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School is creeping up on us. My children are chock full of excitement this year, with little worries bubbling over here and there. Each day I glance at our calendar I see the very clearly written: First Day of School. As a teaching grad student, this means my summer is ending soon too, and I must mentally prepare myself to reenter this other world away from my children and their concerns.
So today we escaped to the beach.
Absolutely lovely. We packed up around lunchtime, eating a small bit before we left and packing more (and more) for the beach. We grabbed pails, books for me, some sunscreen. It’s a little trek for us, but a nice drive, and we stopped on the way to pick up some local plums and apples (the Gravensteins are in!) to add to our basket. I wasn’t sure if it would be as sunny there as it was at our house (and had packed layers in case), but it was perfect. A little breeze. Sunshine. Happy kids.
Mrs. Miniver- Perfect Beach Read
While they played in the waves, being chased and chasing them, digging holes (there really is no substitue for digging and filling a hole at the beach), I kept one eye on them, and one eye on my reading.
One of the books I brought to peruse was Nature in a Nutshell for Kids by Jean Potter, which I saw recommended at Soulemama (I think). I’ve persused A LOT of nature and science books for children, and done a good amount of projects with preschool groups, but I’m always looking for new ideas. Usually I find a few scattered projects in a book, but this one is overflowing with great small scale experiments and exploration, and has wonderful explanations that can easily be explained to children. While this book would definietly be appropriate for preschool age children (3+), it would also work for up to 8 years, at least. One of my favorite aspects of this book is that it divides the projects based on season, which is exactly how I like to introduce science concepts to children.
For example: it is summer, so I go to the pictorial coded summer section. I want to do a project with my children about the ocean, or beach to follow up on our outing today and some of our talk on the way home about how much water is in the world, and how many oceans there are. In 5 minutes I am able to locate at least 5 different quick projects. A couple of my favorites (that we will probably try tomorrow) are: Dense Dip: Why is it easier to float in the ocean than in a swimming pool? and Wind Waves: How are waves made?.
Which brings me to two other wonderuful things about this book! The projects are based out of questions that children ask (that I usually can’t answer– like today’s question from my daughter: “Where did water come from?”), and the projects are done using mostly things you can find on a nature walk or nature exursion, or around your house. For the two projects I mentioned I will need: a large cake pan, water, drinking straw, 2 bowls, food coloring, salt, spoon, and two eggs. I should also only need about 20 minutes to complete both explorations/explantions with my children.
Which is a lot shorter than it will take me to explain where water came from, so consider this my diversion tactic until I can get a handle on that one.
You will probably note a flurry of sewing in the next couple weeks. My semester starts the last week of August and I can feel my sewing time dwindling and so many unfinished projects still staring me down. I decided that I would dedicate this afternoon to finishing the lunch mats for my children. The decision to focus on the lunch mats was strenghened when I came across a picture of some lunch mats in one of my newest Japanese craft books:All Your Kids Need
I like the one on the top right
These are a slightly different set up than mine, and give me something to try another time. I see lots and lots of embroidery work here, as well as all over the blogs I’ve been reading, and perhaps I will give it a whirl one day. My favorite from the book is the one with the embroidered spoon and chopsticks to show where they go.
With that inspriation I began my work this afternoon. It was quick and easy sewing and I have finished them all! Five for each of my children, so that we may make it through the weeks with clean mats and napkins for their lunches. Hopefully I won’t fall behind on laundry this year!
Hers
His
It was in fact such an easy project that I decided to let my daughter sew one for herself. She received a sewing machine for her 7th birthday last January, but we have just carved out the time for sewing lessons starting this week. We had a basic lesson a couple days ago, and today we dived right into her first project. I helped her as I’m a bit nervous still to let her go at, but she did stupendously and will be on her own soon enough. Today I handled the iron, but I do need to give her a chance to try that soon.
My proud girl!
