Playdough Waffles

Our waffle maker quit working after many loyal years of service. Since I never like to throw anything out, this was what I came up with. I removed the screws from the bottom of the waffle maker and removed the electrical cord. I cleaned off years of baked on cooking oil and presented it to my buddies along with their gingerbread playdough.



 



This new tool was a fantastic hit with my buddies. It takes a little muscle to scrunch the playdough into a waffle shape, but their effort is well rewarded when they open it up to see their nicely formed waffle!

Feed the Birds

It been a very easy journey from birdwatching to bird feeding.  When I began, I had a simple plastic feeder that I filled with commercial birdseed. We go through the birdseed rather quickly and I started to include some table scraps, bread and cracker crumbs, bits of fruit, cheese and that sort of thing.  I also make my own hummingbird nectar and have been rewarded by daily viewings of hummingbirds.  My buddies have also started to differentiate between different birds. 

One of the things I have learned to do is to make a suet - type bird feeder.  I save my meat fat when I cook and pour it into a can.  I line a bowl with a coffee filter and fill it with my commercial birdseed and add a few nuts or oatmeal.  Then I pour the melted fat into the birdseed mix.  You can add peanut butter to the melted fat if you don't have quite enough to make it all stick.  I put the mixture in the freezer and when it is solid I put it in a mesh bag that had held onions in another life.  Then I hang it outside for the birds to enjoy. 

Snowman Handprint Ornament

This is my most favourite of Christmas crafts. Using my buddies handprints, I create a lovely snowman ornament for the tree. It makes a beautiful Christmas present and my buddies' parents look forward to getting them each year.

I prefer to use blue glitter balls to create these ornaments. The blue contrasts nicely with the white, and makes a night sky backdrop for them. The glitter works wonders to keep my buddies hands from sliding and smearing the handprint. This is especially great for my youngest buddies.

I simply paint each child's hand with white acrylic paint and have them grasp the ball from the bottom, with fingers reaching up. The fingers will become the "snowmen". I set the balls in a cup to dry and when the paint is dry, I add details. I use acrylic paints and fine paintbrushes. The task of adding details would be made much simpler with paint markers, but I didn't have those. I add eyes, carrot noses, mouths, buttons, scarves, hats and any other details that seem to work.





  


They are super cute, and sure to please my buddies' parents!

Good Clean Fun!

My buddies and I had tons of fun with this easy science experiment.  We took a simple bar of ivory soap and placed it on a plate in the microwave.  You're probably wondering why.





At first, not much happened. Then the soap began to grow. We could really smell it as well as see it grow!

Although our soap did not grow as much as I have seen it grow for others, it was so neat to see. After we took it out of the microwave it had a different texture, maybe like a foamy cheese? So we cut it up and began using it for construction, along with toothpicks!

One of my buddies in particular found this activity captivating. It wasn't until he, too grew bored that we tried something else. We scooped up all the little bits of soap and put them in a bowl. I added hot water and my buddies stirred it up.

The soap started to dissolve. Then I took my electric mixer and whipped it all up!
My buddies had even more fun playing with this new mixture! We spent our whole morning discovering what we could do with soap!

Present Play

I was hugely inspired by Deborah at Teach Preschool with her magnetic bows on cookie sheets. Most of my buddies are a little younger than the children she works with, but I knew they, too would enjoy placing magnetic bows on presents. At first, I was going to wrap some boxes and put magnets on them too. But while shopping at the dollar store for my bows and some more magnets, I saw some fancy Christmas tins that would be PERFECT! I used a hot glue gun to secure the magnets to the back of the bows



.


Then I filled the tins I bought with some little Christmas decorations and some tissue paper. I placed them under my buddies' Christmas tree for them to discover Monday morning.






My buddies played for hours opening presents, giving presents to their friends, stuffing the tins with different items and changing the bows around. This activity was a hit and I will definitely do it again next year! And the tins will be great to store all the little tree ornaments, too!





If I had had more time, I am sure I could have had parents donate tins from home. After I put the tins under the tree, I kept finding more that I could add to the collection.  Empty cookie and coffee tins were sitting in my cupboard, just waiting for my buddies!

