Teachers Pay Teachers Sale!

One of the most exciting times of the year for me is Teacher Appreciation Week. Spreading the love to teachers everywhere is such an important thing to do, especially in our society where teachers are often not treated like the professionals they are. To me, teaching extends to any person who actively gives the gift of education to others. This includes teachers, parents, tutors, and instructors.

That is why I love the website Teachers Pay Teachers. They offer teacher-made materials to the general public, so that anyone can become an effective educator. Teacher authors have a lot of great products up on the site such as worksheets, entire years worth of lesson plans, games, and even clip art. I highly recommend looking through the site, especially if you are like me and teach your child at home.

Teachers Pay Teachers is having an amazing site-wide sale on May 3rd-4th in honor of Teacher Appreciation Week. In addition, I am having a sale in my store for 20% off all products! Although my store is not very big, I do have some great items and I like to put up a lot of freebies. Go check it out!

Ways to Make Easter Meaningful for Toddlers

If celebrating Easter with Peeps, bunnies, and eggs makes you feel like you are pushing the real meaning of Easter to the back-burner, then I completely understand. I have felt that way since my first son was born.

In order to help myself, and other parents who may feel the same as I do, I have made it a point to discover ways to bring meaning to Easter for toddlers.

Swap the Eggs and Bunnies for Crosses and Lambs

“The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!’” –John 1:29 (New International Version)

Jesus is the lamb and he died on the cross. These symbols hold high significance in Christianity and can easily be incorporated into Easter.

One thing you can do is make homemade marshmallow rice treats or cookies, and put them in an Easter basket to replace Peeps or other candy. You can easily shape these into crosses with a stencil, or grab a cross cookie cutter, which I have seen carried at Wal-Mart and Target in the Easter sections.

If you like to bake a cake for Easter, consider a cute lamb cake or grabbing a cross cake pan from the Easter aisle.

Associate Jesus with the Cross and the Lamb

It can be a bit hard and confusing to explain to a young toddler the significance of Jesus’s act of sacrifice and resurrection to save all of mankind. However, a great start is to have them associate crosses and lambs with Jesus. In addition, you can mention the love of Jesus. This, in turn, will help them associate Easter with Jesus. Knowing the love of Jesus and that He is associated with the cross is a great foundation for toddlers to understand the meaning of Easter.

For an older toddler, you could also start to introduce that Jesus is the only person to rise from the dead because He is God. This associates Easter with Jesus’s resurrection.

Change Up the Egg Hunt

You definitely do not have to get rid of the Easter bunny and egg hunt. Those memories are just too precious. Instead of nixing it all together, pop some adorable and simple Bible verses into the eggs with the candy. You could also wrap the verses on the outside of the eggs. I have also seen many families use the eggs to represent the new life that is awarded to Christians after the resurrection of Christ. I thought that was a great idea!

Here is a free printable for Super Simple Easter Bible verses.

Download PDF Here: Simple Bible Verses for Easter

Do some Christ-centered Easter Activities

There are so many great free resources for toddler activities online, it is very easy to find some Christ-centered Easter games and projects for kids. Here are some of my favorites from blogs around the web that I am definitely going to do with my boys this Easter:

Printable Resurrection Set -This adorable craft is perfect for toddlers and turns out super cute. The printable is free if you subscribe to the emails from the blog. It’s a great blog, so I don’t mind at all!

Cross Craft Using Left Over Egg Dye -This craft turns out absolutely beautiful and is super simple to make. Get the directions and see pictures of the end result at the link!

Where is Jesus? Magic Watercolor Art -A very neat art project that will amaze your little one! There is a free printable for this project and directions at the link.

Free Coloring Pages -Free coloring pages! On the page, there are many free Easter themed coloring pages. Some of them are the typical eggs and bunnies, but they do have just as many Christ-centered pages.

Cross Fingerprint Craft -This is another cross craft that turn out very beautiful. It is meant to be used with a class, but you can easily turn it into a family craft. You can even carry it to grandma and grandpa’s house to get more fingerprints!

Hopefully, this list gives you some great ideas to make Easter meaningful for toddlers, or even young children. I like to incorporate these ideas into the days leading up to Easter day, to make this day even more meaningful. Even if you are not Christian, I appreciate you reading and keeping an open mind about the true meaning of Easter.

