Muffin Tin Meal: Panda Bears

It's been a while since I posted a Muffin Tin Meal post. That would be because we haven't had any recently, for various reasons. Today, I woke up thinking it would be fun to make a special lunch to go with our Panda Bear unit. Of course, it turned into a muffin tin lunch. Hubby did a great job finding items to put in the tin. We focused on Pandas and Chinese food.

I made the panda bear head by cutting off the bottom corners of a slice of bread. Then I added Fluff for the white face. Nutella was placed in the top corners for ears (no Fluff there) and on top in the shape of eyes and a nose.

In the other compartments there are:

Black raisins

White Marshmallows

Salad to represent the bamboo they eat

White rice

Orange Chicken (hubby found some in the freezer section of the store)

Unfortunately, they didn't really care for the chicken, which is a shame because it is one of my favorites from the Chinese restaurant.

Weather, Dr. Seuss Style with the Poppins Book Nook

Welcome to the March edition of Poppins Book Nook! 

It's the first Book Nook post of the new year!!! I am so excited to be a part of this great book club again this year. Won't you join me for a year of book related fun.

This month's theme was: Weather    

Seeing as it was Dr. Seuss's birthday at the beginning of the month, the children and I have been enjoying several classic books by this famous children's author.  I was thrilled to discover that Dr. Seuss had written a book that fit with our weather theme.

Okay, okay, this isn't your typical weather book. But the children and I had done a weather study last year when we were reviewing Moving Beyond the Page with the Schoolhouse Review Crew. I felt Bartholomew and the Oobleck would fit in wonderfully with the other Dr. Seuss books we were reading. Additionally, I added some more weather-focused books so we could explore different types of weather. 

If you have never read (or heard of) Bartholomew and the Oobleck, as I hadn't, let me give you a brief summary. Bartholomew is a page boy for King Derwin of the Kingdom of Didd. One year the king decided to get angry at the weather because it was always the same. He got mad at the sun, snow, fog and rain. He decided to have his magicians create a completely new type of weather to fall from the sky. This led to Oobleck which wreaked havoc on his kingdom until Bartholomew showed him what he had to do to fix it. It was something quite simple, but I won't give it away. 

Obviously Oobleck is not real weather, so we did supplement with some other books (which went along with our My Father's World water related science topics). 

We read:

Weather Words and What They Mean  by Gail Gibbons

On the Same Day in March: A Tour of the World's Weather by Marilyn Singer

The Magic School Bus At the Waterworks by Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen

This Is The Rain by Lola M. Schaefer

Nimby: An Extraordinary Cloud Who Meets a Remarkable Friend by Jasper Tomkins

Cloudette by Tom Lichtenheld

I made the children a Weather Muffin Tin

They had:

Pineapple Slice/Yellow Pepper Slice Sun

Popcorn Clouds

Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich Raindrops

Marshmallow Snow

Cheese Lightning Bolts

Jello and Yogurt Oobleck

We made Nimby/Island crafts. 

In this book, Nimby meets an island friend. They can both change shapes and they would complement each other's imaginative creations. The children each picked one from the book to recreate with brown construction paper and cotton balls.

Then we made Weather Books.

And for our final project, we made Oobleck. I found the instructions here.

All you need is corn starch, water, and food coloring. First we measured out the water, using it as an opportunity to work on measurement equivalents (Tbs, cups, pints, quarts) as that was part of our math topic in My Father's World.

I gave the children 1/2 cup of water, plus 3/4 cup of cornstarch. As it was a little runny, I added a smidgen more cornstarch, about 1/3 of the 1/4 cup measuring cup.

We had a blast. And now we have Oobleck in a Bag!

Just for the record. Oobleck comes out of clothes pretty well. The carpet, not so much.

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 Kid's Poetry Bundle Giveaway.

Enchanted Homeschooling Mom - 3 Dinosaurs - ABC Creative Learning - As We Walk Along the Road - Brain Power Boy - Chestnut Grove Academy - Embracing Destiny - Every Bed of Roses - Farm Fresh Adventures - Growing in God's Grace - Kathys Cluttered Mind - My Bright Firefly - Peakle Pie - Preschool Powol Packets - Pray Species - SAHM I am - Stir The Wonder - Sunny Day Family - Sweet Silly Sara - Teach Beside Me - To the Moon and Back - Tots and Me - Tree Valley Academy - Witty Hoots

Kid’s Meteorologist in the Making Bundle 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 the Kid’s Meteorologist In The Making Bundle. The winner will enjoy two fun weather themed learning items. The two items that they will win is the Weather Tracker and National Geographic’s Kid’s Everything Weather (*kindly note that these are affiliate links and your purchase helps to run this book club). These two wondrous weather items can bring your children a fun weather activity or two.

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 PromoSimple terms & conditions as well as Enchanted Homeschooling Mom's disclosures found here {http://enchantedhomeschoolingmom.org/disclosures/}.  Just enter the PromoSimple below to win:

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

Clip Art by Melon Headz

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.

<a href="http://totsandme.blogspot.com/search/label/Toddler%20Ideas "><img alt="Tots and Me" src="http://i597.photobucket.com/albums/tt58/kewkewphoto/ToddlerIdeaTuesdays2.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" /></a>

Muffin Tin Monday: Madeline/France

Well, I guess there is no where for me to link up my muffin tin meals again. That doesn't mean I am going to stop making them though, the children wouldn't let me if I wanted to. And if I am going to make them, I am going to share them. I hope you don't mind.

This week we are reading the book Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans with the curriculum we are reviewing called Lightning Literature and Composition Grade 1, from Hewitt Homeschooling. I am also using the book Picture Book Activities by Trish Kuffner to include the younger children in the fun. So, today's muffin tin had a Madeline/France theme and I also got to use my Triangle Fun Bites cutter that I will be reviewing shortly as a part of my Back to School/5 Year Blogiversary Giveaway.

The top 3 compartments represent the French flag:

Blue-Blueberries

White-Cheese Triangles put together in the shape of a square

Red-Strawberries

Then there is a hat like the one Madeline wears made out of a dessert shell filled with vanilla yogurt, topped with half a peach and tied with a piece of a peel-able Twizzler.

The flower represents the flowers the girls bring Madeline when she is in the hospital. It is made of cheese cut with the FunBites cutter, a grape center and a green pepper stem.

Lastly, the children had a crescent roll (croissant).

I remember rowing Madeline when we were doing Five in a Row a few years ago. Though we aren't using FIAR right now, we are focusing on a book a week during the summer. It's been fun so far.