Unplugged Project - Borax Snowflakes

We've been away from the Unplugged Project for a while, probably because we've been away from our blog! But we checked back in for the "Soap" theme, and made these pretty Borax crystal snowflakes.

There are many different sets of directions out there, with varying amounts of Borax added to hot (or boiling) water, but it seems that the gist is that you have to get the water super-saturated. Hang your pipe cleaner slow flake in the solution overnight, and in the morning you have lots crystals! In fact, they started to form in just about an hour. The kids liked the measuring and stirring, and checked on the progress quite a few times during the day...

Yes, it would have been more appropriate project at Christmas time, but we have had sleet and ice here in Michigan at least three times this month! Maybe we can hang these in the window to appease Jack Frost. :)

Earth Hour Adventure

When a friend reminded me of "Earth Hour" on Facebook yesterday, I was so so so glad that I hadn't missed it AGAIN! I've heard about this event for a few years, and have yet to plan well enough to actually do it...turn off all the lights for one hour (8:30pm - 9:30pm) as a symbolic gesture about energy savings. Here, our electricity is powered almost exclusively by coal, so if everyone in Okemos took part (they didn't), we might actually save a pile of carbon entering the atmosphere. Besides the lights, we also took it as an opportunity to go low=tech, turning off the electronics as well. Here's how our night went:

• 8:20 - At the end of Scooby-Doo and the Crocodile something or other, I turned off the TV, put away my computer, and all the lights I could find. It was not quite dark yet, but the kids were totally into it. Mike lit some candles, the fireplace already had a lovely little fire going.
• 8:30 - I asked Mike about the timers on the outdoor lights (just out of curiosity, really), and he went out and shut all of those off too. :)
• 8:32 - We looked out the windows to see if anybody else in the neighborhood was participating, and found that each house looked doubly bright now that all of our lights were off. I joked to M that we could start calling people to inform them that they should be turning off their lights, and E thought I was serious. She brought me the phone.
• 8:33 - I called cousin S, whom I knew was also already sitting in the dark, and Grandma P, who said she would be very glad to turn off her lights and go to bed right away. E was pleased.
• 8:35 - We found a flashlight for each person, and E immediately suggested that we play hide-and-seek in the dark. Then, just as abruptly, she said she might just be too scared to do that.
• 8:45 - Deep into a game of hide-and-seek, the kids were now comfortable enough to creep around with their flashlights looking for M and me...so much so that I felt okay jumping out from behind the furniture to scare them when I heard them coming.
• 8:50 - Together, we took a tour of the house in the dark. We found that even without flashlights, there was enough light coming through the windows that we could see well enough to avoid the furniture. Downstairs, though, you couldn't even see your hand in front of your face. A few bumps and dings, and one little anxiety attack (E), but it was pretty fun, really.
• 9:00 - We gathered in front of the fireplace with one flashlight and read two chapters of Mary Kate and Ashley, The Case of the Haunted Camp. In an unfortunate turn of events, the "ghost" turned out to be girl named Emma. Whoops. We changed her name to Grace.
• 9:20 - Bedtime for the kids...E was pretty freaked, but we did try to get her to relax without all of the nightlights we usually use. Baby m had no problem..."I'm very brave, right?"

I would say this was a really nice way to end the day, and this morning E has already asked when we can do it again. She did have one nightmare last night, but it had to do with robots, not sleep-away camp. Though in recounting the dream (at 3am) she did use the phrase, "Never to be seen again..." - a direct quote from Ashley Olson. :)

Do Caterpillars Sleep?

Well, we're not really sure if it's technically "sleep", but a caterpillar does take a long rest in his chrysalis. We did a caterpillar project from the book, Explore Spring! Yes, it's still spring, even though the temperature was in the high 80s yesterday.

