Building skills with Lite Brite

Starboy practiced his fine motor skills and color matching by building a Lite Brite picture on an old set Grandma had saved. He had to learn how much pressure to use to poke the pegs through the paper and holes. At first he asked for help, but shortly he bristled at such a thing, saying, "I want to do it by myself."

He didn't seem to notice the alpha-clues in each dot to indicate color (B for blue, O for orange), but maybe he did. He seemed mostly to match the color to the picture, but also favor a use of the purple pegs.

He was extremely engaged in making it work. He did tire after about 25 minutes and he didn't get much farther in the picture than what you see here, but the experience seemed to make an impression on him.

Painted candy hearts

Starboy wanted to paint some wooden hearts I picked up at Casey's Wood Products.

He used liquid water colors. They will be sealed with beeswax polish, a separate activity after they dry.

We decided to share them with his friends during a little Valentine's picnic next week. Everyone's mud pie kitchen needs some sweet treats to serve!

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Beeswax polishing

Beeswax polishing is a classic Montessori activity. It builds the finger muscles, provides sensory interaction, gives practice in step-by-step instructions, and more.

You can buy beeswax to smear on with fingers or a cloth, but I made our own last summer, using Amber Dusick's recipe. (Don't miss her cryingly funny blog Parenting. Illustrated With Crappy Pictures.) It's beeswax from the farmer's market, melted in the microwave with olive oil. It lasts a year or two after you make it, depending on how it's stored.

Rubbing the wax on with a cloth is trickier.

After allowing the smeared beeswax polish to sit for a while, you rub it off with a second cloth. The result is a satiny-smooth finish.

Homemade Valentine — paper heart garland

Last year's marker garland.

This year's painted garland. Is it a garland? Maybe it's just a decoration.

This paper garland is very easy for your one-year-old, two-year-old, or—any age, really, with your support.

First, paint some color on some nice watercolor paper and let it dry. We used liquid watercolors (watered down) and a wide brush.

Homemade "Bars"

Starboy loves him some Bars.

Trader Joe's sells them, "So This Blueberry Walks Into a Bar..." They look like granola bars, to fool us into thinking they are sort of healthy, but basically they are cookies. That's what he likes about them.

Starboy "helps" make the bars, by ransacking the utensil drawer and demanding the name and function of each item he finds.

I have an über-granola friend, whom I'll call Natural Mama for now, who found a great recipe online to make them at home. They are sweeter and tastier than the prepackaged ones. Natural Mama's source adapted the recipe from GroupRecipes (which has a lot of delicious variations if you search "fig bar," and good luck resisting if you try "fig goat cheese"), and I have a few tweaks on that version.

The great recipes are for fig bars, but personally I prefer a berry filling for both the sweetness and the consistency.

Homemade Jam Bars

similar to Trader Joe's soft cereal bars

slightly adapted from GroupRecipes and Cate's World Kitchen

makes about 20 cookies

FILLING

• about a pint of fresh berries, washed and chopped if large

OR

• about 1/2 bag frozen mixed berries

• 1/4 cup sugar

Cook berries and sugar together until they form a thick jam, stirring occasionally to avoid burning, about 20 mins.

Notes: If you're really in a "jam," you can use a good, farmer's market jam, or even a thick jam from a jar, rather than making your own. (See the links above for making authentic fig bars.)

WHEAT DOUGH

1/2 cup softened butter (1 stick)

1 Tbsp milk (Natural Mama uses almond milk)

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

2 cups white whole wheat flour

Preheat oven to 350˚.

Cream butter in a stand mixer, then beat in the egg, vanilla and milk.

Gradually add the sugar and mix well. Add the flour, baking soda and salt, and stir until just combined. Divide the dough in half, as it's much easier to work with this way.

Working on a sheet of waxed paper, pat half the dough into a long, thin rectangle. Place another sheet of waxed paper on top, and roll until 1/8" thin or so.

Spread half of the jam filling along half of your rectangle (the long half), to the edges. Fold the unfilled side onto the filled side and press gently to seal.

Cut into 1" strips and place them on a Silpat- or parchment-lined baking sheet. Repeat steps with second half of dough.

