Bake!
Not only is it a fun activity to do together, but you get to have delicious healthy snacks as a result! Here is a muffin recipe we have been loving:
Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins
2 ripe bananas
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1 stick (8 Tablespoons) butter, melted
1/4 cup maple syrup
1.5 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
3/4 cup chocolate chips
- In a stand mixer, add the bananas, vanilla, egg, melted butter, and maple syrup. Mix until combined. Alternatively, add bananas to a mixing bowl and mash by hand, then add remaining wet ingredients and stir well to combine.
- Add in the flour, baking soda, and salt, and mix until combined.
- Fold in chocolate chips.
- Spoon batter into a lined muffin tin, filling almost to the top. You should get 10 -12 muffins.
Bake at 350 degrees for 18-22 minutes, until the tops are firm
Make playdough!
I love keeping ingredients for homemade playdough on hand so we can whip up a batch whenever the urge strikes! There is nothing quite like a super fresh soft batch of homemade playdough! Here is the recipe we use.
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup salt
4 teaspoons cream of tartar
2 cups boiling water
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
Food coloring of choice
- In a large mixing bowl or stand mixer, combine flour, salt and cream of tartar and stir to combine.
- Add oil and food coloring to boiling water.
- Carefully add boiling water to flour mixture and mix (on low if using a stand mixer) until a dough forms. If not using a stand mixer, you will need to knead the dough, but take care not to burn your hands as the dough can be very hot! Turn dough onto a piece of parchment and use that as a barrier if needed.
Pro Tips: I love to order cream of tartar in bulk from Amazon since the small jar from the market doesn’t last through many batches. I also buy cheap flour, salt, and oil, and keep them in a basket in the cabinet that I use just for playdough. Natural food coloring won’t get you a very deep or rich color, but that doesn’t matter to us!
Some of our favorite playodough tools are a wooden knife, small rolling pin, and animal cookie cutters.
Arts and Crafts
My mantra that helps keep our at-home arts and crafts at home stress free is to focus on the process, not the product. There isn’t any expectation that anything we make is worth keeping/gifting/hanging etc. Also, you have to embrace the mess! Art is meant to be messy so make sure you have realistic expectations. A good drop cloth and setting a boundary that they have to keep all supplies at the table does the trick for us!
We rotate between these different art supplies:
A watercolor set with a set of brushes
Washable paint with a brush set and small palette for each child. My girls love using their hands and fingers to paint as well, which they do with these paints.
Silky crayons, regular crayons or markers, scissors, glue and glue stick, googley eyes, pipe cleaners, pom poms, washi tape, and construction paper. I like to keep these supplies in a caddy to keep everything organized and in one place.
We have also been loving this large white paper for all of our painting needs!
Play in the Bath!
Incorporate toys that you don’t usually have available for bath- my kids love using their play kitchen pots and pans (or even tools from our regular kitchen!), a tea set, this watering can that we usually keep in the backyard, and this set of blocks that is waterproof! A bubble bath is always fun, too- this one is our favorite, it doesn’t have any harsh chemicals and it suds up very well.
Tea Party & Story Time
Brew a pot of herbal tea, set up a cozy picnic blanket, have the kids bring their favorite doll or stuffy, pick up some new books from the library, or read some of their favorites from your collection! A few books we have been loving lately: Lubna and Pebble, Me & Mama, Sun in my Tummy, When I Was Young in the Mountains, and Caps for Sale
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