E and I colored pictures of butterflies and caterpillars that we copied from the book. Baby m colored everything, including his arms and the table, and he graciously helped me finish coloring my butterfly. The good news is that he does get excited when I ask him if he wants to do a "project"! When we were finished, we cut the pictures into strips and glued them to construction paper. Then we folded them "like a fan" (according to E) so that you could see only one or the other. I had hoped that she would do the cutting herself, but she was nervous about getting the lines straight enough. I probably shouldn't have done mine first.

I couldn't get E interested in the butterfly life cycle...she was much to intent on getting her pink and purple wings done the way she wanted them. But on the plus side, I was reminded about this cool type technique, which you can also use with cutouts from magazines and such. I had forgotten totally how neat they look!

Unplugged - Sound

I told E that this week's theme was "sound," but she kept telling me that the real theme was "noise." Figures, since this house is never quiet...seriously, noise is the theme pretty much every day.

We kept it pretty simple with the first project, and made a telephone from red plastic cups and string. I figured that E would enjoy hearing me whisper from across the room, but in reality she only put the cup to her ear once. The rest of the time she shouted into her end, and totally missed the point of having the phone in the first place. But she did have fun screaming at me, and I didn't tell her to be quiet, because sound was the theme, after all.Our second project was a little more successful. I went around the house with my little digital voice recorder, and recorded snippets of sound from various objects. The toys that make music, the horizontal blinds, the light switch. Then E, Baby m, and Grandma listened to the sounds one at a time and went on a hunt around the house to find the source. E LOVED this...anything that resembles a treasure hunt, or involves clues or hints, and she's all over it. Baby m just trailed along behind her giggling.

Click the play button below to hear the sound that cracked everybody up...

Even Grandma laughed at that one. Check out the other "sound" projects at Unplug Your Kids!

Unplugged - Ocean

Activity number one this week was to create an ocean under the kitchen table. From the start, I couldn't get the vision of the classic "Under the Sea" prom theme out of my head, so I adapted it for toddlers. I cut some fish out of construction paper and the kids colored them. I also gave them sponge stamps to stamp scales onto the fish, but that didn't really go as planned. They just stamped willy nilly...then we made jellyfish from paper plates with plastic bag strips as tentacles. That was a lot of fun....when I told E and her cousin that the tentacles could sting you, they began a jelly fish fight along with much giggling.
E and Baby m helped tape the creatures under the table, and added crepe paper kelp. Baby m really just liked tearing the paper off the roll and crumpling it up, and E just kept shouting, "We need more kelp!" I draped a tablecloth as a backdrop and the effect was pretty cool. They pretended they were swimming, and it made a fun temporary clubhouse. We also made our first lap-book, which I had been wanting to do for some time. I couldn't think of how to start, so I used this website (Homeschoolshare) for templates. There are some great ones there...I did a lot of prep work for it, but E was able to help cut and glue, and she especially likes the little envelope with counting starfish in it. If she shows any further interest, I will be making more of these. Check out other ocean themed projects at Unplug Your Kids!

Unplugged - Geometric!

We pulled out an activity for this week's project that's been in the closet for a while. The last time I tried Playful Patterns with E, she just lined all of the pieces up in rows on the couch while I wasn't looking. I came back in the room and actually gasped when I saw this...

The game comes with picture cards to build on, and this time she was really into it...she's getting me a little worried with her perfectionism, though. She was not satisfied until the shape was RIGHT in the middle. If she bumped one with her finger, she carefully replaced it. We also talked about how to make a rectangle out of two squares, and an oval out of two semi-circles and a rectangle. I really thought these concepts were beyond her. I knew there was a reason that we came back to the Unplugged Project!

We read a book about patterns, and we went on a walk and looked for different shapes. I'm not sure what we'll do with the photos, maybe a matching game. E lost interest pretty quickly...our usual game during our walks is for me to get "stuck" in the nearest shrub and yell "Ayudame!" Then she runs up and rescues me. That was much more fun than finding squares and circles. All the same, M and I got some nice shapes pics to work with.

Baby m is showing some interest in participating in games and crafts, but he mostly just wants to throw the pieces on the floor and hit things with his hockey stick. Um, could that be considered an Unplugged theme???

