Michelle's blog

We when got home from the Sugar Bush we decided that we needed to make our own Maple Sugar Candy. But I think I should point out, I am not a candy maker... in general I just don't have the patience for it. Sugar can be a tricky beast ;). I'm guessing some of you more experience confectionery chefs can give some us pointers... but here are the basics for making your own Maple Sugar Candy.

What you need:
2 cups Maple Syrup
pot
candy thermometer
tray, candy molds or muffin tins to pour off candy
wooden spoon

Bring the Maple Syrup to a 'soft ball' heat (235F), stirring occasionally. If you do not have a candy thermometer drip the syrup into a cup of cool water. When a drip of syrup forms a soft ball in the water you have reached the right temp.

Remove from heat and let it cool down to 125F without mixing. Once it has reached 125F, stir until the syrup loses its glossy color and takes on a creamy look.

Pour off into greased candy molds. (I think we stirred ours too long and it clumped, not poured into the molds - oh well, it is still tasty).

Let cool and enjoy. The kids watched the whole process... of course I would let them no where near the boiling sugar (keep kids away at a safe distance - IT IS HOT). They loved cleaning out the pot. We are breaking up our Maple Candy and using it on our oat meal. Yum!

It's March... and around here that means it is SUGARING TIME!!! We are in the middle of perfect sugaring weather... freezing at night but a beautiful 45 or so during the day. We took our first trip to the Sugar Bush on Sunday and then we came home (actually went to Gammy's) and made our own Maple Sugar Candy (click here to check out this yummy treat).

Mmmm... there is nothing quite like the smell of a sugar shack. Sweet sap boiling, firewood smoldering, fresh earth exposed (ie lovely March mud). Bug would spend all day peering into the sap pans if he could.

Did you know that it takes about 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup? You can collect 6-10 gallons of sap per Sugar Maple tree during sugaring season. To learn more about sugaring check out these great books Grandpa's Sugar Bush and Sugaring Time. Grandpa's Sugar Bush is a lovely introduction for the younger crowd and reading Sugaring Time is the next best thing to being able to help out at a Sugar Shack.

The Farm we visit sets up a Native American Sugaring Camp display for the kids... the kids favorite part... squishing through the six inch deep mud. ;)

Next up from the Wee Folk Activities Archives is our Paper Mache Dinosaur Eggs. This time of year everyone is thinking about cute Easter egg projects and you can easily adapt this project to have an Easter flair if you would like. I had comments from readers the last time around that suggested tucking small prizes into their eggs for a fun treat. You can of course do this with smaller balloons too... if you aren't going for a Dino Egg.

Paper Mache Dino Eggs (part one) was originally published Feb 2009.
 

The kids decided that they wanted to make a dinosaur nest after reading one of the Magic Schoolbus books where Frizzle's class went looking for Maiasaurus eggs. So it was time to make some paper mache dino eggs.

My mom did this project in her preschool whenever she ran a dino unit. It can be quite messy... of course three kids at the dining room table is nothing compared to the year when I helped in her classroom with 24 students. Yikes! Preschoolers can easily do this project... though in my experience only about 1 in 4 will stick with it long enough to completely cover their egg.

I'll give you one guess which one of my kiddos completed hers and helped me finish her siblings... Pixie girl of course. You can't tell me that 2 year olds don't have amazing attention spans.

You need one balloon per egg, a bowl to set the balloon in, newspaper shredded into long stripes (my kids loved that part) and a basic mixture of paper mache goo (I used approximately 1 part flour to 1 1/2 parts water mix).

Be sure to cover the entire balloon with paper mache, leaving just the knot exposed. (You might want to cover your table first - ours is a second hand table that we plan to refinish at some point in the future so I generally skip that step). Using a bright colored balloon can help you see any gaps. Try not to make it too thick or it will take forever to dry but you do want solid coverage or the egg will collapse when you pop the balloon.

Once the eggs have dried hard (btw - flip them over in the bowl occastionally so all the sides get air) we will paint them... I will post more when we get to that part.

Some of you may have noticed that I have closed down my homeschooling blog Wee Folk Activities. It is just too hard to keep up with it all. But I want to make sure the most popular crafts and activities from that site were still available so I will be importing them here over the next several weeks. And of course, as we do more crafts I will continue to share our Kid Crafts here.

First up... several activities from our Dinosaur unit we did last winter. Here is our mighty Boxasaurus originally published Jan 2009.

Bug is totally getting into the whole "My Project" thing. We have recently moved into the world of dinosaurs and prehistoric animals. While pouring over some prehistoric ZooBook Magazines my mom lent him... Bug came up to me with a activity guide (which I didn't know was in the set) saying "this is what I'M doing next for my project." He wanted to make a Boxasaurus. Sure, sounds like fun!

We spent several days collecting boxes of various sizes. We raided the garage, basement, recycling bin, etc. Once we had a decent collection it was time to start designing the dinosaur. Bug spent some time just stacking and sorting until he decided to make a T-Rex (not surprising).

