St. Patrick's Day Cupcake

I was planning to go to the St. Patrick's parade today, but it was too cold and snowing a little bit here in Chicago. Hence, I decided not to go and instead spend my day baking with my son :)), which was the best decision ever. My son and I had a wonderful and messy time baking cupcakes. My son got  really hands-on today making cupcakes. He loves being part of the cooking: mixing the ingredients, licking the bowls, and making experiments with the dirty dishes afterwards. This is one of those types of activities that have a variety of advantages helping him to develop his creative skills, hand and eye coordination, listening skills, chemistry as well as maths skills.

Whilst, we were waiting for the cupcakes to cook, we created our shamrocks leaf.

As soon as the cupcakes were cooked and cooled, we decorated them with the frosting. I loved watching my son taking charge, and decorate his cupcakes in the way that he desired. He was very proud of himself :)))!!!

After frosting and putting sprinkles on the cupcake, my son decorate it with the shamrocks. He used a toothpick to hold the shamrock.

He did an awesome job :))!!!

The following are images of the ones I decorated.

Moreover, my son did a few exercises on worksheets focusing on patterns, problem solving, CVC word and word search. All these materials were downloaded on TPT.

 We have a beautiful and very gentle dog, her name is Jessie. She was spaded and the last two weeks she has been on antibiotics because of complications with the operation. As a result, she is feeling quite miserable lately.

To cheer her up and inexhaustible good cheer and energy we made her dog biscuits. The recipe is very easy to make, which I took from King Arthur Flour, and the name of the recipe is best of breed dog biscuit - http://www.kingarthurflour.com/blog/2010/12/13/puppy-love-our-biscuit-taste-test/
I did not have a bone shape biscuit cutter, thus I sketched it on a piece of parchment sheet, and shaped it using a toothpick. It took me approximately 30 minutes to make 12 biscuits, but it was worth. It looked quite nice :).
 

 

The image below is a picture of the biscuit before and after baking. It needs to look dark brown and crispy. 

I also shaped the biscuits with other cutters I have available at home. The biscuits looked nice, and tasted  very delicious. My dog (Jessie) and my husband approved, they both enjoyed eating :))).

 Have a terrific Sunday. Thanks :).

Fabiana

Leprechaun Hat

Today I took my son to the dentist. Like you, I try to take him to the dentist every 6 months, and I also attempt to make sure that he brushes his teeth after breakfast, lunch and before going to bed. Flossing is also part of his dental hygiene. In my opinion, it is important to have a system which reinforces good habits to ones kids, and as they grow older, these habits are still prevalent and part of their routine.

After arriving at home from the dentist, we created a leprechaun hat, beard and eyebrows . This craft was very easy to design, we just needed to print the templates from Today's Mama website, and then assembled it- http://todaysmama.com/2012/03/printable-leprechaun-hat-craft-now-with-more-beard/. I love everything about this craft, it all looked super cute, like a proper leprechaun :)))!!!

Moreover, my son did an activity about St. Patrick's Day Inferencing cards describing green objects from Kari Radovich - http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/St-Patricks-Day-Inferencing. This cards are quite easy for my child to read and comprehend. This was a great activity to practice reading, and enabling him to practice reasoning from facts or evidences and deducing fact based conclusions that should be true.

Another great material I downloaded from TPT was St. Patrick's Day Math Fun with Lucky Leprechaun by Kayla Parker - http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/St-Patricks-Day-Math-Fun-with-Lucky-Leprechaun. My son had a lot of fun doing this exercises which included: problem solving, adding and subtracting in order to find the secret message, coloring, and a game to help the Leprechaun to find his pot of gold. One of many fantastic worksheets to practice maths, and having fun at same time.

I  also downloaded for free on TPT an exercise called St. Patrick's Day Fact and Opinion by Lili Garcia - http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/St-Patricks-Day-Fact-and-Opinion
I do recommend you to download this material as it is very easy for your first grader to read and understand. As well as practicing differentiation between a fact and an opinion.

 Hope you felt inspired by my post today. Enjoy the parade tomorrow and the weekend. Thanks :)!

Fabiana

Shamrock Shake

Hello everyone :)), hope you all had a wonderful day!!!

I saw on Enchanted Learning website (http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/stpatrick/rainbowjello/) a rainbow in a cup made from jello. I thought it was a fun and delicious way to enjoy, our already loved, jello.  We used strawberry jello to get the red color, orange jello for orange color, lemon jello for yellow color, lime jello for green color, blueberry jello for blue color, and we mixed strawberry and blueberry jello for purple color. For each jello flavor we used 1 tablespoon of jello and 1/4 cup of hot water.