Unplugged - We're Back!

The Unplugged Theme this week was "petal". At this time of year, this theme should have been easy for us, but on the afternoon that we were supposed to plant flowers, it rained. It was cold. We did not go outside.

So we started with flowers made from Styrofoam egg containers. We have done many open ended projects, because wanted to encourage E to create without boundaries, something I really think is lacking in education at all levels. But this time I decided to challenge her in a different way, by showing her how to make the flower, step by step. Thanks to my crazy-craft-supply-hoarding tendencies, we had all of the materials...egg containers, pipe cleaners, beads, and tissue paper. You can see by the picture how easy they are to put together...E is 3 and had no trouble with the steps involved. The stiffness of the pipe cleaner makes it very easy to put the beads on.As you can see from her pose, she wanted to "smell the roses", so we took out some Tommy Girl perfume and gave each one a little squirt. Warning: The tissue paper in the center of the flower holds the scent VERY well. So use the perfume sparingly.

Baby m was pretty fascinated with the pipe cleaners. I did give him a completed flower to play with, and in true "boy" fashion he demolished it in seconds. (And no, it's not up his nose...just dangerously close).Later in the week, when Grandma and Grandpa came for dinner, E and I got them crafting...E really doesn't take no for an answer. She passed out all the pieces and "supervised", and then reminded me that we had to squirt them with perfume. Seriously, next time I'll use a diluted mixture. My eyes water every time I go into the dining room!
Once we had a dry day, E and I went back to the task of planting the annuals. She really loved picking out the colors and placement. The digging was a little hard for her because our soil is heavy on the clay. But she would gladly pull that wagon around all day!

Unplugged - Illegal???

Oh, I hope we don't go to Federal prison for this...

A few weeks ago we took the kids to the post office to apply for their passports. We live in Michigan and need to keep our options open for travel through Canada to New England. We knew that it would take about 6 weeks for them to come in the mail, but E has been asking every time we go to the mailbox, "Is my new passfort here yet?"

So when I heard this week's theme, I decided to make the kids some fake passport books...JUST TO PLAY WITH. I took out some junky scrapbooking paper and very cheap stickers and attempted to make two books in about 20 minutes...the results were underwhelming, but fit the bill.
When the kids woke up from their naps, I showed them their passforts, and they were thrilled! E was really surprised to see her own picture in there. I set them at the kitchen table with stamps and ink pads, and we stamped the books while talking about life. It was quite cool, actually. I gave E the cow stamp, because we saw a cow decoration on a neighbor's house yesterday. Baby m got some fish and cars, two of the words he actually says pretty clearly. I was surprised how he really got into the stamping! Most of his "hits" were on the table, but it was washable ink. We all put our fingerprints in too...
I think we'll take these out in a few days and stamp them some more, and maybe I'll write a few notes about the things we did this week....for an older child, this might be a simple scrapbook project, or even a mini-diary. Ours will probably will be shredded by the time we start next week's project.

Unplugged Project - Long

I'm afraid our project did not turn out as long as I'd thought it would. My niece and I made a marble chute out of paper towel tubes, and attached it to the fridge with magnets. The cool part is you can adjust it up and down and change the angles. The not so cool part is that an actual marble is too heavy for this set up. As soon as the marble hit the second chute the magnets gave way and the whole thing came crashing down. We ended up using a little ball of dried clay instead.
Again, I think I can be accused of picking a project that is more appropriate for a 10 year old than a 3 year old, but E certainly did love the end product! Her face lit up when the ball landed in the Pringles can with a "Clang!" I'm excited to add more chutes...maybe we can run the entire length of the fridge! (By the way, notice the little girlie magnet from Unplugged "Old" looking on!)

Unplugged - Happy! :)

Happy? Well, any of our unplugged projects could have that theme! Even when they go wrong, at least SOMEONE enjoys themselves! This week, I decided that we would try to do something to make others happy.

