Festive Spiced Play Dough

This play dough smells so good, I want to eat it!

Recipe:

• 1 cup of salt
• 1 cup of flour
• a couple of tablespoons of mixed spice
• 1 teaspoon of cream of tartar
• 1 cup of water.
• food colouring

Combine all the dry ingredients together and mix well.  Add the water . Drop the food colouring into the mixture until you have the desired shade you would like.

Then place over a low heat and KEEP STIRRING to produce a nice smooth dough.  An electric hand mixer is great for this part and saves your arm muscles!

When it's nice and thick, take off the heat and transfer onto a sheet of cling film or a plastic container.  When it has cooled enough to handle, knead it until smooth and then leave to cool completely.

Can be stored in an air tight container in the fridge for 1-2 weeks.


I set this out on the table for my little people with some christmas tree cutters of different sizes, some sequins, rollers, rolling pins, etc and allowed them to explore.

They enjoyed decorating the trees and developed their mathematics when talking about positional language and sizes.

Festive Sensory Basket

I had lots of left over decorations after putting our tree up at the weekend, so decided it would be a great sensory resource for the children to play with.  I also found a miniature Christmas tree so they could decorate their own too which kept them occupied for ages!

 

Christmas Party

We had a lovely end of year Christmas party.  Naomi and her nannying children came over to celebrate with us and we had lots of fun playing musical statues, dancing and had lots of yummy party food.  The children all looked so cute dressed up in their party clothes.  Here are some photos of our end of year party.  A great end to 2011!

Christmas Cranberry Spiced Muffins

Bake a batch of these Christmas muffins to get into the festive spirit!

Preparation Time

10 - 20 minutes

Cooking Time

20 minutes

Makes

12

• 140g dried cranberries 
• 300g  self raising flour
• 155g brown sugar
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 185ml buttermilk
• 125ml vegetable oil
• 1 egg, lightly whisked
• 1 tbsp brown sugar, extra

Method

1.    Preheat oven to 200°C. Line a muffin tin with paper cases.

2.    Place the cranberries in a heatproof bowl and cover with boiling water. Set aside for 10 minutes to soak. Drain well.

3.    Combine flour,* sugar, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and cranberries in a large bowl. Whisk buttermilk, oil and egg together in a jug. Add buttermilk mixture to flour mixture and stir until just combined (do not over mix). Spoon evenly among the lined pan. Sprinkle the extra sugar over the muffins.

4.    Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean when tested. Turn onto a wire rack. Serve warm.

*This recipe can also be made using 70g of pecans, however I used mixed fruit instead since I was baking with children (plus I don't like nuts!). Pecans are added with the flour.

Paper Mache Christmas Tree Decorations

I put in an order for lots of Christmas craft materials at Crafty Crocodiles last week and we made our first Christmas decoration today from some of the bits in the big box that arrived.

These little cardboard christmas trees are great for small children to decorate and because all of my little people are under 2, I did an assisted craft activity with them over 2 days.  First we painted the trees green.  Easy enough you might think?  Well yes I suppose it would be, however I had Amelia (my own daughter) around the table with us who, after 15 seconds, ended up looking like this while I was helping one of the other children with their painting... Lovely!

They didn't take long to finish, so I gave the children some paper and they did some paintings to take home too.

When the children returned today, the Christmas trees were dry and we continued to decorate them using some sparkly fuzzy balls and some foam stars (also from Crafty Crocodiles) and PVA glue.

The end result was these pretty trees ready for the children to hang on their Christmas trees at home.

New Gruffalo Trunki Items

Our Gruffalo theme ended last month, but I couldn't resist blogging about these fantastic new Gruffalo products that Trunki have just released.

To tie in with the first Gruffalo film back in 2009 Trunki launched the Gruffalo Trunki.  Two years on to celebrate the launch of the Gruffalo’s Child film they have released a new set of travel chums featuring the Gruffalo’s Child herself, and little old mouse! The wash bag and purse set are sold together at £14.99 while the Gruffalo Trunki is £39.99.  These would be ideal Christmas gifts for little Gruffalo fans!

Also, these family planners are fantastic!  I have been using one for the past year and I love the special event stickers that comes with it.  I will definately be buying one for next year!