Penguin cupcakes {Arctic and Antartica Unit study}

As you know I LOVE a theme so when you have such a great unit study like the Arctic and Antartic you have LOADS to play with! So for a Tea Party Thursday treat we made some yummo Penguin Cupcakes we saw HERE.

 

Sophia is the queen of creating in the kitchen so with some icing, Oreo's, apricots and silver balls our rookery of penguins were ready to eat!!

 

 

How cute do they look?? They tasted super great too!!
Smiles The Torrents'

Polar Bear cupcakes (Arctic and Antartica unit study)

With a wonderful theme of SNOW and Ice and all that goes with that we had HEAPS of fun coming up with treats for Tea Party Thursday.
Here is one of those ideas..... The cute Polar Bear and Walrus cupcakes!!!!

 

 (inspiration HERE & HERE)

Sophia loves cooking with me on Thursdays, especially when she gets to be arty with our treats!

Hannah is a fan of chocolate cupcakes and Zeke vanilla so we made a perfect mix of both to keep everyone happy! Let me tell you they were totally delicious!! LOVED every bite!
Smiles The Torrents'

Tea Party Thursday with Panda Bear cupcakes

 

 

We have just been looking at some Chinese history in the last few weeks and so to finish it off we decided to have some yummy Panda bear cupcakes for our Tea Party Thursday!!
Sophia LOVED doing these, though I did hear her say a few times..... "Ohhhh I sooo don't want to do anymore"..... closely followed by "this is sooo fun Mummy!!"
I found THIS picture and THIS one so we used them as a guide for our own little Panda bears.

  Here are Sophia's little Panda's!!

 

 I made these coconut ones, Hannah had to eat this one 

as she said it was the cutest!!

 

Everyone enjoyed them over some fun Panda poems and a nice cuppa-tea!
Smiles The Torrents'

South Africa theme night

 

About every month we have a little theme night to end the country the children have been studying. We have had 4 nights now (still need to share those) and the last one we had was a South African night!

 

 

 

 

We get dressed up, Allan finds some traditional music to play in the background over dinner and I cook some traditional meals from the region!! I LOVE Google!! All you need to do is type in "traditional .... insert country......meals" and you have a WONDERFUL list of recipes to view!!
Our menu consisted of
*Cabbage side dish
*Frikadelles (meat balls)
*assorted vegetables
*Melktert (Milk Tart)

We really enjoyed the food and have a wonderful evening in South Africa!!
Smiles The Torrents'

Savoury Scones

Basically every Thursday we have a cooked lunch! It's nice to have something different each day for lunch and my absolute fav day is Thursday cause I always make Savoury Scones!!
Sometimes they are pumpkin ones but mostly they are zucchini. It's just a basic scone recipe which I then add the savoury flavours too. The children and I LOVE them and they are perfect for a picnic too!! (just as long as they are still warm as Zeke only likes them that way!! hee he!)

The children never used to like them though..... until one day I said they were just like Zucchini slice, why don't you just add sauce!! SO from that day the scones are served with tomato sauce (and butter for those who want it too!!)

I like to put avocado, tomato and spinach on top of mine like it's a warm sandwitch... Ummm delish!!!
Can't wait till we eat them again!!
Smiles The Torrents'

Rainy day fun!

Tuesday was a day FULL of rain, in saying that the rest of the week is most to be pretty wet too!! With some yucky bugs going around our home also, we made the most of the indoors and actually had one of the best rainy days in a LONG TIME!!!

 

 

Zeke was busy making some minecraft papercraft, Hannah, Sophia and Esther were mostly painting. Sapphire enjoyed books and games in our specially made (thanks heaps Auntie Carli, sending lots of waves and hugs your way!!!!) cubby that fits over our dinning table (and having sisterly visitors pop in!!) and I made scones!!Any rainy day always calls for a devonshire tea!!

 Just gone into the oven.....

 

 SOOO love cubby fun!!

(not the best photo's-sorry!)

The holidays have been a lot of fun with family down from WA too, so whether RAIN or SHINE the last 2 weeks have been Wonderful!
Smiles The Torrents'

The River Nile cooking craft - Egyptian Unit study

When you say to the children.....

"Your going to make the Nile River today with a giant cookie!" you get some pretty excited responses!!!

I saw this awesome idea HERE and knew it would be perfect to do while looking more closely at the Nile.
I made my favourite biscuit recipe ( making Hannah's chocolate flavour) and then rolled out 3 oval shapes.
The children then each had to make their own labels for the places on the Egyptian map!

 

 

We made some blue and green icing and popped it in homemade bags for pipping and then they all got to work. Marking out the Nile and the fertile land surrounding each side! Even the Red sea was put in!!

 

   

 

They looked at the map they had coloured earlier in the term HERE to make sure each place was in its rightful PLACE!! Here are all their completed COOKIE MAPS.....

This is Zeke's finished map

 

 Hannah's more "dirt" looking map!YUMMY!

Sophia and Esther's finished map, complete with jaffa markings for the places!

 

 

By the end of it all it was afternoon tea, ummm what shall we eat??? Let's eat Egypt!!! YUMMO!!!! Soph and Esther were in straight away!! I joined in too, in fact due to the HUGE amount of water that flooded some of the Nile Rivers (or the very full Red sea), it made a perfect dipping spot for some extra "water" on the otherwise "Dry" land!! 

Smiles The Torrents'

Virtual Book Club - Karma Wilson {with Bear stays up for Christmas}

  

With another wonderful author to focus on this month in the Virtual Book Club I went straight to the Christmas story that Karma Wilson wrote: Bear stays up for Christmas!  I'd not heard of the Bear series before but after reading a few-Bear Snores on, Bear's new friend and the Christmas special the children and I are looking forward to ordering some more and adding to our new collection!!

To have some fun with this book I took inspiration right from the beautiful pictures (that Jane Chapman drew) with Bear at the tree after making and baking lots of Christmas goodies! When taking a closer look you will notice some yummy animal shaped cookies!!

Make up your favourite vanilla biscuit dough and cut out your shapes, then add little chocolate chips to make the eyes and the noses!

 

 

  

 We used a heart for the mouse head and then with a round circle and some rectangle  shapes you can make a bunny! Hannah LOVES chocolate so we added some cocoa powder to some of the dough and so then made a bear, a raven & some very groovy badgers (which Sophia thought up!)

 

 All of Bear's friends were accounted for!

Top left: Badger, mouse, Raven and wren

Bottom left: Mole, Gopher, Hare and Bear

 

What a lot of fun the children had creating their little animals! Of course the eating was just as fun with delicious cookies to munch on for afternoon tea!

Smiles The Torrents'