Mint M&M Chocolate Cupcakes

I was looking for green themed food items in the store to come up with a special and easy treat to make for St. Patrick’s day, and I spotted mint M&Ms and Andes mints.

It took me a while to come up with something for these amazingly delicious candies, but it finally hit me. Mint chocolate cupcakes! I hadn’t made cupcakes in such a long time, in fact I haven’t made them since my first son was born three years ago!

I’m all about easy treats, so I made this recipe using quick ingredients and quick methods. Including the amount of time it took to cool the cupcakes, this project took me less than an hour. Awesome!

To make prep time extra easy, I used boxed cake mix and pre-made frosting. The ones I chose for this worked perfectly and were so delicious. If you want to skip coloring the frosting, I would highly recommend getting green icing that comes in the squeeze packets. Wilton makes really good ones and they are easy to find.

All of the things you need are:

-Your favorite boxed chocolate cake (plus the ingredients on the back of box)

-Can frosting*

-Green food coloring*

-Piping bag or Ziploc bag*

-Piping tip of your choice (I used a Wilton #5 for mine)

-Dark Chocolate Mint M&Ms (2 medium bags if you are making 24 cupcakes)

-One bag of Andes mint chocolates

-Cupcake liners

*If you want to replace all of these, then buy a pre-colored icing squeeze tube

The first thing to do is mix together the boxed cake with all of the ingredients it calls for on the back of the box. Typically, it’s just water, oil, and eggs.

Line your cupcake tin with cupcake liners. I found these super cute St. Patrick’s Day cupcake liners on Amazon. Then, pour the mix into each liner, filling about 2/3 of the way on each.

While the cupcakes are baking, color your frosting so that it is ready to go. It took me a lot of coloring to get to the good green color I have on my cupcakes. I highly suggest using gel coloring, or just buying pre-made green icing. Mine turned out too liquid for my taste, although I made it work out in the end. I popped mine in the fridge covered until I needed it.

After the cupcakes are out of the oven and cooled down, take a knife and carefully cut a circle in the top. Lift up the piece of cake, and don’t be afraid to eat it 😉 You should be left with a nice hole in the cupcake. Be sure not to go all the way to the bottom when cutting.

Now it’s time to fill the hole with the mint M&Ms. For each cupcake, I was able to fit 6-8 M&Ms. They can pop out of the hole a little bit, but make sure they aren’t too high. I tried to keep it as even as possible.

Now it’s time to get the icing ready. If you already have bought pre-made icing, you can skip this step (lucky you!). Seriously, can you tell I really wish I had bought pre-made icing? Haha! Get out a Ziploc baggie, or a piping bag, and fit it with the tip you want to use. If you use a baggie, cut a small tip off the end and then fit the coupling and tip on the bag. Fill the bag with your green frosting and then close it tightly. I like to use a rubber band to cut off all the open space in the bag. It’s easier to pipe out that way.

Start piping frosting onto your cupcakes. I used a star tip #5 from Wilton and I just did simple outside-to-inside swirls.

Once the cupcakes are frosted, stick an Andes mint standing up in the frosting. Don’t forget to unwrap it first! I really liked the Shamrock sticks that came with my cupcake liners. They were the perfect accent and made these cupcakes look extra special.

The cupcakes are complete and ready to enjoy! Thanks for reading and I hope you all enjoy these! Please let me know if you made these and how you liked them

Natural Green Foods

Grapes

These delicious and juicy variety of grapes are perfect for a green snack. They would also be perfect for a lunch side. They are tart and mouthwatering sweet!

Kiwi

Kiwis are super green and super delicious! All you need to do is slice the skin off with a knife and cut into round slices to enjoy.

Granny Smith Apples

These are so easy to spot in the grocery store. Just look for the bright green apples! This variety is very tart, but also sweet. They go perfectly as a snack or paired with lunch. You can slice them and add some peanut butter for a protein packed snack.

Anjou Pears

A very popular variety of pears that can be found in all stores. Pears are actually my favorite fruit! They are soft and so sweet. They are the perfect snack and go perfect with breakfast or lunch.

