Category: 6-Year-Old

Puppet Engineering Kiwi Crate

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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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National Sock Day

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December 4 is National Sock Day, celebrating the glory that is a pair of matching socks. Today was not about lost socks from the dryer, or old socks turned into crafts, but all about a lasting matched pair.

We love celebrating silly holidays like this, so of course I treated everyone to a new pair today! I got Christmas bows, Veronika got little elephants, and Travis received Darth Vader.

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The kids immediately wanted to race around the house in their slippery new socks.

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Just in time, Travis’s Highlights magazine had a sock-matching puzzle to find 8 matching pairs. In a pinch, you can have fun with the real thing; do a load of laundry and have your happy helpers match up all the socks!

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Then finish your celebration by dining on a famous pair: Peas and carrots? Peanut butter and jelly? Here’s to perfect pairs!

Insta-Graham Houses

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You can always make gingerbread from scratch, but if your kids want to decorate gingerbread houses in a hurry, look no further than graham crackers! We love the vegan s’moreables from Kinnikinnick; armed with those plus store-bought vegan frosting plus empty cartons of non-dairy creamer, we were ready to go.

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We first smeared some of the frosting over the sides of the cleaned and empty cartons. Press on graham crackers to each side of the carton. The fit wasn’t perfect, but we weren’t going for Instagram perfection here!

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Now use additional frosting as “glue” to add candy details. We used candies from Yum Earth, as well as mini candy canes and Dandies mini marshmallows.

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Travis loved making window frames…

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…and was particular proud of the marshmallow door he created with a front path made of jelly beans.

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For snow, we added extra frosting on the top of the carton, then sprinkled down shredded coconut. A blizzard!

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Little sister Veronika got a turn to decorate, too! She loved alternating between taking bites of candy and sticking one onto the carton where I had applied frosting.

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There’s lots more you can do here, depending how crafty the family is feeling! Make trees from upside down ice cream cones coated in frosting and green sprinkles, or add tile roofs, or turn yours into log cabins with the aid of pretzel sticks. I confess, though, we skipped all that.

There are magical families who make their gingerbread houses last as beautiful decorations throughout the holiday season. Needless to say, we are not that magical family; within moments the house was part of Travis’s Star Wars Lego battle.

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But I had happy smiling kids, and that’s the most Insta-graham-able thing of all!

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Ice Skating Rink

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This special holiday crate from Kiwi Co. is a fantastic way to fit in a STEM activity this holiday season, whether you’re currently home-schooling, or school has gone remote once more, or you just have extra hours to fill indoors now that cold afternoons are here!

To start, Travis screwed the provided table leg pegs into bolts so that the wooden base of the skating rink stands sturdily just above the ground.

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That quickly, it was time for wires and batteries… The good stuff! Travis loved helping insert batteries into the provided case and attaching to the bottom of the table base with sticky foam. The provided motor sticks on next, and he then helped connect the wires: red to red and black to black.

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Turn the table over and add the center gear on the peg above the motor. Additional gears then slot in between this central one and the outer frame.

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The hardest part of the whole project, oddly, was the background decorations that came next. The provided snowy backdrop and trees are supposed to fit into slits in the felt, but it’s very hard to get them to stay put. This is a minor quibble, since the decor is cute but not necessary for the rink to work.

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So we moved on to the real excitement! The “skaters” are tiny felt figures (gingerbread men, penguins, and snowmen) who each slot into a metal nut. These are placed on the plastic that covers the gears, which each have magnets. So once kids switch the motor on, the gears begin to spin and the magnets on the gears are attracted to the metal of the the nuts, making those little felt figures skate around.

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Truth be told, the contraption is very temperamental and the felt figures easily snap out of their metal nut. Likewise, the magnets come off of the gears very easily, so we had to do lots of fixing and problem solving in between rounds of having the motor on. But here’s an adorable clip of the rink in motion!

