July 7th, 2010
One thing I always enjoyed as a child, was baking with my dad. My great-grandmother taught him to bake, and he passed the enjoyment down to me. As I got older my parents allowed me to bake on my own despite the mess – and enjoyed the finished project no matter how lopsided or odd looking. :)
So a couple of weeks ago on a rainy Thursday – I thought this would be a good day to introduce baking to Sophie.
The recipe we used was for simple, easy whole wheat bread found in the book “Heaven on Earth” by Sharifa Oppenheimer (on a side note: I cannot say enough about this book. It resonated with me on so many levels, and gave me many tools as to how to parent creatively in every situation, good or bad!)
Starting off with the wet ingredients. Sophie is only two, and you can expect a two-year old to make a mess! But with the proper guidance the mess can be kept to a minimum. This was a good time for me to practice using positive words rather than focus on the negative – instead of saying “don’t spill it” I would say – “stir slowly, keep it in the bowl” – this takes patience and thought before words, which is particularly hard for me when it is second nature to focus on the negative. Mindful parenting means just that – taking the time to stop and think of our words and actions. How will my words impact my child? I can remember how those words affected me – as harmless as they were meant when I was little (this by no means is a perfect practice for me – there are always bad days. You simply have to reflect, forgive yourself and strive to do better the next day. It is a journey that I will take with my children – together there will be ups and downs!). .
Slowly adding the dry ingredients – the dough is starting to thicken now…
Ava was happy to explore and play on her own – and would come over to the table to see what we were doing every so often…
Our dough is now the consistency of pizza dough and is ready to be formed. You could do a lot of things with this – cut with cookie cutters of different animal shapes, braid the dough, form it into a loaf of bread…I decided it would be the easiest for Sophie to simply form them into balls and make rolls out of them.
The finished product…
A tasty bedtime snack. The honey in this recipe makes them irresistible. :)
I would really like to try weaving a story into our cooking…I think it would add an element of fantasy/creativity as well as help explain the elements involved (such as mixing, and keeping it in the bowl or forming the dough into balls). Story telling is one aspect of my parenting that I really want to work on. It doesn’t come natural to me – yet anyway. ;)
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June 22nd, 2010
I needed a quick project to do with my 2 year old as our morning was cut short due to chore load. It’s summer so I thought it would be nice to break out the felt (Tuesday is felting day – in our weekly rhythm) and make a butterfly for the play house.
This project could easily be adapted to wet felting as young children love – however due to our shortened morning I decided to needle felt it and have my daughter participate by adding friction or simply touching the piece when she desired.
I also wanted to add that you don’t hvae to be particularly artistic or crafty to do these kinds of projects. Believe me I churned this out fast this morning and the butterfly is lopsided – the children don’t care! They simply cherish what you make with them.
All you need is dyed wool, pipe cleaners and your needle and mat for felting.
I took one pipe cleaner and folded it in half and twisted it together.
Then twisted the endos of the other two together, forming a circle
Twist your circle into a figure 8, and shape the wings as you wish.
I covered the body part with wool and had Sophie roll it back & forth in her hands. The friction starts the felting process. Then I ran my felting needle over it a few times.
Sophie is too young to use the sharp needle, but that doesn’t mean she can’t mimic the movement. I catch her “needle felting” in the play house with her bubble wand. Here she gives it a go on the body of our butterfly.
The body is now done.
Then I attached the body to the wing armature I formed, criss-crossing the wool around the center of the wings and body. I lightly felted this into place with the needle. I wanted to be able to loop string through here later.
I started to lay the wool on the wings to felt – weaving over and under the pipe cleaner armature – then felted it into place.
So as you can see, our butterfly looks more like a dragonfly than a butterfly! This is great too – but I told Sophie we were making a butterfly. :) I could have made a second set of wings, but again due to our short morning I simply snipped the body with scissors and felted over the bottom. We will keep the other half of the body to make another later.
Sophie of course requested blue for the body, and then I jazzed it up a little bit…
…adding fuschia & purple felt to the body.
Just one last apple green element added to the top – and our butterfly is ready to take flight.
Our butterfly now lives at the front door of our play house. Where he will stay all summer long. :)
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