Back To Basics~Homemade Happiness

Afternoon Snacks~

Whether they are coming home from school or waking up from naps, most children (and adults) enjoy an afternoon snack. Recently, I have been trying to make the afternoon snack a little more exciting than just the usual crackers.

Homemade popsicles are an old favorite around here. We make up our own recipes as we go along. We use a variety of fruits such as blueberries, peaches, bananas, and raspberries, as well as other ingredients such as peanut butter and grape juice. Anything that sounds good together usually is good together. We blend our mixture together and pour it into the popsicle molds. Two to three hours later we have yummy popsicles for everyone!   

I found this great recipe for homemade fruit roll ups, I had to try it right away. All it takes is a jar of all natural applesauce and 1/4 cup of frozen blueberries. My husband and I really enjoy these, as well as the daycare children! They are delicious, nutritious, and fun for any age!  **I dried the fruit roll ups in my oven--set oven at 150-170 (depending on your lowest setting), crack door open a bit, and bake until almost dry.  My roll ups took about 6-8 hours total.  If you over-dry them, they will stick to the waxed paper.  Ask me how I know that?!?!

Just yesterday I made candied acorns. (I didn't even know acorns were edible!) The children were so excited to eat them for snack and kept asking for more and more! No wonder the squirrels like them so much!

We also enjoy fresh fruits and veggies from Mr. McGregor's garden. These can be eaten as they are or used in a recipe to make some other delectable dish!



"You don't have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces. Just good food from fresh ingredients."
Julia Child

 

Shared with:

Eco-Kids Tuesday

Rhythm~Our Fall Routine

7:00-8:30 Children arrive, free play in the family room

8:30 Breakfast (a fruit, grain, and milk)

9:00 Shelf Time and Table Time

9:30 CircleTime (songs, stories…)

9:50 Snack (fruit and water)

10:00 ArtTime (creative activities)

10:30 Outside! (if weather is bad, we move to the living room for blocks, animals, and more active play)

11:45 Inside, TV/DVD while lunch is being made

12:00 Lunch (includes two veggies!)

12:30 StoryTime, followed by nap/rest time

3:00 Snack, followed by play time—either inside or outside

"Every child should have mud pies, grasshoppers, water bugs, tadpoles, frogs, mud turtles, elderberries, wild strawberries, acorns, chestnuts, trees to climb. Brooks to wade, water lilies, woodchucks, bats, bees, butterflies, various animals to pet, hayfields, pine-cones, rocks to roll, sand, snakes, huckleberries and hornets; and any child who has been deprived of these has been deprived of the best part of education."

-Luther Burbank

This Moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual inspired by SouleMama. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Wordless Wednesday

An Enchanted Childhood

Enchanted Childhood Daycare—Fall Newsletter

"Autumn is a second spring when every flower is a leaf."

Things are starting to cool down a bit and fall is in the air. As much as we love fall, we do not look forward to that season that comes after it! But for now, we will enjoy fall and all it offers—more nature walks, leaves to play in, apples and pears and the last of the garden veggies!

The “theme” for this school year will be “Childhood Classics”. We will be reading a great children’s classic each week and doing related activities. For example, this past week, we read several of Beatrix Potter’s books including Peter Rabbit, Benjamin Bunny, and The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies. Some of our activities included eating “rabbit pie”, making bunny ears, water color painting, walks to “Mr McGregor’s” garden, and eating “bread and milk and blackberries” for breakfast. We changed our CircleTime songs and activities to focus on our theme of bunnies. We will continue to read B. Potter books this coming week, before moving on to other great books.

While we are focusing on children’s classics, we will not be neglecting other learning activities. We will still be working on map skills (the big guys, ages 3 and 4, can ID approx 25 countries, oceans, and continents as well as about 20 states!) We will continue to work on letter sounds and letter recognition, along with numbers and counting. We will do science experiments and activities from time to time. We have a number of activities for large and small motor skills development (games that encourage hopping, crawling, etc and activities such as putting toothpicks into small holes in the lid of a jar, working small puzzles,etc.)                                           

                

We will continue to play outside daily (unless raining) and hope to spend at least 30 minutes outside even in the winter, as long as the temperature is in the 30’s or above.

We so enjoy our job—the children are awesome! We try very hard to give them lots of love, lots of learning, and lots of laughter. We try to give them an “enchanted childhood” …the kind all children deserve!

 Love you all! ~Kerri and Hannah

{This Moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual inspired by SouleMama. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

For the Love of Hats~by NanaKerri

Bunny--4.5 months old

One of my GrandBabyGirl Obsessions (capitalized 'cause I am pretty sure by now those words are a proper noun) is buying the GrandBabyGirls hats--knitted hats, sun hats, winter hats, summer hats. 

Hats!! Hats!! Hats!! 

Bunny--one day old

Bunny--one week old

Bunny--two days old

Bunny--11 weeks old

Birdie--3 months old

                                                      

I recently read a quote about hats... "Wearing a hat is like having a baby or a puppy; everyone stops to coo and talk about it."  

Soooo imagine a BABY in a HAT!!

Bunny--days shy of 5 months old

Or TWO!!

Birdie and Bunny
4 weeks and 11 weeks old

Coming soon to a blog near you... For the Love of Hairbows!!!