As I was sewing the rest of them I began playing around a bit- trying pinking shears on some for finishing, my serger on others (I’m still using the serger in it’s most basic way as I haven’t had time to explore it more yet). I tried out a snap and a tie on my son’s, but after having him try to undo and then redo them, I’ve decided that no clasp or closure will work better. Sometimes, simplest is the best.
Pinking Shears
serger action
Photo from my vacation!
We are home again! And while when I am here too long I can only think about traveling, when I am away too long, I can only think about home. Our full trip was almost two weeks and it was nice to come home, check on my garden (still growing), my to do list (still growing), and think of fun summer things to do in our area where my bed is (blackberry picking is high on our list this week). I was also anxious to get back to my posting here. We came back a bit too late to get my TWD up today (check tomorrow– I did get all the ingredients today and they await me in the morning) but not too late to get up another post about baking with children– one of my favorite topics.
My Baking Boy a couple years back
In my last post about Baking with Children I mentioned one of my favorite cookbooks for children, the well-known classic, Pretend Soup. And my favorite recipe in that book? Popovers. Hands down one of the most satisfying baking you can do with young children. I’ve made this recipe now multiple times not only with my children, but in their preschool classrooms where it never fails to be a hit.
The great thing about this recipe is that it is broken in to steps making even the prep work managable for the kids. The children get to “paint” the muffin tins with the melter butter, and just as Katzen promises, some children “love” this and will do this for quite a while, making for some very buttered tins!
The format of the cookbook is a bit lengthy with grown-up hints, the recipe itself, and then simplified pictorial directions for the children to follow. I can’t obviously recreate that here, so I will do my best to give enhanced directions. The best bet is to check out the book itself, at the library or at a bookstore.
Popovers
adapted from Pretend Soup by Mollie Katzen & Ann Henderson
best eaten slightly warm, with jam
This recipe will work in a toaster oven and in mini muffin tins.
Ingredients:
2 TBSP butter, melted (to “paint” with)
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
Preheat oven to 375. Have the children paint the insides of the muffin cups with the melted butter (you may need more than the 2 TBSP depending on how much they enjoy this part– don’t rush them! Focusing on the process instead of the product is very important for young children)
When they are ready, break the eggs into the mixing bowl (try my trick for the small bowl for each or Katzen’s listed “break them on the bottom of a big bowl and let the egg run out into the bowl”). Once you have all the shells out of the egg, add the milk and beat well. Add flour and salt and whisk until blended.
Pour the batter into the muffin cups, filling each about 2/3 full. You can put the batter in a small pyrex measure cup to let the children help fill them on their own. Bake for 30 minutes without opening the oven (if using mini muffins it will be less– you will need to watch them, but this is part of the fun of popovers!)
Remove from pan and prick with a fork to let steam escape (truth be told I don’t think I usually remove them from the muffin pans– lazy, I guess). Katzen suggests having your child wear an oven mitt when they prick the muffins to protect them from the steam.
Eat one. And another. Add a little jam to the next. Maybe time for a glass of milk, or a mug of tea. Now one more.
Now get them young'uns in the kitchen!
I love baking. I love sharing things I love with my children. Not too far a leap to loving baking with my children. One recent afternoon my son had a friend over and we headed to the kitchen to do those things I love. My son loves chocolate. That lead us to this recipe from Linda Collister’s, Cooking with Kids for Double Chocolate Muffins. The recipe was from her aptly named section in the book, “baking afternoon”.
I got the boys suited up into aprons and away we went, mixing, stirring, cracking… and of course spilling. We made it through with only the barest of messes (one egg did miss the bowl completely but a quick swipe, a new egg, and we were back in business. 30 minutes later- cooling muffins. The interesting thing is that I think they enjoyed the process of baking more than those muffins. By the time they had come out of the oven they were onto another activity— but momma enjoyed them!
Here are a few tips when baking with children. The thing to always keep in mind is that baking with children will be a little bit messy. But there are some things you can do to minimize the mess and mishaps.
1. Have them crack eggs in a small separate bowl so if shell goes in with it all is not lost! I picked up this little trick from one of my favorite children’s cookbooks, Pretend Soup by Mollie Katzen and Ann Henderson.
