{Printable} Paper cutting and Lego tray

 Paper cutting tray

Last night, Dr B took a pair of scissors and started cutting a strip of adhesive backing that he found. So I believe it’s time to bring out cutting strips. With USB I used to just print out blank squares and rectangles in the beginning. But I saw the colourful themed strips on Deb’s Living Montessori Now blog and thought I’d make one too. I just picked some royalty-free images of the cars Dr B likes and made the strips and printed them out.

I then prepared the cutting tray. I placed the strips on top, a pair of scissors on the left side (to reinforce writing movement from left to right if you use the Latin alphabet) and a small bowl to put the cuttings in. 

I presented the tray to Dr B, demonstrating to him how I picked up one strip of paper and handed it to my left hand, picked up the scissors, cut and placed the photos in the bowl. Dr B would sit and watch with his hands on his lap (it took many many times until he finally understood the need to sit still while observing 😅).

When he was done with his tray, I put the cuttings alongside art supplies to be used in collages and other artwork. 

Here is the link to the car cutting strip printable: Cars

Lego tray

USB is currently obsessed with Lego so I decided to make a Lego tray for him. This way, when he is done building something, he can put it on his shelf and then I can rotate with other sets.

I prepared the tray by putting the instructions and a container of the corresponding Lego pieces on the left-hand side and the sorting tray on the right-hand side. 

He sorted the pieces by colour and proceeded with building following the instruction booklet.

Thank you for stopping by!

If you use the printable, please leave a comment and link back to the blog :)

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{Printable} Sink and float activity

 
Aiming for a quick activity, I just gathered a few (waterproof) things around the house and put them in a small TROFAST container.

We had another tray for putting the items on and two sheets of laminated paper for sorting the items.

USB filled the container with water and tested each item on their floatability (or sinkability; whichever way you prefer).

I had a rubber duckie, empty and full minty tins, a key and a cup among others.

You may take it a step further by comparing empty and filled things; for example would a an empty cup sink or float? What about a filled one? At first, you might just want to introduce the concepts of sinking and floating. Then you can talk about the science behind it.

This activity is also perfect in the bath or outside.

These are the printables to go with the sink and float activity:

Float
Sink

{Printable} Number Bingo

This classic game is perfect for brushing up your child's number recognition skills.
 
What I did:

I printed out the bingo sheet and numbers and laminated them (optional), cut the numbers and place them in a bag (or box). I then used a permanent marker to randomly write down the numbers in the squares on the sheets.

How to play:

1. Each player gets a sheet and a washable stamping marker (or any washable marker will do).
2. A number is taken out of the bag and each player marks the corresponding number on their sheet. 
3. The first player to get 5 numbers marked in a row yells out BINGO! and wins.

To play again, simply wipe off the marker on the sheet. If you want to change the numbers on the sheet, use rubbing alcohol to take off the numbers written with the permanent marker.

The great thing about this game is that you can use any numbers you want depending on your child's level. I will include more printables later on for other numbers.

The printables for the Bingo sheets and numbers from 1-25:

Bingo Sheet
Bingo numbers (1-25)

Have fun and thank you for stopping by!

{Recipe} Ayran (Yoghurt Drink)

This is a repost from my old blog (October 30, 2009)

You went to the shops and you saw organic yoghurt and thought, hmm this will be very healthy and grabbed it off the shelf. You went home and put it in the fridge. The next day, you remember about the yoghurt as you rummage for a snack in the fridge, you had a taste and thought whoa that's sour! Oh well I'll put it back in there, have like a week before it expires, I'll surely do something with it by then. A week later, that yoghurt's still there. What to do? Make ayran with plain yoghurt as instructed below and vow to pick up a Ski yoghurt next time.

Ingredients:
Plain yoghurt
Water or carbonated water/soda water (in equal part to the yoghurt)
a pinch of salt

1. Mix all ingredients together and whisk or shake like you've never whisked or shaken before.
2. Chuck it in the fridge to chill.
3. Shake before serving.

