ENTER TO WIN!!!

This month Coast Parents is featuring the Moonjar, a cool product getting a lot of buzz. If there is a silver lining in these economic times, it might be the opportunity to teach your children some simple lessons about spending, saving and sharing money, and how to build their dreams for the future with some solid financial planning. (In fact, it’s an important lesson for us all—General Motors included!) Moonjar, with its three separate compartments for Saving, Spending and Sharing, is a great tool to help kids understand these concepts and to help parents bring the conversation about money, budgets and allowance to the kitchen table. (Available at moonjar.ca, $9.95 – 29.95)* We're giving away a Classic Moonjar and Conversations To Go, the game. Head on over to http://www.coastparents.ca/shopping.htm to enter!

Here Comes Peter Cottontail

...or rather with a plastic tail and a fuzzy chick, but nonetheless we are crafting our way into Easter.
I found the bunny at Ramblings of a Crazy Woman and the chick over at Her Cup Overfloweth, and thought we'd give them a go. A few sheets of foam from the dollar store, glue, construction paper and feathers and we were on our way. Quick and easy, just the way I like my crafts!

ABC

I told you it was a bit of an obsession at our house ...

It took us almost three weeks but finally we completed our own alphabet. Then plan was to take much longer but as one little three year old was asking and crying to make more letters all the time, it went by much quicker. Guess I can't complain that he was eager!

Chocolate Play Dough

Playdough allows for hours of fun and is great for playdates or to occupy little ones while you make dinner.I found this recipe for Chocolate Play dough over at the Crafty Crow (amazing blog!) Check it out!

Chocolate Play dough

1 1/4 cup flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1/2 cup salt

1/2 tablespoon cream of tartar

1 1/2 tablespoon oil

1 cup water

Mix dry ingredients in a medium size pot. Add wet ingredients and stir together over low heat until a ball of dough forms. Remove play dough from pot and knead by hand until dough is smooth and evenly colored. Store in airtight container.

Another great one (as long as you have no allergies) is Peanut Butter Play dough

1 cup of peanut butter

1/4 cup honey

1/2 cup powdered milk.

Mix together and chill.

And then there is Koolaid Play dough

2 cups flour
1 cup salt
4 tbsp. cream of tartar
2 tbsp. oil
2 cups boiling water
2 pkgs unsweetened koolaid mix (I like the grape or orange the best!)
Keep in airtight bag (ZipLoc type). It is a super play dough. I often half recipe, as is plenty, or can then get two colours out of one recipe (cream of tartar is expensive!). Also, I sometimes add more oil as makes it more pliable, you'll see as you go.

Hello ... FUN!

Tracing the outlines of the shadows is a great way to compare the shapes of the different trees/objects around you, and to get outside and enjoy the fresh air. Spring is here! Right?
It's an easy craft without a lot of supplies needed. You should have everything you need at home already. Big paper, little paper, paint, crayons, chalk, it really doesn't matter.

Trace it, then paint it up!
If you keep the pallet basic (two colors per painting works wonderfully) the pictures will always turn out great no matter how experienced the little artist is!
For a less permanent but equally fun activity, grab some sidewalk chalk and trace interesting shadows on the pavement.

Mother of a Deal!

Check out http://motherofadeal.com for fantastic coupons for all the best stores like the Gap, Old Navy, Children's Place and so much more. You simply enter the store you're looking for, if there are any coupons available all you have to do is print them out, then shop 'til you drop! Best of all, the site is operated by a local Mom on the Lower Mainland so all the savings are within reach of the Sunshine Coast!

Super Easy Easter Art

Cheep cheep!

To make these cute Easter chicks all you need is some yellow poster paint, or stamp pad, an orange pen and a black pen. Children love making thumbprints, anything they can get dirty and messy in! Even the youngest children will enjoy trying this with your help.

Pour a little yellow paint onto a pad of folded newspaper or a paper plate and gently dip the child's thumb into it. (The second print was usually the best!) When your thumbprints are dry, add details with a black and orange pen.

Older children may enjoy adding speech bubbles with "cheep cheep" or other chick-like noises inside!

Just another teaching gem. Ed Emberleyis amazing. He can create ANYTHING from a thumbprint, with simple lines and curves. Check out some of his other thumbprint creations.

http://www.edemberley.com/pages/main.aspx?section=db&subSection=thumbPrintPages

Here is a link to a couple of his books. You can order them online, but I would always encourage you to order from Talewind Books. They are super friendly in there and the books usually arrive within a couple of days.

http://www.cricketmag.com/ProductDetail.asp?pid=1028

Feeding the Ducks

One of our favourite activities is to head out to feed the ducks. We can easily spend an hour feeding the ducks, looking at the beaver dam, walking around the pond and picking up sticks and rocks. I'm not sure the name of the pond, but it is just next to the Lighthouse Pub (and we all know where that is!), and makes for a nice morning outing. Parking is easy to find, the path is very kid and stroller friendly and there is no hike in or long walk to get there.

