Three Good Fairies Bath Paints

Anybody remember the three good fairies from Disney's Sleeping Beauty?

Well, since we're in our fairytale themed week this week I decided I would make bath time a little more fun by making a few different colors of bath paint to represent the three good fairies. 

Flora bath paint:

Squirt some shaving cream into a small dish or a section of a muffin tin. Add in a few drops of red food coloring and mix in with a makeup brush or paint brush. 

Merryweather bath paint:

Squirt some shaving cream into a small dish or section of a muffin tin. Add in a few drops of blue or neon blue food coloring and mix in with a makeup brush or paint brush.

Fauna bath paint:

Squirt some shaving cream into a small dish or section of a muffin tin. Add in a few drops of green or neon green food coloring and mix in with a makeup brush or paint brush.

When you make them all together at one time you've got Three Good Fairies Bath Paints!

I put them out near the tub, which I had filled with water and added a few drops of neon pink food coloring too. I made the water pink since that is the color of Princess Aurora's gown in Sleeping Beauty. So the bath in all represents Princess Aurora and her three good fairies.

When all the colors of paint were used together they made beautiful bathtub masterpieces!

What Makes a Fairytale Word Wall

We usually do word walls on our bulletin board for each theme that we do, so this week is no different. Except, I didn't exactly just put up words, this one had a lot more to it.

I used white paper and markers. The title or in the case the question/topic was "What Makes a Fairytale?"
So of course I asked my daughter what she thinks of when I say "fairytale" and I wrote down a bullet-pointed list of what she said with "Comes to mind...." as the heading. She named some of her favorite characters.

I also made some one that said "Once Upon A Time" with the word "once" underlined. I did this to discuss how a fairytale usually starts. Sometimes the whole familiar phrase is used, but sometimes just the "once" part is, or even another sentence all together.

Another one that said "Happily Ever After" to signify how a fairytale commonly ends. This was placed at the end of the board for that reason.

Another one that said "Good People" with another "comes to mind" bulleted list that my daughter helped me make.

Another one that said "Evil People/"Bad Guys"" with another "comes to mind" bulleted list that my daughter helped me make.

Another one that said "Fictional or "make believe""

Another one that said "Morals or lessons"

Another one that said "Sometimes There's Magic" with another "comes to mind" bulleted list that my daughter helped me make.

They were all tacked up in an order that made sense and will be discussed daily throughout this themed week.

Rapunzel's Magic Golden Flower Bath Paint

Like I mentioned before in my Tower Craft post, this week is our fairytale themed week AND my daughters been obsessed with Tangled lately. Sooo when making some regular old purple bath paint last night I got this great idea! I wanted to make the bath paint look like those little purple flag things from the movie with the yellow sun/magic flower shape on them. They're pretty significant since Rapunzel herself is looking at one when she realizes she's the lost princess.

My daughter LOVED seeing my rendition of this in her bath paint, and when she used it the two colors worked beautifully together.

To create it yourself you'll need:
- shaving cream
- a plastic dish
- makeup brush or paint brush
- neon purple food coloring
- yellow food coloring

Step 1: Squirt the desired amount of shaving cream into the container.
Step 2: Squirt in some of the neon purple food coloring and mix that in with the brush until all the shaving cream is colored.
Step 3: Rinse off the brush and squirt a dollop of shaving cream onto it. It should be big enough that you can plop it right in the middle of your already made purple bath paint in the container.
Step 4: Take your brush and carefully (as not to turn it purple) smooth out the dollop of new white shaving cream and drag out some lines like slightly curvy rays of the sun.
Step 5: Add just a few drops of yellow food coloring into the center of the sun shape. If you use too much it'll end up orange. Now, take the brush again and do like you did with the shaving cream in step 4, but to spread around the yellow color.
Step 6: Present to child and let them enjoy.

Child Creating their own Pancake Recipe

So, I just wanna first say that I originally saw something sorta similar to this here, but wanted to do our own version. I think it's so great to give kids lots of time with you in the kitchen and to let them get inventive and try out their own recipes. Everything should of course be as safe as possible though. Teach safe habits like these whenever possible.

We started with pancakes, just like the other blogger did. The activity really is essentially the same, but I'm sharing my daughters recipe as well since it turned out AMAZING.

I started the activity by asking her what we normally use to make pancakes, showing her that we'd just bought a box of mix yesterday. She wanted to use that mix. I asked her what she thought would taste really good in a pancake/what she'd like to add. She immediately started yelling agave! I thought that was a really smart choice. After she put that on the counter and got out the mixing bowl she wanted to use I started naming off some more of the things we had on hand so she could choose some more stuff. She picked chocolate chips and raisins!

So, with all our ingredients on the counter we started reading the pancake mix box. I asked her if she wanted to use 1 cup or 2 cups of mix, she said 2 so I got the corresponding amount of water ready. We measured the mix together, she poured it into the mixing bowl and then used a fork to make sure there were no clumps. Then she poured in the water and used that fork to mix it all together.

Next came adding the extra ingredients that she picked out. She squirted the agave in straight from the bottle. Then she poured the chocolate chips in straight from the bag. Last of all came the raisins, I asked her how many she wanted to put in and she said four so I gave her four to put in. She stirred that all up, then of course she had to sit down while I cooked them on the stove. I used a little bit of coconut oil on the pan in between each pancake which made them even more delicious and healthy. I also put vegan butter on each after they came out of the pan. Both of which were okayed by the little recipe maker/chef herself!
She really enjoyed her pancake and I thought they were super yummy too! After they cooled completely I put them in a gallon Ziploc bag, with a piece of wax paper separating each pancake, to freeze. Reheating only takes about 35 seconds in the microwave.

