2.04.2012

Kid-Friendly Treat: Candy Sushi Feature

Now this is Sushi that I'd be able to eat!
And I know my kids would go for it, too!

A yummy twist on the rice crispie treat!

E is for Explore! has the Candy Sushi tutorial.

This would be fun for a kid's birthday party, don't you think?
The kids could even help make it!



Current sponsors :  Fudoo Boards  :  A Mom with a Lesson Plan  :  CraftProjectIdeas.com
Design your own party invitations at Vistaprint.com



Labels: ,

12.21.2011

It's Playtime! Christmas Treats

It's Playtime at hands on : as we grow
Some last minute treats for Santa?
Or for our family get together!

Try these Christmas sweets and goodies with the kids this year!

[Crystal & Co. : Christmas Cookies]

Have you made cookies to set out for Santa yet? Its getting close! Time to get baking! We have yet to start this tradition, but I think this year might be the year to do it. This Ranger Cookies Recipe from Crystal & Co. look great for a Santa treat!

Above, from left to right:
  • Aren't these the most adorable gingerbread men you've ever seen? Chicken Babies adds a candy cane to these sweet men!
  • Um, YUM! This is a Christmas Treat I've never seen! White Rocky Road Recipe from Sassy's Sanity.
  • A cute gingerbread tree at NurtureStore! Just icing and candies to decorate!
  • You'll Thank Me One Day has these sweet reindeer sandwiches! Made with peanut butter and a couple pretzels and M&Ms!
High Five to these play friends!
[Go leave them a playful comment!]
[Please grab the featured badge on the right if you were featured]
It's Playtime linky party

It's Playtime is a community for play loving bloggers to share ways to play.

Head on over to my playtime co-hosts:
The Imagination Tree, Messy Kids, Quirky Momma, Let the Children Play.

New to It's Playtime? Read How to Play to get all the details. 
Basically, share your play ideas at the party below and browse for more play ideas from others! 


Happy Holidays!

Have a very merry Christmas everyone!
The Playtime gang is taking a break next week.
We'll be back in the New Year!
[No blog? You can leave a comment here to share, too!]


Be sure to LIKE your favorite play ideas!
-------------

-------------
jamie @ hands on : as we grow
Henry is 3 years. George is 1 year.











Labels: , , , , ,

11.29.2011

Science Experiment : Ice, Water, Vapor


Henry woke up asking to do an experiment!

When I asked what kind of experiment he'd like to do, he replied,

Ice!

Probably thinking of our sand and salt experiment on ice that we did for the 30 Days to Hands on Play Challenge [for Day 22, Investigate]. 

I didn't have anything prepared yet, but ice cubes.

ice learning experiment, ice to water to vaporI came up with a simple, yet fun, interactive science experiment with ice. 

Watching and causing the changes of the phases of water as an ice cube melts and turns into water.
It then comes to a boil and vaporizes into thin air, disappearing completely.

This is how we did it.
I set up three ice stations.
Two pots and one bowl.

Henry added six ice cubes to each ice station [great counting practice for him].

Read more »

Labels: , , , , , , ,

11.17.2011

30 Days to Hands on Play : In the Kitchen




DAY 18 CHALLENGE:

KIDS IN THE KITCHEN



30 days to hands on play
DAY 18 CHALLENGE:
Get in the kitchen and spend some uninterrupted* time with the kids making something together!

Try to find a kid-friendly recipe that your kids can lead the way on.

Read more »

Labels: , , , ,

4.13.2011

Yarn Circle Garland


I'm not really sure what to call this craft,
because the craft got adjusted many times during the process.

But this is the beautiful result:

Remember last week when I had two failed crafts 
before having a success with the vehicle tracks painting?

Well, this is one of the failures.

Turned out to not be a failure after all.

What did Henry and I do to make this?
Read more »

Labels: , , , , , ,

4.05.2011

Cupcake Masterpieces by the Future Baker



I had some work to get done at the Bakery this morning,
Henry tagged along.
[That's something new for me. 
Henry tags along with Dad to work at the Bakery quite often.
But never with me.]

I wasn't sure how it'd go.
Then I thought maybe he could make his own cupcakes
while I'm decorating a cake.