What is one of your favourite outings on the Coast? Leave us a comment below and let us know. We'll publish a list for others to read and maybe we will all find somewhere new to visit with our kids.

Dancing Raisins

These little guys can groove!

This was always a favourite when I was teaching Kindergarten or Grade 1, but equally loved by my three year old, who giggles like mad when they move up and down inexplicably. Too hard a concept for him to really understand but enjoyed nonetheless. (The amount of pop consumed and raisins eaten mid-experiment can vary from child to child, so have extra on hand.)

Materials Needed
tall clear glass
raisins
club soda (or other clear carbonated beverage) that has a lot of bubbles (This won't work if the club soda is flat.)

Instructions

First, pour the club soda in the glass.
Next, drop in a raisin.
Wait at least 20 to 30 seconds and watch what happens to the raisin. (The raisin should rise and fall.)

Add a few raisins and watch them 'dance' at different times.

The reason why the raisin floats to the top is because the bubbles stick to the sides of the raisin and make the raisin more buoyant. Buoyant means that something floats more easily. The bubbles make the raisin float the way a life jacket makes a person float.

A visit from a Wee Little One

There is a Leprechaun out there gearing up to visit our house on Tuesday morning.
From the kids bedroom there will be a little trail of footprints to the fridge, where, WHAT?!, the little mischievous fellow has turned our milk green. (If you're kids are older there could be notes and a bit of a hunt, mine are 3 and 8 months so a trail is just fine.)From there he headed to the dining room table where he has left his pot of gold (see earlier post), Lucky Charms for breakfast (I never buy 'junk' cereal so this will be a treat!),
green shirts for both the kids (from Extra Foods, $12 for both, and they can wear them again, at at that price I thought worth the extra addition) and Mike and Ike's Candies for Daddy!

That combined with Steak and Guinness Pie for supper (another earlier post), some shamrock cookies and green jello make a fun day, and simple for Mumma to put together.

Sifting for Treasure

This is a challenging sensory activity for preschoolers, they will likely scoop the sand and treasure into a 2nd bowl. Children have to use a steady hand to gently sift the sand to expose the treasure, this is definitely a great activity for working on patience.

Gather your materials.

You will need some sand, and small objects to hide in it. Try using pom poms and plastic coins/cars/animals. You will also need a small sieve and 2 bowls.
Pour your sand into a bowl, and pop in the objects.
Cover them with sand.
GO OUTSIDE (too big a mess for in the house!)

Start searching for treasure.
Older children should take the time to sift out all the sand so the little bowl only has the treasure in it ,no sand.
Younger ones can just explore and scoop, having plenty of fun doing this over and over.

Not on the Blog

As I stopped to say hi to a friend on my way home the other day, she caught a peek of the bags in my car and teased 'That's not on the blog.".

We all have those days, that despite watching what we eat, going to Weight Watchers, running to stay in shape, whatever it is we do to lose that baby weight (unless we are gifted with the good 'genes') that we give in. Wednesday was mine. So, here it is, 'on the blog'.

(In my defense I had been running that morning and gone swimming with my family, and it was my husbands encouraging our son to ask for a 'eeseburger' that got us there.)

"The Mom Song"

I thought this was pretty funny and I needed a good laugh today!

We are lovin’ children’s author Mo Willems and his fantastic books! My sister, kindergarten teacher extraordinaire, sent us “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus” and we were hooked. Mo’s books are hilarious, the Pigeon series is totally interactive, my little guy loves telling the Pigeon “no, you can’t drive the bus!” Our newest fav (available at the Sechelt Library) is Knuffle Bunny. Find out what happens when Trixie loses her beloved stuffie at the laundry mat. It’s a riot for the kids to listen to and I think we can all relate to Trixie’s Dad reaction upon discovering his daughter’s favorite stuffie is gone!

All Mo’s books are available at Chapters. http://www.chapters.indigo.ca

Fingerprint Rainbows

... saw these at Lucky Me. How do I not think of these things on my own???? So easy, so fun, so cute!Supplies needed:white and blue paper
cotton balls
glue
ink pads or paint

Make Your Own Pot of Gold

As that lucky Pot of Gold at the end of the rainbow can be tricky to find, I found this one over at Make and Takes and decided we will definitely give it a try. With a few supplies and in little time, you’ll have a fun centerpiece filled with gold.

