Showing posts with label Kitchen Kids. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kitchen Kids. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kitchen Kids. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kitchen Kids. Show all posts

Summer Messy Play Activities for Preschoolers

Fun In The Sun - 6 Tips For Creating A Mud Kitchen For Your Kids


Kids love mud! And as dirty as they may get, it’s time to advocate messy play so they can learn new skills the fun way. The fastest and easiest way to encourage your kids to get outdoors is to build them a mud kitchen.They'll be tripping over each other to get outside

Building your own mud kitchen is a creative, cost-effective way of enabling messy play for your kids while saving money on an expensive play kitchen

You can build your mud kitchen in your own way, and in the end, your kids will have the perfect environment in which to get their hands dirty anytime.


This post contains Amazon affiliate links for your convenience.


Summer Messy Play Activities for Preschoolers

Photo: Jelleke Vanooteghem/Unsplash


Six tips to create your own mud kitchen


  1. Use What You’ve Got

Poke around your garage and see what you can recycle to save money on your mud kitchen. You can use wood, recycled pallets, and old timber for the construction. Old cookware and bakeware, utensils, and decorations can also be used to finish out the kitchen,

Remember, the idea is to ignite your child’s imagination, so your DIY mud kitchen doesn’t need to resemble a brand-new toy kitchen set. 


  1. Stove Tops Add to The Fun

While it’s great to leave some things up to the imagination, it’s a good idea to make your play kitchen resemble a real kitchen by creating a stove top. You can paint the burners on a piece of timber or wood, and you can even add broken or thrifted appliances to your outdoor kitchen to enhance its appearance. You can also use good, old cardboard to create a play stove.


  1. Bake Mud Cakes

The fun part of having a mud kitchen is that your kids get to play with mud and get as dirty as they want. All you need to make mud cakes is some sand or soil and water. You can use old cookware and bake ware to contain them and shape them like cakes and cupcakes.

Parents can get involved by showing kids how to create funky-shaped cookies with cookie cutters and molds or add colored pasta to the mud for added texture. This kind of sensory play is an important part of childhood development, but above all, it’s a whole lot of fun.


Pistachio Pudding Play Dough


  1. Set the Table

A mud kitchen is a fun way to teach your child table manners. Guide your preschoolers through setting a table and laying out the dishes. Show them the way to arrange cutlery and allow your children to bring some garden leaves to create napkins for a rustic table setting.


  1. Add a Sink

Since you’ve introduced messy play to your preschoolers with colored pasta and mud cakes, it’s a good idea to take care of the cleanup. The most logical way to do this is to add a sink to your mud kitchen! To create your sink, use a silver or grey bucket and fill it with water or a big flower put with the bottom plugged works nicely too.

Add a hose in the bucket so that there’s an accessible faucet. This is a great way to teach children how to clean up after themselves. Add some dish washing liquid and a sponge so you can wash all the cookware the kids used before bringing it back into the house!


How to Make your own Dish Washing Soap


  1. Dress For The Occasion

Every chef needs a chef’s hat and apron, so make sure to get these for your child. They will love it! Plus, the apron will offer some protection from mud splatter while playing. Rubber boots are a good idea too. Preschool age kids and toddlers love to wear galoshes!


How to Make your own Chef Hat

 

Have fun with your kiddos and their mud kitchen. You may want to wear some rubber boots yourself! Encourage your children to enjoy free and imaginative play, and you can bet they’ll learn tons of kitchen tricks in the process. Pretend play is the best way to learn!


Recommended Reading:

Pretend Play and Play Date Ideas from Adventures of Kids Creative Chaos

Fun Books about Galoshes from Amazon




Cooking with Kids: Jake's Indiana Corny Corn Muffin Recipe for Homeschool

Homeschooling Study Natural Resources with Corn Muffin Recipe

Science? Ever had Corn Muffins with pieces of corn inside? In Kentucky and Indiana, it is a pretty common recipe. For Jake's Homeschool Social Studies project, he created a recipe using a few of Indiana's most common natural resources. Corn, of course is a number one crop. The Grandpa tried his hand at making maple syrup this year, so it found it's way into the mixing bowl too. Oh- and eggs are a natural resource anywhere. Enjoy!


This post contains affiliate links.


Science Lesson Natural Resources Corn Muffin Recipe
Kid Science Lesson on Corn with Corny Corn Muffin Recipe.


Kitchen Kids: Indiana Corny Corn Muffin Recipe Indiana Natural Resources
Jake's Indiana Corny Corn Muffins Recipe.

Free Printable Lesson about Corn (Download and print it.)
Free Printable Lesson about Corn (Download and print it.)



Ingredients for Jake's Corny Corn Muffins Recipe
It's easy with Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix and Frozen Corn.

