{Project: Everything Tastes Better with Butter}

Full sensory learning has staying power and what better place in your house to engage all those senses than the kitchen! 

This weekend’s cooking endeavor was pretzels with homemade butter. Lucas has been obsessed with LuCk Dough lately so I thought it would be the perfect time to get those little hands into pretzel dough.  Playing with dough, whether its for play or edible, is a great way to develop those fine motor skills. Pretzel dough is a little tougher than play dough, so it has all those little muscles working extra hard. Cooking in the kitchen is quite the workout for those little ones!

After we popped the pretzels in the oven, we took out the Kitchen Aid to make some fresh butter! Originally my plan was to shake the heavy cream in a jar, but after looking online and realizing it was going to take 15 to 20 minutes of shaking we went with Plan B. Butter in a jar will have to wait until Lucas is a little older and we recruit a bunch of helpers. 

Pro Tip: Make sure you remember to use the splash guard on the Kitchen Aid (unless you want to redecorate your kitchen walls with buttermilk)

Lucas loves to add things to the mixer and turn it on, but he lost interest after the heavy cream turned to whipped cream. It took about 10 minutes to separate into butter and buttermilk. I strained the butter in a cheesecloth and Lucas came back to help squeeze out the excess whey. He was, not surprisingly, way more interested in the end result than he was the butter-making process. 

The fresh butter on the warm pretzels was absolutely divine! Now I am wondering what to do with this leftover buttermilk…

Pretzel Recipe

• Dissolve 1 package of yeast in 1 1/2 cups warm water.
• Add 1 tsp salt, 1 Tbls sugar and 4 cups of flour (we used 2 cups white, 2 cups whole wheat. Next time I may try 3 cups whole wheat, 1 cup white)
• Mix and knead the dough until smooth. 
• We chose to roll our pretzels into snakes and worms but you can make any shape you’d like! 
• Lay the pretzels on a cookie sheet, brush with a beaten egg and sprinkle with salt.
• Bake at 425 for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown

{Project: Seeds!}

When I was a little girl, I would wander away from my mother at the market.  She never had to work that hard to find me; she knew exactly where I would be.  There was an aisle at the market that had large barrels filled with dried goods: rice, beans, and grains.  I was always elbows deep in the rice barrell.  I loved everything about the way it felt; it was smooth and cooling.  I dreamed of filling a pool with rice and going for a swim . . . . . Many (many) years later, I am happy to say that I frequently dream of floating through a sea of rice.  The seed was planted in the aisle of that Market, and it stuck!

With the weather turning a cooler, we've been hunkering down a little bit more.  Fall is that in-between season when you pack up the water toys, but it's not quite time to bring out the snow gear.  This year, as I was packing up the kiddie pool, I got this gut feeling that Chuck was not quite ready to say goodbye to her beloved summer water playthings, and that got my mind working overtime.  Basically, it ended up with this phone call:
Husband: What are you doing tonight?
Wife: I'm going to the gym and to the hardware store.
Husband: What do you need at the hardware store?
Wife: Birdseed.
Husband: We have birdseed leftover from last winter.
Wife: I need more.
Husband: How much more.
Wife: About a kiddie pool's worth

To answer your question, "yes, my husband thought I was insane." I've seen seeing a bunch of sensory tubs on Pinterest and floating around the blogosphere, so I was feeling a little inspired.  Karen and I thought long and hard over what to fill the pool with.  At first we thought of feed corn, but after many many phone calls, we couldn't seem to locate a small enough batch.  I reminisced about swimming through rice, but it was just too wasteful. Then Karen mentioned bird seed, and it just clicked!

So, we did what any normal moms would do, we spent our Friday night at the gym and the hardware store feeling our way through the aisle of birdseed.  In case you're wondering, it takes about 40 pounds of birdseed to fill your average 12 gallon swimming pool.

Sunday morning, the sun was shining, the leaves were blowing, the air was crisp, and Chuck and I anxiously waited for Lucas and our buddies to arrive.  We dragged all 40lbs of seed down to the back yard, pulled the string on the bag, and dumped it right into the small blue pool.  Karen & I had made all kinds of educational guesses as to what would happen next.  They ranged from "this will last 10 minutes", to "they are going to have SO MUCH FUN".  We were slightly skeptical of where this playdate would land on the "fun-o-meter"

I am pleased to announce that all four kids dove right in!  The filled up buckets over and over and over again.  Drove trucks through the seeds.  Explored the seeds with their hands.  We had kids from eighteen months to over three years old happily occupied with a pool full of birdseed for a good 45 minutes. That is about an eternity in mom-years.  They were so occupied that the three of us moms looked at each other and wondered "why didn't we arrange for some sort of adult playdate?"   Or, at the very least "why didn't I make a pot of coffee for my adult guests"

I can sit here and list the five million reasons why filling a pool with birdseed is great for the kids (it helps with their cognitive development, social skills, physical skills, communication skills,  …. I really could keep going), but sometimes its fun to sit back, and watch your kid actively learn and experience something new!  Chuck was truly in her element! She loves filling containers, so this activity was perfect.  Lucas loves digging with his trucks, and the seeds provided a happy alternate to the dirt and sand that he is familiar with. 

Karen & I did make our best educated guess on what to fill the pool with.  Here's a helpful check list you may want to take to the hardware store with you when the mood hits! Have fun and happy exploring! 

• What does the material feel like?
• What does the material smell like?
• What does the material look like?
• What does the material sound like?
• Would you mind if your kid ate it?
• Does your kid have any tactile preferences? (For example: Chuck HATES sticky things, so filling the pool with whipped cream may have to wait a while)

 
And, don't worry . . . we are working on about a thousand ways to re-use 40lbs of birdseed!