I loved the way Travis quickly learned to troubleshoot these glitches. He had his head bent over the skating rink along with little sister Veronika, both of them delighting as they watched the figures snap onto the magnets to skate, then laughing at how quickly everything tumbled apart, then fixing it and starting all over.

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In sum, a great STEM project. Plus, the booklet had in-depth explanations about why ice is slippery and about precisely how the gears and magnets work to make the contraption move.

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Gobble It Up: Thanksgiving Leftovers on a Waffle

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Forget Thanksgiving leftovers on a sandwich; here are four breakfast ideas for leftovers on a waffle. Needless to say, this helped us clear out our fridge in the long weekend following the holiday.

The Classic: Start with the basics, using leftover Field Roast (or your favorite vegan turkey alternative), along with mashed potatoes and mushroom gravy. The kids loved this savory spin on breakfast!

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Tart and Tasty: In a small bowl, combine 1/3 cup cranberry sauce and 1/4 cup maple syrup; microwave for 15 seconds, then whisk together until smooth. Serve drizzled over waffles topped with stuffing and chopped apple!

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Pumpkin Paradise: For a super-sweet version, stir together 1 tablespoon sugar and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon in a bowl; set aside. Top each waffle with a spoonful of canned pumpkin pie filling, a dollop of non-dairy whipped cream and some of the cinnamon-sugar to taste.

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Gooey Gobbler: For the final morning, we topped waffles with leftover mashed sweet potatoes, mini marshmallows, and chopped walnuts.

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Which one do your kids like best? Please share in the comments!

Snowman and Santa Wobblers

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These cute holiday items from Kiwi Co. come together quickly, but make adorable stuffies that wobble back and forth thanks to a weight inside. You can opt for just a snowman, just a Santa, or both!

Either way, start the craft by adhering a metal weight into the bottom of a plastic base with a sticky foam dot. Take care in this step that the weight doesn’t fall on any toes; it’s heavy! Insert the base and weight into the provided sock.

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Stuff the socks with the provided cotton fluff. Travis loved how soft this material was!

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We secured the top of each sock with a thin elastic band, then pushed a second, thicker elastic about 1/3 of the way down each. This divides the wobbly toys into a head and body.

Now decorate! There were stickers for the snowman’s face, as well as stick-on buttons and arms, and a strip of red fabric to tie on for a scarf.

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Meanwhile, Santa gets a beard that slips over the head and a little red shirt that slides on from the bottom. Stickers for facial features, belt, and hands complete the look.

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Travis loved that these toys were meant to be played with, unlike some of our Christmas decor that is just display.

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The wobblers even curled up to watch a Christmas movie with him, and Santa pretty much comes everywhere with us now. That’s what I’d call Christmas magic!

Gourmet Food Lessons

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Raddish Kids‘ lesson plan to go with the Gourmet Gobble recipes was all about introducing gourmet food, using Julia Child’s life and cooking show as a guiding theme. Much of the activities were too advanced for Travis as a first grader, but we had fun with the following:

We started with a very basic overview of who Julia Child was. Check out Bon Appetit: The Delicious Life of Julia Child from your library, which makes her life accessible in cartoon format.

We moved on to some of her video clips from The French Chef; kids might like silly ones where she burns sauce or drops a bowl! It’s nice to show the lack of perfection.

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Next Travis watched a read-aloud of Minette’s Feast, which is a good way to contrast fiction and non-fiction since this one fictionalizes Julia’s life.

As we read the books, Travis kept a tally of which foods he has eaten, for a little math work. Older kids can fill in a whole sheet on “Julia Child By the Numbers” (provided by Raddish).

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Other extensions for older kids include polling friends on which Julia Child recipes they’ve tasted; estimating how many foods Julia wrote about in her lifetime; or finding a foodie pen pal to write to.

Travis and I moved on to discussing what makes a food qualify as gourmet. Raddish had lots of links, including how foods have been renamed to improve their marketing, or how Thanksgiving dishes have altered over the eras.

So we tried to come up with new branding for Travis’s favorite Thanksgiving food (canned cranberry sauce!) to make it a best seller. What if it was called… Cranberry Candy?