How to Make Indiana Corn Muffins Recipe

You will need:


1 Pkg. Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix 
1 Egg 
1/3 C. Milk 
1/4 C. Grandpa’s Homemade Maple Syrup
1 C. Corn 
Muffin pan and Paper

How to make Corn Muffins, Indiana Style:


Preheat oven to 400 F degrees.
Mix the ingredients together.
Batter will be lumpy
Spoon into muffin cups, fill ¾  full.
Bake 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.
Cool for 5-10 minutes.


Recommended Reading:

Hoot

Earth's Resources 

Corn by Gail Gibbons

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How to Make Snow Cones or Sno Cones or Ice Cones or Shaved Ice Slushy Slush Puppy

Make a Snow Cone with Shaved Ice


So how do you make an Ice Cone? I mean it's just ice and syrup, right? Isn't a slushy the same thing?  What is a Sno-cone; is it really made out of snow?  Well, we made one from real snow.  It's springtime in Indiana, so anything goes.  Here's a list of everything you never wanted to know about the tasty shaved ice treat.


How to make a rainbow slush for a kids party Pinterest
Rainbow Slushy Popsicle Ice.

Wikipedia defines snow cones as a North American variation of shaved ice commonly served in paper cups. Shaved ice is finely crushed ice. Hawaiian's call it Shave Ice. Baltimorians call them Snowballs.


Slushies are all about freezing water. Snow is frozen water, right?



Homemade Snow Cones from Snow how do you make syrup?
Authentic Snow Cones.
We cheated. We scooped up some Indiana snow and added the Hawaiian Punch syrup we found on clearance at Walmart. They put it on clearance when snow is in season, go figure. This was the easiest snow cone recipe ever. Start with clean snow. 

Mayhem leaves out collecting bowls whenever they are predicting snow. Was it good? Um... yes. It is softer than shaved ice, and oh so perfect for a snow cone. Just like the real thing, if you live in Baltimore.


Snow cone syrup: Get this, the first flavor of syrup for shaved ice was EGG CUSTARD. Apparently, during the American Industrial Revolution  New York ice houses started selling ice to Florida. When the truck passed through Baltimore, kids started asking for free samples. Each time the truck came through they got their wish. The mothers decided to flavor the ice. Since eggs, butter, and sugar were readily on hand, they made egg custard flavor shaved ice. Of course they did. Yep, Baltimorians invented this tasty treat. Later during the Great Depression, it was an inexpensive snack earning the Baltimore Snowball the name "Hard Times Sundae".


The Hawaiian's added a scoop of ice cream at the bottom of a cup and poured a little milk on top. Thank Hawaii for the rainbow colors too. Thank India for Salt and Pepper flavored shaved ice popsicles known as Kala Khatta. Hmm... I'll just stick to the colored, sugary syrup.




When I was a kid, growing up in Indiana the Slush Puppie was the cat's meow. What a treat to get a $1.00 from Grandpa and head into the corner store for a Slush Puppie.



Slush Puppie Snow Cones Sno Cones Shaved Ice Shaved Recipes
Slush Puppies.

Snow Cone Syrup Recipes (How to Make)


You need Sugar, lots of it, for a healthier alternative you could try Clear Corn Syrup or Light Maple Syrup. That's funny right there. For a healthy alternative how about ice and food coloring.


2 C. Sugar, 1 packet Kool-aid Drink Mix, 1 C. Water


Stir sugar and water together in a saucepan (or substitute one of the syrups above). Bring to a boil. Boil for 1 minute. Remove from heat. Stir in Kool-aid. Cool and store in a recycled glass bottle. Wait for a snow storm or use one of those nifty ice shaving contraptions or use the crushed ice from your fridge dispenser. Now pour the syrup over the ice. Tada! You should start your own snow cone biz 'cause you are officially a pro.




Recommended Reading:


Snowmen at Night*


Kids Creative Chaos Cooks: Kitchen Kids Series: Holiday Recipes*


What are Carrots good for? Here are Simple Carrot Snack Recipes and Edible Crafts perfect for Easter

Easter: Things to do with Carrots for Snacks

Carrots. Bunnies eat them. They are rumored good for eyesight. What else are carrots good for? Here are some simple, easy, snack carrot recipes your kids will enjoy- just in time for Easter.
Simple Carrot Snack Recipes and Edible Crafts
Yummy, Easy Carrot Recipes: No Bunnies Allowed.
Carrots are good in lots of recipes, not just carrot cake. We found Carrot Pancakes from Iowa Girl Eats blog, adorable Bird's Nest Carrot Cupcakes from How Sweet Treats blog, and an Apple Carrot Smoothie from Akers of Love blog. Click the links below to visit their pages.

