Salt dough handprints

We finally got around to making salt dough hand prints.  I have to say this was much easier than baking!  I quickly mixed up the dough using 1 cup flour, 1 cup salt and about 1/2 cup water and then let the littles play with it.  Baby J seems to love salt and kept trying to eat the dough.  Sweetpea had more sense and after one taste she concentrated on other things.

 

 

 Having the baking treasure basket on the shelves has really made a difference since the last time we baked.  Sweetpea can now use the rolling pin properly after repeated experimentation on the carpet!

 

 "Oh look there's our hand prints cooking!"

 

The final product.  Super cute!

Baking with Babies

Okay I guess at 14 months Sweetpea is technically a toddler but Baby J did help out with this and it just sounds so much cuter!

 

On Friday we made gingerbread cookies.  While Baby J was napping in the morning Sweetpea and I made the dough.  Once again I brought the highchair up to the counter.  I sooo wish I had that Learning Tower.  Anyhow we made it work.  She helped me to pour the dry ingredients into the bowl and stir them up.  Quite a bit ended up on the floor and some on her face which made for some really cute photos.

Next we moved on to the wet ingredients.  I measured everything out on the counter and then moved the bowl to her table to let her stir and put things in.  She was super good at the stirring! 

After it was all mixed together Sweetpea got to explore the new texture and of course sample it!!

 Wiping up her table.  Sweetpea is not a huge fan of using her cloth to wipe up after meals, however she seemed to really enjoy using the sponge here.

 

 We put the dough in the freezer, waited for Baby J to wake up and had lunch.

After lunch it was time to make the cookies.  I had them sit at their table and gave them each a bit of dough.  I just have one little rolling pin so I took turns showing them how to roll.  The pic looks good here but neither of them totally grasped the concept and kept wanting to hold onto the middle bit.

 I helped Sweetpea to push the cookie cutter into the dough and she pulled it out.

 The pictures make it look all calm and like they are proper little bakers but the whole thing lasted less than five minutes and it was of course mostly for exploring.  I let them explore with the dough and utensils while demonstrating how to use them until they both ended up just eating it.  That's when I knew to call it a day.  I put the finished products into the oven and Sweetpea brought a batch of her first cookies home to Mommy and Daddy. 

 

Over the weekend I made up a treasure basket of all of the things we used in the baking process.  On Monday when Sweetpea discovered the basket she kept coming into the kitchen and showing me each of the items with great delight!  It was like she was trying to say to me "Hey I know what this is for!!"

 

I just want to put a disclaimer here to say that of course although this was tons of fun it was also super messy and took lots of patience on my part.  I really prepared myself ahead of time to focus on the process and not the product.  Sweetpea is also a very calm, appeasing little girl and does not throw things or mess about with them which makes doing things like this much easier.  I'm sure it with be a whole different experience with Baby J!!

 

I have linked this post to Montessori Monday over at Living Montessori Now.  Press the link to check out other Montessori activites.



Pumpkin Wildlife Cookies

My mom bought L the coolest cookie cutters the other day.  We were desperate to try them out and also tried out a new  recipe for pumpkin cookies.  They made a nice change from our usual gingerbread cookies.

So cute and yummy!  L is becoming quite the baker!

Here is the recipe for any who would like to try them out.

Pumpkin Cookies

1/2 cup brown sugar or honey

3/4 cup butter

1tbspn orange zest

1/2 cup pumpkin pie mix

1 egg white

1tspn vanilla

21/4 cups whole wheat flour

1/4 tspn each of cinnamon, nutmeg and ground ginger

pinch of salt

In a medium bowl cream the butter, brown sugar(or honey)and orange zest together.  Stir in the pumpkin then add the eggs and vanilla and mix well.

In another bowl sift together flour, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and salt.  Stir into the pumpkin mix.  Chill for 30 min.  Cook for 10-12 minutes at 375degrees C.

Next time I think I will reduce the amount of butter as I found they were pretty oily and moist.  It could have been the type of pumpkin mix I used.



Easter Fun!

Here is a picture of our Easter nature table. The rabbit and sheep on the left are my creations and the eggs were a family effort. I'm not sure if you can see but Daddy seemed to be into a tropical theme. He painted a toucan on one and an Easter bunny in a Hawaiian shirt on the other.

We hard boiled most of the eggs but after reading the tutorial over at the Magic Onions we tried blowing a few. This was hilarious as my husband doing a typical man thing just kept blowing as hard as he could to get the yolk out. He seriously blew a gasket and had a sore neck after. Men!!!

L took great pleasure in painting her eggs.

Something else we did was make these egg like decorations out of tissue paper and glue/water. I blew up a small balloon and L and I used paint brushes to put on the bits of tissue paper we'd ripped up. I was surprised at how well L did with this. I tried to make mine all flat and perfect while hers was all bunched up and blended together. Once they dried and I took out the balloon hers was soooo much nicer than mine. The texture was amazing and the colors were all blended together.

Here is a picture of one I made using L's technique : )

We had tons of fun making these yummy gingerbread cookies!

The Easter tradition in our house is that we decorate all the eggs and then on Easter night the cheeky Easter bunny comes and hides them all. L has to go and find them in the morning. Not one mention of chocolate or candy. We also have some lovely decorated cardboard eggs from England which are larger. This year the sheep and a little lamb will be hidden in them for L. Granny also bought her some small gardening tools to help in the garden.

Hope you all have a very Happy Easter!

Rainy day gingerbread cookies

Today was our first attempt at making gingerbread cookies. I used the recipe from Maja Pitamic's book Teach me to do it myself: Montessori activities for you and your child. This is one of the many Montessori books I’ve borrowed from the library. I found it had some really good activities to use now and also some for when my daughter is older.















I think we both enjoyed making the gingerbread cookies, although there are a few things I would do differently next time. For one I would be a lot more organised and get all of the ingredients out and set up before we started. As it was I found L was a bit bored when I was trying to find certain things and sort them out. It also would have helped if I had read the recipe all the way through before starting! All in all it was an enjoyable experience and L had lots of chances to help throughout.



We haven’t gotten around to getting a step stool for her yet so I still use the highchair when she helps me bake. It was really great for this activity because the tray contained all of the flour!