Bake 15 mins at 350˚ or until just beginning to brown. I like them a bit crunchy.

Allow to cool fully before enjoying—jam filling can be incredibly hot, especially to little tongues!

Popcorn Sensory Bin

There's been a lot of talk on my Mommy List about sensory boxes. Okay, maybe I started it. "A good substitute for TV," was part of the thread. Coincidentally, Grandma pulled out her popcorn bin and Daddy's old Hot Wheels during our last visit. Starboy had a field day, and only lost one tongue depresser between the slats of the deck. (Note: Grandma, an OT, often offers the bin outside. Easier cleanup.)

Grandma is a big fan of the deep box, hiding things in the popcorn (or beans or rice or sand) so you have to find them by feel. Our rice box at home is not deep enough to do this.

Every sensory bin, in my opinion, needs a few cups or scoopers to really experience the kernels. Here Starboy is using a dump truck, but we also have used: teacups from the play kitchen, measuring cups, small wooden bowls from Cost Plus World Market, scoopers from laundry soap, spoons, shot glasses, appetizer cups from Ikea, small Tupperware-style containers, plastic boxes from the Container Store, and more.

The Superstar Genius of Sensory Bins, though, is the brilliant school-at-home mom Mari-Ann of Counting Coconuts. She offers a different-themed bin every month. I tried this with Starboy and Mary Jane last fall, with what I considered to be limited success. Both kids found the number of objects in the bin overwhelming (over-exhuberance at the craft store on Mommy's part), which is fixable. Mary Jane LOVED her bin and played with it for months. Starboy pretty much cleared most of the Autumn stuff out of it then played cars in his as always. So I might try again. Stay tuned.

Homemade Valentine - faux stained glass

This project is an oldie but a goodie. We taped clear Contact Paper to the window, sticky-side out, and drew a target area on it.

Fill the target area with tissue paper pieces. Experiment with how sticky the paper is by touching it frequently and placing your whole hand on it to feel the stickiness.

When I made the tissue paper squares for Starboy, I kept them together in a basket so they would be easy to access.

But he kept dumping them out so they would be easier to find and I finally convinced him to at least keep the papers on a tray. Sort of.

I also added some shiny, red, heart-shaped confetti to add interest to the activity and the final artwork. I set up two target areas, with the hope of making "one to keep and one to share," but ultimately that ended up in a slower creation process and an unwillingness to "share" any of it. Ah, the joys of being Two.

We sealed the artwork with another layer of Contact Paper so the sticky sides are stuck together. There were a lot of placements outside the target area. To avoid this, I could have trimmed closer to the heart shape, though I did think it was useful for Starboy to experiment with "inside" and "outside" as well as both following and redefining the instructions.

Then I cut inside the lines to isolate the heart shape, and we taped the finished product to the window!. I might have used this as a chance for Starboy to practice cutting, but at the end of the day, and at the end of a week when he's been sick, he wouldn't have had patience for it. I also cut some hearts out of the "bonus" placement area, because Starboy seemed a bit upset that it would have been discarded. This ended up in a nicer display than I had planned!

Bath time trick: Glow bath! *

Starboy has been wrestling a barky cough and a mild fever this week, and it's really disrupting his sleep (and ours!). He wasn't interested in playing in the bathroom for a steam treatment, or a bath at all, until I brought out an ace from the mommy trick deck of cards—glow sticks!

This genius was a lifesaver to get Starboy to soak with some herbal bubbles to clear his congestion. I wish I could take credit for dreaming it up, but I recently caught up on my RSS queue with Play at Home Mom, which has fantastic ideas in every post, and they had a whole list of things to do with glow sticks—this was one of them.

The sticks were mostly trains, but they also became a giant bus steering wheel, wheels on cars, roads, a fishing pole, and bubble illuminators.

Every time he popped them apart, he said, "POP!" These were a great tool for a looong bath, and at about 36 cents, a bargain (the sticks come 15 for $1 at Michael's Craft Stores). Unfortunately, they are not that granola. Sorry, Mr. Landfill. We got all first-world-y on you tonight. Please try to disintegrate our plastic in less than a million years.

*Updated: Reminder—Store the glow sticks in the freezer overnight and you might get an extra day or two out of them. They aren't as bright, but in the winter darkness, they still are intriguing!