Recommended Reading:

Easter Knock Knock Jokes

Holiday Edible Art and Snack Crafts



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Bake Shop Costume, Cardboard Stove, Chef Hat Video: What She's Wearing Wednesday

Creative Play Baking Sweet Shop with Cardboard Stove

In this edition of, What She's Wearing Wednesday, catch the KCC Kid, Mayhem, in "Sweet Shop". A video in the "Little Rascals" style. She's baking bread in her upcycled cardboard kitchen stove, wearing her chef hat tutorial, and having fun with her best kitty friend.  Enjoy!



The toys in the video were donated by Alex Toys. You might also like our KCC Kid's Spy Video, "Monster Trouble" that highlights their super sleuthing toys. We had lots of fun making these videos. 


Recommended:

Fun Ideas for Cooking with Kids

Kids Creative Chaos Cooks*

Chef Costume for Pretend Play*

Make a Chef Hat












ADS DISCLOSURE: We've partnered with some wonderful advertisers who may sponsor blog posts or send us samples to test. Some companies pay us to review their products.

*We also use affiliate links, if you make a purchase we get a tiny commission. Kids Creative Chaos participates in the Amazon LLC Associates Program*, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a mean for blogs to earn advertising fees by linking to Amazon properties, including, but not limited to, amazon.com, endless.com, myhabit.com, smallparts.com, or amazonwireless.com. We also offer Tapinfluence, Google Adsense, SoFab, and Izea ads here. Thanks so much for helping us keep the lights on! :)



Easy Edible Easter Crafts: Things to Do with Marshmallow Peeps

Cute Edible Craft Things to do with Marshmallow Peeps for Easter

Who doesn't love Peeps? Well, besides me. I don't like the tingly feeling on my tongue, but Peeps are oh so cute and perfect for preschoolers crafts. I found these 8 adorable things to do with marshmallow Peeps. Did you know they even have an entire store dedicated to these cuties? You can make all of these Edible Peeps Crafts at home with your kids.


This post contains affiliate links for your convenience.



Easy Edible Easter Crafts: Things to Do with Marshmallow Peeps






I was inspired to surf for recipe ideas for easy edible Easter crafts after visiting an old-fashioned candy store selling chocolate covered Peeps. Everything in the store was decorated in pastels for Easter and the store windows were straight out of Wonka's factory. The Peeps from Your Home Based Mom pictured below are similar.





Things to do with Peeps for Easter




Things to do with Marshmallow Peeps Chocolate covered easy edible Easter Craft
Chocolate Covered Peep Chicks Recipe from Your Homebased Mom.



Peeps Recipes Chocolate Casserole Easter
An M and M's Peep casserole! 


Yes, we're gonna try this Peep's Casserole from The Party-Animal Blog.
Did you know you can make a chocolate Peeps casserole? This one from The Party Animal-Blog looks fantastic even to me. I'm going to try to make the recipe for Easter this year.

The Soccer Mom has an awesome, adorable Peeps Cupcake recipe. Check it out!



Peeps Easter Cupcakes from Soccer Mom.



Painting with Peeps is the perfect activity for preschool kids. This one from It Mom is super cute, but I'd do it with edible paint. We have lots of different recipes here just search in the browse us bar for "edible paint."



Easter Craft Painting with Peeps
Painting with Peeps from It Mom Blog.


Inspire Me Crafts offers up "dressed up" Peeps dipped in chocolate and looking like a bunny bride and groom. Wouldn't they be cute wedding party favors for a spring bridal shower? Pair them with the Peeps topiary below for a fun, spring theme bridal shower.




Easy Edible Easter Crafts Recipe: Peeps Marshmallow Smore's
Make S'mores with Peeps like Electic Recipes did.

Peeps Smore's is an easy, fun edible craft for kids. They can construct them and you can pop them in the microwave. This idea came from Electic Recipes.



DIY Decor Easter Craft Peeps Topiary for Kid's party
Peeps Crafts for Easter from CraftsnCoffee.com


Finally, this home decor idea for Easter is perfect for a kid's party. The Peep's Topiary from CraftsnCoffee is easy to make with kids. 


What are you crafting up this Easter? You better hurry, if you are wondering when is Easter this year? Easter is April 16, 2017.

Welch Rarebit? Welsh Rabbit? How about Welsh Rarebit Recipe for Kids breakfast ideas

Kid's Breakfast Ideas: Welch Rarebit with Fun Shapes

Want breakfast ideas for kid's recipes? Here's one with lots of protein that you've probably never heard of or you did, but you had no idea what it was. Welch (misspelling) Rabbit (confused letter transposing) = Welsh Rarebit. This was my first attempt. It tastes good, but looks sad. Enjoy!