Christmas Ornaments

Each year, I have been setting up a little tree that my buddies can decorate as they wish. I usually put it up around the first of December, but this year I had trouble locating it and I just found it! Unfortunately, I didn't find the ornaments. We needed some quick and easy homemade ones. These are the first ones we made.


I started with a foam egg carton. I cut apart each egg cup.




Then I smoothed the edges, cutting the jagged parts off. I wasn't ready to let my buddies use scissors for this, not yet, anyway.


.





Then I provided a foil square for each of my buddies to cover their cup. After their cup was covered, I added ribbon either at the top, to make a bell, or on the side. On the side ornaments, we put glue at the bottom of the cup and added glitter.


.



We now have about a dozen ornaments decorating our little tree, with more to come!

Jingle Bells!

Years ago I was given a box of silver bells. I love getting donated items like this! I wasn't sure exactly what to do with them, we played with them a bit, then they got tucked away for a long while.



Then I came up with this idea!




 


I took the bells and strung then along some string and then tied the string around my table legs. I taped the strings to hold them from sliding down the legs and I provided spoons for playing!  It definately sounds like Christmas at my house!

The bells are not fixed in place and can be slid from side to side. When the novelty of the music wears off, we will use them for counting and adding as well.

Snow Day!

We don't often get snow that lasts any length of time where I live. That means that my buddies don't get much of a chance to play in the real stuff.

For many years, I substituted the "clean mud" made from toilet tissue and grated ivory snow and water as our snow. It was ok, a little messy, which wasn't a problem. But it also sometimes irritated my buddies' hands if they played for very long or had extra sensitive skin.

This weekend I was at my favourite dollar store and I purchased two bags of shredded plastic "decorative snow". They were $2 each and they nicely covered my train table. I put some cars in the snow and set some buckets and a few shovels nearby. I expected my buddies to drive in the snow - cars are a popular toy at my house. Instead, they spent most of their time filling and dumping the pails, piling and squishing the snow. They were having a blast. After a while I added some styrofoam balls as snowballs and they were a big hit, too.




I want to get them outside this afternoon and I think I will have to put this away as they nap or they won't want to go outside!

Gingerbread Children

This is my ALL TIME FAVOURITE cookie recipe to make with my buddies.  It is so forgiving!  It comes from the book "Art and Creative Development for Young Children"  (It was a textbook that was part of my Early Childhood Education classes.) 

Gingerbread Children

1 box butterscotch pudding mix
1/2 cup shortening (or margarine)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda

Cream shortening and sugar. (I use margarine.)   Ad egg and let your buddies take turns mixing the dough.  Add the dry pudding mix, flour and spices and mix well.  Divide into approximately 6 balls of dough and distribute to the children.  They can roll the dough and cut it with cutters, or they can shape and mold them like playdough.  Bake on a greased cookie sheet at 350 degrees F.  (Watch carefully if some of the cookies are thin as they will finish cooking before thicker cookies.)


I have used this dough to make large batches of cookies for school classmates.  A pre-made cookie with a small packet of icing and some little candies makes a great gingerbread man kit!  The scraps can be re-rolled without making the cookies tough.  Children who don't like traditional gingerbread cookies are likely to enjoy these, too!

Gingerbread Playdough

We made our gingerbread playdough last week.  I think it's a holiday tradition with my buddies.  If you haven't made this before, I highly recommend trying it!

I got my recipe from Preschool Rock.com

This is how it's made:

Gingerbread Playdough Ingredients

1 cup of flour
1/2 cup of salt
2 tsp. Cream of tartar
1 cup of water
1 tsp vegetable oil
cinnamon, allspice, ginger, nutmeg, etc.


Mix all dry ingredients together, adding as much of the spices as you like.  I tend to be heavy on the spices.  I also like to add some brown food colouring to give the dough a rich, brown gingerbread cookie colour.  Add the water and oil and cook in a pot until it becomes dough-like.  This only takes 2-3 minutes.  Remove from heat and knead until smooth.  Store in a covered container.

(In years gone by, I have taken all the DRY ingredients and mixed them and put them in my sensory bin for a day or two before making it into the playdough.  It makes a wonderful smelling, soft play material.  You have to adjust the water/oil when completing it to account for some of the dry materials getting lost.)


Of course, there are lots of stories that go with the gingerbread theme.  If you don't have any, I located one on Free-stories.net 

Enjoy!