Chick’n Enchiladas

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Chicken Enchiladas (3)

Enchiladas are a great family meal, but versions made with store-bought enchilada sauce can be too spicy for kids. Swap in mushroom gravy for the enchilada sauce and you’ll hear cries of “yum” instead of cries of pain.

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Ingredients:

  • 1 tablespoon Earth Balance butter
  • 1/4 cup sliced green onions
  • 1 teaspoon minced garlic
  • 1 (8-ounce) box mushroom gravy
  • 1 cup vegan sour cream (such as Kite Hill)
  • 2 cups cooked and chopped Gardein chick’n strips
  • 2 chopped tomatoes
  • 1 cup black beans
  • 2 cups shredded vegan cheddar, divided
  • 6 whole-wheat tortillas
  1. To prepare the sauce, melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the green onion and garlic; cook for about 4 minutes, until softened.
  2. Stir in the gravy and sour cream, whisking to combine. Cook for a few minutes until heated through.
  3. Remove 3/4 cup gravy mixture from the pan and set aside. Add the cooked chick’n, tomatoes, black beans, and 1 cup cheddar to the remaining gravy mixture.
  4. Divide the chick’n mixture evenly among the 6 tortillas. Roll up and place, seam side down, in a 9×13-inch baking pan.
  5. Pour the reserved gravy mixture over the top and sprinkle with the remaining 1 cup cheddar. Bake at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes, until the cheese is melted.

Styrofoam Ornaments

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Styrofoam Ornaments (8)

Here’s a way to upcycle those Styrofoam trays that come home from the produce department now and then (I’m looking at you, mini cucumbers) and use them in a holiday craft. Today, Veronika and I turned them into ornaments!

Once the tray had been washed and dried, we pulled out a few Christmas cookie cutters and traced around them, then cut out. Veronika loved talking about all the shapes.

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Now use the tip of a white crayon to make imprinted designs in the Styrofoam. I showed Veronika an example of lines and dots on a stocking shape. Since it was hard for her to press down the crayon hard enough or with precision, I took directions from her instead. She asked for circles on the candy cane and triangles on the star!

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Next, we painted the shapes with acrylic paint. She was so excited when she noticed that the paint had made lines on her paintbrush, at one point.

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Finally, it was time to squirt on glitter glue. Aim to use a corresponding color of glitter for each color of paint you’ve used (although with a toddler, be prepared for some mixing and matching). Ideally, once you brush the glitter glue across the surface of the shapes with a paintbrush, it will sink into the etched lines you made with the white crayon.

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However, since I was doing this project with a toddler, ours didn’t come out quite that neatly. But Veronika loved simply squirting big globs of glitter glue, which was just fine.

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Punch a hole in the top once dry, thread with string, and hang from the tree!

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Cinnamon Drawings

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Cinnamon Drawings (8)

If there’s one scent that evokes Christmas in our home, than cinnamon is it. Here’s a fantastic sensory project that allows toddlers to take in one of the best smells of the season while making art!

To start, I cut out two simple Christmas-themed shapes from sandpaper. I had a coarse grade in green and a medium grade in brown, so it worked out nicely to draw a Christmas tree on the green and a simple gingerbread man on the brown.

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Cut out your shapes and give to your toddler along with a few whole cinnamon sticks. Of course the first thing to do is take a nice big smell. “I smell with my nose!” Veronika is learning to say of her sense of smell.

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Then I showed her that if she rubbed the cinnamon against the rough sandpaper, it left behind a trail of scented brown cinnamon.

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Of course we had to smell the artwork again once it was covered!

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Veronika loved both the shapes and the smell, but she was also very interested in transferring the cinnamon sticks in and out of their jar for a while. That meant this turned into a fine motor skills activity, too!

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When the sandpaper was covered, I drew on a few final features with marker, then punched a hole and threaded ribbon through each so they could hang on our tree.

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Felt Ornaments, 3 Ways

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Felt Lollipop (2)

Fancy store-bought ornaments are beautiful, but my favorite ones from over the years have been the homemade ones. All you need for these three options are sheets of felt from the craft store and a little glue!

Felt Lollipops:

For the first version, stack 4 colors of felt together and cut into 3/4-inch wide strips. Glue the layers together at one end with tacky glue, then begin rolling up, adding dots of glue periodically. The mechanics of this were a bit tricky for Travis, but he started to get the hang of it!

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Glue the loose ends of each felt color down, then wrap with a rubber band to hold everything in place as the glue dries.

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Once dry, glue a loop of string onto the back, along with a lollipop stick. I found that hot glue was better for this step than tacky glue. These looked delicious hanging from the tree!

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Felt Garland:

For the garland, cut many two-inch pieces of felt and begin using hot glue to attach them in two long strands. We made one that was all purple, and one that alternated light and dark green. The purple felt was cut thinner, and in retrospect I would have done the green strip just as thin.