Supplies for Pot of Gold:
pot - terracotta pot, or a black pot you may already have
black paint and paint brush
Easter grass
yellow wrapped candies - these can be gold chocolate coins, yellow foil wrapped chocolates, pipe cleaner , all colors of the rainbow

Paint your terracotta pot with the black paint using your paint brush. I even went an inch down on the inside with paint. Then let it dry. Next, fill your bucket with Easter grass all the way to the top, as it gets pushed down with the candy. Then add in your ‘gold’, filling it to the top.
Line up your pipe cleaners into a rainbow. I stuck them all in the pot at one time, but you could put them in one at a time, starting with the bottom one first.

Now it’s ready for display. But have extra gold on hand, as it doesn’t last long in the pot! Little Leprechauns keep trying to sneak it!

Walk the Plank!

Activities like this are insanely easy to do, and so beneficial. Using a balance beam is a great gross motor activity that of course encourages development of balance but it also is fantastic at confidence building, and you don't need to go to a gym class to do all that!

Gather your materials.
Use a left over 2 x 4. Make sure it is smooth before bringing it inside.
Pop it on the floor and that's it !

Pretend to be pirates walking the plank, sneaky foxes on your tippy toes or play follow the leader all using this little piece of wood.
Sometimes the very simplest things are the most fun !

Muffin Tin Mondays

I'll admit it, I live in blog land and am addicted to Mommy Blogs. Stay at home Mom's like me who blog their life, activities and great kid ideas that I lift to entertain my own kids and maintain some sort of sanity within my household. It's a long day to full don't you know!

One thing I keep seeing everywhere is Muffin Tin Mondays. All it is, is serving lunch in a muffin tin, pretty easy, but the kids seem to love it. It's a great way to break the monotony of daily lunch preparation. Kids love something that seems like a treat and is a little bit different from the norm. Here's one with an orange theme.So, off we go tomorrow to have McLean choose his own muffin tin (build on the excitement and have him take some ownership.), and from now on Muffin Tin Mondays it is.

Smock Dress

When Little Miss Lucy Lu was born my girlfriend made and sent her the cutest little smock. Paired with a onesie and pants it's a darling top, but my fave is with a onesie and babylegs as a sassy little dress. ( I can just picture it a bit bigger with bloomers for a summer dress.)

This last week a girlfriend had a beautiful little baby girl and I decided a smock was in need, so searching for a pattern I went, and, finally, found one.

http://www.themayfly.com/weblog/smock_pattern.pdf

Next, off to the fabric store I went for some fun fabric and a contrasting back (although the smock is reversible I always tend to have the pattern on the outside). And finally, down I sat at my grandmothers ancient sewing machine (I'm not a sewer so for anything I do this, too, must do.)

And an hour later ...

(I'm more into the sixties patterns but, hey, polka dots, stripes, flowers, you name it, it could be done.)

Green Beer is Great But...

Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with something other then “green beer!” Jamie Oliver's Good Old Steak and Guinness Pie is so delicious and easy you’ll serve it again and again, not just on March 17th! (Serves 6)

1.5lbs Stewing beef, diced
salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 heaped tbs flour

Olive oil

1 onion, peeled and chopped

1 carrot, peeled and chopped

4 sticks celery, washed and chopped

2 parsnips (or potatoes) , peeled and chopped

1 handful of mixed fresh herbs (ie rosemary, thyme, bay)

2 ½ cups of Guinness

2 x 15oz tins of chopped tomatoes

1 pack of puff pastry

1 egg beaten

1. Season beef generously with salt and pepper, sprinkle in flour and toss until coated. Heat 2-3 glugs of olive oil in a large pan and fry meat until golden brown.

2. Add the onion and fry another minute, then add carrot, parsnips, celery and herbs. Fry for a further 4 minutes and then add Guinness and tomatoes. Bring to a boil, then simmer uncovered for 2 hours or until meat is tender. Season to taste.

3. At this point, you can move the stew to the fridge until ready to serve. This will also intensify the flavor.

4. To make pies, preheat the oven to 375F.

Put meat filling into individual dishes (or one large dish, if making one pie). Cut pastry to circles about 1 inch bigger than the top of the dishes. Brush the rims with beaten egg, place the pastry on top and squash the excess down the sides to secure. Lightly score the top in a criss cross pattern and brush with remaining beaten egg. Bake for 45min until golden brown and bubbling.

E is for Elmer

okay, I know it should be 'Elephant', but Elmer is our favourite book right now, so 'Elmer' it is. We're going to go with this letter theme for a bit, too much excitement in our house over all the letters we see everywhere.

"Elmer " by David McKee has a great message. Elmer is different, he isn't gray like all the other elephants. He's not so sure he likes that though. Like all of us it takes some time for Elmer to accept who he is but in the end he sees that patchwork is just who he is, and a bit of a goofball as well!