Friday, August 29, 2008

Cooking for kids

I found two websites today on cooking for kids that looked really helpful and interesting!

The first one is a blog called Mommy, What's For Dinner? This site has recipes that take 30 minutes or less to make. She includes options for making the recipes healthier and ways to get kids involved with cooking as well.

The next website is Easy Kids Recipes which has lots of recipes that are kid-friendly and easy to prepare. You can even sign up for a free newsletter and they will send you recipes, un activities for cooking with children, educational information, nutrition lessons, kid food articles, kitchen safety tips, table etiquette, and more.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Make Your Own Crayons!

At our Back-to-School party, we will make our own crayons. Here is a step-by-step guide for you to do this at home!

First things first, make sure you're using all the same brand crayon. Apparently different brands melt at different temperatures and times. I bought brand-new Crayola's because I don't have any sitting around broken up.


The first thing you need to do is peel the paper off the crayons. I found the easiest way to do this was to score the paper with a pair of scissors, cutting into the wax, and then peel the paper off.


Next break up the crayons into small pieces.



Then fill up small silicon cups backing cups (like for mini-cupcakes) with the crayons. They melt a lot more than they look, so fill it pretty far up.


After I did this one, I realized it ruined the silicon cups. I experimented later with lining it with foil, which worked well. I also realized that boys might not like heart cups, so I tried making some shapes (circle and square) and that worked just fine. The foil left little ridges in the wax, but I'm thinking/hoping kids might think that's cool! I made sure to put foil under the cups and the foil shapes so that if any of the wax spilled, it would not wreck a cookie sheet.

Put them in the oven at 400 degrees for about 10 minutes, or until the wax is all melted. I put them in the fridge for about 10 minutes after taking them out of the oven (since I need them to cool fast) and that worked great.


When they are all the way cool, peel off the foil or the silicon cups and...tada!


Crayons!

Friday, August 22, 2008

Back-to-School Party

Come celebrate the end of summer with us!

Who: All families at St. Matthew’s

What: Back-to-School Party

When: Sunday, August 31, after the 11:00 service

Where: Fellowship Hall

Why: To eat lunch, decorate lunch bags, folders, and pencil cases, and have a scavenger hunt for other fun school supplies.

You will also have a chance to register your child for the MD Child Identification Program (CHIP) free of charge, sponsored by the Masonic Lodge.

Welcome!

Welcome to our Family Ministry Blog!

I will be posting upcoming church events, creative kids ideas, parenting articles, and discussions on Christian parenting. We hope you'll check back and see what is going on!

Please check the Family Ministry page on our website for a calendar of events.