Since we've been ordering produce from the co-op a couple of times a month, I've been looking for ways to use up things so they aren't wasted.
We recently ordered a giant case of apples for L, who eats 3 or 4 apples a day. As we neared the bottom of the box, I realized we need a way to use up the last apples before they could go bad. I found a yummy sounding recipe via Pinterest for applesauce in the crock pot, and made a trial batch.
Crock pot applesauce.
My husband and I ate the entire batch the same day. It was so good, more like apple pie filling than traditional applesauce.
I subsequently made a much larger batch by quadrupling the recipe. (I'd totally recommend making that big of a batch, unless you're cooking for one. A single batch didn't yield much at all.)
You'll find this recipe, (and many more crock pot recipes,)here, at the Crock Pot 365 blog.
This week we learned about one of L's favorite things: apples.
Here are some of the theme related activities we did.
I switched out last week's "pumpkins" for "apples" this week, and the kids continued with the tweezing activitiy.
L worked on an apple themed lacing card. He's gotten so much better at stuff like this. It's awesome.
He practiced writing some apple related words of his choosing.
We did the sort of obligatory apple printing. In the future, I'll be sure to pay a little more attention to what I'm doing. I thought I was pouring tempera paint for the kids, but it was acrylic paint. Oops. They made quite a mess. I was able to salvage everything except V's beloved Kai Lan shirt.
We ate lots of apple products. L is shown below, happily eating apple slices, apple Cheerios (yes, I know, that one was a stretch,) dehydrated apples, and drinking apple juice.
I made homemade apple scented play doh, as shown in the top picture. I must have done something wrong though. Although it smelled good, the texture was way off, nearly impossible to knead. I'm putting the home made play doh in the craft fail category.
I saw this post at Welcome to Our Wonderland, and borrowed her idea for the apple scented sensory tub. I put oatmeal, cinnamin, some small sand toys I found on clearance at Target a couple of weeks ago, and some teeny fimo clay apples in it. V's had a lot of fun making "pies" and making messes.
L and I spent lots of time reading. By the end of the week, he was able to read a good bit of Ten Apples Up on Top to me, which was pretty exciting for both of us.
To be honest, we've been a little lopsided here lately, very heavy on the reading, and pretty light on most of the other stuff. I'm trying to keep the momentum going though. He's excited about reading more and more, and for now, I'm going to roll with that.
Below are some of the resources we used and enjoyed this week.
Last week our theme was apples. In addition to our usual non themed activities, here are a few of our projects:
Paper plate apples (With LOTS of glitter.)
Apple finger painting
Painting with apples...traditionally and abstract
Paper bag apples
We also ate lots of apples, played some neat apple games that I found on the net, and now can't find in my bookmarks, and read several apple related books. (The Giving Tree, Ten Apples Up on Top, and several others.)
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