That organic yoghurt we bought was utterly sour so I cheated and put some low GI raw sugar in to offset the sourness. I made it with plain water and thought I'd be clever and added a bit of flavour in the form of a slosh of lemon and lime bitters, and it tasted pretty good. So I guess you can do half soda water, half fanta or something, hehe. The Turks would probably shun me and refuse to accept this as ayran but oh well. Great on a hot day or to accompany an especially spicy meal. Afiyet olsun, ta ra~

{Recipe} Marshmallow fondant (MMF)

This is a repost from my old blog (September 10, 2009) 

Edit: I used 1 kg icing sugar to 500g marshmallows (2:1 ratio of icing sugar:marshmallow)

I was supposed to include pics and step by step instructions to make the fondant decorations I used on the previous cupcake post. If anyone wants detailed recipe and instructions, I'll gladly put them up in a later post :) Here's a photo of mini vanilla marshmallows that had to be separated into 2 containers because they came in mixed bags (I think I used 7 Betta (halal) marshmallow bags). The Big Kahuna had heaps of fun "helping" me separate them even though he did whinge I was crazy hehe.


Depending on what colours you're making, you melt it in the microwave, until just melted, add icing sugar and shortening (I used Copha) and start kneading it like crazy. When you get the right consistency, pack it up in Gladwrap, cover with good amount of Copha and refrigerate. You can add colouring before you put it away but one website says if you're making red fondant, it's better to colour it when you're using it to avoid bleeding onto the other colours.


Take it out of the fridge when you're ready, and knead again and roll and shape to your heart's desires :)


Voila! Marshmallow fondant for cakes, cupcakes, anything you fancy. Ta ra~

{Recipe} Beef Rendang

This is a repost from my old blog (August 8, 2009); please forgive the terribly blurry photo lol

Felt like a proper Malay dish last week so made myself some :) Here's the recipe with the ingredients in order of usage.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

1 lemongrass
2 red chillies (about 2 tbsp)
1 medium red onion, half sliced thinly
3 garlic cloves
1 tbsp ginger
3 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp turmeric
2 tsp cumin
600-750 grams beef, sliced and cut into bite pieces
1 cinnamon stick
4 curry leaves
2 tsp brown sugar
2 cups coconut milk
1 tbsp lemon juice

1. Blend lemongrass, chillies, half of onion and garlic and ginger. Set aside.
2. Mix the beef with coriander, turmeric and cumin.
3. Sautee the sliced half of the onion until soft.
4. Add the beef mix and cook until browned.
5. Add cinnamon stick, curry leaves, brown sugar and coconut milk. Cook covered for 1 hour.
6. Removed lid and cook a further 1 1/2 hours or until it reaches the consistency desired. Stir every once in a while.
7. Removed cinnamon stick and add in lemon juice.

Adjust the sugar and other spices according to your preference. Great eaten with rice cakes, glutinous rice or even plain rice/bread. I know it seems like a lotta work and takes so long! But if you're missing/craving it... Well, it'll be worth it, enjoy! Ta ra~

{Recipe} Copycat Ritz crackers

I always have a packet of Ritz crackers handy for when Umar or visiting kiddies get hungry, I can just whip out a few and cut slices of cheese into cutesy shapes and they just devour them.

But then I thought of the amount of salt and ingredients with numbers in those crackers and I wondered if someone's already replicated the recipe with much more natural (unaltered) ingredients. And Stef from the Cupcake Project did! So I copied her recipe, cut out some more salt and I was happy with the outcome. 

The crackers are all different adorable shapes that scream homemade and they are delicious! I hope you'll have a try and let me know how they turn out! 

Copycat Ritz crackers (makes about 100 pieces depending on your cutter size)

Ingredients
2-2¼ cups bread flour (you can use all purpose flour)
3 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1½ tbsp raw sugar
2 tbsp oil (I used grapeseed but you can use extra virgin olive oil)
80 g unsalted butter (cold)
2/3 cup cold water
1 tbsp unsalted butter (melted) 

1. Preheat oven to 200°C (180°C fan-forced).
2. Pulse all the dry ingredients in a food processor. Add oil and pulse.
   
3. Add butter bit by bit and pulse until thoroughly mixed through. 
   
4. Add water little by little until dough comes together. If you used too much water, add a little more flour until dough comes away from the bowl. 
   
5. Roll out thinly (about 3mm) on a floured surface and cut with a scalloped cookie cutter (or whatever small shape you like).
   
   
6. Place on lined baking trays and pierce the surface of the cracker surface with holes (I used a candy thermometer like Stef but any substitute is fine). Brush lightly with the melted butter.
7. Bake for about 10-12 minutes and cool on wire racks. Enjoy!
   

Notes:

• If you don't have a food processor, you can quickly rub the butter into the flour with your fingers.
• Cold butter gives 'layers' to these crackers.
  
• Next time I might refrigerate the dough for 20 minutes before rolling and 10 more minutes before baking to keep the shapes more consistent.

Please leave comments on other yummy snacks for the kiddies! Thank you for stopping by!