This pretty-in-pink glass of milk is a fun alternative to a plain glass of your non-dairy favorite. All the sweetness comes from fruit, so there’s no added sugar like as with a store-bought smoothie or juice.
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These bake-ahead oatmeal bars will make mornings a cinch, whether you’re dashing to the bus or just making things a little easier on yourself during home school.
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Oven-baked risottos are my favorite way to prepare rice these days. Throw all the ingredients in a pot, cook for about one hour, and forget about it until dinner is served. No stirring required!
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Let cool slightly before serving.
This unexpected flavor combination takes my kids’ two favorite fruits and mashes them together into one perfect smoothie. Use plain soy milk instead of the almond milk if you prefer less sugar.
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I wish I could claim there was some secret, healthy ingredient in this homemade mac ‘n’ cheese. But nope. This is pure comfort food, and sometimes that’s exactly what the family needs.
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This easy smoothie packs a healthy, fruity punch, and the purple color is fun for kids! The quantities below make four generous portions. Halve the recipe if you don’t want as big a batch.
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Once again Little Passports saved the day here during Covid-19 home school. At a moment when Travis balked against assigned lessons this week, the latest package from “Sam and Sofia” proved far more interesting.
As always, he started off by putting the latest country coin in with his collection, and we added Egypt’s flag to his passport.
The booklet this month was fantastic for a kindergartner; I was so proud of (and amazed at!) his speed with a hieroglyph decoding activity. There was also a spot-the-difference page about camels, a geographic word scramble, and neat information on ancient headdresses. I would rate this booklet much more approachable for a five-year-old than the one from France.
Souvenir:
This month’s gift was an Excavation Kit and Travis needed to start digging the moment he saw it.
We chipped and chiseled and cleared the dust until he’d uncovered a little mummy figure. Travis was ecstatic and played with it all afternoon.
Further Activities:
After checking out extras online like photos, Arabic phrases, and silly jokes, we started in on a few additional activities. First up was making “papyrus paper”, much as the Egyptians used to overlap stalks of papyrus plant. This one was a little messy so lay down one or two sheets of wax paper to cover your surface. In a cup, mix together equal parts white glue and water (about 1/4 cup each) and stir with a craft stick.
Cut a brown paper shopping bag into strips that are about 8 inches long. Begin laying these down on the wax paper, brushing over each with the glue. (Alternatively, you can dip each strip in the glue mixture and then smooth it down, but this sounded too messy to Travis). Let dry completely.
It will lift off the wax paper once dry, and does indeed have a neat feel and texture. Travis practiced writing his hieroglyphs!
Next up, we mummified an apple! This will definitely appeal to kids interested in the mummy aspect of Egyptian history. Pour 1 and 1/2 cups baking soda and 3/4 cup salt into a large zip-top bag. Peel an apple and carve into a desired mummy face. We tried to make the lines of King Tut’s headpiece along the sides, although admittedly with limited art skills.
Insert a Popsicle stick into the apple and submerge in the baking soda mixture. Now let it stand for one week – or even two! I’ll update this post once our mummification is complete.
There were a few other suggestions online, although Travis was only mildly interested in a scarab beetle coloring page and coloring in the Egyptian flag.
I did, however, purchase the optional add-on of Egyptian mini-figures and these were a huge hit! The tube included fun toys of King Tut, Nefertiti, the Sphinx, and more.
Recipe:
We finished the voyage with a recipe for the popular Egyptian flatbread called aish baladi, similar to pita bread. The recipe was too complicated for Travis; he helped with the initial few steps, but then I was left to finish the project. Tastewise, it was a huge hit! Travis enjoyed it plain, but you can dip it in hummus, too, or stuff it with a filling. King Tut watched us bake, of course:
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Update: The apple mummy came out so neat! One week later it had shriveled and shrunk, but felt smooth and soft like a dried apple. There was no rotten smell or aspect to it, which was quite cool.
What a neat way to see a “mummy”!
This easy French toast recipe is quick enough even for a weekday morning!
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I’ve never been so glad to have a Little Passports subscription as I am now, perfect during this era of home schooling. Travis’s latest package took him to France. The booklet felt a little too advanced this time, reminding me that Travis is on the youngest end of the age spectrum for World Edition. The maze was hard (even for mommy!) and activities like being an art critic and following a landmark hunt involved lots of reading that was too advanced.
Still, he enjoyed the extras on the web like seeing vibrant pictures of monuments and landscapes in France, learning a few French words, and selecting his favorite French dessert. And he proudly added the flag to his passport and the “push pin” to his map.
Souvenir:
The mini easel and watercolor palette, complete with two tiny canvases, was a huge hit!
Travis was immediately making masterpieces after we looked at a few examples from Monet and Matisse for inspiration. He even corrected me, pointing out that one of his canvases was meant to be viewed horizontally and the other vertically.
Activities:
We opened this package on April 1 which turned out to be perfect because one activity was to color in a fish for the “poisson d’avril“.
This French variation on April Fool’s Day is to tape the fish to the back of a friend or family member and declare that person the “Fish of April!” Travis got a big kick out of doing this to daddy.
Next up was making an Eiffel Tower out of Dandies marshmallows and dry spaghetti!
This was STEM at its best: thinking spatially about how to engineer the tower; using shapes (rectangles, triangles); dividing spaghetti pieces into halves or quarters; and of course eating marshmallows along the way for sticky fingers and lots of laughs.
Look how it turned out!
I had also purchased the optional add-on, an Aquarellum Parisian Painting Kit. This included 9 watercolors and three scenes of Paris on absorbent paper. Travis loved that he could use the provided eye dropper to mix colors.
The scenes turned out beautiful. My petite artiste!
Finally, we colored in the French flag to add to our garland.
Recipe:
Of course we weren’t done until we’d taken our culinary voyage. This time we turned our kitchen into a French bakery, plus learned a little cultural background for the galette des rois (Kings Cake).
We had to improvise a little, since the recipe called for puff pastry which is hard to find vegan. We used store-bought pie crusts instead, which means our cake didn’t puff up like a traditional version, but it sure still came out yummy!
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Note: If your kids want to, hide a dried bean inside in keeping with the French tradition of this cake around Epiphany.
Whoever finds the bean or a toy figurine in their slice is the king for the day and gets good luck! Skip that step if you are worried about choking hazards.
Here’s the perfect way to bring a smile to kids’ faces on a spring morning!
To prepare these fluttery butterflies, slice two bagels in half and toast. Cut each half in half again, then arrange so the halves are backwards to each other, creating a butterfly wing shape.
Meanwhile, mix together 1/4 cup non-dairy cream cheese, 1 to 2 drops red food coloring, and 1 tablespoon maple syrup in a small bowl. Spread evenly over the bagels. Put two pretzel sticks on top as antennae and cover with your favorite fruit. Don’t forget about symmetry! We liked using an apple slice down the center and banana slices on the wings.
For a snack version, you could make a similar butterfly with cut apple slices. Use peanut butter as the “glue” to hold down any fruit toppings, or even sprinkles!
joyful parenting 