The Eve of St. Nicholas Day

Today is the Eve of St. Nicholas Day. It is time to put out shoes with hay or carrots.

"Traditional celebrations of Saint Nicholas Day in Northern Europe included gifts left in children's shoes (the origin of our American Christmas stockings). Good children receive treats - candies, cookies, apples and nuts, while naughty children receive switches or lumps of coal. Sometimes coins were left in the shoes, reminiscent of the the life-saving doweries the saint provided. Today - especially in families of German extraction - children still put a shoe outside their bedroom doors on the eve of Saint Nicholas Day, and expect to find candy and coins or small gifts in their shoe on December 6th."

Women for Faith and Family

Pin It

Quick and Simple Christmas Crafts and Treats

Here are a few very simple Christmas activities that take only a few materials to make. You may know them, but I find that I forget to do them until my kids remind me of how fun they can be!

Candy Cane Christmas Ornaments All that is needed for this one is red or white pipe cleaners and red and white pony beads. You just string the beads on the pipe cleaners and bend up each of the ends to hold the beads on. Bend it into the shape of a candy cane and slip onto the Christmas tree.

Chocolate Spoons This needs plastic spoons, chocolate chips (or Wilton melting chips), and decorating sugar and/or pieces. It can only be done with children old enough to understand how to be safe with hot melted chocolate.

Melt the chocolate chips in the microwave or on the stove and bring to the table. Have them dip the spoons in and then add decorations. Place on a piece of wax paper. Refrigerate for about 15 minutes, until hardened. These are great in hot chocolate or coffee, or to give as gifts (especially with a jar of hot cocoa mix.)

Ice Cream Cone Christmas Trees These require sugar ice cream cones, white frosting tinted green, various candies for decorations.

Just turn the cone upside down on a plate, and frost with the icing.

Decorate with whatever candies you have on hand or wish to use.

Use as decorations (especially nice for gingerbread house scenes) or eat as a treat!

Holiday S'mores

This is just like making regular S'mores (graham cracker, chocolate squares, marshmallows and another graham cracker) but you use holiday Peeps (snowmen, in this case) for the marshmallows and just microwave for about 10 seconds.

Have you ever watched Peeps in the microwave? They puff up wonderfully. The boys love to watch them.

The ingredients in a small gift bag (my kids received these as take-home bags at a dance) would also make a nice addition to a food gift basket.

Presidential Pockets

Pin It

Today, to celebrate President's Day, we made Presidential Pockets.

They could, however, be made for any famous person.

 We just took a piece of construction paper and folded it in half.

 We snipped off the corners of the bottom to resemble a pocket from a coat.

 Unfold and cut off about an inch and a half from one side.

 When you refold it together, the top flap can be folded down...

 to resemble a coat pocket. It also helps to keep anything you might want to put in it...more about that in a minute. You can glue the edges together to make the pocket able to hold things.

notebooking page from the The Notebooking Fairy.

 Your pocket can fit on a notebooking page. This is a smaller pocket to leave room for some writing on the same page.

 Quentin chose to embellish his pocket and chose not to glue down the sides.

Quentin chose to make a President Washington pocket, so he included pictures of a cherry, a bullet and some hard tack to represent the Revolutionary War and The Declaration of Independence.

It made a little lapbook-type folder this way. In it we pictures of items that represent the person the pocket is about. Since Quentin's pocket was more like a folder, he glued his items down. If you choose to make it like a pocket, you can have loose items. They can be real items if they are small and flat, such as a button or a piece of yarn or cloth or you can draw the items and cut them out.

St. Patrick's Science: Seeing Rainbows

Pin It

Learning About Lenses

Rainbow Density

Make a rainbow with different densities of sugar water.

Using six heat-safe containers, add 1 tablespoon of sugar to the first cup and add an increasing amount of sugar to each cup, adding an additional tablespoon each time. 

Add food coloring to each cup, according to the colors of the rainbow.

Dissolve the sugar and food coloring  in one cup of boiling water for each container.

