Feelin' Crafty: Kid-made chocolate stirring spoons

We made these as a fun treat for Thanksgiving morning coffee (gotta start that lonngg day of cooking with coffee, right??), but they'd also be super-cute as a Christmas treat or even a Christmas gift!  

These are super-simple to make, and my kids had SO much fun.

You'll need a few things before you start.
- chocolate chips (this is kind of up to your taste.  we like dark chocolate in our coffee, so I used semi-sweet.  If you're more of a "pour on the sweet" type of coffee drinker, then probably milk chocolate would work better for you.)
- plastic spoons (just a note, you will be putting these into hot melted chocolate.  I always recommend a good brand of plastic spoons so they don't melt)
- clear plastic wrap (to wrap up the spoons)
- ribbon (I forgot to buy Thanksgiving ribbon, so I used leftover Christmas ribbon from last year.  Thus, the weird green-and-gold combination)

- decoration, as wanted (I forgot to buy this, too, so we used leftover sprinkles.  I will say that my coffee-purist husband won't use the chocolate spoons with any decor on them - the semisweet chocolate is as far as he's willing to go)

First step is to melt the chocolate.  True confessions, we don't own a microwave.  We used to... but we never really used it.  Plus, I hate to clean it.  AND, our tiny crackerjack box house has a tiny kitchen, with no room for a microwave.  So, I melt chocolate in a glass bowl over a metal pot of boiling water - think a DIY double boiler.  A microwave would also work.

Let the chocolate cool just a TINY bit, then stir it and pour it into a bowl.

Dip the first spoon into the chocolate... and kinda try to get as much on the "right" side of the spoon as you can.  The back of the spoon should be wiped as clean as possible, because that's the side that will lay on the plastic wrap.

Then drop your decorations onto the still-hot chocolate.

Then place the chocolate onto a small square of plastic wrap and let it sit.  When the chocolate has cooled and hardened, pull the plastic wrap around the spoon and tie it together with a pretty ribbon.

Store in the fridge up to a week before use. 

Keeping Bigger Bit Busy: Tot School Thanksgiving Take-Along Bag

Here's Bigger Bit's Thanksgiving Take-Along bag!

Dover Little First Thanksgiving Sticker Activity Book.

 Bead Stringing.  The cord is just taped to a piece of cardstock to hold it in place.

Color matching with beads and pieces of construction paper.

 One-to-one correspondence.  9 squares of white paper and 9 rocks, one rock for each square.

 Rock color matching game.

Thanksgiving "take along" activity bags!

I spent the better part of last night working on Thanksgiving "take along" activity bags for the kids.  These are tiny bags that are filled with a few activities that are mostly self-directed.  The kids will be able to do these on Thanksgiving while waiting for dinner!

Here are the Thanksgiving "take along" bags I made for The Princess and Bub.  (I'll put Bigger Bit's in a separate post, since she's younger and it has more tot-appropriate activities!)

Dover Little First Thanksgiving Sticker Book.

Bead stringing patter activity.  The beads and string came from the dollar store, and I used cardstock and construction paper to make a pattern, then taped the string to the pattern card so it wouldn't get lost.

Sorting beads by color-words.

Numerals and rock counters (#s1-10).

Matching colors of rocks.  

Thanksgiving Printable Fun Set

I'm so excited to share this with you all!  With Thanksgiving this week, I'm certainly ready for a little break and some fun with my kids, and this printable fun set is going to be a great place to start! This is a 21 page printable set that contains tons of games, crafts, and activities for toddlers and preschoolers.

For our family, having some fun games and activities on-hand during "breaks" is a good way to keep my kids busy, active, and engaged.  I generally prep these activities the beginning of the week (I'll be doing that today), and keep them on-hand to pull out when they are getting a bit tired, or when I need a few minutes to do some holiday baking!

Like always, to skip the breakdown and go right to the download, just scroll to the very bottom.

Cutting strips (page 2). 

Dominos (pages 3-4).

Cut the pictures and create a collage (pages 5-6).

                                        

Make a Pilgrim's Hat (page 7).

                                       

Cut and decorate a leaf and feather (pages 10-11).

Go-Fish Cards (pages 12-15).

Memory (page 16).

Build-a-turkey (page 17).

Roll-a-Dice dominos (pages 18-20).

Leaf Coloring (page 21). 

Push-pin leaf (page 22).

Thanksgiving Fun Set

Linking up to:
Thanksgiving Traditions

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Feelin' Crafty: Kid-Made Thanksgiving Turkey Namecards

Check out the cute turkey namecards my kids made for Thanksgiving!

Here's what we started with: "tubes" (I made mine from rolled and glued cardstock.  Toilet paper rolls or cut paper towel rolls would work REALLY well, I just never remember to save mine!), feathers (freehanded from construction paper), noses, eyes, and turkey bodies (I freehanded them.. it's loosely a peanut shape, with an exaggerated roundness on bottom.)

The Princess generously agreed to demonstrate how she made daddy's turkey.  :-)  She wrote the letters for "daddy" on the feathers.

She used a gluestick to glue to eyes, the red "gobbler" and the nose into place.

This turkey was having trouble standing up, and it was frustrating her, so she glued a strip of cardstock to the back.

She glued the feathers to the back of the turkey, making sure to place them in the right order to spell the name correctly.

Once the feathers are kind of dry (doesn't take long with glue stick), glue the turkey to the tube.  Make sure it stands up, and you're good to go!

Linking up to:

Thanksgiving Traditions

Leaf sorting Activity

Today we played a leaf-sorting activity.  I cut multiple colors of four different types of leaves (beech, oak, maple, and sassafras), then pasted one of each type onto a piece of 12x12 cardstock (to make the base for sorting).  The rest of the leaves were left out for the kids to divide according to the type of leaf. 

 Princess working on her leaf sorting.  She was pretty amused by this activity, then afterwards enjoyed finding the different types of leaves we'd looked at on the trees around us.

 Bigger Bit was too young to figure out the sorting by type, so I asked her to sort the leaves by color, and ignore the type of leaf.  She enjoyed this a lot.

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She finished, and got them all right.  She got pretty distracted about 3/4 of the way through, so the next time we did this I took away some of the leaves.  

Here's a quick Scribd PDF of the types of leaves I used.  Feel free to cut the leaves out and use them as a pattern to make your own leaf matching game.  I bet that leaf patterns would also be a fun activity this time of year!

Leaf Template

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