Kids in the Kitchen ~ Strawberry Cake

We LOVE picking our own strawberries!

It is great fun and a really good experience for the kiddos to be able to pick their own foods.

And look at all these pretty berries!

When Lyssy and I got home we decided to make a strawberry cake. It is so yummy and basically melts in you mouth.

I used this adapted recipe.

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 4 tablespoons sour cream
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup chopped strawberries
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons butter, softened
• 10 strawberries
• 2-3 TBS sugar
  

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9x13 inch baking pan.
2. In a large bowl, cream together 1/2 cup butter and the sugar. Add the eggs, and beat for 1 minute. Stir in the vanilla and salt.
3. In a small bowl, stir together the sour cream and the baking soda until the baking soda has dissolved. Add the sour cream mixture and the flour to the egg mixture. Beat well, then stir in the mashed strawberries.
4. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes, or until top springs back when lightly touched.
5. While cake is cooling, make the berry puree: Blend berries and sugar. Spoon puree unto each serving.
   

Check out Alittle Fun with Me and Lu for more Kids in the Kitchen.

Kids in the Kitchen ~ Strawberry Muffins

It's March, which means strawberry season in Florida! And oh how we LOVE strawberries!! We even love to go and pick our own strawberries. The only problem is that we always pick more than we can eat right away.

This week Lyssy and I discovered Strawberry Muffins! It's a pretty good recipe and is perfect for those strawberries that you want to use before they go bad.

Lyssy and I enjoyed some one on one time while Aidman and Daddy rode bikes. She LOVED getting to do all the stirring by herself.

Yummy Muffins!

Check out more Kids in the Kitchen!

I LOVE "borrowing" ideas!

We've decided to home school the kiddos for the rest of this preschool year. With me now working (part time) and so much going on, it is sometimes nice for me to not have to think on my own to come up with GREAT ideas for kids activities! I can not thank all you other mommy bloggers enough for all the inspiration I get from you!

This could NOT have been a better Florida week to learn about Winter! Today, in central FL, it is 35 degrees with snow flurries and sleet! The kiddos even got to play in the sleet for a few minutes! Some activities we did this week were...

Painting with "snow".

Actually, it was 1 part glue to 1 part shaving cream. We got this AWESOME idea from Funny Days with Maddy and Mommy.

The cool part is that is dried like soft puffy paint.

We made snowflakes by putting tape on paper and painting over it.

We got this idea from Frugal Family Fun Blog.

We took it one step further by adding glitter. Tomorrow, we will remove the tape to revel beautiful snowflakes!

We have talked ALOT this week about the different season so this idea from Ten Kids and a Dog was the perfect art tree for winter.


They LOVED shaking salt on the papers!

See the 2 dots of salt up top? We used a glue stick for those and it worked! I was experimenting to see if it would to see if I could use this idea in my baby art class (they are not quite ready for glue bottles).

Beautiful!

This week we also.... tweezed and counted "snowballs" (cotton balls),

had a snowball fight and threw "snowballs" (crumbled up paper) at Daddy,

cut snowflakes, made shape snowmen, played "Don't Break the Ice", melted ice, had a race dressing and undressing in winter clothes, ice skated on paper towels throughout the house,read LOTS of Winter books, played in fake Sno, and did Letter Ss activities.

Ss Cooking with Kids

My kiddos LOVE to get in the Kitchen!!

For the letter Ss, we Spread some peanut butter and jelly onto bread to make yummy Sandwiches. I let my kiddos make their own sandwiches ALL the time, they enjoy doing it, it gives me alittle bit of a break while I'm getting the rest of their lunch together, and it's good for small motor and practical life skills.

Another Ss food we made this week was Salad! This is yet another thing that I almost always let the kiddos make when we have it.

They rip the lettuce.
Cut red bell pepper with a butter knife.

Cut cucumber, broccoli, cheese, carrots, and add tomatoes.

Look at these YUMMY Salads!!!

Join A Little Fun with Me and Lu for Kids in the Kitchen!

S is for Sensory

For the letter Ss, we have been doing some Ss sensory activities. Check out this GREAT Ebook to see some of the reasons that I LOVE sensory activities.

Today Lyssy and AB played in shaving cream. Look at their faces! They LOVED it!

The great thing about shaving cream is that it appeals to the sense of smell and touch.

We also played in shredded paper.

I hid plastic snakes and spiders in it for the kiddos to find.

Of course we got in the sand box and we sifted it! I had to move it under the carport because it's been raining here nonstop this week.

We also scrub toys with sponges and soap in the bathtub, but I did not take pictures of that.

You can check out so of our other fun sensory activities here.

Spray, Squirt, and Splatter Paint

Yesterday, I taped a large sheet of paper to the back fence and gave the kiddos spray bottles with orange and yellow paint.

As they were busy I heard the words spray, splat, splatter, squirt. ALL Ss words for our Ss art work.

Afterwards, Aidman said "it looks like fireworks, BOOM!" And it really did, I think I might let them do it again at the end of the week using blue and red paint.

They LOVED this project!! As you can see, they got VERY messy so I was glad that we wore cover ups (Daddy's old t-shirts).

After the painting dried, I cut it into more manageable pieces and drew circles and Stripes on it.

The kiddos cut on the lines.

Then they glued the stripes to the circles.

It made beautiful SUNS!!

Ss Lessons

We are SO happy to be getting back to our letter of the week, we all really missed the routine of it during our 2 week break. That said, I am Seriously overwhelmed by the amount of words and activities that can be done with the letter Ss. It really could be spread out over 2 or 3 weeks, but we will just have to save much of it for another time. Here is what we are doing this week.


Art:
-Star Stickers on Letter Ss

- Spray painting, cut dried art into sun

- Sponge painting

- Cutting with Scissors (TTT)

-Stamps (TTT)

Science:

-Straw/blowing races

-5 Senses- focusing on sense of smell and hearing sounds

-4 Seasons- focusing on Spring and Summer

Math:

-Sorting Shapes (TTT)

-Straw Lacing (TTT)

-Shallow/deep, Small/large

-Sort Seashells (TTT)

-Skittle Graphing

Cooking:

-Stone Soup

-Salad

-Spaghetti

-Sandwiches

Movement/Outside:

-Skip

-Simon Says

-Slide

-Spin

-Kick Soccer

Sensory Table:

-Sand

-Shaving Cream

-Scrubbing Stuff with Soap and Sponge

-Shredded paper

Table Top Toys (also known as work boxes or activity boxes):

Listed above as TTT

Literacy:

-Sing Songs

-Ss Tongue Twisters

Other Ss words:

silly

sock

snack

shoe

seven

sky

super

spider

story

snail

safe

snake

silence

serious

sift

spread

sticky

sensitive

suck

slurp

special

space

seal

squish

scallops

shrimp

squash

strawberry

shut

shirt

squirrel

sail

sneeze

squiggle

seed

snow

shake

salt

skeleton

sink

send