Category: 3-Year-Old

Mini-Muffin Pancake Bites

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You may have heard of the cronut or cruffin, and now you can thank High Five magazine for inventing your next favorite hybrid breakfast food – Muffin Pancakes! Puffins? Mufcakes? Whatever you call them, kids will love helping bake up a batch of these for breakfast!

Start with your favorite pancake mix, and add the wet ingredients as directed. We love Annie’s vegan pancake mix. Stir in about 2 cups mixed berries. We used frozen ones, but next time I would use fresh, since the frozen tinted our batter blue. Small berries (blueberries, raspberries), will work larger than big ones like strawberries.

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Divide the batter evenly among 24 mini muffin cups. Bake at 350 degrees F for 15 minutes. Let cool about 10 minutes before removing form the pan

Add a bowl of syrup on the side for dipping!

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Planter Friend

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Veronika has been so excited for spring because it means gardening! “We get to water the flowers!” she keeps telling me. Finally we’re getting around to some flowers for our patio, and Veronika helped create her own planter “friend”.

To start, rip a colored napkin into small pieces (which is great for fine-motor skills), and use mod podge to adhere around the bottom of a clean and empty soda bottle. Let dry.

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Your child can use felt, construction paper, and wiggle eyes to make any animal friend they want. Veronika chose an elephant, so I cut a trunk, eyes, and ear shapes from construction paper.

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We had purchased a small plant at the market and Veronika very carefully helped transfer dirt and the plant into her new planter.

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Be sure to add water! This is a great and easy intro to gardening for preschoolers.

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Butterfly Pasta

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Butterfly-shaped pasta is perfect for springtime, and this recipe is simple enough for even a preschooler to help. It’s a great activity for talking about all the verbs that go into a recipe, too.

Scoop peas into a bowl of cooked pasta.

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Spoon in pesto.

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Mix it all together.

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Sprinkle with your favorite non-dairy cheese!

Thanks to Veronika’s latest High Five magazine for this interactive cooking lesson!

Recycled Bird Feeder

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With Earth Day coming up, it’s a great time to remind kids about the importance of recycling. Hands-on lessons always help drive a point home, as with this recycled bird feeder. So don’t toss that empty orange juice carton the next time your family finishes it up!

Starting with a cleaned and dried carton, cut a small doorway in the front (grown-up step).

Veronika helped cover the carton with duct tape. Any color will do, but she loved that we had a mix of green and orange for beautiful pops of color.

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Add stickers if desired!

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We then hot glued a clothespin to the bottom of the feeder as a perch (a jumbo craft stick would work, too).

Finally, tape a string to the top of the carton and hang from a branch. Veronika proudly poured in our first cup of bird seed! Make sure to check what birds are in your area, and buy the appropriate kind of food. We can’t wait to watch for feathered visitors from our window!

Valentine Plane

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This cute Valentine craft gives a whole new meaning to a message in a bottle! Your preschooler can help design the plane, then slip a sweet Valentine inside.

To start, we wrapped an empty water bottle in pink construction paper. Add oval shapes for wings cut from additional construction paper, either in red or pink.

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Next, I cut a propeller shape from craft foam, and Veronika helped tape this on to the bottle cap. You can use dot stickers for windows, or draw on with marker. Let your child scribble on other marker decorations if desired for their Valentine airline!

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Finally, we wrote out a sweet message for big brother Travis, then rolled it up and popped it inside.

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Veronika loved flying her plane around. Special delivery!

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Cucumber Boats

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Sleet and winter weather have us dreaming of tropical islands these days! One fun way to bring summer into a winter home is to play with your food, so we loved this recipe from Veronika’s latest High Five magazine.

In a bowl, combine your favorite fish-less tuna with sweet relish, chopped carrots, and vegan mayo to taste.

Hollow out cucumber halves, and then fill each “boat” with some of the tuna mixture. We added a carrot sail on a toothpick as the finishing touch!

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Note: If your kids aren’t fans of fish-less tuna, use mashed chickpeas instead.

Breakfast on a Stick

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It’s a truism that food on a stick just tastes better, right? This fun tweak on weekend brunch is perfect for little kids; even preschoolers can help assemble the items onto the skewers, once you’ve prepared all the different foods. If you’re worried about little ones pricking their fingers, considering using straws instead of kebab sticks.

Our breakfast stick included:

Berries

Mini waffles

Vegan breakfast sausage

Just Egg

Sweet potato tots

Drizzle with maple syrup as the finishing touch.

Winter Flower Garden

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Snow is always a bit less fun after that initial fluffy white turns to muck and slush outside. Here’s one beautiful way to bring the snow play indoors and prolong the fun!

The first step is to scoop some relatively fresh snow onto a tray and bring it inside. Next, simply set out the snow along with mini flower pots and a few flowers. (Note: You can use fake ones or real but we chose the latter to add a hint of future spring to a frigid day!).

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The kids loved filling the little pots and making pretty arrangements.

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There’s the added tactile element of playing with cold snow in a cozy indoor room.

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In fact, the kids thought the little flower pots were so cute that they continued playing with flowers and pots long after our indoor snow had melted!

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Celebration Sponge Cake

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A sleety winter day had us craving a colorful celebration inside, so Veronika threw a birthday party for her stuffed animals!

To make a cake worthy of this celebration, we started with kitchen sponges. I cut them into triangles that could be stacked into a “layer cake”. Our cake was two layers high, but you can make yours three or four layers tall for a big splash!

For frosting, we colored pieces of paper and glued on top; triangles cut from colorful craft foam would work great, too. Small pieces of sponge were perfect for sprinkles on top, and Veronika was so proud to squeeze out the glue all by herself and press these down.

For a rim of frosting, I suggested we add cotton balls, but Veronika declared these too fluffy. Our candles were snipped pieces of straw with a little bit of yellow sponge sticking out from the top for the flame. I think her turtle loved his cake!

She kept so busy with this even after I stepped aside, gluing down small pieces of sponge continuing the fiesta. Thanks to her latest issue of High Five magazine for this neat idea!

Snow Fun for Little Kids

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As a big kid, Travis loves big drifts of snow (more on that later!), but all that powdery white stuff can be a bit intimidating for little sister Veronika. Here are a few fun ways we played off our patio when we got the first storm of the season!

First, carve out a maze. Use a wide shovel to make paths through the snow, bonus points if they connect in multiple ways…

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…or go up a hill! This allowed Veronika to safely tramp around without being up to her knees in the stuff!

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Next, we made a snowman with a twist. Pile a little snowman together, then use the accessories from a Mr. Potato Head to add features.

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She loved the cuteness of this, and how easily she could poke the eyes and other items into the snow.

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Next up, it was time for some sneaky snow science. Make a big mound of snow, then hollow out a crater in the center. We dumped in baking soda (nearly a full box), followed by a few drops of red food coloring.

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When the kids are ready, add white vinegar and watch it explode.

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Travis also loved filling in the crater of the volcano, after!

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As for those big kids, the bigger the hill the better! We got a head start thanks to the neighborhood snowplow, then piled on extra snow so Travis could be king of the mountain!

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