Kids Cook - Chili

This week we had the kids cook us chili and cornbread for dinner!  It gives the kids some time in the kitchen and a sense of accomplishment because they "cooked" dinner!  So fun!

Chili Cooking

Ingredients:

• 1 pound of beef (or turkey)
• 3 stalks of celery
• 1 small onion
• 1 large jar of tomato juice
• 1 1/2 tomatoes (about a cup and a half chopped)
• 1 1/2 cups chili beans (home cooked - see recipe below or 1 can of beans)
• 1 can tomato paste
• brown sugar (the not so secret "secret ingredient")
• chili powder

Prep Work:

• Cook the meat with the onions and celery
• Sprinkle the meat with chili powder
• When cooked through - set aside
• Dice the tomatoes
• Prepare the beans (if homemade - see recipe at end)

Kids Work:

• In a large pot mix the meat
• Add the tomatoes
• Add the beans (with some of the sauce)
• Add the tomato paste
• Add the tomato juice
• Add a spoonful of brown sugar
• Add a spoonful of chili powder
• Mix everything together!

Cooking

Simmer on the stove for about a half hour to blend the flavors and warm it all up - then enjoy!

Cornbread Cooking

Ingredients:

• (for a full 13x9 pan; halve it for enough for a family of 4/5)
• 2/3 cup butter softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 2/3 cups milk
• 2 1/3 cups flour
• 1 cup cornmeal
• 4 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• sprinkle of salt

Prep Work:

Have all the ingredients and a hand-held mixer ready to go!

Kids Work:

• Kids love to use the mixer - just be sure little fingers stay out of the bowl and that if you leave the mixer to grab and ingredient - unplug it.  And make sure it is "off" before plugging it back in!
• Have the kids cream the butter and sugar (you can make the butter very soft by microwaving it for 20 seconds or so - a little melted is fine)
• Add the eggs and milk
• Mix again
• Then add the flour, cornmeal, baking powder and sprinkle with salt.  You can add all these on top of the liquid and just give it a quick mix to distribute the baking powder a little.
• Mix again - and done!

Cooking:

Cook in a 400 degree oven for 22-27 minutes until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

Here's what you will have!  Yummmmmmm....

Home cooked beans

These are very easy to make and much tastier than the store-bought (and healthier too!)

Ingredients:

• 4 cups water (or more)
• 3 cups (or a little more) of dry pinto beans soaked in water overnights
• small onion (chopped)
• 4 garlic cloves (chopped)
• 3 cups chicken broth
• 1 can tomato paste
• 1/4 cup taco seasoning (great homemade seasoning recipe: http://www.theyummylife.com/recipes/76 but I don't add the cocoa powder)

Recipe:

• Discard water and rinse beans
• Heat 2 tablespoons of oil over medium high heat
• Add 1 small onion (chopped)
• Add 4 garlic cloves (chopped)
• Saute the onion and garlic until soft
• Add the tomato paste and stir to combine
• Add 1/4-1/3 cup taco seasoning (homemade seasoning recipe here)
• Add 3 cups chicken broth (or vegetable broth) and 4 cups water
• Add the beans
• Strongly simmer uncovered for 1 1/2 - 2 hours, keep the water level just the beans (just add water when necessary) and cook until the beans are tasty and tender

Crafting Stories - If You Give A Mouse A Cookie

This week we read If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and then followed it up with a craft to make a mouse puppet and (of course!) cookies!

Story: If You Give A Mouse A Cookie
Craft: Paper bag mouse puppet

First we read our story - If You Give A Mouse A Cookie

 

Then we did our craft - Paper Bag Mouse Puppet

 

For this craft, I printed off the template from http://www.dltk-teach.com/rhymes/paper_bag_mouse_puppet.htm Then we cut and colored the pieces.  We glued them onto the paper bag to make a mouse!  Then we took some circles cut out of brown construction paper and decorated them to be the "cookies"!  Some of the kids glued a cookie into the mouth of their puppet.  So cute!

And since our mouse ate cookies in the story - we had to eat cookies too! 

 

Enjoy!


 

Our "A" Day!

My four year old and I had our very first letter day!  We talked about the sound that "A" makes, we hunted for the letter "A" at home and at the store, we found things that began with the letter "A", we made "A" crafts and we wrote a whole bunch of "As"!

The Sound

Use "A" as in "apple".  This is the short "A" sound - the long "A" will come later as the kids start to read.

Writing It

As I prepped the craft, I encouraged my daughter to write a bunch of "A"s - as many as she could squeeze in.  I made up a quick worksheet on PowerPoint  - link to worksheet.

Crafting It

Since "apple" begins with "A" and they are in season right now - we painted an apple tree and added pom-poms as the apples.  I first outlined the apple tree in black marker so that it would give my daughter a guide for how to paint the tree and so the black lines would show through at the end.  My daughter got creative and used a large purple pom-pom to look like a hole in the tree ("where animal lives!").  We also used this craft to talk about all the different colors of apples (red, pink, green, yellow).

