Easter Snacks

Easter snacks can be a great way to express creativity and now with all of the fabulous ideas swirling around on pinterest I am never going to run out of creativity!  I used to be the mom that made the crazy homemade chocolate sculptures and 4 tier cakes ect.  Don’t get me wrong, I still love a great cake making session but I have come to the reality that I am a super busy working mom and shortcuts are necessary!  The first snack I am going to talk about is one that is super easy and I literally came up with it on the fly!  Hmm seems like a theme lately.  I used pre-packaged rice crispy treats, licorice, m&m’s, marshmallows and peeps. 

First you flatten and mould the rice crispy treat into a basket.  The more you mould the treat it takes on the consistency of clay.  The next step is to peel a piece of licorice off and press it into the rice crispy basket to make a handle.  Step three is to add m&m’s and marshmallows.  Finally, add the peeps and eat it! 

Our next snack was one I found on my Pinterest Spring Board from http://www.armelleblog.com/2012/04/diy-easter-carrot-snacks.html You just need cone shaped bags, green construction paper, tape and goldfish or organic bunny crackers.  Fill the bags with the crackers.  Twist and tape the top to a point.  Finally, you tape on the green stems.  Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy!  

Our last snack was the bird nest treats. 

Bird's Nest Treats
12 oz. package chow mein noodles
12 oz. package butterscotch morsels

6oz. White Chocolate Morsels
robin egg whoppers

Bird peeps  

Pour the butterscotch and white Chocolate morsels in a microwave-safe bowl and place them in the microwave. Heat for 30 seconds then remove to stir. Return to the microwave and heat again for 30 seconds. Stir until melted. Add in the chow mein noodles and mix till combined. I let all of the kids have a turn stirring.  You can add a little bit of butter or peanut butter to prevent it from solidifying so quickly.  Place three egg-shaped candies in the center of each nest and the birds on top. 

Let me know if you made any of these snacks and how they turned out! 

RAchel

Mommy Monday Hip Homeschool Hop!

Dolls, Barbies, fingernails and hairbows!!

On Monday's we stay at home and have "mommy day".  This is our day to do fun homeschooling and projects.  Allie loves to play with her dolls and barbies.  Her favorite thing to do is cook and she loves learning anything that has to do with cooking!

Allie is getting very good with her fractions because of all the cooking she does.  She can go in the kitchen all by herself and make the whole family scrambled eggs and she even adds bacon, cheese, dill (and one time even raisins!)  While we are cooking I always grab that teaching moment.  We talk about volume. measuring, adding, subtracting, dividing equal shares and fractions. 

 

This is one of our math songs!

For reading today we read Aesop's Fables.  We did a comparison chart and we discussed why Aesop chose certain animals for his fables.  She chose her favorite fable and told me why she chose that fable.

Her favorite fable today was the one about the peacock.  She liked how the goddess pointed out the peacock's strengths and how everyone has something they are good at and everyone can't be good at everything. 

Allie as a fairy in Peter Pan

After we talked about the peacock story she told me what she was good at.  She is good at acting, singing, cooking and riding horses.  For her writing assignment today she made a bubble map all about her.  She then used her descriptions to write an acrostic poem about herself.  She really enjoyed this creative writing assignment. 

We use the Workbox system for homeschooling.  A few of Allie's workboxes today were her contraction snowmen (see freebie!) and clay suffixes

making clay words with suffixes. 

For art we are just finishing up our Polar regions unit.  Here are the projects she did for this unit.  She also made a Polar bear mask.

Here is her torn paper landscape with polar bears!  I think she did an awesome job :)

Here is her Inuit Native American and her igloo made out of Styrofoam blocks.  This was a great math project!  She had to cut the cubes and spiral them in tilting towards the middle.  I put on the hot glue where she wanted and she placed the cubes.  The little man was made out of a wooden clothes pin, paper and fur.  Allie made his arms and legs out of pipe cleaners and then wrapped the paper around them and taped it. 

I love homeschooling!!!  We had a great day, I would love to hear a comment about how your day went!

Reindeer and Santa Cake Pops

Ho, Ho, Ho Merry Almost Christmas!!  Tomorrow is officially my "drama Queen's" last full day of public school.  To celebrate I contacted the teacher and asked if we could have a going away party for her so she could have closure and say goodbye to her and all her friends.  To make it a fun day I decided to make cake pops.  To be completely honest I have a love, hate relationships with these tiny beautifully deceptive little treats!  I love them when they are done, and I do have fun creating the first 2 or 3 of them but about a quarter of the way into it I am saying to myself WHAT WAS I THINKING????  Anyways that was then and now they are done so I am back to the I love them stage!  I decided to take step by step photos for you all because they are not easy to make. 

First you take your sticks and dip them in Chocolate and then stick them in your cake balls.  Then freeze them to harden.

Take Chinese noodles and melted Chocolate or Royal Frosting and make antlers.  Leave out to harden.

Melt chocolate and pipe pupils on white Chocolate chips to make eyes.

Melt Chocolate and add a tablespoon of water so the Chocolate doesn't melt.

Dip the cake ball in the Chocolate and twirl until all the extra chocolate has dripped off. 

Finally decorate and remember, have fun because you will love them when you are done!!

Gingerbread man math and literacy unit

This week we use these gingerbread units http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Gingerbread-Man-Math-and-Literacy-Fun
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/FREE-Gingerbread-Glyph

We will finish up next week.  The kids had fun with the science project where we discussed what would happen if the gingerbread man swam across the ocean.  They all made thier predictions and then observed what happened.  Some kids even wanted to eat the soggy gingerbread man EWWW!!!

For math we worked on graphing and number operations.  We played the dice roll game where they got to eat whatever number they landed on.  This game was a big hit!!  They were all excited to see what part of the gingerbread man they got to eat next.  This was also good reading practice because they had to read the chart everytime. 
For Graphing we ate a part of the gingerbread and the graphed which part we ate first then we analyzed our data and recorded it.  We also measured our gingerbread men and recored the data.

In journal we did a directed drawing activity where they had to follow directions to draw each part of the gingerbread man.  We talked about what the house would look like if the gingerbread man was running away from it and they decided it would be smaller.  Then they wrote about the gingerbread boy. 
We made gingerbread playdough for our practical life shelf.  The kids will get to roll and cut the gingerbread man and decorate him with buttons and other plastic candies. 

We made gingerbread glyphs for the parents to guess which gingerbread man is which???  They had a lot of fun with this activity because they got to personalize it and learn more about their classmates. 

We practiced descriptive language and adjectives after we read the story and used adjectives to describe how the gingerbread man tasted and how he acted. 

Last but certainly not least we decorated and ate gingerbread boys.....and girls! ;) I was impressed with their creativity.  This was an extremely fun and educational unit that we will use over and over again that I will keep adding to.

Summer Cooking Fun Monster Quesadillas

Here is a fun summer cooking activity that we do every year.  Make quesadillas with tortillas and cheese in a skillet.  Cut the quesadilla in half and cut one half in triangles.  Put out your cream cheese or sour cream and your favorite veggies and let the kids decorate.  FUN!  We also do this for a cooking activity in my Montessori classroom!  Enjoy <3 Mrs. Mommy :)