Mommy & Me: Cooking & Tot School

More pictures of one-on-one time with Sophia:

This particular evening was karate night and my favorite lady got right down to some serious coloring while I changed clothes from work and got stuff ready in the kitchen.

Then we got her hands washed, apron on and set up on a stool for her to tear pieces of lettuce to be washed for our dinner salads.
Always a favorite: the salad spinner.

Setting the washed greens out on our plates while the pasta boils on the stove top.

I let her help me peel a carrot and then she sorted the veggies I was chopping onto each individual salad.

Cheese!

Ready for our spaghetti & meatballs that have been simmering in the crock pot all day. Will and daddy will be home shortly!

This was the morning of Will's preschool Thanksgiving program. I took the day off to attend so I had the morning to spend with Sophie before we all met up at the school. She and I made some quick bread to use up some of our winter squash. I tried the Weelicious Pumpkin Pear Bread, only I used cooked & pureed buttercup squash instead of pumpkin.

For the pears, I used some that were a little too fresh to be "over ripe", so I diced them and microwaved them a bit till they were soft. And then Sophie took a potato masher to smash them up to a chunky pulp.

Like Will, Sophie loves to control the stand mixer.

And she waited so patiently while the ingredients mixed together, making sure to carefully keep her hands away from the bowl and mixing paddle like I taught her.

Measuring and pouring flour.

Whisking dry ingredients.

And probably her favorite part: wiping down the counters when we were done. She LOVES to "clean" like this. Whenever she takes a bath, she is constantly standing up, wiping down the walls with the wash cloth and she often volunteers to help dust.

Besides working in the kitchen, Sophie and I have done a few Tot School trays on our "karate nights" or other play times. She's at a sensitive period for learning to recognize alphabet letters right now so I've been working with her a lot on that.

This was an activity that a coworker suggested. It's a very adaptable game and I plan to use it for shapes next, but you could also do sight words or colors as well. I put all the wooden letters from our alphabet puzzle into an opaque, cloth bag. Sophie reaches into the bag and pulls out a letter. If she can name it, she gets to drop it in the jar. If not, it goes back in the bag. Very simple.

She really liked the elements of this game. It's funny how dropping the letter in the jar is such a reward. But ultimately, she got frustrated if a letter had to go back in the bag... so instead, if she didn't know, I'd tell her it's name and she'd tell me the sound it made and then ALL the letters went in the jar. Sophie's pretty secure with all the letter sounds, but naming them proves a little more difficult.

Some of them, she would name by sound and then I'd say (for example) "Yes! That letter makes the /j/ sound, it's called a "J".

When she didn't know the name, we'd also trace the letter with our finger to help her remember.

When we finished, we got the puzzle back out and took the letters individually out of the jar, said their names again and placed them in the puzzle. She needed a lot of help with this again. Some she knows very firmly. Most she is unsure.

One thing I've noticed about the way Sophie learns new things, is that she will recognize and understand it before she can say it aloud for herself. I'm pretty sure that's a common thing, but it's definitely strong with her. Like a child learning to talk... who can understand what you are saying without being able to respond to you. Or like an adult learning a foreign language... who can usually understand a conversation even if they can't participate in it.

So I changed it up for Sophie. I pulled out two letters and named one of them. I asked her to choose which letter I named. For example, "Which of these is letter 'N'?" And... she was spot on every time. So that boosted her confidence and she had more fun with it. (Oh, and also I do realize that the "E" is backwards in the puzzle. We fixed it later.)

Another game that Sophie picked up very quickly was this one showing her size differentiation with colored pom poms. First I showed her the labels and said them aloud to her. I read the words so that my voice reflected what they meant, i.e. "small" was said in a small, quiet voice. (She liked that.) And then I showed her how to sort the different sizes of pom poms.

After she finished, Sophie picked up the cards and said them aloud (on her own initiation) just as I had with "big" being read in a louder/bigger voice, etc. and placed them below their appropriate bowl. She liked this tray and picked up the concept quickly.