Fun and Games

• We had two games - the first was to take a letter "A" that I had cut out of paper and glued onto a white back and find "A"s wherever we went.  Whenever she found an "A" - she added a sticker to the paper until she filled up the entire paper!
• The second game was to find things that start with the letter "A".  For this, she had a bingo sheet that I made up in PowerPoint - link to sheet.  As we went about our day, we found all the things on the sheet - some of them were stuffed animals we had around the house, some of them we found at the grocery, and some we found on our walk! 

Enjoy!

Science in the Park - Oil vs Water

This week we took a look at how oil and water just do not mix! 

Experiment 1 - Fireworks in a Jar!

In this experiment we will be making fireworks while exploring how oil and water do not mix.

Materials:

• yogurt cup (or other small container)
• food coloring
• oil
• spoon
• jar with water in it

How To: Step 1

Put a few tablespoons of oil in the cup and let the kids squirt a few drops of food coloring in it.

Step 2

Stir it up! If you skip this step - the colors will not look as pretty.

Step 3

Carefully pour the oil into the jar so that the oil stays on top.

While you watch the colors will fall through the oil and into the water where they will mix with the water and look like fireworks!

The Science:

The oil is less dense than the water - so it stays at the top of the jar. The food color is not so it slips down and then mixes with the water to create the fireworks!!

Experiment 2

In this experiment we used the principle that oil sits on top of water to paint paper!

Materials:

• Tins
• Water
• Oil
• Food coloring
• Card stock paper (the thicker paper works better)
• Fork
• Pipettes (or eye droppers or spoons if you don't have either)

How to:

• Add just a little bit of water to the bottom of the tin - you need enough to cover the whole bottom of the tray (approximately 1/8 inch).
• In a yogurt cup, mix a little oil with food coloring.  This needs to be mixed vigorously and with a fork.  Eventually (up to a few minutes) it will look like it is blended.
• Then take the pipettes and drop the oil on top of the water in whatever pattern you choose!

 

• Once the oil is added, take a piece of paper and gently lay it on top of the water.  It will soak up the oil and you will see this through the paper.
• Leave it there for 10 seconds or so and then pull it up and you will have a neat design on the paper!

The Science:

The oil sits on top of the water and so the oil mixed with food coloring is what sticks to the paper!  Oil and water do not mix because of the "like dissolves like" principle of science.  What this means is that water is a polar molecule and oil is not.  Since one is "polar" and the other is not - they cannot dissolve in one another; but rather they stay separate.  And since oil is less dense than water - it sits on top of the water. 

Experiment 3

Now that we've played with oil - let's clean it up!

Materials:

• The tin with the water and oil in it from the previous experiment
• A polyester rag

How to:

• Give the kids a small piece of polyester and challenge them to clean up the oil. 
• The polyester will do a decent job of cleaning up the oil!

The Science:

Polyester is a polypropylene - which is made of the same elements as oil (hydrogen and carbon).  These materials attract each other since they are the same; thus the polyester soaks up the oil!

Enjoy!

Crafting Stories

Today we started reading stories and doing arts and crafts that go with the story!

Story: A Very Hungry Caterpillar
Craft: Painting a caterpillar!

First we read our story - The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Then it was time for the craft! 

 Here's how:

• Moms drew three circles on white paper by tracing yogurt cups.
• We used Sharpies so that it would show through the paint.
• We also added legs and feet to our drawings and a nose, mouth and antennas.
• Then we gave the kids one paint at a time and asked them to paint each circle a different color.
• When the painting fun was done - they picked out a set of eyes and stuck it into the paint to make their own very hungry caterpillar!

Enjoy!

Field Trip - Balboa

Today we visited Balboa Pier and Island and we had a blast!

We parked near Balboa Pier (to find it - you can google maps "Balboa Pier Newport Beach") where they have a rather large hour parking lot.  It is a quarter every 10 minutes ($1.50 an hour) to park there but well worth it. 

First Stop - The Beach!

The beach is right in front of the parking lot and it is a great beach!  It is a long beach filled with crushed shells that wow-ed my girls.  The pier is right there and is a wonderful distraction.  There is a Ruby's Diner at the end of the pier too.  We spent an hour playing with My Little Ponies, searching for sand crabs and of course looking for the prettiest shell on the beach! 

Next Up - The Ferry!

We walked to the other side of the Peninsula and then a little to the left and there is the ferry!  The kids just loved the ferry!  We took it across to Balboa Island and walked around a little but unfortunately had to head back early for another commitment.  If we had more time - we would have brought scooters and toured the island.

Ferry Prices:

• Car and Driver: $2.00;
• Motorcycles and Mopeds: $1.50;
• Adult with Bicycles: $1.25 cents;
• Children with bicycles $.75 cents
• Adults: 1.00 cents, Children 5-11 .50 cents; Children under 5: free.

 

On the Newport side of the ferry - there is the Balboa Fun Zone which has a small ferris wheel and an arcade.  There is also a Nautical Museum called the ExplorOcean (http://explorocean.org/) and from the outside it looked really neat!  If we had more time - this would have been on our list of things to explore!  Next time!