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Now it was time for the grand finale: let your kid star in his or her own cooking show segment! For his starring moment, I wanted Travis to prepare a recipe he could tackle himself from start to finish. So, we chose… toast!

He was so proud to use the toaster.

We waited two minutes.

And of course, we needed the final taste test.

My proud chef!

Six Thanksgiving Games

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We’re celebrating Thanksgiving without extended family this year, and no doubt your family is, too. But don’t think little… Think big! To make the holiday special for the kids, I still wanted a big feast, special recipes, the parade on TV, and lots of silly or thought-provoking games. While recipes simmer in the kitchen, treat your kids to the following:

Turkey Feather Float:

For this first game, we took turns blowing a craft feather up in the air. The player than shouts out a Thanksgiving food (Sweet potatoes! Cornbread!) and then gives another huff to keep the feather afloat.

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It’s a lot trickier than it sounds!

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Kernel Counting:

Candy corn isn’t vegan, but we had some in the house for non-vegan family and it was the perfect seasonal candy for this activity. Give each player a bowl or plate filled with candy corn as well as an empty plate and a plastic spoon.

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Set the timer and see who can transfer the most kernels in one minute. Bonus parent move: you’re sneaking in some math, too! If you have big kids and want to make it trickier, have players hold the spoon in their mouth, instead.

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Potato Roll:

You’ll earn super-silly points for this one: Take a few extra potatoes from your mashed potato pile (round red potatoes worked best), and have kids move them across a room using only their nose. First one across is the hot potato!

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The kids not only got a kick out of this, but then wanted to play potato toss and potato soccer. On a rainy Thanksgiving day, why not?

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Thanksgiving Menu:

Print out a colorful menu template and and then talk your kids through the meal, everything from apps to dessert. It was fun for Travis to see it all written up, and older kids might want to write out the recipes themselves!

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Thanksgiving Poll:

While chatting with relatives (whether in person or over Zoom!) poll them on their favorite Thanksgiving foods, whether during the main course or at pie-time. Travis then tallied up the results in two ways.

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We used a bar chart for the main course answers and a pie chart (ha) for the dessert answers. More sneaky holiday math!

Thanksgiving Chatterbox:

This classic origami game is easy to adapt for Thanksgiving. We used a template from Raddish Kids with funny suggestions hiding behind the numbers like “Pretend it’s windy for the next 5 minutes” or “Make up a song about pumpkins and sing it”.

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Your kids can easily come up with their own actions, too. Needless to say, the chatterbox had us giggling around our dessert table. The above link has a reminder on the rules of the game, as well as a how-to for folding the chatterbox paper.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Gratitude Pumpkin

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We’re gearing up for a cozy Thanksgiving just as our family of four, but that only has us thinking all the more about what we’re thankful for or missing this year. One neat idea is to write down all the ideas your family can brainstorm… on a pumpkin!

As the kids came up with ideas (and mommy, too!), I wrote down all their words in permanent marker. Travis named favorites like Star Wars, friends and play dates. Don’t discount a toddler’s ability to name the things they love; that counts as the first step toward feeling grateful.

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Veronika also wanted to scribble with markers as I wrote, which meant our final pumpkin wasn’t “perfect”. But I loved this touch of reality on it.

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The resulting gratitude list was so simple but beautiful, and will make the perfect centerpiece for a Thanksgiving table!

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Go For a Ride Day

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In the category of holidays you never knew exited, it turns out that November 22 is Go For a Ride Day, with the idea simply to get people away from screens and out and about.

If you’re at all like our family, coronavirus means your year has simultaneously meant more screens (hello, Zoom!), and more time out and about. Getting out of the house has saved our sanity, whether walking local trails, riding bikes, or going for a long drive.

So in the spirit of the day, we just made sure to get outside! Our ride of choice was a bike (for Travis) and a scooter (for little sister Veronika).

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We didn’t go far, but we got our fresh air and our exercise.

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Where would you head to on Go for a Ride Day? Please share in the comments!