2. Use nice large bowls. It helps when they pour in too quickly (slosh), too much at one time (large puff of flour in the air), or stir with the might of mighty mouse (flinging unincorporated flour or, even better, bits of batter, throughout the kitchen). It doesn’t solve the mess, but it does minimize it.
3. Read through the recipe before you invite them in the kitchen. Make sure you have all the ingredients and prepare what you can. 
3a. Be sure that if you are baking with more than one child that the recipe has more than one egg to crack. This is the highlight of baking for most children. You can also check to see if there might be a compensating step, but cracking the egg is hard to beat. To ensure equal egg breaking consider making scrambled eggs after or instead. All will be happy.
4. Choose a recipe that will be done today. Preferable within an hour. Patience is not common in children, especially when it comes to eating dessert.
Happy Baking with your children!
Today was a day of little accomplished except enjoying summer. We swam, visited family and ate ice cream– twice. While I didn’t get much of anything done this afternoon, I did find time to see a few things I’d like to do this week.
First up is trying these banana crunch muffins from an issue of FamilyFun that I received last Fall but have just been able to crack open now. Hopefully for my son can munch on these on the way to his 1/2 day soccer camp this week. This recipe appealed to me as it didn’t have tons of sugar and did have whole wheat flour & bran. I’ve been making a poppyseed banana muffin for the last 2 years from one of my favorite cookbooks, Once Upon a Tart, but this one looks promising.
Next I’m hoping to try this cute little bag from Martha Stewart’s website for one of my daughter’s first sewing projects. Looks fairly straight forward, but will be a satisfying end result for her– I hope. It is something she can use right away, but we won’t get a chance to take a crack at it until next weekend as she is going to her first summer day camp this week.
All this thinking about actually doing things has made me quite tired. I think I’ll call it a day.
One of my favorite things about these summer days is the time to do art and crafts with my two kiddos, who are now at an age to really get into and take off on their own with just a little nudging. First up was this quick little 4th of July project— from this Martha Stewart idea. Now I don’t claim to be Martha, and my kids certainly don’t either, but she can’t be beat for inspiration! Ours didn’t turn out quite the same, but then, our budget and crafters were both a little smaller. 
I made a slightly sloppy, but very quick, table runner out of some cheap white muslin (1.99/yd) and about 4 minutes at my machine and serger. Then using some fabric paint and scrub brushes the kids went at it, making “fireworks” all over!
Next up were the paper fireworks to set on the table runner.
We used construction paper and straws instead of the vellum and skewers called for, mainly because of budgetary reasons, but also because they were to be had in our cupboards. Both kids loved it and were able, after the first one, to do them on their own.
To make a firework: 1) take a piece of colored construction paper or other colored paper (not cardstock– we tried some it is was a little too stiff) 2) fold it in half lengthwise 3) using that line as a guide, tear or cut it in to two skinny pieces 4) fold the smaller piece in half lengthwise again 5) make mall cuts along the length leaving the folded edge uncut (this is sometimes called fringing) 6) tape straw end to paper end 7) role paper around straw with fringe end pointing up 
tape to secure 9) roll some of the outer fringes down & squash others. Homemade fireworks!
Surprisingly, both of my kids declared that the paper fireworks (or pom-pom’s as Martha calls them) were more fun to make than the more expensive and labor intensive table runner! All in all this project, ringing in at about $6, was much cheaper then an art day camp for both of them! Plus, I got to have some fun with them and they got to see Momma doing something besides cleaning house!
I just wanted to post quickly about two firsts this week- ok three.
The first I am so excited, and I dare say, proud about. My very first grown in my garden hollyhock is blooming! And it was worth the wait. I actually must admit I did not grow these from seed but purchased them as small plants at a local hardware store. The fact that I didn’t plant them from seed is probably a good thing since my zinnia seeds did not come up this year; doubly disturbing because those are the type of seeds a child is supposed to be able to grow! [Just in case you're interested in gardening with children here is another cool link that doesn't mention zinnias (maybe with good reason!) but looks like an excellent resource for gardening with kids. I'll have to post another time about my experiences gardening with kids; hit and miss as is the norm with all my gardening!]