Another tray that I made festive for Christmas was tonging and patterning pom poms onto a paint palette. I filled a small "treasure box" (Hobby Lobby) with the red & green poms and closed the easy latch on the outside. She loved the appeal of that box and has always enjoyed tonging work. So this was a good exercise for her. She occasionally messes up the pattern with two of the same color side by side, but mostly she seems to understand. And she'll say to me "it goes red, green, red, green, mommy!"

Another round of letter recognition on a different day.

Also on this day, we made "alphabet soup" with some of our favorite letters (C, A, W & S for each member of our family) and she spooned out bites of each letter on request. ;-) This was her idea and I loved using it as an extension. Lessons are all the more memorable when the child initiates based on interest.

And finally, we pulled out our letter magnets and she played on the fridge while I got dinner ready.

I love one-on-one time with my kids. I carve out little parts of our day to focus on them individually whenever I can and it's the kind of connection I long for when I'm away from them for so much of each week day.

Sophie's at such a spongy age with learning and I love it.

Story Stretchers: A First Look At Coins

The book:

I first found this book in a Scholastic catalog and it immediately went on our library list. But after borrowing it and being fascinated with it (both Will & ME!), I'm so excited to see it pop up on this month's Scholastic order too. I definitely plan to order it.

The book explains lots of interesting facts about money and coins such as what sort of things (animals, cloths, salt, metals, etc) were traded as currency long ago and where/how money is made today. Each of the topics are presented as a father teaching his son about coins as a hobby... which is just perfect for us, as Craig and Will went through a little coin-fascination phase not too long ago.

As an extension of this reading, Will and I played a few rounds of "heads or tails" as he learned which side of the coin is called each and when this sort of game is commonly played, i.e. before kick-off of a football game! We also sorted through the coins in his piggy bank to look for the single letter (D, S, P or W) printed below the year on the front of each coin to see where each was minted: Denver, San Francisco, Philadelphia or West Point.

I suggested to Will's Papa Riedeman that maybe a quarter collection book for all 50 states might be a good Christmas gift for Will. Craig and Will were collecting awhile back, but I don't think they ever had a good place to store them and I'm not sure they finished. It was cute how serious the hunt became to find each state though. I remember getting a phone call one night from Craig's sister just to tell us she'd found an Oklahoma quarter for Will. :)

I also told Will about the Federal Reserve Bank in Cleveland that I remember visiting when I was in high school. Perhaps a visit there would be in order the next time we're in Cleveland?? :)

Here's another older library list that we worked through a couple weeks ago:

And a slightly shorter one last week as we waited for several of the Christmas books we requested to come in:

And this has become a very frequent sighting over the past few months: Will reading books independently and, on occasion, Sophie stopping to listen. :) I LOVE it!!!

What's For Dinner? Week 5

I've been pretty bad about taking pictures lately. In lots of areas.

This week's meals {November 26 - December 1} included steak on the grill and Anderson's natural casing hot dogs... neither of which merited a photo. ;-)

But I do have one sorta' fancy meal that I will share, even though I was the only one to eat it. ;)

Before I do, here is the FINAL veggie bag we received on November 22nd. I will write another brief post about the harvest dinner we attended that night for our final pick up, because I just have so much good to say about our CSA farmers. Wonderful, wonderful people.

Contents: kohlrabi, cabbage, leeks, butternut squash, sweet potatoes, lettuce, bok choy, an orange and a white cauliflower and green bunching onions.

Over the long Thanksgiving break, we made a LOT of yummy, hot breakfasts. Here's one with Wee Cottage Cheese Pancakes. But I also made lemon sour cream pancakes and oatmeal in the crock pot.
I tried a creamy cauliflower soup recipe (made entirely in the microwave!) from our CSA newsletter.

And also an Italian Stuffed Squash recipe. I will try to get back on later to share these two recipes because this is a CSA newsletter recipe too and I don't have that in front of me right now. But you could really use whatever your favorite ziti-type pasta recipe is. I just baked the halved, cleaned acorn squashes for an hour with a little oil, salt and pepper.

Then stuffed them with a homemade sausage pasta and fresh mozzarella cubes and put back in oven to warm for 20 minutes.

