Treats for All

I love it when a lesson is easy enough for my two and four year old to complete and actually understand, but engaging enough for older kids as well. The homeschool co-op we participate in (for ages 2 to about 7) had just such an activity for our get together yesterday. It was pajama day, since the kids hadn't seen each other for a while over the holiday break. So they were already in happy, cozy moods being able to run around in their pjs with all of the other kids. After some coloring time, a story telling and two books we had snacks. I was scheduled to provide snack yesterday and I baked dairy free pumpkin muffins (not from the can but from an actual sugar pumpkin) - they were a big hit! The kids all settled down for their activity. Each kid got a large blunt needle with embroidery floss, and the table was filled with several bowls of popcorn, grapes, raisins, dried cranberries, peanuts and cheerios. The kids strung the embroidery floss with the snacks to make a nice little treat to hang from a bush or a tree for the birds and squirrels! My kids had such a great time doing this, they actually sat long enough to almost fill about two feet of embroidery floss. Of course, I ended up finishing the rest while they ran around playing with their buddies. We brought them home and hung them in the front yard in hopes of being able to watch the animals enjoy the treats. However, it either must be too cold outside or too strange looking for them to eat because they haven't touched them yet! I think if I were a squirrel or a bird, I'd love to have some - I was almost ready to eat them while the kids were making them! Well, here are their little gifts to the animals, still hanging from the tree.

I suppose if they haven't been touched by the end of this weekend, we'll move them to another location. The woman leading the activity did say that she noticed the squirrels were the fattest she'd ever seen them at winter time which could mean that we are going to get a lot of snow. Maybe they have already stuffed themselves and are too full to eat our creations!!!