Berries, Jam and Muffin Fun with Kids

  “Kuplink! Kuplank! Kuplunk!”  It’s the sound of late summer berry picking in Robert McCloskey’s“Blueberries for Sal” where Sal and her mother meet Little Bear and her mother bear on the same blueberry hill. The moms mistake each other’s children, but all ends well.

  Berries are perfect for young children. They are the right size to pick, count, and eat. They are little, but packed with vitamins and minerals.  If children are wary of vegetables, try offering berries.

 Picking Berries

  Berry picking is a great way to get the family outside and let children munch as you gather some to take home. They can combine their pails for blueberry snacks, pies, pancakes and muffins or place a bowl next to plates at any meal. Then talk about what animals like to eat berries. There are many fiction books about berries.

  You can have a little economics lesson. Discuss how food gets to our grocery stores and why berries are expensive. What people bring berries to market like farmers, pickers, truck drivers, packers, and grocery store employees?

  Show children how to freeze hand -picked or store bought berries. Spread them flat on cookie sheets so they do not touch each other and place in the freezer.  When they are hard, transfer them to freezer bags and lay flat in the freezer.  These easy snacks will not clump together. 

  Kid’s Freezer Jam

  Children can smash some berries and add a few drops of honey for fresh jam, cream cheese, and a bagel. 

Freezer jam takes only 30 minutes and can have little sugar. This jam uses pectin, a natural thickening agent found in and around plant cell walls that helps bind those cells together. Jars can be kept in the freezer for a year or refrigerator for three months. Low sugar freezer jam recipes are found on premium pectin for less or no sugar needed packages in the canning aisle and surejell.com.

Kids’ Muffins

For easy blueberry muffins you will need 1 cup soy milk, and 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar set aside in a bowl. Meanwhile, in a separate bowl mix 2 cups flour, 2 ½ teaspoons baking powder, ¼ teaspoon baking soda, and ½ teaspoon salt. In another bowl  ix ½ cup plus 2 Tablespoons sugar, ¼ cup plus 2 Tablespoons oil, and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Add a little zest of lemon, if desired. Stir the flour mixture bowl into the sugar mixture bowl. (You may want to save some of the flour to coat the blueberries.) Pour in the soy milk and vinegar curdled mixture. Stir. Finally, fold in the blueberries gently and place in 25 muffin papers in a muffin pan. Bake 20-25 minutes at 375 degrees. Serve cool 

                

More Ideas and Activities....See the authors’ book “Learning Through the Seasons” at area bookstores and grandparentsteachtoo.org. For more help to prepare young children for success in school see the authors’ web site: www.grandparentsteachtoo.org. Also check our audio Podcasts WNMU Radio 90; Youtube video activities; and join us on Pinterest

Photos: Fran Darling, fdarling fotos

Winter Sandbox Fun for Kids

Make some "Geography" with Homemade Sandboxes

While the sandbox is buried under layers of snow and frozen solid you can still provide sand fun indoors and keep a tidy house. It’s hard to believe but this recipefeels better than damp beach sand. It is soft and velvety yet holds its shape when building castles and roads.  It also adds moisture to dry winter hands.

Homemade Sand

You will need homemade sand (recipe below), spoons, plastic measuring cups for pails, plastic people and animals, small cars and trucks, Legos, and other plastic pieces like trees to make scenes.

  Mix 8 cups white baking flour and 2 cups baby oil.  Add a little more oil ( ¼ cup) slowly  and mix  if it feels too dry. The mixture should clump together when you hold it in your fist. Continue to mix well. The sand can be stored it in a sealed container or freezer lock bag. Do not mix with water. 

What Can You Make in the "Sand?"

