The kids hated the almond-chocolate-coconut cupcakes from yesterday.
I too hate coconut but a cupcake is a cupcake you know?
Whatever.
I've decided to stick with things the kids know and love. And then just change them a little.
Like tonight, they love taco night, I've talked about that before. So we had taco night, but without the tacos, which I guess really just makes it sloppy joe night, but that's okay cause they like sloppy joes too.
Instead of the regular canned tomato sauce I usually use without a second thought but which has sugar and natural flavors (whatever those are), I used a can of crushed tomatoes and a can of tomato paste, each having just two ingredients or less: tomatoes and water. Maybe a little citric acid to keep things acidic but I'm okay with that. And no one even noticed the difference. Served it with some cole slaw, tomatoes, avocado and leftover corn and everyone left the table full. No tacos and no complaints.
My problem is still breakfast. I feel like I might make those cupcakes again but without the coconut. I'm just nervous of wasting the almond flour that costs just slightly less than eleventy million dollars on a hit or miss baked good. I think I'll sleep on it, maybe I'll get some cupcake clarity overnight.
The thing is though, I have to figure out breakfast because I don't have time to play around in the morning, I started teaching art last week and I am now a working mommy on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. And I have to say, this is totally cutting into my time for, how should I say this, everything. I don't know how mothers everywhere work. How do they (you) do it? When do you do the laundry? Food shop? Cook for shabbos? Make dinner? Clean the bathrooms? And I only work two days a week. I feel like a complete failure. I guess in a way that feeling like that is good because it can only get better from here, right? See? I'm looking on the bright side.
Like I said, last week was the first week of art and besides for the fact that the whole thing made me so tired that I could have lay down on the picnic table at the playground, it went well.
I am excited though to share what we make in art class but I also have a confession to make: I am an unoriginal art teacher.
I would so love to come up with original and new things for the kids to do and make but who has the time? And with pinterest and every other art teacher and their husband blogging about their lesson plans, I kind of don't have to think. The problem is that it is very easy to fall down the pinterest hole and not come out for hours. I have to be very careful not to get sucked in. At the risk of sounding like someone's grandmother, I'll just say it - this should be the worst problem I ever have. Amen.
Anyway, thanks to pinterest and the many many people who blog about the same thing (does anyone do anything orginal?), we made coffee filter tie-dye art. I did this project with the 3rd and 4th graders and they loved it so much, I'm planning on doing it next week with the nursery throigh second. This is the first place I saw the project, but it most certainly was not the last place.
It's so easy and the kids get to be creative too.
Take a coffee filter, fold it in half, then in half again and then once more in half. You end up with a small triangle.
Using a spray bottle (or in my case, a regular water bottle and my hand), wet the coffee filter and have the kids use markers to make dots on the coffee filter. Dots should be on both sides of the triangle, as in, if you make a row of red dots at the top of the triangle, make the same row of red dots on the other side.
Once the whole triangle is covered on both sides, unfold it and wow! A tie-dyed coffee filter. Each kid made a bunch of coffee filters - I had to cut them off eventually.
While the coffee filters were drying in the sun - yeah, we have art class outside, the perks of living in Florida - each student took a few minutes thought to finish this sentence: "This summer, my favorite round thing to do/make/eat/play was____."
I was so impressed with their creativity.
I got ice cream cones, bicycles, sunglasses, tubing down a river, flying balloons and so many others and I didn't even give them any leading ideas.
Once the coffee fliters were dry, we glued them onto large sheets of construction paper. Then the kids drew their summer stories around the coffee filters.
Here is some of what we did:
Or to make coffee. I don't know.
More art to come.
:)
Jen