Tossed salads/raw veggies and some clementines to go with. Craig's pasta was baked in a ramekin 'cause no way would he touch an acorn squash [rolls eyes] but this meal was not the biggest hit with my family. I gave a stuffed squash "to go" to my mom who stopped by that evening and she raved over it. So I know it's a good recipe. I just have finicky eaters. ;)

Another night: breakfast for dinner. More lemon sour cream pancakes and dressed up scrambled eggs. (Will hates eggs.)

Happy eating, friends!

What's For Dinner? Week 4

I know I've mentioned her before, but she's worth mentioning again... I just adore reading food posts/articles written by Jenny Rosenstrach (or her husband, who chimes in from time to time) over at Dinner: A Love Story. She's real. She's funny. And she's a meal time warrior, like me (fighting to preserve family meals)... only on a much bigger scale. She and her husband have kids and jobs and juggle life just like the rest of us. And they share their meal time trials and humor in a witty blog that is on my daily reader list. She's the one I told you has written a "dinner diary" of every single dinner meal she's eaten since February of 1998. She's also a food editor for Bon Appetit, Martha Stewart Living and Real Simple. Jenny is mostly wine-braised-pork-and-lentil-stew... and a little bit tater-tots ;-) as you will see in her latest blog entry. She's just so entertaining and she makes me want to keep on getting my hands dirty in the kitchen even on those tired nights when all I want to do is put my feet up. I actually don't use recipes from her blog all that often (maybe once or twice ever?) but you can be sure as shootin' I will have her upcoming cookbook on my shelves as soon as it comes out, if only for the inspiration it provides. (Okay, I'll probably make a few of the recipes too, just so I can justify the purchase. The girl knows food so I'm sure the food she makes is delicious.) I mean... look at the cover! It says (just like her blog heading) "It all begins at the family table". I love that! Check her out.

Here's our 2nd to last CSA veggie bag for the season:

Contents: cauliflower, broccoli, lettuce, bok choy, green bunching onions, a zucchini, 2 tomatoes, 3 sweet potatoes and 2 acorn squash.

{Menu for November 19th-25th.}

This was Thanksgiving week so I have two dinners to share with you and then it was potlucks and fill-ins after that for the week.

One easy side dish I made with my cauliflower was lightly steamed and then baked cauliflower florets that were topped with a mixture of fresh Parmesan, Panko bread crumbs and melted butter. Plus a little salt, pepper and garlic powder. It was tasty, if a little salty. Parmesan is already salty so I think I'll skip the salt next time.

This week I also tried a couple recipes from a new blog called Many Makings, written by my friend Melissa and her friend Casey. There are so many yummy looking recipes over there and I'd been eyeing several of the ones involving pineapple. So I bought a big pineapple and tried out two (almost three -the quesadillas are going to have to wait for another time) recipes.

The first is their Chili-Rubbed Pork Chops with Pineapple Mango Salsa. It's right up our alley since we are die-hard fans of our staple grilled chicken with peach salsa. Loved it!

The other recipe I tried was their Pineapple Chicken Salad. I made this on karate night and I don't know if I was just starving or what, but it tasted like the best thing ever when I tried it before setting the table. I could hardly wait till Craig and Will returned from class. Probably had several bites of it before dinner even started. I love the addition of pineapple into your average chicken salad!

Delicious!

I didn't have rolls or pitas, but it tasted really good on bread.

Also on Monday morning, Sophie and I spent a little time in the morning (before Will's Thanksgiving program) making Weelicious Pumpkin Pear Bread. Only instead of pumpkin, I used the cooked puree from my buttercup squash. I had no idea what to do with buttercup squash, but I'd seen a buttercup tea bread recipe in an old Martha Stewart magazine shortly before seeing this Weelicious recipe and thought I might just substitute. Turned out pretty good! And we took slices of this to one of our Thanksgiving parties along with a fruit tray.

I took a fruit tray to Maumee Bay for my family Thanksgiving party as well and then brought my griddle and some pancake batter with homemade syrup the next morning to help feed the crew breakfast. :)