Winter

For our theme for the new year, we'll be looking at winter, winter animals, sports, clothing and of course snow!

The night before I spent time converting my dining room table to an interesting snow cave, I also had some glow sticks for them to use. They loved, spending a fair amount of time in the cave, reading stories and playing games with the soft toys.

We used some puffy paint -  shaving foam and pva glue to make some snow/snowmen pictures.

They used the snowman match up game from the Montessori Print Shop, to play a solo game of  matching pairs

and then we played a group game of matching pairs.

Made some delicious, gingerbread snowflakes which they decorated with white icing.

We painted snow storms, using masking tape and snowflakes we had cut out,

                            

                           

then painted over them

                            
         
                            

once the paint was dry, I removed the masking tape etc to reveal the snow pictures.

                           
                       
                            

                           

Our Winter Display

Cereal Bars

These are a couple of our favourite cereal bars, my little ones just love these. We usually double the recipe and freeze some for later. They are easily adapted to dairy free, just use your normal dairy free margarine, for gluten free just make sure the oats are the gluten free ones or just use buckwheat flakes, I personally like using half oats and half buckwheat for these recipes.

                                                           Raisin and Oat Bar

                                                    200g oats / buckwheat flakes
                                                    60g to 80g dried fruit /seeds
                                                    110g  butter/margarine
                                                    60g brown sugar
                                                    10g golden syrup (optional but makes a more chewy bar)

Mix the oats / buckwheat with whatever dried fruit and seeds you are using.
Melt the butter and sugar in a pan, let it come to a boil and while stirring continually, let the mixture gently bubble for about 6 minutes. Then mix into oat mixture. Tip into a lined tray and press down well and bake for 15 to 20 minutes at gas 5.
When cooked, gently cut into pieces, it will be a bit crumbly at this stage but leave to cool in the tin and it should have set nicely by then.

                                                        Apricot and Coconut Bar

                                                    180g oats / buckwheat flakes
                                                    40g dried apricots, chopped into small pieces
                                                    40g desiccated coconut
                                                    120g  butter/margarine
                                                    10g golden syrup
                                                    60g brown sugar

Mix the oats / buckwheat with the diced apricot and coconut.
Melt the butter, sugar and syrup if using in a pan, let it come to a boil and while stirring continually, let the mixture gently bubble for about 6 minutes. Then mix into oat mixture. Tip into a lined tray and press down well and bake for 15 to 20 minutes at gas 5.
When cooked, gently cut into pieces.

Printing wrapping paper

Last week we made our own wrapping paper, we printed it using florist oasis blocks.

I designed some blocks and the children made some as well. The oasis block is really easy to cut up etc. I used a sharp knife to cut it into small blocks, then either a pencil or this time I had saved the scrapers from the scrape art kits, which worked very well. Just make sure you you carve deep enough so it doesn't fill up with paint. I've found the block work best if you paint them with paint, rather than dipping them into paint and you can print several pictures each time.

Chocolate Christmas Pudding Cakes

The children love making these cakes

they are so simple but look lovely. We made chocolate cakes and then decorated them using ready made icing and some holly cutters. This is our chocolate cake recipe, yes it is very runny, would recommend using a ladel to get the mixture into the cake cases.

                                                     Chocolate Cake

                                                        140g caster
                                                        2 eggs
                                                        130g plain flour
                                                        50g cocoa powder
                                                        2tsp baking powder
                                                        150ml milk
                                                        150g butter, melted
                                                        100g chocolate chips

1 - Put eggs and sugar in a bowl and whisk until pale in colour.
2 - Add the milk to the egg mixture and gently stir.
3 - Sift in the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder and gently mix.
4 - Stir in the melted butter and then add the chocolate chips.
5 - Ladel in cake cases and bake at Gas 4 for about 20 to 25 minutes.

Then when cool you can decorate them if you wish or enjoy them plain.

Christmas Sensory Box

Over December I put together some different sensory boxes for the children to explore as well as having a session on different Christmas smells, we had some frankinsense essential oil, fresh pine, oranges, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, peppermint and vanilla. What smells remind you of Christmas?

We made some cloud dough and added lots of silver glitter and some tinsel, the older ones loved this, for some reason the younger ones (under 2s) were a bit more suspicious of it but once they had tentatively poked and prodded it they had fun.

Cloud dough recipe is 2 cups of plain flour mixed with 1/2 a cup of baby oil and mix well, it should be like damp sand, when you squeeze it together it will mould into a ball but easily crumble and not sticky to touch.

Had fun with loads of shaving foam and glitter, for a very pretty snowy time.

Then decided to add some clear water beads for a different texture, the children really loved this.

I also dyed some rice in lovely Christmas green and red colours and when dried added some Christmas sequins, the children enjoyed playing and making patterns in the rice. To get the best, deepest colour, we used a dye paste rather than the liquid food colouring. I added a little paste to about 30ml of water and then mixed it into 2 cups of rice, leave it to soak up the colour and then tip out an old cardboard box and leave until thoroughly dried.

Then a selection of different coloured tinsels, they had great fun pretending to be a Christmas tree.

Gingerbread House and Flower Decorations

We all love to eat gingerbread biscuits, so a perfect Christmas activity is making a gingerbread house.

We made some paper flowers with the older children, take 10 paper chains

stack them up and fold them in half and staple on the fold line.

Take one piece and fold in half and stick at the fold line, repeat for each piece of paper.