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Place a heavy book on one end of the two stands, then begin winding them together, securing with a clothespin at intervals.

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Once it looks the way you want, use hot glue at the ends and everywhere else you had a clothespin. String around the tree as a garland!

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Felt Ribbon Candy:

For the final version, we cut three colors of felt into 1-inch wide strips. Glue them together with tacky glue, then start folding the strand over itself, accordion-style, adding a drop of glue after each fold. Add a rubber band to hold it together until the glue dries.

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Now just add a string with one more drop of glue, and it’s ready to hang on the tree!

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Which one do your kids enjoy making the most? Please share in the comments!

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Gingerbread People

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Gingerbread People (13)

Gingerbread cookies are the perfect baking project with a toddler. There’s messy dough to mix up, wonderful spices to smell, adorably-shaped cookie cutters, and little people to decorate. In sum, Veronika had lots of floury, sticky, sensory fun with this one!

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To start, we needed to make the dough. She loved smelling each spice before we added it into the dry ingredients!

Ingredients:

  • 1 tablespoon flaxseed
  • 3 tablespoons cold water
  • 1 cup shortening
  • 3/4 cup agave nectar
  • 1 cup molasses
  • 1 and 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon ground cloves
  • 5 cups flour
  1. In a small bowl, whisk together the flaxseed and water; let stand for 5 minutes.
  2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the shortening, agave, molasses, and flaxseed mixture; beat until combined.
  3. Combine the baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and flour in a large bowl. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir until combined. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill for at least 1 hour.

Veronika loved watching the dough mix up in our stand mixer!

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And as you can see, she also loved taste-testing right from the bowl!

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She marveled at how sticky the dough was as we wrapped it in plastic to chill in the fridge.

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Once the dough had chilled, we rolled it out on a generously floured surface, then used gingerbread man cookie cutters to cut out our little people. I gave Veronika a plate filled with decorating goodies: raisins, almonds, licorice strips, and small jelly bean candies. It was up to her to decorate!

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She thought this was delightful! She loved giving the people eyes and a “skirt”.

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Since I knew her cookies risked getting broken or mashed, I worked alongside her to ensure we had enough people for a few real batches of cookies.

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Big brother Travis thought it looked so fun that he needed to join in the action!

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He was so proud of this very ornately-decorated fellow, with almond shoes and licorice shirt sleeves.

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Once the people have been fully adorned, bake at 375 degrees F for 10 minutes. And then comes the best part of all; it was time for a taste test!

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You might consider ending the day with a read of the classic Gingerbread Man tale.

No Mess Paper Plate Snowflakes

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No Mess Paper Plate Snowflakes (9)

Last week, Veronika painted snowflakes with q-tips, a great toddler method with very little mess. Today’s version meant even easier clean-up, since all the paint was inside a zip-top plastic bag!

To start, I cut out snowflakes from paper plates. I folded each plate in half, then in half again, and snipped out triangles, ovals, and heart shapes. Open back up to reveal the “snowflake” to your child.

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In retrospect, I would have scalloped the edges, too, for a prettier result. Veronika sure thought this was neat, though, and loved sitting beside me with her own pair of safety scissors!

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Place each plate in a large zip-top bag and add a little bit of silver and blue paint. You can also add a little glitter to each bag, but since we happened to have glitter paint, everything went in all at once! I sealed the bags and showed Veronika how to mush the paint around with her hands until the plate was painted.

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She was so surprised when she first reached down and realized she could touch the paint but not get messy. And then she just really enjoyed it! I helped a little to spread the paint to the edges of the plates.

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It took a little trial and error to figure out the right amount of paint to use. Too much and the plate was so saturated that it ripped upon removal from the bag. Too little and you won’t be able to spread the paint far enough. So my recommendation is to start with less than you think you need and work your way up.

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Next time, I would use a little white paint, too, since the blue dominated over the silver. Still, they turned out pretty!

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Let the plates dry completely, then hang the snowflakes around the house for a winter snowstorm.

Puppet Engineering Kiwi Crate

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Kiwi Puppets (4)

Puppets are the perfect STEAM-style blend of engineering (simple machines, gravity) and art (decoration), which means it was the perfect subject matter for Travis’s latest crate from Kiwi Co.

The crate featured two types of puppets, and first up was to Make a Marionette. Travis helped assemble the control bar by attaching two wooden sticks with a rubber band.

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The puppet’s body is a piece of cloth, and we threaded wood beads onto each corner through pipe cleaners. The pipe cleaners are then left at the top corners to become the strings for the arms. This was a wise choice on the part of Kiwi Crate, as there was no risk of strings tangling and frustrating your child! A final wooden bead and pipe cleaner go on for the head, and the pipe cleaners then loop onto the control bar.