Ok, to come fully clean, I actually planted 3 or 4 of these starters and only one is blooming but I’m calling that as SUCCESS! It is shaped like an umbrella handle, goes straight down and then hooks to the left- I’m guessing the sun exposure directly over the plant wasn’t suffiecient and I’m more then willing to overlook such faults. To me, like my children, it is gorgeous and perfect! And such a wonderful color! Unlike my dahlias, which disappointed me greatly as out of the many many (many many many) I planted ONLY the white ones bloomed, this hollyhock is studpendous. I guess I should quickly explain why the white dahlias were not met with such rave reviews– I had bought the white ones mainly to offset the other colors, but as the other colors did not bloom it is a little blah…. Ah well.
Before I gush on too long about my hollyhock, I’ll move on to my other first. We are joining a CSA! I wrote briefly about this in my first or second post, inspired and reminded by another bloggers post and promptly emailed a local farm about joining theirs. I was initially a bit dissappointed as their CSA is actually so popular there is a waiting list!!! I guess that speaks volumes about the area I live in- which I will take as a good thing- but I was still a little let down. Meanwhile I joined their waiting list and expected a 3-4 month wait until either someone decided to drop out of the CSA or they expanded their plantings. But!!! (of course there is a but, otherwise why would I spend all this time writing about it!) An email!!!
They have an opening on the day I requested and I’ve repsonded that yes, yes we’d like it! So, hopefully starting next week- but I really have no particulars- we will begin picking up our year-round CSA veggies bin. There is also a fruit and/or bread option you can add. I had no idea there would be so many choices to make, but excited about the possiblities and yummy local organic produce we will be having from now on. The nicest thing is that the farm where I will be picking up is not too far from my children’s school so I will probably bring them with me after I pick them up and give them a little exposure to the rich agricultural world of our county.
Last first. (Love how that sounds.)
I finished teaching my first class as a grad student. I’d like to say it went fabulously, but… it went great! I didn’t connect as much as I would have liked to with the students but part of that is my personality and I’m just going to have to work with that. I did however stay fairly organized, on task and impart what I wanted the first day. Second day? No idea! I’ve got a “plan” but really need to look at it. And then there’s the issue of whether or not they will read their assignment. And what do I do about it if they don’t? And so on….. But for today I am feeling good. Glad I’m past the first day with only a couple minor clumsy mishaps in front of the students (rather good for me) and home with out tears (not so surprising since i”m not really a crier, but wouldn’t it have been terrible if I was in tears then?).
I guess today I’m just reveling in all the firsts I can still experience 30 odd years into life! So many experiences, oppurtunities, and plants out there to try. I don’t always feel this way but today I am in awe of all my options. Oh- and ready for a nap.
Summer for us is OFFICIALLY winding down. Today I start my first day of grad school-OFFICIALLY. I’ve been prepping for the last week, at various trainings, and working on my curriculm for the composition class I’ll be teaching, but TODAY IS THE DAY! I teach my first class this morning and my own coursework begins tomorrow. So summer is officially and completely over— except for this Friday!! Friday will be the true last day of summer fun for my kids and I– but I haven’t figured out what do to yet!
Last Friday, feeling the end of summer blues, and after a morning of volunteering in my son’s preschool classroom helping his teacher get ready for the new year, and then two hours of errands, I treated the kiddies to dipped Foster Freeze cones! We had to eat them fast and furious because the heat was back and they were drip, drip, dripping! Ahhh, but the semi -hard- starting -to- melt- eggshell- thin -chocolate shell, with little droplets of vanilla ice cream sweating from within! We had to eat fast, to keep up with the heat’s work- honestly that wasn’t really a problem.