I helped him assemble the boxes. He did the glue and I taped the pieces in place to help hold them until the glue set. At this point his Boxasaurus project serendipitously tied in with this week's Unplugged Challenge theme Balance. The T-Rex was very front heavy and had to lean against the wall until we got the tail in place. What a great lesson in balance and a perfect hands on lesson as to one of the reasons why many animals have tails! He wanted a longer tail on his Boxasuarus but that in turn made him back heavy. In the end we found the perfect balance of tail length to support the head and arms.

Next came the whole family production (and I do mean PRODUCTION) of painting the Boxasaurus. Since painting outside was out of the question (neg 10 not factoring wind chill), we cleared the furniture from the kitchen, set down some plastic bags (lol) and set up shop to paint. Good fun was had by all. AND Thank goodness it was a weekend and Daddy was home to carry the kids directly up to the tub while I cleaned up. The floor was a showcase that would have done Pollock proud. Fortunately Bamaboo cleans up so well!

Once dry, eyes, teeth and glitter (hehe, a well dressed Boxasaurus) were added.

This is a recycled post from Wee Folk Activities, first published October 2008. We have made this recipe for Bath Tub Paints several times now... with some modifications (namely I've added more cornstarch over time). The recipe shared below reflects those changes.

I googled bath tub paints and ended up combining a few directions to accommodate what we had in the house. No shaving cream and I wasn't about to use up our California Baby shampoo (although if we do this again in the future I will definitely use a tear-free clear shampoo instead of the dish soap - we got some bubbles in the eyes!).

Ingredients:

1 cup mild clear dish washing soap or baby shampoo

8 TBSP cornstarch

food coloring

Directions:

Mix slowly mix in corn starch to dish washing soap until you get the right finger paint texture. It should be thick enough to not be drippy. Divide into separate containers (you can use ice cub tray for small amounts of lots of colors). Add food coloring to get desired colors.

Before we cleaned up we took some prints of the kids work. I think the tile pattern looks pretty cool. The food coloring cleaned up with no problems... my grout looks better than before. We used some store bought bath crayons before and they left color in the grout. Please note: This does produce a lot of bubbles when you start cleaning it up.

I posted about the bath tub paints again in May 2009. I made a batch of the Paints and we used it outside. It was a great way to clean up our patio furniture in the spring. When the kids were done painting, I sprayed down everything with the power spray setting on our hose.

Funny excerpt from that post: All was well until Pixie decided to clean the dog when I had my back turned. LOL! I ended up with a half sudsy, half muddy, annoyed schnauzer. But other than that it was a great way to make a mundane chore a lot of fun.

Here is a fun and fast little Valentine project to do with the kids... Tissue Paper Stained Glass Hearts. They are fun to make and will brighten up your window even on a gloomy winter day.

An added bonus, they can help stop kamikaze birds from flying into your window when they get spooked at the feeder. You can of course make these in different shapes throughout the year. Have fun!

The kids created these beautiful Angels Rejoicing Paintings this week. I got the basic idea for the watercolor technique from Gail at ThatArtistWoman (I love her blog for kid art ideas) and from that I developed our own unique holiday related theme project. This project took us two days and incorporated several of my kids favorite things... painting and glitter!

Check out the Watercolor Angel Painting Directions here or in our Kids Crafts database.

Last year the kids and I made these Felt and Stuffed Star Ornaments for the little tree in our family room. What I loved about this project is that each generation took a different approach to the same theme. The kids had a blast decorating their felt stars with glitter glue and sequins. I went with a more folksy Christmas in a Cabin look with my red ticking fabric. Then Gammy took the same idea and made her amazingly embroidered Trailing Vine Star.

Click here or in the Kid Crafts for the kids' and my Stuffed Star Ornament directions. Click here for Kimara's Trailing Vine Star Pattern or look for it in the Free Patterns.

I've been working on my Christmas cards this past week. I still have a handful to make but these are fun and easy and I'm hoping to be done this evening. These are the cards we will be giving to our friends and teachers. For this project I converted my mother's Christmas tree applique block into a fabric print that I ordered from Spoonflower. I plan to make some gift bags with the fabric as well. I sized the tree to fit perfectly on a quarter sheet of paper... but you can use any fun holiday fabric for this project. Check out the directions here or in our Free Patterns section.

In an effort to pull all of our crafty endeavors together, I will be importing older posts from my homeschooling site that feature the crafts the kids and I have completed together. I have also added a Kid Crafts category listing on our Top Bar to help our readers find some of the fun projects that the younger crafters can complete. (That database is under construction... keep checking it... I will be adding listings over the next few weeks.)

One of the things my kids really enjoy making are these fuzzy wool cookie cutter ornaments. We made this set last December and will undoubtedly be making more sometime in the next couple weeks. This is a great project for kids of all ages. Check out the directions for these Cookie Cutter Wet Felted Wool Ornaments here and in our Kid Crafts Database.