Preschool Fun: Frugal Ideas and Tips

EASTER CHICK!!!

We took a cleaned out baby food jar, painted the lid yellow, added yellow pompoms (although tissue paper would work!), and glued on eyes and two tiny pieces of orange foam (or construction paper) for the beak to make an Easter chick.  We are going to make bunnies today out of similar but different colored materials!!!

Easy Tile Craft

Purchase inexpensive white tiles at any home improvement store (these cost me 9 cents each).  Let the kids show their artistic creativity by painting the tiles in any design or picture they want.  Once it dries, spray it with shellac.  They can be used as coasters, hot plate holders or hung on the wall.  

Secret Message Pictures.

Make a secret message with your crayons! Scribble a rainbow of color entirely covering a piece of paper.  Then cover your coloring with black crayon.  You might want to experiment with different brands of black crayons; some work better than others.  Once your paper is covered in black crayon, scratch your message, or a drawing, using a toothpick to reveal the rainbow color below.

Here's our secret message: It says "Hi Maggie!"

Easy Easter Chic plant holder or basket!!

We made these today in seriously about 5 minutes we plan to put a small plant in them to give to the kids grandma and great grandma at Easter!

All you need is

chinese take out boxes(found at any craft store or in your big box stores in the gift wrap isle)

pipe cleaners

googly eyes(you could do it with a sharpie too)

orange contstruction paper

hot glue gun!

Here is an easy spring caterpillar cute and fun!

What you need is

egg carton

paints

googly eyes (or sharpie would work too)

pipe cleaners and a glue gun!!

Here's what my kids have been loving for lunch lately - Bagel Pizzas! 

Spread pizza or spaghetti sauce on half a bagel.  Sprinkle with mozzarella cheese and any toppings.  Toast under the broiler for just a couple minutes - watch it carefully!  You could also make these on English Muffin halves.

I cut my 2 year old's bagel pizza into bites with a pair of kitchen scissors.

My 5 year old LOVES to help in the kitchen! So this summer I'm going to create a series of cooking classes for her.  Of course she can't exactly use the stove or the oven herself, but I can still show her how certain foods are made.  She has helped me and watched me many times, but I thought that doing organized, lesson plans, made specifically for her would actually help her learn to do things from start to finish, giving her life skills in the process.  I looked on websites and really couldn't find anyone who made actual lesson plans. So I'm going to do them myself.

My inspiration is coming from a couple different areas.  First, I'm going to focus on basic foods that I know she likes to eat.  A few examples would be: mac & cheese (with homemade cheese sauce), pancakes, and mashed potatoes.  The second area of inspiration is going to come from my culinary school cookbook called, Professional Cooking (Fifth Edition) by Wayne Gisslen.  It's basically a huge encyclopedia of EVERYTHING food and food related.  I have kept it over the past 10 years because it's a great reference guide for anything I may need to know about food.

I want to keep the food ideas really simple as to not overload her.  She is only 5 years old after all. At the same time, I want her to learn methods and learn basic information about the food she is making. 

Ex:  When we make mashed potatoes I want to show her the a few different types of potatoes and what their names are.  Some potatoes are more waxy and some are more starchy.  What that means is that some are better for frying and baking, while others are better for mashing.  That's a simple lesson with helpful information that she will be able to retain and use in the future as she learns to cook on her own when she is older.

There is just so much we can do!  We can even just make a fruit salad. I can take her to a local outdoor farmer's market. I can show her how to pick out good fruit. Then we can take it home and talk about how you can tell each piece is ripe and which fruit we peel and why.  We can talk about texture, flavor, and more.  Kids do learn these things as they grow but it's fun to teach comparisons that they have never thought of before. 

I'm still in the beginning stages of this but I think I can come up with a good 10-12 basic lesson plans to teach her more about the food she eats, than the actual recipes themselves.

I cut some shapes out of cardboard and punched holes around the outside.  Then I gave my daughter a yarn needle and some yarn for her to practice "sewing."  You can buy the yarn needles at a craft store, or in the craft section at Walmart in a package of 2 for $1.  This is a nice activity to keep kids entertained while you're doing grown-up crafts.  And, it's reusable!

I have an idea I would like to submit.  I can not get the picture to load.  It says "image loading", but doesn't load.  I let it go for ten minutes.  Do you have any suggestions?  Does it normally take that long to load a picture?