At some point in the last few weeks, I stumbled on The Toy Society blog, where people make little tchachkes and put them out in the world for others to find. Sounded perfect for us. After the kids went to bed one night, I turned a baby sock into a bunny, and labeled it as directed on the site. The next day, we left the bunny in a bag at a bus stop down the road...in hopes that someone would take her home and, well, be happy! Though I knew she wanted to keep it, E seemed to understand that we were doing this as a gift for someone else. Alas, two days later she was still hanging there, in the rain, sadly. So E and I rescued her, dried off the bag, and brought her to the grocery store. E gave her a kiss and whispered nice things in her ear, and we left her in a cart. When we passed by not two minutes later, she was gone! Who knows whether she ended up in the lost and found or whether someone brought her home, but that's out of our hands now. There's a note with her that directs the finder to the Toy Society blog, but the owner does say that some people never report their find. That's okay. It made us happy just to throw some love out into the world. Thanks for the inspirational theme!

Unplugged - Bottle (sort of)

Okay, so this is one of those Unplugged Projects where the clean-up takes more time than the actual project. The upside was that the product was useful! We used a milk jug (or bottle?) to make a bird feeder. E used some gold and silver sharpies to color the outside of the jug, and that's where the first mess took place. She learned that the ink would pool up if you pressed hard and held the pen in place...so after we were done I had to scrape up little dried puddles off of the kitchen table. Then I cut a hole in the side (no mess) for the birdies to access their food. The last step was to lace the string through the top and decorate with beads. E wanted to sit on the couch for that part, and the end result was beads all over the place. As soon as she had two or three on the string, I would drop it or she would bump the jug...I mean bottle. :)

After I filled it with seed, I hung it outside her window. She was pretty excited to see it out there. I hope we get to see a bird on it before the local chipmunks chew it to smithereens.

Unplugged - Clothing

E and I tried our hands at weaving for this week's challenge. We did not intend to weave clothing, but rather with clothing...reused shreds of clothes that had seen better days. I remembered from an arts fair how to attach lengths of fabric without tying (kind of like how you make a string of rubber bands), so I made us a long strand while E "helped." She thought I was making her a jump rope, which we did try, but no luck...it was too light, and baby doesn't know when to jump.

I made a simple loom with a cardboard box and we were on our way. During E's nap, I started weaving just to see how hard it would be...pretty hard. But of course she was eager to join in once she woke up and saw that I had started the "project" without her! She did get the hang of over under, over under, but we did NOT get the hang of how to keep the fabric equally tight between rows. The result was, well, pretty ugly. But one thing I've learned from the Unplugged Projects is, if it's really ugly, just zoom way in when you take your pictures. Everything looks like art if you get close enough. After the fact, we decided it was not an ugly pot holder, it was actually a very nice hand woven rug for the doll house daddy. He is just happy to have something to sit on, since we don't have any chairs for him.To keep with the theme, we also did some dress up, but E is not too crazy about being in costume. So the game was mostly me dressed as a princess (complete with crown...the beaded headband I wore at my wedding) and talking in a "princess voice." Don't ask me what that is, I just tried to sound snooty and said "thou" and "thus." It worked.

Then Daddy broke out a giant pile of CLOTHING so the kids could go outside and play in the snow. I stayed in and did some cleaning...with the TV on. But Daddy was truly unplugged, dragging two toddlers around on a sled through deep, wet snow. Thanks M and thanks Unplugged Mama for the weekly inspiration!

Unplugged - Wrinkle

A baby prune is like his dad,

But we ain't got 'em half so bad.

We've got wrinkles on our face,

But pruney's got 'em everyplace!

No matter how hard a prune may try

He's always getting stewed.

Little seed, within a pru-in,

Is it night, or is it nu-in?

Whatcha doin' pru-in, stewin'? Hmmmmm?

This song has been going through my head since I read the theme for this week's Unplugged Project. My sister used to sing it to me...maybe it's a Girl Scout song...anybody know it? So I looked up how to make prunes and raisins, and you either need a food dehydrator or 17 hours in the oven. So I ditched that idea real quick.