To make this jello rainbow in a cup, requires patience because it takes about 2 days to finish as you need to refrigerate it each time you add a flavor. We started it yesterday early afternoon, and finished it today. However, it is a great way to teach children to learn to be patient as sometimes things in our lives are beyond our willingness to conclude a job :)). Science and time, in this case, are the controllers of the situation :))). I know most of you, who are parents, may think it is a long task. However, as you know children learn mostly by watching and not by listening.
My son was so happy to finish his jello rainbow in a cup because he wanted to see the result, as well as satisfy his appetite for the jelly :)). He said that all the flavors together tasted delicious!!!!

Today we also learned St. Patrick's Day vocabulary. I downloaded the material shown below for free on TPT from Reading is Love. The vocabulary activity is called St. Patrick's Day Vocabulary Pack: Write the Room and Word/Picture Matching - http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/St-Patricks-Day-Vocabulary-Pack-Write-the-Room-and-WordPicture-Matching

This is a very complete, easy to read and eye-catching illustrations, which made my son very interested and motivated to do the exercises. 

Another great material we worked on yesterday is called St. Patrick's Day from Comp Ed Inc - http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/St-Patricks-Day. This material is very useful as it explains the history behind St. Patrick. The language is easy for the kids to read and comprehend. It also has many activities including: drawing, maze, word search, crossword, reading comprehension questions, spelling, patterns, coloring and writing. I highly recommend you to download both of the materials.

The highlight of the day was our shamrock shake. We made ours based on the famous McDonald's shamrock shake.  Before making the shake I designed the shamrock leaf and put the straw in the middle. This craft is super easy to create, and looks adorable. I took the idea from Martha Stewart  webiste - http://www.marthastewart.com/875748/shamrock-straw-toppers

The recipe for the shamrock shake is super easy too. Its simply 2 cups of a very good quality of vanilla ice cream, I used Haagen Dazs, 3/4 cup of milk, 3/4 teaspoon of mint extract, 10 drops of green food coloring, and 2 cubes of ice. Mix all the ingredients for about 3 minutes, and pour the shake in a glass. Decorate it with whip cream and two leaves of mint or cherry. Put the straw and enjoy :)))!!! This shake is so deliciously refreshing and super tasty!!!! My son and I had a great time drinking it this afternoon :))).

Hope you enjoy our post today. Have a great Friday. Thanks :)!

Fabiana

Pasta Rainbow

This week we are celebrating St. Patrick's Day. In Brazil we never celebrated it because there are not many Irish people over there. However, I learned to love it when I was living in London. The celebration over there is huge and spectacular. One of the things I love the most is the music, and the sound of the Bagpipes. It touches my heart so much, and I always get emotional. Hence, I am looking forward to the parade this weekend in Chicago :)!!!

Today, I wanted to do something fun with my son. Thus, we started making a pasta rainbow. I used Tubetti pasta and 6 different colors of food coloring for this recipe. I also used a measuring cup and 6 Ziploc bags.

Directions:

1st step: Cook the past according to cooking direction as specified on the box. Add olive oil and salt to the water to bring out the flavor off the pasta. My son measured 6 times, 1/8 cup of pasta to cook for our rainbow. Whilst the pasta was cooking, I also boiled one egg to make the clouds for the rainbow. However, you can create them with whatever you like for instance cheese.

2nd step: When the pasta is ready to drain, I suggest you, do not pour out the water, but keep it to mix with the food coloring.

3rd step: In your Ziploc bag add about 15 drops of food coloring and 2 tablespoons of the saved pasta water. Then add 1/8 cup of the cooked pasta. Close the bag and shake it a bit, and put it aside. Repeat the process for each color you are making.

We used red, purple, yellow (which became orange), blue, light green and dark green food coloring.

4th step: Drain the colored pasta and put it on a plate. Remember to wash the strainer each time you use it.

5th step: Start assembling the rainbow. I showed a picture of a rainbow to my son, and he carefully with his little hands started creating his rainbow. He also ate half of the pasta rainbow whilst assembling :))!!!.

6th step: Place the cooked boiled eggs on the rainbow. My son loves cheese, thus he also added a bit of Parmesan cheese around the egg, which created a nice cloud effect.

My son was so pleased with his food that he ate almost everything before dinner :)))). This recipe is easy and fun to make with your kid. I highly recommend this for kids that are fussy eaters, I certainly assure you they would love to eat this yummy rainbow :). It also could be made using spaghetti or linguini pasta. Furthermore, it is a great activity to enhance hand and eye coordination, as well as teaching or practicing measurement.

Hope you enjoy our post today. Thanks :)).

Fabiana