Crafting - Puffy Paint

Today we had some time to kill....so why not make some home made puffy paint!  It was a lot of fun and the kids had a blast seeing what their creations would look like when they turned "puffy"!

Materials:

• Thick paper for painting on (it's a heavy paint)
• Yogurt cups for the paint
• Paint brushes
• Self-rising flour
• Salt
• Water
• Food Coloring

How To:

• Mix equal parts of salt and self-rising flour (for example: 1 tablespoon of self-rising flour + 1 tablespoon of salt)
• Add food coloring (a few drops)
• Add water until you have a paste that is just thin enough to paint with
• And PAINT!  btw - you can paint on thin paper or more of a card stock.  The card stock seemed to work better but plain white paper worked too.
• Once all the painting fun is done - microwave the masterpiece for 10-30 seconds and ta-da!  You have a puffy paint picture!

This is my daughter's picture of her two cats!

Science in the Park - Colors!

This weeks science was all about colors!  There were 3 expiements meant to "wow" the kids into guessing what would happen next!

Experiment 1: Coffee Filter Science

Materials:

• Coffee filters
• Yogurt cups with water in it
• Scissors
• Markers

How to:

• Take a white coffee filter and cut it into strips. 
• Draw a thick line about an inch from the bottom with a marker. 
• Place the coffee filter below the marker line in the water and let the coffee filter soak up the water. Then the colors will bleed up the coffee filter paper and will separate.  So if the marker was green, you will see streaks of yellow and blue. 

 

Experiment 2: Magic Spoons

Materials:

• Plastic spoons (preferably white)
• Vinegar
• Yogurt cups
• Baking Soda
• Food Coloring

 

How to:

• Without the kids looking - put a drop or two of food coloring on each spoon. 
• Add a lump of baking to each spoon.
• Fill up the yogurt cups with vinegar.
• Give each kid a yogurt cup and a magic spoon.
• Stir the magic spoon into the vinegar.
• The baking soda and the vinegar react and if you keep stiring - the color is revealed!

 

The Science:

Vinegar is an acid and baking soda is a base.  The acid and base react to form a gas (carbon dioxide) which are the bubbles that excite the kids so much!

 

Experiment 3: Pipette-ing

Next we broke out the pipettes and continued the acid base reactions.

 

Materials

• Pipettes
• more baking soda
• more vinegar
• tray

 

How to:

• Put little lumps of baking soda in the tray.
• Put some vinegar in yogut cups (color them if desired)
• Instruct the kids to use the pipette to suck up some of the vinegar and drop it into the baking soda to get the "fizz".
• This gives the kids a chance to practice using a pipette and it's fun!

 

Enjoy!

 

Field Trip - Griffith Park!

Griffith park Field Trip

 

Today the girls and I braved the traffic on the '5' and visited Griffith Park!

The Observatory

Good to know:

• Parking is not easy - we visited on a weekday in the summer and it was crowded. There is parking on the hill going up to the observatory and there is a small lot at the top. All of it is free so we choose to cruise the lot and we got lucky - VIP parking for 3 happy girls!
• Bring a camera - the views of LA and the Hollywood sign are incredible!
• Prepare to spend some time - there is a lot to see - we spent about 2 hours there and we could have spent more time easily.

Observatory Road Map

• There is only one show for little kids - the first planetarium show.  The show is at 12:45 on weekdays. We were aiming to get to this show but traffic was heavy and it took us twice as long to get there so we missed it.
• As you walk in to the left are tickets for the shows.
• The exhibit in the hall to the left has a number of telescope and talks about telescopes and their components. It is very interactive.
• The exhibit hall to the right has a number of small rooms that talk about the moon and it's effects on earth. It is very interesting and gives the kids great visuals for tides and eclipses. There was also a map showing where it is daytime in the world and we played a game where we would say - "now my cousin is awake" and "now my grandma is awake". Totally cute.
• You can also go downstairs which has an amazing exhibit on meteorites that you can touch!  It also has a number of little telescopes that you can look through at a large star map. And there was a guy there allowing people to hold a real meteorite!  Super cool!!
• Then...there is the outside of the observatory!  The views of LA and the Hollywood sign were amazing!  You can climb all the way to the roof too!  And there is a few terraces too. It was a very cool experience.

Pony Rides

Next stop was the crazy pony rides that thrill my little girls!  If you leave Griffith and go back in the next entrance - that's where you will find the pony rides. I say "crazy" because the ponies run around the track in a pack with just a guy yelling at them. The ponies trot and walk and it a sight to see on a busy weekend. But the rides are only $3 and the kids absolutely love them!

Choo Choo

Next to the pony rides is a cute little train ride. It is quite long and you go kinda fast. You also go across a bridge and through a little town that thrilled even my 6 year old.

 

Park Play

Afterwards we headed to the carousel which happened to be closed...but if you go towards the back parking lot, there is a great playground!  It has three separate play areas complete with swings, monkey bars and A LOT of  play structures that are perfect for imaginative play.

   If we had more time we would have visited the travel train museum which has all these great old steam engines that you can walk around...in the middle of a city park - very cool!We had a great day!