Daffodil muffins and more Pinterest inspiration!

At Pinterest recently I saw a lovely idea - little chocolate cupcake "pots" with fondant green shoots poking through the "soil"! I didn't want to use fondant, but I pondered the idea for a while, and last week when the boys were marvelling at the daffodils coming out everywhere, I thought of what to do for our activity.

Yesterday we had time to make some daffodils out of yellow card shapes which I stapled to green drinking straws (bendy ones worked GREAT as daffodils have that sort of bendy neck). Then the boys twisted orange tissue paper around the tips of their index fingers to make a sort of cone shape, and then glued those rather delicate cones onto the staples in the centre of the petal cut-outs. That part was a bit fiddly for the 5-and-under crowd. We put them in a glass jar to dry until the afternoon:



After lunch was cleared away, we set up to bake a dozen chocolate-chip banana muffins! Here are the boys all lined up on the bench ready to make muffins! Samuel wasn't supposed to be up on the bench with them, but he moved like lightning and was so pleased to be there that I let him for a while :) This picture really makes me think, "Woooooaaaah, I have a lot of little boys!!!" because suddenly instead of 3 little boys, a toddler and a baby (like when I last checked!), I seem to have 5 little boys (at times) or 4 little boys and a toddler. Gulp! They're growing up so fast!



The muffins, out of the oven, cooled, and "iced" with Nutella! Mmmm....



Then all we had to do was press the daffodil straws into the muffins! Happy Spring!! :)



While I am here I will quickly post a couple of pictures of an activity inspired by various lacing pipe-cleaners activities at Pinterest. We have pipe-cleaners already, and I chose some fairly big-sized beads at an online crafty shop, which were bright coloured AND shaped like sea creatures (bonus, lol!)!! They have 4mm holes so were perfect for using with pipe-cleaners. Today I put them together as a fine motor skill activity for the little boys, and because they were new, EVERYONE wanted to try them out. They all loved it, even Arthur! Benjamin was already working on one of his workbox activities, which happened to be posting coloured wooden beads onto sticks that were stuck into balls of playdough, and he LOVES that, so he wasn't interested in trying the new beads. I think he might be a little young for the pipe-cleaners anyway.





I am lurking on eBay pretty much all the time these days. There are some great Montessori-style bargains to be had if you wait long enough. I don't bid much above the starting price for anything, so sometimes I am waiting months to purchase something I want, but it's worth it! LOVE me a bargain! ;) I have all of Benjamin's 3rd birthday presents sorted already (some wrapped already!!!) and his birthday is in July! I will post pics of my finds as I get chance, and as they turn up and start being added into our school days. Must go and make lunch now!