Practical Homeschooling » in the kitchen

Make Your Own Edible Crayons

Laura — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 18:16:24 +0000

Made with nuts, seeds and marshmallows, these crayons are free of artificial colours and truly neat! This idea and images were totally snagged from Luxirare. You can even colour with them!

It`s something I’d love to do with my girls, but since I’m still layed up in the hospital, I’ll have to wait till I’m out and I remember to gather the necessary ingredients.

To see how these health bars were made, please visit the original site here.

Halloween Mini-Unit Study

Laura — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:54:31 +0000

There are 10 days left until Halloween, and what better way to get kids psyched for the event than to do a unit study on the subject!

A bit about Halloween…

There are perhaps as many stories about the origins of Halloween as there are people to tell the story. It seems like the story of the Celts is the most common form, but there are also theories about it being tied-in to Noah’s Ark, or to Olde Ireland.

Here is some information about it’s origins, but the closest we will perhaps ever get to the truth is pure speculation.

From Wikipedia

The story of Halloween

Halloween-Ancient Origins

From Suite101

Old Jack

The Magic Pumpkin

Halloween Story

Star in your own Halloween story!

Arts and Crafts

Spider pinata

This is an awesome idea if you plan on throwing a Halloween party for the children!

Ghosts and jack-o-lanterns wreath

Footprint ghost

Paint-bucket jack-o-lantern

Milk container pumpkin

Coffee filter vampire bat

Colouring Pages

Here are some links to GOOD QUALITY colouring pages.

Funschool colouring pages

Activity Pages

Ghost word-search

Halloween Maze

Spot the differences

Handstands and MoonSand and Cookies! (Oh my!)

Laura — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 02:29:02 +0000

What a day today has been. I feel as though a huge weight has just been lifted off of my shoulders. My new condo is FINALLY unpacked and clean to my liking. It certainly hasn’t been easy and I’m very thankful to those who took the time to give me a hand (especially with the trash!). I feel that I can spend more quality time with my children now that I don’t have this mess hanging over my head.

I know I posted previously about not letting petty cleaning get in the way of spending time with your children, but trying to constantly wheel around boxes and stuff lying around everywhere makes life feel way too overwhelming!

The girls kept themselves busy (it’s amazing what they do when there’s no TV around to distract them…and not that I’m against TV…just don’t have one) all day by exploring, playing and visiting with their father.

Emily is teaching herself how to do headstands on the couch. She had a few crash-landings and began getting upset that she couldn’t get it right. It took a bit of encouragement and coaxing, that everyone has to practice to get her to calm down; and with a healthy reminder from Yo Gabba Gabba that you have to ‘keep trying,’ she started laughing and went off to try it again!

After that, we made yummy peanut butter cookies..they were scrumptuous! It’s nice to actually feel like there’s time to do this stuff without all that cleaning to do over your head! Here’s my yummy recipe:

Organic Oatmeal Peanut Butter Cookies

You will need (and for them to be organic, you”ll naturally need to get organic ingredients!):

1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup margarine, softened
1 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup raw sugar
1 cup peanut butter
2 eggs
1 1/4 cups multi-grain flour
1/4 cup ground flaxseed
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 cup quick-cooking oats

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine first six ingredients until smooth. In a separate bowl, mix together dry indredients. Mix dry ingredients into batter and mix until smooth. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto lightly greased cookie sheet. Pop into oven for about 12 minutes. You’ll want to take them out when they start to lightly brown around the edges. Leave on pan five minutes before removing to a plate to cool. Store in airtight container.

Yield: 4 dozen

…and now tis time to go and clean up after the Moon Sand fiasco of the day…thank God I made them play with it on the balcony, otherwise I’d probably be back to square one as far as keeping this place clean is concerned!

“Waiter, there’s a cupcake in my yogurt!”

Laura — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 18:00:05 +0000

: Clumpsy Cookie

Look inside the cup! It’s a cake…it yogurt…it’s a clumbsy cookie!

I found this on the Clumbsy Cookie blog and my mouth started to water immediately! What a neat idea to put some cake (ingredients measured out with a yogurt cup) into the yogurt cup, and to top it with a yogurt-ganache icing.

This is something the kids would have a ball doing, and have even more fun eating it!

You can access the recipe here.

Please send your pictures and comments!