Green Monster Juice

All of the green colored juice in the store has blue and yellow food coloring. No joke! I actually looked at the labels of all of the green products in the drink aisle at my grocery store. Instead, make your own. If you have a juicer, all you need is 2 granny smith apples, 1 pear, and ½ cup of spinach or kale. Juice these together and you get a delicious juice that kids will actually love! Check out my how-to video on this recipe.

Green Smoothie

These sweet smoothies feel like a treat, but they are actually healthy! The secret to getting the bright green color is to add in at least a ¼ cup of leafy greens, and making sure that the other fruit is a light color. Great options are bananas, pears, skinned apples, and kiwis.

Throw the ingredients into a blender and blend away! Kids will never know there’s a hint of vegetables in there, because it tastes so good and sweet. Yum!

Guacamole

Made with the naturally green colored avocados, this dish is absolutely mouth-watering. I am so in love with guacamole and my kids have always liked it at some point. My toddler is in his picky stage now, but the baby still loves it!

For a bowl of guacamole, start with 2 avocados (diced), 2 Roma tomatoes (diced), ¼ of a white onion (diced), 2 cloves of garlic (minced), and spices. For my spices, I chose salt, pepper, garlic powder, cumin, and a pinch of chili powder. I love spices, but if you want to keep it simple, just go with salt and pepper. 1 teaspoon of each should do perfect.

 

Next step is to put all of the ingredients together minus the spices.

To smash the guacamole together, you definitely do not need a food processor, just use a fork! It’s easy and doesn’t take any time at all.

Once it’s all smashed, add in the spices.

It’s ready to be enjoyed, and oh man is it delicious!

Green Tortillas

If you are looking for a naturally green food that is outside the realm of fruits and veggies, then a green tortilla is probably going to be the only option. They do come in an all natural form, meaning no added dyes, but they are a bit tricky to find. The ones in the regular grocery store are most likely going to have dyes in them, so make sure to check the ingredients list. I found some all natural spinach tortillas at Trader Joe’s, a health food store. You might be able to find some at Whole Foods as well.

Perfect to serve for lunch or dinner, you can make all different kinds of sandwich wraps with these. I made a yummy chicken, spinach, and avocado wrap. Of coarse you can make it much simpler for a younger child, like a turkey or ham wrap.

Another neat option is to make quesadillas with the tortillas. Just pop some cheese inside the tortilla to start off, and heat up until the cheese it melted. You can always add so much more, like chicken or beef. We love quesadillas in our house! They are fast and easy (my personal favorite combo).

It’s overall pretty tough to find natural green foods in the processed food aisles. I completely understand the need to stay away from artificial food dyes, so that is why I put this list together. Of coarse, there are many more green foods that can be found in the produce aisle. If you want to keep it natural when it comes to the color green, you gotta go to the garden!

St. Patrick’s Day Tradition for Kids

 

Looking for some new traditions to get your family in the St. Patrick’s Day spirit?

Not everyone is Irish, but St. Patrick’s Day is a holiday most people can enjoy. I do not have any Irish in my heritage, but I always celebrate St. Patrick’s Day because it is seriously fun for adults and children alike!

Here are some fabulous and super fun ideas that are surely to get kids excited to explore this Irish holiday.

Find the Lucky Pennies

This is a neat little spin on the old tradition of Easter egg hunting. It involves lots of pennies and lots of shamrocks. Perfect for a St. Patrick’s Day traditional game!

I chose to use about 30 pennies, but you can definitely change that number based on how many you want your kids to find. Cut out small shamrock shapes out of paper to the pennies to. This part is totally optional, but it adds a nice touch and makes the pennies a bit easier to spot.

TIP: to make cutting shapes much faster, fold your paper a few times, so that you are cutting out 4 or 5 shapes at a time.

Tape the pennies to the back of the shamrocks. If you have trouble finding enough pennies, you can buy a rolls of pennies from the store or bank. There are 50 pennies in each roll.

Hide the pennies! You can set up little banks for each child, so they can drop their pennies in as they find them. You can find all sorts of little containers at the store, or use some cups you have on hand.

Once pennies are being found, set up a “St. Paddy’s Day Shop”. Buy cheap candy and toys at the store that kids can buy with their pennies.

For my store, I bought some Dum Dum lollipops, chocolate gold coins, and bubbles. For other cool ideas, check out the dollar section at Target. They have the cutest stuff!

