Kitchen In Hand!

A few months ago, I spotted this fabulous tutorial for a roll-up kitchen play mat on the Balancing Everything blog, and immediately thought of my niece Sophia. She has a great play kitchen in her bedroom (that was her mom's when she was little), but a roll-up kitchen would be perfect to take to her dad's house on the weekend. Or leave there on a shelf. Really, she could take it anywhere she wanted... in her bean teepee in the summer even.

So, with her 5th birthday looming in the very near future, I got my trusty helper to assist with construction. He loved it!

To round out the gift, I commissioned my friend Jen to crochet a soup pot and some bowls to go with the kitchen. She did all of the pieces free hand, and they are beautiful. I love the soup kettle. It's perfect! And, being the fabulous gal she is, Jen made some bonus produce as well!

I used wool felt, backed with cotton and hand stitched the kitchen elements to the "counter" with charcoal gray embroidery floss. Oh, I also increased the dimensions of the kitchen to 28" x 13" (before sewing) since I think my printed-out template must have been larger than the original tutorial. My burners are a little more than 5.5" in diameter.

I added a bag of a dozen felt mezzaluna ravioli (or empanadas, wee pastries, or cookies), and re-purposed a Gelatiamo salted caramel gelato pint to hold four brown circular felt bean bags (filled with lentils) that can be scoops of gelato for Sophia's bowls (or cookies, brownies, pies, burgers...) — I was going for general shapes that could easily be something else. If only managing a real kitchen were so easy!

I'll be making more of these for other wee ones for sure!! My kids need one for their playhouse too. Again, the "recipe" for this one is right here. And, if you need a fabulous soup pot, bowls or produce, just contact this gal by leaving a comment on Twist & Loop.

It was just so fun that I had to make one for Gramma too! E helped with this kitchen mat as well, and he preferred the dark blue to the gold of Sophia's. Personally, I love the cotton backing fabric, and the style of the burners which I copied directly from M & E's wooden play kitchen.

Floppy Rubber, or Flappy Blubber?

What IS Flubber, anyway? It's absolutely NOT edible. It's a fun, squishy, rubbery substance, and is exactly the consistency of a product called Mars Mud that we bought at a toy store last summer. It's not as messy as Playdough, but since it has Borax in it, it is not for little kiddos who might eat it. It is a very fun science "experiment" for observation purposes and high on the "gross-ometer" too. Abby, Madeline and Erik loved it.
Flubber
(I halved the recipe I had, since I only have one bottle of glue)
1 c. white glue
3/4 c. warm water
liquid water color tint (if you use food color, it will stain everything - table, hands, etc.)

1/2 Tbs. Borax (powdered laundry booster)
1/2 c. warm water

Mix the glue, water and coloring in one bowl very well, and the Borax and additional water in a seperate bowl (until all the Borax powder dissolves). Then, pour the glue mixture into the Borax mixture, and observe. Set a timer for 2 minutes and check consistency again. Then, this Mama scooped the Flubber out of the bowl with my hand kneaded it on the table, and divided it up into three for the kiddos (3, 4.5 and 6.5 years old) to enjoy! I gave them several different shapes of containers to make "cakes" in - they used crayons for candles, and Bento lunch picks too. Fun!

Dough Nuts

The kids love messing with dough — bread dough, biscuit dough, cookie dough, play dough and salt dough. This week I made three batches of play dough (red, yellow and blue) for color mixing, and a batch of salt dough so we could create some fun shapes to bake, paint and keep!

We often made salt dough ornaments at Christmas time when I was a little kid, so the smell of salt dough takes me back. The kids loved it, and we had enough to send some of each kind home with our little friend Alexandria, who came over to play today.

Playdough Recipe
(from Playtime - it's a great, soft dough and easy to make!)
1 c. flour
1/2 c. salt
1 c. water
1 Tbs. oil
2 tsp. cream of tartar
food coloring (several drops per batch)

Mix and stir over medium heat. The mixture will begin to clump. When the mixture becomes a thick dough, remove from pan to cool a bit, then knead on a lightly floured surface. Store in a Ziploc bag or sealed container.