Idea number two consisted of wrinkled, wet tissue paper, and allowing the dye to leach out onto a canvas. The only problem we ran into was that we could only find one color of "runny" paper. So that project was, well, disappointing. Idea number three really stretched the theme...we had piles of wrinkled tissue paper, so I started looking up tissue paper crafts. Lo and behold, Tie-dye! The directions are pretty easy, and E had a great time painting with food coloring.

The hardest part about this was waiting until it dried to unfold it. We did about 6 pieces, and probably diluted the color a little too much, but they're pretty, nonetheless. This craft would be good for a variety of ages...the only drawback I can see is that my fingers are still red, two days later! :)

Unplugged - Floating!

Float was a fun theme for us. I knew that E would enjoy my first idea, because I had seen hundreds of kids do it at a fair a few years ago. The idea was to take a piece of aluminum foil and make a little boat....then place pennies into it, counting them up as long as the boat stays afloat. It's really a competition, but E just took sinking the boat as the goal!
Baby m had a good old time too, but his theme seemed to be "splash." I couldn't give him too much to float in the water, because he took it all to be food...maybe because I had him in his high chair.When cousins J and L came over on Saturday, we did a "floaty" craft...dragon boats! E had seen an episode of Ni Hao Ki Lan where there was a dragon boat race...oops, does that violate the "unplugged" part??? Anyway, I drew out a template for the kids to color, and then we cut them out and decorated them with ribbons. I told them that the dragons would scare away the bad guys and they seemed to like the thought of that. I was so impressed with the way my niece used scissors...she insisted that she could cut out the dragon herself, and she's only 3! She didn't do a bad job, either. Sure, we had to tape the head back on, but so what? Her independence was to be admired. I think the picture below shows that it was another big Unplugged Success!(My question for those reading is this...is there a way I can share templates on the web? How do people put files out there to share??? Any input would be appreciated.)

We Are Unplugged Family

A few weeks ago we did a balancing butterfly for our Unplugged Orange project. Everybody LOVED it, and I was immediately obsessed with finding other animals that would balance on the tip of your finger. The one that I couldn't let go was "Balancing Lobster." So, I was very excited that Unplugged Mama picked "balance" as the theme for this week!

A quick google search yielded some clip art lobsters that were almost right, so I printed one and took some creative license to turn it into a template for our project. Maybe it was wishful lobster thinking, but a good chunk of my New York family was in town this weekend for a Michigan State basketball game (go State!) so I printed out about a dozen crustaceans. E went running around the house collecting cousins and other relatives to participate.

It was an Unplugged Miracle. Two toddlers and seven grown-ups grabbing crayons, sharing scissors, fighting over tape. Even my brother (below, the big guy on the left), who I've never seen draw so much as a stick figure, used every crayon in the box to create a sort of psychedelic effect.
After we were done coloring and cutting, we taped pennies to the claws and set the lobsters up for display. It turns out you can balance them on just about anything, including magic markers, noses, chairs, table corners, and chandeliers.

It's always nice when my family comes to town...of course one presence at the table was sorely missed, my sister. She would have been first in line for a lobster and a crayon. But I know she would be happy to see us together, playing games, eating good food, laughing and enjoying eachother's company. We are family! :)

Unplugged - Square Art

The theme this week inspired us to look into famous "square" artists. Picasso was the first to come to mind (think Cubism), but the lovely book called Math-terpieces reminded us that Mondrian was also quite angular. The book is meant to introduce mathematical sets to older kids, but the examples of art pieces and accompanying poems were perfect for E.