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There are foam headpieces and stickers in the kit to make three different animals: a lion, a rabbit, and a bear. Travis chose the lion first. Roar!

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It was nice that these pieces are interchangeable so your little puppeteer can vary the plot of the story. Next up was Talking Puppets, which were completely different to put together. Travis first decorated two paper templates, the bird template with feather stickers and the crocodile template with scale stickers.

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We assembled the handles, which are made of three wooden frame pieces per puppet attached to a strip of paper with a brad. The middle piece slides up and down, allowing the puppet’s “mouth” to open and close. Travis added on his decorated bird and alligator bodies with the provided Velcro strips and then the puppets were ready to go!

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After all that, the puppets needed a stage, so it was time to make a quick Puppet Theater. Kiwi is great about suggesting ways to upcycle the crate itself, and that’s exactly what was going on here. Cut a rectangle from the lid of the crate (or a similarly-sized shoebox) with scissors. Poke the pointy end of a pencil into each side of the box and then tape the eraser end up into the top corners, so the box is now propped open.

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If your kids are feeling artsy, have them decorate the crate with markers or other craft supplies. I suggested we make a Puppet Theater marquee sign, but Travis skipped ahead into having the puppets put on a show.

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It was time for imagination to take over after all that scientific engineering!

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To finish the fun, Travis checked out this kit’s Explore booklet, including mazes, more about the science of how puppets move, and cultural facts about puppets from around the world.

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We also read Balloons over Broadway (all about the invention of the puppets in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade), and 10-Minute Puppets by Noel MacNeal.

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Winter Road

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Winter Road (1)

What do you do when the kids want to play in the snow but you only have a thin, icy layer that’s not great for making snowmen? Make a road, instead!

I did this the easiest way ever, not even a shovel required. Instead, I took a few old markers and drew the outline of a road directly onto the snow.

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Now all the kids had to do was drive along the track.

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We added a few cross streets and curves to our road, and even a little stop sign for an early lesson on road safety.

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I had mostly intended the track for Veronika, but it turned out that big brother Travis loved driving the cars, too.

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Construction vehicles were particularly fun, like our bulldozer and dump truck which could scoop up snow or be filled with it.

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The icy wind drove us indoors fairly quickly, but at least we got in a little creative snow play!

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Coloring the Snow with Droppers

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Coloring Snow with Droppers (11)

We have snow, but it’s not the soft fluffy kind you’d want to roll around in. This snow iced over pretty quickly in a thin layer on the ground. So it was the kind of snow to take inside!

I scooped some of the snow onto a tray, and set it out alongside pipettes and liquid watercolors (in the compartments of an ice cube tray). Because I only had 3 colors of liquid watercolor, I added food coloring to a few compartments, too.

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I showed Veronika how to dip a pipette in one of the colors, squeeze to fill it up, and then squeeze again to release the color over the snow.

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She loved watching the colors appear against the white snow. “It’s yellow!” she exclaimed with delight for her favorite color.

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It was hard for her to get the mechanics of filling and releasing the pipette, but that was totally fine since this is the first time I’ve introduced her to the tool.

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She was so proud of her work nonetheless and did a lot of simply stabbing at the snow, or dipping the tip of the pipette into the colors and brushing it over the snow like a paintbrush.

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We mixed colors, too, (although our mix of red and blue looked more black than purple), which was good for a quick art lesson. After she tired of that, we put small chunks of snow directly into the ice cube tray, which now only had a shallow layer of each color. The color would saturate the snow immediately, which was fun to watch.

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Veronika worked so seriously to move the snow pieces over to the ice cube tray with tongs; another tool to hone her fine motor skills!

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When your toddler tires of the play, clean up couldn’t be easier. Simply put your snow in the sink and let it melt!

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Make a Snowscape Window

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Snowscape Window (8)

We had a rain storm today, but the kids definitely wished it was snow instead. Luckily, I had a quick way we could turn at least one window into a snowy landscape.

I set out two paper plates, one filled with torn pieces of white tissue paper and the other with watered down Mod Podge. I showed Veronika how to dip a paintbrush in the Mod Podge mixture and then smear it all over the window of the playroom.

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She loved doing this, and was also thrilled that she got to stand on a chair while doing so. My big girl!

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As we covered the window in the Mod Podge, we then added pieces of tissue paper which will stick right on. I guided the placement of the tissue paper only slightly so it roughly formed a bell curve, mimicking the look of a snowdrift.

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If your kids have crafted any small Christmas trees from foam or felt this holiday season, you can tape these up to your snowy landscape. In a pinch, we added a few tree with washable green paint.

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The internet leads me to believe all of this will wash off easily once December is over, and my fingers are crossed!

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But in the meantime, Veronika’s artwork now makes the perfect backdrop for the rest of our Christmas decor.

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