Crepes!

For something a little different, we had breakfast for dinner the other night. I'd meant to make the crepes just for Starboy, but then it got late and they smelled sooo tasty.....that we ate the whole batch while they were hot.

I used this Williams-Sonoma recipe, substituting Trader Joe's Fig Butter for the fig jam. In this omelette pan, I ended up using 4 Tbsp of batter for each crepe, so we only got about 6 crepes out of the recipe. Oh, and since I started the whole project about 15 minutes before dinner time, I didn't let the batter rest for two hours as described. Sacré bleu!

I used a log of herbed chèvre instead of plain crumbled. I put the fig butter inside the crepe, since it wasn't going to be all that attractive to smear on the outside, and I didn't feel like going to the trouble to set up a squeeze bottle. Plus I wasn't sure how Starboy was going to react to weird brown sauce, since he has entered the Picky Toddler Eating Phase. The toaster oven was set on 200˚.

The flavor was pure perfection.

I have made this recipe in the past for a large crowd and it goes most smoothly if the crepes are prepared and stuffed in advance and then broiled just before guests sit down. I've found it takes about an hour to make the crepes for 12 people, and with delicate aromas like that, it's a pretty long hour for hungry bellies.

Yum!

Gnomy Village

Starboy asked for a new gnome house today to add to his collection. I'd thought I'd keep them all green and floral, but then there was a Christmas one....and then I forgot to buy the floral tissue at the store, and....here we are with the mismatches. Ah, well.

The gnomes are from Etsy shop You're Inspired. Here they are playing in their garden, which I made during a quiet day at Starboy's art class. (Glass beads, plastic gems, puffs and pom-pons glued to cardboard with white glue.) The theme of the day was icy frost on the green grass at the beginning of winter. Since Starboy's was "art," he's so far reluctant to play with it. But soon I think the gnomes will have more garden space.

Starboy's two caterpillars also frolicked in the green grass today. He also made those in art class, with Crayola air-dry clay, chenille stems, pompons and wooden beads. Great project. Rolling the clay is one of the many pre-writing activities that builds muscles in preparation for holding a pencil.

Here, I guess the truck driver is mushroom-picking from the garden. Those are simply water-color painted cabinet knobs (but not very carefully painted). The yellow spots don't show up very well.

More light table play

We followed the shaving cream extravaganza with glass bubbles and tissue paper. Starboy used the tissue paper as wrapping paper to make play "gifts," then we experimented with other papers on the table.

Shaving cream, be nice and clean.....

One of the great blogs I read is Play at Home Mom. They have really wonderful ideas for child-led exploration. The mom sets up an activity to "invite" the child to participate in whatever way he wishes. They have a ton of light table activities. I decided to try one with shaving cream for Starboy, who has been asking for something "new."

He started with glass bubble beads, shaving cream, and a few drops of yellow and blue food coloring.

Note: We do not have a cover for our light panel as described on Play at Home Mom, so I covered the panel with plastic wrap and made some holes for the vents. This turned out to be an excellent idea, as those creamy, puffy hands were clapping and flying, and so was the cream!

Now THAT's how to properly burn a pan

Yeeaaaaah.

Gettin' my MERRY on.

Five last-minute invitations. Sent.

Four pots of chili. Done.

Three-and-a-half trays of yeasted homemade rolls. Burned.

Four lengths of garland. hung.

23 kiddie craft kits. Set.

The den and my desk. Chaotic.

One toddler. Stir crazy.

One husband. Ducking.

61 holiday open house guests. Bring it.

Season of Light

Starboy puts in a call to Auntie Optimist to tell her about the ornaments on his tree. When he is supposed to be in bed, sleeping. I wonder if we should have told him about Santa at all. Christmas eve could be a long night!

Crafting Binge - Gnome costume for doll

I wish I'd finished this for Halloween, but now Starboy's doll has a gnome outfit as well!

Crafting Binge - Christmas stockings

I've been binging on creativity lately. I made a stocking for a friend, but liked it so much, I made a whole set for our family! I was inspired by Etsy sellers Winter Nook, Rikrak, StudioTree. I love the modern stockings on Etsy!