Those cones for me are a quinessential summer treat. As a child my sister and I ONLY got a Foster’s Freeze cone on drives to our family camping destination (or at least that’s how I remember it and I’m stickin’ to my story!) As we headed north from our home town the dirt got redder, and the heat more stifling, especially in our unconditioned car. About an hour into our winding trip, our legs sticking to the vinyl seats, our heads against the back window to let the rush of air from the open front windows unstick our hair from our foreheads, we would see the Foster’s Freeze sign with relief. As children who did not routinely get to stop for fast food, let alone a soft serve cone, this was a moment to be savored. The hardest decision was trying to decide: chocolate, vanilla, or half & half! Either way we were happy “campers” after that armed with our sticky, yummy oozing dipped cones and a lap full of napkins!
My mom originally introduced us to their messy loveliness, and for that I will always love her from the bottom of my chocolate obsessed heart!
Each year my daughter’s school puts on a Nutcracker preformance by the kindergarten classes. Last year Thea participated in this charming event and even got to have a line!
I helped to make some costumes including the nightgown she wore in it (that we donated for future use) and the tin soldiers hats. I asked at the time if there was any other costume needs and the teacher’s mentioned that the Nutcracker’s cape was only a loan and they could use one for future years. I promised one by the end of the year.
Fast forward 8 months. Having promised this cape I have been plagued by guilt at not having delivered it. Holiday crazies led to the birthday months, then the flu and cold-ridden months, then Easter, spring break and end of the year crazies followed by summer vacation travels. So here I found myself in August still not having sewn the cape. Not even having bought the fabric for it. (But not having forgotten it for which I shall give myself a few gold stars.) So in this flurry of sewing I’ve been doing- newly inspried all around– I made the trip to JoAnn’s and bought the material. And sewed the cape. And folded it and set it near the door to deliver to the Kindergarten teachers next week when school starts.
But what to my wondering eyes should appear? But a miniature prince with no fear. He stole past me with a smirk and a giggle and dawned that cape in one little wriggle! It was love at first sight, and who am I to put up a fight!
Ian has truly been enjoying the cape. I had no idea he would like one so much. I had made him a Robin Hood one last year which got some play time but I think it is the gold lining that has really got him enamored with this one. So I guess it is back to the fabric store for me- quick before I lose my steam!
If only he were as quick to clean his room as he is to find new treasures!
On a recent trip to a modern art museum I purchased a simple cutting book made by Kumon for my four year old son, Ian. My little guy, while being blessed with a memory like a steel trap (unfortunate especially when it comes to promised [but forgotten by mom] sweets, treats, extra stories, songs and the like) and excellent gross motor skills (like all ball skills including:dribbling, kicking, batting, shooting, and throwing), is still struggling to master the fine motor skills that his older sister had mastered by three. I make this comparison, not to compare them outright, but to explain why I was so delighted to see him finally starting to master scissors and hold a pencil correctly (and a fork at dinner too- if truth be told) within the last couple of months. Many activities (artistic and just time fillers for long days at home) that I used to do with his sister at the same age had been more frustrating then rewarding in the last year- for both of us. Cutting ended in a few jagged snips and then r-r-r-i-i-i-p-p-p of the paper. Drawing was a quick squiggle then an even quicker drop and run.
This has been perhaps harder for me. I love writing, drawing, art, cutting– pretty much anything that requires fine motor skills. These type of activities I can do for long periods of time without hearing my laundry or dishes calling and whining at my neglect; I can not muster the same kind of focus and enjoyment for other play such as– oh– having two plastic dinosaurs fight. But I’ve adjusted- I’ve gotten creative; I’ve found art projects that used minimal fine motor skills. [One of my favorites I did last summer was squirt bottle painting (an outside project if ever there was one).]
But I am excited! He, who in the past has loved cutting for the destruction aspect alone, is begining to master controlled cutting- and that will unlock all sorts of creative projects for us! And how did I realize he was beginning to master cutting- the Kumon book!
His favorite so far- assembling his very own paper rocket.
My favorite? When he said, “This is great! A little cutting, a little cookie.” (Did I forget to mention I sweetened the deal with a cookie snack?)
