Bonfire Night Recipe: Cinnamon Catherine Wheels

Here's an easy peasy recipe the kids get involved with for some yummy cinnamon swirls aptly renamed for Bonfire night as Cinnamon Catherine Wheels.

What you need

375g pack of ready rolled puff pastry

75g Caster Sugar

75g Softened butter

2 tbsp Ground Cinnamon

Sultana's (optional)

1 Egg beaten with 2 tbsp Milk

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200°c/ Gas 6. Roll your puff pastry out into a flat rectangle.

2. Beat together the butter, sugar and cinnamon in a bowl and then spread over the pastry. Scatter with sultana's if desired the roll the rectangle pastry from the short side into a sausage. Chill for a minimum of 10 minutes (the longer the better as it will make it easier to cut!).

3. Cut into 1cm wide slices and place flat on a baking sheet. Press them slightly so they spread out a little. Chill for 20 minutes (Or you can freeze them at this point. Open-freeze until solid then freeze in a sealed container for up to one month. Bake from frozen (brush with egg mixture and sprinkle with caster sugar half way through)

4. Brush with egg mixture, sprinkle with sugar and bake for 18-20 minutes until golden. 

Best served warm, sprinkled with sugar. Yummy with custard or just as nice cooled as an afternoon teatime treat!

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Halloween: Chocolate Cornflake 'insert scary creature here' Nests!

We probably all think of chocolate cornflake nests as traditionally an Easter thing, but they are so simple to make, kids love making them and they are pretty tasty too.

So, I decided to re-make them for Halloween as Dragon and Dinosaur nests, but you could do them as any scary creature you wanted to really!

All you need to do is follow the same recipe used for our Easter ones HERE but in place of the mini eggs we used Cadburys new green mini 'screme' eggs and some which other halloween-ish mini eggs with red caramel inside, simply cut in half.

As my two year old is obsessed with sprinkles too, we added some orange shreds sprinkled on some and used some toffee sauce on others to make them extra gooey (and tasty!)

I also had the idea of candy floss/ spun sugar put over the top as cobwebs for spiders webs. I didn't have time to try it, but someone could.... I think it would look good with a few of the small plastic spiders dotted around for display too. 

OK, ok, so I know spider technically don't have 'nests' like this but it's all for the fun of halloween eh?

Leaf art: animals and fairies

At the moment in seems as though we cannot go on even the tiniest of walks without collecting a carrier bag full to the brim with leaves!

The different shapes and colours, so many varieties too, means that we just have to pick them up!

So - what to do with them once they are home? Seems a shame for them to sit in a box forever more.

Halloween: Decorated pumpkins

Everyone has to have pumpkins at Halloween right?

But, as pretty as traditional carved pumpkins are, they really can prove difficult to do for any adult, let alone a child. There is of course, lots of fun to be had in hollowing them out but the actual cutting part is one for those a bit older.

Having 3 preschoolers, we decided to decorate our pumpkins instead.

Armed with paint, pens, glitter, gems and sequins the kids had free reign on what they wanted to do with their pumpkin.

The little ones (12 and 16 months old) used paint and their fingers to cover the pumpkins and the nearly 3 year old had a whale of a time with glitter & gems.

They are not scary by any means, really rather pretty actually. Great to display and last much much longer than those which have been hollowed out.

Autumn: Play dough meets nature

Here I have 2 activities to do with play dough after going on a nature trail collecting lovely Autumn bits like leaves, cones, twigs etc

Sunny October?

Maybe a bit of an odd post but felt like I should post it seen as though we started the journey on here...

Way back in March, yes 7 whole months ago, we planted some sunflower seeds in pots and posted about it HERE.

We planted a lot and gave many of them away as gifts for easter.

Silent Sunday

Gel Sensory Bags

I know I said in my last post that we love messy play BUT sometimes, just sometimes, it is nice to get all the fun of messy play, without the mess!

Impossible?

Nothing is ever impossible ;-)

Sensory bags are the answer!

Shaving foam sensory play

We love messy play! And for a new sensory experience today we tried using shaving foam.

I kind of wanted to make this 'more exciting' than just shaving foam in a tray. It just didn't sound too interesting and I even tweeted for ideas to include.

But what do I know? I'm not a 1 year old who has never touched this weird fluffy white stuff before... Then it IS exciting!

I'm so glad I did just go with the basics for this activity. I did it with an 11 month old, 15 month old and 2.5 year old and they all absolutely loved it.

The younger two were just simply amazed at it's feel between there fingers and giggled every time the squidged it in their fists.

Poking it, Patting it, Smearing it, squelching it. All doing an amazing job on developing fine motor skills!

The 2 year old loved being a 'big girl' and being able to squirt her own shaving foam out as she wanted.

I also gave her some pots and cups to incorporate her love of role play into this activity. It quickly became a cafe set up and she was asking for sprinkles to go on her hot chocolate with whipped cream.

I gave her cocoa powder and she was in her element making all sorts of concoctions, mixing away like a busy little bee.

Autumn is nigh....

I love autumn. It is my favourite season of all.

Just as well it's not Summer, as that never happened did it!

So, our theme at Little Chicks is just that - Autumn. Official start date 21st September and the signs are already beginning to show. The frosty mornings, the golden colours and the seasonal vegetables.

I have lots planned for this theme, some we've already done like tissue paper tree's and scratch card leaves but our favourite so far has been our trip to the PYO farm yesterday.

We went to learn about autumn fruit and vegetables, seeing ones that have just started to grow like the pumpkins ready for October, fruits that are just dying off that are from the summer season like strawberries and ones that are just ripe now, ready for picking.