Charlie's Chocolate Agave Pancake Recipe:
Ingredients:
- 2 cups of complete pancake mix
- 1 1/3 cups of water
- 1-2 TBSP or more of organic amber agave
- 1/3 cup Enjoy Life gluten/dairy/nut/soy free chocolate chips
- 4 organic raisins
- Organic coconut oil for the pan
- Vegan butter to spread on each warm pancake

Step 1: Get out your ingredients and mix them all together with a fork or spoon.
Step 2: Melt some coconut oil in the pan.
Step 3: Use a 1/4 cup to pour pancake mix into coconut oiled pan, on medium-low heat. Flip when bubbles are forming all over pancake. Give it a couple minutes for the other side to cook.
Step 4: Put it on a plate, butter and serve.
Step 5: Completely cool and freeze leftovers.

Tower Craft Designing Your Own

This week at our house the home school theme is all things fairytale. We decided to kick off this themed week with a craft: designing your own tower. This was especially great for Charlie, seeing as she's been obsessed with Tangled lately.

You'll need:
- A sheet of paper to be the background (we used white)
- Construction paper (we used pink)
- Glue stick
- Scissors
- Stickers, regular or craft foam
- Glitter glues
- Other options could be crayons, colored pencils, gel pens, markers, tempera paints, etc.

I let Charlie pick out what color she wanted her tower to be and of course she chose pink! We had also got out some purple, thinking that maybe there'd be two colors to the tower, but she ended up sticking with pink for all of it.

Now, I asked her if she remembered what Rapunzel's tower looked like and what shape she thought the big part ought to be and she correctly said rectangle. I let her cut out the rectangle shape freehand but you may want to draw the outline of yours first. We used the glue stick to paste it down, and then talked about what shape the top part should be.

 We decided on a triangle with some curve, definitely a pointy top though. Once that shape was cut out I asked her if she wanted me to cut a window out in it, she did, so I did. We glued that on and then it was time to decorate the tower!

Charlie wanted to use some craft foam heart stickers that we had leftover from Valentine's Day. So she got to use her fine motor skills to peel the backs off the stickers and adhere them to her tower.

Next came the glitter glues. We've got some big bottles and little bottles.

 She always squirts a big glob out and then spreads it around with her finger(s) or a small piece of scrap paper. She used purple and blue on the tower. Silver on the left side of the background, light green on the right side of the background, and dark green for some grass along the bottom.


I think it turned out beautifully!

Almond Butter & Strawberry Sandwich

Today I'm going to share with you a fantastic sandwich idea for the little one(s) in your life! Kids usually all love PB&J and this is pretty similar. Almond butter is actually quite healthier than peanut butter as well, and using fresh organic strawberries trumps using jarred jelly or jam. Plus, it's always nice to switch it up, yet keep it familiar for little ones who like routine and order in their lives.

Ingredients:
- 2 slices of bread, lightly toasted (an organic multigrain or homemade bread would offer optimal nutrition, but use whatever your child is used to).
- Organic or homemade almond butter (I used Full Circle brand).
- Organic strawberries, thinly sliced or diced, however you see fit

Take your lightly toasted bread and spread the almond butter on both pieces. Then put the strawberries on one side and put the sandwich together.

Next you can serve it as is, carefully cut the crust off, cut it into sections, or use a shaped cutter to present it in a fun way.

You can see my daughter enjoyed hers.

Fairy Garden (sensory play, pretend play, outdoor play)

I am absolutely in love with this fairy garden that I made for my daughter! We had been gathering the supplies for it all April, and then ended up putting it together on Easter. I wanted to make her this Fairy Garden so she could do some digging in the dirt, some pretend play with her fairies, pretend to plant the flowers, move around some loose parts, and have something she could do beside me while I tend to our garden. 

I found that perfect pot for it at Menards, and filled it up with the dirt! 

The materials I used for inside of it were all purchased from Hobby Lobby and Dollar Tree (aside from the aquarium gems which some are from Pet Co, some have came in holiday sets from Hobby Lobby). I think the gems really add to it though, since they're loose parts that are intriguing for imaginative play. They also sparkle very pretty in the sunlight. We use the black ones for around the house and stepping stones. The green ones can look like grassy areas, and the orange ones we put on the tables to be tea and crumpets.

 Here's another picture with everything included. The bridge wasn't in the last picture.

All things from Hobby Lobby were in one aisle, so getting these items doesn't require much searching. I purchased over $100 worth of items there that day and only ended up spending about $60 because of a great coupon I had. I think it was well worth it. From that aisle we got the house, mushrooms, flower bed, bridge, 3 fairies, bench, tables, and fencing.

The things I added from the Dollar Tree were the artificial flowers and rocks.

There's just another view, without the bridge again.

My daughter likes to play with the fairies and they have tea parties and their tables, water the flowers, etc.

She also likes to take the fairy items out sometimes and really get to digging and getting dirty with her minnie mouse shovel and cultivator from Toys R Us. I also give her a big bucket so she can transfer/scoop and pour the dirt when she wants too. She can also pretend to plant the artificial flowers again and again.

I think this is great outdoor fun for any child. I'm always looking for things to do outside so we can spend more time out there. If you don't want your sons playing with fairies, this could be made more "boyish" by using gnomes instead of fairies (also found in the same aisle at Hobby Lobby).