Here is the secret to success-

move from least dense to most dense, releasing each new layer on the bottom of a test tube, with the straw, instead of trying to pour it onto the top.

Rainbow Milk




Begin with a bowl of milk. Drops of food coloring are added.
Soap is added.
As the soap breaks down the fats in the milk, it moves in currents, which move and mix the colors.


Rainbow Pizza


This isn't a science experiment, but it is a nice reward and it is its own rainbow.

Crust
Press sugar cookie dough into a pan, I used a tart pan, and bake according to cookie recipe. Allow to cool completely.

Filling
8 oz softened cream cheese
2 tablespoons powdered sugar
4-6 oz Cool Whip

Put all ingredients into a bowl and beat until smooth and creamy. Spread over center of sugar cookie crust. Cover and refrigerate until ready to top and serve.

Topping
Sliced fruit of your choice. I used strawberries, clementine sections, sliced bananas tossed with a little lemon juice, kiwi, and blueberries. Make sure all fruit is patted dry to keep the juices from making the crust soggy.

Sources and Inspiration:

• The idea for the sugar water density science experiment comes from Almost Unschoolers.
• Recipe for Fruit Pizza is from Little Wonders' Days.
• Other rainbow ideas for St.Patrick's Day at Little Wonders' Days; and Almost Unschoolers
• Other science ideas for St. Patrick's Day Science: Sprouting Potatoes, Making Carnations Green and other Lucky Science projects at Second Story Window.

Quick and Easy Ideas for Mardi Gras

Simple games like tossing Mardi Gras beads over a pole or chair to win the beads, and making a mini-parade out of recycled materials and various craft supplies can be lovely family fun for Mardi Gras. Templates for the masks can be found here at DLTK. Don't forget the pancakes!  King Cake 

Valentine's Day Tea

It was Valentine's Day and time to empty the mailbox.

Our mail sorters went to work.

Don't you love their sorting system?





Happy Valentine's Day!

St. Valentine's Day Countdown...1...Hugs, Kisses and Hearts Pancakes

Recipe here.

St. Valentine's Day Countdown...2...Snowman Love

Pin It
My younger boys made these at a Valentine's Day party this week.
I am not sure where the idea originated, but they really enjoyed making them.
For this project, you will need three sizes of small white Styrofoam balls, a flat (whole or) half-circle of Styrofoam (about 1/2 inch thick), red pipe cleaners, orange pipe cleaner, black fine point marker, four toothpicks, some white glue, white glitter, and a heart made of paper or foam.



First take your large Styrofoam ball and poke a toothpick in it until you have some of the toothpick poking out of one side (shorter than the thickness on the flat Styrofoam circle).



Put some glue on the ball where the toothpick is sticking out and push it onto the half-circle of Styrofoam, which becomes the base.

Next take the medium Styrofoam ball and poke a second toothpick in it so that some of the end of the toothpick is sticking out of each end.

Applying glue at each connection, stick one side of the toothpick into the large ball which is already on the base. Stick the small Styrofoam ball onto the other end of the toothpick, which is sticking out of the medium ball.
You now have a whole snowman on your base.

Wrap a 5" inch piece of red pipe cleaner around the neck of the snowman for a scarf and glue it in place.

Twist a 1 1/2 inch piece of red pipe cleaner into a circle (an adult  pinkie is about the right diameter) and glue it to the top of the snowman for the brim of a hat. Coil another piece of pipe cleaner into a flat circle (like a rag rug). Glue down on top of the first circle. This is his hat.
Bend a 1-inch piece of orange pipe cleaner in half to form a carrot nose and poke this where it should go on the snowman's face.

Using a black marker, finish the face by adding the eyes and mouth.
Add buttons down the front of the middle ball.

Using glue and glitter, add some snow to your base and a little on the snowman, if you like.

Aren't they adorable?

Stick two more toothpicks in the middle ball for arms. Glue on one of them the paper heart.
All ready for Valentine's Day cheer!