  Put it in a cookie sheet or several large cake pans so each child has a private sandbox. For easy clean up, place a large beach towel on a non-carpeted floor or table. Spilled sand will make the floor slippery. After sweeping, wash with dish detergent. If play cars get covered with sand or sand gets into toy crevasses just brush or knock off the sand from cars with a paint brush and wipe them off. You can keep a special bag for small sand toys especially for sand playtime. This silky sand will probably become your children’s favorite toy.

Imagination

   You can decide the kind of geographic features you will create with your child. Will it be your community, high mountains, Great Lakes, river basin, plains with roads, a cityscape with buildings and rivers, an island with a volcano, or an imaginary 

planet? Will the period of history be time of the dinosaurs, castles, in the future? Where will your imagination take you? Many children like to rescue or act out a story they have heard. 

  Features might include roads through mountain passes, coral reefs, plateaus, an isthmus, islands, archipelagos, peninsulas, plains, basins, or steppes. Water features can be a piece of paper colored with blue markers. Children can make wetlands for turtles and snakes, straits, oceans, gulfs, glaciers, deltas, lakes, bays, harbors, canals, channels, harbors for ships, and a river’s source and mouth. Just choose a few that fit your plan. You will be amazed at the new vocabulary and understanding your young children will develop.

Build It Together

 You can build, have conversations, and make decisions together. You and the kids can use the geographical terms and start your favorite or imaginary story with plastic figures, cars, and trucks. For more learning fun see grandparentsteachtoo.blogspot.com; wnmufm.org/learning through the seasons, live and podcasts, Facebook, and Pinterest. 

Photos: Fran Darling, fdarling fofos

Kids Create Their Own Fun

Play Home-Made Hockey

Families can teach children to make their own games from material around the house. It’s an example of American ingenuity: making something from very little or changing the function to create a whole new product. This is a skill young children can be taught so they are never bored.
Teaching American Ingenuity
  Adam and Leah wanted to go fishing, but couldn’t do the real thing today. They started looking for poles, bait, line, and fish materials around the house.  They gathered yardsticks, yarn, refrigerator clip magnets, and paper clips. With help they attached the yarn, pole and magnets. They spread the paper clips around the floor in a small circle. The person who was “up” was given until the count of 5 to gather some clip fish during a turn. Then the next person took a turn.  When the magnets picked up all clips, they counted to find the winner of that round.
  The principle they used was, “ Think of a game or sport and simulate it with materials around the house.” Their game was easy, cheap, and entertaining with a little bit of learning mixed in.
  How many fishing games can your family create when the weather is foul or the real fish aren’t biting? Paper clips could be placed in a bucket of water.  A reluctant preschool child who needs to soak in the tub could have large colorful paper clips in a floating dish and use a ruler, string and magnet to fish.  The principle is still the same.
Team Creations

Make Hockey Sticks: Cardboard & Paint Stirs

  Another game that has many variations is bowling.  Grandma Dee was providing childcare for four little boys one rainy afternoon. She has been teaching the boys to make games plus little learning out of materials around the house. They decided to make a bowling game out of dominoes.
  Here are the rules they devised. Place dominoes face down on a table. The first player chooses ten dominoes and stands them up between the two players. The blank side faces the person who has the turn. This player lays a domino about one foot away from the standing dominoes and flicks it to knock down as many dominoes as possible. When all dominoes are knocked down, the dots are totaled and the next person chooses a different set of ten and takes a turn. The grand kids worked as a team to create a new game from materials around the house. A little bit of math was worked into the fun. Mission accomplished.

Hit the Tape Spool Puck

  Parents and grandparents often think back to their childhood when they created their own games and other entertainment. Today’s children can do the same. There is never boredom when children learn to create their own fun and learning.
 Photo: Fran Darling, fdarling fotos
More Ideas and Activities....See the authors’ book “Learning Through the Seasons” at area bookstores and grandparentsteachtoo.org. For more help to prepare young children for success in school see the authors’ web site: www.grandparentsteachtoo.org. Also check our audio Podcasts WNMU Radio 90; Youtube video activities; and join us on Pinterest