It worked perfectly!
Henry really enjoyed himself.
And I got my work done.

-----------
Here's how that happened:
-----------
Read more »

Labels: , , ,

3.14.2011

Box Flap Bridges & an Experiment

I think I can now be certified as a 
civil engineer.
What?
Experience would be needed?

Experience:

and the latest : 
Box Flap Bridges
I had a ton of box flaps that I cut off from a previous road project.
(ha, more experience!)
This time I thought some bridges would be fun to add in the mix.
Read more »

Labels: , , , , , , , ,

2.22.2011

KoolAid Paint with Fun Cleanup


Some crafts don't turn out exactly how you plan... 
[isn't that the cardinal rule of crafting with toddlers and preschoolers?]
but the process of doing it is still just as fun and educational.
Henry painted with ice cubes and KoolAid.
He sprinkled a couple packages of KoolAid on paper in a tupperware.

Added some ice cubes and shook it around.

[FYI: ahead of time set the ice cubes out earlier so they are already slimy]
The ice cubes didn't melt fast enough, so I eventually gave him a syringe of water.
He had lots of fun with the syringe. 
Learning to aim where the water went
was most of the battle.
Read more »

Labels: , , , , , , , , ,

2.21.2011

Hammering & A Spaghetti Flop


Henry worked on his hand-eye coordination 
with his love for tools. 

All you need are some golf tees (thanks Mom) and Styrofoam.
And, of course, your boy's kid's toy hammer(s).

The Styrofoam had slants around the edge. 
For some reason or another, 
this is where Henry liked to nail his tees nails in.
It made for a really difficult angle for him to hold onto the tee and hit it, so I held the tee nail for him a lot.
No bruised fingers either : Henry has pretty good accuracy!



No, Henry is not hitting the tee nail with the wrong end of his hammer [above].
He had to get this hammer out 
because it has the claw 
so he could take out his tees nails.
(Completely his idea, he must watch Dad pretty close.)




I had this awesome idea that I found in the Toddlers Busy Book for...
Spaghetti Mobiles

I decided to use corn syrup and food coloring instead of white glue and paint. 
Why? I'm not sure. To make it more kid friendly, I guess. 

I put some corn syrup and food coloring in each container. 
Henry added some cooked spaghetti to each color
and stirred them up.

He took them out and placed them on a foam tray.
You could make some very nifty designs if you wanted to.

We just piled the spaghetti on the foam in any way that it fell.
(Though Dad joined us for tray number 2 and made it a rainbow colored mobile).


The product we left with was very bright and pretty. 


I left it to dry for a few hours.
When I came back to check it, it wasn't drying at all.

How long should it take?

Here's the flop:
I'm inpatient, and stuck it in the oven at 200 degrees.
Kind of forgot about it.
It wasn't in there long though... maybe 20 minutes.

Corn syrup is sugar. Sugar crystallizes.
Do you think I put it on foil?
I didn't leave it on the foam tray either... plastic would melt.
Nope, right on my jelly roll pan.
Nice and stuck on there.
Hard as a rock.

Oh well.
It was pretty.

[The plan was to hang it up with a ribbon - hence the 'mobile']


jamie @ hands on : as we grow


Henry is 34 months.








Labels: , , , , , ,

2.09.2011

Homemade Heart Bird Feeder


Did you know its National Bird Feeding Month?
Read about it here.
homemade bird feeder 

I've been seeing these a lot around blogs lately so I wasn't sure if I wanted to post another one.
But this is probably the one Valentine activity that Henry was so excited to do.
And he could do about 90% of it all by himself.
Read more »

Labels: , , , , , ,

2.03.2011

Yummy Edible Valentines


Growing up, frosted graham crackers was one of my favorites. Every time my mom made cupcakes, cake or brownies, the extra frosting always went on graham crackers. Even though these are pretty yummy, I'm not sure why they were a favorite, maybe its just the memories that are my favorites - or maybe its just because Mom makes everything better. 

I got this idea from Toddlers Busy Book

valentine's day food
Frost some graham crackers with your favorite frosting.
Sorry, no recipe - we own a bakery, so I didn't have to make it.



valentine's day food
Add your favorite candy hearts.
I don't like the regular ones, so we used SweetTart hearts.


valentine's day foodvalentine's day food

Eat up!

