Cotton ball Santas

I found this from this site. The boys had tons of fun gluing all the cotton balls on! Very simple and easy!

Toliet paper roll Santas!

I found this fun project here! I had the boys color, help me cut, and then I assembled the Santa pieces onto the roll, tied down afterwards with rubber bands. :) Worked great and they look super cute hanging on the Christmas tree!!

Sewing practice

Needed:
Toliet paper rolls covered in construction paper.
Whole punch
plastic sewing needle (I got mine from my knifty knitters)
yarn!

Finger print Turkeys

We used cardstock as our paper, a brown ink pad, orange, and yellow. Each child made their own with their finger prints and they are now hanging in our school room!

Apple tear project

I got this idea from one of my favorite Montessori blogs The Wonder Years. She has great ideas for art, counting, and alphabet. Check her out sometime!!

What you need:

*strips of red constructions paper
*a brown stem (I was shocked to find out that I had no brown in all my stacks and stack of paper...)
*a green leaf
*paper plate
*glue



The kids then rip the red strips into pieces and then glue them onto the paper plate. (My boys found it easier to put the glue straight onto the plate and then stick the paper on.) When they are done with the red paper, glue on the stem and the leaf!

Fall Tree Painting

My boys and I will be doing this beautiful painting later in the week!

Go here for all the instructions! SO fun!

Ball-Toss Ice Cream

Equipment:
2 (1 quart) zip lock bags
2 (1 gallon) zip lock bags
1 (8lb bag) of ice
1/2 cup rock salt
newspaper
heavy duty tape

Ingredients:
3/4 cup whole milk
1 cup whipping cream
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup Nesquick chocolate or strawberry powder flavoring (optional)

Directions:
1.) Place all ingredients (Milk, cream, sugar, vanilla and flavoring) in one of the quart sized bags. Squeeze out all the air, seal the bag and swish it around a bit to mix everything well.

2.) Place the bag inside of the other quart sized bag and seal it.

3.)put some ice into the bottom of one of the gallon sized bags, filling it about 1/2 way. Put the quart sized bags on top of the ice, then filled the rest of the gallon size bag with ice.

4.) Sprinkle the rock salt over the ice inside of the bag and seal the bag.

5.) Put it inside of the second gallon sized bag and seal it.

6.) Wrap the bag with a lot of newspaper and strong tape like duct tape or packing tape.

7.) Toss the ice cream ball for about 15-20 minutes.

8.) Unwrap and enjoy the cream. (Makes about 3 cups)

This was yummy! We made the chocolate ice cream during our babysitting swap this week and the kids had a great time. Sam really got in there and played with the kids to make sure the ice cream was good. They did a solid 20 minutes of tossing around the ice cream ball. It was so yummy we want to try the strawberry one for FHE. We might even try it with dry milk.

First they just rolled it back and forth, but that was only fun for about 5 minutes. Then we each took a turn in 30 second intervals and tried to see who could do the silliest dance move or shake it the hardest.

Oscar the grouch cake:

I was babysitting for a neighbor today and wanted a project to do with the girls to help pass the time. This is what we came up with. It was easy to do with kids because the frosting doesn't have to be smoothed out since it's the monsters messy hair.

You will need:

• Green frosting (I made up a 16 oz box of powder sugar and used almost the whole thing.)
• Mini Marshmallows
• 2 raisins
• 1 box of cake mix
• foil
• electrical tape
• a round disposable lid to act as the trash can lid

Here is how I did it:

1. Bake a cake from a box in 2 circular pans.
2. After the cake cools cut 1 layer in half. (creating 2 semi-circles.)
3. Frost the flat sides of the semi-circles and put them together. Put the flat sides of the cake down on a cake stand.
4. Make or buy some green frosting. spread it all over the cake. Once you have a good thick layer over the whole thing use a spoon or fork and tap the frosting with the back side of the utensil. This will give it the look of fur. (Then we put on some green sprinkles just for fun.)
5. Next I gave the kids some mini marshmallows for the eyes. The pupils are raisins.
6. to do the eye brows I just took my left over frosting and added some red to it trying to get it sort of brown. we just blobbed it on. The messier the better.
7. the trash can lid is a lid from an empty container of oatmeal wrapped in foil. For the handle of the lid I used some black electrical tape. then I put a blob of frosting on the underside to keep it on Oscar's head.

This same basic idea could work for almost any Sesame street monster.

Happy baking!

Liahoona popcorn balls

This is more for Family Home Evening, but hey! It's a craft and we had tons of fun doing it!


What you need:
popcorn (we did air-popcorn)
carmel sauce (we just found one on the internet that looked good)
tooth picks
marshmallows (gumdrops are actually called for, but they're too chewy)
and arrows cut out of construction paper



Make your popcorn balls (don't forget to butter your hands!!)



Poke wholes through the arrows and attach an arrow and marshmallow onto the toothpick. Then insert the toothpick into the ball. Wala! Instant family home evening fun!! :)



(Our lesson was on the Liahonna that guided Nephi and his family, and how it worked.)