipes and time in the kitchen with your kids.

That same day, we also made Surprise Bean Soup. Though this recipe, which I found at myrecipes.com, wasn't anywhere similar to the recipe described in the book, and it didn't have the same secret ingredient, it was really good. Unfortunately, the children didn't really agree.

Here they are, all excited to make the soup:

Here are the ingredients:

This recipe calls for bacon, two cans of navy beans (which we couldn't find so we used Great Northern beans), diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, chicken broth, celery, carrots, and onion. Plus there is the secret ingredient. Can you spot the secret ingredient in the picture above? What do you think it is?

Here are a few pictures of Tabitha helping me. The other children were a bit helpered-out as we had just finished the cookies. Amelia did help by peeling some carrots. Unfortunately, I was busy at the time and wasn't able to snap a picture.

Here is the soup before the secret ingredient is added:

Here is the soup after it is added:

Any clue what it is? If you aren't sure, you will find the picture at the bottom of this post.

In addition to our time in the kitchen, I created these Alphabet Soup Learning Trays for Harold and Hannah. I filled a couple of bowls with elbow pasta, then added some green and orange pompoms to represent vegetables. Then I added magnetic letters. I set the bowls on a couple of serving trays, along with a spoon for each and some activity papers.

Harold was to match the upper case and lower case letters of A-D, which are the letters we have done so far this year.

Hannah had a sheet to match several different lower case letters as she knows most of her letters now due to following along with My Father's World Kindergarten last year, though I was doing letter of the week with her. She also had some word family sheets.

We are working on getting her to sound out the words. She knows the sounds the letters make, but she is still having trouble with blending. I love introducing the children to fun activities like this though. This way, we are practicing, but she is having fun at the same time.

These learning trays seemed to be a hit. They went back for them again. This is an activity that will continue to have use as I can add and change the letters being learned.

Oh, I promised to share what the secret ingredient was. So, did you guess right?

Don't forget to check out what the other Poppins Book Nook co-hosts have been up to this month. Then don't forget to link up your own posts! Lastly, enter the Wild West Learning Bundle Giveaway.

Enchanted Homeschooling Mom ~ 3 Dinosaurs ~ To the Moon and Back ~ Planet Smarty Pants ~ Farm Fresh Adventures ~ Growing in God's Grace ~ Chestnut Grove Academy ~ Learning and Growing the Piwi Way ~ The Usual Mayhem~ Preschool Powol Packets ~ Monsters Ed Homeschool Academy ~ Adventures in Mommydom ~ Teach Beside Me ~ Life with Moore Babies ~ Kathy's Cluttered Mind ~ Are We There Yet? ~ Our Crafts N Things ~ Hopkins Homeschool ~ ABC Creative Learning ~ Joy Focused Learning ~ P is for Preschooler ~ Laugh and Learn ~ A Mommy's Adventures ~ Inspiring 2 New Hampshire Children ~ World for Learning ~ Ever After in the Woods ~ Golden Grasses ~ Our Simple Kinda Life ~ A glimpse of our life ~ Journey to Excellence ~ Happy Little Homemaker ~ Little Homeschool Blessings ~ Simplicity Breeds Happiness ~ Raventhreads ~ Water on the Floor ~ Learning Fundamentals ~ Tots and Me ~ As We Walk Along The Road ~ Stir the Wonder ~ For This Season ~ Where Imagination Grows ~ Lextin Academy ~ The Canadian Homeschooler ~ School Time Snippets ~ Peakle Pie ~ Mom's Heart ~ A Moment in our World ~ Every Bed of Roses ~ Finchnwren ~ At Home Where Life Happens ~ Suncoast Momma ~ The Library Adventure ~ Embracing Destiny ~ Day by Day in our World ~ Our Homeschool Studio ~ A "Peace" of Mind ~ Thou Shall Not Whine ~ SAHM I am ~ eLeMeNo-P Kids ~ Simple Living Mama

Feed Our Small World:A Cookbook for Kids Giveaway! Every month the Poppins Book Nook group will be offering readers a chance to win a brand new storybook or product that ties in with our theme for the month. This month one lucky entrant will win a copy of the bookFeed Our Small World: A Cookbook for Kids for the theme of To The Kitchen!

