Mittens and Pom Poms

One day this week, Kate and I looked at a few crafts on Pinterest, and she chose to make stained glass mittens.

I cut out the black mitten outline and stuck it onto contact paper.  She tore pieces of tissue paper and placed the pieces within the mitten outline.

 After finishing one pink mitten, she decided the other mitten should be a different color.

Then we moved on to mitten math.  I cut mitten shapes out of white card stock and added numbers with the corresponding number of dots.

Kate found the correct colored pom poms and placed them on the dots, counting each time.  She has known all of these colors for a long time and she is also pretty good at counting; we mostly worked on number recognition.

Our next activity was to help Kate develop fine motor skills and hand strength.  We have these neat tools she used with the pom poms.

 I enjoyed the most wonderful pom pom ice cream treats made just for me by Kate.

Science and Ice Cream

It is school vacation week and Auntie Karen is here visiting; that is a double WIN!!!

Yesterday, Collin, Reagan, Kate, Auntie Karen, and I went to the mall to see Mad Science.  Here is a description of the event:
This spellbinding special event introduces children to the principles of air and pressure. Hot air balloons, vortex generators and even a hovercraft will help children understand the power of air. 

I thought the show was interesting, but I can't go so far as "spellbinding".  Collin and Reagan said it was kind of boring.  I think the woman just talked a little too much.  At the end of the show, the kids had an opportunity to make putty.  Collin chose not to participate since we had made putty at home just a few days before.  I told him the Mad Science putty had different ingredients, but he was set with his decision.  Reagan made some.

Later in the day, Reagan wanted to use her Cook It in a Cup cookbook; she made mini meatloaves.

I don't eat meat, but everyone else that ate them said they were good!  I'm happy that she has taken an interest in cooking.  It's nice to learn at a young age.

After dinner, we had a make your own sundae night.

 I named Collin's sundae a stomach ache in a bowl.  He didn't eat all of it!

Tyler and Auntie Karen were at the movies when we had the sundae fun, but they made up for it by going to Friendly's after the movie!

Today Reagan is going to Dave & Buster's with a friend, and Collin is going to see The Lego Movie for the second time with Grandma.

I is for Ice Cream

Our current theme is I is for Ice Cream.  The ice cream scoops and cones are popular around here. We have had them since Collin was Kate's age.  Inside each scoop is the corresponding color word. They are from Learning Resources.  We are missing two of the scoops - red and brown, but the set has held up really well.

Kate loved scooping snow into her play ice cream cones.  I refilled the snow bowl three times.  This was a great way for her to play in the snow without getting cold.  She scooped, dumped, and scooped again for a long time.

 Kate received this PlayDoh ice cream set for Christmas.

 Her favorite part of the set is definitely the whipped cream.

Collin and Reagan joined her later in the day.  Everyone enjoyed making ice cream treats.

They had some real ice cream too, but I didn't get any good pictures of that!

 She colored and glued together her own ice cream cone.

Here she is "reading" Curious George Goes to an Ice Cream Shop.  She is very good at retelling stories right now, and also very good at making up her own stories to go along with books she is not familiar with yet.

We had this ice cream cone chalk that Kate thought was kind of neat.

I made her ice cream for breakfast.  

Kate also enjoyed stringing alphabet beads this week.  Her attention span allowed us to string A-K; she did all of the stringing, I just handed her the letters.

The letter stringing set is made by Alex Toys.  It's cute, and Kate seems to enjoy it.  The stringing is great fine motor work.

Ice Cream Ball

C got an ice cream ball (actually called the Play and Freeze Ice Cream Maker) from some friends for his birthday.  We got to try it out recently, and we all agreed that it is a pretty cool way to make ice cream.

The ball has two openings - one that you fill with ice and rock salt, and the other (a metal cylinder) that you fill with your ice cream ingredients.  We used one of the recipes in the instruction booklet to make peanut butter cup ice cream.

Once the ingredients were in the ball and it was sealed, C and R took the ball outside to play for ten minutes.

After ten minutes, I poured out the water that had melted, refilled the ice, added more rock salt, scraped down the sides of the cylinder, and sent them back outside for another five minutes or so.

The end result was ice cream, and it was pretty good!  This is much better than the sealed plastic bag method we have used in the past!  I loved that C and R did almost all of the work, all I did was fill the ball! That is one cool birthday present!

Fun With Food - Day 5 - Homemade Ice Cream

Making homemade ice cream is one of the activities on our Summer Bucket List.  We followed the same directions we used last summer.

First, we put 2 TBSP sugar, 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, and 1 cup of half and half into a quart size plastic storage bag.  Then, we put 1/2 cup Kosher salt into a gallon size plastic storage bag and filled the bag halfway with ice.  Next, we put the quart size sealed bags of ice cream ingredients inside the gallon size bags of ice and salt, sealed them, and began to shake.

Just like last year, C and R began shaking their bags, and that lasted all of thirty seconds or so before they asked me to shake the bags for them.  So, once again, I danced around the kitchen shaking their ice cream bags for about five minutes.

Once the ice cream was similar to soft serve, I opened the bags and let C and R add their mix-ins.  They added broken Twix and Kit Kat candy bars.

Then they mixed it all up a bit and we put the bags in the freezer.

After a little while, we took the bags out, scooped the ice cream into our frozen dessert dishes, added a little whipped cream (only for C, R doesn't like whipped cream) and enjoyed the special treat!

Well, the truth is that they ate some of it and then decided that it isn't as good as the ice cream they usually have! 

If you want to know why you put salt helps make ice cream, here is what I wrote in my post last year:  32 degrees is the melting point of ice, but the ice cream mixture will not freeze unless the temperature gets below 27 degrees.  The salt changes the melting point of the ice. When you add salt to the ice, it lowers the freezing point of the ice, so even more energy has to be absorbed from the environment in order for the ice to melt. This makes the ice colder than it was before and the ice cream freezes.

For more science fun, visit Science Sunday at Adventures in Mommydom.

Homemade Ice Cream!

We made homemade ice cream with just a few simple ingredients, and it was really good!  Making ice cream was one of the activities on our summer bucket list, and everyone was very excited about it.  I loved how easy it was.

First, we put 2 TBSP sugar, 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, and 1 cup of half and half into a quart size plastic storage bag.  Then, we put 1/2 cup Kosher salt into a gallon size plastic storage bag and filled the bag halfway with ice.

Next, we placed the sealed smaller bag with the ice cream ingredients inside the larger bag and sealed it.

Finally, C and R began to shake, shake, shake their bags.  This lasted about 30 seconds until they said, "MOM, these bags are too heavy.  Can you shake them for us?"  So, I danced around the kitchen for five minutes shaking their bags until they each had a bag of ice cream to eat.

I put some toppings out and they each enjoyed an ice cream sundae!  I had a few bites myself.  It was good!

I don't know why, but C likes to wear winter pajamas in the summer.  It was 100 degrees on this day!

On a science note, T asked me why salt is added to the ice to make ice cream.  I had to look it up.  32 degrees is the melting point of ice, but the ice cream mixture will not freeze unless the temperature gets below 27 degrees.  The salt changes the melting point of the ice. When you add salt to the ice, it lowers the freezing point of the ice, so even more energy has to be absorbed from the environment in order for the ice to melt. This makes the ice colder than it was before and the ice cream freezes. 

Speaking of T, he made his own bag of ice cream, but I did not get any pictures.  He thought it was a little watery, but it certainly did not stop him from eating all of it.

I am linking this to Science Sunday at Adventures in Mommydom.