Salt Dough
3 c. flour
1 c. salt
1.5 c. water
1 Tbs. light corn syrup (I used Agave syrup though...)

Knead the dough by hand until it has an elastic consistency. Roll and cut or shape as you wish, then dry by baking at 250 degrees for more than an hour for flat shapes and longer for 3D shapes. Once they are cool, paint with acrylic paints then varnish with clear coat.

Rainbows, Hearts & Crayons...

... all-in-one! Rainbow-colored, heart-shaped crayons. Fun to make. Quick & easy. And... they clean out the crayon bucket!

Put broken, peeled, crayons into silicone mini-muffin pan (and mix up the color variations) Melt at 250-degrees F for about 10 minutes. Take out and allow to cool/harden for about 20-30 minutes. Then, pop out of their molds and amaze all the wee folk you know! Ooooh... Ahhh!!!

Pizza! Pizza!

The only sort of pizza that Madeline likes... I suspect that someday she'll be a real pizza fan though.

Cardboard Pizza

3 empty cereal boxes worth of cardboard, opened flat
1 salad plate for tracing circles
1 Sharpie for tracing with
1 pair of scissors to cut out circles
5 or more crayons and/or markers for toppings or peeled crayon wrappers for "pepperonis" as Mad decided would make the best pizza

Should amuse most toddlers for anywhere from 15-45 minutes, or until it gets really sunny outside and they need to go play in the wading pool and make mud cakes!

Edible Scoopables...

Handy that I planned to make my own wedding cake years ago, so I have large pans for scooping fun... Flax seeds are so great for scooping, pouring and sifting. They feel neat, the kids love them, and if they happen to eat them... they're actually good for them too!

Ker-plink!

The best "toys" are simple (and especially fascinating if technically involving potential choking hazards)... got this idea from my mom who put together a similar activity for her Montessori class with paper clips.

I cut a slit in the top of an empty coffee can from Trader Joe's and gave Erik five large buttons to pop through the top. He loved it, and was at it for quite awhile. And, when he got them all in each time, the can made a nice percussion instrument too.

Thanks Jen!

Madeline's been loving the colored stringing pasta that Jen gave her last week. I let her string it on some laces that came with a set of giant lacing beads I bought for last summer (but had to put away because she wasn't quite ready for lacing yet). Now she jumped right in and can't get enough... she was even "fixing" my string for me.

Jen says you can use yarn for lacing too , with tape wrapped around the end or dip the ends in glue and dry overnight for easier lacing. Or you could use old shoe laces (or pick up some new ones at the store). Wow, you could even dye your laces while dying the pasta...

Colored Pasta (for stringing or artwork)

2 c. or 16 oz. (per color) pasta of different shapes and sizes
Food color (about 5 drops per color batch)
1/4 c. rubbing alcohol per color
Several glass bowls

Pour rubbing alcohol into each bowl. Add 5 or so drops of food coloring into each bowl, one bowl for each color. Drop the pasta into the bowl and stir gently for a few seconds. Let sit for a bit and stir again, then pour onto paper plates to dry for several hours. The colors will brighten as the pasta dries.

A Recipe for Fun...

We had 1/2 a bulk egg carton left from Christmas, so I made Madeline a sorting "game." She loves it. I hot-glued one item in each cup and put 5 or 10 of each of them in a jar for sorting. I found some fun things to use, including some of the pittance of random foreign coin we've collected over the years. Also, dried rose hips, coffee beans, hard Finnish licorice diamonds, pasta, navy beans, "teeny tiny marshmallows" (as M says), and a rainbow of buttons. M gets to eat some little marshmallows from the bag (she always wants 5 at a time), when we're done with the game. I think she likes that she gets to play with it when Erik is napping... and that he's too little to do it.