This parent/child class is a sweet mixture of laid back preschool, a visit to grandma’s house and an outdoor adventure. This is a place for kids to explore and create with paint, glue, play dough and all sorts of art supplies, have fun with real cooking, listen to stories and play with friends. At camp parents (grownups) will have just as much fun as the kids and there’s no clean up when you’re finished playing. This will be primarily an outdoor experience. We’ll start each class with an informal circle time on the lawn including parachute play, a few songs and maybe a story and a little yoga. Then everyone is free to explore and do the projects which will be set up for the kids to do with their grown up at their own pace. Bring a lunch and we’ll all gather together on the lawn for a picnic and a closing story. Come join the fun!
Mark your calendars and reserve a spot. Camp this summer will be Tuesdays,
July 6th-27th, August 3rd-24th and Wednesdays, July 7th-28th, Aug 4th-25th.
Camp will be 10am-12noon,
$80 for a 4week session (drop-in $25)
sibling discount , babies no charge
Some of the things we’ll be doing this summer include making cute little gnomes from branches, BIG painting, back by popular demand-Goopy Soup!, stick picture frames, father’s day portraits, we’ll make a fairy door, there will be cooking and sewing and yoga and gardening….the fun never ends! As always I’ll have projects the grown- ups will enjoy too
Another fun parent/child activity at Smiling Tree Farm here in Santa Rosa. When parents sign up for this “cooking” class they know they are signing up for a sweet morning filled with sugar and more sugar. For some of the kids this is their one big sweet splurge. One of the moms said they elimate any conflict about too many sweets by not having any in their house at all. A dad said they reserve sweets for special occasions. So, today was that day. We had plates of sugar cookies in enticing shapes (hearts of all sizes, doves, teddy bears and little sweet men). Each child had their own dish of candy toppings including m&m’s, raisins, red hots and of course conversation hearts. After several cookie decorating workshops I’ve realized this is a way to have portion control and no worries about little fingers and possible “cross contamination”. Some of the kids piled their cookies high with frosting, sprinkles and candies. Some ate their candies first then decorated with icing only. The kids and parents were free to decorate and eat as many cookies as they wanted. My hope was that they would take home more than they ate but it was probably a toss up.
After everyone had their fill of decorating we moved into the living room and strung love bead braclets. It was such a beautiful day that the kids wanted to go outside to play so off everyone went to swing and explore. We came back inside for stories, songs and a cup of tea and hot chocolate and one more cookie and cupcake for the road. This was definetly a sweet day of sugar, quality time and memory making.
Special thanks to my friend Robin who helped me set up and keep things going…and clean up too….what a friend!!
Cookies, cupcakes and frosting were all made for scratch. Here are my recipes:
One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes (from Martha Stewart)
makes 18-24 regular cupcakes …. 83 mini cupcakes
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder 1 1/2 cups flour 1 1/2 cups sugar 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda 3/4 teaspoons baking powder 3/4 teaspoons salt 2 large eggs 3/4 cup warm water 3/4 cup buttermilk 3 tablespoons vegetable oil 1 teaspoon vanila extract
1. preheat oven to 350. Line muffins with paper liners. Sift together dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add eggs, warm water, buttermilk, oil and vanilla and mix until smooth, about 3 minutes. Scrape down sides and bottom of bowl to assure batter is well mixed.
2. Divide batter evenly among muffins cups, filling each 2/3 full. Bake until tops spring back when touched , about 20minutes for full sized, 10minutes for mini cakes.
Gail’s Old Fashioned Sugar Cookies — my girlfriend Carol named these, I think I found the recipe in a magazine and it’s the one that all my kids took to class and entered in the Sonoma County fair.
4 1/2 cups flour 1tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp salt 1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 cup soft butter 1 1/2 cups sugar 1 egg 1/2 cup sour cream 1 tsp vanilla
Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and nutmeg. Beat butter, sugar and egg till light and fluffy. At low speed, beat in sour cream and vanilla till smooth. Gradually add flour mixture, beating till well combined. Wrap in waxed paper or foil: refrigerate several hours or overnight. Divide into 4 parts then roll out and cut.
Bake at 350 degrees aprox 8 minutes
Note: I still wrap sandwiches in waxed paper but find this telling of how old this recipe is that it reccomends waxed paper or foil…..I wrap the dough in plastic wrap and freeze
Frosting…..one of the dads asked if it’s easy to make frosting…..YES!
Powdered sugar, some butter, a little bit of milk, sprinkle of vanilla, dash of salt…..beat ’til smooth and fluffy……………I’m pretty sure there’s a real recipe on the box of powdered sugar
We’ve been having a great time at FUN School. We made bagel peanut butter bird feeders and yummy oatmeal apple cookies. Every week we take a little hike to the “listening tree” and have been crowing to the neighbor rooster. The listening tree is just a stones throw but seems miles away to the kids especially if they leave their mom or dad back at the house. When we get to the tree we stop and listen…..we hear birds and the wind and airplanes and cars. Some mornings we do yoga and sing songs and play in the rice hulls outside. The weather continues to be good with not enough rain. We even play tag on the front lawn with our colorful scarves.
We had so much fun at our cookie decorating workshop. I realized I should have called it a PARTY! not workshop. There were cookies and sprinkles and candies forever; moms and dads, kids….brothers, sisters and cousins. The kids started by choosing a plate full of cookies to decorate then just kept getting more until they were done then some of the kids went outside to play and some moved into the living room to string popcorn. Everybody decorated cookies grown ups and kids alike. After we finished decorating we had a cup of tea or hot chocolate and a few miniature cookies….it WAS a party!!!
