Strawberry Yumminess!

This week, while they ran more tests on me at Mayo, Dear Hubby's parents, affectionately and collectively known as The Grands by Big Bro and Little Bro, came to Jacksonville to help out with the boys.
On one of the days, they took the boys for a day trip to historic St. Augustine.
For those of you who might not know this, St. Augustine, Florida is the oldest city in the USA.
Grandmom had researched neat things to do with the boys and one of them was to go pick strawberries in St. Augustine!
The boys had a great time with Grandmom and Grandad.
Grandad paired up with Little Bro and Grandmom paired up with Big Bro.
Little Bro took home the honors of picking the biggest strawberry and Big Bro subsequently took home the honors of picking the tiniest strawberry. Everyone had a fun time picking the berries!
Well, we then drove to my parents' place, as it is on the way home from Mayo back to our home.
We decided that it would be fun to stop and make some some strawberry jam and strawberry shortcake.
Found a super easy recipe for Strawberry Jam from allrecipes.com that did not require pectin, which was key, as we did not have any pectin. The recipe turned out great! For those of you into Montessori, picking strawberries and making homemade jam and shortcake is a great practical life activity for elementary aged children.


We made some as a surprise for my parents as well as some of their neighbors.
My folks were out of town so when they got home today, they would have found the homemade strawberry jam awaiting them in the fridge.
Hopefully, they will enjoy eating it as much as we enjoyed making it for them!
Papa's birthday is on March 14th, so hopefully, he will enjoy this sweet treat from his grandsons!

Here are some photos from our fun strawberry day! ***
(***Sorry, no photos from St. Augustine with The Grands, as I was not along with my camera...while they were picking strawberries, I was getting my tests done.) 

Was very special that The Grands came down to help with the boys! 

Dear Hubby and I really appreciated all of their their help, plus some wonderful memories were made! 

The Smoothie Shop!

The boys have been on a smoothie kick lately, especially Little Bro.

They love buying pre-made smoothies, but they also LOVE coming up with their own concoctions.

This is not really a surprise though, as I like to do the same thing!

Ever since the boys were little, we have made a smoothie for them that we call "Sunrise Surprise"...
What is that, you ask?!?
Well, basically, it is orange juice with whatever other sort of other reddish juice or berries we have on hand, from strawberry to pomegranate...
We usually make the smoothies by just pouring a variety of juices and some crushed ice into cups and stirring or shaking.

Every once in a while, we toss in a little yogurt.
If we have fresh fruit on hand, we will puree that and add a little to the smoothie...but that is it.

Well, Little Bro decided that all this week, we should have a smoothie shop in our home.
He made up the menu, named his smoothies, created the work calendar, and set the prices.
Little Bro said that the shop will always be closed on Wednesdays because we usually do play dates on Wednesdays. Neither boy wanted to miss a play date to run the smoothie shop.

Little Bro suggested that he could be "the maker of the smoothies and the shop owner."
He then suggested that Big Bro could be "the helper of making the smoothies and the customer."
Little Bro said that Big Bro is also going to be "the guy who handles the business side of things."
Big Bro has been learning about how taxes work in his social studies lessons, so even though this is a pretend business, he will still work on figuring taxes and marketing, etc. 
Little Bro said that Daddy and I get to be customers, and we have to pay him with real money!!!

We have been doing some product testing the last few days.

Both boys' smoothies sound so good that I can't wait to try all of them! 

Berry-Grape and Berry-Berry-Banana are very yummy!
So that is the plan.

We will have this whole week as a practice week and then, next week will be the real opening.

The boys have been helping to clean up the lanai, as they plan to use it as their shop area, along with our real kitchen.

Should be a fun time!

Well, here are some photos of prepping things for The Smoothie Shop!
Real life learning at its "finest & funnest"!!!

Big Bro is making mini slush-typesmoothies.

Little Bro is filling the mini slush cups with the smoothie concoction.

Big Bro is organizing the mini slush cups before pouringing them into the freezer.

Little Bro is working on the signs and the menu for the Smoothie Shop.

What sounds good to you? Berry-Berry Banana, Berry-Grape, Sunshine Pineapple, Berry-Apple, Apple-Pineapple, or Berry-Berry-Pineapple? And do you full sized or mini slush-smoothies?

Cover of Little Bro's menu for The Smoothie Shop...

Gotta taste test before putting the products on the menu!!!

Big Bro and Little Bro having a business meeting. Big Bro is giving his input into the business here (while being wrapped up in a blankie!)

One of the staple ingredients for the smoothies...the boys chose Welch's because it is made in Erie County, where Mommy grew up, and also because Alton Brown is their spokesperson and they love watching Alton Brown on the Food Network!

Our other smoothie staples...we just love Naked Juices!

This one was a hit with Little Bro...he had a tiny bit left and offered me a sip of his test product.

Do your children like to create little businesses?

Do you let them use real products and real money or do you have them use play products and play money?

Well, if you have an idea of a business that you have done with your children as a practical life / role playing sort of thing, please feel free to leave a link in the comments section of this post.

Would love to see what you have done in your homeschool or your classroom!

