Colour mixing and mess-free mark making in freezer bags

This is another common idea from pinterest (see Teach, Play, Love- my boys here) adapted to what I had available.

I used large ziplock freezer bags and paint (a lot use coloured hair gel but I don't have any hair gel!). I wanted C to learn to how colours mix to make other colours so I used 2 colours in each bag, and sellotaped the top shut, after expelling any excess air.

C got a lot more from this activity than I expected him to. First of all was the fun of 'squishing', and the fun of 'spreading out' the paint to fill the bag. He used his hand and cars for that.

Then he 'drew' in the paint with an empty pen shell on the table and then we stuck it on a sunny window pain and had a long session mark making with the empty pen, his fingers and even the sellotape roll.  The resulting 'rainbow' looks so lovely on a sunny Spring day!

It was a great success and I recommend it to anyone.

 
 

Bicarb and Coloured Vinegar - Artistic and Scientific!

This was an exercise in trying to improve Max's fine motor skills and strength by using pipettes and syringes to transfer coloured white vinegar into a tray of bicarbonate of soda to make little fizzing mountains of coloured fun!

Crazy Digger flapjack

This is a recipe from a friend who came to stay bearing gifts of a whole tin of these yummy flapjack type cocounutty thingys, which she called Diggers. 

I added some craisins and we renamed them Crazy Diggers;

Mix together 120g plain flour, 225g caster sugar, 100g oats and 80g desicated coconut and 80g cinnamon coated craisins. Melt 120g butter with 1 tbsp golden syrup. Mix 1 tsp bicarb with 2tbsp boiling water and put this into the melted butter mix. Combine all the above and press into a lined baking tray.

Cook in a preheated oven at 160*c for 20mins.

Allow to cool a little before cutting into small squares, then allow to cool completely before removing from the baking tray. 

Homemade Gift - Sightly rubbish (but made with lots of love) macaroons for Mothers' Day.

I decided to make macaroons/macarons for Mothers Day. I followed this recipe from Macaron fetish blogspot. I made one big batch and sub divided into multiple colours to make a rainbow of flavours.
These included;
Pink with strawberry jam
Pink with rose water scented white chocolate ganache
Orange with marmalade
Orange with orange flavoured dark chocolate ganache
Yellow with lemon curd
Uncoloured with speculoos paste
Uncoloured with almond flavoured white chocolate ganache
Uncoloured with almond flavoured white chocolate ganache and raspberry jam (bakewell tart flavour)
Uncoloured with toasted coconut sprinkle and coconut flavoured ganache
Blue with raspberry jam
Light green with mint flavoured dark chocolate ganache
Light brown with coffee flavoured chocolate ganache
Brown with chocolate ganache

I think I was over ambitious for a first time macaroon maker! Some worked and got 'feet' and didn't crack or fizzle or stick to the parchment! Most Did Not! But.... they did taste good non-the-less. They just had 'faces only a mother could love' which was just as well!

Fun things to do for when the boys get back from school - Duplo puzzle- ing clue.

This was another idea I found on a late night pinterest hunt. (See my pinterest board entitled Teach, Play love - my boys here for original source)

Today seemed like a great opportunity to actually do this rather than letting it fester, unacheived on the pin board. A parcel arrived for them so I quickly built a duplo tower, stuck some paper on with pritt stick, wrote my clue and then cut the paper on the brick joins so that they separated into a puzzle.

The boys were so excited to find something so fun out of the blue and even more excited when they realised it was a clue! And then when they found the 'surprise' (a box of lego from the internet, paid for with Olly's birthday money!) - well the roof nearly lifted! Great fun!

Things that entertain a 1 year old - part 2

1. Feeding pipe cleaners into colander holes

2. Joining two colanders together

3. Picking up cut up bits of pipe cleaner with a big magnet

4. Putting all the little bits of pipe cleaner in a bottle

5. And emptying them all out again!