Welch Rarebit Recipe Mixture
Egg and cheese mixture.
Prepared toasts on baking sheet.

Welsh Rarebit Baking with for kids recipe
While baking the rarebit recipe.
Cooking with Kids Recipe Welsh Rarebit Welch Rabbit Toast
My finished product a Pinterest Fail. 
See how it should look below.
What even is it? I once saw a recipe in Betty Crocker and blacked it out! I was a proud owner of a house rabbit. I didn't need to see how to cook a rabbit every time I opened my cookbook. Wait. What?

This old-fashioned, easy recipe requires only a few simple ingredients. We left out the traditional grated bread crumbs because I didn't have any, but you shouldn't! Ours ran all over the baking pan and off the toast.



Welsh Rarebit Recipe for Kids


1/4 C. Shredded Cheese (your choice of flavor), 2 Eggs, Butter, Salt, Pepper, Dash of Dry Mustard, bread crumbs, and Toast.

Mix Shredded Cheese with Eggs and 2 Tbs. Butter. Mix in a pinch of salt, pepper, bread crumbs, and dry mustard. Cut the crust off toast. Cut toast into fun shapes with cookie cutters. Lay out in baking dish (Line with foil and spray with non-stick cooking spray). Spread the egg paste on the toast. (Texas Toast works smashingly or use Melba Toast). Sprinkle with shredded cheese. Place in oven at 350 degrees until lightly browned and cheese is melted.




They made this in the White House! You can find a similar recipe in The White House Cook Book, 1887. I guess Grover Cleveland liked Welsh food. Hmm... I need to research if he was Welsh. I wonder if he had a rabbit? Oooh Oooh... Should I make a Grover Cleveland President Paperbag Puppet? Hmm...



Welsh Rarebit from Mama Smiles and Joyful Parenting
From Mama Smiles and Joyful Parenting. 
Yeah, yours should  look like this.

Recommended:












ADS DISCLOSURE: We've partnered with some wonderful advertisers who may sponsor blog posts or send us samples to test. Some companies pay us to review their products.

*We also use affiliate links, if you make a purchase we get a tiny commission. Kids Creative Chaos participates in the Amazon LLC Associates Program*, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a mean for blogs to earn advertising fees by linking to Amazon properties, including, but not limited to, amazon.com, endless.com, myhabit.com, smallparts.com, or amazonwireless.com. We also offer Tapinfluence, Google Adsense, SoFab, and Izea ads here. Thanks so much for helping us keep the lights on! :)


How to make French Toast Recipe: Kids Love It!

Wondering How to make french toast kids will love? 

This Recipe for French Toast is easy and kid-tested. Cut your french toast into sticks or fun cookie cutter shapes.


Use Cookie Cutters to make cute French Toast Shapes.
Use Cookie Cutters to make cute French Toast Shapes.
scramble eggs
Stir up some eggs.
First of all, the type of bread used makes a big difference. Texas Toast works best, but any bread used should be toasted first. This helps prevent if from falling apart when dipping.


To make French Toast, Toast in toaster first.
To make French Toast, Toast in toaster first.
stack of toast bread slices picture
Prepared Toast waiting for egg bath.

How to Make French Toast Recipe

To prepare the dipping batter:

Preheat Griddle to high setting, coat with non-stick spray.

Grab a bowl and add 4-5 eggs. Stir the eggs to scramble them. Sometimes, I start with 12 eggs and then divide into two separate bowls- 1 for French Toast and 1 for scrambled eggs.

Next, I add a capful/1 tablespoon of vanilla and a splash of milk. I like to add the milk so they don't look to eggy. I even stir in a 1/ tsp. of cinnamon. Then, cut cute shapes from your toast or slice it to make FRENCH TOAST STICKS. Now, grab your tongs and get busy. You have to work fast, so the toast doesn't get too wet. Dip into batter, turn over to saturate, and remove quickly.

Add Vanilla to your eggs.
Add a splash of milk.


Fun animal shaped french toast breakfast for kids
Cut into fun shapes with cookie cutters.
The kids ate the shapes so quickly ; I had to make french toast scraps!
How to make french toast sticks from bread.
Cut for French Toast Sticks.
Dip in quickly and pull out before they get too soggy.


Flip once while cooking.
Fun French Toast Shapes Easy Recipe for Kids
French toasts strips are done when golden brown and crisp.
Cooking the scraps.


Remove when golden brown.




How to make Powdered Sugar French Toast Recipe Easy Kid-Tested
We added powdered sugar, maple syrup, and caramel sauce. 
I know you shouldn't, but it is SO good!
Must be good, sure was fun for them. 
Here they devour the french toast trimmings.
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Recommended Reading:

New Junior Cook Book: 1955 Classic Edition

Ice Cream Snowman Party Treats