April 29th, 2011 Royal Wedding kebabs Posted by Melitsa in Cooking, Homemade, play activities

Something simple and fun for the morning snack for the Royal wedding today

Using the traditional colours of the union jack with Red (strawberries), white ( melon) and blue ( blueberries).

Drizzled with toffee sauce.

Enjoy the wedding……………

September 16th, 2010 Make special lemonade Posted by Melitsa in Cooking, Education, Homemade, play activities, Thought of the week

Lemonade is good whatever the time of year in our house. It is especially a favourite when lemons are on special or in season. Whenever I buy lemons, the assumption is always ” Are you going to make lemonade?”

The BG has enjoyed more jobs in the kitchen recently and the MO feels he wants to be doing more than the fetching and sorting he was so good at. Considering he’s the one to ask the most for lemonade. I figured it was time he learnt how to make lemonade.

Have a look at our slide show below to see how we make our lemonade.

If you’re viewing this post in a feed reader to see this slide show you’ll need to visit the blog.

I added a little something that I  now love………………. vanilla.

He was thrilled to be doing it all himself. I think the dog only narrowly escaped some lemonade that day, though I can’t be sure. She was licking those chops a lot and hanging around the MO a lot.

It’s amazing how proud they are of their own work.

What drinks do you make with your children? or your children make for the family?

September 6th, 2010 Cultivating gratitude in the Early years Posted by Melitsa in Cooking, Education, gardening, play activities

Children love helping especially when it comes to food. If you listen to Raising Playful Tots show #35 Memetales, I share some recent experiences of fruit picking with the kids.

At this time of year there are a lot of fruit and vegetables in season. Traditionally, it’s the time to celebrate the Harvest.

Having lived and grown up in a farming area, this time of year is a busy one. The combine harvesters are out ploughing the oilseed rape, the onion, the sugar beet, the little midges, the manure fertilizer. But my biggest memories around school is the Harvest festival. Each child brought in some can gifts. They were all set out like a large supermarket during assembly. I loved to see all the different types of food, ones I didn’t usually see or ones I had never known. Someone would always bring in the bread made into a plait and one in a sheaf. It was amazing to me that bread could come like that.

If you were in the top classes, or the oldest children in the school you got to gather with the help of a senior teacher the cans and produce into baskets and boxes. There were always bunches of carrots with the stock, fresh garden produce from many gardens. It was a physical reminder of how blessed we were. I think as kids seeing so much food and knowing we all had a hand in it really made giving tangible to us.

Those baskets were taken to select people in need. Thinking about it, they had to be people who would accept enthusiastic 4-5 year olds bounding in their space. As no matter how we were told or knew how to behave seeing my 4-year-old I can imagine how much we took up their space!  The mere act of going to another person’s house or group home when you’re so young was too exciting. We’d then get thank you cards, usually handwritten that our teachers would read out and we’d feel warm inside about helping.

I still remember harvest festival time and the hymns we’d sing of thankfulness for the bountiful harvest.
I guess the feeling was gratitude.

When you work on the land or work for your food you feel a little different about it.
Whether it’s starting a vegetable garden or picking your own fruits this is the perfect time of year to plan to include the children. It’s an easy time to express gratitude for what the earth has given us.

The boys had an opportunity to shell peas. Something I had done on occasion when I was younger. I remember siting with my mother, talking and shelling. We had good conversation. When Grandma came in with fresh peas from the market they were really hesitant to join in. They didn’t know about peas, distrusted the process and frankly were more interested in their Lego creations at the time. But Grandma stayed and shelled peas. They wandered over and asked what she was doing and kept coming back with more questions. Soon they were sitting down and trying it themselves. Guess what they ate for dinner that night?

I was able to thank them, oh and Grandma, for the lovely peas. When that rogue pea fell of their plate, as they do, they scooped that little one back on. They didn’t want to lose it. This is in stark contrast with other mealtimes where food is left, abandoned or dropped without a moments thought.
They were grateful, perhaps. Curious? Their fingers ‘hurt’ from stripping and popping peas. In other words, manual work was hard.

How are you sharing opportunities for gratitude and sharing with your young children?

Are there special traditions or memories you have about this time of year?

June 23rd, 2010 Pizza fun with kids Posted by Melitsa in Cooking, Homemade, language, play activities

We stumbled across this recipe from Our best bites. We often have a pizza night along with our family night where we often make pizza.

We decided to use the family night to make and eat the pizza. This was a great together activity. The boys cut, weighed, placed and worked on these pizzas.

We made two types of pizza balls; a cheese based one and a meat based one.

Our basic ingredients

• Mozzarella cheese
• Pineapple and sweetcorn

( slices of precooked chicken- leftovers)

Plus refrigerated pizza dough.

• Layout the dough according to package instructions.
• Using a pizza cutter. Divide into large squares.
• Add your filling

• Pinch each closed so the filling is inside and the dough is outside.
• Place seam side down in a greased dish.
• Brush top with garlic butter/oil and sprinkle liberally with Parmesan cheese.

We poured seasoned sauce in a ramekin for dipping.

Cooking with kids is a lot of fun. They can get really creative and usually eat what they make

As a recipe we all loved it. It was labour intensive having to roll up each bite but the time together was totally worth it.

Thanks to 

April 16th, 2010 6 boredom busters when waiting for food to arrive Posted by Melitsa in Cooking, play activities, Thought of the week

When you go out to eat what do you do between ordering and food arriving?

Here are our top 6 boredom busters when waiting for food to arrive when we’re eating out.

1. Stack the packet condiments
2. Dump and fill the sugar/salt packets container ( Who can be the fastest?)
3. Count the packets ( sort the colours/size/ shape etc)
4. Kim’s game- hide things and guess what’s missing
5. I spy ( aka People watching )
6. Make a small pile of salt/sugar and draw letters shapes)

Things we have brought with us that has worked

• book
• paper
• crayons
• small toy

Photo credit: greenkozi

We’d love to extend this list. What do you do? We try not to bring too much and use what we see around us?