 

Labels: , , , , ,

1.10.2011

old activities : new fun!

How's everyone doing with their New Year's Resolutions? I'm loving this one I made to be more hands on with my kids! It has brought a lot of fun to the house - along with more resolutions. 

Most of the activities that we do around here take no longer than 15 minutes (what toddler has a longer attention span?) and the prep work I do doesn't take much longer than that either. As long as I have the materials - we're good to go! 

Here's what's been going on around here:

1) Magnetic Snowman! I thought this looked so cool over at No Time For Flash Cards. So I found some sticky foam and cut out some circles and made the snowman. I had a large magnet that I got for free from the library a long time ago that I stuck the foam to - and its a 'build your own snowman'! Henry helped with the buttons - he chose green (is there another color?). 



The snowman ended up with 3 feet because I made the first two facing the same way - and then Henry just thought it was necessary to have three. 



 2) Making things outta boxes! This isn't anything new in our house... and we really don't MAKE anything out of it - we just label it as something and that's what it becomes to Henry for the day. Its usually a Garage... He took his tools in for the day and worked inside.


 3) Stacking canned food! I thought this could be SO much fun!! I found this in the Toddler's Activities book -- Henry stacked a lot of them up himself, as long as they weren't the same size he did great (he made a very tall tower at first, but it fell and he got very frustrated). However, when they're the same size, they have no 'nesting' part on the bottom, so they have to be perfectly aligned. So, I built the 'castle' - Henry used it as a garage (what else?) to park things.

The most fun for Henry in this activity was hauling ALL the canned food in my pantry to the toy room table. Henry used his new dump truck he got at Christmas and hauled away!




4) Cooking with Mom. This is also nothing new around here - but I've learned to embrace it a little more and find more jobs for him to help out with. He loves helping make dinner with me.



(look at my fridge in the background! - see the Wrapping Paper Stocking from Christmas? The Marshmallow Snowman? And the new Magnetic Snowman!! LOVE!)




Labels: , , , ,

12.21.2010

Busy Busy Busy

These activities sure keep us busy! The hardest for me is to prepare the night before and decide what activity to do and 1) make sure I have everything needed and 2) get out everything needed! I don't know how many times I said, "Henry, let's do _____ today" and he got so excited only to find out I didn't have everything to do it... bummer.

Here's what we've been doing! (I know, some of these seem pretty minor, but just setting a time aside to do it seems to be the trick)

1) Indoor Sandbox! -- beware: this WILL be messy. 

Henry spent hours playing with this and asked to get it out the next day again. However, I'm trying to keep it as a "special" toy. I used rice for the 'sand' - you could use just about anything... I'm not sure why I didn't just use sand.... I was thinking this would be less messy, but I'm not sure it was.

 2) Green Rice Crispy Treats - Xmas Cutouts

We made Rice Crispy Treats and dyed them green for Xmas and the plan was to cut them out with Xmas Cookie Cutters (we have an abundance of them at the bakery...) - however, the cutters never found their way to the house. I did have a star cutter here so as Henry ate them, they got cut (and I got the scraps.... hehe)

 3) Pasta/Cereal Necklace

I thought this one would be a big hit and would entertain him for hours. But on this morning, Henry refused to have breakfast, so instead of threading any cereal, it just went in his mouth. This activity was a dud for us. :(



 4) Play Doh!! 

Obvious, huh? Its never been a hit before, but this time... WOW, Henry spent 2 hours making 'food' for me to eat, and he only quit then because it was suppertime. 







 Here is a picture of his specialty menu item - "Chocolate Cookie Ice Cream"! (He came up with the name on his own...)

 






We went to see Santa on Saturday and did a little craft afterwards. Henry enjoyed himself!






 
And I'll leave you with a picture of Henry on Santa's lap (I was actually surprised he didn't figure out it was our neighbor, Jerry). He did good - he told him what he wanted to Christmas - "blue tractor and green semi!" (by the way... anyone know where to find a green semi?!?"




Labels: , , , , , ,