I set prices at 2 or 3 cents so they can get a few things. If you have multiple children playing, you could set a limit for the number of pennies each child can find, so that it is fair.

Trap the Leprechaun

Who remembers playing this game in elementary school? When I was that age, we did this game every year and it was so fun!

The day before St. Patrick’s Day, or night before, have the kids make a leprechaun trap out of craft materials, such as popsicle sticks, construction paper, glue, tape, and string. To entice the leprechauns, you want to use “gold” because they love gold! Gold chocolate coins will work great for this. If you happen to have gold coins around, those will work perfect too.

This is a great opportunity to explain to children the Irish folk tales of leprechauns and trying to get their pot-o-gold.

This is the perfect opportunity to introduce some easy engineering learning at home, and to get kids’ brains churning in a fun way! Creating the traps is a creative experience, and children love dreaming up these little devices and the process of putting them together.

The most disappointing part of this game is that nobody catches the leprechaun and he takes the gold. Ah shoot! We really want that pot-o-gold 😉 The good news is, the leprechaun leaves a fun note and a little consolation prize. I usually do candy for the prize, but it can be what ever you want.

You can leave the note overnight, or while the kids are at school. The key is to just do it while they are away, so that they suspect nothing!

I had one teacher leave gold glitter behind as a trace of the leprechaun, so cute!

Lucky Charms Breakfast

This is a very easy way to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, and probably the tastiest!

I don’t know about you, but I rarely let my kids eat the sugary cereals from the grocery store. I consider them a special treat, kind of like dessert, and this is the perfect time to allow for a special treat.

Lucky Charms are a classic St. Paddy’s Day representation. They have a leprechaun on the box and rainbow marshmallows, for goodness sakes! While it is not an Irish tradition, it is definitely on-theme for this very Irish day.

Around this time of year, I notice that Lucky Charms comes out with special editions of the cereal, making this tradition even more special! I’ve even seen chocolate Lucky Charms on the shelf.

Serve Lucky Charms for breakfast, and watch those little faces light up with delight! The perfect way to start a St. Paddy’s Day morning.

You can even liven up the scene with some themed bowls and spoons. You can easily find plain green, or you can search around for St. Patrick’s Day specific themes at stores. I am willing to bet Target has some great options this time of year.

Green Food Day

This St. Patrick’s Day tradition is definitely one of my favorites, and was one of my favorites as a kid. Green food is awesome!

Even people who are not Irish understand the significance of the color green for St. Paddy’s Day. What better way to honor that tradition than eating up green food all day long?

The foods I suggest simply have green food coloring added. However, if you would prefer to avoid food coloring, I have a great post on naturally green foods for St. Patrick’s Day that you can check out.

Some simple ideas for breakfast are:

-Green pancakes

-Green cereal

-Green orange juice (add blue food coloring or blue Gatorade)

-Green scrambled eggs

Lunch ideas:

-Green hummus or green ranch as a dip

-Bake a loaf of green bread for sandwiches

-Green macaroni and cheese (add blue to yellow cheese and green to white cheese)

Dinner Ideas:

-Green rice

-Green mashed potatoes

-Green homemade pizza (add the coloring to the cheese and/or dough)

Decorate a Lucky Shirt

One of the biggest St. Patrick’s Day traditions is wearing green, and avoiding the ultimate punishment…getting pinched!

One way to guarantee you have something to wear on St. Paddy’s Day is to make a tradition of creating your own “lucky shirt”. I used to make t-shirts all the time for different activities, and I know how fun it is for kids of all ages.

The easiest way to do this activity is to check out the t-shirt aisle at your local craft store. I have seen these aisles at Joann, Michael’s, and Wal-Mart. All of the supplies you will need are in one place if you choose to buy these materials.

Basic items you will need are:

-a blank t-shirt (white or green will work best for this project)

-Fabric paint (puffy paint or liquid paint will work)

-Something to put inside the shirt while decorating it to avoid bleed-through

-Cheap brushes if you are using liquid paint

If you would like to save some money, a very cheap option is to buy blank t-shirts and then just buy craft acrylic paint to decorate. This option is perfect if you are just planning a one-time use of these t-shirts. I have done this multiple times and the shirt turns out perfect, and even withstood a couple of washes.