We read the book together on Friday night, then tried our hand at abstract art on Saturday. I gave E a little canvas and some blue masking tape cut into thin strips. We looked at the example in the book, and E used the tape to mask off squares, sort of. Then I gave her just the primary colors to work with, and if you know E, you know that she promptly combined them all into some unnamed shade between purple and brown. She painted happily, though, and was pretty proud of herself. I wasn't sure she knew that we were using the book for inspiration, until she commented, "Mommy, he left some of his picture white." :)
Then on Sunday, we tried to imitate Picasso, sort of. I cut some pieces of random faces and some angular shapes out of magazines, and gave E another canvas. This time, she pieced together some Cube-ish faces, and seemed to approach it as sort of a puzzle. She did not mind that the eyes didn't match, or that parts were facing different directions. I wonder how long that freedom of expression will last!I think these activities would be great for a variety of ages...E certainly did entertain me with her uninhibited comments! When I told her how Jackson Pollock would throw the paint around, she said, "He shouldn't do that." The only thing she found odd about the Picasso (a woman with eyes facing two different directions) was that he didn't paint a ceiling in that picture. I asked her what Dali's clocks were doing, and she said, "Ticking." Duh. But she saved the best for last...Andy Warhol, according to E, did not paint soup cans, he painted beer cans. Um, file that one under seriously questionable parenting.

Unplugged - Orange

This week we successfully accomplished TWO Unplugged Projects for the "Orange" theme. I guess that's what happens when everyone is off work and the weather outside is frightful.

Project 1: "Nothing Rhymes with Orange"
When I read the theme, I couldn't get the phrase out of my head...so we did a rhyming activity. E will be 3 in March, so I figured she was up for some rhyming flashcards. I downloaded a rhyme matching game from the web, and some pretty little flashcards. I printed them in color and laminated them with contact paper.

The game went over well, and she now knows that yes, parrot rhymes with carrot. But she calls the wizard a witch and the jeep a car, which leaves "lizard" and "sheep" without a place on the board. Oh well. We tried again a few days later and the cards all turned to money, and E was trying to buy chocolate from Daddy. Maybe she's not a poet yet, but she IS creative!

Project 2: Balancing Butterflies

When we went out to visit cousins J and L, we did another orange project that was a little more hands-on. The first orange thing I could think of was a monarch butterfly, and I quickly found this awesome balancing butterfly project on the Minnesota Science museum website. I printed out some butterflies for the kids to color, and a few monarch pics in case they actually wanted to make their butterflies orange.

After they were colored, I cut them out and the kids taped pennies on the underside of the wing tips. The effect is really cool. Below, cousin L is showing off her creation, and my husband is demonstrating with E's finished product. As you can see, the "orange" part was marginal at best. Cousin J did a wonderful replica of a monarch, though!

It was really simple, but would work for a wide variety of ages. The other cool thing is that once you get the proportions, you could make lots of other things balance in the same way...a clown, maybe, or even a lobster with big claws. Incidentally, I actually tried a quick version of a lobster and it worked perfectly! I won't show you yet, though, because he may show up on another "Unplugged" posting! Thanks for another inspiring week.

Unplugged - Wrapping Paper

This is my first Unplugged Project since sometime in October. My thoughts and actions of the last few months have been dominated by my sister's battle with cancer, and her subsequent passing on November 19th. I am also participating in a second blog to help family and friends share memories of my sister's incredible life...

But here we are back again, and it was an appropriate theme to welcome us back. My husband and I are reuse nuts, and let's just say that there's no shortage of used wrapping paper in the house...any time of year. With E being just 2, some of the more elaborate ideas I had fell by the wayside and we settled on a wrapping paper "quilt". In one of her alphabet books she is a bit obsessed with "Q is for quilt," so I figured she would be all in.

I used a ruler to cut an 8x8 square of white paper and to trace a grid of 2 inch squares on it. Then I cut out a bunch of 2 inch squares of different types of wrapping paper, and I further cut a few of them into triangles. After some searching, I found the glue sticks (right where they belonged, btw) and we were off.E thought it was a great idea, and followed my directions well. Her biggest challenge was fitting together the triangles, but I was impressed that she kept asking for "triangles, not squares, Mommy." In retrospect, I should have found some solid colors to break up the craziness, but it really is quite pretty. The next morning E found the finished product on the kitchen table and told me that she was going to "fix it." Luckily I intercepted the destruction and managed to hang it high on the fridge for safe keeping.
Then I decided to have some Unplugged Fun of my own, and I made some little presents for E's Playmobil Santa. She seems to love the tiny boxes that came with the set...so I printed out a box template and shrunk it on the copier (using scrap paper). Then I glued some wrapping paper to the back of the template and cut out both layers of paper. A few folds and some glue later, and voila, tiny box.When the kids get older, or when I have some time to try it myself, I will attempt the pretty wrapping paper stars on the Family Fun Magazine site. But for now, we are concentrating on projects that take 15 minutes or less. Thanks for the inspiration, Unplugged Momma!