And speaking of real-life learning, we entered to win a chance to have our backyard made over from a snake pit to a learning and relaxing sanctuary...we are hoping to win an outdoor classroom and play area. Would you please take a minute to click on our DIY Crash Me Please entry?
If you would like to leave a comment on our entry at DIY, that would be great too!

Fab Fresh Fun Practical Life: Milk Pops!

Most likely, many of you who will read this have children who love frozen treats.
Both boys love, love, love eating frozen snacks, from ice cream to Italian ice...and they also love to make homemade frozen treats.

Well, today we decided that it would be fun to combine doing a practical life activity and making some Fab Fresh Fun treats: Milk Pops!

These are super easy and fun for children to make for themselves.
What you will need to make these pops:

A plastic container to hold the pops

Some flavored milk (We used Horizon Organic Milk Boxes in three varieties:
lowfat chocolate, lowfat strawberry, and lowfat vanilla.)

 Fresh cut strawberries

 Mini chocolate chips

The boys got to decide what they wanted to add to their milk pops.

Big Bro chose Organic Vanilla and mini chocolate chips for both of his pops...

Little Bro chose Organic Chocolate with mini chocolate chips for his first milk pop and then, 
he selected Organic Strawberry with fresh diced strawberry pieces for his second milk pop.

What is so ideal with using Horizon Organic Milk boxes is that they are Ultra-Pasteurized so that they do not require refrigeration...this is great if you would want to make these with a classroom of children or at a party, because you could feasibly have one box per child all ready to go before starting and then, you would just pop the milk pops into the freezer to harden after everyone has made one or two pops for themselves.
Here are some photos of the boys' milk pops and then, the boys placing them into the freezer.
They really had a blast making them and cannot wait until they are hard enough to eat and enjoy!

 So easy and so fun! Plus, they are free of artificial everything!
Just good, wholesome yummy, simple, and organic!!!
Will tweet about how they turn out tomorrow...am sure they will be quite tasty though!
Disclaimer: 
I was not asked to provide this recipe for milk pops by Horizon Organic Milk. We just happen to love their milk and found it to work well for this project!

Montessori Monday: Homemade Meyer Lemonade

Recently, when we went up to visit Dear Hubby's parents in South Carolina, my mother-in-law, Grandmom, asked me to please take some Meyer Lemons home.
If you have not tried Meyer lemons before, they are quite sweet and taste more like a tangerine than a lemon.
We brought them back home and have made a few different recipes with them, namely lemon-garlic chicken, salad dressing, and homemade lemonade.
The boys have had fun making a few batches of lemonade...so good, as it is sweeter than regular lemonade.
Making homemade lemonade is a great practical life activity for children in a Montessori inspired environment.
The process of having to cut and squeeze the lemons, then, adding the sugar, lemon juice, water, and ice cubes is somewhat involved but very fun for kids to do.
Also fun is if you let them experiment a bit with how much sugar, ice, water, and lemon juice to add...
Our family enjoys making fresh squeezed lemonade...hope that your family will too!

Yummy Meyer Lemons!

Meyer Lemons are a darker orange-yellow and are very sweet as well as tart

Delicious!

Ice and cups ready to go...

Big Bro squeezing some lemon juice...

Little Bro having a go at squeezing some lemons...

Little Bro found it a bit hard to really press at first, but then, he got the hang of it...

Lemon juice ready to go into lemonade...

Adding sugar to the cups...

Pouring lemon juice over the sugar...

Lemon-sugar slurry waiting to have water and ice added to the mixture...

Everything has been mixed and the boys are ready to try their creation!


Please be sure to check out the Montessori Monday Link ups over at One Hook Wonder.
You will be inspired to see all of the ideas for nice Montessori inspired works for children. 
I have linked up my blog post over at One Hook Wonder.

Also, be sure to pop by to read Jessie's post over at Mommy Moment about The Playroom: Montessori Style.
  There doesn't appear to be a place to do link ups over there this week, but you won't wanna miss Jessie's neat play space that she has created for her three daughters. So lovely!

Montessori Monday: So, What's Your Favorite Practical Life Activity? A Lil' Post & Giveaway #10...

As is true with most folks who like Montessori inspired activities, we love all kinds of practical life activities here...

From cooking to pouring, from sweeping to polishing, from helping fold socks to spooning, both Big Bro and Little Bro enjoy doing these sorts of activities. But pouring and taking care of things seems to top the list here...

Works out great in a home setting, as there are ample opportunities to help out and do practical life activities both in the classroom and in and around our home.

Please Note: Giveaway info. that had originally been a part of this post were removed as the giveaway has ended. thanks for your interest. 

 

Also, please be sure to check out Jessie's neat post on Mommy Moment about plant polishing.
Plant polishing is another great practical life activity and Jessie shows you a neat way to set up this work for a young child.
If you have yet to check out Jessie's blog, The Education of Ours,  pop over to see her lovely Montessori inspired blog. Be sure to check out the cute Valentine's Work she set up for her daughters. Such fun!
Nicole has her computer in the shop, so no link ups over at One Hook Wonder...bummer...But, last week,  there were lots of neat Montessori link ups on her blog, along with Nicole's nice post about all of the cool and creative work her children did last week, so here is the link to last week's Montessori Monday at One Hook Wonder.