For some extra supplies, you could get some stencils to help make the shirts look extra refined. Another super cute addition is glitter and gemstones. Fabric glue should do the trick for sticking the glitter and gems.

Before you start decorating the shirt, you need to put something inside the t-shirt as a barrier between the front and back of the shirt. A good option is a piece of cardboard box, like a flattened cereal box. You could also find other things around the house like a baking sheet, silicone mat, or an old rag.

Decorate away! I like to look online at different St. Patrick’s Day shirts to get some inspiration. It would also be really cute to make a family set of matching shirts.

Grow Clovers

Growing plants with your children can be really fun and is always a great learning experience. Growing some clover for St. Patrick’s Day is a really unique and easy tradition.

There are a couple of ways you can go about growing clovers. One option is to start growing them when March begins, so that they are growing by the time St. Paddy’s Day comes. Another option is to start growing them on St. Patrick’s Day and watch the clovers form over the last half of the month. It’s up to you!

The best part of growing clovers is waiting to see if you can get a lucky four-leaf clover out of the bunch. It’s rare, but it really does happen!

The type of seed you are looking for is White Dutch Clover seed. To buy the seed, try your local nursery. Clover is very commonly mixed in with grass seed, because that is a popular option for lawns. If you cannot find it in stores, or can only find it in large bulk, try online. I found really cute Shamrock seed packets on Amazon and they worked great for me!

Plant it in a normal pot with soil. The seed depth should not exceed ¼ of an inch because they are very small seeds. They will not grow quickly or at all if planted too deeply. Water the seeds regularly.

IMPORTANT WARNING: White clover flowers will attract bees because they are very fragrant. To avoid this, grow the plant indoors, or cut the flowers off when they grow. The actual shamrock clovers are the leaves of the flowers. For this experiment, the flowers are not needed.

If you are having trouble growing the clovers, or cannot find the seed, try going to find some in a field and searching for a four leaf clover. Next time you are at a park with grass, scan the field for some clovers. They are often mixed in with grass when growing large fields. Clover is found everywhere where I live, even in parks because grass is very high maintenance in our heat, and clover grows like a weed (because it is one!).

Finding clovers as a family is a fun learning tradition for St. Patrick’s Day.

Have an Irish dinner

Are you dreading to read this section because you think I am going to suggest corned beef and cabbage for dinner? Great news! Corned beef is actually not a dish traditionally served in Ireland. It is an Irish-American dish that can most definitely can still be served on St. Patrick’s Day, but it is not a suggestion I make in this post.

Instead, think more along the lines of stews, sausages, bacon, potatoes, onions, and soda bread.

There are not many better ways to experience a culture than to sample the culture’s food. Having an Irish dinner with your family is a fantastic way to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, and to teach your children about Ireland. You definitely do not need to be Irish to appreciate these absolutely delicious comfort food dishes!

If you have adventurous kids who are very open to trying new foods, then I highly suggest making Dublin Coddle and Colcannon. The coddle is a scrumptious, slow cooking stew that is made with sausage, bacon, onions, and potatoes. I made it for my husband and he was so delighted! The Colcannon is a traditional Irish mashed potato recipe with cabbage, bacon, and onions mixed in. I’ve made this one too and it is so, so good!

Photo Credit: SimplyScratch.com

Photo Credit: JamesandEverett.com

As a mother of a toddler, I completely understand the pickiness of most children. In that case, you can make something more suited for young taste buds like these delicious Irish nachos, and classic Irish soda bread for a side dish.

Photo Credit: CookingWithCurls.com

Photo Credit: LetsDishRecipes.com

Bonus Ideas:

Green Root Beer Floats:

You can either add some green food coloring to classic vanilla, or you can use mint chocolate chip ice cream as your green ice cream. To get an extra green kick, you can use cream soda instead of root beer, because the lighter soda can be died green.

Leprechaun Hats:

You can craft some leprechaun hats out of black or green paper. It’s basically just a top hat with a curled up brim. Don’t forget the buckle!

Leprechaun Footprints:

Leaving cute little leprechaun footprints around the house is a sweet little treat for kids! You can make them with washable paint on any non-porous surface, like on the bathroom sink, or the kitchen counter. Kids will be so excited to see this surprise!