Unplugged Project - Smooth

For the last theme, "White", one of my Unplugged pals made homemade vanilla ice cream. Mmmm. I thought to myself, "One of these days I'll get the ice cream maker out of the basement, and E and I will make some ice cream." Imagine my delight when I read the theme for this week..."Smooth." Yay! What's smoother than creamy, homemade chocolate ice cream?

Finding a recipe was a bit of a challenge...I had some criteria to meet. First of all, no raw eggs in the recipe. Just, yuck. It doesn't matter if they're frozen, crystallized, whatever. I can't stomach that. Also, no pre-cooking of the ingredients. I wanted the process to be toddler friendly from beginning to end. So after a bunch of web searching, I found a recipe for basic vanilla ice cream (no eggs) flavored with chocolate syrup. E enjoyed the pouring and mixing, but her favorite part was licking the chocolate out of the measuring cup.

I must admit...all these years I thought it was the mixing that made the ice cream freeze. So on the first batch we poured the ingredients into the frozen canister and mixed and mixed and mixed. Much to my dismay, the very smooth concoction never made it past the milkshake stage. So we drank some out of our bowls, and put the rest in the freezer to solidify. Upon reading the directions (duh) I found out that you only need to turn the handle a few times, then you wait a few minutes for some of the mixture to freeze to the sides of the container. Only then do you turn the handle again...so of course we had to try the new method the next morning, this time with strawberry! And guess what...it worked! Perfect strawberry ice cream, delish.

The verdict? I thought the strawberry was great, and the chocolate was so-so. It looks good in the pic, but it tasted like vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce mixed in...go figure. E, M, and Baby m liked them both equally as well, and we will be doing this again soon. It's amazingly easy, really, if you can get over the price of fresh cream!

Unplugged - Fruit

This week's Unplugged Project theme was fruit. Thankfully I have never had a problem coaxing E to eat plenty of apples, bananas, oranges, grapes, you name it. So we raided the fridge for a "Fruit Face" snack.

I set out a plate of sliced fruit, raisins, peanut butter, and baby marshmallows and called E into the dining room for some unplugged fun. I had a design in mind, having read an online suggestion to use apples and marshmallows as a mouth. With Baby m safely out of reach in his high chair, I gave E a bare plate and we got started.

I used my plate as a model. First I took an apple slice and spread some peanut butter on it. I showed E how, but she wanted me to do hers for her. Then I placed the other apple on top, making a pair of lips. E followed my lead, and then we placed some marshmallow teeth in between. Then we used the bananas and raisins for eyes. All by herself, E came up with the idea to glue the eyes and nose to the plate using the peanut butter. The results on E's plate were pretty, um, hmm...what's the word...strange? But she was VERY proud.

She ate the apples, peanut butter and raisins, and Baby m ate the bananas. As expected, I had all of the marshmallows to myself. Then we went outside and played a game of "Guess the Fruit" with sidewalk chalk. She guessed all of the fruit correctly except for the grapes, which she called "Purple bubbles!" When it got to be her turn, she would only draw asparagus...little pink and purple lines. I decided not to distinguish between vegetables and fruit (or to say that I've never seen pink asparagus), since we were just having so much fun.

I'm glad that E is of the age where she can and wants to play in the kitchen. She wants to stir, mix, measure, and pour...so we're going to have to come up with a lot of ideas to get Unplugged in the Kitchen!