Hot Dogs in Honey BBQ Sauce with Honeydew

The kids had a class field trip to the local H____ grocery store. From what I gathered from the teachers conversations in the hallways, who had just taken the morning classes there... they had expected a 20 minute tour. What they got was an amazing 20 minute, very task oriented, kid friendly tour, and a snack - whole apple, slice of American cheese, sugar cookie and glass of water - in the stores dining room, which took an additional 20 minutes. The tour was excellent and the teachers loved it, they just weren't prepared ...

The field trip took up most of their 2-1/2 hour classroom block of time. The classes had arranged for a child to bring the snack, which is a really big deal for most of these kids - they love to be responsible for that. And for the morning kids after a slice of cheese, an apple and a cookie, they weren't all that interested in eating a classroom snack.

So when I walked in with Emily's snack, Hot dogs in honey BBQ sauce (steaming hot in a sauce pan ready to transfer into a mini-crockpot) with honeydew melon and heard all this, I stuck it all in the school fridge, and was prepared for it to be our dinner.

Oh no, this time around, the teachers gave the kids a slice of cheese at the store and asked for the cookies and apples to get boxed up so they could be either eaten in the classroom or sent home in totebags. I microwaved the hot dogs to take the edge off the chill, and they and the honeydew were served along with the cookies.

They ate all but a handful of hot dog bites (I cut up 15 hot dogs and they had 15 kids attend) and a most all of the honeydew melon (and I cut up the whole melon for them). Mrs. S commented to me at the end, that the kids LOVED it, "None of them may be hungry for dinner, but they loved it!" and kept asking for more. So it was a great success.

Thanks to everyone who helped brainstorm Hh foods.

Art

I love the art teachers at preschool! They are incredible and use the most interesting things for the kids to use to apply paint to paper... bubble wrap; different size balls - golf, pingpong, marbles, etc.; kitchen utencils, etc. For the project below, they used blown up balloons to dip into pie pans of paint to apply the paint to the paper. I LOVE the result. This one is definately getting framed and put in the artwork hall of fame.

Side note: Anyone who would like to own a print of Emily's art, can now do so. I have it scanned into the computer and can make any size print you'd like -- 5x7; 8x10,11x14. I am currently waiting for a 4x6 of this image to arrive for the family journal.

Turkey Feather Homework

Last Wednesday Emily came home with "homework" - a blank construction paper feather that she could decorate any way she wanted that would be hung in her classroom until Thanksgiving. While Becca was in school and Sam was taking a nap on Thursday, she painted and painted and painted until she had her feather just the way she wanted. Here she is with her feather and then another picture of her feather with the nearly dressed turkeys from the morning class (left) and her afternoon class (right).

Yeah or Nay

I'm making this little dress for Emily - I LOVE the teeny red rick-rack I've used around the neckline and the sleeves, and planned to use the jumbo rick-rack along the hem. But now I'm not sure if it's cute or over powering or both. Cute and both, I'm fine with, plain overpowering, I'm not. So once again, I need your advice, jumbo or no jumbo?

Side note, I have plenty of the teeny rick rack and could do a row of it 2" or so from the hem... I could also purchase another package and do 3 rows... Anyway need help/suggestions

Hh Week

The letter for the week at Preschool is H, and on Wednesday our girl's the snack girl. They like the snacks to be healthy, and if/when possible coordinate with the letter/theme for the week. I'm having a hard time thinking of something suitable for this weeks snack. All I can think of is homemade whole wheat bread (mom's bullet bread made in green bean cans, so it's preschool sized) and little slices of ham and cheese.

Emily thought we should take the white cheese and crackers (the Havarti cheese I introduced to them last weekend - she doesn't know it's name, so it's kinda funny she suggested it since it starts with H... but anyway), but I suggested we think of something else... at $8/lb I'm not thinking 16 preschoolers need to have that as their snack - even if it is H week.

So any other suggestions?