Entrants must be 18 years or older and reside in a country that receives U.S. Postal mail. This giveaway is brought to you by the company Enchanted Homeschooling Mom who is owner and founder of the Poppins Book Nook. By entering this giveaway you are also acknowledging that you have read and agree to all of the Rafflecopter terms & conditions as well as Enchanted Homeschooling Mom's disclosures found here {http://enchantedhomeschoolingmom.org/disclosures/}. Just enter the Rafflecopter below to win:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Come and find out more information about Poppins Book Nook at Enchanted Homeschooling Mom, on Facebook and on Pinterest.

Clip Art by Melon Headz

Sunday, November 23, 2014

Scavenger Hunt Sunday: November 2, 2014

Time for some Scavenger Hunt Sunday!

Double, Friday, Memories, Busy Day, Where I Stand

Double

I had a hard time figuring out what to photograph for this prompt, until I looked over on our desk shelf and saw the girls fairies and their double shadows on the wall. They received these last Christmas.

Friday

Friday we were busy making a candy cane wreath to give to a friend. Harold worked on the center.

Memories

This past week we have been busy making memories with our new Christmas friend, Melk the Christmas Monkey. He came to our house so I could write a review, though the children were told it was because he had to see if this was just the right house for him. He had to leave yesterday, but I have it under great authority that he plans to come back the first day of Advent. I will be sharing my review shortly.

Busy Day

We had a very busy day on Wednesday. Though we did not have actual lesson time, we had quite a bit to do. Here the children are watching their S'mores Bites broil. This was 1 of 3 things we did in the kitchen.

Where I Stand

I always stand in the doorway of the children's room at the library during story time. The kids had already disappeared into the back room to work on their craft while I stood here to get the picture.

Friday, November 21, 2014

Kids and a Mom in the Kitchen #100: Surprise Kisses

Time for Kids and a Mom in the Kitchen

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

The linky is at the bottom.

This week we read a book called Surprise Soup by Mary Ann Rodman for our Poppins Book Nook unit. The other day, we made two "surprise" recipes for daddy. Yes, I actually did find a recipe for surprise soup, though not like the one in the book. I will be sharing that another time. Today I would like to focus on these scrumptious, irresistible cookies called Surprise Kisses that I found over at Food.com. I did have to make some adjustments as the original recipe left the dough too dry. However, these will definitely be made again soon. I think they are perfect for the holidays.

Ingredients:

1 cup softened butter

1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla

2 1/2 cups flour

3/4 cup chopped pecans

Hershey's Kisses

Powdered Sugar

If needed:

2 extra Tbs softened butter

1 tsp vanilla

splash of milk

First we took 2 sticks (1 cup) of butter and softened it in the microwave for about 15 seconds on medium power. I checked after 10 seconds and it wasn't quite soft enough, so I put it back in for an additional 5 seconds.

We combined the softened butter, sugar, and vanilla in a bowl and creamed together til fluffy.

We gradually added in the flour and chopped pecans. The dough was definitely too crumbly with 2 1/2 cups of flour. Next time I make these I plan on trying 2 cups of flour, or maybe even 1 3/4 cups of flour. However, I was able to improve the workability of the dough by softening 2 more Tbs of butter and adding that plus another tsp of vanilla and a couple of splashes of milk.

We then rolled the dough into balls, about 1 Tbs per cookie. Then the balls are flattened by pressing down on them with your hand. We placed a Hershey's Kiss in the middle of each and wrapped the dough around it. We then rolled them into balls again.

Here is a step-by-step illustration:

We placed them on an ungreased cookie sheet.

We continued until all the dough was gone. I think a bag of Kisses could do at least one more batch, if they don't get snitched.

We baked them for 10 minutes in a 375 degree oven. The bottoms were starting to get golden brown, but you couldn't really tell from the tops if they were done. We left them to cool.